Battlestar Galactica

Episode #103 - "Bastille Day"

This document is ©2005, John Larocque. All rights reserved.

The Cylons were created by man. They evolved. They look human. Some are programmed to think they are human. There are many copies. And they have a plan.

Synopsis

In Commander Adama's quarters, the Commander is in conference with Lee, Laura, and Billy. Laura intends to use the prisoners on board the Astral Queen as slave labor to extract the ice. Lee tells the Commander the prisoners might welcome getting off the ship. "Their ship wasn't designed for long term incarceration. These men have been stuck in cramped cells for weeks now. They might even prefer to get out, do something, even if it is dangerous... We could offer incentives, points towards earning freedom." To address Commander Adama's security concerns, Billy offers to send Dualla to accompany Lee to the Astral Queen. Laura asks the Commander, "Do you have a ship's doctor aboard Galactica?" "Major Cottle. Is there something wrong?" "No, nothing urgent. Allergies."

In the hallway, Commander Adama tells Lee he has to make a choice, between his father, and Laura Roslin. "Every man has to decide for themselves which side they're on." "I didn't know we're picking sides." "That's why you haven't picked one yet." Aboard the Astral Queen, Wilkins tells Lee there are 1,500 prisoners. Lee then delivers his proposal. "Any man who volunteers to help us during this emergency will earn freedom points, which can be applied toward earning his release. We're offering you a chance for a new beginning. Whoever's interested, please, just step out of your cell." He gives a signal and the cell doors are opened but nobody voluneers. Then one man steps forward. "Thank you for your offer. We respectfully decline." Billy recognizes him right away. "Oh my gods. That's... that's Tom Zarek."

Billy and Dualla argue, with Billy calling Zarek a "freedom fighter, a prisoner of conscience" and Dualla describing him as a terrorist and a butcher. "His Colony was exploited by the other eleven for centuries. His people were marginalized, brutalized." "I'm from Sagittaron and that man does not speak for all of us. He blew up a government building and there is no excuse for that." Later she tells Billy that Zarek and the S.F.M. don't care about justice.

On Caprica, it's Day 12, and Helo and Sharon are walking around Caprica City. She asks, "Where is everyone?" "Somewhere dead. In their beds, at their desks. The ones who weren't killed already probably ran into the hills." She is frightened at the sight of rats near a dead body and he shoots one of them. "Frakkin' rats. Let's go." He holds her. "Let's find a hospital, score some anti-radiation meds. We only got two days worth left." Later he comments, "Someone must be watching out for us." They are being watched by a Number Six model and an Aaron Doral model on top of a building. She looks at the city and remarks "This all makes me so sad." Aaron replies, "They would have destroyed themselves anyway. They deserved what they got." "We're the children of humanity. That makes them our parents in a sense." "True. But parents have to die. It's the only way children come into their own."

Lee appeals to Zarek and tells him he respected him as a man of principle and read the book that he wrote. "The book that had to be smuggled out of labor camp because stumps aren't allowed freedom of expression." "I read it, in college. Thought it was radical, challenging. It made me question some things I accepted before without thinking." "Nice to hear I'm a big hit on campus." "You aren't, the book was banned. I read it anyway. The point is, I understand where you're coming from. But I don't think you undestsand how critical the situation is out there. People are gonna start dying."

Kara is walking with Boxey in the hallway and passes by Baltar, who offers her a greeting. She rejects his greeting and Number Six feigns pity for him. Baltar muses out loud, "I wonder if she's a real blonde." "I doubt it." Boxey and Kara head for the Ready Room where she jokes to the pilots about Flat Top coming in hot on his landings. She is smoking a cigar and wearing sunglasses. After the meeting Tigh confronts her. "You know there's no smoking in the ready room." "My room, my rules, sir." "A pilot blows his landings and you make a joke about it?" "Screaming at people doesn't always get the best results, sir. I learned that at officer candidate school." Kara makes a dismissive comment on Tigh's alcoholism.

Adama is questioning Baltar in his quarters. "Where's my Cylon detector, Doctor?" Baltar nearly admits he doesn't have one, and replies he's not the man for the job. Number Six intervenes in a frightening way. "If you don't tell him what he wants to hear, he's going to find you out. And when he does, they're going to tear your head off and throw your BODY OUT OF AN AIRLOCK!" She then forces him to make an incredible request. "I didn't want to have to ask you for this. But what I really need to complete the project is a nuclear warhead... Technically I need the plutonium inside." Number Six tells Baltar that he can figure out the rest, and Baltar comes up with a technical explanation. Adama states he has has five warheads aboard the ship and may need them, but relents and lets Baltar have one of them.

