0:25 Saul's performance here when Adama orders _"action stations"_ is awesome. He's stunned by the order (in the midst of a moment of relief) and horrified at the implications, but dutifully carries out his orders while he's processing what might be happening, ultimately realizing Adama is exactly right. I love it. A simple moment, but it's just cool.
"dutifully carries out his orders", that's like "patriarchal" or "something something". Instead he should have denied to carry out his orders and give us a speech about his precious little feelings while...crying a lot, like really a lot. Additionally someone must had been screaming on the background. You can't have people act professionally nor showing people having composure while in a tense situation. You need to show adults throwing emotional tantrums that are louder than the ones my 3 year old nephew is throwing. Also the scene required more explosions and more lens flare.
It was definitely a tough call; but when the ship sped up, stopped responding, and armed nukes, there was only one choice to make. I appreciate that even though it was the tactically right decision, all the characters involved carried the weight of it long into the future. It kept coming up, unlike a lot of moments in sci-fi, reminding us that the choices these characters make don't just disappear at the end of each episode. It haunted some of them for a long time.
I fucking love how over 15 years after it aired, people are still fervently discussing the ethics and logic going on during this scene, what a testament to the writing of this show, at least in the early seasons
They should've used a different design for the Starvipers since they still look like X-Wings from Star Wars. George Lucas sued the people that made the og show.
I respectfully disagree with the comments here saying that it would have been better to use the original cut where people were at the windows screaming for help. I think it was a lot more eerie to see dark empty seats through the windows of a ship meant to carry 1300 civilians. It would have been hamfisted in my opinion to have people pounding at the windows. It's a mystery for us to decide for ourselves if people were on onboard or not. Also not knowing what happened to all those people is a lot scarier than knowing they died a quick death.
@@kadeshaderow Even if there were people on-board, they were as good as dead. There was no way to save them. They (the Cylons) would have flown the ship into the fleet and set off their nukes. The Cylons turned the ship into a Trojan horse.
In space, no one can see you scream. ... Or something like that. The ambiguity worked really well in that scene. It stayed with me throughout the series as the first heavy sacrifice the fleet had to make to survive.
By having people in the windows screaming for help, would have ruled out all doubt that they were killing their own people. With the windows empty, they can at least think the Cylons had already killed them and they were just blowing up an empty ship - apart from maybe the pilots. Easier on the conscience.
There's one thing few people are mentioning about this clip: The use of signal lights for communication in a sci-fi series. Now, some might think "They've got this technology yet they still use signal lights to communicate?!" To those people I need to remind you, that the enemy faced by humanity in this series are a race of highly advanced machines, where almost any wireless or radio signal could be intercepted. There was a comment made by one of the characters in the miniseries that, in a bid to counter the Cylons' computer advantage, the Colonials looked backwards for solutions. In this case, signal lights is one of those "looking backwards for solutions" and it makes sense, since you could only intercept the message if you were present and looking at the sender.
The core of the problem here lies in the fact that space in BSG is closed-up very tightly and everything happends on unrealistically slow speeds. Light signalling is fine on those distances, but is not very likely to be useful on proper distances where visual contact is impossible/barely possible.
Starbuck is obviously high at the beginning of the sortie. Pill popping pilot. Took a hit just before takeoff. It wears off somewhat over the course of the sortie, but not entirely.
Last month I was awake for three full days due to dental pain. By the third day I started to hallucinate. I've also had sleep deprivation during my army service. Two hours on guard two hours off when you get to sleep for two hours in your sleeping bag before a guard comes and wakes you up. This went on all through the night for two weeks. When I got home I went to sleep on Sunday night and never woke up until Tuesday morning.
While I agree, I never fully understood why they had to be sleep deprived in the first place. I mean, they would have had probably 3 work shifts going even before the war took place in order to keep a ship like this going smoothly. You increase the shifts to 15 or so hours and you easily have double the people on duty at any given time. And you still have plenty of time to sleep. Heck, even the commander has a 2nd in charge that they could switch out with.
Especially paired with how she starts shooting before the camera actually cuts to the external angle, when you'd "normally" expect the camera to go there to see the first shots fired. It's like she's so into it she's not even waiting for the camera/crew/story to catch up, in a tongue and cheek sort of way.
“Get us between that ship and the fleet!” -Cmdr. Adama That line speaks volumes about his character, ethics, and morals and the trust his crew had in him. There wasn’t a hint of resistance even though the Galactica was positioning itself for a head-on collision with the Olympic Carrier. Adama was not meant to be a perfect character, but a human one. He didn’t hesitate to defend the fleet, even if it meant sacrificing his own life. This speaks to the selflessness of those in uniform. They run towards danger while the rest of us run the other way. This incident haunted the characters for the duration of the series. I believe President Roslin kept a reminder of the Olympic Carrier on her person because it was one of the most difficult decisions of her presidency. This show really is second-to-none.
The Galactica is the largest ship in the fleet by some margin and it's got the only hull that even a nuke would struggle to dent, as we see once or twice during the show, it's a logical choice to try and use the ship as a shield.
Cain: "LOL" I'd say the military's first sworn duty should be the defense of their own citizens. Everything else should be secondary, perhaps even their own lives if necessary. Not only is Galactica armored, it's heavily armed. When they say "the fleet" in the series they effectively mean humanity.
Baltar, one of the most brilliant & famous scientists of their society. It´s like assuming Stephen Hawking was a soviet spy during the Cold War just because he flinched when the word "soviet spy" was mentioned in a room full of people.
Any suspicions anyone had about him at the time would've been dissuaded when he provided sound reasoning behind them (which would've been further reinforced by the fact that both Roslin and Adama agreed with him), and then completely dissolved when the Olympic Carrier made a suicide run at the Fleet.
Baltar was pretty much the last of his kind. The fact that he continued to act as main scientific expert of the fleet despite being incompetent, corrupt and untrustworthy is remarkable.
BSG’s Season 1 episode “33” is probably the best science fiction I’ve ever seen. It’s dark, gritty, and intertwines technology with character development. Apollo and Starbuck unwillingly have to destroy the Olympic carrier. And Baltar only wants the carrier destroyed simply to save his own skin. I love how they don’t explain how they will maintain contact. Yet they use some form of Morse code via signal light. I see so many comparisons to modern day. This reminded me of 9/11 when we had Air Force jets that almost had to shoot down airlines. Adama is absolutely awesome as commander of Galactica. I loved this episode.
I believe flight 93 was shot down and the feds told the family that their loved ones fought valiantly. Otherwise imagine the settlement money paid to each family, let alone the mark on the pilots head who had to down it.
@@SCIFIguy64 I believe both things happened. The passengers did rise up and the jets shot down the plane before it got to a populated location. Not sure why both things couldn't be true. I also understand why the gov wouldn't want the public to know that military jets, operating over US soil, shot down a civilian airplane.
Definitely a high water mark for the series, tension and anxiety ramped up perfectly, and the switches between the characters seamless, no interruptions to a great story line. I miss this series.
Love they way space flight and battle scenes are depicted. The zooming in and out to show scale is amazing. The way the vipers pivot and turn gives a great feel for spaceflight. Love that BSG uses jump technology to travel vast interstellar distances. It allows the crew to realistic travel the entire Galaxy while still preserving the sense of an old ancient seafaring navy in the battle scenes. Their is no FTL battles. Ships must Duke it out at sub light velocities, when they are vulnerable while they wait for jump engines to recharge, it makes combat more visceral. Having the ability to jump hundreds or even thousands of light-years instantly adds a new dimension to space travel. They can cover more territory than a ship like the Enterprise. However they cannot really know exactly what they are jumping into unless they have already been there. It adds an element of danger mystery and excitement .
Also love how he starts panning around the CIC while giving orders, like his mind gears are spinning at full speed weighing all the possibilities and next movements.
That was always a bit of a plot hole to me in an otherwise fantastic episode. If this person really exists who could potentially ID Baltar, How did the Cylons know? Why did they go out of their way to mention his name?
