My review of Razor

So, I got a chance to take a look at Battlestar Galactica: Razor earlier this month, and I'm pleased to say that it's just as good as I had hoped, and that it is probably up there with some of the best Galactica episodes thus far. Razor is the long-awaited tele-event that the SciFi channel has been working on, and brings to light an episode of Galactica history that has only been touched upon lightly - the Battlestar Pegasus. In the three-part episode arc in the middle of Season 2, the Galactica comes across the Battlestar Pegasus, under the command of Admiral Cain. We learn that they had also been able to escape the destruction of the colonies, but that the crew had become extremely dark - willing to rape and torture prisoners, kill civilians and were essentially a crew of suicidal fascists.
Razor follows three seperate storylines - The main one follows the crew of the Pegasus, seen through flashbacks as the newly promoted Lee Adama takes on a mission with the Pegasus, which leads to a third flashback story, one in which we see a very young Admiral Adama in the earlier colonial wars, something that we have seen in the mini-episode that have been airing on the SciFi channel.

The Battlestar Galactica storyline is fairly straight forwards, and serves as the common link between the three storylines. A Raptor team goes missing, and the Pegasus is sent after them. The Pegasus storyline is actually nothing new - we knew everything from the three-episode arc, but it has been absolutely wonderful to see it as it happened. The third storyline brings some light on the first colonial war, and the beginnings of the humanoid Cylons. Hopefully, this will be looked at more in the fourth and final season.
This feels like an extremely long Galactica episode, or a two parter that's been combined into a long episode, but it doesn't drag on or slow at all. The pacing and editing between the three stories is logical and works extremely well, focusing on each storyline when needed. The Pegasus storyline is the one with the fewest surprises, and at times seems to pass a little too quickly.
One of the best things about this is the characters - the new character to be added in was Kendra Shoal, a member of the Pegasus crew. It was a bit of a risk adding in a completely new character to the cast for the episode (and only for this episode). She proves to be one of the more interesting ones, and she is quite possibly one of my favorites in the entire series. She's got some interesting things in her background, as well as her actions in the Pegaus. The best moments were when she and Kara Thrace interacted - they made an interesting pair, and unfortunently, she gives her life at the end of the episode, in which we learn something that will most likely carry into Season 4.
Director-wise, this is up there with the best of the Felix Alcala, who's directed some of the best Galactica episodes to date. The CGI is top-notch from the get-go, with a good look at the fleet yards and other Battlestars and other ships. It was absolutely fantastic to see the Colonial Fleet operate outside of the Galactica perspective that we've seen thus far. I really hope that the new show that's being concocted will show some more into the fleet. The soundtrack that accompanies this is fantastic as well - I'm really hoping that this will be a seperate release, because there are some really good songs here.
Go check this out when it premieres later this month. You won't regret it.