Razor

Battlestar Galactica: Razor with Stephanie Jacobsen, Jamie Bamber and Katee Sackhoff. A nice little expanded universe piece with a lot of exposition and back story added. Overall nicely done as usual. The Pegasus flashbacks were pretty much everything I wanted answered and it seems the first Cylon War flashbacks were actually miniepisodes they aired on TV. The guy they got to play the young Bill Adama did a really good job of getting all the mannerisms and speech patterns of the regular character. Another positive note on the series in general is their writing of very powerful female characters, which is a rarity I think in many shows. I mean, sure you might have had a couple here and there in different series (and they tend to be annoying and bitchy anyway) but to have so many in one show is pretty unconventional. I'm going to assume no one who hasn't already seen it who reads this blog intends to watch, but SPOILERS:
I thought it was an interesting move to make Admiral Cain a lesbian and I'm not sure what to make of it. In one sense it's good because there's been this lingering question of how homosexuality is viewed in the BSG universe and if one of the characters in the series would come out. I think deliberately addressing that and making a big deal about it would detract from the plot they already have. And trying to guess if someone's secret is that they're gay or a Cylon would be too distracting, so just getting that out of the way in Razor was a good move. On the other hand, I think it's a bit of a cop out that she's a lesbian. It plays back to the female combatants thing where women are seen as more cold blooded in combat than men even when both are committing the same deeds. It's because women are supposed to be sympathetic, kind and nurturing and to find that they are capable of the same atrocities as men is very disturbing. But if Cain is a bull dyke then obviously she's not a real woman and therefore it's no surprise she could do all those terrible (male) deeds. That said, since one of the things that supposedly pushed her over the edge was the realization that her love has been manipulating her and exploiting her trust in order to destroy the ship, it would have been difficult for any of the male Cylons to have made a convincing partner for Cain.
Another thing I wonder is if Cain was really like that the whole time. The writers are good about letting you decide for yourself how a lot of things should be interpreted rather than tell you how it is and make people that don't see it feel dumb. They make it seem like she is a bit austere but basically a nice enough person and her hardness was really just an act. But after watching Dexter (the show about the serial killer who hunts serial killers) I wonder if all of her emotions were just faked. She didn't care about casualties or murdering civilians or other officers, her single focus was hurting the Cylons back. It didn't matter if the tactical value of the target was minimal, she wanted blood. She clearly never thought in the long term, like how the human race would continue with just the dwindling crew of the Pegasus as the gene pool. She could never let her true colors show previously because a sociopathic admiral would be drummed out fairly quickly, but with absolute power she didn't need to answer to anyone. Additionally, she was betrayed by the one person she actually did care for and the only one who might have tempered her monstrous tendencies. As Bill Adama pointed out the only thing that kept him from doing some terrible decisions was the fact that he'd have to look his son in the eye and explain himself.