As the first season of the SciFi Channel's breakout show ended, a tense standoff between the military and civilian leadership of the "ragtag fleet" reached a crisis point and the "sleeper agent" of the cybernetic Cylons managed to save humanity (for at least one more day). Shortly after returning to the fleet, she pumped a couple of rounds into the chest of Commander Adama, the battlestar's commanding officer, throwing the ship into bloody confusion. The show's second season picks up right where the first left off, and doesn't let up the relentless pace.
Adama lies unconscious in a pool of his own blood. The president is in the brig. Adama's son Lee is in manacles, having defied his father's orders. Colonel Tigh, Adama's second in command, is woefully unprepared to assume control of the fleet. Sharon, the Galactica pilot who is secretly a human-form Cylon (a fact which she herself doesn't fully recognize), doesn't remember shooting the commander - and doesn't know who ordered her to pull the trigger, or how she received her instructions. Doctor Baltar and the team exploring the surface of the ancient human homeworld Kobol are left to their own devices, having crash-landed on the planet after unexpectedly encountering Cylon ships.
And oh yes: another Cylon base star has just appeared within range of the Galactica's sensors.
Recognizing their inability to fight off the Cylons for any length of time, Tigh orders the fleet to immediately make a "faster than light" jump to the previously designated escape coordinates. Unfortunately, when the Galactica arrives at the location, the other ships aren't there. Apparently, in the confusion one of Adama's officers failed to relay the updated coordinates to the rest of the fleet; Galactica went one way, the other ships went another. And the only way for the Galactica to find them would be to return to its last location, re-plot the jump using the old coordinates, and then follow the other ships. The problem? Because of the Cylons' ability to infiltrate networked computers, none of the systems aboard the Galactica are networked. And it will take 12 hours to run the appropriate computations - hours the ship won't have, because the Cylon base star is sitting there waiting for them.
Meanwhile, Adama is in sick bay, bleeding to death, and the ship's surgeon is with the rest of the fleet. That leaves an untested medic the only one capable of keeping Adama alive for any period of time while Tigh and the rest of the crew try to devise a solution to their multiple problems. And even as one problem is solved, more arise - whether it be the demands of the civilian government to see their imprisoned president, who reveals her belief that she is the "dying leader" foretold by an ancient prophecy who will lead her people to their salvation (and safety) on Earth, or the nasty infiltration of Cylons (both a Cylon computer virus as well as some Cylon Centurions) when Tigh and his crew do settle on a way to find the rest of the fleet.
Article comments
1 - John Owen
Nice job, Bill! Whether or not BSG is the best show on television right now is an open question and a matter of personal taste. What's certain is that it's my favorite show, to the point where (in my Tivoless and VCR-lackign household) I'm actually bummed if I have plans on a Friday night.
One litmus test as to whether Sci-Fi is actually good as more than a genre exercise is whether my wife likes it too. I'm the fanatical David Brin and Vernor Vinge reader; she nods politely and continues having little interest in the stuff. And yet, for the last five days, having gotten BSG Season 1 on DVD for Christmas, my wife has been turning her her big brown eyes my way, gazing lovingly, and saying "want to watch more Battlestar?"
Great show. Great, great show.