Zarek's men have revolted, taken over the Astral Queen and are holding hostages including Billy, Dualla and Cally. "I thought you said you respected me, read my book." "That was before you resorted to violence and hostage-taking." "Always better when the oppressed don't fight back, isn't it?" Aboard the Galactica, Tyrol assures Sharon there's nothing to connect her to the explosions from the previous episode. "The master at arms has been over every inch of that locker. She's come up with nothing." "So they've got no idea who did the six G4 charges, or who put that detonator in..." "Hey, don't worry about it. I'll take care of it, OK?" Tigh confronts Sharon over her fraternizing with Tyrol. "The whole ship knows about you and the Chief. It stops now... Back when the ship was being decommissioned, we let you two get away with it. Hell, we let everyone get away with murder. But, that was then and this is now. We're at war, this is a combat unit, and you're his superior officer. Put a stop to it. That's an order."

Zarek makes his hostage demands to the fleet. "The crew are my prisoners. They will not be harmed. But I have two conditions before I release my captives. First, the government which controls our fate is illegal and illegitimate. And it must submit to the will of the people. I demand the immediate resignation of Laura Roslin and her ministers. Second, I demand free and open elections to choose a new leadership, and a new government that represents all of the people... I am Tom Zarek, and today is the first day of the new era." Laura tells Adama that Zarek is a "name of weight" and a legend for having spent twenty years in prison over a matter of principle, however she won't negotiate with terrorists. "I watched President Adar offer him a full pardon if he'd apologize and give up violence as a means of political change. He refused."

Kara organizes three assault teams to take the Astral Queen, and assigns herself the role of sniper as she's the best shot "in or out of the cockpit." Meanwhile, aboard the prison barge, one of Zarek's men, Mason, makes threatening gestures towards the captive Cally. "Tom and I, we go way back. A long time. If you know what's good for you, you'll be nice to me." At this point, the assault teams have arrived and are getting ready to retake the ship.

Zarek explains to Lee "We need to be free men and women. If we're not free then we're no different than Cylons." He then goes into the mythical significance of Lee's callsign. "Apollo is one of the gods. A Lord of Kobol. You must be a very special man to be called a god. Son of Zeus. God with the bow. God of the hunt. And also a god of healing. Now a god can reconcile those two opposing forces. But a mortal has to pick one side or the other. Have you picked a side, Apollo?" Commander Adama phones up Zarek and tries to talk him out of it. "There's still time to work this out." "Have the President step down and call for elections." "That's not gonna happen." "Then I look forward to meeting your men."

Lee confronts Zarek over his actions. "That's it, isn't it? You don't want elections, you don't want your freedom. You want a bloodbath." "You don't understsand." "Tom Zarek's been out of the headlines, out of the news, forgotten for 20 years as he rots ina cell. And now he's got a chance to gout in a blaze of glory. And he's gonna take it." "Once Roslin uses Adama's soldiers to massacre the people on this ship, prisoners and hostages alike, people in the fleet will never, never forgive them. The entire government will collapse." Cally has fought off her attacker and bitten off his ear. In retaliation, Mason is now holding a gun to her head. Zarek tells Lee, "You did this. You put him in a cage. You made him a monster... You reap what you sow." Lee shoots Mason and then shoves Zarek out of the way once he realizes that Zarek is within Kara's sniper range. He then holds his own gun to Zarek's head, and Kara wants him to shoot. "Come on, Lee, take out the son of a bitch." Instead, he makes a demand of Zarek.

"Do you still have a death wish? You ready to leave this world?" Zarek replies yes. "Too bad. 'Cause this is what you're gonna do. You're gonna tell your men to help us get that water off the moon. They're gonna work for their points. And they're gonna earn their freedom. And then, then you're gonna get your elections... You were right about democracy and consent of the people. I believe in those things. And we're going to have 'em. And you can have 'em too. Or you can have this bullet. Your call."

