Written as the eps play in front of me. The first three seem to be collected into a single three hour lump - hmm.
“Saga of a Star World?” Isn’t that, like, any planet you could name? What worlds don’t have stars?
It’s 1978. The premise… not half bad. The actors… not so bad either. The special effects… plastic. The execution… well. Sometimes okay, sometimes wince-inducing.
We are introduced by scenes full of “as you know, bob”-isms to the scenario - the cylons want peace. We are clubbed with it numerous times, as well as with Adama’s disbelief/reticence/misgivings. I must say Lorne looks much better in the dark blue/silver trim uniform with cape, than in the jumpsuit version. John Colicos is a butter-won’t-melt-in-my-mouth Baltar, and we can tell right away that he’s The Bad Guy(tm). The president is ineffectual and appears to have a bad case of the dumb.
A small contingent of Cylon raiders shoots Zak out of the void. Dang. He was way cuter than his older brother. Gun turrets fire! Lasers zwhing through space! Jolly and Boomer take turns shooting at the enemy. The explosions sound like good ol’ fashioned terrestrial explosions - in fact, they all sound like the same explosion, as it was no doubt taken off the tape labeled “stock sound effects.” The base ships are missing! Where are they? Adama realizes with dismay what it means, and climbs up on the lazy susan command deck to call the president and rub it in that he was right, the prez was wrong. (The little round platform spins slowly for no reason, seriously. Unless it’s generating its own gravitational field?)
A battlestar is destroyed! And another! Colonel Tigh, using a laser pointer on the gigantic colony map grid, shows what long range scan hath found — base stars heading for Caprica! Oh nos!!
The bug-headed Cylon orders the attack. Cylons aren’t human-looking, nor are they all human-created robots, and I’m missing Six in her scant red halter/dress. Base stars spit out ships, which do barrel rolls and plunge into atmosphere. Flash to Galactica - light speed for home! Adama calls to his faithful crew. Leaving the vipers behind? “There’s gotta be a good reason” Starbuck sez. Flash to Caprica - look, it’s Jane Seymour! A very young, pretty Jane reporting on peace, just as raiders begin to fire on the city behind her. She’s standing on a chess board in front of some buildings. Now she’s looking for Boxey, who actually has a real dog - excuse me, daggit - at the moment. And the flag burns. And people run. A big concrete wall falls on the daggit! Things blow up just as they do on back lots at MGM and Paramount. Strangely, the cameras keep rolling and transmitting into space so we get shots of Adama, imitating Lorne Green woodenly comforting Athena, who weeps unconvincingly for her little brother. And now the base ships are heading for the outer planets, having wrecked the inner planets.
Adama does something we know Olmos-Adama probably wouldn’t — he demands a shuttle to go looking for someone on Caprica. Apollo wants to take him in his viper. Of course, we have to make the disaster personal by having Adama prowl through the wreckage of his house looking for his wife. We’ve had the dead pet shot to establish sympathy for animals and kids, let’s get the mourning husband angle. Woe! Woe!
Miles of shots of vipers flying. Starbuck’s cockpit is sparking and smoking. He taps the gauge (that used to work on my friend’s Pinto, too) and flips lots of little switches around. He’s coming in hot! Random people look like they might be crying, and Athena nearly breaks her neck rushing to the landing bay to ask “are you alright?” And now we have time for an argument. I suppose this is to set up the ongoing tension of “will Starbuck and Athena get together?”
The burnt out Casa Adama. He doesn’t find what’s left of his wife, just a box full of pictures that managed to not burn, so Adama can talk to the static image of his wife. And here come the hordes of survivors who now want to cram themselves into Apollo’s viper and escape! But Father Adama has shifted into Super!Grieving mode, and must monologue. The necessity of leaving and getting back to the only surviving battlestar be damned. The mob is about to tear Apollo apart, but Jane Seymour stops them, and now… stilted dialogue to inform the masses what’s happened. “Let the word go forth to every man woman and child…” And the little ships fly out into the air in front of the painted representation of a solar system and dangle on wires in front of black velvet sprinkled with white paint, thus becoming the ragtag fleet we saw in front of the same sparkled canvas every week.
Baltar on a carefully arranged set complete with barren trees and a confused sky that can’t decide whether the sun is setting or it’s just cloudy - robot Cylon #2,345 informs him that the fleet escaped. “What? They must all be destroyed!” I know you didn’t like your mother in law, Baltar, but this is going too far! For someone who wants to dominate the human race he’s sure bent on killing them all. Maybe he has a realistic idea of how many are manageable for him - say, 10.
