Review

This episode is all about Apollo and where his loyalties lie. The idea to introduce Richard Hatch as a recurring character on the new Galactica was a fantastic idea, and the idea to make his first episode have his character conflict directly with Apollo was absolutely perfect. It may seem like an obvious thing to do, but who cares? It's endlessly amusing. But besides trivial amusements, this is a very deep episode which develops Apollo's character extremely well and explores the very important issue regarding the remnants of the colonial government. Because after all, in the end, what Zarek's trying to do makes sense. Maybe he takes it too far, but it's important to preserve democracy. Roslin must not be president longer than what was left of Adar's term.

The story itself picks up wonderfully on Water's ending. Tigh was correct in Water when he said "the galaxy is a pretty barren and desolate place when you get right down to it." So they may have found water, but it's frozen. They're going to have to mine it, melt it, and then store it. This is hard work, so who's going to do it? Well, this episode also picks up on that little comment in the miniseries about the Astral Queen being part of the fleet. The Astral Queen was transporting prisoners. In this episode we learn a bit more about these prisoners. Adama says "they've been sentenced to hard labor. And this is very hard labor." Indeed. So what's wrong with forcing them to mine the water? I tend to agree with Adama.

But Roslin didn't agree with Adama, and that's all that matters. I don't agree with her decision to give the prisoners more rights and to make this work voluntary, but she's the president and that's that. She has the right to make these decisions. It's important to note that my disagreement with Roslin's decision doesn't degrade the story in any way. Presidents make decisions which are unpopular all the time. It's simply realistic.

Indeed, her decision led to the very conflict which this episode centers around. Her perhaps misplaced compassion for the prisoners gave Zarek his chance to take over the Astral Queen, which makes her "no deals, no negotiating with terrorists" stance rather ironic. However the centerpiece of this episode is the exploration of where Apollo's loyalties lie. I felt early on in the episode Adama was right. Apollo hadn't picked a side yet. What that means is sort of nebulous until Tom Zarek's conversation with Apollo about his callsign, which is the perfect metaphor for what Apollo's internal conflict is all about.

Zarek says that Apollo is one of the gods, a lord of Kobol who was god of the bow, god of the hunt, and also a god of healing. Zarek also says that a god can reconcile these two opposing forces but a mortal has to pick one side. Then he asks Apollo which side he's picked. This is a pivotal moment for Apollo's character, because in the events which take place after this scene, Apollo has clearly chosen neither side. At the end of the episode, everybody has compromised. Neither side gets exactly what it wants. Adama and Roslin are pissed off that Apollo has given Zarek the Astral Queen, and Zarek is not completely satisfied either because his original goal was to bring down the government and call for immediate elections.

But also in the end, this compromise works well enough for everybody. Zarek and his men do the water mining in exchange for their freedom, and the fleet gets water. While the situation is not resolved to everyone's ideal satisfaction, it is resolved the only way it could have been resolved. And in this resolution, Apollo proves that he doesn't need to "pick a side," for he can reconcile being "god of the hunt" and "god of healing" satisfactorily. Apollo, true to his callsign, can balance his opposing beliefs and internal conflicts, which is his most valuable skill of all.