Not a plot hole. This was a plot pivot. There were two ways to view Baltar's outburst. Adama already had suspicions because of his history fighting in the original Cylon war and being wise to their ways. Rosalyn was not 100% convinced until Adama lent his voice to support Baltar. She was leaning that way though. The others in the room were likely far less sure and likely would have leapt to this conclusion if it had not been unanimous between the three. Later on, this becomes a point of contention, albeit a relatively minor one. A lot on the line there and ultimately, self preservation and fear made the final answer in the moment and people were satisfied with the death of the unknown danger to save their own skins. High stakes. Well written.
@@eschelar Still doesn't quite explain the need to mention the informant with information about a traitor. Unless it was just stuck in for dramatic purposes to give Baltar more motivation for an outburst. Other than that, I feel they could have left that name drop out and still had the same effect and urgency to stop the ship from approaching the fleet. As is it leaves me with the question of how the Cylons knew of this informant and what he had to say. imho
@@mbvproductions4746 Well if you think about it, there's a number of perspectives being shown here. You've got Adama, the President, the press/people (here, they represent the people because they choose not to speak of Baltar's suspicious behavior because of their own fear of dying, but they don't forget how suspicious this looks forever). You've also got the perspective of the Cylons and the unknown entity in Baltar's mind. I think the perspective that confuses you is that of the Cylons. Why would they say they have information about a traitor? Well for starters, they have known all along that Baltar is a traitor. So this is definitely a ploy or a trick.. a trap. The turning of Baltar was a key part of the Cylon plan. Remember that the Cylons are actually trying to find Earth as well and they are entertaining the idea that the humans of Kobol will lead them to it. I don't think they are genuinely trying to destroy humanity and we have seen this many times in the show when they could have wiped them all out but didn't. But they are trying to weaken them so they can keep the upper hand. Discord is their tool at this time. Shooting down the Olympic Carrier would be a major assault on their unity. Finding a traitor (especially Baltar) would be a major assault in their unity. This situation became win-win when they said they would drop the name. Baltar had to make a choice. He found a way to sorta kinda make it work in the situation where he met with opinions informed by fear and suspicion, something Adama had described as primary tools of the Cylons on multiple occasions through the show. This wasn't only a shooting war. The Cylons lost an asset, but one they were well prepared to lose. They did not need to bolster their fleet numbers, so they played the Carrier like it was a card in a game. In fact, if you can see the argument that they wanted to minimize losses, but maximize discord, the destruction of the Olympic Carrier was their best solution. Beautifully set up and masterfully executed.
@@eschelar No no, I get what they were trying to portray, setup. I just couldn't fully understand the background for the setup. Not only did the Cylons seem to want to further the discord by mentioning a traitor, but they seem to through out, I guess, a logical name that Baltar recognized. Just seemed a little convenient for the scene. If they left out the name drop, it would not have been missed. Baltar could have still reacted the same, self preservation first. Also, at this point I think the Cylons were still in "exterminate all humanity" mode. It wouldn't be till much later that they "realize their error" and turn to subjugation of the human race, and then later finding earth. They intended to wipe them out here. By disabling or destroying the Galactica. I actually felt the Cylons jumped in just a minute or two too early. I think that was what finalized Adama and the President's decision to take out the cruiser. Imagine if they waited two more minutes before jumping in while the humans were still indecisive about the carrier. Again, do get me wrong. I am in full agreement. I loved the episode. The tension. One of the best episodes in the series.
I can't fathom why destroying the ship was even a question. It had failed to jump with the fleet when the enemy was closing in on them, reappears two hours later with an implausible story about how the enemy just miraculously turned back and let them be, then breaks off communication when questioned and accelerates towards the fleet, almost ramming through its escorts, ignores warning salvos and registers armed nukes despite being an unarmed civilian transport... Frankly, the instant that radiological alarm went off, the Vipers and Raptor should've high-tailed it to a safe distance and Galactica should've blown them to bits with an artillery salvo. Even if the passengers were still alive and the ship had just been hijacked, it's far too great of a risk to the remaining fleet and there'd be no time to plan and carry out any sort of boarding action to rescue anyone. They were all dead the instant they failed to make that initial jump.
The clear intention of the writers was to create a devastating moment for Lee, and they pile on the lingering doubt and guilt later on. The audience is meant to empathize with his angst, but the problem is they took away virtually all possible moral ambiguity from the situation for no discernable reason. Lee is stricken with indecision and guilt for blowing up a ship that had no visible passengers, had an armed nuke onboard, and was going to ram Galactica. If he does nothing, the ship is just as destroyed, except so is all of humanity. How to improve this? 1. No nukes on the Olympic Carrier, as that singular threat makes its destruction an unimpeachable and obvious decision. 2. Make their approach to the fleet more generalized, not a ramming course for Galactica. Make the Olympic Carrier look like a scared stray sheep desperate for the security of the herd. 3. Have civilians clearly visible in the windows, maybe even waving desperately or pounding on the windows in panic. With these three changes, the decision is anything but clear. However, introduce the following change to make the decision to destroy the Olympic Carrier still the "best" choice. 4. Make this specific jump NEED to be the LAST jump; have Galactica or a majority of the civilian ships have their FTL drives at risk of imminent failure, make them unsure they'll even be safe jumping THIS time. There can be some doubts about that assessment, but every technical manual and piece of evidence needs to show that they're already tempting fate. If they COULD jump a few more times, maybe they could take time to sweep the Olympic Carrier for trackers/saboteurs. But make it so THIS HAS TO BE THE LAST JUMP. In conclusion, Lee and Kara would know for a fact that there WERE civilians on the ship that they destroyed. They have to live with that, and that would be terrible enough. But the cylons stop finding them every 33 minutes, so they saved humanity from extinction. But Lee's inner optimist obsesses over the "what if" outcomes. What if they could have jumped first and rushed to find a solution to the Olympic Carrier tracking? That turns Lee's noble intentions against himself, making his virtue a source of emotional punishment. There's your angst.
Just noticed that right as Lee fires, you get another shot of Galactica, but she's facing forward and is in a different position than she had been. In the shots leading to this, we see Galactica turning slowly towards the Olympic Carrier at a speed much slower than we see her turn at later. Just a visual error but the lead-up of Galactica turning shows that even if Lee refused to fire, his father would.
The perfect pilot - all the explanation of what the Hell this is about are there, but wrapped into context. If the money folks were willing to spend big (for TV) for a four-hour "proof of concept" event, then R&D had to prove it could be done on a episode budget & time constraints. Stupid as it sounds, if "33" didn't impress the beancounters, they could recoup the miniseries as the "special event" it was. Maybe shoot some additional footage to allow "33" to be part of the miniseries. They used to do this all the time.
While I thought the pilot was good, much better on a second viewing, this is the episode that made me say "this series looks like it's going to be pretty good."
even if the olympic carrier still had people aboard to goad the fleet, they still werent slowing down and had nukes, like what would you think adama is going to do? a few shots across the window and not even a flinch. sudden loss of communications. yeah, no, you getting blow the frak up.
Soon as it stopped communicating, sped up, and nearly rammed Boomer on the way, it became a target. There were no Cylons in the area, at the time, to warrant such a frenzied drive towards the fleet.
Actually there’s plenty of reason. Your civilization just got nuked and the other survivors are essentially trying to kick you out. While she was probably under Cylon control, a civilian ship could do the exact same thing in that scenario and be completely innocent.
I still remember watching a majority of these episodes 😀🔥! The emotion, the cliff hangers, uncertainty! The drums that beated during combat scenes always got me! Was a great show & still is
@@jamiestewart48 If you watch, it looks like Lee missed and Starbuck hit. He choked at a vital moment and Starbuck wound up doing it for him. Lee gave the order though, so even if he didn't hit he still destroyed the Olympic Carrier through his actions.
@@PumpkinHoard No, they both hit. They fired off to the sides of the ship and swept their arcs of fire in, with both Vipers hitting the outboard engine pods.
@@PumpkinHoard -- IDK, I think Lee was pissed or stressed that Kara objected, over coms to the order. I mean Kara shot very close to the bow of that boat and it did not flinch. She flinched at the not flinching... It was clear cut after the nuke alarm, though. Kara - stubborn as ever.
