We pick up right where we left off last night, with Adama grieving on the bridge over the presumed loss of his sniveling, snotty, dad-hating son. You know, because characters who appear to die with ten seconds left in Part One never, ever turn up magically alive somewhere in the middle of Part Two. The bridge crew, however, can hardly contain their glee.
Down on the Lido Deck, Master Chief Lovewrench is greeting Starbuck as she returns to the Galactica. Her Viper is in pretty bad shape, with a large chunk torn out of the tail. Starbuck, herself, however, is in even worse shape. She looks like a heroin addict who just spent the last three months doing nothing but drinking French-fry grease and sleeping in a sauna. That's probably supposed to show the strain of piloting a Viper in combat or something, but damn. Girl looks like she was rode hard and put away wet. Speaking of which, she's soon bitching to Lovewrench about her bad "gimbal." Bamp gimba bamp bamp! Rather than rip off her clothes off and beg her to torque his lovewrench, Lovewrench instead informs Starbuck that eighty-five people died in the landing pod fire fiasco. He also tells her that Apollo is dead, which just goes to show that everyone on this show is stupid. In the pretty much the only display of actual humanity her character is allowed to have over the entire four-hour run of this mini-series, Starbuck tenderly asks if Lovewrench has heard from Boomer. He hasn't. Corporal Dirty Girl, who is also obviously in on the office romance gossip pool, tries to comfort her boss a bit after this revelation, but he's not having it. He's also not Private First Class Now Officially Dead Guy, so Corporal Dirty Girl quickly abandons the effort and returns to her dirty, dirty duties.
Elsewhere in outer space, Boomer is deploying a homing beacon and chatting up Boxey, who's made himself at home in the front of the ship. Boxey reports that most of his family was on Caprica, so presumably they're dead now. Unless they were with him in last night's lottery mob, in which case they're probably still sitting around in that field playing mushroom cloud bingo without a care in the world. Papa Boxey, however, is serving somewhere with the Fleet. "They told me he's missing," Boxey explains, "but I think he's dead, too." For those of you who don't remember, Boxey's dad was Grand Moff Snarkin, who got blown up in the opening scene. Which makes me kind of sad for Boxey, because now he's stuck with that lame-ass seventies shout-out bowl cut, and he's got nothing but a life of alopecia and male pattern baldness ahead of him. I wonder if they sell octagonal tubes of Rogaine in the future?
In the back of Boomer's ship, Baltar is still having visions of Number Six. Only this time, she's actually talking to him. Six: "You know what I like about you?" Baltar: "I really know how to dance?" (Not really.) Six: "You're a survivor." Baltar: "Oh, for the last goddamn time, Richard Hatch had nothing to do with this miniseries! Go sign his friggin' petition if you care about him so damn much." Oh, he does not. Instead he just acts confused and mutters to himself. Yeah. That'll inspire confidence in his fellow passengers.
Galactica. All systems are go for the FTL jump. "Take us to Ragnar, Colonel [McCain]," orders Adama. And he does. In a really long montage that features lots of key turning and dramatic countdowns and several slow pans around the bridge. When the countdown reaches "three," we cut down to the hangar deck, where Corporal Dirty Girl braces herself against a Viper and whispers, "I hate this part." Aww. Poor Corporal Dirty Girl. First her secret crush gets fried to a blackened crisp by the evil, drunken XO, and now she and her rosy yet still grease-streaked cheeks are forced to sit there and let the special effects guys twist her inside out as the ship enters hyperspace.
The jump effect itself sucks on the way out (it looks like the Galactica is getting swallowed by a Photoshop lens flare), but is actually kind of cool on the other side, when Rear Admiral Steadi Cam zooms in to catch Galactica streaking across the front of a giant nebula. Commodore 64 announces to the entire bridge that they hit their target perfectly, and there was much rejoicing. So much so, in fact, that you'd think The Olmos had personally picked up the ship and single-handedly carried it on his shoulders across at least a half-dozen light years. Adama orders McCain to take them down to the Anchorage and start loading ammunition.
Colonial One. Everyone is unconscious, including the pilots. They slowly wake up, and the pilots go about their business of restarting all the computers without even wondering what knocked them out or where the approaching Cylon fighter might be. I guess someone must have told them that guy got left back in Part One. President Mary wakes up as well, and immediately runs down to the cargo hold, because that's what any sensible person who just got rendered unconscious by a mysterious force would do. She finds Apollo down there, struggling to his feet and stammering through some ludicrous and scientifically invalid exposition about electromagnetic pulses and how he stopped the Cylon attack. Whatever. All you need to know is that he patched the deflector shields straight into the warp core and then fired a special Cylon-seeking photon torpedo. He also explains that they used to try that electromagnetic pulse trick all the time in the war games he played in flight school, but the Kobyash…er, Cylons, always saw right through it. "The lesson here is not to ask follow-up questions," announces Mary, apropos of nothing in the actual scene but still a Ron Moore-penned swipe against Trekkies everywhere. Heh. She also thanks him for saving their "collective asses." I don't know why, but it totally makes me giggle every time I hear Mary McDonnell say the word "ass."
