Hero

"Hero" An episode of the Re-imagined Series
Episode No.	Season 3, Episode 8
Writer(s)	David Eick
Story by
Director	Michael Rymer
Assistant Director
Special guest(s)	Carl Lumbly
Production No.
Nielsen Rating
US airdate	2006-11-17
CAN airdate	{{{CAN airdate}}}
UK airdate
DVD release
Population	41,421 survivors
Additional Info
Episode Chronology
Previous		Next
A Measure of Salvation	Hero	Unfinished Business
Related Information
Official Summary
R&D Skit – View
[[IMDB:tt{{{imdb}}}|IMDb entry]]
Listing of props for this episode
Related Media
			@ BW Media
Promotional Materials
Online Purchasing
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Overview

A figure from Adama's past returns to haunt him. His return raises questions about why the Cylons launched their initial attack against the Twelve Colonies.

Summary

On Galactica

• Galactica detects three Raiders. Much to the surpise of the CIC crew, two Raiders are pursuing a third. Starbuck and Kat are dispatched. After destroying the pursuing Raiders, they go after the third.
• In CIC, Adama orders Kat and Starbuck to escort the Raider to Galactica, after hearing Bulldog's communication squaks.
• Kat and Starbuck escort the Raider in. In the hangar bay, Adama and the party that meets the Raider, surprised at the fact that a human appears to have piloted the craft. A visibly weak Bulldog salutes Adama; Adama returns the salute.

On a basestar

• In a dream, Three is trying to avoid marines on Galactica. The marines corner her against a hatch labelled End of Line. The marines raise their weapons and Three tells them to shoot.
• As the shots go off, Three wakes up in bed with Baltar and Caprica-Six. She has apparently been having a sexual relationship with Baltar and possibly Six as well.
• In the Cylon control room Caprica-Six questions Three about her bad dreams. Caprica asks if the dreams are about Baltar and Three tells her that it's nothing like that, but does not elaborate.
• Three gives a centurion orders to shoot her, and then delete any information regarding the incident. The centurion obeys and shoots her in the head. In the moments before she is downloaded, she experiences images from her dream mixed in with memories from New Caprica and other more cryptic scenes.
• Three awakes in a rebirthing chamber where a worried Caprica-Six tries to help her recover. Three tells her, "There's something beautiful between life and death."

Questions

• Did humans taken prisoner well before the Fall of the Twelve Colonies provide the original genetic pool for the humanoid Cylons?
• Did Bulldog know of or see other human prisoners during his three years of captivity?
• How was Bulldog directed to the precise location of the fleet?
• What class of battlestar does Valkyrie belong to?
• Why would a "Stealth Ship" in enemy territory break radio silence?
• Why would Bulldog have been compelled to lie about the manner in which he escaped the basestar, and what motivated him to say what he did?
• Was Valkyrie's mission the only one the admiralty undertook or were there others?
• Was Laura Roslin right in speculating that the admiralty might have sent Valkyrie in order to provoke a war?
• Why did the Cylons have one craft jump in and fire on the stealth star, then jump out? Then send in two more ships to finish the attack? Could the first Cylon ship have really been sent by the admiralty to expose the stealth star?
• Who were the white-robed figures Three saw in her vision before downloading?
• Were the Cylons on the baseship where Bulldog was held really sick?
• Does Bulldog have information regarding the other humanoid Cylon models that nothing is known of?
• How is Baltar's status change from torturee in A Measure of Salvation to an apparent sexual relationship with Caprica Six and Number Three?

Analysis

• At the end of the episode, Saul Tigh appears to be attempting to try and deal with his guilt over his wife, but he does not seem to want his job as XO back, at least not any time soon.
• Adama's feelings of guilt over his actions during Valkyrie's mission seem to shed new light on the motivation for his speech at Galactica's decomissioning ceremony at the begining of the series.
• The Cylons seem to have been able to detect and destroy The Stealth-Star that had only entered two kilometers into their space. This seems suspicious given the fact that they were unable to detect the Blackbird, presumably a far less sophisticated design. Either the Cylons had more advanced detection equipment on the Armistice Line, or they had advance knowledge of Bulldog's mission.
• Bulldog's story is even less believable given the fact that it took Kara Thrace several hours to gut a raider and learn how to fly it. Granted, the Raider Kara captured was damaged, but it would still have taken Bulldog some time to adapt the raider for his own use.
• Bulldog probably could have stolen a Heavy Raider, which unlike the light versions seems to have a crew compartment and perhaps piloting controls, but then the production crew couldn't have re-used the fancy captured-raider prop from "You Can't Go Home Again" on the flight deck set.
• That Kara Thrace goes to Tigh with her findings is an acknowledgment of their shared semi-pariah status and the connection that was shown in "Collaborators" for the first time
• The last two scenes of 'Hero' appear to have been edited to ensure that the final scene was with Adama & Tigh. Right after the celebration scene, Adama is seen giving Bulldog a new uniform, but Adama is wearing his everyday uniform. In the final scene with Tigh, Adama is wearing his formal uniform from the celebration. It appears at the very least, the two scenes were in reverse order, meaning the episode originally ended with Adama giving Bulldog his new uniform.

Notes

• In Number Three's dream, the door at which is she is shot by the marines is labeled "End of Line". As well as being a metaphor for death, this is a statement repeated often by the Cylon Hybrid.

Official Statements

• A video blog gives an insight to this episode during filming.

Guest Stars

• Barry Kennedy as Admiral Corman
• Lucy Lawless as Number Three
• Carl Lumbly as Lt. Daniel Novacek
• Donnelly Rhodes as Doctor Cottle
• Matthew Bennett as Number Five
• Rekha Sharma as Tory Foster

Re-imagined Series definition: nerve center or "bridge" of a battlestar, see: Combat Information Center

Re-imagined Series definition: the process of using the FTL engines to make an near-instantaneous apparent faster-than-light transport of a ship from one point in space to another

Re-imagined Series definition: Executive Officer, e.g. Saul Tigh

Re-imagined Series definition: used to signify a civilian transport vessel over a certain gross weight/mass, i.e. Colonial Heavy 798