Nukes were onboard, there are no living people on a Cylon nuke delivery platform. They wouldn't put humans on that ship for the simple reason that people are very good at escaping and breaking things. Cylons aren't taking a risk like that.
Funny thing about that. Originally when they were drafting this episode and Apollo was checking the windows of the Olympic Carrier, there were supposed to be people visible, gesturing for help.
@@BladeZero238 That would have made it far more intense. Now when I saw this episode I didn't really understand the difficulty in their decision, especially knowing how deceptive the Cylons are. But seeing hundreds of confirmed civilians on board would have made a big difference.
@@BladeZero238If I remember reading correctly, I think that was actually part of this episode and SyFy felt really weird about it and made them edit it out. That's why, when Apollo is looking at the windows on the ship, it looks like there are little blips and blurs (especially noticeable when he first looks at the ship around 7:40).
@@troyroberts6578 SciFi was leery of showing doomed civilians on a hijacked transport so soon after 9/11, which is why they ordered the change. The "blips and blurs" were the production company's compromise. It allowed for the possibility of civilians, but didn't outright show it.
@@chrismartindale7840 you answer your own question by saying : the only *good choice* . Choosing was the dilemma. If you think that was a easy one, hey thats up to you then. Adama, Apollo and Starbuck felt the responsibility and burden also. Making a tough descion and living with it are 2 separate matters. If you are unable to feel remorse in such matters I can only say.. Glad you are not in command. And just to be clear, yes I would have made the same choice.. But that definitely would burden me.
@@misterangel8486 As an Aspie I deal with facts and logic. Emotions do not influence my decisions. If there is only one good choice I don't understand what the dilemma is. How is making the only good decision tough? I do feel remorse, but I wouldn't feel any for the Cylon controlled ship we just destroyed.
@@chrismartindale7840 why do you keep asking me questions you answer yourself? Its starting to look like troll behaviour. If you don't see the dilemma I can not help you see it. I know quite a few aspies, so don't bullshit me. They feel something. Don't hide behind it. That offends me humongously. Your 'logic' is not a excuse for shortsighted behaviour. Use it to examine human emotions instead of using it as a shield not to feel. You are not a fracking Vulcan. Last attempt to make you see it, you act as a *outsider with all available info* Try using that 'logic' to imagine not having slept for days, not having all the info and being in the situation instead of looking at it from the outside. Your logic is flawed if you don't. The feeling of having failed to protect can be a extreemly powerfull emotion.
@@misterangel8486 I didn't say I don't feel emotion, I do. It just doesn't impact my decision making. If I'm coming across as a troll I apologize, that was not my intention. It's just that from my point of view, if the answer is obvious, why do you need to think about it?
This really WAS a perfect "second pilot". We were dropped into the type of "a bad thing" situation & gave the viewers a window into the lunacy the fleet's going to deal with. Yeah, yeah, the miniseries was the "actual" pilot, but it was a long-form program. The showrunners set up the "world", but "33" gave us the real pace of BSG 2000s. It wasn't gonna be your Da's BSG. (Full disclosure; I was 12 when the original premiered & I loved it. I love it still, but I love BSG 2000s for the complexity it brought to the table. Word around the campfire is that Universal's gonna do another reboot. I hope it works, but in spite of its weaknesses in both versions, I think you can't improve upon perfection...🙃)
The Legacy there was always a rumor that a large military fleet with civilian scientists accompanying them were seeking out other habitable worlds. This fleet never had the upgrades and the flag ship was said to be almost twice as big as the Mercury Class Battlestar. The main purpose of this class was for Command Control/fleet flag ship and deep space exploration. They were supposed to make 5 in total with 3 complete. We assume the other 2 were destroyed and this last one on this deep space mission. Would be one hell of a story to see this ship and it’s fleet pop back in to Picon and realize they just walked into a war with the Cylons. Now they are the last fleet to defend the twelve colonies a Super Battlestar, 2 smaller Battlestar, various military support ships and science vessels. Now that would be an amazing series!!!
I love the reboot of BSG more than any show ever (maybe tied with GoT) but I do NOT want a remake because I know current day Hollywood, they will completely destroy BSG with a combination of terrible writing and toxic Hollywood politics.
Gosh I love the start of this clip. The action on the bridge is so immersive - there's a real buzz as soon as we get the call to action stations: you hear other characters starting to act on Adama's order while he's still giving them. It's like a fugue. Compare to Star Trek, where all the bridge crew just sit there silently waiting for their moment to speak their alotted line.
I'm no military expert. Nor am I a psychologist but I'm willing to bet it's one thing to talk logic from afar and it's another thing to be the one to pull the trigger on what is ostensibly 1500 innocent lives.
@@AngeloBarovierSD war is the pinnacle of insanity. Hesitate, people die. Pull the trigger, people still die. You will go crazy trying to make sense of it all.
@@meligoth You're arguing in axioms. I'm addressing the hesitation of the pilots, which is a human response to the gravity of their task, and the cavalier tone of your original comment. The preponderance of people to dismiss the human side of warfare is what leads to society's general response to the psychological wounds of its veterans. Speaking of war in trite pseudo-philosophy cheapens the magnitude of the decisions made within it and the effects upon those who made them.
@@AngeloBarovierSD there's no "wait, let's think about it" when it comes to these situations, fictional or real life. There's no happy outcome in this scene or something similar in real life. You allude to some wishy washy resolution, but reality tears that down, because your answer, if there is one for such a scenario will be wrong inevitably.
You know that there will (was planed) be new episodes just this year ? Dunno if or how corona has an influence on this but I’m feeling like a child and can’t wait to see them!
Best part of it is Saul's reaction from 0:28 to 0:37. A quick glance of mild confusion, and then immediately picks up the wireless headset to start issuing orders, realizing just a couple seconds later than Adama that the Olympic Carrier would not have made it out of the initial engagement alive, so something is sus.
I remember watching a panel at Comic-Con with some actors from BSG, and it was said that in the original cut for this episode, there were people inside the ship beating on the windows for help when Apollo made his pass by to check for passengers. Kinda wish they hadn't cut that, would have made this moment so much more impactful.
It would have been far more shocking, especially as an opening episode. Although in practical terms it hardly makes a difference whether the Olympic Carrier was full of people or not as it was threatening Galactica. It would have just traumatised Starbuck and Apollo more...
@@Negativvv It doesn't make a difference, which is the horrible part. It just would've displayed the horror of such a situation. Destroying an empty ship is one thing, destroying a ship full of civilians is quite another.
I feel like they must have removed it because it would not be in line with Apollo’s character to obey the order to shoot down the Olympic carrier like that. Like this, while less impactful, Apollo not seeing anyone is what makes him decide to follow command. Seeing passengers begging for help would make Apollo refuse. He already disobeyed with blocking communication moments before.
It makes a huge difference to the Viper pilots who are pulling the trigger, not overall to the Colonial fleet. Would suck to be in Starbuck and Apollo's shoes!
On the podcast that Tricia Helfer does, she had them doing a live reading of 33. Jamie Bamber "Apollos actor" said it was because of Execs of NBC thinking it was too disturbing for people.
This is easily one of the best episodes of television in the history of the medium. (If you don't count the miniseries) it is arguably the best pilot in history.
If you remember,on Sept 11 2001,fighters were launched with orders to shoot down airliners not following orders to land at the nearest airport. Every pilot who agreed to be interviewed said they were praying that they didn't have to carry out those orders.
While there were more impactful episodes that came later, “33” is probably the best episode they did as a standalone not connected to a larger narrative arc. From the ever-present countdowns to the desperate struggle of non-replaceable personnel to stay awake, and even Baltar’s pathetic attempts to avoid exposure, the episode is just a master class in building suspense up to a final, unexpected, bittersweet payoff. Ron Moore himself admitted that though they did their best to reverse-engineer “33” in an effort to replicate its success they never quite got there.
No one probably dared shoot until it was too late (hidden engines give it a massive boost). It would probably have ended Galactica. Or at least taken out one of its pods.
