Occupation / Precipice
Season 3 of Battlestar Galactica premiered last Friday night with a 2-hour episode. I won't recap it scene for scene but instead I'll do a quick summary for you.
At the end of last season: Roslin stole the election from Baltar but couldn't go through with the deception. Baltar became President and moved immediately to abandon the search for Earth and settle on the desolate rock now known as New Caprica. A year later, the Cylons return, invade and Baltar surrenders. The Galactica and Pegasus, which had been orbiting New Caprica, fled since they were severely outnumbered and outgunned by the Cylons. This time, however, the Cylons are not set on obliterating the human race. According to them, they just want us all to get along.
As this season begins, it appears as though about 4 or 5 months have passed. On New Caprica, a resistance movement has begun (called an "insurgency" by the occupiers) against Baltar's Vichy government and the Cylons. Tyrol and Anders lead the resistance, setting off bombs while Tigh is being "detained" on suspicion of being an insurgent leader. He has been tortured (his eye was ripped out and then presented to him) and holds a serious grudge against the Cylons.
Starbuck has been in her own form of detention: Leoben (a Cylon) found and kidnapped her. She has been held against her will by Leoben these few months, and he wants them to be lovers. He claims to love her, and if you know anything about a Cylon's understanding of the concept of "love", you'd believe him as I do. I don't however think that there has been any rape going on here - I think he's being patient and waiting for her to come around. So anyway, they sit down to dinner one night and Starbuck manages to grab a knife and kill Leoben. Unfortunately, since he's a Cylon, he will simply resurrect. It seems Starbuck has killed Leoben many times and the act has become purely symbolic.
Up in space, Adama and Lee, commanders of the Galactica and Pegasus respectively, spend their time devising plans for an attack on the Cylon occupiers that will take place once they get word from the human population they left behind (Cylons are jamming the frequencies). Oh, and they're also eating. A LOT. Or at least Lee is - man needs to back away from the cheetos. He and Adama are at each others' throats about a course of action and whether or not they should return to New Caprica, fight the Cylons and rescue their people, or take whatever is left of the human race on board the 2 ships and continue the search for Earth. Adama wants to go back and fight and Lee wants to cut their losses and head for Earth. And they both have their points.
Ellen Tigh has been doing the dirty with Brother Cavil (ew!) in order to get her husband released from prison. And it works. Tigh is released and takes the resistance in a new direction: suicide bombings, much to Tyrol's strenuous objections. Based on intel from a source inside of Baltar's government (Gaeta!), the first suicide bombing kills scores at a police academy graduation, where humans join the police in order to help enforce the Cylon Occupation (Iraqi Security Forces, anyone?). The bombing horrifies many and takes the Cylons by surprise. They roundup "suspicious" individuals at night and put them in the detention center. Among them are Roslin, Zarek and Cally, Tyrol's wife and mother of their baby.
In the meantime, Leoben tries a different tack with his wooing of Starbuck: He presents her with a toddler child that was grown in the Cylon baby factory from the ovary they stole from Starbuck. How nice. She wants nothing to do with the child at first, but then when the child falls and hurts herself (actually, I think Leoben pushed her down the stairs), Starbuck's maternal instinct kicks in. Has she been broken? I don't think so.
Tigh insists on continuing the suicide bombings because at the very least they create chaos and will help to distract the Cylons when Adama and Galactica come to their rescue, which Tigh is convinced is imminent. The Old Man wouldn't just abandon them, he says.
He's right. Adama's been sending a long range raptor to New Caprica to look for radio messages from the ground all this time, but none have gotten through (Cylon frequency jammers, remember). Until now. Gaeta has provided Tyrol with a channel on which to send a message and it works. Adama and crew receive the message with great joy and send one back: "Have hope. We're coming for you."
A plan is devised: Sharon (the one on Galactica) has become Adama's confidant. He trusts her and makes her an officer. She will lead the initial landing on New Caprica. The fact that she's a Cylon should help her break through some of their defenses. The landing site is chosen, but there's a problem: the location of the landing site has been compromised. You see, Ellen Tigh is still screwing around with Brother Cavil (ew! I mean, Tigh isn't much better, but still), I presume to keep the heat off of her husband, and he tells her that they know about Adama's plan and she is to get the location of the landing site from her husband and give it to him or they will throw Tigh's ass back in detention. Ellen manages (easily) to get a copy of the map and the meeting at the landing site is ambushed.
In order to gain back some control and win over the human colony, the Cylons have decided to summarily execute 200 of them. Baltar is forced to sign off on the order after Six is shot in the head in front of him. The 200 detainees (Roslin, Zarek and Cally among them) are loaded into trucks and driven out to the edge of a gravel pit. Jammer, a "police" officer, helps Cally to sneak away as we hear the Cylons guns fire at the assembled group offscreen.
*******
That wasn't really a quick summary, was it? Ah well.
This show works well on so many levels, not the least of which is as a mirror to be held up to ourselves during wartime, and particularly the current war. What makes it watchable and not thoroughly depressing is how highly entertaining it is. Please watch this show!
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