Galactica. We're on the bridge as Colonel McCain navigates his way down through a narrow gap in the oh-so-convenient Cylon-killing space storm that surrounds the Ragnar Anchorage. Have you seen The Hunt for Red October? If you have, then you've already seen this scene. Starbuck, meanwhile, is down in her quarters, moping and checking out a picture of her and Zak that's hanging from the mirror. She takes it down, and unfolds it to reveal that Apollo is also in the picture, standing off to one side while Starbuck and Zak are hugging on the other. Remember that image when her and Apollo do some very creepy flirting later on. Over in the hangar bay, Private Saving Ryan -- whom we've never seen before and never will again -- is collecting dog tags from all the dead bodies. In an amazing shocker (and potential shout-out), the futuristic dog tags turn out to be hexagons instead of octagons! Wow. I bet the prop designer got fired for that one. Adama just can't get enough of that loudspeaker of his, because he gets on the horn to warn the crew about imminent turbulence. "All hands, be ready for some chop," he announces. "Also, please discontinue the use of portable electronic equipment, and be sure to stow your seat-backs and tray tables in their full upright and locked positions."
Downstairs, Starbuck is still staring at her photo of Apollo, only now she's praying for the "Lords of Kobol" to take his soul and the souls of all the others killed in battle. And if "Kobol" is heaven, does that make Fortran hell? Just curious. From there we cut back to Private Ryan, for a sweeping crane shot of him holding the dog tags amongst a sea of body bags. And then the Galactica finally arrives at the Anchorage, and we see the ship docking with a giant, multi-ringed space station. For the record, the term "hard seal" is used no less than four times in the space of fifteen seconds here. I personally like to picture an otter with a leather jacket and a nose ring, but that's probably not what they're really talking about. Master Chief Lovewrench leads his crew into the station, where they immediately spread out and start looking for those "bullets" the boss is so desperate to find. And find them they do, although perhaps not in the way they were expecting. It seems someone else has already beaten them to the Anchorage, because a dude I'll just call Sweaty Guy for now is standing in the middle of the room, pointing a gun at Master Chief Lovewrench. Oddly enough, no one seems to notice this except Lovewrench himself.
Colonial One. Boomer has arrived on board now, and also somehow managed to park her ship in the same cargo bay as Apollo. With Lovewrench busy being held at gunpoint, Apollo has taken over the Cruise Director duties, and is welcoming Boomer and her civilians to the ship. While he struggles to maintain his American accent, she manages to deliver even more exposition about the Cylons' ability to shut down all their modern technology, just to hammer home the point that it was Apollo's old-school Viper that saved his life. When Baltar steps out into the cargo bay, Boomer snarks out loud that she hopes he's worth the life of Sacrificial Stan, and Apollo, who never even met Stan, is forced to agree. Then he tells Baltar that the President is waiting to speak with him. The only problem is that Baltar has apparently never heard of Mary McDonnell. Heh. If only I could say the same. It would mean that I'd never seen Dances with Wolves, for starters. Or Blue Chips, or Independence Day, or even Donnie Darko, for that matter. I'll give her Sneakers, though. That movie rocked. ["Oh, so you're the other person who thinks so. Cool." -- Sars]
Once everyone has moved from the cargo hold up to first class, Mary introduces herself to Baltar and asks him to serve as her chief scientific analyst and resident Cylon expert. Then she orders Boomer to go out and find as many survivors as possible, so they can all form a "convoy" and fly out of the combat zone. Oh, come on. Couldn't they at least be a rag-tag convoy? You're killing me here!
Back at Ragnar, Master Chief Lovewrench manages to talk Sweaty Guy into putting down his gun by reminding him that there are two thousand soldiers on the Galactica, and he'll never be able to shoot his way through all of them. Which Sweaty Guy totally believes, even though ten seconds earlier he didn't even believe that there was a war on. Whatever. Sweaty Guy offers to show Lovewrench where to find the gimbals, and then they kiss. No, not really.
Now that he's an official Presidential advisor, Baltar gets to kick back and relax in first class. He starts hallucinating Six again, however, only this time he actually manages to talk back. He psychobabbles that she's merely an "expression of [his] subconscious playing itself out during [his] waking hours." She then technobabbles that she put a chip in his head, which is why he can hear her. Then we get a close-up of her tits while they metaphorically switch places. He technobabbles that she put some kind of back door into his Fleet navigation programs, and she psychobabbles about ulterior motives and how they had "something special" together. Once again, she just wants to be loved. "Don't you understand?" she asks. "God is love." Um, no. I don't understand. But that's okay, because we quickly get the requisite scene where Baltar jerks awake and realizes it was all just a dream. And I know I ragged on Nick Stahl over in the Carnivale recaps a lot, but if there's one thing Dirt Boy is really good at, it's the wake-up scene. Probably because he had to do it at least three times an episode.
