Water

"Water" (credit: Sci-Fi Channel)

Overview

Galactica loses over 60% of her water reserves due to sabotage, forcing the fleet into a crisis and Adama to seek a new supply.

Summary

Boomer finds herself dripping wet in her flight suit, sitting in an equipment room on the flight deck. She is disoriented, and upon opening a duffel bag containing her uniform, she discovers explosives complete with a detonator.
After drying and dressing herself, she goes to a small-arms locker and finds that a further six detonators are missing, throwing her into a panic and seeking Tyrol’s help.
Roslin visits Galactica to thank the crew for their hard work in defending the fleet following the recent events (33).
Protocol is observed during her visit, with officers in dress uniform, etc. Roslin believes this is because Adama is trying to make her look an idiot; Lee Adama informs her his father ordered the reception out of respect of her position of President.
The Virgon Express arrives alongside, ready to take on new water supplies. This reveals that Galactica can recycle water for those ships in the fleet that don’t have recycling facilities themselves.
In their equipment locker, Tyrol and Boomer discuss the missing explosives. Boomer is on the verge of a breakdown. Tyrol promises he’ll see her through the situation, convinced someone is trying to frame her.
As the water transfer operation commences, a series of explosions rip through the warship, rupturing her water tanks and spewing most of her massive reserves of drinking water into space.
An investigation of the explosion begins. It is ascertained that 60% of Galactica’s reserves of water have been lost, leaving the fleet with a critical shortage. Because of its recycling/storage capabilities, 16,000 people are dependent on Galactica for drinkable water.
Pushed to give a reason for the loss of the water, Lieutenant Gaeta presumes that the detonation of a nuclear warhead close to the water tanks (Mini-series) may have weakened the tanks, causing them to rupture.
During his presentation to investigators, Tyrol admits sabotage was the cause of the explosions, revealing the fact that explosives had been taken from a small-arms locker, but covering for Valerii by saying it is unlikely they will discover who took the explosives as security throughout the ship has been lax, and record-keeping patchy, at best.
Adama orders the Raptors to be flown to the nearest star systems in an attempt to find an alternative source of water.
Reducing the number of people in the inquiry to senior command staff, Roslin and Baltar, Adama reveals the truth about the humanoid-Cylon threat, stating his belief that there is a Cylon infiltrator aboard Galactica.
Baltar is quizzed about his progress on constructing a working Cylon detector. He makes various excuses for his lack of progress, all of which Adama takes to mean he needs assistance on the project, and so assigns Lieutenant Gaeta to aide him.
Following the meeting, Gaeta leaves with Baltar, who is not happy about having someone “watching” him. He escapes Gaeta by joining one of Starbuck’s card games and ends up flirting with her.
Boomer locates water, but has problems trying to report the find while a part of her tries to detonate explosives that have been strapped to her chair.
When she finally makes the report, she and Crashdown return to Galactica to be greeted like heroes.
Boomer gets Tyrol to check her seat, where he finds the explosives. He later reveals to Boomer he has handed the explosives to the Master-at-Arms, assuring her that this is good, as it puts the Master onto the same lines of investigation they are now pursuing.
On Colonial One, impressed at the way Lee Adama helped her through the pomp of her reception on Galactica at the start of the episode, Roslin asks him to become a special advisor to her, to help her understand military jargon, and protocol. She also tries to help him come to terms with the destruction of the Olympic Carrier (33), which has been plaguing his conscience.

On Caprica

Valerii and Helo have returned to Valerii's Raptor, to find it crawling with Cylon warriors.
Deciding they cannot use it to escape Caprica, they head off to "find another ship".
Later, at night, and over a meal and anti-radiation shots, they receive a coded transmission, Valerii prompting Helo into the idea that someone else - probably military - is still alive on the planet.

Summary from scifi.com

Lt. Sharon Valerii wakes up soaking wet in the tool room with an explosive charge in her duffel bag. Shortly afterward, a mysterious explosion destroys all the port-side water tanks on Galactica, creating a crisis for the entire fleet. Sharon can't remember a thing, but all the evidence points to her as a saboteur. She confesses her concern to Chief Tyrol, but he can't believe she's responsible.

