Bastille Day

"Bastille Day" (credit: Sci-Fi Channel)

Overview

Continuing from the events of Water, the Battlestar Galactica and the fleet face a chronic water shortage. Their only recourse: persuade 1,500 prisoners on the transport vessel Astral Queen to help them mine ice from a nearby moon.

Summary

• The Galactica's water fleet-critical supplies have been sabotaged (Water)
• A source of water has been located on a nearby moon - but it is in the form of ice, and must be mined, which will require a crew of around 1,000
• As that number cannot be spared from Galactica's crew, and it is unlikely civilians will volunteer, it is determined to try and enlist the help of the prisoners on the Astral Queen
• Roslin won’t have the prisoners forced into the work, so Lee Adama suggests the prisoners who volunteer could be awarded points to go towards their freedom
• This idea does not go down well with Adama, who is already at odds with his son over his new position as "special advisor" to the president (Water)
• However, Roslin decides to send a delegation lead by Lee Adama to the Astral Queen to put the idea to the prisoners. To address Adama's fears that they might inadvertently release dangerous prisoners into the fleet's community, Billy Keikeya is selected to go as well and screen the prisoners prior to selection
• As a further snub to his son, Adama insists military personnel also go – one to assist in the screening, who will report directly to him – and one to ensure the selected prisoners can handle the equipment that will be used to extract the ice
• Anastasia Dualla is "volunteered" by Billy for the first role, Cally is eventually selected for the second
• Arriving on the Astral Queen, Lee puts the situation to the prisoners, and outlines the deal: help us and earn points towards your freedom
• No-one volunteers. Instead, the nominated leader of the prisoners politely refuses the offer. Billy Keikeya recognises him as Tom Zarek, a political agitator from Sagittaron
• While Dualla and Billy argue the merits of Zarek as a "prisoner of conscience" or terrorist – Billy almost idolising him, Lee meets with Zarek to try and persuade him to help the fleet
• On the Galactica, Adama meets with Baltar, who is still equivocating over his Cylon detector. When Adama pushes Baltar into a corner, the doctor tries to admit he can’t actually build the detector
• This releases a torrent of anger from Baltar’s Six, which terrifies him into submission. She then instructs him on what to ask for in order to make the detector: a nuclear warhead
• When Six only reveals a part of how this can be used to make the detector, Baltar is forced to think things through himself, and realizes it will actually work. Adama agrees to let Baltar have a warhead
• On the Astral Queen, a planned break-out takes place, and the Galactica’s delegation is taken hostage
• With the ship in his control, Zarek demands the immediate resignation of Roslin and her government on the grounds that, having never been elected, they do not represent the people
• As Zarek uses Lee to try and gain insight into the dynamic between Roslin and Adama, an assault mission, led by Starbuck, is put together using the Galactica’s Raptors and marine contingent. As a crack shot, Starbuck is ordered by Adama to kill Zarek if she gets the chance
• Adama then tries to negotiate with Zarek himself, but is rebuffed. Lee Adama realises the truth: Zarek wants Adama to send in the troops, believing a bloodbath aboard the Queen will bring down Roslin’s government
• The marines and Starbuck arrive in the Raptors and start cutting their way into the ship
• In the cells, one of the prisoners decides he doesn’t like the way Cally has been “mocking” him, and decides to teach her a lesson
• As the Starbuck and her marines enter the ship, matters come to a head as the prisoner shoots Cally, wounding her, after he clearly tried to rape her, and she bit off a piece of his ear
• Lee Adama and Zarek rush to the cell where the prisoner is holding Cally. In the confusion, Lee obtains a handgun and puts it to Zarek’s head, giving him a choice: die immediately, or work with his men to supply the fleet with water, and in return he’ll get to keep the Astral Queen and get his elections
• The marines then make their presence felt, as Starbuck takes a shot at Zarek – who is saved by Lee Adama
• Roslin and Adama are initially less than pleased at these arrangements. Lee doesn’t really care. The prisoners are helping with the water, even if they have control of the Astral Queen they are still reliant on the fleet for supplies, and under Colonial law, Roslin would have to face elections in seven months anyway
• Later, Lee informs Roslin that he didn’t mean to offend her with his views, and that when the elections come, he’ll vote for her. His honesty causes her to reveal the truth about her cancer and the fact that she might not be alive come the elections.