Yeah. Okay. This next one is officially the dumbest scene in the entire miniseries. In fact, it's quite possibly the dumbest scene I've ever watched outside of an episode of Tru Calling. Adama has come down to the loading bay to show off the extra paunch in his uniform and check out some random hatchways, because the newly minted commander of the entire Colonial Fleet wouldn't have anything better to do right now. And just in case that's not dumb enough, he's also got Sweaty Guy with him. Because that's what you do with crazy guys who point guns at your crew. You take them straight to the captain, and then let them walk around together unescorted. Master Chief Lovewrench, meanwhile, is supervising the ammunition loading procedures, and has to repeatedly warn some guy with a forklift to slow down and take it easy. After three warnings, the guy is still screwing around, however, so I have to wonder what happened to that crack staff Lovewrench kept bragging about in Part One. I also have to wonder what would motivate a guy carrying a large quantity of unsecured, high-explosive warheads on a pallet to try to play bumper cars with his forklift. Whatever. This is all just an excuse to get Adama and Sweaty Guy some alone time, so they can have a dramatic conversation about the meaning of life, followed by a fist-fight and some conciliatory gimbal stroking. And then just like that, the fork-lift capsizes, a warhead rolls across the deck, and the ensuing explosion tosses Adama and Sweaty Guy through an open hatch and straight into a commercial.
We come back to the sight of Master Chief Lovewrench and Corporal Dirty Girl frantically trying to unseal the hatch that now separates Adama and Sweaty Guy from the rest of the crew. Obviously they can't bear the thought of being separated from The Olmos for more than a few seconds -- or maybe Dirty Girl has realized that she has a new potential love match in Sweaty Guy, and is trying to save him from the same fate as PFC NODG. Adama and the writers, however, have other ideas. After all, why go through all the trouble to get your lead actor alone with someone who is obviously a bad guy in disguise if you're not going to let them chat it up a bit? I mean, we've all seen Die Hard, right? Adama orders Lovewrench to resume loading the ship, and then tells Sweaty Guy to lead him back to the cargo hold via another route.
President Mary, meanwhile, has found herself aboard a Botanical ship that has joined her not-at-all fugitive or rag-tag fleet of survivors. Those of you on minority watch will be pleased to know that the captain of this ship is the only African-American male to appear in the entire miniseries. So you totally know what's coming, right? Mary makes chit-chat with this guy about his power needs and the survivors he has with him, and then notices a cute little girl sitting off in a corner and playing with a doll. She goes over to chat with the kid, because no one will care when the black guy gets killed, but a dead little girl is a guaranteed tug on the heart strings. There's no way Ron Moore is going to pass on a chance to soften you up a bit first, however, so the kid tells Mary that her parents were on Caprica (and are therefore dead, or at the very least glowing in the dark), and then she delivers the following lengthy list of her plans for the evening: "My parents are going to meet me at the spaceport in Caprica City. We're going out for dinner, and I'm going to have chicken pie. And then we're going home. And then Daddy is going to read to me. And then I'm going to bed." What, no skipping through the meadows? No family game night? No lovable robotic puppy? Come on, Ron. You're losing your touch.
But he hasn't lost it completely, because at least Mary McDonnell is crying, even if no one else is. She's back on Colonial One, and she's soon joined by Apollo, who reports that Boomer has found a refueling ship, so everyone can fill up their tanks now. That brings their total up to sixty ships in the convoy, although your guess is as good as mine as to which ones are commanded by Kris Kristofferson and Ali McGraw. Unfortunately, only forty of them have FTL capabilities, so Apollo wants to start transferring survivors from the other twenty as soon as possible. He won't get that chance, however, because a Cylon fighter jumps right into the middle of their formation, scans the convoy, and then jumps back out again before anyone can stop him. Uh oh.
This development precipitates a meeting in the Oval First Class Section, with Apollo counseling Mary to leave immediately, and abandon everyone in the ships that can't make an FTL jump. PMKS, however, wants to stay, and try to rescue survivors until the last possible minute. That'll be important later. Apollo's concern is that the Cylons could appear at any minute and wipe them out before they even have a chance to react. "We'll be saving tens of thousands [of lives]," he says. "I'm sorry to make it a numbers game, but we're talking about the survival of our race here, and we don't have the luxury of taking risks and hoping for the best. Because if we lose, we lose everything." Including consciousness and our lunches, apparently, what with the nausea-inducing spin-move the camera has been performing for this entire scene. The buck (and thankfully, the camera) stops with President Mary, and after a moment's thought she decides that everyone who can make an FTL jump should do so immediately. Poor Man's Kevin Spacey isn't happy about this, and he stomps back to his seat in protest. He's also got his red blazer on for this scene, if you're keeping score.
