Flight of the Phoenix

Overview

Galactica is besieged, first internally by Cylon computer viruses, then externally by a large imminent Cylon attack force. Faced with a Viper shortage, Tyrol tackles the difficult task of building them from scratch. Meanwhile, Helo is dealing with the repercussions of his relationship with Sharon Valerii, a known Humano-Cylon.

Summary

• Laura Roslin's illness has reached a critical level. While she is still well enough to walk, Dr. Cottle gives her approximately one month to live.
• Helo has become persona non grata to many of the crew who distrust him due to his romance with the Caprica copy of Humano-Cylon Sharon Valerii.
• Many of the crew, even the generally level-headed and reliable Lieutenant Gaeta, are showing the strain of the apparent futility and fatigue of running from the Cylons.
• Chief Tyrol, with also little else to do with scrapped Vipers, begins a project to craft a new fighter. Initially many crew are very skeptical, but soon many others help Tyrol.
• Helo suggests carbon composite material for the skin in lieu of the rare plate metal for the fighter. Like the American F/A-22 Raptor Air-Dominance Fighter, Tyrol's new ship is nearly invisible to DRADIS.
• A Cylon Logic bomb has attacked ship's systems and will fully control Galactica once an expected Cylon force arrives to activate it by infiltration. Gaeta and Baltar work together to figure a way to rid the ship of it by erasing the hard drives of all computers. Doing this, however, would leave the ship a sitting duck for an attack while time is needed to restore function and data to the computers.
• Adama, after asking the advice of the President, allows the Caprica Valerii to connect herself to the ship's mainframe and communication systems while Gaeta and Baltar erase the hard drives of all computers.
• A Cylon fighter armada consisting of hundreds of Raiders and Heavy Raiders attempts to activate the bomb. However, Valerii responds by transmitting a version of the same bomb to the Cylon fleet, disabling it as the Cylons did the Colonial fleet during the Fall of the Twelve Colonies. The Viper squadrons annihilate the helpless Cylon fleet in a joyous moment of payback.
• Kara Thrace takes the new fighter, dubbed the Blackbird, for a initially ungainly test spin. This fighter was designed for speed, and delivers it. Wingman Lee Adama is horrified when the Blackbird disappears, but Kara rises above to face his ship quietly, proving the new fighter's stealth ability.
• In a ceremony similar to the one given to Commander Adama in the Mini-Series, President Roslin inspects and christens the new fighter. Many sign the ship. Tyrol reveals the name of this first fighter: Laura.
• The mere work on the new fighter renewed the creativity and hope of the crew--a reason why Adama allowed its construction to continue, despite the logic bomb crisis.

Questions

• This episode was rare in that Baltar's Number Six was completely absent in this episode, despite the Cylon-rich plot. What would she had to say about Valerii's aid or the logic bomb?
• Just how secret is Caprica-Boomer's presence on the Galactica? Even before she was brought to the CIC, much of the crew seems to have known about her: Chief Tyrol met her on Kobol, and Racetrack probably flew them back in her Raptor, but the other pilots like Hotdog also all seem to know about her (hence they are acting cold to Helo). Now, she has been taken to the CIC where the entire crew there saw her (Gaeta, Dualla, etc.) Yet in the last episode Commander Adama angrily ordered D'anna Biers not to reveal her existence because it could divide the Fleet.
• Is Dualla attracted to Apollo (or vice versa)? Duala seemed to "check out" Apollo's "backside" in "Resistance", and now she's in close physical contact with him. And Apollo has what almost might be called a jealous look when Billy shows up. Yet in "Home, Part I" Lee let it slip in conversation that he "loves" Starbuck (he didn't necessarily say it in more than platonic/fraternal way though).
  • Could Billy really stand a chance against Apollo if Apollo decided to beat him up?
• Helo got angry at Chief Tyrol for calling Boomer a Toaster; is this a sign that Helo is thinking more sympathetically towards the Cylons than before? Like the Cylons, does he consider it an "offensive racial epithet"?
• Is order on the Galactica starting to break down? In the Mini-series Starbuck was put in the brig for striking a superior officer. Now, Starbuck assaulted Racetrack but there were was no visible punishment, and Tyrol got into a fight with Helo (who outranks him), also with no shown punishment. The deck crews aren't bothering to hide the still they built as much as before, going to far as to have a large "Welcome Back Cally" party with its products in public. Col. Tigh makes a halfhearted verbal chastisment of Tyrol when Tigh finds the still, but doesn't do anything about it and ends up taking a jar of booze for his own use. Also, even Lt. Gaeta is now snapping back at the command officers, shouting and even cursing.

