The Passage

"The Passage" An episode of the Re-imagined Series
Episode No.	Season 3, Episode 10
Writer(s)	Jane Espenson
Story by
Director	Michael Nankin
Assistant Director
Special guest(s)	Lucy Lawless as Number Three
Production No.	310
Nielsen Rating
US airdate	2006-12-08
CAN airdate	{{{CAN airdate}}}
UK airdate
DVD release
Population	41,420 survivors
Additional Info
Episode Chronology
Previous		Next
Unfinished Business	The Passage	The Eye of Jupiter
Related Information
Official Summary
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Listing of props for this episode
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Overview

Starvation threatens the population after the food-processing systems become contaminated, but the Fleet is cut off from a food source by the intense radiation put out by a huge star cluster. Galactica's pilots must guide the civilian vessels on a dangerous journey directly through the radiation.

Summary

On Galactica

• Athena flies a Raptor through a blinding, immensely bright gas cloud. The Raptor's outer skin is charring from the intense heat. Athena is managing to fight off the intense radiation buildup surrounding her, thanks to her Cylon physiology, but a radiation monitor badge she wears is changing color from white, spotting to an ominous black.
• Elsewhere in the Fleet, President Laura Roslin summarizes the contamination of the basic foodstuff material storage used to feed everyone, from soldier to civilian. The situation is dire; 7 to 10 days of rations remain. The Fleet is starving.
• A group of pilots, including Lee Adama, Kara Thrace, Hot Dog and Louanne Katraine, are combining what little food they have and sharing it, down to the last crumb.
• Admiral William Adama and his command staff await Athena's return from her reconnaisance mission to what they believe is a planet that has basic algae, which isn't extremely palatable but is protein-rich and will allow them to restock their food stores and survive. Athena is three hours late from return.
• Athena does make it back to Galactica. While her radiation badge is black, her Cylon physiology protects her (although she is obviously uncomfortable). She reports success; the planet is teeming with algae.
• But the travel through the star cluster is extremely dangerous. Two jumps are required to reach the planet on the other side of the cluster, which cannot be circumnavigated. The navigation computers of any civilian ships inside the cluster would be inoperative due to insufficient shielding and the intense radiation leaves a ship only minutes to gather their bearings for the second jump out before they absorb a fatal dose of radiation. Any ship would also have to endure the intense heat as well.
• Galactica alone cannot be used to ferry the people, and the civilian ships alone would not make the trip as they would get lost within the cluster cloud. There is too much algae for Galactica to bring the food to the people in time.
• The Adamas consider the use of the Raptors, whose navigation systems are radiation-hardened to protect against nuclear strikes, as pilot ships that will guide a group of civilian ships at a time by visual reckoning, relaying the proper jump coordinates once visual sighting is made to get the ships to the other side. Five jumps are needed, and skeleton crews are used on each civilian ship to limit the Fleet's possible losses, with the civilians temporarily transferred to Galactica, which will survive the radiation effects thanks to the battlestar's dense hull plating (Miniseries).
• A group of civilians are bunked on Galactica from the civilian ships. One of them recognizes Kat, but calls out for her by another name: "Sasha." Kat reacts angrily to the man, Enzo, and barely acknowledges his call before warning him to back off.
• The pilots are briefed on the plan, and each given radiation badges. When Major Adama encourages the use of stims, Kat objects, warning that stims work by boosting the body's metabolism. In their starvation state, the stims would make them ill. Adama leaves the use of the drug to the pilot's discretion.
• Colonel Saul Tigh returns to the CIC and is greeted by a round of applause from the crew. He promptly reminds them that they have "jobs to do". He has presumably resumed his post as XO of Galactica.
• The first outbound flight into the cluster begins. The Adriatic is lost when its Raptor guide, flown by Hot Dog, cannot locate her.
• Successive trips continue, but another ship, the Carina, guided by Kat, is lost as well, which greatly angers and saddens her. She stays in the cloud a few minutes too long during her extended search, and her radiation badge becomes dark.
• In the hangar deck, Thrace notices Enzo interacting with Kat and gets suspicious. She later questions Enzo and later, Kat.
• Kat begs Thrace not to tell Admiral Adama about her past life as a drug runner and the fact that she acquired her name, "Louanne Katraine," from a child that died two days before the Cylon attack, using it to clear Galactica's pilot screening when she was a nugget. Thrace accepts her offer, warning her to embrace who she really is.
• Feeling backed into a corner, Kat is physically stressed. Her hair is falling out, a sign of radiation poisoning. Fearful of what will happen to her if Admiral Adama finds out, she chooses to continue her Raptor flights, swapping her radiation badge with Helo's. She allows herself a sexual romp with Enzo before preparing for the last outbound flight.
• The last outbound trip is more destructive. Even Galactica cannot withstand the heat and begins to suffer heat-related decompression failures throughout its hull. Adama orders his son to wrap out visual sighting and perform the escape jump.
• Kat cannot find her last ship. Realizing she had already absorbed too much radiation, she elects to remain in the cloud to continue searching for her lost ship.
• Galactica waits for several frightening minutes until both Kat's Raptor and the last civilian ship rejoin them.
• Kat is greeted by the command staff and many crewmembers to celebrate her accomplishment. The young pilot pumps her arms in the air and tries to remove her helmet before she collapses from radiation poisoning.
• In sickbay, Kara Thrace talks to Kat, whose exposure to the cloud's radiation was too extreme. Thrace recants a part of her conversation with Kat and her origins, and tries unsuccessfully to leave Kat's bedside with a smile before leaving the dying pilot with a bottle of sleeping pills as a gesture of self-euthanization. Kat thanks her.
• Admiral Adama stands by Kat's bedside immediately after Thrace's departure. Kat attempts to confess her past, but Adama tells her that her past will not change the heroic thing she did for the Fleet. He gives her the status of CAG once more, a position she held from colonization of New Caprica to Major Adama's return to Galactica, despite the fact that Kat will not survive to fly again.
• Adama stays at Kat's bedside, talking with her and how he would have loved to have had a third child, commenting that he, like his ex-wife, Caroline, would have liked a daughter.
• Some time later, the pilots assemble in their ready room as Admiral Adama changes the pilot organization chart, placing Kat as the CAG.
• Kara Thrace enters Galactica's memorial hallway and tacks a photo of Kat on the board. She cries quietly as Lee Adama looks on from a distance.

