Cylon raiders attack the Pegasus in Battlestar Galactica: Razor.

The much-anticipated Battlestar Galactica: Razor mini-movie/extended episode aired a couple nights ago, and the Internet is rife with fans' adorations and lamentations. I thought I'd throw my $0.02 in, since I had posted about how much I was looking forward to it earlier.

Razor is a special two-hour episode, slotted in between the third and fourth seasons, that gives us a look at the backstory of the Battlestar Pegasus, the second colonial battleship that suddenly showed up in the middle of season two. The contrasts between the Galactica (old ship, more "family"-oriented crew, relatively easygoing commander who is willing to bend the rules) and the Pegasus (new ship, strict military discipline, crazy commander -- Admiral Cain -- who executed her first officer, among other things) came to an insanely heated climax that ultimately resulted in Admiral Cain's death. That three-episode arc -- episodes 10, 11, and 12 -- was, in my opinion, one of the defining moments of this series as one of the best on television. Razor is an attempt to show us how the Pegasus -- and Admiral Cain, in particular -- came to be what they were when they finally met up with Galactica.

Before we go on, keep in mind that for a lot of hardcore fans this was their first BSG "fix" in almost nine months (season 3 ended in the spring). Some people, I'm convinced, didn't give a frak what Razor was about, as long as they got to see something new. I admit that was part of my anticipation, but I hold my favorite show to an extremely high standard and am not averse to pointing out flaws. Since the greatest appeal of BSG is the dramatic storytelling (and not whiz-bang gadgets or technobabble, as much as I liked Star Trek), the execution of that story needs to be the paramount concern of the producers.

The story in Razor was particularly complex for the viewer to follow. We jumped between three different time frames: the time Lee Adama took command of the Pegasus (this one is closest to the time of the current BSG storyline), the journey of the Pegasus between the moment of the cylon attack on the colonies to the time she met up with Galactica (about a 9-month span), and a young Bill Adama during the first cylon war, almost 50 years ago. Most shows have difficulty keeping viewers in step when they're switching between just two different times, but with three Razor really pushed it. I personally didn't have much trouble because I enjoy those types of complex threads, but if you weren't devoting 100% of your attention to the show -- or if you're like my wife, who just doesn't do well with time-jumping to begin with -- it would be very, very easy to get lost.

That said, most of Razor was very entertaining. The story centered around a Pegasus officer named Kendra Shaw, who came on board as Admiral Cain's aide only minutes before the initial cylon attack on the colonies. We see Cain mostly through Shaw's experiences with her. Cain's -- and Shaw's -- character development over the nine months that the Pegasus was alone after the cylon attack is written very well, and gives us a lot of insight into the tough-as-nails (and more than a little crazy) Admiral Cain we were first introduced to during season two.

What the story really highlights is what radically different directions the fates of Pegasus and the Galactica crews took, despite being faced with almost the exact same set of circumstances, because of the decisions of Admiral Cain and Commander Adama. They both barely escaped the cylon attack. They both lost a large number of their crew. They both happened upon civilian ships while on the run. They both discovered and had to deal with cylon infiltrators on board their own ships. When you realize that their circumstances were so similar, and yet the results so different, it brings into sharp focus the fatherly character of Bill Adama that we all know and love. This is an incredibly compelling part of the story.

Seeing Admiral Cain as she was during those nine months pre-Galactica was the major reveal of the episode. She was always a tough military commander, but she definitely was more balanced and more personable before she had to deal with being alone against the cylons. At the beginning of Razor, she's chatting with her first officer about what they're going to do over the upcoming holiday. It's friendly, they're on a first-name basis, and it's clear she's somewhat close to him. After they're on the run though, when he refuses to obey an incredibly risky order from her (it's clear she's starting to get a little unbalanced at this point), she asks him for his sidearm and puts a bullet in his head in front of her whole bridge crew. Even though we knew this was coming (it was brought up during the Pegasus episodes of season two), it was still an incredibly disturbing scene.

Equally disturbing was what they did to the cylon infiltrator (the Six they called Gina) once she was found out. We know from the later episodes that she was tortured; what truly exacerbated Cain's behavior toward Gina as a prisoner was the fact that she and Gina had developed a romantic relationship. This seemed to finally, truly break Cain's moral center. It led to other atrocities, like the massacre of the civilians the Pegasus encountered and the stripping of their ships. Kendra Shaw grows into Cain's right hand during this time, and becomes instrumental in "doing what is necessary." It's disturbing, controversial, and radically changes Shaw's character. Shaw became the razor that Cain wanted her to be...as Cain believed herself to be.

As good as it was, and as revealing as it was, I said earlier that the execution of the story is even more important in such a dramatic series as BSG than in many other shows. My major complaint about Razor was that at times the pacing felt off. Some scenes were too long, some were too short. It didn't quite flow as smoothly as some of the better episodes of the regular season. This bugged me at times, but it's not enough to keep me from recommending Razor to fans of BSG. The little bits about what Bill Adama saw 50 years ago during the first war are great pieces of info that fuel the cylon mythology fire as well...I'll leave that for you to discover on your own. Perhaps the greatest clip is the homage to the 1970s-era cylons -- they even talk in the flat, cheesy robotic voice! It was a funny interjection to an otherwise intense show.

If you're a BSG fan, there's little doubt that you'll enjoy Razor. Just make sure you pay close attention.

Overall: 8/10