On Caprica

• Helo and Valerii reach a relatively undamaged city
• As they explore the city, they are observed by Doral and Six from a rooftop
• Doral and Six discuss their heritage as Cylons - the "children of humanity", Six expressing regret that humans must be destroyed. Doral is less compassionate: parents need to die to let the children come into their own

Summary from scifi.com

The fleet has found a source of water, but who will take on the difficult and dangerous job of mining it from the icy planet? Commander Adama and President Roslin send Lee to the Astral Queen, a prisoner transport ship, with an offer for its inmates: Volunteer for this mission and earn "freedom points."

The prisoners not only reject the offer but stage a uprising and hold Lee and his crew hostage. Their leader is Tom Zarek, a freedom fighter convicted of terrorism 20 years earlier. Zarek demands that Roslin step down as president and call for immediate elections to choose a new leader.

While Adama and Roslin organize an assault on the ship, Lee, who read Zarek's radical manifesto while at college, negotiates with his captor. Back on the Galactica, Adama pressures Baltar to develop a device that can distinguish Cylons from humans.

Many light-years away on Caprica, Sharon and Helo struggle to evade the Cylons, unaware that they are being observed by Doral and Number Six. --©2005, SCI FI. All rights reserved.

Questions

• Both Six and Zarek make references to "humanity's children", is there a connection?
• Is Zarek genuinely willing to die for the cause of anarchy?
• Can Baltar really use a nuclear warhead to build a Cylon detector, or does Six have some other plan? (Answer)

Analysis

Another good episode, if a little contrived towards the end.

Certainly, this is Lee Adama's episode through and through, and the kid is finding his feet: he stands by those principles he signed-up to in joining the military, he faces off against his father and risks earning Roslin's scorn, and he handles himself with Zarek admirably well. He not only grows dimensionally as a character as the episode progresses he also matures as a man, finally and truly stepping out of his father's long shadow.

Jamie Bamber turns in an excellent performance as Lee Adama, hitting his mark perfectly throughout, and his scenes with Richard Hatch are perfect for not only the dynamic that grows between the two characters, but also for the amount of background information that is very carefully crafted into the dialogue.

Indeed, alongside Jamie Bamber, this is very much Richard Hatch's episode. He turns in a fine performance as Zarek and one can instantly understand why he has been invited back. It would be interesting to put Hatch's Zarek face-to-face against Olmos' Adama; both hold a tremendous amount of power when on-screen.

It is interesting how the imagery abounds in this episode: how the old cliché that "one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist" is subtlety reviewed against the more traditional lines of argument (the byplay between Zarek and Lee Adama played out behind the deliberate verbalising of the cliché through Dualla and Billy); how the question of “taking sides” and reconciling conflicts are encompassed in Lee Adama’s ability to resolve the hostage situation through actions that are neither aligned with Adama or with Roslin.

Dynamics are strong elsewhere in the episode as well - most obviously between Baltar and, respectively, Six and Adama.

The former dynamic again takes a new twist as this is the first time we see her "angry" with Baltar and able to go beyond gentle manipulation of his thoughts and move into outright domination of his conscious thinking.

In his confrontation with Adama, Baltar manages to come across as simultaneously weak, intelligent, child-like and borne of wisdom beyond his years. Genius personified? Perhaps - but that is precisely what Baltar is supposed to be; albeit flawed, and James Callis combines all of it so powerfully on screen.

As with previous episodes, "Bastille Day" continues to touch on pieces from the mini and earlier episodes. Despite all that is packed into this one, we still find three minutes in which the Boomer / detonator plot is moved forward, and we get the confirmation that the Boomer / Tyrol relationship is well-known throughout the ship. At the same time, Tigh's alcoholism is touched upon; and the Starbuck / Tigh conflict renews itself - this time with more subtlety than in the Mini Series.

At the conclusion of the mini, Tigh made overtures to Starbuck following her manoeuvres that rescued Lee Adama when his Viper was crippled. At the time, Starbuck rejected Tigh's attempts at reaching an understanding out-of-hand. Now, in "Bastille Day", it is Starbuck's turn to make overtures following Tigh's support of her in putting together the plan to re-take the Astral Queen - only to be rejected by Tigh. In keeping with one of the motifs of the episode, Starbuck reaps what she has sown.

However, there are a few minor irritants in the episode:

• The resolution to the hostage crisis being precipitated by problems within the ranks of the hostage-takers (Cally being taken away by another prisoner) came across as a trifle contrived, having been done often enough one way or another in the past to be considered in some ways trite.
• The way Helo, supposedly deep in enemy-held territory walks around town shouting at the top of his lungs – an act he could reasonably expect would bring any nearby Cylons down on him and Valerii like a tonne of bricks.
• The fact that, despite hearing about and seeing the nuclear bombardment of Caprica in the mini-series, the city Helo and Valerii enter is totally undamaged. Not a broken window, not a collapsed building not a single uprooted tree. Given the size of the warheads the Cylons were using and the devastation they wrought (witness the shockwave that took out Baltar’s house in the mini-series), this is unfortunate. At least some of the skyline of the city could have been CGI’d to look as if it had been bombed (though it's possible the Cylons spared the city intentionally for use in their plans).

