Battlestar Galactica episode "The Gun on Ice Planet Zero"

Episode 8: "The Gun on Ice Planet Zero--Part One"

It's Guns of Navarone in space!

The Galactica is being herded into a certain sector of space. On one side are Cylon fighters. On the other side is some big pulsar cannon that shoots ships in space.

Two Vipers get destroyed by the cannon. Another crashes on the surface, a Cadet Cree. It's an ice planet, long before Hoth in Empire Strikes Back.

And I am sitting here thinking that this is space, three-dimensional space! You can go anywhere! You can go around the obstacles. It is not like the idea of the gun in Guns of Navarone. There, it is a sea channel that you can't get around during World War II. That makes sense. No, here they get together a crack squadron of prisoners and criminals to take out the gun. And I can't help but thinking, "Why don't you fricking go around it??" Even the best gun cannot shoot below the horizon if you come at the planet from the opposite side or something. During rotation, or maybe just wait until the planet moves away as it rotates around its sun.

Muffet and Boxy stowaway on board the shuttle going down to the planet. After they crash, they find yet another colony of people on the surface, this one some colony of clones that I think we will find out more about in the second half of the two-parter.

(Digressing, I am watching this on NBC.com and the commercial is that of a Dove hair care ad. Look, I know Starbuck's hair is feathered and lethal but shouldn't they do a little better with their targeting of ads?)

Episode 9: "The Gun on Ice Planet Zero--Part Two"

I watch the counter at the bottom of the screen--it took 5:45 of a 48:47 episode just to show the opening credits and the recap of the previous episode.

The clones are Theta class lifeforms and the Cylons consider them "subhuman." Oh, they are exterminating all humans and there's an even lowlier life form?

Baltar is literally just walking in circles on the BaseStar for no apparent reason. Why do megalomaniacs pace so much? Don't they have anything to do?

Dr. Ravashaw doesn't know his Theta clones are breeding. So he decides to help Apollo blow up the gun (a project of his that was being misused by the Cylons).

It was cool when one of the criminals, Thane, was captured by the Cylons and made them set off a bomb to destroy himself and a couple of Cylons.

All in all though, the criminals were much more of a hindrance than a help. Utterly stupid. They had no serious expertise that was utilized. I can see that they were actually used as cannon fodder by the writers so the big name good guys don't get killed. Quite action packed ending, really.