Battlestar Galactica 1978 – Gun on Ice Planet Zero Part 2

by Nancy Mathews

Our heroes are still sitting about to be discovered by the Cylons. All because of that damn daggit. Again I really have to question the parental wisdom of Apollo. I know “Take Your Child to Work Day” is very popular, but I don’t think they intended it for Colonial Viper Pilots on secret missions.

The Cylon turns out to be as dumb as he looks and goes on his way. The male clone, Ser 5-9 leads them to the village where the Father Creator is. When they arrive they see hundreds of more clones, although you may not want to look too closely. The illusion is easily shattered on close inspection of the stand-ins. Interestingly the village is at the base of Mt. Hekla – doesn’t that mean they’re in Iceland ?

There’s some dissension in the ranks. A couple of the prisoners have decided they need to take this opportunity to escape. One of them, Thane, sees his chance and gets lost in the crowd.

Galactica is under attack by a squadron sent by Baltar. Baltar tells Lucifer to break off the attack to give the illusion that the Basestars are much closer than they actually are.

The Cylons capture Thane, but he has a little surprise for them: he cons one of the toasters into detonating an explosive, killing Thane in the blast.

Apollo and Starbuck plan the attack. They even synchronize their cool calculator watches. Man, they did have a huge budget on this show. Apollo is going to lead a team up the mountain and Starbuck will lead the team inside, attacking from both sides simultaneously. The three remaining prisoners hatch a plan to steal a Cylon raider to escape. Wolf and Leda are confident their plan will work. Croft, not so much. He tells them that Galactica will hunt them down – I doubt that and so do his fellow convicts. In the end he reluctantly agrees with their plan.

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Baltar sends the raiders back to attack the Galactica, to drive Adama crazy, but he’s actually driving Lucifer crazy with all the back and forth. As the raiders drive Galactica closer to the range of the pulsar, Baltar orders the Centurions on the planet surface to begin firing randomly. The idea, I guess, is to give the Galactica no where to go with Basestars behind them and the pulsar firing in front of them. It seems to me it would have made more sense to leave the gun quiet to give the Galactica a false sense of security.

Of course, I’m not a “genius” like Baltar.

The random firing, I discover, is really just to cause an avalanche so Apollo can save Croft’s life, thereby insuring his loyalty. Sure enough, when Wolf and Leda turn their guns on Apollo, Croft saves the day. Wolf runs off into the storm, probably to die.

Starbuck and Boomer (did you forget he was here too?) are waiting for their part of the plan. Starbuck decides its time to save Cree. He breaks into the prison, takes out the Cylons and frees Cree. One of the Britt clones is very impressed by Starbuck’s bravery and is moved to admit that her people will never allow them to destroy the pulsar. It is the only protection they have should the Cylons return after the colonials leave. Starbuck goes to use his skills of persuasion on them when Father Creator comes along and tells them he will protect them and they should destroy the pulsar. It seems he hasn’t shared all of his creations with the Cylons.

Apollo’s team is in position. Starbuck and his team put the explosives on the outer door. Galactica pulls into range. A few explosions later and we have a few dead Cylons and one dead Leda. Yet, we don’t have a decommissioned pulsar. Funny that. It seems whatever they just did was only phase one, the team pulls out gets the kids and the next time the Cylons go to fire the pulsar – boom! – no more gun on ice planet zero.

Lucifer has to break the news to Baltar. He and Lucifer agree to come up with an excuse to report back to the imperious leader. He must be getting a bit tired of them at this point.

The children are frolicking with each other, Starbuck is frolicking with three Britt clones, a happy ending for all. Well, not for Starbuck, as he wants to stay and explore the possibilities of the three Britt Ekland clones who are hot for him. “Another time”, Apollo tells him.

What did we learn this episode?

• Never trust your kid not to stowaway when you’re on a dangerous mission.
• In any group of convicts there’s always a noble soul.
• All clones must be blond and blue eyed, even in the Galactica universe.

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Nancy Mathews works very hard at masquerading as a grown up to go to work and raise her two sons. Once the sun goes down she reverts to the 10 year old that she actually is. You can follow her plans for world domination through the formation of an army of knitters on her blog, Bronxgirlknits.

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