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Commander Adama (Lorne Greene) is stripped of most of his command over
the Battlestar Galactica by the Council who figure with the Cylons no
longer a threat, military rule is no longer necessary. And the Council
also wants to launch negotiations with the Eastern Alliance and its
Commandant Leiter (Lloyd Bochner), whom the Galacticans have captured last
episode. For that of course Leiter has to be transferred to the
Galactica from the prison ship, and on the prison ship there's of course
the series recurring villain Count Baltar (John Colicos), who sees this as
a chance to escape. So he, Leiter and the Nomens (Lance
LeGault, Robert Feero, Anthony De Longis) - villains from episode
The Man with Nine Lives - make a plan to take over the transfer
shuttle to once on the Galactica dictate the terms for their release. The
plan works beautifully at first as instead of guards the Council decided
to welcome Leiter themselves and are quickly made hostages. Now Baltar
dictates his demands, to give Leiter and the Nomens their ships back and
him his ship and his two Cylons, plus they'll take the shuttle with the
Council with them as insurance. There's only one small hitch in the plan,
and that's that the Cylons have been disassembled on the Galactica, and
re-assembling them proves more difficult than imagined - and that's
exactly what ultimately spoils Baltar's plan as upon launch the Cylons
wreck Baltar's ship rather than start it. Leiter's ship gets away though,
as the Galacticans figure he might actually lead them to earth ... Now
this episode's insistance to favour militaristic over diplomatic efforts
is irritating, especially since it seems to make fun over anything that's
only slightly on the peace-loving side. But that said, this is one of the
livelier episodes of the series, one that by and large ditches jarring
soap opera moments for solid action and intrigue, and even though it's low
on special effects (the series' forte), it's hardly ever boring. Not great
TV maybe, and riddled with plotholes (including the final fate of the
Nomens), but there are certainly worse ways to spend 50 minutes.
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