Miniseries, Night 2

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For part 1 of this story, see Miniseries, Night 1
Galactica, the last battlestar, is determined to join the fight against the Cylons that attacked the Twelve Colonies. But the faces of the Cylons are changing, and the odds are against the last battlestar's survival.


Miniseries, Night 2
"Miniseries, Night 2"
An episode of the Re-imagined Series
Special Episode
Writer(s) Ronald D. Moore
Christopher Eric James
Story by Glen A. Larson
Director Michael Rymer
Assistant Director
Special guest(s) (Noted later in article)
Production No.
Nielsen Rating 3.8
US airdate USA 2003-12-09
CAN airdate CAN {{{CAN airdate}}}
UK airdate UK 2004-02-17
DVD release 28 December 2004 US
1 March 2004 UK
Population survivors
Additional Info Pilot
Episode Chronology
Previous Next
Miniseries, Night 1 Miniseries, Night 2 33
Related Information
Continuity Errors Present – View
[[IMDB:tt{{{imdb}}}|IMDb entry]]
Listing of props for this episode
Related Media
@ BW Media
Promotional Materials
Online Purchasing
Amazon: Standard Definition | High Definition
iTunes: [{{{itunes}}} USA]


Summary[edit]

Act 1[edit]

  • The second and final night of the miniseries shows a stunned Laura Roslin and pilots awakening aboard Colonial One. The Cylon missile attack obviously failed. Roslin and the crew find Lee Adama collapsed on the floor of the cargo bar, next to the electric pulse generators that once belonged to Galactica.
  • Adama explains that he caused a EM burst that disabled the missiles as well as emitting enough energy to convince the Cylons that the missiles detonated. Happy to be alive, Roslin directs the immediate evacuation of passengers from the disabled civilian ships they encountered before the attack and leaving before the Cylon realize the deception.
  • Commander William Adama, unaware that his son is alive, orders his battlestar, Galactica, to jump to Ragnar. The jump is successful, and Galactica enters the tenuous upper atmosphere of the gas giant, where Ragnar Anchorage awaited with needed supplies and munitions.
  • Boomer's Raptor is found by 798. She lands inside the ship's cargo bay and offloads her survivors, including Baltar.
  • President Roslin's caravan of stranded ships includes a mixture of sublight and FTL-capable ships. "Boomer" Valerii finds a needed tylium fueling ship just as a Cylon Raider scout discovers the caravan and disappears.
  • Captain Adama recommends immediate escape for all FTL ships to Ragnar Anchorage. When Aaron Doral objects to this course of action, Adama reminds everyone that the war has changed to the survival of the human race. To take time to evacuate the sublight ships could leave the entire caravan open to nuclear destruction. To leave now would ensure that many more people would survive.
  • Roslin orders the jump. The sublight ships left behind, including a Botanical Cruiser, are destroyed by Cylon nuclear missiles.

Act 2[edit]

  • Inside the station, Chief Tyrol discovers an unauthorized occupant. After calming him down and disarming him, Commander Adama visits the station while supplies and weapons are gathered up. The hideaway, Leoben Conoy, admits to being an arms dealer, and is apparently unaware of the events that have transpired in the Twelve Colonies.
  • A munitions shell accidentally falls and detonates in the station. Commander Adama saves himself and Conoy from the blast but are trapped inside a corridor. Adama orders his crew to continue offloading the supplies while he and Conoy seek an alternate way back to the supply area.
  • Roslin's caravan arrives at Ragnar Anchorage, to the surprise of Colonel Saul Tigh. On board Galactica, Roslin orders Tigh to help the stranded colonists, but he refuses the order. Lee Adama requests a disaster pod to help the colonists. Tigh relents, knowing how happy his father will be that his son has survived. Captain Adama is assigned the role of CAG by Tigh.
  • Deep in the station's bowels, Conoy speaks to Commander Adama, talking philosophically of mankind, its flaws, and questions if humanity deserved to survive. Conoy now appears in some kind of physical distress, which he dismisses to Commander Adama as "allergies."
  • Gaius Baltar, now aboard Galactica, is tasked with finding any ships that are using the tainted CNP he created. Galactica received the CNP, according to Tactical Officer Gaeta, however, as the CNP required a network (which Galactica does not have), the program was never installed in any system on the battlestar. Baltar continues to be haunted by a virtual image of Number Six that only he can see and hear.

