Using the sport of boxing as a metaphor, members of the Battlestar Galactica crew step into the ring to settle private personal conflicts by beating the frak out of one another. Gods, say it isn’t so — not another Sci-Fi sports-themed episode!
Forget that there’s a war going on, and that murderous robots are stalking the last remnants of the human race. The crew sure has! Smack-dab in the middle of one of Galactica‘s flight decks, a boxing ring miraculously appears. It’s the perfect forum, we’re told, for the battle-weary troops to let off some steam.
In this corner, we’ve got Helo, who pounds the fleet’s CAG into a bloody stupor. Next on the card is a hilarious and embarrassing match pitting Starbuck against Hot Dog, who looks like anything but. Another top pilot goes down for the count, unconscious after a few love taps. (Luckily for the civilian populace, the Toasters are lying low this week.) For no good reason, Admiral Adama — fresh from saving mankind from the Cylon occupation of New Caprica (and, lest we forget, with two open heart surgeries under his belt) — hops into the ring to take out his aggressions on Chief Tyrol. The main event, however, is reserved for Starbuck and Apollo. Seems they’ve got some unfinished business — the business of mad, crazy love. They express it by smacking each other around the ring. Apparently, there just aren’t enough targets out there in the desolation of deep space for our heroes to shoot.
“Unfinished Business” sinks to a lower low than even last season’s abysmal “Black Market” — it could just be the worst episode of the entire series. Filler episodes like this usually present us with the chance to explore the inner workings of a show’s main characters, but by the time the bell tolls, there isn’t much that’s likable about Galactica’s. In flashbacks, we see the early days of New Caprica’s settlement. Tigh still has both eyeballs, not to mention his wife Ellen. Baltar throws a Bacchanalian soirée to celebrate groundbreaking on the new Presidential offices, in which everybody gets drunk and dances. Adama and Roslin smoke locally grown wacky-weed behind the bleachers, and the following morning, he suffers a serious case of the munchies. Apollo and Starbuck gleefully forsake their relationships with Dualla and Anders and declare their love for one another before awkwardly frakking the night away. Their limerence proves short-lived — Apollo wakes alone and discovers that Starbuck has run off to marry Anders. Thus, we finally learn the catalyst behind Apollo’s morbid weight gain aboard the Pegasus.
To this point, Galactica’s third season has been a roller coaster ride of high marks. We had the rescue from New Caprica, which kicked off with the breathtaking sequence of the battlestar FTL’ing into the planet’s atmosphere, only to drop like a fiery rock while launching waves of rescue Vipers. (For those keeping count, the Toasters are down four — count ’em, four — basestars since the liberation.) Even the unforgivable act of sacrificing the mighty Pegasus was done in honor of the men and women we’re cheering for to win this war. Now, “Unfinished Business” threatens to spur many viewers to switch sides and root for the Cylons to finish the job.
Sci-Fi/sports episodes aren’t a new fusion of genres, but rarely do the two seem to mix well. In 2000, Star Trek: Voyager brought The Rock onboard for “Tsunkatsi,” an episode about… well, wrestling. (The ep provided a way for UPN to capitalize on its new wrestling deal.) A year later, the production staff hit the NASCAR circuit with “Drive,” written by Michael Taylor — coincidentally, the scribe responsible for “Unfinished Business.” In a rare exception to the rule, Rod Serling successfully blended boxing and science fiction TV in a famous episode of The Twilight Zone. But Michael Taylor is no Rod Serling, and “Unfinished Business” is no “Steel.” This one leaves a taste on the tongue as tinny as the gore-drenched mouth guards repeatedly spat out from between our heroes’ split and bloodied lips.
Next up: The crew takes desperate measures to replenish the food supply as famine sweeps through the fleet.
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I completely disagree. I really liked this episode…its called character development… *shakes head*
How much I like this ep depends a lot on what follows next. If this one’s about bury the axe between Apllo and Starbuck, then I’m all for it. But if it’s a setup for more love angst and second guessing of marriage commitments, then not so much.
Adama and the chief’s fight was the highlight of the show for me, and of course, the one hell of a speech he delivered afterwards.
Totally missed the mark on this one. This was a good episode, that had a lot of emotional investment in it. It made me sick at Starbuck and Lee–and it also kept me glued to the screen through the whole episode. I find it amusing that you point to the sequence about the battlestar FTLing into the atmosphere while firing vipers . . . it was great eye-candy, and something different and fresh, but let’s face it: it was a SFX sequence, a geek moment. I hardly would define that as the paragon of BSG’s recent success.
I have to also disagree with the reviewer – this was one of the finest episodes yet. However, working in nuclear cardiology for over 30 years, I do agree with the Adama in the ring not that long after his trauma chest surgery. For me as a medical professional, that part was not believable, especially considering the beating he took from the chief – but it’s scifi, so I can put that one little mishap aside for the greater good of the entire story.
Adama’s speech from the ring was exactly what I would expect from a man of his high caliber and honor – great stuff!
Sorry, Marjorie, this is one of the best episodes yet. Not much in the special effects department, but filling in a lot of back story and some of the questions that have been open for a while.
Meanwhile, we’re left with a whole range of possibilities for the future of the story arc, and the characters’ individual stories, especially considering that this Friday’s ep. is the mid-season cliff-hanger.
I have to agree with whoever it was on the last SoSF VM show who said that Starbuck has some real issues, and it would be very hard to be friends with her for any length of time.
I have to agree with the rest of the people posting here. This was a great episode. I have always respected they way that BSG treats the military being a veteran myself. What Adama said was so true for a man in his position and the message he got out to the crew is what they needed to hear and was worth what he did. In some ways I think this has been one of the better episodes this season.
I completely disagree. I’d link to my review if I didn’t think I’d catch hell for it. But someone up-thread put it best: it was all about the character development. To make the big moments work, you have to have context, and this provided context.
Why do you think you’d catch hell for it? Not from Sam and me, you wouldn’t.
I say link to it. If Sam says go, then add another comment with the link so we can all share in the fun 🙂
Totally missed the mark! This episode was a feat of brilliant script writing! Using boxing as the center piece worked, no matter how exploitive the author of that article thought it was! I thought it was a brilliant way of bringing out those conflicts between crewmates!
to John from Jersey:
GO!
The Goddess and Sam have spoken!
Here’s the link:
http://entil2001.com/blog9/2006/12/04/episode-39-unfinished-business/