Apollo runs off to the cockpit to send the orders, and Lackey Howser steps over to talk with his boss. He tries to tell her something, but she interrupts to announce that she has cancer. Yawn. "I know," he replies. "Little things. A couple of comments you made. Also, I was peeking in the windows of your doctor's office when you got the mammogram. Sorry." Mary thinks it's selfish that the world is ending and all she can think about is dying of plot cancer. Lackey Howser assures her that it isn't, and then finally manages to drop the news that he wanted to tell her from the beginning: The little girl we saw earlier is on a ship that doesn't have FTL capability. Is anyone really surprised?
Up in the cockpit, Apollo and the Captain are preparing to jump. The pilots of the ships that will be left behind start pleading over the radio for them to stay, even though it won't stop the Cylons, and it really only means that everyone would die instead of just a few people. Ever notice that the Colonials aren't real bright? I'm betting that's why they're losing the war. Apollo gives an FTL countdown that's no less dramatic than his dad's from last night, even though Apollo only starts from five instead of ten. The Cylons appear when he reaches two, and then the Colonials jump out just as the incoming fighters launch a battery of missiles against the remaining ships. Rather than show the actual impacts, we simply cut back to a theoretically tear-inducing shot of the little girl and her doll, and then The Man fades us to white as the ship captained by the only black man in the fleet gets nuked into oblivion. Commercial.
The Fourth Law of Science-Fiction: The black guy always dies. (See: Alien, Aliens, Alien3, every single Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, and Return of the Jedi.)
Ragnar. Olmos and Sweaty Guy thread their way through the station, and it slowly becomes obvious that Sweaty Guy's physical condition is rapidly deteriorating. It's also obvious that this is the big scene that explains what the Cylons are all about, because Sweaty Guy keeps babbling about how humans are only one step away from beating each other with clubs, and how God might have chosen to give souls to the Cylons for a while instead of mankind. Zzzzzzzz. This is what I meant when I said I liked the Cylons better without motives. And especially without motives that I've heard a million times before. Do you mean that humanoid robots actually occasionally want to have souls? I'm shocked! Shocked, I say!
Up on Galactica, Commodore 64 has picked up incoming ships. Colonel McCain orders everyone to battle stations, but Ensign Uhura quickly detects that the incoming ships are friendly, and requesting permission to come alongside. McCain grants the request, and we then cut immediately to a shot of him and Mary having the exact same fight that Olmos and Mary will be having in about half an hour. McCain's priority is repairing the Galactica and getting back into the fight. Mary's is caring for the survivors. You've heard all this before, and you'll be hearing it again, so let's just move on, okay?
Elsewhere in The Corridor, Lackey Howser is leading Baltar through the Mobius loop. Unfortunately, he totally gets lost again, and leads them the wrong way. This whole upcoming sequence turns into another relay race, only instead of an exposition baton, this time they're passing the looooove baton. Lackey Howser hands it off to Master Chief Lovewrench, who chats with a subordinate in The Corridor. Then he looks up to see Boomer standing a few feet away, and they gaze deeply into each other's eyes for a moment before rushing into an embrace. Lovewrench is a lucky guy, but I'm pretty sure that kiss has to be against military regulations. Boxey would seem to agree, because he just stands there with a look of bemused disdain on his face. Eventually Boomer remembers to introduce him to her boyfriend, but when Lovewrench fails to see Muffet, he completely loses interest.
The looooove baton then gets handed back to Lackey Howser, who is still lost. Once again, however, he runs into Ensign Uhura. She's fully dressed this time, but no less amorous because of it. He tries to explain that they're lost, but she interrupts him with a completely unsolicited kiss that probably would have gained her instant admission to the Tailhook society. Howser is speechless, and while I'm not exactly sure how to describe the expression on Baltar's face here, I can assure you that it was hilarious.
A complex, gravity-defying overhand toss sends the loooove baton spinning down to the hangar bay, where Apollo finds Starbuck trying to fix her broken Viper. Despite the fact that she's lying on her back with her legs spread, he elects not to open this particular conversation with a repeat of last night's "this looks familiar." They're happy to see each other, but they completely fail to kiss, even though they both totally want to. Somewhere out there, the ghost of Rick Springfield is smiling. Or is he not dead yet? In any event, Starbuck can't resist getting in one last plug for The Olmos, because she orders Apollo to go tell Dad that he's still alive. Wow. The guy's not even on the ship at the moment, and he still has that kind of power. I've got to find out what his secret is.
