Redstick SF

If you love to see science fiction television shows abandon their claustrophobic sets and head out west…to the studio lot, then “The Lost Warrior” is for you. “Warrior” proves that the hallmark of any SF franchise worth its salt is its ability to take time out from its main narrative to play cowboys and injuns.

“The Lost Warrior” is about as contrived as they come. A clear rip-off of the iconic 1953 western, Shane, starring Alan Ladd and Jean Arthur, “The Lost Warrior” only works because it has so much in common with a movie that a hell of a lot of people love.

Putting it simply, you’d be hard pressed to find a man over the age of 45 who wasn’t completely entralled by this movie. Mention it to your father the next time you see him and see what kind of response you get. If he tears up, you’ll understand my point.

Here’s a recap of the BSG episode:

THE LOST WARRIOR
Writer: Don Bellisario
Director: Rod Holcomb

A marooned Apollo must defend homesteaders against “Red Eye,” a malfunctioning Cylon gunslinger who thinks the local cattle baron is his “Imperious Leader.” (Original airdate: Oct. 8, 1978)

With: Kathy Cannon (Vella), Johnny Timko (Puppis), Lance LeGault (Bootes), Claude Earl Jones (La Certa), Red West (Marco), Rex Cutter (Red Eye)

Some things should immediately jump out to you. The scenario, the defending of homesteaders, is straight from Shane and, more specifically, a frequent trope in the western harkening back to the historical fact of Wyoming’s Johnson County War of 1892.

More to the point, Apollo’s involvement with a local family mirrors Shane’s relationship with the Starretts. In other words, both the episode and the famous film are really about family. It’s pretty significant that this is the first episode after Serina (Boxey’s mother) is killed. Apollo, in an interesting but strange scene, has already taken to calling Boxey his son (without any mention of the fact that Boxey is his step-son…by a marriage that took place only a few days, or, to use the show’s lingo, centons ago).

In addition, Boxey, in Apollo’s absence, has invaded the bridge of the Galactica and taken, it seems, to calling Adama “grandfather” and treating the Viper squadron as his extended family. It’s an arrangement that appears to be reflexive…if not forced. “He’s lost one parent,” Starbuck says, “he’s not going to lose another!”

Besides the emphasis on family, “Warrior” understands that the essential element of any western is the violence that it doles out. It isn’t long before we’re introduced to “Red-eye,” a cylon warrior who, upon crashlanding on the planet’s surface and suffering from a kind of amnesia, serves as a gunslinger/ enforcer for a petty cattle baron who looks like a mix between Colonel Sanders and Boss Hawg.

Apollo eventually pulls out his blaster (to be distinguished from the air-powered Numos that cannot penetrate Red-eye) and regulates.

Of course, the problem with alluding so heavily to another work is that you risk losing your audience. It can, in other words, serve as a kind of in-joke. And if you’re not privy to it, you’re lost. Clearly, this is what happens at the end of the episode.

After Apollo has repaired his ship and has left the planet, the mother and son who he lived with sit in a bale of hay, looking wistfully into the stars. The mother reassures her son, “He said he would be back for us.”

They must know how stupid that sounds.

Here, referencing Shane has become so important that the episode’s ending actually collapses. We know damn well Apollo isn’t coming back for them. Why would he? So, what the hell are they talking about?

It only makes sense if it invokes the ending of Shane, where young Joey Starrett who, as Shane rides off into the distance, begs him to come back.

Usually, people bash television shows for copying other works. Here, though, I think it works. We see the show’s writers trying to map Shane’s emphasis on the family onto the BSG characters. That’s not a bad idea for an episode that appeared very early in the series.

And, besides, sometimes it is nice to get out of the set, see the sun shine, and fire off a few rounds.