The Working File

So, I haven’t yet watched the new episode from last night, “The Disquiet That Follows My Soul,” but this is based upon the prior two episodes in which the Colonial Fleet finds Earth, arrives, and then discovers that it was destroyed in a holocaust thousands of years ago. It is clear that Ronald D. Moore has intended this to be a punch in the gut to viewers. We were supposed to be brought to the heights and then to the brink of despair emotionally by those events. And it is clear that for many fans it worked.
Yet I was left unsatisfied. When I watched the mid-season ending episode “Revelations” last year I could not clearly understand why. After watching “Sometimes a Great notion,” it became clear.
As I noted, in this post, with due credit to my wife, “There has been no discussion among the Colonial Fleet, at least that we have seen, about how to handle any possible diplomatic approach to the people of Earth.” That was written, obviously, before the show took the characters to Earth, and it never changed. They made it to Earth without anyone ever having apparently considered the possibility that they might not like what they found. I mean, no matter the problems in the timeline, the 13th tribe left the rest of them thousands of years ago, and they do not remember why. Didn’t anyone consider that they might not be welcome, or that the 13th tribe might have had a reason for leaving? Did no one in the Fleet consider that the 13th Tribe could have moved again, or that for some other reason they might not be there when the Colonial Fleet arrived?
On top of that, when they arrive, they apparently make no effort to send a scout ship, or to make an initial diplomatic contact. No, instead they show up all at once, with a fleet carrying thousands of people, including one giant warship, and just head to the surface without making any effort to even make contact before they land.
Are you kidding me? That’s absolutely stupid, and it basically ruined the moment for me. When we were supposed to feel first jubilation and then despair as we followed them through the process of first reaching Earth and then finding out that it was destroyed, but I just kep asking, “What were they thinking?”