TNMC

Richard Hatch played Apollo on the original series and in recent years waged a tireless war to bring the show back in some manner.  He went so far as to create an extended trailer, made with his own money, to show potential investors what was possible.  He was never successful in restarting the show himself but he probably did raise awareness sufficiently to interest SCI FI in dipping a toe into the waters.  Now Hatch gets his reward with a role in a brand new series.

Episode 1.03, Bastille Day
Written by Toni Graphia
Directed by Allan Kroeker

He won't be a regular, at least not now, but Hatch gets a fascinating part to play, that of Tom Zarek, a revolutionary from the colony of Sagitarius.  The plan to retrieve water from an ice moon has hit a snag; they need a lot of people to work in dangerous conditions.  The idea is floated to use prisoners for the work.  One of the ships in the fleet is the prison ship Astral Queen, with 1,500 prisoners aboard.  Captain Apollo, the President's assistant, Callie from the flight deck and Dee from Galactica's command crew are sent to the ship to offer the prisoners "freedom points" in exchange for the work.  They decline.  Actually, Zarek declines but nobody disagrees with him.  Apollo tries to negotiate with Zarek but is caught up in an elaborate plot that puts the ship in the hands of the prisoners, and all of Galactica's people in their clutches.

I rather liked Hatch in this role.  I haven't seen him in anything other than Battlestar Galactica, so I have no idea of his range but this role suited him nicely, particularly as it is opposite in nature to his Apollo role.  Here he does a nice job of portraying an intelligent single-minded extremist.  This is someone who confuses glory and social change.  He really wants the human government to be fair and justice and about real freedom for all.  Unfortunately at the same time he promotes violence and undermining power structures, often more for himself than the people.  Captain Apollo manages to put him in a position to openly declare which of those things is really most important to him.  It's a clever solution that does nothing to endear him to President Roslyn or Commander Adama.

Back on Caprica, Helo and Boomer #2 have reached a city and it is deserted.  They are following a signal they hope will lead them to other military.  What they do find are dead people being feasted on by rats.  The Cylons have some sort of plan for Helo, but just what is unclear.  They are obviously using Boomer #2 to lead him somewhere for some purpose.  Two Cylons, one the blonde #6 model that plagues Baltar's mind, and a male we haven't seen before, watch from above.  Oddly, they discuss humans as the parents of Cylons, and the need for parents to pass on before the children can come into their own.

Colonel Tigh is hitting the sauce again.  We see him getting up one morning and downing a few shots, looking all the while like those drinks are filling some empty spot in his soul.  Michael Hogan does some nice work here, looking him look absolutely convincing as a serious drunk.  Tigh hits a meeting sauced, getting a few laughs from the crew.  Later, Starbuck needs all of 15 seconds to realize he's drinking again, and calls him on it.  I have to wonder how much booze is available in the fleet.  It's certainly possible to make more but not until they beef up supplies.  So when Tigh's bottle runs dry, he's going to be a miserable son of a bitch.  And he's not that pleasant now, taking time to chew out Boomer for fooling around with Chief Tyrol.

Mostly this episode served to build up the characters.  Apollo gets a chance to be both heroic and pragmatic.  He's clearly a guy with tons of potential who is at this point very raw.  That's great for a series.  We can watch him grow and develop over the years.  We can also see that Apollo and Adama have a long way to go before they can have something resembling a normal father-son relationship.  Starbuck gets a bit more depth too, showing off an almost sensitive side and a butt-kicking side.  Tigh doesn't really develop but it's clear he has big problems in his future. 

The biggest thing this episode does is developing human society in this series.  We can see that the government seems to be built along an American model.  But in this situation, with the Galactica the only defense, the military has a much stronger influence than normal.  Developing culture and politics may not sound like the most exciting things but what I've really come to love about this show is the depth it has.  The original series seems intensely shallow in comparison.  This new version takes the time to build deeper characters.  It takes the time to develop culture, both Cylon and human.  This sort of depth gives the show a lot more weight and makes every situation that much more dire.  Some might find this a little slow but I'm thrilled for a show that isn't content to just flash some special effects at us and then skimp on the plot and characters.

 - This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it is happy this Richard Hatch doesn't wander around naked in front of the cameras.