As water riots erupt, Commander Adama and President Roslin struggle to contain the crisis, putting all the ships on limited rations and assigning Baltar the job of rooting out any Cylons who may have infiltrated the crew.

Questions

Is Boomer completely unaware of her "Cylon" personality, which apparently planted the explosives? (Answer: Boomer never seems to know, even to her end.)
If so, why did she "wake up" before her Cylon persona had completely covered its tracks (i.e. got out of the wet clothes, got her back to her bunk, etc., so she'd be completely unaware of her outing to the water tanks)?
Why did a part of Boomer attempt to blow-up her Raptor when the water-bearing moon was found? Surely she must have been aware that had the Raptor been destroyed, a Search and Rescue mission would have been initiated, with a good probability that the water would have been discovered anyway?
Is the radio message picked-up by Helo on Caprica genuine, or a Cylon fake, designed to keep him on the planet? (Answer)
600-odd tons of food a week is a lot of consumables to have available. Where is it all coming from? (Answer: The Fleet comprises many ships, apparently including many supply ships with consumables.)
Do the Colonials have food recycling capabilities to match their water recycling capabilities?
Why do the Cylons want to keep Helo on Caprica? (Answer 1, Answer 2)

Analysis

“Water” builds nicely on the events of "33" while adding new drama of its own, revealing more about the central characters while at the same time avoiding the “reset” button: three days on from the Olympic Carrier incident, and the repercussions are still being felt by Lee Adama and Laura Roslin. At the same time Roslin seeks to find a balance in her relationship with Adama, who is also willing to try and move beyond the tension that marked their initial relationship during the fleet’s initial flight from the Cylons: the presentation of the book being something of a peace offering.

But the focus of this episode is obviously “Boomer” Valerii, and raises some interesting questions around her.

It has already been established that some Cylons may not even know they are Cylons until they are “activated” (as stated by Six in the mini-series). “Water” sees a new wrinkle added: that the Cylon “personality” within a humano-Cylon can be active without the apparent knowledge of the “human” personality. Boomer's “waking up” scene and subsequent reactions demonstrate that her human persona has no idea of what is going on. Her confusion is genuine and complete, right down to the fact that she has lost track of time (wishing Cally a “good evening”, only for Cally to tell her it is early morning).

However, while this is interesting in itself, it actually masks an even more interesting question: why did Boomer “wake up” while still sopping wet and hiding in the equipment locker? If her Cylon personality wished to remain hidden, why did it not stay in control until she had dried herself off, stowed the duffel bag and the explosives and returned to her bunk? That she finds herself in such a state would tend to suggest that her Cylon personality is not in full control when conscious. Could it be that Valerii’s “programming” as a human is a little too strong, and that there is some kind of internal struggle going on inside her? (Given the events in Home, Part II and other second season episodes, it may well be that the Valerii model is flawed and can reprogram itself for self-preservation, or may not have full defenses against its human personality plant.)

If this is the case, then might the same conflict overcome her “sister” on Caprica? If so, there is potential for whatever the Cylons have in mind for Helo to go awry. (Answer: Caprica Valerii does, indeed, become a turncoat or yet another Cylon manipulation tactic.)

The episode also reveals a little more about Galactica’s capabilities: the fact that her water recycling systems are around 100% efficient - so much so that she can operate for years without needing to take on fresh water supplies, and she's more than able to recycle water on behalf of a third of the other vessels in the fleet - thus supplying an additional 16,000 people with fresh water. While this is interesting in itself, that the production crew tackle such a vital requirement as water so early on in the series is highly suggestive that they do not intend to forget that some 45,000 people are going to require a lot of food and drink. Given the fact that this episode highlights the food requirements – some 590 tons a week - would tend to indicate this is an issue that will be dealt with at some point in the future. It’s hard to imagine the fleet can supply this much food to its people indefinitely.

