Part 2
“Pilot” (Part 2 of 2)
The cheap sentimentalism of the ending of Part 1 seems to have taken it’s toll on the beginning of Part 2, as the pacing suffers immediately as we drag ourselves almost symbolically as Commander Adama drags himself through to continue leading the Galactica.
Starbuck handles the news of Apollo’s “death” in the manner that you would expect, but is performed quite well by Katee Sackhoff.
Back aboard Boomer’s Raptor, we see a somewhat touching scene between Boomer and a child from Caprica, named Boxxy. Boomer relates to Boxxy’s death by telling him of her own parents who died when she was young, something that has even more weight by the end of the miniseries.
Meanwhile, Gaius continues his unexplained hallucination of Number Six. Throughout the episode the writers do a good job throwing out the possibilities without seeming trite. Is it Gaius going mad? Is it a chip implanted by the Cylons to project her into his consciousness? They never quite go the full distance which is good. It allows the viewer to ask the question him/herself.
Is Gaius a Cylon? As I go along and review, I’m going to try to piece together the clues and see what we can discover. We haven’t seen his spine glow, so we don’t know for certain.
Back aboard the Galactica, the crew makes FTL (faster-than-light) jump to Ragnar, where there is a munitions reserve, so they can re-arm and take the fight back to the Cylons. There is a sigh of relief when the ship makes the jump and they begin to plot their course to the munitions dump. It really is the first positive feelings we’ve felt in the series and something that was necessary from letting the heavy emotion, and difficult situations drag us down with them.
Then we get attacked with pessimism again. We jump to an almost- montage of sequences as Galactica makes its way through the ionosphere. We see Starbuck, dealing with Apollo’s “death”, we see a makeshift morgue and an officer collecting dog-tags, and the lightning outside battering the hull of the great vessel.
Back on Colonial One, Boomer has landed her Raptor, and they are disembarking to join Captain Adama, and eventually the President. This sequence seems kind of rushed, as I never really saw an indication that they found Boomer’s distress, and why the Colonial One was still nearby enough to pick it up.
Baltar meets with the President and is named her chief scientific adviser with regards to Cylon technology. She then sends Boomer’s raptor back out to search for more survivors, asking her to bring them back to Colonial One as part of a convoy. It is interesting to note the development of Roslin into a flawed, reluctant, but ultimately able leader. She presents a strong woman, although behind the scenes she is very emotional about the tough issues she is forced to confront.
At the Ragnar munitions dump, the Chief leads a crew to get the weapons but is met by a mysterious man holding them up. The Chief quickly talks the man down who seemingly has no idea that the war has started. Right from the get go, we know the mysterious man must be important as it would be quite coincidental if he were there and yet unimportant.
Curiously, as I watch another scene between Gaius and his personal Number 6, I note that the main characters and heroes are polytheistic, while it seems the Cylons believe in one god. It was a unique choice and I am interested to see how well that develops in the end.
As Commander Adama walks on the Ragnar station, it is curious to see him walking almost as if equals with the stranger. It doesn’t feel right at all at this point. Why would Adama lower himself to deal with this man. It seems like it might be that dreaded *Plot device moment* to get them together into a locked portion of the station. Adama orders the Chief to get the ammo first and that they will find another way out. At this point the stranger is getting sicker and sicker and Adama has his suspicions.
Back with Colonial One we see a scene that is there simply for drama and heartstrings. I think it really isn’t necessary and in a way almost makes things go so far over the top in dramatics and emotion, that it almost detracts from the story. The writers obviously want you to feel the weight of the decisions that Roslin has to make, but a glimpse is really enough in some cases. Roslin has a scene with a little girl who believes she’s going to Caprica to meet her parents and have dinner and a fun time at home. It’s a scene that does nothing but make you say “awww” a little later on as a Cylon scout finds the convoy.
The tough decision is made again when half the convoy has FTL drives while the other half does not. Apollo tells the President that they have to jump immediately and that the Cylons are going to come back in full force. They leave behind half the convoy to die, and of course the ship with the little girl on it, is one of those ships. Roslin’s aide makes sure to mention that to Roslin after she has made her decision, because obviously she needs more problems and heartache at this point.
