NFB Re-Watches Battlestar Galactica Season Three: “A Measure Of Salvation”

No…don’t…don’t stop.

Air Date: 10/11/2006

Director: Bill Eagles

Writer: Michael Angeli

Synopsis: Upon realising what killed the Cylons onboard the stricken basestar, Apollo plans a genocidal course of action. Now deemed untrustworthy, Baltar is tortured by his hosts.

Review

Like “Torn”, “A Measure Of Salvation” is an episode of dueling plot-lines, one in the Fleet, and one with the Cylons. But I do think this one is a good bit better than its predecessor, though without being truly spectacular. Maybe that’s because the over-riding focus is on the Fleet, with Baltar and his adventure in pain just a sub-plot. Maybe it’s because the episode re-asserts the BSG format of combining weighty moral quandaries to its science-fiction. Or maybe it’s because it is an episode that naturally makes one think of present day circumstances: a virulent disease taking people out left, right and centre because, a long time ago “someone forgot to wipe their nose”. A lot of media in the last two years has been re-evaluated in light of COVID in what it predicts or comments on, and “A Measure Of Salvation” can be judged as BSG’s bit of prophetic hindsight, even if you have to look beyond a whole lot of fridge logic in the nature of the disease and in Apollo’s plan to use it as a weapon.

The question asked in the course of the episode is a fairly simple, yet utterly gigantic, “Is genocide ever the justified course?” I mean, think about that: when has that ever been a serious moral discussion in a TV show? “I, Borg” of Star Trek: The Next Generation is the only obvious comparison there is to make, and that’s apples and oranges really, what with Picard and company ultimately unable to go through with it. But not in BSG. The Fleet gains the unexpected, and rare, opportunity to wipe the Cylons out, and arguments for and against take up much of the episode. Helo takes up the camp of the argument against, saying that genocide is always wrong, that treating the Cylons as a irreconcilable enemy is wrong and that performing the act will wound humanity at a fundamental level. None of his arguments are particularly arguable too, though the manner in which he pursues them, with all conscious of his own connection to the Cylon race, is perhaps a little self-defeating.

It’s for Roslin, and to a certain extent Apollo, to stand in favour of the act. Lee hides a surprising vehemence against the Cylons that we haven’t really seen before behind a mask of military necessity: “We killed Yamamoto” and all that. Roslin is a bit more emotional as she responds acidly to Helo’s efforts to describe New Caprica as a reason for mercy towards the Cylons, and focuses in squarely on the idea of an eye for an eye: they tried to wipe us out, so we get to try and wipe them out. Adama plays a more neutral party, to a surprising extent actually, though it’s clear enough that the idea of using the disease in this matter disturbs him.

BSG doesn’t proffer a final word on all this, and like other moral quandaries presented in the show’s run – the destruction of the Olympic Carrier in “33”, the inquiry in “Litmus”, Biers’ documentary in “Final Cut”, to name but a few – leaves it to the audience to make their own moral judgments. For me, I can see both sides and would probably come down more for Roslin: leaving aside an eye for an eye, the Cylon hunt for Earth makes them an ongoing threat to the entire human species, what’s left of it, and that means that this genocidal course can be seen as much as a viable military tactic as it can be seen as a viable means of saving the human race. Whether the Cylons are worthy of the same consideration as humans is a different matter: they’re a existential threat to the Fleet. As things stand in what is now a race for Earth, it’s us or them. Which does not mean that I am blind to Helo’s arguments, but needs must.

On a character level, “A Measure Of Salvation” is all about Helo, our first proper Helo episode in some time, I guess since “Flight Of The Phoenix”. He’s caught a bit here, serving as the XO of Galactica – deleted scenes feature Tigh calling him out on his performance in that regard, but the “real” XO is still meant to be in his quarters – and yet pulled back into being this martyr for humanity’s hatred of the Cylons, a role he knows very well. Maybe Helo is a good XO, we probably don’t see enough of him in the position to really form a judgement, but he can’t help but be pulled away from being that kind of stiff-upper-lip, making-the-old-man-look-good, if-the-crew-likes-the-XO-he’s-not-doing-his-job kind of thing that Tigh excels at.