I read a comment somewhere that there was supposed to be people in the windows but it was cut for being too dark for TV. Like the extermination of 50 billion people isn't dark enough.
@@PupSentinel There was a scene in a later episode where either Lee or Starbuck is obsessing over this incident, and replaying the gun camera footage over and over looking for signs of shadows in the windows. That scene only lasts 10-20 seconds, forget what episode.
@@Mike-tw1pi You might be thinking of Starbuck going over the gun cam footage of an unspecified viper pilot observing the exchange of fire between 2 cylon raiders chasing a third. In that case the third cylon raider contained bulldog who had apparently escaped his captors but had, as Starbuck intuited and consulted with Tigh over, that Bulldog had in fact been let go. The giveaway being that Bulldog was "...flying straight and level... ...any nugget could have made that kill..." with his raider also venting atmo from prior damage. There are a few episodes where gun cam footage is scrutinised, however this was the closest scene I could think of off hand that matched closely to what you vaguely described.
@@Rezinstance Hang on, I think I found it! Apparently it is in the movie Razor, but is a deleted scene in the regular release. ruclips.net/video/f-Hb8F_5aLg/видео.html
Kara is an interesting Character, she is OVERJOYED at the thought of dogfighting and firing her guns. She lives for that. When Apollo ordered a burst across the bow she smirks with cocky joy. But apparently she draws the line at killing civilians even if they are huge threat. She is a soldier and when Lee fired she pulled the trigger. But she fought him on it.
WAIT A SECOND - somebody decode what signal Boomer ACTUALLY sent the Olympic Carrier! What if she - as a cylon agent - instead told it to speed up and for everyone inside to hide?
nonsense, they all are navy pilots that know the code being used, secondly the shot across the bow would have stopped them even if that was the case and lastly ARMED nukes onboard = zero chance of it being a "mistake"
It was also Crash Down who did the message, Boomer was just flying the ship and handling wireless comms, you can see him fervently typing into his console when Dee is instructing what message to send
I remember this episode, and it still gut-wrenches me Galactica had to waste a civilian ship that was tiring her survivors fleet every 33 minutes that just started running from destroyed homes, then started acting like a kamikaze. Gods forgive Apollo he pulled the trigger that killed this civilian carrier first.
Something I didn’t notice until a rewatch was the last civilian ship jumped right before the Olympic Carrier blew up. It makes Lee’s monologue in the season 3 finale more impactful. At this point, no civilians were residing on Galactica. So no one in the fleet knew this is what actually happened to the ship and likely assumed the Cylons destroyed it. Love the little details like these that the show has.
Rewatching this series a few months ago, as well as this scene just now, reminded me of how amazing Bear McCreary's score was through the entire series. That huge percussion accent when Gaeta calls out "DRADIS contact!" as well as the next accent after Adama calls "action stations" are small, yet perfect gestures to snap us immediately into attention while we watch these events unfold.
The destruction of the Olympic Carrier set the tone for the whole series, and was only the first of the impossible scenarios our fleet would face as they sought their new home…
"Thank the gods you're with us" "God's got nothing to do with this" I mean probably a writing slip but could also be a really sneaky tell to Baltar's monotheistic sympathies/future
They wouldn't have kept approaching the Galactica unless they intended to destroy her. They wouldn't have kept going once shots were fired across the bow. There were no passengers visible and as I understand it in one of the other Cuts they did have them visible but in the end they couldn't take a chance.
This was one of the most intense moments I ever watched in the series. I wish the network didn’t have them redo the original plot for this episode though.
Mark Mance -- Amen to that. Had to go back and listen to the percussion, I was so wrapped up in the tension watching this clip. Bear McCreary is the man.
@@tedball8677 The music builds and then _completely stops_ at the exact right moment. Yeah, I have trouble paying attention to music _and_ dialogue. The music lends all the weight to Baltar's confession: Mary McDonnell didn't need any help though. Her entire demeanor, everything about her; Brilliant.
"When you are in command, Command" Admiral Halsey. Don't ask for command if you cannot handle the responsibility that comes with it. Adama has no problem with the weight of command.
Lee saw that there were no people on the ship and time has proven blowing it up to be the right choice so he has no reason to cry about it 2 seasons later at Baltar's trial.
The original script had the ship being fulled of people But they didn't want to wake up bad memories of 9/11 (the airplanes that hit the towers) And they changed it. Moore points it in an intertview.
@@SPACECRUISER96 that explains a lot. The characters' reactions don't make any sense if the ship is empty. I wish they'd have kept to the original script.
@@yoongilimerence I think showing the ship full is too dark, even for battlestar galactica. I would have preferred if they just left it entirely ambigious.
Gotta give 'em credit. That drum guy was real quick to accentuate the report of DRADIS contact. I'm sure the crew appreciates the notice of something important happening.
Mary McDonneaug Who portrayed President Laura Rosalind DID EXCELLENT JOB. Her body language and facial expressions sent chills down my spine. She emoted perfectly what any Leader or Warship Captain has to go through when faced with a civilian ship that ignores orders to keep away. Military commanders have had to sacrifice a small group of Soldiers in order to preserve the entire fighting forces. It’s agonizing sacrificing the lives of your men. But 1300 Civilians it’s a whole new ball game.
Apparently these people have never been in the military because you don't have a say in the matter. If you have a cruise ship loaded with nukes heading towards a carrier group, that ship's going to be sunk and anyone who remotely refusing to fire would be immediately relieved of duty if not face summary execution.
Iirc there actually is a standing “no approach” zone around modern U.S. naval vessels.. you’re warned if you get to close to it, multiple times.. if you cross into it you’re automatically considered a military threat and dealt with accordingly.. this is a standing practice, wartime OR peacetime..
During the occupation of Okinawa back in WWII. Civilians were told that they would be torture or killed by the Americans if they do not sacrifice themselves and they jumped to their deaths. Germans used civilians or prisoners as human shield doing air attacks. I remember this scene from the show quite well and it was a dilemma for Apollo and Starbuck. Orders are orders to either use people as political pawns in a cat and mouse game and usually ends not well for those being used. The radiation coming from the ship made it impossible to say that there was people on board and it was the only choice to sacrifice and not take the chance of being destroyed themselves.
@@krashd yup. very sad. It was literally Death before Dishonour. But it was more than just the propaganda threat of what they were told the Americans would do. They would fight to the last man or die rather than dishonour the emperor or their country. Look up the battles on the Pacific islands (especially Iwo Jima), the Japanese just would not surrender. From 21,000 soldiers, only around 200 were captured.
@@fuzzblightyear145 Yeah, I know about that. It's one of the most disgusting cases of "What are you willing to do for your country?" The Imperial Japanese and the Soviets had no problems with using humans as fodder. It's actually ironic that the typical go-to insult against us westerners, but mainly against Americans, is that our soldiers are thought to be expendable lumps that we can always make more of when really it was the Soviets and the Japanese who saw men as a single-use commodity that could rush the enemy with nothing more than a spade.
A deleted scene from the movie "Razor" had Starbuck and Apollo looking at gun camera footage, with Apollo arguing that a shadow they see is from a persom. Starbuck argues it's a trick of light.
0:25 Saul's performance here when Adama orders _"action stations"_ is awesome.
He's stunned by the order (in the midst of a moment of relief) and horrified at the implications, but dutifully carries out his orders while he's processing what might be happening, ultimately realizing Adama is exactly right.
I love it. A simple moment, but it's just cool.
"dutifully carries out his orders", that's like "patriarchal" or "something something".
Instead he should have denied to carry out his orders and give us a speech about his precious little feelings while...crying a lot, like really a lot. Additionally someone must had been screaming on the background.
You can't have people act professionally nor showing people having composure while in a tense situation. You need to show adults throwing emotional tantrums that are louder than the ones my 3 year old nephew is throwing.
Also the scene required more explosions and more lens flare.
@@kleanthisxanthopoulos4697 Your speech is no less of a snowflake. You need to do less speechifying and more doing, just like they did.
