Just saw the episode today and while I didn't think that it was *so* bad, it was kind of... considering how they had CGI in this ep, and none in the last one, and yet the last one IMO was way better, even if it was just character development.
This episode seemed somewhat rushed, with too many things thrown at you with no answers given back, for instance, they throw out the idea of a food shortage due to contamination, but they didn't go into how it got contaminated and what they would've done to solve it... and not given us the whole weak plot of a planet which has sufficient algae to process into food (Soylent Green anyone? Lol).
To make it worse, they have the plot of food contamination which then is surpassed by a much worse subplot of going into "Kat's" history, and just using her history to make her death more glorified... and what was that BS with Adama implying that Kat is like his 3rd child? We *never* see her spend any time with him (if any), if anything, you'd consider Starbuck more. But of course, since she's being killed off, Adama has to make her feel somewhat better for dying right (and giving that posthumorous promotion of CAG)?
A waste of talent, Mary McDonnell, James Callis, and Tricia Helfer didn't even have that much airtime/lines. They were only there for such a short time.
If they were going to go off on such a tangent with Kat, the least they could've done was give the Cylon arc more of a presence. But that's just my opinion.
Can't blame Ron though, the guy's on vacation (good timing!).