Battlestar Galactica: Bastille Day

January 25th, 2008

Season 1, Episode 3

Synopsis

After finding a planetary water source, it’s estimated a thousand men are needed to gather the ice. Bill Adama recommends using the prisoners on the prison ship Astral Queen. Roslin disagrees, considering it slave labor. Lee suggests offering them something in exchange for work. Adama isn’t happy that Lee is advising Roslin. Lee, Dualla, Billy, and Callie are sent to the prison ship to negotiate.

On the prison ship, Lee finds none of prisoners are interested in hard labor. They have banded together under the leadership of fellow criminal Tom Zarek, imprisoned for blowing up a government building – a terrorist. Suddenly, the prisoners revolt and take control of the ship, taking Lee and his party hostage.

Zarek broadcasts a speech out to the fleet asking Roslin to resign and proposing free elections. Roslin refuses to negotiate, so Adama puts together military unit led by Starbuck to take back the Astral Queen. Adama realizes that when the rescue team comes in and seizes control of the prisoners, the rest of the civilian fleet may consider it an abuse of military power.

A prisoner provokes Callie and she bites his ear. He threatens to shoot her, but Lee grabs a gun and shoots the prisoner. Lee then pushes Zarek to his knees and threatens him. But ultimately, he doesn’t shoot Zarek and instead agrees with the idea of elections. Meanwhile, the military unit boards the ship and retake control.

Back safe aboard the president’s ship, Roslin and Adama are both pissed at Lee’s negotiations with Zarek, but they now have a work force.

Also in this episode: Adama presses Baltar on progress of the Cylon detector. Head Six tells Baltar to ask for a nuclear warhead. He makes up a story about utilizing the plutonium inside, and Adama reluctantly agrees.

Meanwhile, on Caprica, Athena and Helo wander around an abandoned city, while Cylons 6 and 5 watch from a rooftop and muse on the reproductive nature of humans.

Thoughts

It’s definitely cool to have an actor from the original series – Richard Hatch who played Apollo – appear as the new character Tom Zarek. Also note the nuclear warhead, which becomes important later, and an early glimpse of Tigh’s alcohol woes.

Other than that, I feel Bastille Day is a weaker episode. I was frustrated by Lee’s choice to defy his father for some higher cause that he’s futilely searching for. This contrary behavior eventually has him playing lawyer and defending Baltar the defenseless – which I also didn’t like. I also thought some of the violence was over the top – in particular, Callie’s bloody cartilage sandwich.

Luckily things get back on track in the next episode.

Next Episode: Act of Contrition (1)
Previous Episode: Water

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