Fire in Space

Ugh. This one is giving "The Lost Warrior" a run for its money as worst episode yet.

The story reminded me right off of the TNG episode "Disaster" which had Worf delivering a baby, Geordi putting out plasma fires, Picard stuck in an elevator, etc. It also plays on the '70s trend of the day: do big disasters. But Irwin Allen this ain't. It's like they don't know how ridiculous this is, and are trying to play it totally straight. It doesn't work.

The ship is on fire, and it's spreading. On the one hand, you can see how fire in an enclosed ship could be a serious hazard; it uses up all your oxygen. But then, the obvious answer is to let the vacuum of space put it out! Why waste all your water? Yet we get Boxey, Boomer and Athena trapped with no breathing masks, Adama is seriously wounded and needs surgery, and Colonel Tigh trying to hold it all together while the daggit crawls through vents. 

The physics of the episode make no sense. Nobody suggests the space-vacuum solution until VERY late. There's a whole sequence where the Vipers are shooting water into the ship to put out the fire. ...what? If you can shoot stuff IN, doesn't that mean there's an opening, in which case it would be open to space and there would be no oxygen to fuel the flames? Then we get the second plan which involves laying a bunch of charges on the hull and blowing it up. I fail to see the logic in most of these plans.

Then there's the hamfisted mushy foreshadowing. Isn't it convenient that Boxey just taught Muffit to sniff out mushies? And what the frack are mushies anyway?? 

Oh, I forgot! We also learn that Boomer (our black friend) just happens to have been a car jacker in his youth. Yeah, nothing racist about that, is there?

The charge-laying sequence, especially the stuff with Apollo crawling along the hull with magnets reminded me so much of Star Trek: First Contact. Really, it amazes me how much Ron Moore seems to have co-opted from Galactica it's not wonder he was quick to head the remake.

And where has that cute comm officer been? All episode we had to look at that guy who looks like Chevy Chase with rosacea.

I really hate that this episode is so bad. I'm usually a sucker for these "everything's-in-a-panic" type shows. The aforementioned "Disaster" was fun. I also liked it when it was similarly done on DS9. Or when they had the smallpox scare on ER. But this effort was sadly laughable. "Fire in Space"!! Boo hiss.