''Battlestar Galactica: Razor'': Close to the Edge

''Present'': Holy crap! Classic Cylon raiders. You know, from the '70s show. Bearing down on Starbuck and Pegasus. Just when you think that BSG has left the past behind, out come those same shiny rocket plates that Richard Hatch and Dirk Benedict did battle with. ''By your command,'' indeed. And I love that Starbuck is faced with an officer who's as crazy-reckless-brilliant as she is. And Kara doesn't know what to do with that. I got the feeling watching Razor that Shaw is exactly what Starbuck would've become without Adama's guiding hand — and Starbuck sees that, and it scares her a little.

''Past'': And here's that moment we heard about, back when Tigh and Fisk were sharing an officer-to-officer drink-up in the Pegasus two-parter: Cain shooting her own XO for failing to follow an order. The scariest thing? I'm sure that Cain is everything they teach commanding officers to be in, er, commanding-officer school. Just without the temperance that life teaches you. And if she ever had a touch of that, it was burned out the minute Shaw revealed Gina Six to, indeed, be a Cylon.

''Way past'' (and, yes, I know this is getting confusing): On the mention of a Cylon hybrid — the missing link between machine and organic being — Adama flashes back to a mission during the first Cylon War. And damned if the guy they got to play young Adama, Nico Cortez, doesn't look more like Olmos than his own son, Bodie (who plays Hotdog, one of Galactica's Viper jocks). Young Bill Adama stumbles onto what looks like the set for a direct-to-DVD Hellraiser sequel. Blood, viscera, and distended body parts everywhere. Truth to be told, this stuff was my least favorite segment of Razor. While it's kinda neat to see ''Husker'' on his first mission, it doesn't really add anything to the story. That material actually plays much better as stand-alone webisodes, à la ''Resistence.'' And that's all I'm gonna say about that.

''Present'': Didja ever find yourself working on a project or something, one you knew you could do perfectly well, and your father was hovering over you — not actively undermining you, but taking you off your game with his very presence? (Yeah, I just revealed a little too much there.) But that's how Lee must've felt when dear old Dad transferred ''his flag'' over to Pegasus for the mission to rescue their lost crewmen from this Cylon hybrid.

''Past'': Torturing Gina. The fact that we now know the events leading up to the Cylon's debasement doesn't justify it — but we understand the motivation behind it. (I actually typed ''her debasement'' and then deleted it. A machine can't be a ''her,'' can it? Ah, the eternal Galactica debate rages on, if only in my head.) Cain wanted Gina to feel as crappy about herself as Cain did. Cain felt abused, and so must Gina. Doesn't make it any easier to watch, though, knowing what'll happen.

If, as Cain explained to her crew, war is their imperative, it makes perfect sense that the Pegasus would strip-mine that civilian fleet of everything worth having. And it makes sense that Shaw would become the instrument of that imperative — and the catalyst for that massacre — since she ''came of age'' under Cain's guidance. Again, doesn't make it right, but I get it. And I get that shooting those innocent people would leave Shaw a husk of a woman, who could fill that void with either drugs or redemption. And drugs are easier.

I wanna take a moment to talk about Michelle Forbes, who rises to the task of transforming what could easily be a one-dimensional character into a woman you can empathize with, even just a little bit. The things she does are horrible. But she knows this. And she does them anyway, even if those actions cost her her soul. But she believes, and that belief is what allows us to pity her more than we hate her. And Forbes walks that tightrope like a ninja.

''Present'': The big rescue. Standard top-flight Galactica. Smart action, great effects (though part of me wanted the old Centurions to be dudes in suits, and not CG), requisite moral quandaries. (Should Lee nuke the basestar? Who will stay behind to set off the bomb?) Of course, you knew that Starbuck wasn't gonna buy it, not here. That's the only problem with this episode: that you basically knew that Shaw wasn't going to make it back alive, since we never saw her before. So once that crossroads appeared on the horizon, you knew who was gonna stay behind.

Meeting the Hybrid 1.0 was cool, though. Cryptic. Serene. Dropping that ominous hint about Kara Thrace — that ''she will lead the human race to its end....She is the herald of the apocalypse'' — which will echo clear through to the upcoming fourth season.

All in all, Razor was pretty much everything you could ask for — provided you didn't ask for it to further the ongoing story lines. But as a stand-alone adventure, it satisfied the hunger that so many of us have had for Galactica — good Galactica — since midway through last season.

Now, if only the wait for next season didn't feel so interminable...

What do you think? Was Kendra Shaw's story a tragic or a heroic one? Can one find redemption for actions so horrific? Was the Cylon hybrid telling the truth about Kara, or is it another Cylon trick?