“Your sister’s a pilot!” Serena yelps at Apollo in the teaser. Wow, could’ve fooled me. I thought she was a button-pushing bridge decoration.
After the credits (accompanied by the Trumpets of Pomposity and Grandiosity that is the theme song) we are treated to a long painful dinner party wherein Apollo announces his engagement to Serena, Athena smiles at Starbuck, and Starbuck panics, goes hubba-wubba-huh and scrambles from the room. More or less. Aaaand, patrol launched. Our Guys are in vipers and flying, seven minutes into the episode.
Cut to three base stars floating in space. Replay of the Baltar meets Lucifer scene, plus some oozing from Lucifer about having the most capable centurions in the universe. Aren’t they all sort of the same?
Our viper guys run across a dead patch of space, that’s… blacker and emptier than usual. Starbuck wants to go in, Apollo jets off himself - there’s that headstrong reckless thing again. They lose contact. “Oh, frak.” Starbuck is left wondering what to do now that Apollo’s lost… in space.
Guards? Security? break up an apparent bachelor party for Apollo before it starts. “where are you getting your victuals?” Who the heck says ‘victuals’ when they mean ‘beer’? Tigh shows up to shoo the security officers away and scold the ‘kids’ for stealing from the officer’s rations, then enables them in their debauchery by encouraging them to continue.
‘millicenton’? geeze.
Starbuck is flying into the void, outlining his plan as he goes, and hears nothing from Apollo so keeps flying. He finds Apollo, does a 180 and leads them home. “Let’s go home, buddy.” Elsewhere, Jolly and Boomer “pick up some crazy readings off that asteriod” and go on down there to investigate. Now, that is one habitable asteroid - no suits or breathers, and they’re stalking up to the cylon base just fine.
Baltar is sitting in a Big Tall Chair. Lucifer arrives bowing and scraping, and Baltar thinks he’s in charge. Good thing for the cylons these folks are so dumb. They saw the scouts near the ‘listening post’ and let them go, per Baltar’s orders. Looks like a plan is in the works.
Jolly and Boomer are nearly back to Galactica and Jolly’s driving drunk or something - he’s sweating and having trouble keeping his nose up. On the bridge, Pa Adama points at the wall o’ planets and orbits drawn all in red and points at the same sector we were in last episode - come on, Pa, show some progress.
Apollo’s party is in progress already and Jolly falls down. Boomer isn’t having fun, either. Turns out they forgot to go through decontamination and now people are getting sick. Great, now we can get lots of medical technobabble. People are feverish and doc tucks them into hermetically sealed tubes for safekeeping.
On the bridge, Pa is sitting in his easy chair, which is mounted on his lazy susan. The news arrives that people are falling over feverish - my, what a short incubation period this virus has. Plus, you know, it was an asteroid, all dust and rock, so I’m a little confused at this point. Also about the ‘walking around without a space suit’ thing. Still. Anyway, Pa’s all upset about it and immediately rushes all the way down to where the party’s happened - yes, the president of the quorum and military leader and father figure to all rushes in where the contamination broke out first, and exposes himself. Then announces a quarantine and proceeds to walk back to the bridge. What?
Apollo, who happened to be on the way himself, was there too - so what does he do? He goes and argues with his bride to be about her being a cadet pilot in training because he wants her to be safe. DUDE. And he picks up the kid and kisses on him. And makes up with fiancee and necks for a bit. DUUUUUUDE. Way to pay attention. Have fun sweating in a tube in sickbay with the whole family.
Pa’dama arrives in sickbay to announce that half the bridge crew are down — OF COURSE they are, Typhoid Adama! And now you’re breathing on the doctor! And I think he knows about the sick people. You know? Go be useless somewhere else.
Which he does. He reads a few things on a screen featuring pictographs/stick people and big all-caps lettering. Apollo comes in and he informs #1 Son that the cadets need to be in the cockpit pronto because the illness is sweeping the squadrons. Guess Adama and his son are immune or something? Apollo hands Pa the roster on his way out and Pa looks properly chagrined at seeing Serena on the list.
Off to the briefing room, where it becomes clear to me that the straps and shiny body suit I saw Athena wearing are really a pressure suit worn by pilots. Wow, guess she really is a pilot, even though she doesn’t fly anything. Unless she flies the Galactica itself, which is like, whoa. What isn’t clear is why she practically climbed in a locker when Starbuck came in, and now she’s lounging around in public in one - cause there she is with the other cadets, who are shuttle pilots. And all of those cadets Apollo is facing now are women, and all of them are wearing those pressure suits. Serena gets Captain Apollo’s attention to whisper ‘I love you’ and embarrass him in front of the other kids. Someone giggles. I swear, we are stuck in Sweet Valley Galactica. I’m just waiting for Tigh to show up and start handing out detention.
Back in sickbay, Cassiopia is helping doc tend the pilots he’s put in suspended animation. There’s been no transitional scene or explanation for her sudden shift from prostitute to nurse. Did she have a crash course between episodes? Doc goes up to the bridge and climbs the lazy susan to announce that the only hope “those boys have” is going back to the strange asteroid with an atmosphere.
Athena is in the simulator targeting a cylon. She shoots, she scores, she also hits Starbuck in a simulated way. Apollo’s supervising but gets called to the bridge. Pa and Ap argue about whether they’re ready to fly for real. I guess Pa wins, as we swiftly move to shots of pilots getting into vipers and taking off. There’s tension on the bridge until all are launched, then cheering breaks out.
The door on the base star sounds like sabers being drawn. Probably is. Lucifer informs Baltar that the fleet is heading for the “magnetic abyss, possibly endless, etc.” in other words, the colonials are doing something illogical. Baltar thinks things are going well, that Adama will just hand over Galactica without firing a shot — geeze. Keep your fantasy life to yourself. He wants to capture a colonial pilot. “By your command.”
The warriors argue, Apollo issues a verbal slapdown to the mouthy woman who dares assert that he not go it alone to get the sample from the dead asteriod to figure out the mysterious disease/virus/whatever. Apollo takes off, and soon after (like, seconds) a cylon shows up. Starbuck sends the wimminfolk off so he can shoot it, Athena won’t go. “I’m your wingman.” He tells her to hang back and not shoot him. He shoots, he scores, they peel off and go after Apollo.
The other wimminfolk are disobeying orders and following Apollo in, but I’m sure that will turn out okay since there are no consequences for disobeying orders. Much flying about and shooting as the women shoot cylons and the base itself, until everything’s destroyed and they can get the medical shuttle, which we never actually see, in to collect whatever they need.
And Baltar is surprised that the colonials are heading into the abyss, and can’t understand why they destroyed the listening post/base. He insists the cylons capture a patrol. Credits.
Wow. No one crashed. Maybe that’s in part 2.
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