Review of Battlestar Galactica Season 1 DVD

To come in this space, Rel's review of the Battlestar Galactica season 1 & miniseries DVD. Below is the working draft.

Let's start with the packaging. Season one comes as a 5-disc set, the first of which contains the minseries, with the other four discs containing the 13 season one episodes. The outer container is of a sleeve design, containing five smaller, "slim"-type DVD containers. Imagine the thickness of a slim-CD case, but the lenghth/width of a standard DVD case.

Began watching the miniseries on the night of October 30th, and made it some hour and ten minutes in, before finding it necessary to break to give our 17 month old a bath. Having seen all of Seasons One and Two on Sci-Fi as they aired (courtesy of TIVO), but not the miniseries, the miniseries sure fills in some gaps, and while similar in concept to the 1978 series pilot, the circumstances surrounding the Galactica itself are quite different.

The remake version opens as the Battlestar Galactica being readied for decommissioning, after more than forty years since the last Cylon was seen. Like the original, the Galactica was one of 12 ships, one for each colony, with Galactica representing Caprica. Under the remake, however, it is simply represented that the Galactica was the last of her class in service, now some 50 years old. In the original, the other eleven were destroyed during the Cylon sneak-attack, the Galactica only escaping because it left to check on Caprica.

The civilian government's representative to the decommissioning is the Education Secretary, Laura Roslin. Adama sees his son for the first time in two years, as a photo-op for the decommissioning, since Adama's other son was killed in a Viper accident. The Younger Adama ("Apollo") holds much resentment for his father over this event, blaming it on the Father's expectation of the family following in his footsteps. (It is revealed in a later episode that the brother's death was facilitated by one Lt. Kara Thrace, aka "Starbuck") The tension between the two Adamas is palatable.

Apollo is tasked with flying Adama's old Viper from years ago, which had been resurrected by Chief Tyrrell and his hangar staff. His duty is as the last flyby during the decommissioning ceremony.

While the Galactica's main squadron is out, the Cylons have conspired to make a sneak attack on four of the colonial homeworlds with Nukes. Enter Dr. Gaius Baltar, who inadvertently is responsible for allowing a Cylon agent access to the Defense mainframe, publishing the Colonial positions to the Cylon fleet. The Cylons have developed a way of neutralizing the Colonial computers, and just such an attack on Galactica's squadron leaves them sitting ducks, and they are all destroyed. Only the raptor with "Helo" and "Boomer" in it escapes, but is hit, loses fuel, and coasts its way back to Caprica.

Back on Galactica, they have been alerted as to the attack, and sound battlestations. The crew is surprised, thinking they had been decommissioned. All they had left on the ship were older Vipers meant for a musuem that had been made out of one of Galactica's hangar bays. Chief Tyrrell and crew knock down the museum barriers, and move the relics into the active hangar bay in preparation for combat.

A standing order on prewar Galactica prevented the integration and networking of the computer systems, and this would serve to save the ship.

11-3-05: After a few days, I got through some more of the DVD, but not the whole way.

On Caprica, Boomer and Helo have landed amidst the mushroom clouds of Cylon nukes. Helo guards the ship while Boomer repairs their broken fuel line, and they find themselves surrounded by misplaced Capricans wanting a way off the planet. The space on their Raptor is limited, and after taking the children, they draw numbers for the remaining three spots. Helo recognizes the genius Dr. Gauis Baltar amongst the crowd, and offers up his seat so that Baltar may also escape. (This fills in the reason why Helo spent the first season-plus on Caprica)

On the ship now known as Colonial One (formerly Caprica flight 498), Secretary of Education Laura Roslin hears word that the President of the 12 Colonies of Kobol and the cabinet senior to her are dead. She summons a priest to administer the oath of office, the callsign of the ship changes to Colonial One.

On the Battlestar Galactica, a Cylon raid delivers three nukes at Galactica, two of which are destroyed prior to impact. The third takes out a major section of the ship, causing fires, but most of the radiation is avoided. A major command decision has to be made on extinguishing the fire, one that could cost the lives of many men. XO Tigh is forced to make the decision, and after a few seconds hesitation, saves the ship by ordering the sealing off of the section, and venting to space. Chief Tyrrell argued for more time to get more men out, that simply 40 seconds more would have worked to get most all of them out.

Colonial One (Roslin) wants the Galactica to help them rescue survivors after Adama had decided to regroup at Ragnor station for resupply. Just then a Cylon raider appears over Colonial One, which survives due to an instinctive trick by Captain Lee Adama to fake out the Cylon.