Battlestar Galactica (TV Series) The Passage (2006) User Reviews

Starvation, Desperation and Radiation

[mstomaso · 7/10 · 30 December 2007]

First, The Passage is a tragic character-development episode which focuses on the sacrifices any military must make, and, thematically, is very well placed in the political metaphors of the third season story-arc.

Second, I will respond to Glaskas from Sweden. Galactica and the colonial fleet have limited manufacturing technology, energy, and foodstuffs available to them. They do not have Miles O'Brien, Leonard McCoy, Spock,or even a home-world, let alone a federation to draw resources from. With all of the radiation in outer space, why should it come as a surprise that they might face a food shortage and an enormous radiation cloud against which they have limited defenses. I see not discontinuity here.

Third, it goes without saying that this episode offers one of Luciana Carro's series-best performance. Sackhoff also contributes very nicely to this one.

Fourth, If you tend to be easily affected by depressing stories, you may want to avoid BSG's third season. Episode after episode... ai ai ai.

This is Kat's episode. Pretty good in some ways, but in other ways not great.

[reb-warrior · 7/10 · 8 February 2021]

Kat has a secret. She's not who she says she is. At first I thought maybe she was a Cylon. But it's merely that she was a drug runner that changed her name. This should be bad right? But humanity is nearly wiped out, who the hell cares!? She changed things around and became a major contributor to the fleet.

Guess who cares? That bully Kara. Of course she has to confront her and condemn her and guilt her into thinking Kat may be responsible to Cylon infiltration on Caprica. Maybe Adama should let his little role be known back in his Valkyrie days, eh? Kat certainly didn't knowingly help the Cylons as Kara tries to intimidate. The Cylons are smart. They were everywhere. Nevermind, that Kara got people killed due to her acting out in previous episodes. Season 3 is not a good season for Kara. I was never crazy about her, but this season she became quite detestable.

I think the weak parts of the episode was having some guy out of nowhere, Enzo, show up and start harassing Kat. Would have been better if there had been little indications in previous episodes that Kat was hiding something. But she wasn't a "star" character, so they weren't gonna give this character that much consideration. The writers were too busy with the domestic abusers Kara/Apollo show lame soap opera to even look at the lesser characters to see what they could do. I get the feeling the writers wanted to get rid of the actress for some reason given it was such an abrupt ending and that they suddenly made it up about her past in one episode. Shame, good actress.

Anyway, I had really come to like Kat, even tho she wasn't one of the "star" characters on the show. I'm glad she went out a hero. It was sad and made her character very memorable. 7/10

To die a hero

[Tweekums · 8/10 · 25 November 2011]

This may be considered yet another filler episode by some as its main story deals with a problem never mentioned before; after a problem with the food processing system the fleets entire food supply has become contaminated and there is only one suitable planet nearby to replenish their supplies. Of course there is a slight catch; to get to the planet they will have to jump via an area of very high radiation and almost zero visibility. The fleet will have to travel there in small groups; each ship escorted by a single raptor, which will have to make several trips to get the entire fleet through. To make matters worse Kat has bumped into somebody from her past; somebody who is keen to exploit her position and threatens to expose her dark secret if she doesn't agree to help him. Back with the Cylons Baltar has learnt what Number Three is doing and is keen to discover what she sees between death and rebirth as he believes he might be one of the 'Final Five'; a group of Cylons who the others don't talk about and whose identity remains a mystery to humans and Cylons alike.

This was another good episode with a good story, Luciana Carro put in a fine performance as Kat; a character that I wasn't too keen on at first but grew to like over time. The main story was gripping but not without humour… Col. Tigh actually made a joke about the shortages and it was funny! The secondary story only took a small amount of the episode but was intriguing as it suggests that the Final Five's identities will become important later on and gives the Cylons a possible clue as to the whereabouts of Earth… assuming the Hybrid isn't just talking gibberish of course.

I cried

[gridoon2024 · 8/10 · 15 May 2018]

Kat has always been in the sidelines of "Battlestar Galactica". The only other time she took center stage was in the underrated episode "Scar". But she is a perfect example of how gender-blind this show is; as strong and capable as any man, without ever any fuss about it. Other stuff happens in this episode, but it doesn't really matter; it's all about Kat. A powerful sendoff to a great character. *** out of 4.

Good but lots of plot holes

[glasklas · 6/10 · 15 December 2006]

Recently galactica has suffered from a lot of sloppy writing. The episodes are still well acted, well directed, but not really going anywhere and usually full of plot holes. Why jump into a field of strong radiation without wearing some kind of protective suite? I mean, it's in THE FUTURE, they can do lightspeed jumps, but are not able to protect themselves from radiation? And second, why do they let their people die of trivial things like radiation poisoning when they have access to cylon blood, an apparent miracle drug that should be able to cure basically everything? If President Roslymn could be cured from her incurable cancer, at least it could be worth a try?

Just bizarre writing

[afaultytoaster · 3/10 · 25 January 2021]

I had no idea what was going on for most of this episode

An accident on Galactica contaminates food stored across the fleet? Did all the goods freighters get blown up alongside the ship with a portable garden?

Kat gets browbeaten by a nobody, on a ship where the upper clique were throwing crewmen out of airlocks a few episodes ago

Starbuck interrogates a pilot over the finder points of immigration law, as if either would care at this point

Maybe the most bizarre character story: Gaius Baltar, the man established across 2 seasons as being a sociopath who only believes in religion when it appeals to his narcissism, wants to learn "who he is" so he can be a hero to the Cylons

The fleet has to navigate through the interior of a sector-sized star??? Or is it a nebula that's as dense and radioactive as a star?????

Forced challenges

[bca-86033 · 3/10 · 15 April 2021]

Isnt the point of ftl jump that you can jump anywhere in the universe with just the coordinates? In the series finale they can jump to a location they dont even know how far away, in a single jump, so no constraint on distance. Whats the point of jumping through a star cluster? Seems like they wrote this convoluted plan, just to frag Kat.