Well, he is a Cylon after all 😊
It was definitely a tough call; but when the ship sped up, stopped responding, and armed nukes, there was only one choice to make. I appreciate that even though it was the tactically right decision, all the characters involved carried the weight of it long into the future. It kept coming up, unlike a lot of moments in sci-fi, reminding us that the choices these characters make don't just disappear at the end of each episode. It haunted some of them for a long time.
Like how the scars pile up on Galactica's hull as the series progresses
@@GBart it was a rough and tough, and my one question remains today in lance hunter tone, “what happen to the passengers ?”
A sign of good writing.👍
@@TigerWing141 I can tell you they definitely died eventually at some point 😂
@@TigerWing141in the original edit there were passengers banging on the windows to confirm they were alive and trapped.
I fucking love how over 15 years after it aired, people are still fervently discussing the ethics and logic going on during this scene, what a testament to the writing of this show, at least in the early seasons
Yep, first 25 episodes were stellar. After that, the quality of the writing tailed off.
It's hard to believe it's even been that long.
No fracking way man!
They should've used a different design for the Starvipers since they still look like X-Wings from Star Wars. George Lucas sued the people that made the og show.
@@JamesMDavis1 No, no they dont. If you think vipers look like X-wings you really don't know starwars and need to see an optometrist.
I respectfully disagree with the comments here saying that it would have been better to use the original cut where people were at the windows screaming for help. I think it was a lot more eerie to see dark empty seats through the windows of a ship meant to carry 1300 civilians. It would have been hamfisted in my opinion to have people pounding at the windows. It's a mystery for us to decide for ourselves if people were on onboard or not. Also not knowing what happened to all those people is a lot scarier than knowing they died a quick death.
Moore et. al have already said repeatedly that there were people on board
@@kadeshaderow Even if there were people on-board, they were as good as dead. There was no way to save them. They (the Cylons) would have flown the ship into the fleet and set off their nukes. The Cylons turned the ship into a Trojan horse.
If the cut scene where used it would have Ben hard get that episode past sensors
In space, no one can see you scream.
... Or something like that. The ambiguity worked really well in that scene. It stayed with me throughout the series as the first heavy sacrifice the fleet had to make to survive.
By having people in the windows screaming for help, would have ruled out all doubt that they were killing their own people. With the windows empty, they can at least think the Cylons had already killed them and they were just blowing up an empty ship - apart from maybe the pilots. Easier on the conscience.
"Action stations."
There is a reason this man was given command of a Battlestar.
So say we all
There's one thing few people are mentioning about this clip: The use of signal lights for communication in a sci-fi series. Now, some might think "They've got this technology yet they still use signal lights to communicate?!" To those people I need to remind you, that the enemy faced by humanity in this series are a race of highly advanced machines, where almost any wireless or radio signal could be intercepted. There was a comment made by one of the characters in the miniseries that, in a bid to counter the Cylons' computer advantage, the Colonials looked backwards for solutions. In this case, signal lights is one of those "looking backwards for solutions" and it makes sense, since you could only intercept the message if you were present and looking at the sender.
Much like bayonets in the modern military. Rarely used, but life-saving in the right situation.
@@chrisbingley yep. Never know when some fool's gonna charge at you.
The core of the problem here lies in the fact that space in BSG is closed-up very tightly and everything happends on unrealistically slow speeds. Light signalling is fine on those distances, but is not very likely to be useful on proper distances where visual contact is impossible/barely possible.
@@UEDCommander Says the guy who got run off by a bunch of bugs from the Koprulu Sector.
;)
@@Boskov01
We've learned the lesson about spacing the hard way
I love how in that entire episode the sleep deprivation was portrayed. Probably the best portrayal of it in all of fiction i ever watched.
You can experience their fatigue by binge watching all BSG episodes at 44 minutes each.
Starbuck is obviously high at the beginning of the sortie. Pill popping pilot. Took a hit just before takeoff. It wears off somewhat over the course of the sortie, but not entirely.
Last month I was awake for three full days due to dental pain. By the third day I started to hallucinate. I've also had sleep deprivation during my army service. Two hours on guard two hours off when you get to sleep for two hours in your sleeping bag before a guard comes and wakes you up. This went on all through the night for two weeks. When I got home I went to sleep on Sunday night and never woke up until Tuesday morning.
The actors themselves were sleep-deprived, they were getting less than three hours a sleep a night when they filmed this episode.
While I agree, I never fully understood why they had to be sleep deprived in the first place. I mean, they would have had probably 3 work shifts going even before the war took place in order to keep a ship like this going smoothly. You increase the shifts to 15 or so hours and you easily have double the people on duty at any given time. And you still have plenty of time to sleep. Heck, even the commander has a 2nd in charge that they could switch out with.
I’ve always loved Katee Sackoff’s line read on “Copy that.” before Starbuck fires the warning shots. So in character.
She's off her face on stims at that point too...
Especially paired with how she starts shooting before the camera actually cuts to the external angle, when you'd "normally" expect the camera to go there to see the first shots fired. It's like she's so into it she's not even waiting for the camera/crew/story to catch up, in a tongue and cheek sort of way.
“Oh, boy! Here I go shooting my problems again!”
“Get us between that ship and the fleet!” -Cmdr. Adama That line speaks volumes about his character, ethics, and morals and the trust his crew had in him. There wasn’t a hint of resistance even though the Galactica was positioning itself for a head-on collision with the Olympic Carrier. Adama was not meant to be a perfect character, but a human one. He didn’t hesitate to defend the fleet, even if it meant sacrificing his own life. This speaks to the selflessness of those in uniform. They run towards danger while the rest of us run the other way. This incident haunted the characters for the duration of the series. I believe President Roslin kept a reminder of the Olympic Carrier on her person because it was one of the most difficult decisions of her presidency. This show really is second-to-none.
Well, it is the military's job to protect the civilians, it made natural sense.
The Galactica is the largest ship in the fleet by some margin and it's got the only hull that even a nuke would struggle to dent, as we see once or twice during the show, it's a logical choice to try and use the ship as a shield.
Its not the first time Adama has done that. I recall one episode, he gives the same order and follows with "we can take the hit, they cant".
Cain: "LOL" I'd say the military's first sworn duty should be the defense of their own citizens. Everything else should be secondary, perhaps even their own lives if necessary. Not only is Galactica armored, it's heavily armed. When they say "the fleet" in the series they effectively mean humanity.
@Matthew Caughey The deleted scene for this had civilians banging on the windows from inside the ship. They purposefully made it empty.
"jo there's a traitor in your ranks"
Random dude jumps up "DON'T LISTEN TO THAT MAN CUT ALL COMMUNICATIONS"
That isn’t a random guy, that’s baltar
Baltar, one of the most brilliant & famous scientists of their society. It´s like assuming Stephen Hawking was a soviet spy during the Cold War just because he flinched when the word "soviet spy" was mentioned in a room full of people.
@@prince-solomon if steven hawking 'jumped up' i think suspicions would be aroused
Any suspicions anyone had about him at the time would've been dissuaded when he provided sound reasoning behind them (which would've been further reinforced by the fact that both Roslin and Adama agreed with him), and then completely dissolved when the Olympic Carrier made a suicide run at the Fleet.
Baltar was pretty much the last of his kind. The fact that he continued to act as main scientific expert of the fleet despite being incompetent, corrupt and untrustworthy is remarkable.
BSG’s Season 1 episode “33” is probably the best science fiction I’ve ever seen. It’s dark, gritty, and intertwines technology with character development. Apollo and Starbuck unwillingly have to destroy the Olympic carrier. And Baltar only wants the carrier destroyed simply to save his own skin. I love how they don’t explain how they will maintain contact. Yet they use some form of Morse code via signal light.
I see so many comparisons to modern day. This reminded me of 9/11 when we had Air Force jets that almost had to shoot down airlines. Adama is absolutely awesome as commander of Galactica. I loved this episode.
I agree, it's either 33 or S3E7 of The Expanse.
ALMOST?
I believe flight 93 was shot down and the feds told the family that their loved ones fought valiantly. Otherwise imagine the settlement money paid to each family, let alone the mark on the pilots head who had to down it.