And perhaps here's my chance. Adama is still stuck on the space station with Sweaty Guy, only now they've moved to a room with lots of loose metal objects and leaky steam pipes, so you just know there's a fight scene coming. Before that can happen, however, Sweaty Guy has to deliver a bunch of exposition about how the storm that surrounds the anchorage is poisonous to Cylons or some such. He also explains (again!) that when Cylons die, they wake up in another body, which means he'll be able to tell everyone exactly where to find the Galactica. And then he repeats Adama's line from last night about not being able to hide from the things that he's done. This, of course, tells Adama that the Cylons must have a spy on board Galactica. Or perhaps even more than one, as we'll find out eventually. Anyway, the exposition finally gets wrapped up, and then the looooove baton comes crashing through the hull just as Adama grabs Sweaty Guy by the lapels and leans in real close to kiss…er, "kill him." They fight. Because this miniseries doesn't contain even one single original idea anywhere, Adama finally defeats his foe by holding his face over a leaky steam pipe. Can anyone here actually name an action movie where that DOESN'T happen? Yeah. Didn't think so.
Also, here's a quick note to casting agents everywhere: The Olmos is great at delivering portentous dialogue with the appropriate gravitas, but he should never, ever be cast in a role that requires any form of physical exertion. Just trust me. It's bad. If you looking for a paraplegic crime-fighter with a heavy heart, he's your man, but his days of standing and delivering are long, long gone.
Galactica. Baltar and Commodore 64 review their respective exposition checklists, confirming that the Cylons have been using Baltar's navigation program to shut down all the Colonial units. What's great about this bit is that in the future, even clipboards will be octagonal. Now that's attention to detail. But I'd still totally love to see the wastebasket in the prop department that contains all the corners they had to cut off of everything. That definitely needs to be on the DVD. Commodore 64 wants to know how Baltar feels about his creation being used to destroy the human race, but Baltar is too distracted by the reappearance of Number Six to provide a coherent answer. She teases him about not "being burdened by a conscience, or guilt, or regret," but 64 can't hear her, so he just gives Baltar a nice little pep talk while Six thrusts her presumably hallucinatory tits into his face. Baltar's face. Not Commodore 64's. Did you really think a guy named Commodore 64 could get a girl like Six? Well, actually, we'll talk more about that one later.
Commodore 64 leaves, and Number Six cheerfully observes that she hopes Baltar survives, because she really thinks they could have a future together. Heh. Then she draws his attention to a device mounted in the middle of the bridge that I would have been inclined to describe as a futuristic smoke detector if it weren't for the fact that it's not octagonal. She asks if he's seen it anywhere before, which allows the producers to insert a wholly gratuitous flashback to the pleather panties scene, where Six was carrying the object in question in her giant metal purse. It totally looks like a diaphragm in that shot, by the way. Using only her nipples to count with, Baltar manages to put two and two together and realizes that the smoke detector is a Cylon device, which means there's at least one other Cylon on board. Dun dun DUH! Or actually dum dum dumb, because we already knew that three scenes ago. Commercials.
Baltar and Six are still chatting when the ads are finished. He asks what the smoke detector is supposed to do, but she claims she doesn't know. "Well, it hasn't exploded," he observes. "Yet," she adds. Just in case anyone in the audience is comatose, brain damaged, or from Cleveland, Six helpfully verbalizes Baltar's dilemma, which is that he can't reveal the existence of the device because he has no good way of explaining how he knows what a Cylon device would look like. Can't he just point out that it's not octagonal? That'd be enough to raise my suspicions. Then Sex…er, "Six" shoves her hand down his pants, and suggests that they go at it right there on the bridge. Baltar's head lolls back, and he starts moaning, and it's at this point that Poor Man's Kevin Spacey comes over for a little chat. Heh. And clever too, considering. "Are you all right?" asks PMKS. "You look a little flushed." I wonder if he can see Six, because this scene is much funnier if he can. Baltar has a sudden flash of inspiration, and decides to implicate someone else on the ship as a Cylon agent, so he has an excuse to point out the device. He settles on PMKS, even though Six tries to talk him out of it, but the only problem is that no one on Galactica suspects the Cylons look like humans now.
Cut to Adama, telling Colonel McCain that the Cylons look like humans now. Well, that solves that problem, doesn't it? McCain returns the expository favor by informing Dad that Apollo is still alive. Cut to Apollo, waiting in Adama's quarters. He picks up an old family photograph that would seem to suggest that Mom was the whitest woman in Cork County, rather than Liverpool. I was close, though. Adama finally enters, and their tearful reunion is every bit as boring as their first fight was annoying. Sniffle, sniffle, hug, hug, and…scene. I can't believe Ron Moore didn't make Apollo salute the Old Man here. And then they could have skipped through the meadows to family game night, and played with their lovable robotic puppies.
In a nicely appointed conference room we haven't seen before, Adama and McCain brief Baltar on their discovery that Cylons can look like humans. Baltar does a passable job of looking surprised, and then promises to do his best to come up with some kind of reliable Cylon detection system. "Keep this to yourself for now," growls Colonel McCain. "We don't people to panic or start accusing their neighbors of being Cylons because they don't brush their teeth in the morning." Yeah. I don't understand that either.
