The opening titles show the fleet at a population of 39,673,
down one from the previous episode "Sine Qua Non",
which took place concurrently with this episode, so the
population count should probably be the same. Possibly the count
is meant to acknowledge the corpse of Gonzo already seen in
"Sine Qua Non" (though his death
is not seen until Act 3 of the current episode), but, in
that case,
the death of the Raptor's Electronic Countermeasures Officer
aboard should also have been counted.
Dr. Cottle
(in Roslin's visions only)
Didja Notice?
Throughout the episode, President Roslin seems to be having
visions whenever the baseship she's on makes an FTL jump.
From the title of the book and Adama's
readings from it, it seems to me Searider Falcon may be
a mix of Robinson Crusoe and Waterworld, with
maybe a dash of Cast Away.
Robinson Crusoe is a 1719 novel by Daniel
Defoe about a man shipwrecked on a desert island.
Cast Away is a 2000 film about a man
whose flight crashes into the ocean, leaving him stranded on an
uninhabited island where, after several years, he is able to
construct a raft and sail from washed up debris and island
materials to cast off to an eventual ocean rescue.
Waterworld is a 1995 post-apocalyptic
film of a future time when the Earth's polar ice cap has melted,
submerging most of the land; the main character, known only as
the Mariner (seafarer or searider), has a
self-constructed, speedy trimaran which also has no name, but is
often considered by fans of the film to be its version of the
"fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy" the Millennium Falcon
in the Star Wars films.
Hence,
Searider Falcon.
Cavil tells D'Anna that the Twos, Sixes, and Eights have started
a civil war with the other humanoid Cylon models and have
allied with the humans. Obviously, he does know that they have
rebelled against the Cylon establishment, but how does he know
they've allied with the human fleet? We might be tempted to
think Cavil's "pet Eight" Boomer had downloaded the memories of
one of the other Eights, but it is said that memories cannot be
shared without a particular unit's will...maybe one of the rebel
Eights began to think the rebellion was a mistake and allowed
her memories to be shared? A potential candidate is the Eight
who will be revealed to have been a double-agent to the human
resistance to Gaeta on New Caprica in "Face of the Enemy".
At 12:49 on the Blu-ray, it can just barely be seen that actress
Lucy Lawless as D'Anna is wearing a skin-tight top in the
resurrection tank as she turns to look at Boomer wondering
why Boomer isn't with the other Eights in rebellion.
Throughout the scene between Baltar and a Centurion from
18:30-19:04 on the Blu-ray, a metal stud on the Centurion's
shoulder plate keeps changing position from the right shoulder
to the left from shot-to-shot.
When Baltar tells the Centurion the parable about the dog who is
told when to eat, the Centurion cocks its head at the human
quizzically, just as dogs often do when spoken to.
Roslin bandages Baltar's abdominal wound over his shirt! She
should have removed the shirt. I suppose since she's not a
medical person and under a pressure situation and not
necessarily in her best mental state herself, she didn't think
the situation through all the way.
The Resurrection Hub is destroyed in this episode, preventing
Cylons from Resurrecting from this point forward.
When the rebel baseship returns to the last known coordinates of
the fleet and finds Adama's Raptor waiting, he sees it arrive through
the Raptor's cockpit window. The constellation Orion as seen
from Earth is clearly visible in this shot, suggesting they are
close to Earth.
At the end of the episode, the baseship allows Adama's Raptor to
land and Laura Roslin greets him. As the two hug and say they
missed each other, Laura says, "I love you," and Adama responds,
"About time." Since he doesn't simply say "I love you" back, it
implies to me that he already said it to her some time in the
past and she wasn't ready to respond in kind. Now she is, hence
Adama's "About time."
I also wonder if Adama's line is a nod to the 1980 film
Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, in which to
Princess Leia's confession of "I love you,"
Han Solo famously replies, simply, "I know."
Notes from the audio commentary by Ron Moore on the
Blu-ray release
The Number Eight model Cylon
(with Athena's memories)
that Helo is seen dealing with in
this episode was killed by Cavil's troops during the escape from
the Hub in a scene that was cut from the aired episode,
explaining why we never see her again.
Moore specifically states that the Elosha that Roslin sees in
her visions this episode are not a "Head" character like Head
Six and Head Baltar.
