The series proper starts with a two-parter. I don’t really like the opening of the show. The credits are kind of bland, and I could do without hearing that whole “There are those who believe...” narration every episode.
I was surprised that the show opens with a teaser for the episode, like Sailor Moon used to do.
I did not know Donald Bellisario was involved with this show. For those who don’t know, he is the creator/producer of a number of television series including Airwolf, Magnum, P.I., Quantum Leap, JAG, and NCIS. Interesting that he worked as a writer and producer on Galactica. On a personal note, his nephew was my fifth and sixth grade teacher.
They totally stole their credit font from Star Trek! It’s even the same color!
In the first part, Boomer ends up bringing some disease back to the ship that infects most of the pilots (except Apollo and Starbuck, of course). While they are out of commission, a group of women is trained to be fighter pilots. This includes Serina, Jane Seymour’s character. She and Apollo are engaged now, and will marry in the next episode. Apollo doesn’t want her to fly, but she insists. I thought the dynamic of suddenly having a co-ed working environment was handled well. Normally when a story like this is done either the women are all just like the men (buff, cursing and smoking) or played as weak and inferior (what does this button do? Did I break a nail?). Here the women are clearly capable. Athena is already a pilot, so there’s no misogynism there either. But there’s also a great scene where Apollo and Starbuck seem out of place after a mission when their usual pilot’s banter has now become “girl talk”. It’s a nice commentary on how the sexes relate amongst them selves and with each other without arguing that one is right or wrong.
Hey, the cute communications girl is back! And her hair changes twice in this episode. I like the one from the pilot best. She’s like the Princess Leia of the Galactica!
When Part 2 picks up, the pilots are somehow cured. I know they went back to the planet to investigate the pathogen, but I don’t remember hearing anything else about it, unless I was falling asleep. Suddenly Boomer is standing on the bridge and that crisis is over.
Baltar is given his own base ship as he has convinced the new Cylon leader he can bring them the Galactica. Baltar is given a robot assistant named Lucifer (no significance to that name, right?). Lucifer is a little more human looking than the Centurians; he has what appears to be a robe, as well as two eye lights rather than the one, and a mouth light. To my pleasant surprise, he is voiced by Jonathan Harris! I hope he sticks around for awhile.
The mythology of the series is fleshed out here. Some of the things I was unsure about are cleared up. The humans did indeed all come from a single mother world; we get a name for it: Kobul. Why Kobul? Who knows. It’s from Kobul that all the thirteen colonies came. Though I still don’t understand why Earth is in a whole other galaxy. Each of the twelve council members has a medallion that signifies some kind of priesthood. Most of the episode follows the Galactica finding Kobul, and Adama’s hope that there he can find information on Earth’s location.
There’s a point where the ship comes across a “void” where there are no stars or anything; it’s just dark. They must cross this void. First may I point out that ALL of space is a void! If you’re in an area where you can’t see light, that would mean there IS something there, not that there’s NOTHING there. Secondly, I seem to remember this plot device being done on Star Trek: Voyager too. Galactica is starting to feel a lot like Voyager. We’ve even got Boxey, the equivalent of Naomi Wildman.
I neglected to mention costumes in my last post. They are a standard ‘70s color palette with lots of whites and browns and a bit of blue. It’s a little dull to look at. Why do so many people wear robes and things? What does that signify? There was an attempt at least to make people from different colonies look a bit different, so that was good. But I think I saw one guy in the destruction of Caprica who looked like a knight or something with his flowing robes in two colors. And what’s up with those silly Egyptian-inspired helmets? Do they even have face plates? They don’t seem terribly practical, and since there’s no other Egyptian motif on the ship, it seems out of place. But of course, this will be further muddied by “Lost Planet of the Gods”.
When they arrive at Kobul, it looks just like Egypt. The message is clear: our Egyptians were alien colonists from Kobul who built everything exactly the same. But that sort of broad design generalization undermines the significance of history and geography to a people’s aesthetic and I find it a bit lazy. I’d also like to know if other cultures are represented in other cities on Kobul. Adama says that the city is called Eden. Now, I sincerely doubt we are supposed to believe that Adam and Eve were cast off the planet Kobul, or that our stories are somehow pollutions of a similar fact. Larson is just name-dropping here, hoping that broad themes will stick. The twelve colonies obviously parallel the twelve tribes of Israel, especially now that we see they had a mass exodus from “Egypt”. They have their own sort of “priesthood”. The “lost colony” of earth then, might have Mormon overtones (Larson is Mormon) of the lost tribes who crossed the ocean and colonized America. So Earth is in another galaxy just to be a Mormon metaphor?
I’m confused whether the original inhabitants of Kobul are supposed to be human or not. The episode is called “Lost Planet of the Gods”. Are we being told our conception of “god” is just an alien intelligence? Did some god-race co-exist with the humans on Kobul? We know there were humans, because they left and colonized. Were the humans created by the god-race? Or were they all just human? The tomb they find and the subsequent Indiana Jones-style destruction suggests beings with superhuman powers.
Interesting that the wedding ceremony involves handfasting with the priestly medallion thing. And there were more candles than the great hall of Hogwarts!
Poor Jane Seymour is killed by Cylons. No more Serina, which is a shame since she was one of the more interesting characters. Apparently Seymour really didn’t want to do a series like this long-term.
Adama looks for information about those who colonized Earth and where they were going. Considering I doubt any of them came back to leave a map, this is sort of a dead line of inquiry, isn’t it? The most he’d be able to get is a vague sense of direction, and even that might end up being drastically different from where they actually ended up.
Baltar arrives playing double agent and shows that he’s bad by denouncing superstition and touching the thing he shouldn’t, causing the place to cave in and trap our heroes. Ho hum, seen it before. When they finally do get free, they leave Baltar trapped on Kobul. I wonder if he’ll return, or if this is his ultimate comeuppance.
Favorite Line: “Have faith, Lucifer. Have faith.” I just find that really funny.
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