Battlestar Galactica: Season 1, episodes 1-3 watch notes

The first episode of the Battlestar Galactica reboot that followed the miniseries. In it, the Cylons find the fleet every 33 minutes, and no one knows how.

It reminds me of the initial automated jump timer in Stargate Universe and I wonder if this episode was an inspiration for that.

I forgot how much of this show takes place on Caprica. For some reason I remembered it as a nuclear wasteland, but now I remember the Cylons aimed the nukes to kill the people but leave the cities intact so they could colonize it.

I also remember the Cylons as being a lot more mindless killer-y, but they were setting things up all along. As I type this, a Six and a Centurion are watching Helo and another human-form Cylon–I forget the model–walk off injured.

Next episode! I'll batch these up a few episodes at a time unless one provides a lot of notes. Episode two is plainly titled with the central conflict: Water.

Water is the first time we get Sharon's point of view as she slowly connects the dots on her blackouts and the sabotage aboard Galactica. We already know she's a Cylon because we've seen her model on Caprica and when the basestar docked with Ragnar. Somehow I missed this during the original run.

What isn't clear yet, and may be revealed later, is why her saboteur alter ego doesn't cover her tracks better from both from Sharon and others on the ship. She's soaking wet with a bomb and towel in her bag. If we assume a clean severance between personalities, Sharon lacks the training, temperament, and programming to obfuscate. She's an honest person and loyal citizen and the whole thing freaks her out. Not great for keeping cover.

Lee has some trauma over destroying the Olympic Carrier. Didn't this lead to a whole character arc where he fell into the deepest hole in the fleet before rising back up to challenge Adama on every major event? Let's find out.

Now we're in a raptor with Sharon looking for water, and I think we get a look at how she might have snapped out out of the saboteur-sona while at work. It's clear there's a subconscious conflict between Saboteur Sharon and Savior Sharon as one struggles to report a finding of water and the other struggles to set off the bomb. The copilot notices, forcing Savior Sharon to the front, and they return with the good news.

And she tells Chief Tyrol where the bomb is, and he reports it, confident the investigation wont lead back to her. I am pretty sure it doesn't work out that way because I know she's eventually outed and goes on a whole charachter arc of earning the crew's trust.

Next up: episode 3, Bastille Day. How do people on a prison ship cope with the end of a world that rejected them? Let's find out.

This is the episode that introduces Doc Cottle. If I recall correctly he's somewhere on a spectrum between Dr. McCoy and the doctor (Dr. Boyce) from the original Star Trek pilot. A doctor who shows up with a martini and an open mind because he knows how rough things have been for you.

This is the episode where we meet Tom Zarek, still in prison. He's portrayed by the actor who portrayed the original Apollo in the original series: Richard Hatch. Zarek is an infamous terrorist who used his time on the prison ship to rally all the prisoners to his cause.

We switch to Caprica with Helo and Bonus Sharon making their way through the perfectly intact but empty city looking for anti-radiation meds. Two human-form cylons watch from above and chat about the pair below, the state of the city, the merits of trying to wipe out the humans who created them.

Back on the prison ship, we have a good old fashioned prison break.

"I don't wanna negotiate."

"Then what do you want?"

If I recall correctly, Lee turns into an advocate for the prisoners, and this is where the divide between him and his father starts to grow even bigger.

We return to Baltar's struggles with Head 6 and trying to keep his secrets. Adama is on to him; at least, on to his BS about the Cylon detector. Head 6 instructs him to say he needs a nuclear warhead. I have no memory of where this goes, so this is exciting.

The final events of the episode, the resolution of the prison ship situation and the water crisis, set the stage for most of the on-ship drama to come.

This is likely it for watch BSG notes, at least for now. I think my last rewatch was too recent and it's been hard to get back int oti.