The Fifth Law of Science Fiction: Be careful. It could be in any one of us! (See: The Thing, The Stepford Wives, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and pretty much every third episode of The X-Files.)
Hangar Bay. Apollo is talking with Starbuck, who is getting ready to head out on a reconnaissance mission to see if anyone is outside the storm. The big reveal here is that Zak failed basic flight, but Starbuck was his instructor, and she was also banging him at the time, so she passed him anyway. Dad had nothing to do with it. And herein lies the problem with the new-model Starbuck. The old one was a great, fun, happy-go-lucky kind of guy. You wanted him to be your wingman, and then you wanted to party with him after the fight. The new Starbuck is petulant and angsty, and has a nasty tendency to gloat, mumble non-sequiturs, and crash her Viper into anything within ten parsecs. In other words, you wouldn't want to fly with her, and if she asked about the party afterwards, you'd probably give her bum directions. Katee Sackhoff isn't bad (plus I love the name "Sackhoff"), and there's probably some potential here, but they've GOT to lighten her up for the series. Otherwise she's season-six Buffy in a flight suit, and no one wants to see that.
Out in The Corridor, Private Ryan makes a surprise reappearance as the head of a SWAT team that's arresting Poor Man's Kevin Spacey. Then we cut to the brig, where McCain and Baltar are trying to figure out for sure whether the guy actually is a Cylon. PMKS loudly and repeatedly proclaims his innocence, but he's still got the red blazer on, so no one believes him. He should have switched back to the green when he had the chance. As proof of PMKS's guilt, Baltar offers up a print-out of a computer analysis he ran on everyone's hair samples, and we all know that the octagons never lie. That's good enough for McCain, who orders the guards to kill PMKS if he even tries to move. Which would be pretty difficult, when you consider that they've got his hands cuffed outside the bars of his cell. That looks painful. Also present in the room is Number Six, who congratulates Baltar for inventing "the amazing Cylon detector." She's even more impressed when Baltar claims to have seen PMKS messing around with that Cylon device that's still on the bridge.
The Sixth Law of Science Fiction: If a voice in your head tells you do something, do it. (See: Star Wars, Farscape, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Dune.)
Which is where we go next, as everyone gathers around and examines the device. McCain orders them to cut the device down and take it to Baltar for analysis. At least, I think he does. The spinny-cam was back for this scene, so I actually spent most of it pounding Dramamine and puking into my garbage can. Memo to Ron Moore: There's a reason why Michael Rymer keeps getting stuck with crap like Queen of the Damned. I don't care what it costs, you need to get your pal Rodrigo Garcia for the series.
Out in the storm, Starbuck is navigating her Viper out for the recon mission. When she emerges from the cloud, she immediately sees a pair of Basestars and an entire wing of Cylon fighters. They don't seem to notice her at all, however, and I can only assume that's because they're stuck watching the same commercials that we're now seeing.
Galactica. Adama steps into yet another conference room for a meeting with President Mary. Enjoying her new powers as President, Mary makes him wait while Lackey Howser ticks off some potential future plot points for the series (a ship full of convicted felons, rapidly dwindling food and medical supplies). I'm still shocked that she would treat The Olmos like that. And so is he, by the way, as he fixes her with that patented Eddie death glare. Finally Lackey excuses himself, and the real meat of the scene can begin. Which is unfortunate, because it's still the same damn scene we've already watched at least ten times now. Adama wants to fight. She wants to rescue people. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. "I honestly don't know why I have to keep telling you this," says Mary in an unfortunate meta-statement, "but the war is over. We lost. If we are even going to survive as a species, we need to get the hell out of here and start having babies." Well, that doesn't sound so bad. Where do I sign up?
Back on the bridge, Starbuck reports her findings, and Adama gathers Apollo, Colonel McCain, and Commodore 64 for a tactical conference. They know the Cylons are just going to sit outside the storm and wait for them, and they also know they can't make an FTL jump with all the interference on the inside. Apollo still wants to save the civilians, but McCain wants to get back to the fight as quickly as possible. It's at this point that Adama notices Lackey Howser and Ensign Uhura flirting on the far side of the bridge, and he thoughtfully observes that "they better start having babies." And then the line of the night goes to Colonel McCain, with: "Is that an order?" Hee! It's all in the delivery, but still. And props to Lackey Howser for getting the girl, by the way. Commodore 64 may have nothing to look forward to in life but sexy 5.25 floppy and a raster-graphics game of Leisure Suit Larry, but it's still nice to see the nerds representing. Go Lackey, go Lackey, go!
The Seventh Law of Science Fiction: The nerd always gets laid. (See: Idoru, Cryptonomicon, Weird Science, Real Genius, Short Circuit.)
