Must say, when they found the ship with the people in statis my mind immediately went to Khan. I thought, oh no, please don't retread Khan! But they didn't. The second possibility would be the "we've thought out people from another time who have to adjust to our strange world" story, like "The Neutral Zone" on TNG. It wasn't that either. I was happy to see that they didn't thaw out the people right away. Instead, nearly the first half of the show is taken up with the debate over whether or not they should. This is much more realistic, and more interesting. If there's any similarity to prior television sci-fi, it would be Lost in Space, which also featured a family in shiny suits suspended in tubes for a long voyage. Even here, the episode plays against convention when we find out that Sarah and Michael are not together. We the audience assume they are all one family, but learn this isn't true. The episode seems to go out of its way to play against type in these areas, and I very much appreciate it. I love the story details about the atmospheric pressure. That's a very real concern in a situation like this that is all-too-often ignored in other series. I've jeered some of Galactica's bad science before, but here they deserve praise. It also really deflates our hopes when we realize that if Earth has a different atmosphere, they may not be able to land after all. We learn later though that it is the lunar colony that had the different pressure.
The classroom scenes are curious and open as many questions as they answer. It is great to see Athena again, and actually involved in something. Has she always been a schoolteacher here? You'd think it would interfere with her military duties. Maybe the school is a recent addition. It does add another dimension to her character, especially her ability to treat Boxey pretty objectively given he's her sort-of nephew. The detail of the "question indicators" is of note. Students don't raise their hands; they buzz in like a game show! I wonder if there's a procedure in case the button breaks. There are only like 9 kids in the class. Is this the whole school? Surely there are more than 9 kids in the entire fleet, since we saw them in the flashback in "Murder on the Rising Star". Does each ship have its own school? Or again, perhaps the school is a recent addition (perhaps Apollo's idea to keep Boxey somewhere out of the way so he can fly dangerous missions?).
It should also be noted that this is the last appearance of Boxey. The daggit is never seen again either.
The guy who plays the doctor is very good here. He's been good in other episodes, but really gets a chance to shine in this one. He also will later appear on The X-Files in a far less sympathetic role.
Boxey says "Oh, frack" in class, and Athena just smirks like she's amused. I guess despite the word it seems to relate to in our contemporary slang, "frack" must be a more innocuous word if children are allowed to say it. Or maybe they just have different views on swearing.
We had Fred Astaire guest a few episodes ago, and now we have Ray Bolger! While Astaire refused to dance, Bolger gets a little routine to do. Some of the moves even resemble things he did as the scarcrow in The Wizard of Oz. I wonder if they cast him specifically because they knew they'd do this song, or the other way around. The androids Vector and Hector are pretty well-realized. They are funny, but not too goofy. They are not completely inept. It's a fine line to walk, but I think they pulled it off. Also of note that Bolger was orginally supposed to play the Tin Man all those years ago, and now is essentially playing a tin man!
I like that little appearance of a laserdisc that had all the Terran pictures and stuff on it.
The introduction of the Eastern Alliance bothered me. First of all, where the heck are the Cylons? Remember when the show was about Cylons? Second, while it makes sense for Michael to have his own enemies, their appearance made me go "Oh no, not Nazis in space..." Their ship is reminscent of Klingon battle cruisers. At first I was annoyed that the planet came down to East vs. West, with the East being the bad guys again. I wonder if Ron Moore thought of this when he put the Eastern Coalition thread in First Contact. But then I realized that for the most part in Earth's history, the great international conflicts HAVE been between East and West. The notion goes back to the Bible even. So I'll forgive it, but it's still a bit cliche.
Starbuck muses at one point how man can be so cruel to man. This ends up being the theme of the entire episode (or movie?). The Western Terrans can't live with the Eastern Terrans. Michael and Sarah bicker. The fleet is divided over what to do with the ship. In the end, it is about overcoming these things and trying to survive together. Michael learns to trust Apollo. The bad neighbors help the kids. Sarah lets her kids watch stuff from Earth. The "man's inhumanity to man" theme can be very overhanded, but I was surprised how much it came together. It got a tad didactic in that scene with Hector and Starbuck, but even there I felt like they held back just enough.
Despite the lack of Cylons, a problem that will continue for the rest of the series, this movie/episode was quite well done. We finally got back to the quest for Earth and gained possible information. We got an involving story, and it focused on characters. One of the best they've done so far.
Favorite line: "We aren't dealing with reasonable people; we're dealing with bureauticians."
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