Act 3[edit]

  • The virtual Six points out a curious device below the DRADIS console, and suggests that there are Cylon agents lurking on Galactica. Baltar soon uses Aaron Doral as a scapegoat, accusing him of being a Cylon and having him arrested. He makes up questionably authentic reasons of Doral's guilt as Colonel Tigh orders the Cylon device on the DRADIS console removed and studied.
  • Later, Conoy has some sort of painful attack from his "allergies." Commander Adama realizes that Leoben Conoy is some sort of new Cylon that looks like a human, but still relies on silica pathways and other Cylon technologies that, as the Colonial Fleet discovered, would be disrupted by the EM radiation emitted by Ragnar's cloud.
  • Conoy appears to collapse from the radiation, then attacks Adama, throwing him about the dank, dark room filled with pipes and valves. Adama recovers long enough to fight Conoy off, eventually bludgeoning the Cylon to death with a flashlight that Adama carried.
  • Commander Adama returns to Galactica with the Cylon's body. While he ponders that problem, Tigh gives him the good news about his son, but also of Aaron Doral.
  • As she prepped for flight, Kara Thrace admits to Lee Adama that her fiancee, Zak Adama, failed basic flight, but as his flight instructor, she passed him anyway. Adama is stunned, realizing that his father didn't pressure his brother as much as he believed.
  • Starbuck's reconnaissance mission to the edge of Ragnar's EM cloud reveals danger. She spots at least two basestars, hundreds of Raiders and a handful of other support ships. The Cylons choose not to enter the cloud, preferring to wait out the Colonials trapped inside.

Act 4[edit]

  • Commander Adama meets with the new President. She tries to convince Adama that she and the ships of her caravan are all that is left of humanity, and that taking one battlestar off to fight against such odds is suicide. Adama initially ignores her advice: "We need to get out of here and we need to start having babies."
  • Not wanting to take chances with their captive, Tigh leaves Aaron Doral marooned with basic rations inside Ragnar Anchorage.
  • As Commander Adama, Captain Adama, Gaeta, and Tigh discuss their offensive options, Commander Adama sees Billy Keikeya and his communications officer, Dualla, talking ostensibly about anything except business. Adama remembers (out loud) President Roslin's last words to him: "We'd better start having babies."
  • Adama changes his mind, realizing that a counterattack is hopeless, and that all that left of humanity may be in his hands. He decides that Galactica will take the civilians with her, towards the Prolmar Sector, leaving the solar system of the decimated Colonies, never to return.
  • Lee Adama concurs, but the commander has to determine a way to save everyone from a direct Cylon attack. He chooses to bring the now-fully armed Galactica just outside the cloud boundary and provide a shielding cover fire while the civilian ships jump to safety behind the battlestar.
  • The Battle of Ragnar Anchorage begins. The Fleet escapes, while Galactica desperately retrieves its Vipers (scrambled to aid in point defense) as quickly as possible. Apollo's Viper is struck, but Starbuck continues racking up Cylon kills while defending Apollo.
  • Apollo's Viper loses all power. Commander Adama uses his personal greeting with Starbuck to break her fighting trance and order her to the battlestar. However, she refuses to leave Apollo despite his orders to do so. She creatively rams the noses of the Vipers, wedging them together and flies both into the flight pod of the battlestar just before they close completely in preparation for the jump. Galactica escapes the last incoming Cylons.
  • During the service for the dead, Commander Adama addresses the assembly of his crew. He tells the crew that he knows the location of the thirteenth colony and their home, Earth. The crew's hopes are revived.
  • Privately, Roslin (knowing that President Adar did not know Earth's location, or believed it existed) asks Adama why she told the crew a lie. Adama admitted that it was not enough for his crew to live, but gave the notion of Earth as something to live for. The two agree to share leadership responsibilities; Adama is to handle all military matters, and Roslin will manage civilian and government duties for the new spacefaring civilization.
  • After Commander Adama retires for the night, he finds a note typed in his room with the message, "There are only 12 Cylon models."
  • Later, inside Ragnar Anchorage, several copies of Number Six, Leoben Conoy and Aaron Doral rescue the Galactica-based Doral. Baltar's guess was correct: Doral was indeed a Cylon. The group discuss their current strategy and agree to chase the Fleet down.
  • One final Cylon arrives, who looks exactly like Galactica's Sharon Valerii.