Adama has finally swung around to agree with President Mary, and he orders Commodore 64 to plot a jump to the "Prolmar sector." "I've never plotted a jump that far," protests 64. "I mean, I've only got 64K of RAM. That's less than most digital watches these days." Adama orders him to do it anyway, and then lays out the plan for everyone else. The Galactica will exit the storm and engage the Cylons while the civilians jump away. As soon as they're clear, all remaining Vipers will dock immediately, and the Galactica herself will follow the civilians. "I want ALL my pilots to return," says Adama to Apollo. "Do you understand?" "Um, no," replies Apollo. "I thought you wanted us all to hang out here and relax for a while." Okay, not really. Instead he just says yes, and runs off to execute his orders. Once he's gone, McCain brings up another potential problem: the fate of Poor Man's Kevin Spacey.
And so we then cut down to Ragnar, where Colonel McCain is leaving the prisoner behind. Aww. Farewell, PMKS. You were by far my favorite character, so you'd better be back for the series. Commercial.
After the eight billionth advertisement for the Battlestar Galactica videogame (and by the way, here's a tip for the newbies: If a game is based on a movie, book, or TV series, it's guaranteed to suck. And if the commercials don't even show any actual game footage, it's guaranteed to double-suck. I wouldn't buy that Galactica game for my dog. Consider yourselves warned), we come back to see the final preparations for the big, climactic battle. Galactica slowly inches her way out of the storm, with the civilian ships in tow. Once she's clear, the deck guns start warming up and targeting the incoming horde of Cylon fighters. Adama orders all batteries to commence firing, and the big fight finally gets underway.
I'll just say now that it's somewhat difficult to recap these battle scenes, because there's only so many times you can say that things blow up and Vipers go swooping through the frame. It's all pretty well done, and if you want to know what it looks like, just check out the big fight scene at the end of Phantom Menace and mentally subtract about twenty million dollars from the budget. Or just fire up an old copy of "Missile Command" on your Apple IIe and mentally add about five gigs of processor speed to the rendering engine. It works either way. Things that were cool: The bullet-cam shot from one of Galactica's deck guns, the nicely rendered human body that comes flying out of an exploded Viper, and the Cylon missile trails. Things that were not cool: We don't get to see the Vipers launching out of the tubes, Starbuck shouting, "Come on, bitch!" after blowing up a Cylon, and the repeated re-use of the same shot of a chair breaking windows in the Galactica CIC.
The civilians all manage to make their escape during the fray, and the only other major plot development is that Apollo's Viper gets damaged and he loses control. Starbuck saves him from an incoming missile (leading to the unfortunate "Come on, bitch" incident), and then Adama finally orders the Vipers to come in for a landing. Most of them comply immediately, but Apollo can't make it back. Starbuck stays out to protect him, and Colonel McCain is forced to order Galactica to retract her landing pods so they can jump out of the battle. Adama refuses to let his two favorite pilots (not to mention his two leading characters) die like that, however, so he gets on the radio to Starbuck and repeats that weirdo dialogue from Part One. When Starbuck says she hears "nothing but the rain" this time, however, it's accompanied by gentle ping of various debris fragments hitting her cockpit window. That doesn't mean it actually makes sense now, but it was still a nice moment.
The exchange ultimately does have its desired effect, though, because Starbuck immediately turns her Viper around and flies back to where Apollo is drifting. Her solution to his loss of control? She rams him, locks their Vipers together like a pair of junior high school students exchanging their first post-orthodontia French kiss, and basically shoves him all the way back into the landing bay. I'll spare you the suspense (because I'm sure it's just killing you) and tell you now that they both make it back on board successfully. As soon as they're down, Adama orders the Galactica to jump, and the ship vanishes just as a half-dozen missiles were about to strike. Commercials.
Just as an aside, I'd like you all to know that I'm apparently congenitally unable to type the words "commercials," "sergeant," or "necessary" without making a typo. It's starting to get really annoying. But it's still not as annoying as my tendency to keep referring to Mary McDonnell as Mary Matalin.
After the commericals, that priest with the funny robe from President Mary's swearing-in ceremony is conducting a funeral for those who were killed. The entire cast stands at attention in the crowded landing bay. Everyone except for the one extra who keeps falling asleep, that is. Hee! Once the ceremony is over, Adama steps forward to deliver a speech of his own. It's quite lengthy, and he frequently stops to make everyone chant "so say we all" at particularly dramatic intervals, but what it all boils down to is that Adama knows where Earth is, and he's going to lead his still-not-fugitive-or-rag-tag fleet all the way there. This engenders much cheering and applause from the non-SAG-card-holding members of the crew, and a few skeptical glances from Apollo, Colonel McCain, and President Mary. I should also note that this scene proves that Corporal Dirty Girl cleans up quite nicely. But not as nice as Boomer, who is standing in the front row with Boxey.
After everyone is dismissed, Colonel McCain pays Starbuck a little visit in her quarters. He tries to apologize, and he's actually quite nice about it. Starbuck, on the other hand, calls him a bastard, and says that he's both "weak" and "a drunk." And we're supposed to like this girl? I don't think so. McCain returns her to flight status anyway, and then leaves with the tension between them still fully in place and ready to be explored in series format.