Oh, here’s a scene I remember - Athena undressing in a locker room to reveal random straps on her legs and arms that I suppose must be futuristic underwear, though the bunk is inconveniently placed between her and the camera to conceal the really revealing bits. And the nekkid parts I see are shiny, like a flesh toned spandex suit perhaps? And Starbuck bursts in and can’t look at her, and she hides in a locker, and there’s a long bad exchange about how long term relationships aren’t Athena’s cup of tea, and it’s sort of maybe not going to work between them and if you think my summary’s bad? you should hear the actual dialogue. It’s more vague.
Everyone’s working on the fleet trying to keep it going. Everyone’s arguing. People are living in horrible crowded conditions… and while it’s unconvincing that these folks are still neatly dressed in colorful pantsuits and skirts, with combed hair, it’s still something we didn’t see much of on BSG 2003, at least not so early. We’re still in the first (second?) episode here. Starbuck takes Cassiopia back with them, as well as lots of wounded, and finds out she’s a prostitute. She was getting flack from a woman that we find out is a member of a sect that doesn’t believe in physical contact between genders, except when blessed by some high priest at some ceremony that happens every seven years. Hmmm, they didn’t look Vulcan.
The insect Cylon issues orders to a centurion to get Baltar into action.
Serena, aka Jane Seymour, meets up with Apollo and wants help with her son Boxey. They wander through a crowded section of a transport between hanging sheets of jaggedly-torn bubble wrap. Props department must have used the packing material from the last shipment of Cylon armor. We have a scene with a kid that should have been cute and touching but ends up being treacly and accompanied by a soundtrack straight out of a Care Bears cartoon. Awww, Serena likes him.
A rich dude is hording food. Boomer and Apollo motivate him to share. “Sire” Uri is a member of the new Quorum of 12.
We get a long, boring look at a long tube the doc is using on Cassiopia’s broken arm - a regenerator, aka a flashlight with a red bulb in it, brought to you by the same props people who gave us bubble wrap curtains. She comes out and Starbuck trots off with her arm in arm after he says he’ll find her a place to stay.
A council meeting. “Sire” Uri wants to go to Boralis for food. Apollo wants to go to Carillon instead, by a short route rather than the long way that apparently is traditional, sending a team of fighters out to clear an inconvenient mine field. He expects, and gets, Boomer and Starbuck to volunteer. And now Apollo and Pa Adama are fighting about it, spewing cliches at each other, dramatically pitching metaphors and stalking around the room.
Back in Chez Bubble Wrap, Apollo gets Boxey and takes him to the lab of … some scientist dude. SD talks about having to make a fake daggit for a lot of trumped-up reasons that wouldn’t convince a four year old. Out comes the chimp in the daggit suit, complete with spinning ears. It earns Apollo a bump of the forehead with Serena. No kissing in front of the sprog!
Athena goes looking for Pa and finds him drinking and angsting about the horrors of confronting terrified colonists on what was left of Caprica. “I don’t want to do this anymore, wa wa wa.”
Starbuck shows Cassie his phallic symbol viper and then follows her into a launch tube so Athena can just happen to walk through looking for him, see him necking on a monitor, fly into a jealous rage, and vent steam into the tube. “That little snake.” Yes, let’s boil him alive! How dare he take her request for no relationship seriously and kiss someone else!
Fortunately, he survives to “volunteer” to go shoot mines. By now you’re thinking I’m just shifting abruptly for the sake of brevity, but the cuts are quite abrupt with no sense of passage of time; for all I know, Starbuck is still blistered and scalded and riding around in a viper slathered in Noxema. The toxic cloud they’re flying in is doing inexplicable things to the hulls of the ships, and they’re firing blindly at mines and blowing them up. Athena, whose function I still don’t quite understand, sits on the bridge intently punching buttons. It’s what she appears to be there for. Maybe it’s like the computer on Lost and if she doesn’t press the buttons something dire will happen? Just a few minutes of shooting mines and we’re there!
Baltar arrives to talk to Insect!Cylon, who informs him that the deal’s off, and Baltar says his understanding was that the human race be subjugated under him; Bughead says he’s going to be executed.