The return of Apollo to Galactica is actually subtly handled. While I expected to see scenes with everyone rejoicing, they keep it to the important minimum. We see his reconciliation with Starbuck and later on with his father.
Down on Ragnar, we soon see that Adama suspects…correctly…that this stranger is a Cylon. So Adama is the third to know of the human modeled Cylons. It seems that something about the storm is messing with the Cylon connections, causing it to be sick. A fight ensues, and Adama ends up killing the Cylon before returning to Galactica.
In a well written sequence, the audience is expected to imply, without being told, that we can rule out that Gaius is simply mad as Number Six tells him about a Cylon device that is lodged in the CIC. In the same breath though we see that Gaius remembers seeing a device in the real Number Six’s purse. So the subconscious Number Six *COULD* still be a manifestation of the brilliant and observant doctor’s mind. It does seem less likely though. We also see the development of Gaius as an extremely flawed individual. He only thinks of looking out for himself, as he reasons the only way he can inform the fleet of the device without implicating himself as having been with a Cylon agent, is to point out a Cylon agent amongst them. He picks out Aaron, a public relations official. It is unclear at the time whether Gaius truly believes he is one, or if he is a choice of convenience. Baltar’s morality is certainly not beyond such an act, and that’s what makes it so interesting. We can never be truly sure of his motivations or truthfulness in anything he does.
In a stroke of luck for Baltar, Adama and Tigh place him in charge of detecting Cylons after Adama’s discovery on Ragnar. Baltar is given the means and ability to better point out Aaron as an agent, and the non-scientific types believe him even without proof.
Starbuck is sent back through the cloud to do some recon and is shocked to discover an entire Cylon fleet is waiting for them to come through. This leads to a nice debate between Roslin and Adama. Adama wants to continue the fight while Roslin declares that the war is over, the humans lost, and they need to get out of the area if the human race is going to survive.
Adama eventually relents and they plot an escape, leaving Aaron behind on Ragnar. The escape goes off well in a great action sequence that solidifies Apollo and Starbuck as friends despite Apollo’s learning that his brother’s death was more Starbuck’s fault for passing him in flight training than Adama’s. Starbuck saves Apollo’s life in a feat of amazing piloting and the Galactica and it’s convoy are able to jump “past the red line” to unexplored space.
As the action has died down, we are left on the Galactica in a mass service for the dead. As Adama notices how down morale is, he takes it upon himself to bring everyone back alive by saying that the Cylons may have destroyed their families, may have destroyed their homes, but there is an answer. The high fleet has knowledge of where the legendary planet of Earth is. It will be a long arduous journey but they will find Earth and the Cylons won’t find them. So say we all. It has quite an effect on everyone and thus the premise of the series is set.
Afterwards though there are some sequences to suggest that there is much more to come. Colonel Tigh attempts to apologize to Starbuck, but she refuses to accept it in a great showcase of humanity. Usually with the happy ending, you expect everyone to pooh pooh, oh let’s start over, etc. Not Starbuck and it’s perfectly in character.
Adama admits privately to Roslin that he has no idea about Earth, and that he said it just to give them hope. Roslin suggests that they will murder him over it, but he stands his ground, saying that they need something to live for for now.
We are brought back to Ragnar and see that Aaron is getting sick. He is a Cylon for certain. It’s a great twist because now we don’t know for certain whether Gaius DID know that he was one or whether Gaius just got lucky.
The other Cylons come to pick up Aaron and we see copies of Number 6 as well as copies of the Cylon Adama had taken care of.
Finally, in a big twist one more Cylon walks in. It’s a copy if Lt. Sharon “Boomer” Valeri. Boomer is a Cylon.
It’s a great twist at this point as the idea raised that now that there are human models, ANYONE can be a cylon hadn’t had much effect. This made it hit home and further developed the premise for a weekly series.
Overall, a great ending to the mini-series, one that has a certain amount of closure if you didn’t want to go on…but why wouldn’t you? It’s got great characters, great situations, great drama, and a good handle on mixing all three. It’s very rare that a climactic episode hits the mark as well as the set up, but this one is very solid ineed.