After all, he’s the one human, except for Baltar maybe, liable to call out anti-Cylon prejudice. He sees that in the way that Athena gets singled out in the quarantine, and then he sees that in the way that Apollo and Roslin are practically salivating at the idea of committing genocide against the Cylons. Maybe Helo would be better off keeping his mouth shut, but he has the kind of idealistic streak – or maybe we can call it a penchant for emotional masochism – that we previously saw in Apollo. A man who loves a Cylon, who has married one, is hardly going to be gung-ho about what Apollo has proposed, but Helo isn’t just objecting, he’s willing to do something about it too. Athena’s argument that she will tolerate what is happening because she swore an oath as a Colonial officer seems the last push for Agathon: he made an oath too, to his wife, and he can’t bend that in a manner that allows him to watch her race get annihilated.

Helo’s solution is surgical in a way, and tells us more about him. This is a man who is willing to go above and beyond for what he believes in, to the point where he might well be courting a charge of treason against the code he professed to love in “Precipice”. His idealism is less showy than Apollo’s but perhaps more dearly held: it’s the only way to explain how he can bring himself to disobey orders and essentially sabotage the Galactica at a critical moment. He might be a soldier, but he’s also the husband of a Cylon and a human being: those considerations seemingly trump fears of being dubbed a subversive. The fact that he gets away with it might seem a bit unsatisfactory, and points again to the reality that Adama was probably more of Helo’s mind than Apollo’s: more than that, the entire affair paints again Helo as a willing martyr, a guy who just seems to gravitate towards a position of being the person always doing the thing that will get him disliked. It would be good if BSG would take the time to follow up on all of this going forward, especially Apollo’s reaction, but I can’t remember if it ever really does.

The other side of things is Baltar among the Cylons, which in “A Measure Of Salvation” has enough time to only really be deemed a sub-plot, though it is a more effective bit of sci-fi here than all of Baltar’s stuff was in “Torn”. There’s a lot to grab the eye: an on-screen look at Cylon brutality, that was only hinted at throughout the entire New Caprica arc; a deeper exploration of “projection” and how it can extend to being an almost physical escape from the real world; and our first look in a while at how Cylons use naked sexuality as a means of getting what they need, in this case an escape.

The torture scenes are only OK really – the budget is clearly starting to strain if you look at the props alone – and given the obvious allusion that could be made with what was happening in the real world at the time I would deem the milquetoast effort at portraying the inhumanity of such a practice a little underwhelming. The idea of Baltar having to pass through a trial of pain in order to prove himself to the Cylons is one that could have used something a bit more visceral I feel, though I do not want to be mistaken for advocating for something approaching torture porn levels. BSG makes up for it in the way that Head Six interjects herself as an avenue for Baltar to remove himself from the pain, in a twisted blend of pleasure and misery that I recall the show dipping into as a theme again in Season Four.

In a lot of ways, this sub-plot is best for the manner in which Baltar attempts to get out of his predicament, which is a unique monologue wherein he seems to try and disabuse Biers of her manner off faith while also, kind of, seducing her. In a remarkable blend of religion and science, “faith and fact”, Baltar gets to the heart of Biers’ problem with her devotion, namely that she verbally outlines a total commitment to the idea of God’s will being absolute, but that privately such a belief does not mesh with her observance of “death and destruction”. Brilliantly, Baltar then cuts to the heart of the matter by nothing that Biers must “despise yourself for asking” that very question. He ends matters in a jumble of sex in his mind palace and pain in the real word, declaring “I love you with all my heart”. Biers doesn’t seem to know what to do with such words, which is the point I suppose: the torturer is the one who breaks. It’s hard to fully know what allusion is being made here. Baltar strikes me as a sort of Jesus amalgam I suppose, suffering for the sake of sinners, so they will know their sin through an understanding of his suffering. Not unlike “The Hand Of God”, it may also be a case of God speaking through Baltar, or at least that’s what he wants Biers to think. It’s an allusion that BSG has made before, and rest assured they will be making it again.

