Season 2 (2005-06)

Season Two A season of the Re-imagined Series
Discuss this season at the Battlestar Forum
Number of Episodes	20 (list)
Executive Producer(s)	Ronald D. Moore David Eick
US airdates	2005-07-15 — 2006-04-10
CAN airdates	2006-01-14 — 2006-05-27
UK airdates	2006-01-10 — 2006-05-16
DVD release	USA 2005-12-20 (Season 2.0)  USA 2006-09-19 (Season 2.5)  UK 2006-08-28  AUS 2006-08-15
Starting Population	47,887 survivors
Ending Population	49,550 survivors ( 1,663)
Extended Info
Season Chronology
Previous		Next
Season 1 (2004-05)	Season 2 (2005-06)	Season 3 (2006-07)
Related Information
Official Summaries
R&D Skits – View
Podcasts - Transcripts - Audio
IMDb entry
Promotional Material
The Resistance
Online Purchasing
Available at Amazon.com's Unbox – [ Purchase]

Summary

Following the discovery of Kobol, the arrest of Laura Roslin, and the attempted assassination of William Adama, the Fleet finds itself thrust into more peril, but, with the discovery of Pegasus and New Caprica, also hope. Yet, all prospects of a better future are squashed sooner or later.

Pivotal Plot Points

• Colonel Tigh commands the Fleet while Adama is incapacitated, instituting martial law.
• After the "Gideon massacre", the Fleet divides into two factions: one which supports Adama, and one which supports Roslin and Zarek.
• Kara Thrace and Karl Agathon discover a Colonial resistance movement on Caprica.
• The Cylons have been rounding up human females in order to artificially inseminate them with hybrid ovum, creating breeding farms over Caprica. Their attempts have been unsuccessful.
• An expedition to Kobol finds instructions that may lead the Fleet to Earth inside the Tomb of Athena.
• Starbuck and Helo return to the Galactica from Caprica; Helo becomes ostracized due to his relationship with Sharon Valerii, who is pregnant with the first successful Human-Cylon hybrid child.
• Galactica's copy of Sharon Valerii is killed by Cally Henderson.
• Roslin and the Quorum of Twelve are re-instituted.
• Three additional Humanoid Cylons are revealed: Simon, D'anna Biers, and Cavil.
• Chief Galen Tyrol and his team build a prototype stealth fighter craft, the Blackbird.
• The Fleet encounters another battlestar that survived the attack, the Pegasus, which is commanded by Admiral Helena Cain.
• William Adama becomes an admiral and Pegasus joins the Fleet.
• The Colonials find a large Cylon fleet guarding a massive Resurrection Ship, which is responsible for boosting the consciousness-transmission range of Humanoid Cylons when their bodies are destroyed.
• Galactica and Pegasus engage in a massive battle with the Cylons and destroy the Resurrection Ship. This is a major blow to the Cylons and alters their entire strategy towards destroying the Rag Tag Fleet. As RDM stated in an interview with the Chicago Tribune on January 4th, 2006, "The destruction of the Resurrection Ship impacts the way the Cylons deal with Galactica and the Colonial fleet the rest of the season. It alters their tactics. They stop trying to make full-blown, all-out assaults on the Fleet, they retreat and go into a hit-and-run mode while they figure out a way to replicate the ship."
• Pegasus goes through three commanders in a row, one shot by a Cylon, one killed by black marketers and another during battle with three Cylon basestars in a trap. Lee Adama is promoted to Commander and given command of Pegasus.
• Various resistance movements arise in the Fleet, including one led by a Cylon (Gina). Baltar gives Gina a stripped down nuclear bomb.
• Hera, the daughter of the Caprica Sharon and Helo, is born prematurely and hidden with a foster mother in the fleet.
• Starbuck leads a rescue mission to Caprica to rescue survivors.
• A marginally habitable planet is discovered in a nebula, providing Baltar with a campaign issue in his run for President.
• Gina, on Cloud Nine, explodes the nuclear device given to her by Baltar. The nuclear blast destroys several ships and kills thousands of people.
• The Colonial election is completed, with Baltar being named the new President of the Colonies. The planet, New Caprica, is colonized while the remaining ships comprise the defense fleet for New Caprica.
• The Cylons locate New Caprica a year later, having detected the radiation from the nuclear warhead detonated on Cloud Nine. They invade the planet and Baltar has no choice but to surrender, while the remnants of the Fleet leaves orbit.

Cast

Stars

• Edward James Olmos as William Adama
• Mary McDonnell as Laura Roslin
• Katee Sackhoff as Kara "Starbuck" Thrace
• Jamie Bamber as Lee "Apollo" Adama
• James Callis as Gaius Baltar
• Tricia Helfer as Number Six
• Grace Park as Sharon "Boomer" Valerii

Co-stars

• Michael Hogan as Saul Tigh
• Aaron Douglas as Galen Tyrol
• Tahmoh Penikett as Karl "Helo" Agathon
• Kandyse McClure as Anastasia Dualla
• Richard Hatch as Tom Zarek
• Paul Campbell as Billy Keikeya
• Alessandro Juliani as Felix Gaeta
• Samuel Witwer as Crashdown
• Leah Cairns as Margaret "Racetrack" Edmondson
• Nicki Clyne as Cally
• Dominic Zamprogna as Jammer
• Luciana Carro as Louanne "Kat" Katraine
• Kate Vernon as Ellen Tigh
• Bodie Olmos as Brendan "Hotdog" Costanza

Production Crew

Producers

• Ronald D. Moore - Developer / Executive Producer / Writer
• David Eick - Executive Producer
• Toni Graphia - Co-Executive Producer / Writer
• Harvey Frand - Producer
• Glen A. Larson - Consulting Producer

Directors & Writing Staff

To view the list of all the directors and staff, go to the Battlestar Galactica Crew Guide page.

