Episode Summary

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Omphalos
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Episode Summary

Post by Omphalos »

Season one, episode two, titled Water, aired 01/14/2005: Summary: When a mysterious explosion destroys most of the Galactica's Water Supply, Adama and President Roslin attempt to control the ensuing riots while Baltar searches for any Cylons who may have infiltrated the crew.

Episode two was written to include one of the themes of the original series, which is the difficulty of dealing with refugees in a militarized fleet. The episode opens with a near catatonic Sharon in a room on the Galactica wearing a drenched flight suit. She comes to, but obviously does not know why she is there or what drenched her, but does look through her bag and finds some plastique bombs. Sharon goes to the unguarded small arms locker to replace the fuse that she founding her bag, and finds out that six others are missing. Boomer confided in Chief Tyrol, her boyfriend, who was shocked that she did not report the missing fuses to the Chief of the Watch. Sharon was concerned that someone would take her for either a Cylon agent or worse yet, a Cylon. Later during the investigation Tyrol covered for Boomer.

Roslin boarded the Galactica for a meeting, where Adama surreptitiously told her that the Galactica had excellent water recycling capabilities, but the other ships in the fleet did not and required frequent tanking up from the Galactica. While a ship was tanking up, the bombs went off and all of the water in the port tanks of the Galactica vented into space, 60% of their totals. Strangely, Adama mentioned that when they had 100% of their water they could last for years. Later Gaeta told Roslin that with only 40% of their water remaining Galactica could only survive for six days.

Water riots later broke out, and the military agreed to become a police agency. On a mission to search for new water viewers were shown that the missing seventh fuse was connected to a bomb in Boomer’s raptor, obviously planted there by Boomer herself. Turns out it was probably an attempt at suicide, but she chickened out before it blew her and her cockpit-mate Crashdown to oblivion.

On Caprica Boomer convinced Helo that she was legitimate by showing him the raptor she claims she used to get, covered with Cylons. At night they hear signals between human agents on Caprica, and almost kiss each other out of joy.

In other news Baltar got flirty with Starbuck, and took the entire table from her in a card game. I guess Starbuck has two blind-spots; anger and . . . whatever that was.

This episode was a traditional SF type tale. It was a problem-solving story where the characters had to solve their water problem before the refugees revolted. It also taught us that Boomer was a shaky, unstable nut that could not be trusted. Neither could the Chief, for that matter, as he was blinded by love. But, of course, more on that later.

Roslin: You know I remember when President Adar sent the marines into Aerilon. Fifteen people died. In public, of course, he had to say all the usual things. He was sure of what he had done. He made the right choice. Um, stayed the course. But he knew it was a mistake. He kept the names of the dead in his desk drawer. He said that it was imperative for a leader to remember and learn from his mistakes, even if they can’t admit to them publicly.

Apollo: Do you think they made a mistake?

Roslin: No. I don’t have a desk drawer yet (pulling out a piece of paper with the name of the Olympic Carrier on it), but I have a pocket.

This episode aired two years after President Bush started the second war in Iraq. Wisdom like this was at least half of us in the United States were waiting for in 2005. It was the kind of thing we all hoped Bush II could embrace, but knew that he never would. This was the first real connection in the show to what was happening in the real world. More on this to come.

Roslin then asked Apollo to be her personal military advisor, to help her understand her role as Commander-in-Chief.
Something is about to happen, Hal. Something wonderful!

-James C. Harwood, Science Fiction Writer, Straight (March 5, 1956 - May 25, 2010)



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