What the hell happened here?

Notes

-The title for this one has no basis in anything else, and can instead be taken as a reference to Baltar’s escape from his torture and Helo’s single-handed effort to save the human soul.

-Director Bill Eagles is a TV journeyman, and this is his only BSG credit. Angeli is back as the lead writer for the first time since the better “Six Degrees Of Separation”.

-“I’ve never seen anything like this” says Apollo, which seems a bit strange: it isn’t like anyone has a vast amount of experience with Cylons or the interior of their ships.

-Interesting camera shot in the CIC, where we’re pulled out of a fuzzy look at the Galactica logo, only for it to become clear. It’s a notable flourish, but added little to the scene.

-I like Apollo having to catch himself as he addresses his Cylon squad member. “Sharon…Athena!”

-Yuck, that prop work for the infected gunge that Athena has to put her hand in. Blargh.

-Is Galactica short of a few Marines? Hot Dog appears to be subbing in here.

-The Sharon that Athena turns over recognises her immediately: “Traitor”.

-The count is down two. No one died in “Torn” that I saw, so this must reflect something else.

-In a well constructed moment the basestar goes up, and it’s made clear without words that Athena likely set the thing to blow.

-Our first glimpse at the Baltar plot takes us right back to the bizarre cinematography of “Torn” that is meant to unsettle us from the off, but I’ll admit it is starting to wear on me a bit.

-The question has to be asked as to why Baltar has to be fully, or at least partially, naked in this scene.

-The mind palace as retreat from pain is a good idea, having previously seen it as a sort of distraction from the “real” world. It adds to the idea of Baltar basically living in two different planes of existence at once.

-I will say that the propwork for the torture scenes could do with some panache. The over-exposure, basic metal fittings, it looks more like something from the 70’s than 2008.

-Biers can be seen looking at Six here, in a manner that basically seems to indicate she’s asking for permission to proceed. Caprica doesn’t object. We’ve come a long way since “Lay Down Your Burdens (Part Two)”.

-Baltar’s “I love you” here sounds more than a little desperate, like he thinks the words alone will be enough to convince Caprica Six to make the pain stop. But he’s burned too many bridges it seems.

-I am a little surprised to see Athena essentially abandoned by Cottle and her military comrades, after the apparent acceptance of her we saw in “Torn” and Cottle’s own lack of bigotry that was evident in “Exodus (Part One)”.

-Helo’s anger over her isolation seems pretty justified to me, and notably Cottle doesn’t offer much in the way of an argument.

-“Lymphocytic encephalitis” is a form of Lymphocytic choriomeningitis, a real rodent-borne disease, that has a low mortality rate.

-Apollo is unusually bloodthirsty starting from this moment, when he openly posits killing the prisoners. What’s happened to him?

-I love Rick Worthy’s performance as Simon in this scene, especially as he essentially pleads for a treatment at the end.

-Our two plots join all-too-briefly in this moment as Simon outlines Baltar’s involvement. This dangles the juicy prospect of a reunion between the Fleet and the former President, and it won’t take us all that long to get there.

-It really is notable, how Apollo has a one-track mind on his plan: it takes him only a split second to realise the possibility being presented, and only slightly longer to go for it gung-ho.

-You might well wonder how BSG can introduce a Leoben model onto the Galactica and not have some manner of interaction between himself and Starbuck. There was a scene filmed, but it was left on the cutting room floor.

-The Cylons have supply lines? And how does that work with FTL jumping?

-Helo uses the term that nobody in the Fleet wants to use, and that’s “genocide”. Dressing the thing up as a military action is an attempt to dodge the “G” word.

-But the XO swings and misses with an effort to absolve the Cylons by saying they “tried to live with us on New Caprica”, which is a remarkably blinkered, and rather stupid, way of describing what happened there.

-Roslin’s admonition in the wake of that comment perhaps goes too far, calling into question Helo’s larger judgement without understanding how his specific context can influence him, but is notable for its venom: she dubs New Caprica a “snake pit”.