Episodes

To view the list of episodes, go to the Battlestar Galactica Episode Guide page for Season 2.

Official Statements

• "Please do something about the consumables questions; fuel, food, ammo, clothing etc., where is this stuff coming from?"

Water is addressed in... uh, "Water." Fuel is addressed in "Hand of God". Other consumables will be addressed in the second season. --

From RDM's Sci-Fi Channel Blog

• Regarding Second Season Renewal

So it's official: we're doing a second season.

To say that this is happy news is to indulge in a display of understatement. The road to television success is a long one, littered with various hurdles, all of which must be vaulted: the studio pitch session, the network pitch, the story outline, the first draft script, the second draft script, the green-light to produce the pilot, casting the pilot, making the pilot, ordering the series, producing the series, getting the reviews, getting an audience, and then.... getting a second season. We've managed to clear that hurdle and it feels frakking good.

We've been working on the first six episodes for a couple of months now and we're gearing up to prep them for filming, probably in late March. Season Two will be heavily influenced by the end of Season One, so it's hard to get into anything remotely specific until the last episode has aired in the US. I could say... well... er... not much. --

From RDM's Sci-Fi Channel Blog

• "Will we ever get any more of the back story to the Cylon Wars?, ie What started them and how did the Colonists (sic) drive them away."

We will see more of this backstory as the series unfolds. Some of the inter-war period will be explored in the first few episodes of Season 2. Other tales of the first Cylon Wars will be filled in eventually. --

From RDM's Sci-Fi Channel Blog

• "Will we see any of the original cast apart from Richard Hatch. "

It's possible, but not yet on the board. --

From RDM's Sci-Fi Channel Blog

• "Please show more of the blue collar guys keeping everything in check on the other ships. Guys that would have clocked out and gone home had the holocaust not happened. Not really a question sorry."

We have plans for this in the second season. Cally, for instance, never planned to stay in the service and her enlistment was nearly up at the time of the attack. --

From RDM's Sci-Fi Channel Blog

• "Will there be any development between characters on what distinguishes a Sagittaran from Caprican, Virgon, or any of the 12 Colonies? Did they develop separately their own cultures and even different religions on their worlds? I'm glad the element of different worlds or nationalities was kept in the show."

This is an area we didn't get a chance to get very far with in the first season, and I'm hoping we explore more fully in the second. I think that some of the Colonies have developed very different cultures and attitudes from one another and that it's rich ground for us. We alluded to some differences here and there, but mostly we talked about the "Federal" (for lack of a better word) governmental structures. We do know that there was a sizable opposition to the Colonial government. Leoben claimed to be an arms dealer supplying freedom fighters or terrorists, depending on your point of view, and Tom Zarek was the jailed leader of a sometimes violent opposition, so it stands to reason that there are a wide variety of views, some of which come into violent conflict with one another. It's also worth bearing in mind that one of the uses for which the Cylons were originally used by the Colonies was as soldiers in their wars against one another. --

From RDM's Sci-Fi Channel Blog

• "Granted that a season two at this point is just ink on paper punctuated by a big question mark, but I have a “practical” question to ask. Should the series move forward, to what extent would you want to explore the practical issues of life in the fleet–you’ve touched on the basics of food, fuel and water, but how about problems such as finding enough doctors to treat the population, providing life support on ships not originally intended as passenger vessels and dealing with the inevitable fiefdoms arising on these mix and match metal life rafts? "

I would very much like to continue exploring these issues in the second year and beyond. I'm intrigued by playing the situation as realistically as dramatically possible and I think these sorts of questions are wonderful material for the show. --

From RDM's Sci-Fi Channel Blog

• Jamie Bamber discusses the results of Lee Adama's actions in "Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part II":'

I think I've read four scripts out of the 20, so I don't know that much. But the Galactica still needs him despite themselves. He's a prisoner because of what he's done, but he's still needed because when situations arise he's still one of the best pilots. There aren't that many pilots full stop.

He's used to command, he's used to following orders. So when the Cylons are pressing [see: Valley of Darkness] he has to come out of the brig. But he has to give his word, his parole, that when he's off-duty he'll return to his prison. He's in a strange limbo of finding himself being given authority but having none, it's a strange situation he finds himself in.

• Michael Hogan discusses Colonel Tigh's actions during the first half of season two:

I guess the only defense Col. Tigh could give to his detractors is that he genuinely never asked for the job in the first place. If he aspired to be commander, if that is what he signed up for, trained for, wanted to do, then as soon as Adama was shot he would have taken control. If he would have barked out commands immediately, people would have jumped and asked questions later if necessary. But when Adama was shot it had to be pointed out to him that he was in command. He had to be asked for orders. He was in shock. He did the best he could.

This Battlestar Galactica was supposed to be decommissioned, a museum ship. If he made any bad decisions, it wasn't with malice aforethought. The fleet needed supplies, so he sent in the marines; government isn't working, martial law. The first words out of Tigh's mouth when Adama stumbles into his quaters are "I frakked up but good." No false bravado there.

• Jamie Bamber on his character's journey, starting after "Resurrection Ship, Part II":

He questions the validity of life and this ridiculous flee from the Cylons when you can't walk on a planet and you're just on a tin can in space. And then he examines all the relationships he's had in his past. He ends up falling into bed with three or four different women. It's a guy tyring to find who he is in other people, and that process doesn't really work unless you're prepared to look inside yourself. He kind of unravels, but through the unraveling on a personal level he actually grows on a professional level, and he finds himself with more responsibility rather than less.

Related Topics

• List of Season 2 Guest Actors (RDM)
• List of Recurring Character Appearances (RDM)