Rating: **1/2
Written by: Jeff Vlaming
Directed by: Rod Hardy
A new copy of Doral, a Cylon who had been previously exposed while serving as the Galactica's public-relations officer, sneaks aboard in a group of civilians, breaks off from them, and goes down a restricted hallway, where Colonel Tigh notices him and calls security. Then Adama shows up, recognizes Doral, and shouts his name. Doral stops, turns around, smiles, opens his jacket, revealing the bomb he’s wearing, and blows himself up, killing three and maiming another thirteen, which would have been fourteen (or four) if Tigh hadn’t tackled the Commander to get him out of the path of the blast.
I can’t help but ask a question at this point: didn’t the pilot establish that there were only twelve of these Cylon doppelgangers? And weren’t three of them offed in the pilot? And now a fourth blows himself up? It seems to me that they’re going to run out of “Cylon agents” fairly quickly at this rate. Or does the dozen figure refer to “souls,” as opposed to bodies? Yeah, it’s like watching a B Western and counting the number of shots the hero shoots from his “six-shooter,” but it does matter if consistency and logic are to mean anything, especially in a factoid that would seem to be so fundamental to the series’ premise.
Oh, I have a number of other problems. But we’ll get to each in its own turn.
This maximally public incident puts the upper echelon in something of a quandary. Or at least they thought it did. The knowledge of the Cylons’ newfound ability to pass as human has been a closely guarded secret in order to prevent a fleet-wide panic that could quickly spiral out of control. But now “Cylon agents” have proven that they can infiltrate the fleet at will to cause havoc and dissension and pretty much do anything they want. Adama, feeling helpless, wonders if it might not be a better idea to let the cat out of the bag (in Tigh’s phrase) and inform the public, on the grounds that “forewarned is forearmed.”
President Roslin initially balks at the idea. She points out that, based upon her twenty years’ experience in politics, when something bad happens, people tend to demand someone to blame for letting it happen. And it’s to that volatile psychological dynamic that Adama wants to add the revelation that, “Oh, by the way, the Cylons look like us now and we knew about it but kept it to ourselves. Have a nice day!”
This strongly suggests that they’re going to keep their collective ass tightly covered, right?
Wrong. After telling Adama that his public disclosure idea is political dynamite, in the next scene we see Roslin calling a press conference announcing the secret to the entire fleet.
What persuaded her to do this? We’re never told. She didn’t seem convinced from what we saw of her discussion with Adama. I suppose she might have reasoned that, with this act of terrorism, public speculation about its source may have caused public reaction to spiral out of control as fast or faster than spilling the beans about Cylon infiltrators would. It would have been nice to see that depicted in the dialogue – perhaps as advice from Apollo, who isn’t even in this episode. But then again, we’re never given any indication of mass public panic or outrage anyway, as the focus of the plot narrows to the “independent tribunal” appointed by Adama to investigate the bombing, and how it quickly transforms into a witch hunt.
When Adama informs Roslin of the independent tribunal, she warns him that such entities have a tendency to get carried away with their own unchecked power and end up losing sight of their original mission and destroying the reputations and even lives of the innocent. Adama doesn’t disagree, at least in principle, but he feels that he has to do something about these security breaches, and what they’ve been doing obviously isn’t adequate.
The Commander appoints his master-at-arms, Sergeant Hadrian, to head the investigation. Why, I’m not sure, especially as since she’s responsible for safeguarding the Galactica’s armory, she would seem to have a gaping conflict of interest. She’s also not an attorney, that we’re told.
But she bulls forward anyway, lightly querying the hanger deck crew (since the bombing took place in or near that area of the ship) as to the whereabouts of Chief Tyrol at the time of the bombing, and getting at least three different and conflicting answers. Tyrol himself provides a fourth when he insists that he was in his bunk when the bomb went off.
But, of course, we know exactly where he was at the time in question: in the Galactica’s whoopee nook, slipping it to Lieutenant Sharon “Boomer” Valerii. Who, as we know, is in reality a Cylon doppelganger.
The funny part for me is that that part didn’t occur to me until the very end. Which means either the plot engrossed me despite its numerous flaws, or I wasn’t paying very close attention.
This creates an unfortunate chain of events when Sergeant Hadrian starts hauling witnesses before the tribunal. All of her questioning takes place in the context of the suicide bombing. And it becomes transparently obvious that the flight deck crew, as well as Boomer and Tyrol, are hiding something. The problem is, what they’re hiding is the illicit romance that Boomer and Tyrol have been carrying on, even after Colonel Tigh ordered them to break it off.
Hadrian’s light questioning from earlier on becomes a haranguing interrogation as she systematically deconstructs one witness’ testimony after another. Boomer insists that she was in her bunk at the time of the explosion. Tyrol reiterates the same thing for himself, until Hadrian cites all the conflicting accounts from his crew, after which he “pleads the twenty-third” and clams up – which she cites as evidence of his guilt, even though that is the Kobolian equivalent of unconstitutional.
