Bastille Day

"Bastille Day"; An episode of the Re-imagined Series
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Overview[edit]

Continuing from the events of "Water", 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[edit]

Galactica's fleet-critical water 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 Commander 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 recognizes 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 idolizing him, Lee meets with Zarek to try and persuade him to help the fleet.
On Galactica, Adama meets with Gaius 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 virtual 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 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 Kara "Starbuck" Thrace, is put together using Galactica’s Raptors and Marine contingent. As a crack sharpshooter, 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 realizes 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 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[edit]

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 Sci-Fi.com[edit]

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 an 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.

Questions[edit]

Both Six and Zarek make references to "humanity's children", is there a connection?
Is Zarek genuinely willing to die for his beliefs?
Can Baltar really use a nuclear warhead to build a Cylon detector, or does Six have some other plan? (Answer).
Will elections really be held in seven months? (Answer: Yes, elections will be held)

Analysis[edit]

Ship of the week concept/budget restraints: In their initial write-ups for the series, executive producers Ron Moore and David Eick initially envisioned having many episodes or most episodes involve going out into the refugee fleet and solving problems that arose within it and little fiefdoms that people would start to set up. However, as they state in the podcast for this episode, "Bastille Day" was the only episode of the first season in which they actually did this, and by season 2 they have said that they've more or less abandoned the idea (at least, it's no longer the "stock storyline" they originally thought it would be). The reason they dropped this idea, they say, is because "Bastille Day" went incredibly over-budget: the Astral Queen prison interior used up all of the money they had thought would be spread out over the entire first season to create sets for several other ships that they might visit. Building a new set for each ship-of-the-week turned out to be such an expensive undertaking that it was untenable.
Surviving cities on Caprica: The Cylons apparently did not nuke every single city on Caprica, such as they did Caprica City, thought they did nuke most of them. Ron Moore points out in the podcast that at first this was just the plot expediency of needing an environment for Helo to interact in, which of course then asks the question "Why are some cities not nuked?" which then becomes a plot point for later episodes (soon Helo will find that at the least, the Cylons wanted a a few surviving cities to use as foward bases).
Helo shouting in the empty city: It seems a little counter-intuitive that Helo would be shouting loudly to see if anyone might hear him, as the Cylons might find out his position. However, in Helo's defense we the viewers are only coming in to see him at this instant; Caprica-Sharon and Helo might have spent many boring hours beforehand wandering through an empty city, before Helo finally got fed up and started shouting. Also, it's only been 12 days since the Cylon attack, and Helo has no idea how far over Caprica they've spread yet.
Boxey's only regular episode: This is the only episode of the regular series that Boxey appears in (He appeared in the Miniseries beforehand). According to the podcast, when the Miniseries was created the writers envisioned Boxey as being a major recurring character in most episodes of the series. However, on a case by case basis they found that inserting a child like Boxey did not harmonize with many of the dark scripts on the series, and once they show got underway and found its flow, they simply couldn't think of ways to write him into upcoming scripts. By the beginning of Season 2, they realized they hadn't been using him, and officially decided to simply abandon the character and consciously never tried to use him again.
The flight briefing scene: Starbuck's flight briefing she gives as acting-CAG seems a bit "out of character" with what the series would later develop as its "norm", and shows some of the learning curve in the first few episodes before the writers and actors got a firm handle on just exactly how everything worked on the show (though while some series take entire seasons to gain their footing, BSG did it after the first handful of episodes). Starbuck as a character is in full "Top Gun" mode, even wearing aviator sunglasses with a stogie cigar in hand, while giving a very irreverant briefing. Actress Katee Sackhoff and the writers have said that after the first few episodes (after the time of "Bastille Day") they learned to start adding in "more of Katee into Starbuck", and Starbuck as a character smoothed out a great deal by the middle of the season. The other big oddity with this scene is that it's the only scene in the entire regualr series (post-Miniseries) to include Boxey, and his presence seems forced (Moore and Eick point this out in the podcast). Why would Starbuck bring a 10 year old to a flight briefing on a military ship? The concept pitch seems understandable on paper: Boxey is supposed to be the orphan kid the pilots adopted who lives with them and is sort of their mascot/gofer/helper, and as such would help Starbuck with a briefing. However Boxey didn't really get any buildup scenes to this, so here it seems that, without much prior explanation, there's just a kid helping Starbuck give a briefing. Some of the several quirks in the first few episodes which soon disappear.
Tigh's momentary drinking relapse: In the Miniseries, Tigh went from completely incompetent drunk by the end of the story, continuing into "33" where Commander Adama even notes how good it is that Tigh isn't drinking anymore. With the Cylon attack, Tigh more or less decided to quit drinking. However, he has a bit of a relapse here and has a few shots, and is a little tipsy in front of some crewmen (though he's not slurring his speach and stumbling over furniture; he's a functioning alcoholic). Throughout the season he oscilates back and forth in his struggle with his alcoholism, sometimes he has relapses, though on the whole on his own he manages to seriously curtail his old drinking habit for a time (without being in a support group or anything, just by himself). Still, he relapses here: this is another instance of the series meeting its goal to make a very realistic series: to make Tigh have an epiphantic, life-changing moment and adamantly stop drinking forever from the Miniseries onward would have been hackneyed and unrealistic. In real life, Tigh would have an ongoing struggle with his alcohol addiction, and even when trying to cut back find himself not meeting his goals from time to time; the characters on the series are flawed, human, and real.
Starbuck also being a sniper: Starbuck simply also being a sharpshooter, "best shot in or out of the cockpit" stretches the credibility of these scenes: shooting in a Viper and shooting a sniper rifle are entirely different things. The force of moving the plot foward and trying to shoehorn a major character in becomes a bit obvious. Ron Moore actually conceded this point in his blog on April 11th, 2005, saying that it would have been jarring to introduce a new Marine sniper, but they had to find a way to keep main character Starbuck as part of the action:

