Airdate: 2/25/79
A drifting spacecraft is brought aboard the Galactica, where
Apollo and the others discover its occupants to be a family of humans asleep in
suspended animation. Suspecting that their ship may be programmed in a course
toward Earth, Adama considers waking them, but the doctor warns that such an
action could kill such life forms unused to a different environment. All agree
to let sleeping humans lie, but the impatient council decides to risk their
lives by opening their tubes. All this bickering is for naught; the male human,
Michael, wakes up by himself, and when he approaches some nasty Galactica security
officers, he is greeted with hostility. Apollo, outraged at the treatment and
curious as to the visitors’ planned destination, arranges a “military action”
whereby he, Starbuck and Cassiopeia escort Michael and the others toward their
planned course of action – to the chagrin of the war mongers ready for a fight.
They follow the humans to their home planet, Paradeem;
Apollo is more than a bit perturbed that Michael has destroyed their homing
beacon, and sort of wonders why. All is answered when it is revealed that these
humans are actually from the planet Terra, and are at war with an oppressive
empire known as the Eastern Alliance, which had destroyed most of Paradeem. An
EE commandant is hot on the trail of our heroes, and they have a face-off amid
the ruins of an abandoned city. Michael’s companion, Sarah, is held hostage
(she, incidentally, is not Michael’s wife, and in fact hates anyone having to
do with the “science” that killed her dad; she sort of has the hots for Apollo,
but of course it’s unrequited), but that doesn’t deter our Galactican heroes
from TCBing, and bringing those Alliance guys to justice.
Double-length episode need only be single, as the first half
of this bloated story is just the bickering back and forth on whether or not to
remove the humans from hibernation, and then what to do with them after they
awaken. Second half isn’t much better: the “Eastern Alliance” is just a group
of black-clad, German-accented overactors that are clearly supposed to be Nazis
(even their name suggests it), and there’s some political allegory toward the
end that makes subtle references to the Eastern-bloc Communism.
If I only had a brain... |
And speaking of, this episode got a bit of a ratings boost
when it first aired. ABC put it on an hour earlier, at 7:00 PM (Sunday night
prime time started an hour earlier; and ABC’s slot, with no Disney or 60 Minutes, was pretty much empty realty). But immediately
following, at 9, was the conclusion (part 7) of Roots: The Next Generations, and leading in to this was a Neilson
gold mine. But the series was already cancelled by this time.
Rating: **1/2
Rating: **1/2
No comments:
Post a Comment