@@SCIFIguy64 I believe both things happened. The passengers did rise up and the jets shot down the plane before it got to a populated location. Not sure why both things couldn't be true. I also understand why the gov wouldn't want the public to know that military jets, operating over US soil, shot down a civilian airplane.
On 9/11 the FAA called control towers and control centers and told them to get those passenger planes on the ground at the nearest airports to them
I think this might be the only instance I've seen of a signal lamp being used in space on a sci-fi show or film. It's a terrific detail.
It's rare to see. Mobile Suit Gundam makes a big use of it due to electronic signal jamming during their war.
starship trooper Invasion did something similar with 1 of the trooper using his gun as a morse code signal lamp
Bart Mancuso uses it in The Hunt for Red October to signal the Soviet boomer
Independence Day, first try to communicate with one of the motherships.
Definitely a high water mark for the series, tension and anxiety ramped up perfectly, and the switches between the characters seamless, no interruptions to a great story line. I miss this series.
Love they way space flight and battle scenes are depicted. The zooming in and out to show scale is amazing. The way the vipers pivot and turn gives a great feel for spaceflight. Love that BSG uses jump technology to travel vast interstellar distances. It allows the crew to realistic travel the entire Galaxy while still preserving the sense of an old ancient seafaring navy in the battle scenes. Their is no FTL battles. Ships must Duke it out at sub light velocities, when they are vulnerable while they wait for jump engines to recharge, it makes combat more visceral. Having the ability to jump hundreds or even thousands of light-years instantly adds a new dimension to space travel. They can cover more territory than a ship like the Enterprise. However they cannot really know exactly what they are jumping into unless they have already been there. It adds an element of danger mystery and excitement .
The original show did that and it was something kept for the new show and I really like it
"Radiological Alarm!" always gives me chills
Relax, it's only 3.6 Roentgens
@@slayeddreamer3820 not great, not terrible
@@slayeddreamer3820 -- only 3.6, until it detonates, then it is a bit more.
@@drx1xym154 like a chest x-ray or something like that?
That2 the maximum level read of the device; so it's much higher
"Action stations!"
Hell, Adama is the man.
Everybody ready to celebrate, and then... Love this scene.
And Tigh's expression as he realises Adama's thought process and snaps back to XO mode.
@@bujtorm Tigh: I hope your wrong about this.
Adama: So do I.
Also love how he starts panning around the CIC while giving orders, like his mind gears are spinning at full speed weighing all the possibilities and next movements.
Traitor is mentioned...guy jumps up "cut the communication"...and no one thought "wait a minute" 🤔
That was always a bit of a plot hole to me in an otherwise fantastic episode.
If this person really exists who could potentially ID Baltar, How did the Cylons know?
Why did they go out of their way to mention his name?
Not a plot hole. This was a plot pivot.
There were two ways to view Baltar's outburst. Adama already had suspicions because of his history fighting in the original Cylon war and being wise to their ways.
Rosalyn was not 100% convinced until Adama lent his voice to support Baltar. She was leaning that way though.
The others in the room were likely far less sure and likely would have leapt to this conclusion if it had not been unanimous between the three. Later on, this becomes a point of contention, albeit a relatively minor one. A lot on the line there and ultimately, self preservation and fear made the final answer in the moment and people were satisfied with the death of the unknown danger to save their own skins. High stakes.
Well written.
@@eschelar Still doesn't quite explain the need to mention the informant with information about a traitor. Unless it was just stuck in for dramatic purposes to give Baltar more motivation for an outburst.
Other than that, I feel they could have left that name drop out and still had the same effect and urgency to stop the ship from approaching the fleet.
As is it leaves me with the question of how the Cylons knew of this informant and what he had to say.
imho
@@mbvproductions4746 Well if you think about it, there's a number of perspectives being shown here. You've got Adama, the President, the press/people (here, they represent the people because they choose not to speak of Baltar's suspicious behavior because of their own fear of dying, but they don't forget how suspicious this looks forever). You've also got the perspective of the Cylons and the unknown entity in Baltar's mind.
I think the perspective that confuses you is that of the Cylons. Why would they say they have information about a traitor?
Well for starters, they have known all along that Baltar is a traitor. So this is definitely a ploy or a trick.. a trap. The turning of Baltar was a key part of the Cylon plan.
Remember that the Cylons are actually trying to find Earth as well and they are entertaining the idea that the humans of Kobol will lead them to it. I don't think they are genuinely trying to destroy humanity and we have seen this many times in the show when they could have wiped them all out but didn't.
But they are trying to weaken them so they can keep the upper hand.
Discord is their tool at this time. Shooting down the Olympic Carrier would be a major assault on their unity. Finding a traitor (especially Baltar) would be a major assault in their unity. This situation became win-win when they said they would drop the name.
Baltar had to make a choice. He found a way to sorta kinda make it work in the situation where he met with opinions informed by fear and suspicion, something Adama had described as primary tools of the Cylons on multiple occasions through the show. This wasn't only a shooting war.
The Cylons lost an asset, but one they were well prepared to lose. They did not need to bolster their fleet numbers, so they played the Carrier like it was a card in a game. In fact, if you can see the argument that they wanted to minimize losses, but maximize discord, the destruction of the Olympic Carrier was their best solution.
Beautifully set up and masterfully executed.
@@eschelar No no, I get what they were trying to portray, setup. I just couldn't fully understand the background for the setup.
Not only did the Cylons seem to want to further the discord by mentioning a traitor, but they seem to through out, I guess, a logical name that Baltar recognized.
Just seemed a little convenient for the scene. If they left out the name drop, it would not have been missed. Baltar could have still reacted the same, self preservation first.
Also, at this point I think the Cylons were still in "exterminate all humanity" mode.
It wouldn't be till much later that they "realize their error" and turn to subjugation of the human race, and then later finding earth.
They intended to wipe them out here. By disabling or destroying the Galactica.
I actually felt the Cylons jumped in just a minute or two too early. I think that was what finalized Adama and the President's decision to take out the cruiser.
Imagine if they waited two more minutes before jumping in while the humans were still indecisive about the carrier.
Again, do get me wrong. I am in full agreement. I loved the episode. The tension. One of the best episodes in the series.
I can't fathom why destroying the ship was even a question. It had failed to jump with the fleet when the enemy was closing in on them, reappears two hours later with an implausible story about how the enemy just miraculously turned back and let them be, then breaks off communication when questioned and accelerates towards the fleet, almost ramming through its escorts, ignores warning salvos and registers armed nukes despite being an unarmed civilian transport... Frankly, the instant that radiological alarm went off, the Vipers and Raptor should've high-tailed it to a safe distance and Galactica should've blown them to bits with an artillery salvo. Even if the passengers were still alive and the ship had just been hijacked, it's far too great of a risk to the remaining fleet and there'd be no time to plan and carry out any sort of boarding action to rescue anyone. They were all dead the instant they failed to make that initial jump.
The clear intention of the writers was to create a devastating moment for Lee, and they pile on the lingering doubt and guilt later on. The audience is meant to empathize with his angst, but the problem is they took away virtually all possible moral ambiguity from the situation for no discernable reason. Lee is stricken with indecision and guilt for blowing up a ship that had no visible passengers, had an armed nuke onboard, and was going to ram Galactica. If he does nothing, the ship is just as destroyed, except so is all of humanity.
How to improve this?
1. No nukes on the Olympic Carrier, as that singular threat makes its destruction an unimpeachable and obvious decision.
2. Make their approach to the fleet more generalized, not a ramming course for Galactica. Make the Olympic Carrier look like a scared stray sheep desperate for the security of the herd.
3. Have civilians clearly visible in the windows, maybe even waving desperately or pounding on the windows in panic.
With these three changes, the decision is anything but clear. However, introduce the following change to make the decision to destroy the Olympic Carrier still the "best" choice.
4. Make this specific jump NEED to be the LAST jump; have Galactica or a majority of the civilian ships have their FTL drives at risk of imminent failure, make them unsure they'll even be safe jumping THIS time. There can be some doubts about that assessment, but every technical manual and piece of evidence needs to show that they're already tempting fate. If they COULD jump a few more times, maybe they could take time to sweep the Olympic Carrier for trackers/saboteurs. But make it so THIS HAS TO BE THE LAST JUMP.