Questions[edit]

Analysis[edit]

Main article: Miniseries, Analysis
See the series article, Battlestar Galactica (RDM), for analysis of the miniseries and the central differences between the Re-imagined miniseries and the Original Series.

Notes[edit]

  • Adama's speech at the end of this night was one of the first sequences shot, at Edward James Olmos's request.[1]
  • An edited, three-hour version of the miniseries was aired on NBC on 8 January 2005, prior to the airing of Season 1 in the United States on the SciFi Channel.[1]

Noteworthy Dialogue[edit]

  • Adama's speech at the funeral services on Galactica:
Adama: Are they the lucky ones? That's what you're thinking, isn't it? We're a long way from home. We've jumped way beyond the red line, into uncharted space. Limited supplies, limited fuel. No allies, and now, no hope? Maybe it would have been better for us to have died quickly, back on the Colonies with our families, instead of dying out here slowly, in the emptiness of dark space. Where shall we go? What shall we do? Life here began out there. Those are the first words of the sacred scrolls, and they were told to us by the Lords of Kobol, many countless centuries ago. And they made it perfectly clear that we are not alone in this universe. Elosha, there's a thirteenth colony of humankind, is there not?
Elosha: Yes. The scrolls tell us a Thirteenth Tribe left Kobol in the early days. They traveled far and made their home upon a planet called Earth, which circled a distant and unknown star.
Adama: It's not unknown. I know where it is! Earth. The most guarded secret we have. The location was only known by the senior commanders of the fleet, and we dare not share it with the public. Not while there was a Cylon threat upon us. For now we have a refuge to go to. A refuge the Cylons know nothing about. It won't be an easy journey. It'll be long, and arduous. But I promise you one thing: on the memory of those lying here before you, we shall find it, and Earth shall become our new home. So say we all!
Sharon Valerii: Don't worry. We'll find them.
Number Six: By your command.

Official Statements[edit]

We didn't want to do a big action scene. We wanted to do a brutal, ugly Martin-Scorsese-circa-1970s murder. The network actually wanted a bigger fight scene originally. Neither Michael, Eddie nor I wanted to do that, because we didn't think it was about htat. So we shot a few additional hits and misses and the steam pipe breaking, and they allowed us to keep everything else the way it was. I think it turned out great.[2]
I shouldn’t keep admitting this, but I didn’t know. In my defense, it’s because I originally went out for Starbuck, and I didn’t really understand the weight of ‘By your command,’ which was said at the very end of the mini-series, which outed Sharon. When I read it again I did a double-take and I went to Ron Moore and said, ‘Why did you switch this?! Is it something about me that made you think you could do this?’ and he said, ‘No, it was always like this.’[3]

Cast[edit]

Starring[edit]

Guest Stars[edit]

Related Topics[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Bassom, David (2005). ed. Adam "Adama" Newell Battlestar Galactica: The Official Companion. Titan Books. ISBN 1-84576-0972, p. 36.
  2. ↑ Bassom, David (2005). ed. Adam "Adama" Newell Battlestar Galactica: The Official Companion. Titan Books. ISBN 1-84576-0972, p. 35.
  3. ↑ Faraci, Devin (22 March 2007). CHUD.com: EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: GRACE PARK (BATTLESTAR GALACTICA) (backup available on Archive.org) (in ). Retrieved on 23 March 2007.

External Links[edit]

Re-imagined Series Episode List — Miniseries and Season 1


Battlestar Galactica (Re-Imagined) Miniseries (2003): Miniseries, Night 1 | Miniseries, Night 2

Battlestar Galactica (Re-Imagined) Season 1 (2004-2005) Episode List

33 | Water | Bastille Day | Act of Contrition | You Can't Go Home Again | Litmus | Six Degrees of Separation | Flesh and Bone | Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down | The Hand of God | Colonial Day | Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part I | Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part II | Next Season Episode >

Re-imagined Series definition: the process of using the FTL engines to make an near-instantaneous apparent faster-than-light transport of a ship from one point in space to another

Re-imagined Series definition: technology enabling travel across distances faster than the speed of light would permit, see: FTL

Re-imagined Series definition: operating system on military and civilian ships exploited by the Cylons (TRS: "Miniseries, Night 1")

Re-imagined Series definition: "Direction, Range, and Distance", Colonial equivalent of radar or lidar

Re-imagined Series definition: initial skills training; can refer to basic military indoctrination, and arms and ground training (TRS: "Fragged"); and basic flight training (TRS: "Miniseries")

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