Adama's quarters. Okay, remember what I said about never casting Edward James Olmos in a role that requires physical exertion? Yeah. He should also never be cast in a role that requires him to eat spaghetti. Ew. I can assure you, there was definitely a reason why Harrison Ford was always the one eating the noodles in their scenes together from Blade Runner. That's just…nasty. President Mary drops by for a little visit of her own, and this apology scene goes much more smoothly than the last one. Both sides magnanimously admit that they were wrong, and then Mary presses him for details about whether or not Earth is actually real. Adama confesses that it isn't, and further reveals that he only told the crew what he did to give them hope. The only thing giving me hope right now is the rapidly advancing green bar on my TiVo telling me this thing is almost over. Mary agrees to keep his secret, in exchange for Adama recognizing her legal authority as President of the remaining survivors. None of whom voted for her, by the way. In fact, none of them even seems to know who she is. I mean, come on. She was the Secretary of Education, for God's sake. Can YOU name the current Secretary of Education? (It's some guy named Rod Paige. Thank you, Google!) They shake on this agreement like a couple of Florida vote counters, and we go to our final commercial break as everyone frantically starts checking the last few items off their octagonal denouement checklists.
The Corridor. Baltar is walking along all by himself when he runs into Number Six. She congratulates him on humanity's narrow escape, but insists that the Cylons will find them eventually. Then they discuss the Cylon sleeper agent problem, and Six drops the bombshell that some of the agents might not even know they're Cylons yet. Remember that when we get to the big reveal at the end. Six wonders if Baltar really wants to side with the humans right now, and he dramatically insists that for the moment, he's "not on anyone's side." In other words, he's still the weaselly traitor we all remember. Only without the unfortunate beer gut and wacko hairdo. I mean, do you remember what Baltar actually looked like? Not pretty.
And now for the requisite closing montage:
1. Colonel McCain returns to his quarters, and throws out his bottle. Whatever.
2. Apollo meets Adama in The Corridor, and tries to have a touching reconciliation. Adama tells him to save it until after they get the pick-up announcement. Whatever.
3. Starbuck returns to her quarters, and smoothes out her (octagonal) photo so that both Zak and Apollo are visible. Whatever. Then she strips down to a sports bra, and climbs into bed. That one gets a "rewind and re-watch" instead of a "whatever."
4. Boxey hangs out in the mess with Boomer. It's not worth rewinding, but I still won't give it a whatever.
5. Ensign Uhura catches Lackey Howser flirting with another girl, and just smiles as she walks past. Heh.
6. Corporal Dirty Girl finally fixes that pesky gimbal on Starbuck's Viper. Then Master Chief Lovewrench introduces her to the new Private First Class Ben Hawkins, and love blooms at first smudge. Aww.
7. And finally, Adama returns to his own quarters, where he finds a typewritten octagonal note which simply reads, "There are only twelve Cylon models." It's not signed, so I guess that's our first major plot thread for the series.
Our final scene of the miniseries takes place back at the Ragnar Anchorage, where Poor Man's Kevin Spacey now looks significantly the worse for wear. Suddenly the station's massive doors swing open, and an entire gang of Cylons enters. There are three copies of Number Six, three copies of Sweaty Guy, and even another copy of PMKS himself. Just in case you were wondering, the new Poor Man's Kevin Spacey is wearing a light blue suit. That probably means something. The new kids wants to know where the humans went, but the original PMKS doesn't know. "We have to find them," says the new PMKS. "We have no choice," adds Sweaty Guy #3. "It may take several decades to track them down. Or a hundred episodes. Whichever comes first." And then the camera pans over to the doors, and -- wait for it -- Boomer walks through! Dun dun DUH! "Don't worry," announces the Cylon Boomer with a smile. "We'll find them." And then the camera slowly pulls back, and Number Six says those three little words I've been waiting four hours to hear. No, not "Get out. Now." "By your command." I love that line. Fade to black.
The Eighth Law of Science Fiction: It was Boomer all along! (See: Planet of the Apes, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Sixth Sense, Brazil.)
So that's it, kids. All in all, I'd give it a nice, solid B. And as far as comparisons to the original are concerned, well, my best advice would just be to not make any at all. In truth, there were only three things I wanted to see from the original: Vipers in the launch tube, pulsing red eyes, and "By your command." I got all three, so I'm a happy camper on that score. If this does go to series, however, I'd much rather they spent their time dealing with the fleet and the humans, instead of the Cylons and their wacky humanoid schemes. The original is remembered fondly for a reason, and let's just hope Ron Moore doesn't forget that. And now with that said, I bid you all a fond farewell. Somebody wake me up when they remake Buck Rogers. That purple spandex jumpsuit changed my life.