Overall, another outstanding episode - lead by a very strong "A" storyline involving Boomer and the water sabotage, but with more than enough scope to provide insight into the characters and their developing relationships without bogging down the action. Not even Tigh's tightrope walk with alcoholism is forgotten, thanks to his discovery of his five fingers of booze. And it is nice to see Galactica still continues to carry the scars for her first run-in with the Cylons back in the mini - the outer skin of the forward end of her portside flight pod is still something of a mess.

Notes

Galactica has at least 5 Raptors on board.
Colonials have an equivalent plastic explosive to C-4 (called G-4).
The Cylons have stood down from their attacks of 33.

Noteworthy Dialogue

William and Lee Adama discuss responsibility for an action (OGG, 479 KB)

Official Statements

===

From RDM's Sci-Fi Channel Blog ===

One of the strange things about writing and producing television is the delay between action and reaction. Tomorrow night's episode was written almost a year ago. The battles, thoughts, emotions, disappointments, and victories happened in what seems like the distant past, so when I sit down to watch the show along with the rest of you (and I do watch them on the air) it's like seeing a page out of an old year book. I can remember bits and pieces of the production process, the early drafts of the script, the days spent in the editing bay playing with the footage and waiting for the visual effects to be completed, but none of it is current, all of it belongs to a season now firmly planted in the past.

However, I do find that the same distance from the rigors of production also afford a better vantage point for watching the show with something approaching objectivity. You get so used to an episode during all the aspects of production that the simple pleasure of watching it as a piece of entertainment is slowly vacuumed away over time. Only now, months after the fact, can I watch these shows from a little remove and my impressions of the episodes are often not the same as when we produced them.

For instance, during the shoot of "Water" and shortly afterward, I was acutely aware of just how long the script was and how much material was going to have to be lost along the way. I was fairly upset with myself for writing something so bloated and large that it was killing us on the stage and would later require major surgery in the editing room to make our mandated runtime. The first cut of "Water" ran 10-12 minutes long -- essentially an entire act that had to go -- and for a long time when I watched the final locked picture I was always uncomfortably aware of the "cheats" involved. That is, the dropped scenes, the internal cuts made to scenes that made a hash of some of the logic I'd tried to lay out, the half-expressed thoughts, the missing emotional beats, etc.

However, when I saw the final aired episode, I was hard-pressed to even remember most of the cuts or why they had bothered me in the first place. (Although I still missed a nice bit with Baltar in the Wardroom, where he tossed off a theory of how six small charges could've blown open the water tank, as it was both helpful to the plot and an entertaining bit of grandstanding by the character.) Frankly, I used to think of "Water" as one of the weaker shows in the first season, but now it seems like a fairly coherent piece.

Of course, this kind of shift in perspective after shedding the baggage of production works both ways, and I've found that sometimes revisited shows much later that I'd always considered to be "classics" turned out to lose their charm along with the experience of making it. So as we go forward, I'm both excited and vaguely terrified at how I'll view the rest of the season.

Speaking of excited and terrified, I must admit to being overwhelmed by the response you've generated regarding this blog. There's a remarkable backlog of questions on the board and I'll try to both post here more often and answer more of your questions. I don't know what to tell you in terms of what will catch my eye, but I'll try to look for both the straight-ahead fan questions and the more off the wall questions -- don't be afraid to venture far off-topic, some of the more interesting discussions I had at Trek had nothing to do with the show itself.

Statistics

Guest Stars

Nicki Clyne as Cally

Writing & Direction

Written by Ronald D. Moore
Directed by Marita Grabiak

Production Notes

Series: 1 (2004 / 2005)
Production Number: 1.02
Airdate Order: 2 (of 13)

First Run Air Dates & Releases

UK Airdate: Date: 25 October 2004 (Sky One)
US Airdate: Date: 21 January 2005 (Sci-Fi Channel)
DVD Release: Date: 28 March 2005 (UK)

External Links

"Water" at scifi.com

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