We then cut outside to see that a massive Cylon Basestar, which -- unlike the Colonial Battlestars -- actually resembles a star, is dwarfing the tiny space station. Or maybe the ship design here is actually just a subliminal advertisement for the new X-Men 2 DVD, thrown in as some sort of synergistic sci-fi solid for the parent company. A single missile flies out of the Basestar, striking the very tip of the station and setting off a chain reaction of explosions. "It has begun," whispers Number Six, and then she straddles the Grand Moff and starts kissing him again as the room goes up in flames around them. You know, because nothing says 2003 quite like a sexy suicide bomber.
The First Law of Science Fiction: If you give something a brain, it will kill you. (See: The Matrix, Blade Runner, 2001, Frankenstein, Terminator.)
Well, hey. At least they kept the font, right?
Fade up on a surprisingly cool shot of the Galactica, seen through a massive crater that's been gouged out of a nearby moon. We zoom through the crater, along the Battlestar's hull, through the landing pods, and down into a port-side corridor, where our second major historical revision of the evening is going for her morning jog. Yes, that's right. I said "her." Starbuck is a chick now. Deal with it. And personally, I couldn't care less that they made her a girl. I do, however, care that they made her pointless, whiny, and petulant, although we'll talk more about that later. For now, you can just assume that someone cloned Alec Newman from the first Dune mini-series and gave him breasts. Nice ones, too. We follow Starbuck as she makes her way through the corridors, passing through a crowd of journalists being shepherded through the ship by a PR flack who couldn't possibly be named anything except The Poor Man's Kevin Spacey. PMKS gracefully accepts the hand-off of Starbuck's exposition baton, and then strikes out on his own leg of the 4x400 plot point relay. He doesn't get very far, however, because Edward James Olmos pompousifies his way into the corridor, snagging the baton and getting his ass kissed by everyone who passes. The ass-kissing, by the way, will be a running theme for this entire mini-series. Olmos is playing Commander Adama, of course, and I'm sorry to report that the years have not been kind to Lieutenant Castillo. Or perhaps they've been too kind. Do they actually make military uniforms with a 42-inch waist?