Notes

• Richard Hatch played the character of Apollo in the original Battlestar Galactica television series.
• Events here take place 4 days after those of Water.
• In the Mini-Series the Astral Queen is apparently a liner, rather than a prison ship.
  • During a briefing, Billy informs President Roslin that: "The Captain of the Astral Queen wants you to know that he has nearly 500 convicted criminals under heavy guard in his cargo hold. They were being transported to a penal station when the attack happened."
  • In the re-cap clip shown at the top of this episode, Billy's lines are re-dubbed so that he says, "The Captain of the Astral Queen wants you to know that he has 1500 prisoners under heavy guard."
  • Instead of being taken to a penal station, as in the Mini-Series, Lee Adama states that the prisoners were being transferred to Caprica for parole hearings
  • For the purposes of the increased number of prisoners, the Astral Queen becomes a prison ship
• Starbuck is a crack shot with a rifle.
• The Colonials are going to be facing a fuel shortage at some point.
• Raptors are designed for marine assault and include an extendable docking skirt in their underside that can be pressurised (and possibly used in rescue operations?).
• The Galactica has a small contingent of marines onboard - perhaps around the 20-30 mark.
• The Galactica has five "remaining" nuclear warheads.
• The Lords of Kobol are modelled on the Olympian gods of Greek mythology.
• The quip made by the Astral Queen's captain, "I'm a bus driver, not a warden", is a homage to the original Star Trek television series. It is similar to Doctor Leonard McCoy's trademark quote, "I'm a doctor, not a bricklayer", or whatever fits at the time in the latter portion of the statement.
• The setup for this plot was likely inspired by the episode The Gun on Ice Planet Zero, Part I. In both episodes, a group of criminals was conscripted from a prison ship to work on the icy surface of a hostile planet. A notable difference between the two episode lies in how the workers were chosen. While the workers in Bastille Day were chosen in part for their expendability, the conscripts in The Gun on Ice Planet Zero, Part I were chosen for their expertise in harsh environments and in demolition work. Also different was the prisoners' motivation to take on the work. In Bastille Day, the prisoners are offered the possibility of earning their freedom, whereas the prisoners in The Gun on Ice Planet Zero, Part I were offered nothing overtly other than the fear that the fleet might be destroyed without their services. A number of the take the assignment in the hopes of escaping during the action.

Noteworthy Dialogue

Choosing Sides

Adama: Every man has to decide for themselves which side they are on.
Apollo: I didn't know we were picking sides. (walks off)
Adama: That's why you haven't picked one yet.

Children of Humanity

On Cylon-occupied Caprica:

Doral: She's good.
Six: So far.
Doral: Jealous?
Six: This all makes me so sad.
Doral: (matter-of-fact) They would have destroyed themselves anyway. They deserve what they got.
Six: We're the children of humanity. That makes them our parents in a sense.
Doral: True - but parents have to die. It's the only way children come into their own.

Later, aboard the 'Astral Queen', in a broadcast by Tom Zarek:

Tom Zarek: I make these demands not for me....but for you, the people. The survivors of the holocaust and the children of humanity's future. I am Tom Zarek, and this is the first day of a new era.

Statistics

Guest Stars

• Richard Hatch as Tom Zarek
• Alonso Oyarzun as Crewman Specialist Socinus
• Nicki Clyne as Crewman Specialist Cally
• Matthew Bennett as Aaron Doral
• Pat Adrien Dornal as Wikens
• Ron Selmour as Seaborne
• Paul Campbell as Billy Keikeya
• Aaron Douglas as Petty Chief Officer Galen Tyrol
• Michael Hogan as Colonel Saul Tigh
• Alessandro Juliani as Lt. Felix Gaeta

Writing & Direction

• Written by Toni Graphia
• Directed by Alan Kroeker

Production Notes

• Series: 1 (2004 / 2005)
• Production Number: 1.03
• Airdate Order: 3 (of 13)

First Run Air Dates & Releases

• UK Airdate: 1 November 2004 (Sky One)
• US Airdate: 21 January 2005 (Sci-Fi Channel)
• DVD Release: 28 March 2005 (UK)

External Links

"Bastille Day" at scifi.com

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