-Calling the plan “a crime against humanity” is pretty potent language, considering.

-Adama’s silence through all this is very powerful, and very telling. He and Roslin are in tune enough that he isn’t going to go against her in public.

-The look on Baltar’s face when Six says he doesn’t think about her during sex sometimes. Hand in the cookie jar.

-“What’s your analysis Doctor?” she says, just as they really start getting into it. Yeesh.

-Baltar, even in pain, is a smart man. He knows how to use words, and he twigs quickly enough that the way to get at Biers is first theological.

-Only then does he dip into the more emotive, mixed with a tinge of romance: “I want you to believe in me”.

-The look on Biers’ face to all of this seems like something you would call infatuated. Is she falling for Baltar too?

-The Agathon’s have their own quarters, which includes a photo of Helo next to the bed. A little self-aggrandising, but I guess they wouldn’t have many pictures of Athena.

-Athena outlines how Hera saved her life just as she starts unbuckling Helo’s clothes, which is about an awkward as you can get for pre-coital talk really. “A Measure Of Salvation” has the weirdest pre-sex talk ever.

-“You’re passing the buck” says Roslin on Adama’s insistence he needs the order to come from her. Might be an allusion to Harry Truman and his famous “The buck stops here” message.

-Helo doesn’t have time for Athena’s seeming pity party insisting “You were a person” from the moment they met. But this kind of idealism doesn’t fit the moment.

-Athena here contemplates the idea of being “the last Cylon”, which will only mean anything if she keeps to the oath she swore in “Precipice”. That’s a powerful idea.

-Roslin doesn’t fudge things anyway, taking responsibility decisively: “As President I have determined the Cylons be made extinct”.

-Helo’s resignation is short, and entirely expected by Adama. He must know, from their encounter in “Epiphanies” that Helo is liable to do something reckless, but he doesn’t do anything to stop it here.

-The coordinates of the battle are given as “the region of NCD2359 Above/North”. The first part is presumably designed as a Colonial astronomical designation, probably referring to some sort of relatively close stellar body. The second part refers to its position relative to the galaxy’s disc and its spin direction.

-Don’t know what the music is here, but it sounds like a less thumpy variation of “Storming New Caprica”.

-Adama’s predicts the Cylons will arrive soon, and it doesn’t take long for that prediction to come true. It’s a simple moment, but it does emphasis his general presence.

-The prep for this operation is all wrong really: when Galactica jumps to the location they are still putting Vipers into the tubes, and you’d think the Marines would be waiting in the brig to kill the Cylons beforehand.

-The CGI team lets the Vipers show off some new attack methods, important if this battle is going to garner any attention.

-Like always, Galactica jumps away just in time. I’m sure the old girl can’t take too many hits anymore.

-Helo sums up he and Athena’s state of existence since the moment they first hooked up: “Seems like they’re always coming for one of us”.

-Adama closes the book on the whole episode by refusing to investigate, something he has priors in: he did much the same in “Litmus” and in “Lay Down Your Burdens (Part Two)”. For all of his talk of respecting process, he has a thin skin for it too.

–BSG goes a bit against type in how the disease is described as just an unhappy accident, and thus is not part of some grand prophecy of thousands of years ago. These things happen.

-The final lines set-up what must be considered the key dynamic for the remainder of the shows run: not the search for Earth, but the race for Earth.

Overall Verdict: I liked “A Measure Of Salvation” more than I thought I would. It has a few problems, in some fridge logic, in things left out, in some odd pacing of the narrative and some strangely framed scenes. But it does give us a great character study for Helo, and the first really juicy moral dilemma for the show to tackle in a few episodes. The Baltar stuff is more of a sideshow, but one that is at least a bit of a thinker, successfully avoiding accusations of being just titillation by introducing a theological aspect to the Doctor’s manipulations. Coming as it does in this period between major story arcs it is easy to dismiss “A Measure Of Salvation”, but there is enough there to merit further discussion.

To read more entries in this series, click here to go the index.