Justin Cox
Battlestar Galactica: Season 2.0
This is how I ended my season one write-up:
I’m still not completely sold on Battlestar Galactica being this super awesome show that everyone raved about while it was coming to a close. Don’t get me wrong, it’s decient but it’s more slow then it is compelling. Though it seems just when I’m getting tired of nothing happening, it gets extremely compelling and won’t let me give up on it.
Season two begins with Starbuck and Helo, stuck on Caprica, getting ditched by Boomer — Helo’s Cylon-baby mama. Interestingly enough, they stumble upon a human resistance movement. That’s right, more humans than Helo survived the massive nuke strike on Caprica. Crazy, I know! Anyway, in an attempted strike to steal a Raider and get off Caprica, Starbuck is shot and wakes up in a hospital. Of course, the hospital isn’t exactly what it seems and it’s here that we finally learn a bit of what the Cylons’ plains are.
Apparently Cylons can’t make babies. I mean, they can create more copies and make more Cylons, but the human copies can’t make babies. So they’re trying to, well, farm them. See the hospital that Starbuck wakes up in is really a creepy Cylon baby factory. Her doctor happens to be the fifth Cylon we’ve been introduced to. Besides treating her gunshot, the Cylon-doc appears to have cut Starbuck’s ovaries out. I’m sure it’ll come into play later on.
To wrap this story up, because it’s only part of the season, Starbuck kills the doctor, as well as another copy of Number Six, and busts out. Just as she does, the resistance and Helo come to save her along with a Cylon gunship being flown by Boomer. Apparently this copy of Boomer is so ashamed of being a Cylon that she’s doing everything she can to help the humans. This could just be her programing, but I’m not really sure at this point.
Starbuck returns to the fractured fleet with the Arrow of Apollo. Adama decided that it’s time to bring the fleet back together and joins the President and company on Kobol. The team not only finds the map to Earth, they end up, if not briefly, on Earth looking up at the stars — their roadmap.
Once the fleet is again flying together, Adama grants a reporter looking for dirt an all access pass aboard Galactica in an effort to show that the members of the Battlestar are no different than everyone else in the fleet. The final piece is pretty good but, as it turns out — and this was a complete shocker — the reporter was our sixth Cylon. Crazy. I know. They got the entire run of the ship. Not sure when we’ll see the reporter-Cylon again, but I’m sure it’ll happen at some point.
The Chief, heart-broken that Boomer is back and in love with another man, decided to put his time to better use and builds an actual Viper in the hanger deck. Like from scratch. And it happens to be better than a normal Raptor, it’s a stealth Viper dubbed the Blackbird. Pretty sweet.
There was one more massive event in this short thirteen-episode season and that happened in the final episode. While cruising the skies contact was made with another Battlestar, the Pegasus. When the attack begun, they quickly jumped off and have been on the offensive ever since. While attempting to figure out Cylon jump patterns, the Pegasus stumbled on the fleet. It seems, not surprisingly, that the Cylons have been following the fleet. But here’s the kicker, the commander of the Pegasus is Admiral Cain, that’s right, she out-ranks Commander Adama which means she is now in command of the fleet. Needless to say she doesn’t exactly see things the same way Adama does.
After studying Adama’s logs, well, before I get to that two things: 1) what’s the deal with not having corners on anything? Is it a massive love of the octagon or in the future are we without corners? 2) Who’s keeping these logs that Adama gave to Cain? Thousands of words WRITTEN down remarking on every single event since the fleet began running. Just seems odd. Anyway, after Cain read all of Adama’s logs she decides there need to be some changes. She has Starbuck and Apollo reassigned to the Pegasus and, after the Chief and Helo accidentally kills a Pegasus lieutenant, Cain decided almost instantly that they’ll be executed. Upon hearing this, Adama decided he’s had enough and sends a Raptor filled with marines escorted by Vipers to return the Chief and Helo. Cain reacts by scrambling her Vipers. Then the season ends. Just like that.
Besides what will happen with the massive Mexican standoff in the sky, season 2.0 leaves us with a few other cliff hangers. The first one is obviously what will happen with Cain and the Pegasus. Clearly she needs to go and Adama needs to be restored to commander of the fleet, but I’m not really sure how. The Pegasus is a bigger, more powerful ship and has plenty more Vipers than the Galactica so I’m assuming a battle is out of the question, so somehow they go their separate ways. My best guess is that is has something to do with Starbuck and Apollo’s new assignment. Cain’s scouting party caught a picture of a very large, very unidentified and heavily guarded Cylon ship. The Pegasus CAG decides to send a team on a recon mission to figure out just what it is. Starbuck points out the flaws in the mission and gets herself grounded. Instead, Apollo gives her a recon package and tells her to use the Blackbird because that is a mission plan that will most likely actually net results. So my guess is somehow this works out and Cain decides to just give Adama his people back and leave the fleet alone, continue doing what they do. Either that, or she’s a Cylon.
Besides the immediate cliff hangers, there are a few massive ones that span the entire series. The obvious one is the identity of the final six Cylons. I’m starting to think my original bold predictions of Gaius, President Roslin and Colonel Tigh are probably all wrong. But that’s ok. I’d rather it not be someone obvious in favor of someone more shocking. Like if somehow Adama turned out to be a Cylon, that’d be massively shocking. Not probable, but shocking nonetheless.
The other massive question hanging out there is just what is this Cylon-human baby going to be/look like/effect the human race. This brings up the whole baby-farm and why the Cylons wanted Starbuck’s eggs (assuming that’s what they were doing). I’m not sure, but it’s pretty creepy.
Wow, that’s a lot of words that can only be summed up by saying that I’m completely hooked on the show. If you’ve read this far you’re either a fan of the show or have some weird obsession with everything I write. Either way, I can’t wait for Netflix to ship out season 2.5 disc 1 so I can get right back into it and find out what happens with the massive Galactica/Pegasus standoff.
So am I crazy or is this a pretty good show?
4/25/09
Ashley
After studying Adama’s logs, well, before I get to that two things: 1) what’s the deal with not having corners on anything? Is it a massive love of the octagon or in the future are we without corners?
The corner thing is kind of an inside joke on the part of the producers, like “cutting corners.” Get it? They did it for the mini-series and then when the show got picked up, they had to continue, and I think I read somewhere that it became kind of an annoying little joke for them. Also, who says this is in the future? I’m just saying.
to Ashley
4/25/09
Justin
I thought about that while I was typing. It’d be interesting if/when they find Earth that there’s cavemen or something running around. But I just assume it’s the future because there’s space travel involved. Makes sense in my head.
to Justin