On a basestar

• Baltar notices that Number Three keeps going off somewhere and wonders what she is doing. Caprica-Six tells him that the other Cylons are also concerned about Three's activities.
• Baltar confronts Three about her unexplained absences and surmises that she has been dying and resurrecting over and over again.
• Baltar and Three discuss the final five Cylon agents, who are apparently the figures Three has been seeing between life and death. Baltar wonders aloud if he could be one of them, making him a hero to the Cylons instead of a traitor to the Colonials. Three tries to hold onto the memory of what they look like, but it always fades. Her drawings of them aren't very distinct.
• Baltar and Three visit the Hybrid's chamber. Against Three's advice, Baltar reaches out to touch the Hybrid and she grabs his hand. She says a number of cryptic things which Baltar pieces together as clues about a planet where the Eye of Jupiter can be found, as well as something related to the final five. Baltar states that he is convinced that everything the hybrid says has meaning.

Questions

• Was the Fleet-wide failure of food-processing systems a result of sabotage? If so, were Cylons responsible, or someone else?
• Was assisted suicide an accepted practice in the Colonies, even if not by a practicing physician?
• Are there going to be radiation consequences for the pilots exposed to the conditions of the star cluster, especially those pilots who did in fact have a black indicator?
• How many pilots and crew were lost on the two civilian ships Adriatic and Carina? Will their loss cause problems for the civilians that used to live on them?