First, a bit of personal disclosure: I’ve been a witness before a grand jury, as well as a deponent in a civil trial. I know what it’s like to be under the proverbial 500-watt klieg lights. Suffice it to say, it isn’t pleasant. You realize that you have to be absolutely sure of every answer, and every word of every answer, that you give, for fear of counsel destroying your credibility and going after you as well. That aspect of the tribunal scenes came across viscerally, and was very, very well done.
However, what these scenes, and the plotline they drive, do not possess is any sort of context to make them plausible. We've never seen Sergeant Hadrian before. We don’t know what her personality and back story are. Consequently we don’t know whether her degeneration into what we know as “McCarthyism” is something that Adama should have anticipated or not because we don’t know whether or not she’s a law & order hardliner like DS9’s Odo or TNG’s Worf. Instead the plot itself suggests that “independent tribunals” themselves are inherently unjust.
If that was the angle that Jeff Vlaming was going for, it’s been done a lot better in stories like TNG’s “The Drumhead.” Here Sergeant Hadrian, while certainly a tough prosecutor, definitely seems to be onto something from her perspective. It’s just not what she thinks it is, and the witnesses get in way over their heads, out of all proportion to the secret they’re trying to protect.
In order to shoehorn the “witch hunt” terminus into the story track, Hadrian is depicted summoning Adama himself before the tribunal and drilling him with escalatingly ludicrous innuendo that finally prompts him to shut down the investigation. If any viewer still didn't get it, Vlaming bludgeoned them further by having Hadrian order security to seize Adama and drag him back to his seat – IOW, a mutiny in everything but name. Ed Olmos’ dialogue even declares, “This is a witch hunt.”
I thought this scene was completely unnecessary and caused what to that point had been an intriguing episode to skid into the ditch. As if Vlaming was so determined to tell his parable that he destroyed the plot vehicle in the process. Not only is great damage done to future story possibilities for Hadrian, but it made Adama look awfully foolish for having set this process in motion in the first place. And, ultimately, the original purpose of the tribunal – the investigation of the suicide bombing and coming up with countermeasures to guard against further Cylon infiltration – was lost in the process. I guess it means TPTB aren’t ready for Boomer to be outed just yet.
Still, one tribunal exchange - when one of Tyrol’s people perjures himself by trying to take the entire rap onto himself – produces an ending scene that almost, but doesn’t quite, salvage the hour.
Tyrol, upon hearing about his man’s sacrifice on his behalf, is stunned. He goes to see Adama to try and get his man spared and, belatedly, take responsibility for his own actions. When he tells Adama that he “can’t” leave his man in the brig, the CO dresses him down with a tremendous soliloquy about how “Your man” lied under oath because “You couldn’t keep your fly zipped.”
Tyrol is left speechless, fully aware only now of the implications of his covert romantic indulgences, and having to live with the fact that someone else paid the price for his irresponsibility, and the only reason he’s not is because Adama simply cannot spare him. But it’s bigger than that, because it also brings home the consequences of his failure to enforce discipline on his crew, as when he catches three of them operating a homemade still and, far from reprimanding them, tells them to come back later after curfew and he’ll show them how to “do it right.” The end product is people under his ostensible command whose loyalty was to him personally rather than to the Galactica and its command structure.
As the old saying goes, “The good times won’t be rolling anymore,” because the Chief is now “sadder but wiser.”
Boomer, however, doesn’t take it very well when Tyrol makes the break with her, prompting him to echo Adama’s earlier lecture at substantially higher volume, as well as pointing out how he’s “protected her.”
And then, as she’s leaving, a light bulb all but comes on above his head. He stops Boomer and asks her if she left the hatch door open that Doral used to raid the armory for his IED. And she refuses to answer.
And then the truly full implications of his actions really hit home.
Another question: “Water” strongly suggested that this version of Boomer wasn't aware of her “Cylonness” and was horrified at the possibility. Her demeanor here tends to argue the other way. Did she deliberately leave that hatch door open? Or just “subconsciously,” as seemed to be the case for her questionable actions in “Water”?
That does leave one question, however: just exactly what was Doral trying to blow up? A brief scene between Baltar and Starbuck gives us a possible answer.
Gaius, still trying to get into Kara’s pants, brings her the gift of a fine cigar. Kara, recognizing the gift for the pathetic ploy that it is, points out that Baltar's lab, where he’s ostensibly working on his “Cylon detector,” was very near where the bomb went off. Baltar, in a moment of panicked candor that slipped out before he could stop it, admits he hadn’t considered that, and high-tails it out of there with Number Six right on his heels.
Final question of the review: Why would Number Six be so insistent that Baltar make this “Cylon detector” and another “Cylon agent” slip aboard the Galactica to try to blow it, and Baltar, to bits? Could it be that Number Six has gone into business for herself, or even – dare I say it – genuinely fallen in love with Baltar, and her David Banneresque “Don’t make me angry; you wouldn't like me when I’m angry” threat, augmented by a hand around the throat, is a kind of alien Fatal Attraction gimmick?
From the promos, it looks like we’ll soon find out.
Next: Hell hath no fury like a Cylon scorned
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