Analysis

• While Humano-Cylons appear human to the cellular level, Sharon could control a fiber-optic connection inserted into her forearm. This suggests that the humanoid Cylon design uses light-sensitive cells disguised as regular cells in their forearms as data access nodes, probably involving the cells interacting with her Silica Relays in her brain, the last vestiges of the humanoid Cylons' mechanical nature. Based on Valerii's extreme discomfort in having to cut herself to insert the data line to be connected this way, it could be presumed that this is not a typical practice for Humano-Cylons.
• Continuing from "Resistance", Dualla is shown being attracted to Apollo.
• Tyrol's comment to Lee Adama on the lack of miracles, and his answer to the problem, may remind some of another great miracle worker in science fiction.
• Despite Valerii's belief that she has become a "liability" to the Cylons, the previous episode made it clear that they considered the survival of her baby a paramount concern. The virus, installed before her arrival, was probably oblivious to this, but the massive fleet the Cylons deployed to interdict Galactica could not have been. Additionally, an earnest attack would almost certainly have included a basestar. We must therefore assume that the Cylons had a more complicated motive in making such a massive material sacrifice.
  • Perhaps they hoped to furnish Valerii with an opportunity to demonstrate her loyalty and strategic value to the fleet, thus enabling her to ensure her future safety.
  • Alternatively, perhaps the fleet was sent to remove the logic bomb from Galactica, now that it was putting Valerii in harm's way.
  • Sharon could have just been "assuming" that she was a liabilty, and simply be wrong. The virus itself was introduced into the ship in "Scattered" and that was before Caprica-Boomer arrived on the Galactica. In "Final Cut" it was established that by that episode the Cylons were surprised that Sharon was still alive (they didn't know): perhaps they didn't know she was on Galactica up to that point. However, that was last episode: the Cylons knew Sharon was on Galactica when this episode's attack was launched. The virus appears to have just been acting out its function since "Scattered" (ignorant the its actions would destroy Sharon), however this doesn't clearly explain why the massive Raider attack was launched.
• Our heroes passed up a major opportunity by destroying the Cylon fleet. Adama revoked Roslin's presidency on the basis of the misappropriation of a SINGLE captured cylon Raider, yet they eliminated dozens of crippled-but-serviceable assets in the name of retribution. After all that work to create a single viper, wouldn't a squadron of superior Raidrers be worth maintaining in the unused starboard pylon?
  • The Raider in "You Can't Go Home Again" was brain dead from a lucky shot. The Raiders here were turned off by a virus, but it may have been too difficult to remove all of their control mechanisms. Further, the Galactica had not idea how long it would be until Cylon reinforcements showed up; they probably didn't want to wait for a Basestar to come. Further, the civillian Fleet had jumped away from the Galactica in anticipation of the attack, and the Galactica probably didn't want to leave them unattended to long. There wasn't enough time and it was too dangerous.

Notes

• Population count is 47,853. This is the first time this season that there has been no net change in the count from the previous episode (Final Cut).
• Literary/Film Reference: Flight of the Phoenix is the title of a 1964 novel where survivors from a plane crash in the middle of a desert attempt to rebuild the plane from the wreckage. Two movies, one made in 1965 and the other in 2004, were also made following a similar story line inspired by the book.
• The phoenix is a character from Egypt mythology where, at the end of its lifespan, the bird turns to ash -- only to have another phoenix arise.
• The name of new fighter, Blackbird, is also shared with the worlds's fastest supersonic aircraft, the American SR-71, which also has some stealth ability (though the Aurora is supposedly faster).
• Helo now wears a Viper patch on his flightsuit. He wasn't visibly identified as piloting one of the Vipers deployed against the Cylons, but indeed may have been.
• There is a wide shot when apparently all of Galactica's Vipers are deployed where it's possible to count how many they have: there are 42 Vipers visible onscreen. Oddly, the current count says that there should be no more than 34, and even with Joe Palladino on parole after Final Cut and Helo in a Viper, Galactica shouldn't be able to muster more than 25 pilots.
  • There are at least 7 Viper Mk. VII's visible in this shot. This agrees well with Scattered.
• The first episode without an appearance by Number Six.
• At the end when Chief Tyrol reconciles with Cally (no longer upset with her for killing Galactica-Boomer), she reaches into a Viper and fixes something he couldn't reach, and he responds "Nice to be small, huh?". This is remeniscent of the scene at the end of the Mini-series, when they have almost the exact same exchange. In that scene, they were reconciling after Cally got angry that Tyrol was having a relationship with Galactica-Boomer.
• President Roslin returns the book "Dark Day" to Commander Adama, which he gave to her back in the second episode, "Water".
• Chief Tyrol and Galactica-Boomer were planning to leave the military together and get married before the Cylon attack. Galen doesn't know now if this is what she really wanted, or if it was just another Cylon manipulation.