Analysis

• The ranking shuffle resumes in this episode: Tigh returns to the CIC as XO, sending Helo back to the flight lines as a senior flight officer (his rank of Captain seems unaffected). At the end of the episode, Kat is posthumously restored to the CAG slot, with Apollo shunted into her squadron leader position (presumably, he will continue as de facto CAG).
  • Kat's promotion to CAG may have occurred before she died so that upon her death, her posting as CAG would expire and Apollo would regain his position. It makes little sense to be posthumously assigned to a billet. Either way, since her posting is honorary in nature, it is likely temporary.
• Baltar calls the Number Three "D'Anna", to which she responds. This indicates a high likelyhood of her being the same copy that was on Galactica and making her one of a few Cylons that has a name instead of just being a model.
  • Or, it may simply indicate acceptance of Baltar's custom of referring to and addressing some models by their "human" names—in this same scene, Baltar refers to "the relevant Simon" and in prior episodes refers to "one of the Dorals"' views on toilet paper. This custom is shared with the other humans, such as Ellen Tigh who mentions "one of the Brother Cavils", and Adama, who refers to both the Ragnar Anchorage copy and the stowaway copy in "Flesh and Bone" as "Leoben Conoy".
• Number Three does not know what the final five Cylon agent models look like, at least not consciously.
• No anti-radiation injections were seen to be used by the pilots. Unless they administered offscreen this could either mean that the Fleet's supplies are used up, or that even the medication doesn't help against such intense levels of stellar radiation.
• The first sketch of the final five Cylons that Number Three shows Baltar depicts what looks to be two men and three women. If this proves accurate then of the twelve Cylon models there are six males and six females.
• Baltar's grooming has declined steadily since the fall of the colonies. While no longer a messy drunk as he was on New Caprica, he has, for example, grown a scraggly and untrimmed beard while on the Cylon Basestar where toiletries are obviously available.
• It has not been established that the five figures are in fact the "missing" Cylons. They may be visions from the distant past for example.

Notes

• This is one of the few times an air group org chart is visible. The CAG (now Kat) is in the top slot; directly below her are (presumably) the squadron leaders (Apollo, Starbuck, Two Times, and a fourth whose name is never visible to the camera). Pilots and ECOs may be listed below their squadron leaders in descending order of seniority (both Helo and Hot Dog, for example, are listed directly beneath their squadron leader, Starbuck, and the two of them are definitely among the senior flight officers for Galactica).
• A perilous journey by the "rag-tag" Fleet in the Original Series, where pilots are also critical to the Fleet's safety, appears in its series premiere, "Saga of a Star World."
• "The Passage" was written by Galactica newcomer Jane Espenson. The episode arose when the show brought in Dr. Kevin Grazier, a scientist from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who talked about how one would navigate through space; how one would figure out how to get from one point in the to universe to, for example, Earth. Grazier's talk prompted the story at the heart of Espenson's episode.
• On the memorial wall Kat's picture is placed below the one of Riley's girlfriend she herself put there in "Scar".
• This episode marks the destruction of two civilian ships, the Adriatic and Carina. This will likely result in more crowded conditions on the other ships in The Fleet.
• This is the second episode in which dialog has been censored in the Sci Fi Channel broadcast. Starbuck sarcastically proclaims she gave Dr. Cottle "head" in response to Kat saying she gave him her protein bar.

Noteworthy Dialogue

• Adama and Tigh discuss the food shortage

Adama: I hear they're still eating paper. Is that true?

Tigh: No. Paper shortage.

• Starbuck gives a last minute pep talk to the pilots

Starbuck: Remember, we're all flying solo on this mission. So that means there'll be nobody there to bitch slap you if you start to get tired or start seeing little toasters on your wing.

Official Statements

In Ron Moore's blog on July 27th, 2006:

"We were pretty excited to have Jane too. I actually took Jane's first pitch way back in my early days at Star Trek and I had the pleasure of buying what turned out to be her first sale. I hadn't seen her since, but I'd followed her career from afar and was very proud to see her do so well. Turns out that Jane was a huge fan of Galactica and really wanted to do a script for us, so we jumped on the chance. I think we're all hoping that we could get her on staff at some point in the future, but we'll have to wait and see how everything shakes out for Season Four -- and whether she's even available, she's very much in demand these days. Her episode this year is "The Passage" (originally Ep 9) and deals with a harrowing voyage of the rag-tag fleet and focuses on Kat."

Guest Stars

• Luciana Carro as Captain Louanne "Kat" Katraine