Commander Adama and Laura are having a meeting with Lee and both are unhappy with him, especially the Commander. "It's done. Prisoners have full control of the Astral Queen. We evac'ed all the guards and support personnel. It's their ship... They've been disarmed. The ship itself has no weapons... They're totally dependent on us for food, fuel, and they've agreed to organize the workforce for work detail on the moon." Laura tells him, "You've committed me to holding elections within the year." "Madam President, with respect, you're serving out the remainder of President Adar's term. When that term is up in seven months, the law says there's an election. I only committed you to obeying the law." Laura: "You are not authorized to make any deal..." The Commander interupts him, "You sound like some kind of a lawyer." "I swore an oath, to defend the articles. The articles say there's an election in seven months. Now, if you're telling me we're throwing out the law, then I'm not a captain, you're not a commander and you're not the President. And I don't owe either of you a damned explanation for anything." "He's your son." "He's your advisor." The Commander says to him, "I guess you finally picked your side."

Tigh and Kara share a cup of water and she tells him "I have my flaws too." Tigh responds, "The difference [between us] is my flaws are personal, yours are professional." Aboard Colonial One, Lee apologise to Laura. "I hope you understand I wasn't being disloyal, Madam President." "I understand. You're upholding the law. I admire it." "I believe in you. And what you're doing. And, for what it's worth, seven months from now, you'll have my vote." "Could you sit? There's something I need to tell you. The truth is, I might not be here in seven months... I have cancer. I found out the morning of the attack... I'm going to fight this, but there is a great need for secrecy... Whether or not I survive this illness, it is of great importance to me that there's a future for the people. And I fear that knowledge of my illness will erode hope, so this has to stay between you and me." "You can count on me." "I know I can. You're Captain Apollo."

Ron Moore's Commentary

4/11/2005 -- Question: Where the frak is Boxey? I can only guess the new baby Cylon/human hybrid girl is Boxey's future wife only if Boxey is still around.

Boxey died a hard nasty death on the page and in the editing room, and was last seen haunting the deleted scenes area of this very website. Boxey's character was included in several episodes last season ["Water", "Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part I"], but ended up on the cutting room floor time and again, not for lack of ability on the actor, but simply because as the show evolved and focused itself over the course of the year, his character became ancillary to the storylines. But who knows, he might yet lurch out of the shadows once Sharon's daughter reaches the age of Colonial consent.

4/11/2005 -- Making Kara the sniper was simply a way of providing more tension and drama into the final sequence of "Bastille Day" rather than going with a brand-new Marine sniper who the audience would have no investment in or identification with.

2/1/2006 -- Question: What plans (if any) you have for Boxey? Now that Sharon's been killed, is he living alone? With Lee? With Kara? In an airlock? Any plans to develop him more or was he just a throwback to the original?

Boxey is currently seeking his lost daggit and won't return until he finds it.

3/13/2006 -- "Bastille Day" was the most we ever spent on another ship that wasn't Galactica or Colonial One, and it was very expensive. It was a hugely expensive episode for us in the first season and we just haven't gone back to try and do that again since, mostly for that reason. We don't have an ability to create large, complicated civilian vessels, so we have to make some rooms and find locations that are good stand-ins for the other ships. On "Bastille Day" there was a lot of location work. We did some of that on our soundstages, but a lot of it was on locations that they found where we could kind of bring elements in. You just end up spending up so much of your resources in the art department and production and realize that you don't have a lot left over for anything else. And it just keeps biting you in the ass all the way through the season, so we haven't had a chance to do much of that. (source: Now Playing)

5/18/2006 -- The biggest thing we had to sacrifice as we went forward into the series was the idea that we could tell lots of stories out in the civilian fleet. We'd always conceived the show as being able to sustain any kind of format -- murder mystery, medical show, procedural, etc -- by going out into the rag-tag fleet and finding stories to tell aboard the other ships. But our first foray into the fleet ("Bastille Day") quickly showed us how impossible that was going to be. The cost associated with making the Astral Queen (Zarek's prison ship) was startling to all of us, and we were never able to really put an entire episode aboard another vessel in the fleet. "Colonial Day" was the exception that proved the rule, because we were able to simply go on location and shoot the buildings and exteriors as they were since the conceit of the episode was that Cloud Nine was simulating a planetary environment. (source: Sky One)

David Eick's Commentary

Commentary

Bastille Day refers to the storming of the Paris prison which launched the French Revolution in 1789.

In the original broadcast version of the miniseries, there were 500 prisoners aboard the Astral Queen. In this episode there are 1500.

This is the only episode in this season to feature Boxey. Several scenes with Boxey were cut from both "Water" and "Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part I."

Billy admitted to Laura that his reasons for recommending Dualla were not just professional.