In conclusion, Lee and Kara would know for a fact that there WERE civilians on the ship that they destroyed. They have to live with that, and that would be terrible enough. But the cylons stop finding them every 33 minutes, so they saved humanity from extinction.
But Lee's inner optimist obsesses over the "what if" outcomes. What if they could have jumped first and rushed to find a solution to the Olympic Carrier tracking? That turns Lee's noble intentions against himself, making his virtue a source of emotional punishment. There's your angst.
@@GenerateSilencenowadays people don't understand the good story telling and build good character
A ghost ship conversing with humans with a human voice...carrying nukes. That's the stuff of legends.
mostly one of the cylon models talking.
@@thehantavirus Which one? Doesn't sound like any of the models I'm familiar with.
@@GplusGains They are machines, very possibly synthesized a fake voice.
It's also possible they kept the pilot and compelled him to do the talking.
In my head, it's Simon, one of the Fours.
It's either a Human Model, most likely a Number 4 by the sound of the voice, or one of the crew being forced at gunpoint.
Just noticed that right as Lee fires, you get another shot of Galactica, but she's facing forward and is in a different position than she had been. In the shots leading to this, we see Galactica turning slowly towards the Olympic Carrier at a speed much slower than we see her turn at later. Just a visual error but the lead-up of Galactica turning shows that even if Lee refused to fire, his father would.
One nice little touch near the end is Galactica moving into postion to defend the fleet.
I absolutely loved this episode. Best writing I’ve seen, ever.
The perfect pilot - all the explanation of what the Hell this is about are there, but wrapped into context. If the money folks were willing to spend big (for TV) for a four-hour "proof of concept" event, then R&D had to prove it could be done on a episode budget & time constraints. Stupid as it sounds, if "33" didn't impress the beancounters, they could recoup the miniseries as the "special event" it was. Maybe shoot some additional footage to allow "33" to be part of the miniseries. They used to do this all the time.
That's so sad. You should look into reading books......
@@matthuckabey007 I do so already. How else do you think I have a head full of absolutely useless trivia?...😁
@@matthuckabey007 that hasnt got anything to do with books or is this a joke?
While I thought the pilot was good, much better on a second viewing, this is the episode that made me say "this series looks like it's going to be pretty good."
even if the olympic carrier still had people aboard to goad the fleet, they still werent slowing down and had nukes, like what would you think adama is going to do? a few shots across the window and not even a flinch. sudden loss of communications. yeah, no, you getting blow the frak up.
Soon as it stopped communicating, sped up, and nearly rammed Boomer on the way, it became a target. There were no Cylons in the area, at the time, to warrant such a frenzied drive towards the fleet.
Actually there’s plenty of reason. Your civilization just got nuked and the other survivors are essentially trying to kick you out. While she was probably under Cylon control, a civilian ship could do the exact same thing in that scenario and be completely innocent.
I still remember watching a majority of these episodes 😀🔥! The emotion, the cliff hangers, uncertainty! The drums that beated during combat scenes always got me! Was a great show & still is
Starbuck : "no fracking way lee !!"
also Starbuck : "Viper go brrrrr"
She objected, but she's still a member of the military and both followed the order and spared him from being the only one to do it.
@@jamiestewart48 If you watch, it looks like Lee missed and Starbuck hit. He choked at a vital moment and Starbuck wound up doing it for him. Lee gave the order though, so even if he didn't hit he still destroyed the Olympic Carrier through his actions.
@@PumpkinHoard No, they both hit. They fired off to the sides of the ship and swept their arcs of fire in, with both Vipers hitting the outboard engine pods.
@@PumpkinHoard -- IDK, I think Lee was pissed or stressed that Kara objected, over coms to the order.
I mean Kara shot very close to the bow of that boat and it did not flinch. She flinched at the not flinching...
It was clear cut after the nuke alarm, though.
Kara - stubborn as ever.
Starbuck needs to shut the hell up and follow orders.
Nukes were onboard, there are no living people on a Cylon nuke delivery platform. They wouldn't put humans on that ship for the simple reason that people are very good at escaping and breaking things. Cylons aren't taking a risk like that.
I bet the "captain" was a Cylon. :P
Funny thing about that. Originally when they were drafting this episode and Apollo was checking the windows of the Olympic Carrier, there were supposed to be people visible, gesturing for help.
@@BladeZero238 That would have made it far more intense. Now when I saw this episode I didn't really understand the difficulty in their decision, especially knowing how deceptive the Cylons are. But seeing hundreds of confirmed civilians on board would have made a big difference.
@@BladeZero238If I remember reading correctly, I think that was actually part of this episode and SyFy felt really weird about it and made them edit it out. That's why, when Apollo is looking at the windows on the ship, it looks like there are little blips and blurs (especially noticeable when he first looks at the ship around 7:40).
@@troyroberts6578 SciFi was leery of showing doomed civilians on a hijacked transport so soon after 9/11, which is why they ordered the change. The "blips and blurs" were the production company's compromise. It allowed for the possibility of civilians, but didn't outright show it.
One of the best scenes from one of the best episodes.
The dilemma in this scene
....just wauw
what dilemma? Their was only one good choice. I'm still astounded the President waited so long to give the order and that she felt remorse later.
@@chrismartindale7840 you answer your own question by saying : the only *good choice* .
Choosing was the dilemma.
If you think that was a easy one, hey thats up to you then.
Adama, Apollo and Starbuck felt the responsibility and burden also. Making a tough descion and living with it are 2 separate matters.
If you are unable to feel remorse in such matters I can only say.. Glad you are not in command.
And just to be clear, yes I would have made the same choice.. But that definitely would burden me.
@@misterangel8486 As an Aspie I deal with facts and logic. Emotions do not influence my decisions. If there is only one good choice I don't understand what the dilemma is. How is making the only good decision tough? I do feel remorse, but I wouldn't feel any for the Cylon controlled ship we just destroyed.
@@chrismartindale7840 why do you keep asking me questions you answer yourself? Its starting to look like troll behaviour.
If you don't see the dilemma I can not help you see it.
I know quite a few aspies, so don't bullshit me. They feel something. Don't hide behind it. That offends me humongously.
Your 'logic' is not a excuse for shortsighted behaviour. Use it to examine human emotions instead of using it as a shield not to feel. You are not a fracking Vulcan.
Last attempt to make you see it, you act as a *outsider with all available info*
Try using that 'logic' to imagine not having slept for days, not having all the info and being in the situation instead of looking at it from the outside. Your logic is flawed if you don't. The feeling of having failed to protect can be a extreemly powerfull emotion.
@@misterangel8486 I didn't say I don't feel emotion, I do. It just doesn't impact my decision making. If I'm coming across as a troll I apologize, that was not my intention. It's just that from my point of view, if the answer is obvious, why do you need to think about it?
This really WAS a perfect "second pilot". We were dropped into the type of "a bad thing" situation & gave the viewers a window into the lunacy the fleet's going to deal with.
Yeah, yeah, the miniseries was the "actual" pilot, but it was a long-form program. The showrunners set up the "world", but "33" gave us the real pace of BSG 2000s. It wasn't gonna be your Da's BSG.
(Full disclosure; I was 12 when the original premiered & I loved it. I love it still, but I love BSG 2000s for the complexity it brought to the table. Word around the campfire is that Universal's gonna do another reboot. I hope it works, but in spite of its weaknesses in both versions, I think you can't improve upon perfection...🙃)
I heard that the "reboot" is actually an extension of the series (ie. Caprica, etc). I hope that's true.
"33" is pretty arguably the best episode BSG ever did. Kicked the real series off with a massive bang.
