Hi all, I’m Ryan Closs and I’ll be your Battlestar Galactica recapper this season. What you’ll be seeing today, is a recap of the first 7 episodes since the higher ups were a bit slow on deciding the BSG should be recapped at all. You might know me from the movie section where I used to review indie movies a lot, and now I sporadically get a review in at all after losing my job. Covered for Norty for a few weeks doing the Weekly Pulse, so to keep busy here on IP I’ve volunteered for the thankless job of going recapping TV.
Last season of Battlestar was pretty epic, kicking off with the 12 colonies being destroyed by the Cylons and ending with Commander Adama getting shot in an attempted assassination attempt by Boomer, who it turns out was a Cylon agent herself. They’d found Kobol, the birthplace of mankind and are hoping to find on it the way to get to Earth. Starbuck went back to Caprica in a Cylon ship to get an artifact that will help them find the temple of Athena on Kobol. The president was taken out of power.
We open up this season where the last left off. Adama is lying on the table in command after just being shot by Boomer. Tigh is freaking out and flashing back to when he first met Adama. You can tell he really doesn’t want the old man to die. Whether it’s because he doesn’t feel he’s competent to command or because he cares about the old man or both is up in the air.
Boomer doesn’t know what’s happened and is screaming and yelling she had no idea she was a Cylon agent. The Cylons arrive in Kobol airspace, a basestar, which is bad news. Tigh orders an immediate jump to safe space, leaving the away team on Kobol for now in order to save the rest of the fleet.
After the jump Galactica is alone in the sector, the fleet is gone!
Opening credits
47,875 Survivors and counting
Gaius is hallucinating looking down at “his” child with Number 6. Gaius is trying to understand how him having sex with a figment of his imagination has led to an actual pregnancy, in the girl he’s hallucinating. Somehow he believes it. He wakes up to the carnage of the Raptor 1 Crash Site on Kobol, the chief is saying they should check to make sure they have everything before leaving. The LT demands they leave right away before the Cylons find them. Foreshadowing? I think so.
Galactica: Saul is talking to his wife, she’s wondering where the fleet is and he’s explaining about the fleet not having the updating coordinates. Tigh is beating himself up for not double-checking that Gaeta transmitted the new coordinates to the rest of the fleet. Tigh makes it clear that it is still Adama’s ship, and will be until Adama dies and not one day sooner. Gaeta says it’ll take 12 hours after jumping back to Kobol in order to calculate the fleet’s position. They know however that there’s no way they can hold off the Cylons for anywhere near that long.
The group on Kobol stop and discover they’re missing a medikit. LT sends Tarn, the Chief and Cally back to the crash site in order to pick up the medikit and anything else they can grab in order to save the downed man.
Caprica: Starbuck, Helo and Cylon-Sharon are in the Delphi museum . Sharon is suggesting they leave as soon as possible because Number 6 has downloaded her consciousness back to another edition of her and Cylons will be on the way soon. Helo keeps Starbuck from killing Sharon, he’s positive Sharon is actually carrying his baby and is different even though she’s a machine. Then guess what, Sharon stole Starbuck’s ship so now her and Helo are stuck on Caprica.
Galactica: The medic looking after the old man is saying he needs a doctor asap or else he’ll die. This is obviously a problem because the doctor is with the rest of the fleet and who knows how long it’ll be before they’re reunited. Tigh tells her, “Well today you’re a doctor”, and that she’s got to cut open Adama and stop the internal bleeding. Tigh is in the brig talking to Boomer, she’s asking about the Commander and seems happy he’s survived. Tigh smacks her at that comment. He doesn’t kill her yet though.
Kobol: Chief and company get the medkit, on their way back through the woods the Cylons open fire on them. Tarn got hit in the chest, and the Chief is trying to do what he can to save him. The three of them manage to get away, with the Chief carrying Tarn over his shoulders. They stop, and while Chief is checking on Tarn, Tarn dies. Cally manages to get the Chief to leave him so they can get back to the wounded man back at the camp. I still don’t remember hearing his name at all.
Galactica: In the washroom Gaeta has the idea to network some of the computers together to cut down the time to calculate the fleets coordinates in 10 minutes. This is really the only way they’ll be able to get to the fleet in time, even though putting a network up leaves the ship extremely vulnerable to a Cylon computer virus attack. Tigh agrees to it and they prepare to jump back to Kobol. Tigh paroles Apollo, he doesn’t have to stay in the brig when he’s on duty, because they need a flight commander desperately. When he’s not on duty though he has to stay in the brig.
Gaeta gets the network and firewalls up, and it’ time to jump. Cylon raiders bearing down on the ship, time for the epic space battle this episode. Something that this show, Babylon 5 and Star Wars have always got right. What makes good space battles is lots of smaller ships and a minimum number of large command ships. Not the damned Star Trek big ship on big ship attacks.
There’s lots of cutting back and forth here between the space battle, sick bay where the medic is operating on Adama, and the command center where the Cylons are hacking into the system, while Gaeta is calculating the new coordinates. In the space battle they see a brand new ship, like a raider but bigger and stronger.
Roslin and her guard are praying for safety, calculations at 56% and the Cylons have breached the second firewall, space battle is still going fairly well for Galactica. The heavy raider crashes into Galactica before Apollo can take it out. Luckily the Cylons didn’t manage to get all the way to the main systems before the calculations were done. They jump… and… find the fleet!
Back in sick bay the operation is done, and seems to be a success, at least as a stop gap until the real doctor can get on board. We flashback to Tigh about to set fire to something, looking extremely disheveled. He gets a knock on the door where to people are there telling him that Major Adama reinstated Tigh to the fleet at the rank of captain.
Back to today, Tigh wishes he has never been reinstated because then he’s be dead on Caprica right now, and he never wanted a command. At the site on the Galactica where the Cylon fighter crashed we see a Centurion climb out and then fade to black… To Be Continued.
A strong season premiere, the flashbacks were a nice insight into Adama and Tigh’s relationship when they were younger. Some excellent space action, and good drama on Caprica, Kobol and the ship. We know that Adama is at least alive for now, while still in critical condition, but how will the Centurion on board affect that?
I guess we’ll find out in a week. (well really in a few minutes, since I’m recapping these first 7 episodes all at the same time to catch up).
