Reviews of The Hub

Alan Sepinwall writing for The Star-Ledger praises Mary McDonell's work in "The Hub" written by Jane Espenson and directed by Paul Edwards.

At this late date in the lifespan of "Battlestar Galactica," what superlatives are left to describe the work of Mary McDonnell? How can I praise this performance week after week, season after season, and capture how much better it keeps getting without sounding like a sycophantic broken record?

Here's the best I've got, really: if this were baseball, I'd start suspecting her of using steroids or HGH, because in recent weeks she's gone from late '90s Barry Bonds (consistently brilliant, but in a way that almost makes you take her for granted) to early '00s Barry Bonds (jaw-droppingly, insanely, don't-dare-change-the-channel amazing). Mary's head is still the same size, but somehow, she's found a way to take her game to a new level of late. I am so grateful that we get to watch her play this character.

New York Magazine joins in the Adama/Roslin ship:

As a serious remake of a campy seventies sci-fi show, Battlestar has defied expectations from the start. So it’s fitting that as we move closer to the big finale, this season is becoming something we never expected: a love story between two of its oldest characters.

Brittany a reviewer for TwoCents wrote:

Could someone please hand Mary McDonnell an Emmy? Just hand it right to her because there’s no need to go through a selection process or a nominee category. I can’t begin to express accurately how amazing she was in this episode (take her performance in Taking a Break From All Your Worries and multiply it by about ten thousand.), and while we’re at it, let’s just hand Edward James Olmos an Emmy too. He was in this episode for all of a few minutes, but it was the powerful last scene that should sway Emmy voters.

Marc Bernardin in Entertainment Weekly observed:

I liked this episode far better than I liked the last one for a host of reasons, not the least of which was that we had but one story to follow: Laura and the Lost Boys taking down the hub. Period. Yes, Battlestar Galactica can be a masterful show when it comes to juggling its various plot strands and keeping its vast and stellar ensemble busy. But there's also something to be said for picking one tale and following it through.

IGN noted:

Buffy alumni Jane Espenson wrote this episode, and like Buffy, there was humor intermixed with the drama, mostly thanks to some very funny moments between Baltar, Roslin and the Hybrid – James Callis was hysterical making his demands of the Hybrid and insisting he was getting through to her, as an exasperated Laura began mimicking him. On the more odd side was Balter essentially preaching to a Cylon Centurion – I don't know if I quite buy Baltar doing this unprovoked, but then again, this is Baltar, who thinks of himself as, essentially, the voice of the god the Cylons pray to. As it turned out, that Centurion was destroyed, but one wonders how close it was from going on a Baltar-fueled rampage, as he told it how it was serving as a slave.

Other reviews and recaps of The Hub from FlickFilosopher, The House Next Door, TV Squad, The L.A. Times Show Tracker, PopCritics, Galactica Variants, SyFy Portal, Battlestar Galactica Review Blog, Zap2It, TV Fodder, TV with MeeVee, Hollyscoop, BuddyTV CinemaBlend, and a picspam, review and sceencaps by The Justiner.