Another Great Cliffhanger!

(permission is given to not read this if you don't like BSG. It's fine by me. ALSO! If you haven't seen the show yet, don't read this post

Okay, this was an excellent little cliffhanger, bringing many disparate threads into play until the show resumes broadcast in late January. The Algae Planet is a source of nutrients that several civilians and a few military types are harvesting for the benefit of the food processing machines, and ultimately, the entire fleet (not very tasty stuff, either.. the Chief says it smells wretched and tastes about as good as it smells).

On the personal front the Kara/Lee affair is hot and heavy, which is apparently an ill-kept secret. Lee, it turns out, is the needy one, and Kara the somewhat cavalier one in this relationship. Lee wants them both to get a divorce and get married, kara will have none of that.. it's a sin, don't ye know. So I think they break it off, it's hard to say. As I've predicted before, I still think Sam Anders (at the very least) is in for a short contract, and real soon.

The Chief (in a very neatly played scene, I thought) keeps hearing some sort of subsonic music or message or something, and is drawn into the hills where he discovers a cave, which contains something called the "Temple of Five"-- no coincidence that there are five unknown Cylons, of course, as they want to find this thing called the EYE OF JUPITER which is somewhere in the temple.

Fascinating stuff that thirteenth tribe keep leaving behind, isn't it?

The Cylons are BIG players in this episode, pulling into orbit with four base stars, and then engaging in a bit of a Mexican standoff.. They'll destroy the Galactica and everyone on it, plus everyone on the ground, if they don't hand over the eye. The parlay, with Cylons arriving on the Galactica to negotiate with Baltar in tow, is easily the BEST scene of the show. Lucy Lawless, Eddie Olmos, Michael Hogan, James Callis, Mary McDonnell, and Dean Stockwell play off each other flawlessly. Standouts: Mary McDonnell listening to the traitor Baltar start negotiations, then cutting him off by saying "the less this man says, the better things will go". And Olmos walking up to Lawless (within an inch of her face) and saying "alright, I'm dictating the terms now..." And of course, we can't forget Stockwell saying "Oh, by the way, we'll throw in Baltar.." and looking at the stricken look on Callis' face. Fantastic performances all around. The sardonic grins on Olmos (and especially Hogan as the bitter Colonel Tigh) were great-- "That's an offer worth thinking about".

Of course, Deanna and Baltar are off on their Cylon prophecy goofiness and now think they will only see the Five if they see The Eye of Jupiter... so they engage in deception to land a team of centurions (cutting off the humans on the ground) and then land themselves.

Did I mention they also figured out that the sun of this planet will be going nova in the near future? When Gaeta brings this news, the audience were agreeing with him when he says "what are the odds that Humans and Cylons would both arrive here virtually at the same moment??? (yeah, we were wondering that too, Felix)...

So the Mexican Standof is tested by Deanna and Adama calls her bluff by filling his launch tubes with nukes, readying himself to blast the temple (and the shore party) to atoms. A great place to end it...

So far, season three has lived up to expectations, boasting three great shows and a number of good ones. Even the bad ones are beat most prime time viewing by a country mile, so I'm happy with the efforts of Mssrs. Moore, Eick and company to date.