Battlestar Galactica: original series — 1x21 — Baltar's Escape
Synopsis
The imprisoned Baltar leads a deadly revolt and takes hostages with the aid of the Borellian prisoners and the Alliance Enforcers.
Remarkable scenes
- Adama interrogating the Eastern Alliance officers.
- One of the Nomen: "We do many things to survive. Even die."
- Tigh's meeting with Apollo and Starbuck in the Officer's Club.
- Starbuck: "Baltar, Nomen, and the enforcers. At least we've got all our enemies in the same place!" Apollo: "Including the council!"
- The activation of the zombie Cylon.
Review
This episode brings up an interesting issue of whether or not Adama should be allowed to exert martial law over the fleet. Sadly the issue is not explored particularly well because the council is consistently depicted as completely incompetent. Even Adama's "overseer" appointed in this episode is somewhat dense, and the whole point of her character was to show that the council isn't a bunch of idiots!
What I do like about this episode is its continuity. There is continuity with "War of the Gods" regarding Baltar's imprisonment. There is coninuity with "The Man with Nine Lives" regarding the Nomen. And there is continuity with "Greetings from Earth" regarding the Eastern Alliance captured soldiers and their ship. This episode serves to tie up loose threads from those episodes, or rather to compliment them. During a time when few science fiction shows understood the concept of episodic continuity or plot arcs, I do appreciate this attention to detail.
But in the end, what could have been a fascinating look at government in the RTF degenerates into a silly hostage situation resulting in the ludicrously easy escape of the bad guys. As if the writers could not think of any good reason to keep them around, so it's time to get rid of them!