Starbuck and Apollo are roaming around on Carillon in armored tank-like vehicles, which I don’t see how they got it down on the planet — did they dangle it under the vipers? Boomer’s along, too, riding with Starbuck, and Serena and Boxey and the daggit are with Apollo and (I think) Jolly. WTF? You thought having Wesley on the bridge was annoying! They stop and walk up to a cave, and a chick wearing feathers (Vegas showgirl from another planet!) runs out. Starbuck guesses she’s Tauran from her accent, which I suppose means everybody’s Tauran, since it’s the same accent everyone has had so far. They walk into the gambling den of women in draped skimpy things and men in confining long sleeved robes over long sleeved shirts.
Cut to tank #2. Boxey asks why the Cylons are trying to hurt them, and why we can’t just turn them off if they’re machines. Evidently the Cylons were reptiles who made the machines which were then called Cylons, and Apollo doesn’t think there are any living reptile Cylons left, except I just saw the Bughead so that’s not very good intelligence.
Back in the casino Starbuck and Boomer watch three women, who have four eyes and two mouths apiece and sing in harmony, shattering glasses. Starbuck wants to be their agent. Man, he’s a crappy warrior. No attention to the mission. Then again, I’m not sure what that is yet, either.
In Tank #2, they find a tylium deposit. Oh, so that’s what they’re doing. Muffy the daggit jumps out and runs off, prompting a long long long sequence where the kid is running and running between yards of fake rocks screaming “Muffy!” and I sat here screaming “shut up, learn to act!” Aliens with green glowing eyes pop over a ridge and capture the adults. The bugs take them to their leader, and Apollo uses the Languatron (seriously, it’s got a big label on the front — LANGUATRON) which looks like a ginormous tv remote. Bug squeaks, languatron translates. The bugs reunite them with the kid and all is well.
Cut to scenes of shuttles going down from the fleet. Voiceover about ‘much needed rest.’ Hey, let’s give people leave and not investigate the curious coexistence of a mine and a casino. The casino is luring people into complacency as it’s designed to do.
We get a scene where Starbuck, Athena, and Cassiopia have a conversation - Starbuck is gambling and the next thing he knows, the women are sniping at each other and trying to claim a key to a suite to which they want to drag Starbuck and ravish him. Athena wins, and Starbuck’s confused, and I’m thinking he’s acting too much like a battered wife here. I wonder if they made him a woman in the new version so he’d be tougher. Apparently, it’s the females of the colonial subspecies of the human race who are typically demanding and aggressive.
A short scene with an elevator delivering people to the basement, gaping frightened expressions, and a scream - one of the Vegas transplants slaps her hands to her cheeks and does a full throated glass-breaker, and the camera blurs her face to fadeout. How 70’s.
Useless scene of bickering quorum members telling us nothing new, other than they never learn to listen to Adama. This, as I recall, was a constant theme in this series.
Cassie’s in the elevator with Anonymous Obnoxious Pilot/Redshirt, it goes to the basement, she screams - and we see people struggling unconvincingly to escape being strapped down in vaguely bee-like cells by the bugs. O_O Okay, these bugs, the Ovions, are living on a planet that appears to be a barren rock with no ecosystem. They must have come here from somewhere else. They didn’t bring groceries and now they have to kidnap stray humans who wander past? And how did this ‘resort’ escape attention prior to this when they’re obviously making people disappear?
Now it’s gone to this contrived scene where Adama meets Tigh in the hanger bay, gives him a headset, and they talk to each other across a whole twenty feet from within the cockpits of vipers. I can think of a number of problems with this if the goal is to not have eavesdroppers. Wouldn’t it be easier to scan for life signs and/or listening devices, deal with them, and have a nice quiet conversation face to face? Instead of transmitting on a frequency someone could conceivably pick up with a radio? Maybe I’m just not an expert in these matters. Pa Adama (Padama?) is worried that Sire Uri’s men will overhear. Hey, you voted the guy into the Quorum. Adama wants to “do something” and Tigh is all “whatever you say big guy - what are we doing?” Sounds like he thinks Uri is a Cylon conspirator. But Uri didn’t want to come here - he wanted to go to that other place? I’m confused. And why is there steam hissing out from under that viper? Why does Adama look so tanned? Why do I even bother wondering?
Adama wants to send bunches of people who aren’t pilots to the Big Party so Uri doesn’t know the pilots are elsewhere protecting the fleet from the impending doom. Tigh agrees and goes nancing through the bunkhouse/dorm swiping uniforms from people’s lockers. Eh? Why not just ask? Or better yet, order them to give up the goods? Or go down to storage where there are probably spares in different sizes? “Inspection”? Oh brother. I guess it’s one uniform per warrior or something.
Oh wow - Starbuck’s taking off his uniform. I had no idea there was velcro along the neckline and shoulder. It’s a stripper’s uniform!
