BSG: Maelstrom

Spoilers. Like you didn't know.

If you were a BSG fan back when this episode was initially broadcast, you probably already knew the big thing that happened in it. The production team didn't exactly try to keep Katee Sackhoff's departure a secret, other than getting her to sign a confidentiality agreement.

I didn't watch BSG on its initial run, for the relatively simple reason that a show with a title as ludicrous as Battlestar Galactica couldn't actually be any good. (Now, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, that's a world-class title right there.) Anyway, I knew that this had to be coming up. I was just really surprised that this was the way that they went about doing it.

So Starbuck's been having creepy dreams about Leoben, and that mandala she painted back in her Old Caprica apartment. Now I'll be the first to point out that Starbuck's head was never screwed on all that tight, but between Leoben mind-frakking her on New Caprica (and then mind-frakking her in the other sense in her dreams) and her discovery that she painted a design that was almost identical to one painted 2,000/3,600/4,000 years ago (delete according to whichever source says what), she's pretty much gone off the deep end.

Not helping matters is this invisible Heavy Raider that only she can see. (Gee, a Cylon only you are aware of? Dr. Baltar might be able to help with that, and he's not even a psychiatrist!) So after developing Starbuck's gun camera footage, everyone sees that there was no Heavy Raider. (Damn that gun camera footage, Starbuck, it's always proving you're nuts. "I saw a Heavy Raider." Yeah, right. "I found Earth." Yeah, ri... oh.)

Adama passes the buck to Apollo about whether or not to ground her, and both men will live long enough to regret Lee's decision. In this scene, Lee mentions that "In peacetime, [Cottle] would ground us all." It's an indirect nod to the fact that reinforcements simply aren't coming. You have to play the cards you're dealt. And you don't ground your top gun just because she's got a little case of PTSD. (Come to think of it, these guys are really, really bad at not grounding people. Kat was clearly dying of radiation poisoning, Starbuck is clearly going off the deep end... but then, expecting Lee Adama to ever approach the subject of Kara Thrace rationally and objectively is a bit like asking Cavil and Zarek to be best friends. It's just not going to happen.)

So Lee volunteers to be Kara's wing, and they go off on one last CAP together. She sees the Heavy Raider again and engages, chasing it right down the eye of a storm (the titular Maelstrom) until it shoots her. Maybe.

See, I'm not clear on this. The first time she ran across the Heavy Raider, it winged her, but there wasn't a scratch on her Viper afterwards. (Also, all throughout this episode, the Heavy Raider shoots the same ammunition and with the same frequency as a normal Raider; contrast this to the behavior of the HR in "Scattered.") Now it manages to shoot a hole in her canopy, causing her Viper to go into an uncontrolled tumble. Starbuck falls unconscious.

So far, so good. You could still have it either way at this point, so long as you avoid having Starbuck fully regain consciousness before the big firework. Either the Raider exists or it doesn't; either way, Starbuck thinks it does, and she's had an accident chasing it down. Either way, it's still effective as far as writing her out goes.

So then we cut to Starbuck's apartment on Caprica. Leoben turns off her alarm clock and wakes her up. They ramble on about destiny for a while before Leoben shows Starbuck her mother's death and lets her comfort her dying mother, something Starbuck never actually got to do. Having thus come to terms with death, Starbuck regains consciousness. There's a shot that heavily implies that Lee sees the Heavy Raider (thus making it real), and then Starbuck's Viper explodes. Kablooey!

...and if I hadn't left a few things out, that would have been a satisfying episode and a believable death scene.

The problem is that Head-Leoben invites Kara to "explore the space between life and death." Then, after she regains consciousness, Kara tells Lee not to worry, and that she'll see him on the other side. We see her reach for the ejection lever, and then decide against it. Yeah, it's making it clearer that she's accepting her imminent death, but the way it plays out also suggests that there's nothing other than her own crazy death wish (and the urge to explore "the space between life and death") that's keeping her from pulling out in time.

The point is, this episode planted some clear seeds, and then relied on the rumor machine (Katee left! She's expressed vocal disappointment with the show, and promises never to return!) to do its work for it. The story was originally going to be a lot simpler; Starbuck and Apollo would be stuck in a dogfight, and Starbuck would sacrifice herself so Apollo could get away. Would that have been better? Doubtful. Katee Sackhoff asked to be given another encounter with Leoben, and I certainly think that that was the right decision. You couldn't possibly kill her off, having established that she has a destiny, without her most vocal prophet/stalker telling her yup, this is where you get off. And it does redefine the relationship between them, which is important. But those final seconds just play out for too long.

And furthermore, I like the ambiguity about whether or not the Raider exists. But having a shot that implies Lee sees it, and then telling us in the commentary or interviews or whatever that he didn't is just, well, wrong. I can understand the need to put out a statement shutting down insane rumors like Daniel and Starbuck were related (seriously, where the frak did that come from?), but if your intention is that the Raider never existed, don't put a misleading visual effects shot in there.

None of this, however, is really meant to damn the episode. I know what happens later, but I'm still moved to (manly) tears watching Starbuck's final moments. So it drops a few hints for us; for Lee, and for all the other characters, she's gone forever. Her ship's in pieces.

You might say "ratings stunt," but the next episode plays her death incredibly straight. A grieving Lee Adama ends up getting sucked into Romo Lampkin's emotional manipulation, which leads to him resigning from the service and becoming the Caprican Delegate to the Quorum of Twelve, which in turn causes him to spend some time as Zarek's stooge and some time as the Acting President of the Colonies. And that's just the most obvious plot threat launched from this episode.

My main point is that by this point, they're pandering to the DVD audience rather than the initial-broadcast audience. Given all the clues in this episode, and without immediate access to press coverage of Sackhoff's departure, nobody watching this on DVD could really think she was gone for good.