Battlestar Galactica: S02E06: Home Pt. 1

Home parts 1 and 2 were David Eick’s first attempt at writing an episode of Battlestar Galactica. And with luck, it may be his last. At first it was a single episode that went about 30 long. So he and Moore got permission from Sci Fi to make a two part episode. The results are these two episodes. Neither episode alone contains enough plot for 1 hour. Together they work well, but the 12 minutes of filler added to each episodes serves as a major distraction from the already hidden plot.
Yes, I am performing a nuBSG first for a fansite, writing a negative review. It’s so rare that fansites actually tell their readers when something isn’t good. It’s also part of the reason why this review is so delayed. It’s hard to get the motivation to do a review of something that isn’t very exciting.

We join the Roslin’s refugees discussing their situation on the Astral Queen. Roslin wants to take a group down to Kobol to search for the Tomb of Athena. But first some of the other quasi politicians want to discuss what to do if the Galactica shows up. Zarek recommends that they start arming all of the other ships as defense against the Galactica, and the Cylons. Apollo points out that arming all the other ships would be a futile effort, because it wouldn’t stop the Galactica (nor the Cylons).

Later a ship jumps near Kobol. It comes up on sensors as being too big to be Starbuck’s raider. It might be a raptor from the Galactica, so Meier (Zarek’s “friend”) recommends blasting it to Hades once it gets into range.

Luckily Roslin learns of it, and delays the weapons fire long enough for Starbuck to come on the radio announcing her presence. Starbuck’s heavy raider lands in the cargo bay and is the first to exit. She wants to alert them about Boomer, so they don’t shoot her on site. It doesn’t work. Starbuck is so distracted by her reunion with Apollo and Roslin that she doesn’t get a chance to let the others know about Boomer. And so when she does enter the cargo bay, Apollo holds a gun to her head. Which causes Helo, who entered soon after, to hold a gun to Apollo’s head. It’s another Caprican Standoff.

Roslin diffuses the situation by saying that Boomer won’t be harmed. once everyone’s guns are down, Roslin orders Boomer tossed out an airlock. Boomer saves herself by screaming to the President that she knows where the Tomb of Athena is. Instead Boomer is held in isolation.

Back on the Galactica, Adama chooses a new CAG to replace his soon. He promotes a redshirt, Birch, to captain and assigns him as CAG. Too bad the guy is a really shitty leader. In his first excersize, he has some trouble coordinating an attack on an asteroid. The confusion nearly causes Kat to be annihilated by asteroid debris. In another exercise, he fails to coordinate a refuelling of a ship. In the four hours he took, his only accomplishment was having the two vessels crash into one another.

Roslin begins her first interrogation of Boomer. We pretty much learn is that Roslin is clueless about what she needs to do next, but that Boomer can help her out. Roslin is weary of her, but makes her a deal. If Boomer doesn’t help them find the Tomb, both she and Helo will be tossed out an airlock.
There is a new character introduced in this episode. His name is Meier and is played by James Remar, who was a convict in 48 hrs and there were some gay prison love overtones. The parallels are pretty obvious, as he and Zarek were cellmates for 20 years. It’s hard to tell who was the bitch though.

Meier doesn’t like how much power Roslin has, and feels that Zarek should try to take control of the new fleet. They know they can’t make a move until Apollo is out of the way, and they decide to conspire to kill him on the planet (as was foretold in a prophecy).

The crew land on the planet in the Galleon Forest Valley. They believe that this is where the trail to the Tomb of Athena begins. The humans left Kobol 10,000 years prior. So it seems highly unlikely to me that the geography would be very similar. Let alone finding any remnant trails or structures in such a dense rain forest! Along the trail they have Elosha consult the scriptures to see if they are on the right track. See the above italics. She claims that the trail should marked with gravestones.

Coincidentally she sees one in some scrubs. It’s in very good shape, looks less than 50 years old. I know immediately that it was a cylon trap. Elosha didn’t though. When she gets closer to look, she sets off and bouncy-ball grenade. Her charred corpse is tossed 20 feet away. Immediately, cylon centurions start firing down on them from atop a cliff.

Things look bad, but expert marksmen Helo and Starbuck are there to defend the other humans. Each one takes out a centurion. But not before the Cylons drop a few humans themselves. Boomer sees what’s going on and runs off to collect a dead humans gun. Apollo sees this and takes off after he. He intercepts her and tries to take the gun from her. Boomer resists and throws him off her. She takes aim toward him and fires… above his head, taking out the last centurion.

Back on the Galactica, Adama has a heart-to-heart with Dualla. He’s ranting to her about how difficult things are for him and humanity. Especially with the loss of a third of the fleet. His attitude: frak ’em. But Dualla forces her wisdom upon him, by reminding him that families have been torn apart by the separation of the fleet.Some more inner reflection later, and Adama chooses to jump the RTF to Kobol to put all of humanity back together.

Could any pathmarker have survived on Kobol?I doubt it. The humans left Kobol about 10,000 years prior. on earth today, the oldest carvings are barely even half that, and those stone carvings are barely noticeable without close examination. on Earth they’ve survived only in hot, dry and isolated environments (Egyptian desert) with no hope of being eroded away by water, only sandstorms. By comparison the marker Elosha found was in a lush rainforest. Any small marker like that would’ve washed away millennia prior. I knew immediately that the marker was either a cylon trap, or fodder for the nitpick list.
How about trails?Without humans, wide unpaved trails wouldn’t have lasted long either. Certainly not in such a dense forest. Plus after 10,000 years I would wonder what sort of geological events also changed the landscape.

The number of survivors increased by one. How’d that happened?last week Galactica-Boomer was Oswald’d (-1). But this week Caprica Boomer and Helo joined the rag tag fleet, or at least a third of it, so they added two to the number of survivors looking for earth.

Roll call, who was pulled out of thin air this week?Birch, firstly. Adama saw some potential in this throwaway character. It’s probably better that he was disposable since using an established character might interrupt their development too much.
Meier is another guy pulled out of the writer’s ass. This was likely just an excuse to bring in James Remar. Especially since it fit so well with him being the right hand of another criminal, Tom Zarek.

Wallace Grey also had a cameo in the beginning. If you remember, Grey was Roslin’s trusted right hand. Even though we only saw him in Colonial Day. And she did an excellent job of frakking him over in that episode too. I guess they kissed and made up if he’s back in her cabinet.

Who’s the bitch, Zarek or Meier?As much as I’d like to say Zarek, it looks like Meier is clearly his submissive. Twenty years in prison together, with Meier wanting to elevate Zarek so much, screams of being a herm.

I rate this episode a tedious 14,226 out of 10

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Review is Copyright Ryan Bechtel 2005

Battlsestar Galactica names, characters and everything else associated with the series are the property of Sci-Fi Channel, NBC Universal and R&D Television.

thing else associated with the series are the property of Sci-Fi Channel, NBC-Universal and R&D Television.