"I concede the point...we chose to go with the dramatic needs rather than the "real" choices. Making Kara the sniper was simply a way of providing more tension and drama into the final sequence of "Bastille Day" rather than going with a brand-new Marine sniper who the audience would have no investment in or identification with...It's a judgement call, frankly. We're always striving to keep things as "real" as we can make them, but we are still producing a television series and we're telling a story, so sometimes we bend the rules to make the show more compelling or to avoid awkward scenes that actually slow it down and dissipate the momentum."

Cally becomes a bigger character: Starting with this episode, Cally started to become a larger character on the series, as noted by Moore and Eick in the podcast (see Official Statements, below).

Notes[edit]

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 Miniseries 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 1,500 prisoners under heavy guard."
- Instead of being taken to a penal station, as in the Miniseries, 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 an expert sharpshooter with a rifle.
The Colonials are going to be facing a fuel shortage at some point (Resolved in a later episode).
Raptors are designed for Marine assault and include an extendable docking skirt in their underside that can be pressurized (and possibly used in rescue operations?).
Galactica has a small contingent of Marines onboard - perhaps around the 20-30 mark.
Galactica has five "remaining" nuclear warheads.
The Lords of Kobol are modeled on / parallel 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 episodes 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.
According to the DVD commentary for the episode, the startling scene when Number Six yells in Baltar's face that "they're going to throw you out of an airlock!" was a visual homage taken from the film "Jacob's Ladder", which has a similar startling close up shot. Tricia Helfer was given scary makeup for the shot, but in such a slight way that it is difficult for the eye to see what's wrong with the shot, but the audience can tell on some level that something's wrong. If you pause during her close-up shot, you can see that she's wearing contact lenses that make her eyes look unnaturally bright, and a mouthpiece of fake teeth which are bent out of shape and unnaturally large.
The "R&D TV Animation" skit during the credits consists of Ron Moore squashing David Eick into a ball and tossing him through the basketball hoop in the office.
The building seen in the first scene with Helo and Sharon is actually the Vancouver Public Library, one of the most recognizable buildings in the city of Vancouver.
Major Cottle, Galactica's ship doctor, is first mentioned in this episode, although he will not appear until next episode.
President Roslin's hair style changes starting with this episode, from the straight-down hairstyle she had since the Miniseries, to the swept-back style which she would sport through the end of season 2.

Noteworthy Dialogue[edit]

Choosing Sides[edit]

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[edit]

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.

Official Statements[edit]

In the DVD commentary for "Bastille Day", David Eick and Ron D. Moore talk about Cally's character, and how initial drafts had her being killed:

Eick: Nicki Clyne, who you see here playing Cally, was somebody who in the Miniseries, I remember Michael (Rymer) and I cast just on the basis of her look, 'cause we thought she was really cute, she kind of reminded us of a young Shelley Duvall. [...] she turned out to be so good that we— in launching the series we started talking about ways to involve her and I'm very proud of a moment coming up where she does something rather nasty, that...

RDM: Well she almost died! She was gonna die in the intial drafts of this.

Eick: That's right! He kills her! He rapes and kills her! And they're telling us we're too dark this year.

RDM: Oh, I know. The second season is so much darker. And I don't think they even care. Yeah, Cally, Nicki, I hate to tell ya, but the bullseye was on Nicki here. And I can't even tell you why we decided it was, no I take that back I think it was your note; you said you wanted Cally to fight back and really show some balls in this scene. She bit his ear off...

Eick: I said, "She bites his frakking ear off" and I was totally being...you know, just illustrative! I didn't really mean it!

RDM: And I wrote, "she bites his ear off"!

Eick: "And I got the draft, and she bites his ear off! I was like "that's great!"

RDM: And from that moment on, I think, she really became part of the show. In a real sense, once she had gone through that and survived, and you know Tyrol and the gang come in and see her in the hospital at the end you kind of felt like she is one of the family.

External Links[edit]

"Bastille Day" at scifi.com

"Bastille Day" An episode of the Re-imagined Series

Episode No.	Season , Movie {{{movie}}}
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Official Summary
R&D Skit – [[R_and_D_TV (Season {{{season}}})#Bastille Day\|View]]
[[IMDB:tt{{{imdb}}}\|IMDb entry]]
Listing of props for this episode
Related Media
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