Pa ‘dama is on the bridge giving Apollo excuses for not going to the ceremony honoring him. Apollo sez Pa’s been more of a father to him, he’s been someone he could trust and look up to — wow, I thought you could do that to a father too. Adama gets up on the bridge lazy susan and looks thoughtful and grim.
Apollo comments on strange men in uniform. Serena rationalizes seeing the strange men in uniform away by saying they’re probably retired pilots and kisses Apollo on the nose. If she keeps missing that way, we’ll never believe they’re in love! Starbuck and Boomer have the same misgivings about some guys wearing uniforms belonging to their squadron. Serena tells them not to miss their own coronation - Apollo’s gonna be king? Wha?
The Ovions report to the Cylons, receive orders from a centurion to keep the humans occupied. Starbuck and Apollo decide to go to investigate and rather than ask the folks with the uniforms who they are, head for the basement, where they see centurions marching. I still don’t understand why Pa didn’t tell them what’s going on.
Oh, Starbuck wants to ignite the tylium with his handgun after Apollo gets everyone to safety. He so SMRT! Boxey, who wandered into an elevator after the daggit, runs out and foils the plan by nearly getting bonked on the head by a centurion - why didn’t the machine shoot him? Are bonking subroutines higher on the priority list than shooting? They then rescue Cassiopia, who was captured forever ago, from being crammed into a cell in the hive - the same one I saw the bug people putting someone else into earlier. I guess they wanted her to ripen a little first?
Running, fighting, running. Frak! shouts Starbuck. There have also been mentions of yaron, centon, and other faked up time measurements. Uri is making a speech and when Apollo runs in and shouts for evacuation, Uri shouts he’s in charge - until the centurions appear and shoot, at which point he’s suddenly obedient and running. People run from the cave and get to the vehicles, which have turret guns. Muffit runs around biting centurions on the calf, which appears to disable them for some reason. The centurion falls face down on the ground, sparking. How dumb. “Shoot for the calves!” should become a colonial battle cry.
“25 microts” is the ETA of the attack fleet. Starbuck gets to hug Cassie and Boxey wants Apollo to be his daddy. Say it like you mean it, kid. They take off. Still no clue how the wheeled vehicles got to the planet, cause all I see are shuttles and vipers, none big enough to put a hummer in.
Stock footage of Cylons firing on Galactica, crashing one in the landing bay. Stock footage of vipers in formation. When the vipers show up, the Cylons turn their heads and look out the window of their ship - wow, amazing technology for detection of the enemy!
Felgercarb! I’d forgotten that one. Lots of shots of ships in action — no real indication of how many there are or how many are left. Athena is on the bridge pretending she can act. Ouch, that was a bad line. Adama doesn’t want them to pursue the base star; predictably Apollo and Starbuck go anyway and pretend they are a huge fleet of ships by chatting it up. Hey, if Cylons have to look out the window to see the enemy, it might work.
A centurion tells Imperious Leader all their ships are destroyed. Imperious orders the ship closer to the planet. When they find out there are just two vipers, they fire on the vipers, which bug out because they know laser fire will ignite tylium - predictably this happens and blows up the entire planet. Wow. Hate when that happens.
“Fleeing from Cylon tyranny, the last battlestar, Galactica, leads a ragtag fugitive fleet on a lonely quest - a shining planet known as Earth.” Uh huh.
And the epilogue. Baltar, having a bad hair day, faces another Imperious Leader, who informs him that ‘his people’ destroyed the other base star. Oh, look, the traitor’s being sent to find the fleet. To be spared from death - I figured they would have killed him already, oh well. New Imperious Leader wants a truce - again. Right. Lucifer, the pointy headed two eyed Cylon, enters the room. Ominous music. Credits!
Ensign Greenbean? eh? Oh, it’s Ed Begley.
According to the credits it was a Landram vehicle they were driving.
And that’s it for the first three episodes, all in a row. We’ve seen most of the standard BSG elements introduced - the new terms that actors can’t make sound natural, the daggit who runs off and gets the kid in trouble, the women fighting over Starbuck, No One Listens to Adama Even if He’s Always Right(tm), the viper pilots who do what they please and don’t get in any real trouble, bad science, and uneven performance from some of the less experienced actors. And now the ragtag fleet is sailing off with the Cylons coming after, to pursue other stock BSG traditions such as crashing on planets and finding other humans thither and yon.
Tune in tomorrow when I start the two parter “Lost Planet of the Gods.” Apollo will get married, and horribly written relationship discussions ensue.
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