Battlestar Galactica is a three-hour mini-series written and produced by Ronald D. Moore. It was the first part of the Battlestar Galactica reimagining based on the 1978 Battlestar Galactica television series, and served as a backdoor pilot for the 2004 television series.
The mini-series originally aired in the USA on the Sci Fi Channel in two parts, on 8 and 9 December, 2003.
It aired weekly in South Africa on M-Net from 8-22 July 2005, on Fridays at 18h00.
Synopsis
A re-invention of the 1978 classic movie and '80's TV series, Battlestar Galactica breathes new life into the universal story about the 12 Colonies of Kobol and their fight to survive the killer Cylons they've created.
Featuring re-imagined, more deeply portrayed favourite characters from the original series, each season of the show sees the crew of Galactica facing new adventures, challenges, failures and conquests as they travel through time and space trying to find what they're searching for.
The mini-series opens with the following text, during a scene in which the Cylons make their first appearance in over 40 years at a remote space station, the Armistice station:
"The Cylons were created by Man.
They were created to make life easier on the Twelve Colonies.
And then the day came when the Cylons decided to kill their masters.
After a long and bloody struggle, an armistice was declared.
The Cylons left for another world to call their own.
A remote space station was built...
...where Cylon and Human could meet and maintain diplomatic relations.
Every year, the Colonials send an officer.
The Cylons send no one.
No one has seen or heard from the Cylons in over forty years."
It is revealed that the Cylons have gained the ability to mimic the human form. They proceed to destroy the space station.
The Cylons return from their forty-year absence in an attempt to exterminate the human race, beginning with a sudden, unexpected and simultaneous nuclear bombardment of the Twelve Colonies.
The attack is made possible by the Cylons' infiltration of the Colonies' defence mainframe, through a Cylon agent known as Number Six who mimics a human woman both physically and behaviourally.
Number Six poses as an agent of a company seeking defence contracts and is able to seduce a scientist working for the Colonial military, Dr. Gaius Baltar.
In exchange for his access to government mainframes she helps him design a navigation program used by Colonial warships, covertly creating backdoors in the program.
When the Cylons attack, they are able to penetrate software security firewalls, disabling entire fighter squadrons outright and sabotaging vital capital-ship systems. (In one incident, an entire battlestar loses power, enabling the Cylons to destroy it easily).
The computer systems of the Battlestar Galactica are not networked and are unaffected by the sabotage. It was in the process of being decommissioned and converted into a museum to honour its role in the first Cylon war, when it receives news of the attack and learns that fleet headquarters, and a significant portion of the colonial fleet, have been destroyed.
Commander Adama, Galactica's commanding officer, assumes command of the fleet after hearing that Admiral Nagala has been killed.
To avoid Cylon forces, Galactica makes a 'faster-than-light' (FTL) jump - an instantaneous teleportation - to Ragnar Anchorage, where it can restock on ammunition.
Meanwhile, Colonial Heavy 798, which was carrying Secretary of Education Laura Roslin back to Caprica following Galactica's decommissioning ceremony, learns that Caprica City has been destroyed by the nuclear attack.
When all 42 government officials ahead of her in the presidential line of succession fail to check in per emergency procedures, Roslin assumes the presidency and Colonial Heavy 798 becomes Colonial One.
In the aftermath of the attack, surviving civilian ships turn to Roslin for leadership, while Dr. Baltar manages to escape Caprica and join the ragtag fleet.
Fearing an attack after they are spotted by a Cylon Raider, Roslin orders those civilian ships with hyperjump capability to rendezvous with Galactica at Ragnar. She makes the agonizing decision to leave behind those ships with only sublight engines, including the Geminon Botanical Cruiser.
Her decision is proved correct when the Cylons promptly appear and destroy every ship left behind.
Roslin eventually convinces Adama that the war is lost. He finally agrees that the best course of action is to escort the civilian fleet and find a new world on which to rebuild civilization.
The stockpiles at Ragnar Anchorage are used to rearm Galactica and resupply the fleet. However, the ships cannot jump safely from the immediate vicinity of the base, which is surrounded by a radioactive gas cloud.
The Cylons, more vulnerable to the radiation, besiege the cloud and wait for the fleet to emerge. Adama devises a plan: Galactica holds off the Cylon attacks long enough for the civilian ships to exit the cloud and jump to the Prolmar Sector, then joins them.
Afterwards, during the mass funeral for the dead, Adama lifts his crew's morale by claiming that he knows the location of the legendary thirteenth colony known as Earth.
In the final scenes of the mini-series, Number Six warns Baltar that Cylon agents, who may even be programmed to believe that they are human, could still be within the fleet.
Adama finds a cryptic message in his quarters reading simply, "There are only 12 Cylon models."
On Ragnar, a group of humanoid Cylons free Aaron Doral (Galactica's tour guide, who was left behind after Baltar "discovered" he was a Cylon).
The last Cylon to enter the room is another copy of Lt. Sharon Valerii, revealing that the one on the Galactica is a Cylon as well.
Seasons
Mini-Series (3 episodes)
Channel: M-Net | Premiere: 8 Jul 2005 | Finale: 22 Jul 2005 | Fridays, 18h00
Season 1 (13 episodes)
Channel: actionX | Premiere: 9 Aug 2005 | Finale: 1 Nov 2005 | Tuesdays, 18h00
Channel: Fox FX | Premiere: 11 May 2011 | Finale: 3 Aug 2011 | Wednesdays, 20h40
Season 2 (20 episodes)
Channel: actionX | Premiere: 12 Jul 2006 | Finale: 22 Nov 2006 | Wednesdays, 20h00
Channel: Fox FX | Premiere: 7 Mar 2012 | Finale: 18 Jul 2012 | Wednesdays, 20h30
Season 3 (20 episodes)
Channel: actionX | Premiere: 18 Apr 2007 | Finale: 29 Aug 2007 | Wednesdays, 20h00
Razor (Note: Razor aired in SA as the first two episodes of Season 4)
Channel: M-Net Action | Premiere: 16 Apr 2008 | Finale: 23 Apr 2008 | Wednesdays, 20h00
Season 4 (20 episodes)
Channel: M-Net Action | Premiere: 16 Apr 2008 | Finale: 6 May 2009 | Wednesdays, 20h00
The Plan
Channel: M-Net | Aired: 25 March 2011 | Friday, 21h30
Channel: M-Net HD | Aired: 25 March 2011 | Friday, 21h30
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