Noteworthy Dialogue

• Apollo: Nobody's expecting a miracle.

Tyrol: Maybe that's the problem.

• Discussing Helo's return to the Galactica:

Duck: So he's the cylon lover.

Starbuck: You know what? I don't care who or what he fraks. He saved my ass down there, all right?

Duck:How could anyone fall in love with a toaster, though?

Starbuck: Same way I hear everyone was high-fiving our Sharon right before she put two in Adama's chest. The bastards frak with your head.

Hotdog: Yeah. Just ask the chief.

• Card game in the Viper pilot's lockeroom:

Racetrack: Been playing with these cards for so long, I know every fold.

Starbuck: So life's a bitch. What do you want to do, cry about it?

Racetrack: No, I just want it to end, okay? The bad food, the endless rotations, pretending that a card game is the high point of our day.

Starbuck: It's not going to last forever, all right? Earth is out there.

Racetrack: Right. We could all be chasing our tails over some half-assed planetarium show.

Starbuck: And you guys can all go to hell. I'm going to go find Helo.

Racetrack: Good idea. Maybe that Cylon whore taught him a few tricks.

(Starbuck politely turns around, walks over to Racetrack and grabs he by the neck and slams her head into the card table).

• Helo is sitting in Sharon's old Raptor when the Chief walks up:

Helo: Hey! Look, chief. I never intended for Sharon and I to-- You know, it just kind of evolved.

Tyrol: Just a couple lovesick kids, huh?

Helo: I know how she felt about you, okay? She loves you.

Tyrol: Did she fill you in o­n the rest of the plan? She and I were going to muster out at the end of our service. You know, then we would get married. Maybe we would have children. I guess I'm just a big frakkin' idiot, though, huh? Probably that goddamn Toaster's plan all along.

Helo: Don't call her that.

Tyrol: Sucker some moron into giving her a kid. Hey, you know, but you know what? I should probably be grateful to you. Probably be grateful. You know why? Because that freak in her belly could have been mine! (Helo and Tyrol fight)

• Lt. Gaeta is starting to lose him composure under constant pressure:

Gaeta: Sir, I'm running every diagnostic we've got. Checking each line of code could take days.

Tigh: I am not interested in excuses. Fix it!

Gaeta: (shouting) It's not an excuse, sir. It's a frakking fact!

• Commander Adama: Months o­n the run, and what do we have to show for it? Casualties. Deteriorating conditions. This crew needs a rest. It's finally hitting them, that's all. Our old lives are gone. The o­nly thing we have to look forward to is this

• Tigh walks into the tool closet on the hanger deck

Tigh: What's this, chief?

Tyrol: I'm making solvent, sir, to clean machine parts.

Tigh: Solvent my ass. I know a still when I smell it.

• Starbuck is taking the Blackbird on it's first test flight while Apollo follows:

Apollo: Starbuck, Starbuck, where are you? Starbuck, come in. Starbuck, do you read? Kara, are you okay?

Starbuck: (Starbuck turns the lights of the Blackbird on; she's actually got her ship feet away from Apollo's, facing it) Of course you lost contact. It's a damned stealth ship, remember?

• Roslin: Oh, you're much too modest. After what we've been through, it would be very easy to give up, to lose hope. But not here. Not today. This is more than a ship, Chief. This is an act of faith. It is proof that despite all we've lost, we keep trying. And we will get through this, all of us, together. I promise.

Statistics

Writing & Direction

• Written by
• Directed by

Production Notes

• Series: 2 (2005 / 2006)
• Production Number: 2.??
• Airdate Order: 9 (of 20)

First Run Air Dates & Releases

• UK Airdate:
• US Airdate: September 16th, 2005
• DVD Release: (UK)

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