Tyrol states that six G4 charges were laid, in addition to the detonator in Sharon's Raptor, or in total, seven devices. In "Water" he indicated that there were six missing devices, five detonation points in the water tanks and one unaccounted for device. Whatever the case, at this point it's abundantly clear he knows Sharon was responsible and he's still covering up for her.

Tigh instructs Sharon to put an end in her relationship with Tyrol.

Baltar's hallway encounter is more evidence of his interest in Kara, something Number Six notices. Number Six repeats his "real blonde" comment in "You Can Never Go Home Again."

When Baltar wants to back away from the Cylon detector project, Number Six spells out the conquences. Namely, Adama will find out about Baltar's involvement with the Cylon holocaust, and have him killed. Did Number Six follow through on this threat as Shelly Godfrey in "Six Degrees of Separation"?

Why does Baltar need weapons grade plutonium to construct a Cylon detector?

Baltar asks Adama whether the picture on his wall is a Montclair original and he says yes.

Tigh found himself supporting Kara's decision to act as sniper. In a virtual replay of the pilot episode, they have an earlier confrontation, and a later attempt at reconciliation, this time initiated by Kara. The issues remain the same -- Tigh's alcoholism versus Kara's unprofessional attitude.

Lee makes a definitive choice in this episode, a path that's closer to Laura than his father. Laura initiated the slave labor plan, Commander Adama opposed it, and Lee Adama made it a reality by cutting a deal with Tom Zarek, whom Adama's troops were prepared to execute after Laura said she wouldn't negotiate with terrorists. As a result, Lee created a solution that none of the three envisoned. This is not the first time he challenged his father's authority -- in the pilot he acknowledged but did not follow through on his father's instructions to take Colonial One to Ragnar Anchorage. In his talk with Lee, Zarek referred to Adama as Zeus. Like Apollo, Lee must choose between the path of the warrior and that of the healer.

Lee is a believer in the democratic idealism that was the basis of Tom Zarek's book. His support for Laura as her advisor may be an expression of his belief in a civilian government that is democratically inclined, and a counter-balance to his father's military authority.

In addition to Billy, Lee now knows Laura has cancer. She sees herself as a sign of hope to the people, and her cancer as a threat to that hope.

Aaron Doral is echoing arguments that Number Six made to Baltar back on Caprica in the pilot episode (including some deleted dialog from the script.) For children to come into their own, their parents must die. This is God's plan.

There are differences between the US version and one of the UK edits. Not seen in the latter is Boxey lighting up Kara's cigar, and the following comment made to Flat Top.
Kara: Just can't wait to get back to the big G and the lovin' embrace of your fellow pilots? Or maybe you have a hot date with your right hand.
Flat Top: Hey, it never gets a headache.
Kara: Tell you what Flat Top, you come in too hot today, you may have to start using your left.

"He's an idealist like me, but he's got darker agendas to contend with. Zarek has been in jail over 20 years for his political beliefs. He is angry and in a lot of pain over the many injustices in his world, and what he has seen and had to go through while in prison. He's lost everything and everyone he loves, so he no longer has anything to lose but his life, and that doesn't seem to mean much to him anymore. That makes him a very dangerous man!" -- Richard Hatch (Tom Zarek) on 10/30/2005 (source: richardhatch.com)

"Essentially, the political leadership on Sagittaron was almost a dictatorship. They were oppressing the people, they were torturing the people. I liken it to Iraq. And this man decided that he wasn't going to take it, and he first politically stood against them and tried to run against them. But they wouldn't allow fair elections. Ultimately, he began to realize that there was only one way. Step by step, he was moved to acts of terrorism in order to challenge the government, which was not listening. And basically, as a result of that, he was arrested. And then, this is not quite clear and it's something that I'd like to sit and talk to Ron Moore about, once he did that, he was given an opportunity for immunity. He chose to go to jail rather than take the immunity, and therefore he went to jail for his political beliefs." -- Richard Hatch (Tom Zarek) on 1/24/2005 (source: Now Playing)

The Sky One episode guide, which is based on the original script, notes that "20 years ago, Zarek led the Sagittarius Uprising fighting for exploited workers." In the script, the character's name is Peter Zarek. The Space Channel episode guide, also based on the original script, offers this comment. "Zarek made a name for himself as a revolutionary figure on Sagittaron when he fought to protect his planet's resources from being ravaged by the Colonial government. But shortly thereafter, Zarek was convicted (albeit with suspect evidence) of blowing up a government building and was imprisoned. To some, Zarek is a freedom fighter but to others, he is a terrorist."