With a show that gives you as much emotional toil as Battlestar Galactica, that is the type of generation spanning epic space-and-morality drama that BSG is, it’s occasionally hard to remember why you loved the show in the first place. BSG has had its fair share of boring episodes, and the first two episodes back of Season 4.5 have been no exceptions. Despite some supposedly “big” revelations and a mutiny brewing underneath the surface, the first two outings for Adama and Co had been remarkably… blah.

 

NOT SO FOR LAST NIGHT’S ACTION PACKED FORTY FIVE MINUTES. Last night’s Battlestar was everything I’ve ever loved about the show and more. Starbuck was badass. Lee was daring and idealistic. Adama and Tigh were old war buddies struggling to do the right thing. Everyone from Helo to Athena to mother-frakking Baltar was at their show’s best. On top of which, this week we finally had a plot worthy of the hype awarded to BSG.

 

But let’s be honest, here. President Roslin is, has been, and always will be the best part about this show. Come for the sci-fi goodness and complicated political allegory, but stay for the way that Mary McDonnell has managed to make Laura Roslin the most complicated, brilliant, broken woman in the history of the whole universe (be they cylon or human).

 

This is the first episode I’ve watched thus far this season that has left me breathless for the next outing. The idea of waiting a whole week before I find out what happens to Adama and Tigh (and don’t think for one second BSG’ers that I believe next week’s teaser of “Colonel Tigh is dead” was anything other than a marketing trick), Roslin and Baltar, Lee and Kara, even (dare I say) that traitorous, wormy, one-legged bastard, Gaeta.

 

Here are a few episode highlights:

*The awesome incongruity of Roslin and Adama making out, and the visual joke of Lee and Kara staring away looking awkward, like any kid would when their dad starts macking it with his all time lady love.

 

*The return to funny Baltar (“I truly don’t want to desert you…” while looking shiftily away towards his salvation) mixed with the legitimate arch that this character has had taking center-staged. Plus, dude, has Baltar ever looked better than he does right now?

 

*Starbucks gleeful bloodlust taking center stage again, rather than her whiny “am I human or am I not?” antics of previous weeks

 

*Tyrol proving to still be the solid, stand up guy (cylon?) he’s been since season one

 

And looking at the preview for next week’s old-school-cylon-centric episode, the only thing I’m hoping is for more badass sixery, cause Six has truly been one of my favorite characters throughout the series, and I can’t wait to see all this amazingness explode.