The Legacy there was always a rumor that a large military fleet with civilian scientists accompanying them were seeking out other habitable worlds. This fleet never had the upgrades and the flag ship was said to be almost twice as big as the Mercury Class Battlestar. The main purpose of this class was for Command Control/fleet flag ship and deep space exploration. They were supposed to make 5 in total with 3 complete. We assume the other 2 were destroyed and this last one on this deep space mission. Would be one hell of a story to see this ship and it’s fleet pop back in to Picon and realize they just walked into a war with the Cylons. Now they are the last fleet to defend the twelve colonies a Super Battlestar, 2 smaller Battlestar, various military support ships and science vessels. Now that would be an amazing series!!!
I love the reboot of BSG more than any show ever (maybe tied with GoT) but I do NOT want a remake because I know current day Hollywood, they will completely destroy BSG with a combination of terrible writing and toxic Hollywood politics.
@@billgere5293 Current year Hollywood would destroy it
Like Spock said: "The needs of the many outweighs the needs of the few, or the one."
Command is a hard position to be in. You gotta loose people.
Loose like diarrhea?
One of my absolute favorite sci fi episodes of all time, of any show. Simply perfection.
0:26 The way he delivered that line, even back then in 03 as a kid powerful performance.... i hope he was nominated for a emmy
Gosh I love the start of this clip. The action on the bridge is so immersive - there's a real buzz as soon as we get the call to action stations: you hear other characters starting to act on Adama's order while he's still giving them. It's like a fugue. Compare to Star Trek, where all the bridge crew just sit there silently waiting for their moment to speak their alotted line.
That's the military.
You don't stand around waiting for your cue when you get an order
You know your job & do it while others are doing theirs.
I dunno if was done before but i think this show pionered the shaky cam style...but this show did it so effectively...and that soundtrack...so amazing
I'm no war expert, but if a civilian ship starts to act like a kamikaze ship, waste it.
I'm no military expert. Nor am I a psychologist but I'm willing to bet it's one thing to talk logic from afar and it's another thing to be the one to pull the trigger on what is ostensibly 1500 innocent lives.
@@AngeloBarovierSD war is the pinnacle of insanity. Hesitate, people die. Pull the trigger, people still die.
You will go crazy trying to make sense of it all.
@@meligoth You're arguing in axioms. I'm addressing the hesitation of the pilots, which is a human response to the gravity of their task, and the cavalier tone of your original comment.
The preponderance of people to dismiss the human side of warfare is what leads to society's general response to the psychological wounds of its veterans. Speaking of war in trite pseudo-philosophy cheapens the magnitude of the decisions made within it and the effects upon those who made them.
@@AngeloBarovierSD there's no "wait, let's think about it" when it comes to these situations, fictional or real life. There's no happy outcome in this scene or something similar in real life. You allude to some wishy washy resolution, but reality tears that down, because your answer, if there is one for such a scenario will be wrong inevitably.
any ship that will not comply with a "heave to" order by a military vessel is considered a hostile threat and shall be treated as such.
Re-Watched the full saga
And all movies too on lockdown
Best few days well spent
You know that there will (was planed) be new episodes just this year ? Dunno if or how corona has an influence on this but I’m feeling like a child and can’t wait to see them!
@@icehelion9788 The better freaking not be it will just spoil the old episodes and it will be some sort of politics or sjw crap in it.
Love how it only took you a few days lol I burned through them quickly too
This was such a superior show in so many ways! HOW it didn't get better ratings makes NO sense.
Wut? It was spectacularly successful, what are you babbling about?
Best part of it is Saul's reaction from 0:28 to 0:37. A quick glance of mild confusion, and then immediately picks up the wireless headset to start issuing orders, realizing just a couple seconds later than Adama that the Olympic Carrier would not have made it out of the initial engagement alive, so something is sus.
Love Adama's "so do I.. so - do - I" (to Tigh's "I hope you're wrong")
I remember watching a panel at Comic-Con with some actors from BSG, and it was said that in the original cut for this episode, there were people inside the ship beating on the windows for help when Apollo made his pass by to check for passengers. Kinda wish they hadn't cut that, would have made this moment so much more impactful.
It would have been far more shocking, especially as an opening episode. Although in practical terms it hardly makes a difference whether the Olympic Carrier was full of people or not as it was threatening Galactica. It would have just traumatised Starbuck and Apollo more...
@@Negativvv It doesn't make a difference, which is the horrible part. It just would've displayed the horror of such a situation. Destroying an empty ship is one thing, destroying a ship full of civilians is quite another.
I feel like they must have removed it because it would not be in line with Apollo’s character to obey the order to shoot down the Olympic carrier like that.
Like this, while less impactful, Apollo not seeing anyone is what makes him decide to follow command. Seeing passengers begging for help would make Apollo refuse. He already disobeyed with blocking communication moments before.
It makes a huge difference to the Viper pilots who are pulling the trigger, not overall to the Colonial fleet. Would suck to be in Starbuck and Apollo's shoes!
On the podcast that Tricia Helfer does, she had them doing a live reading of 33. Jamie Bamber "Apollos actor" said it was because of Execs of NBC thinking it was too disturbing for people.
This is easily one of the best episodes of television in the history of the medium. (If you don't count the miniseries) it is arguably the best pilot in history.
If you remember,on Sept 11 2001,fighters were launched with orders to shoot down airliners not following orders to land at the nearest airport.
Every pilot who agreed to be interviewed said they were praying that they didn't have to carry out those orders.
This was such a brilliant show. The empty seats is what did it for me. Kamikaze ship with no passengers. It's a no brainer.
While there were more impactful episodes that came later, “33” is probably the best episode they did as a standalone not connected to a larger narrative arc. From the ever-present countdowns to the desperate struggle of non-replaceable personnel to stay awake, and even Baltar’s pathetic attempts to avoid exposure, the episode is just a master class in building suspense up to a final, unexpected, bittersweet payoff. Ron Moore himself admitted that though they did their best to reverse-engineer “33” in an effort to replicate its success they never quite got there.
Absolutely great episode! Imagine how hard it would’ve been if those windows were full of people begging for help.
No one probably dared shoot until it was too late (hidden engines give it a massive boost). It would probably have ended Galactica. Or at least taken out one of its pods.
I read a comment somewhere that there was supposed to be people in the windows but it was cut for being too dark for TV. Like the extermination of 50 billion people isn't dark enough.
@@PupSentinel There was a scene in a later episode where either Lee or Starbuck is obsessing over this incident, and replaying the gun camera footage over and over looking for signs of shadows in the windows. That scene only lasts 10-20 seconds, forget what episode.
@@Mike-tw1pi You might be thinking of Starbuck going over the gun cam footage of an unspecified viper pilot observing the exchange of fire between 2 cylon raiders chasing a third. In that case the third cylon raider contained bulldog who had apparently escaped his captors but had, as Starbuck intuited and consulted with Tigh over, that Bulldog had in fact been let go. The giveaway being that Bulldog was "...flying straight and level... ...any nugget could have made that kill..." with his raider also venting atmo from prior damage.
There are a few episodes where gun cam footage is scrutinised, however this was the closest scene I could think of off hand that matched closely to what you vaguely described.
@@Rezinstance Hang on, I think I found it! Apparently it is in the movie Razor, but is a deleted scene in the regular release.
ruclips.net/video/f-Hb8F_5aLg/видео.html
Olympic Carrier: There’s a traitor among us.
Baltar: Stop their transmissions!
Roslin: Seems legit
It's a legitimate excuse the cylon computer virus was far beyond their ability to contain.
Plus I think 5-6 days without sleep warrants people to abandon social norms.
Imagine if they'd filmed it with screaming people at the windows. Still, it is a powerful scene.
In my version, the passengers were kidnapped and was used as hosts.
Kara is an interesting Character, she is OVERJOYED at the thought of dogfighting and firing her guns. She lives for that. When Apollo ordered a burst across the bow she smirks with cocky joy. But apparently she draws the line at killing civilians even if they are huge threat. She is a soldier and when Lee fired she pulled the trigger. But she fought him on it.
Thank you for posting these clips...one of the best tv shows ever made.
"33" is the episode that sold me.
WAIT A SECOND - somebody decode what signal Boomer ACTUALLY sent the Olympic Carrier! What if she - as a cylon agent - instead told it to speed up and for everyone inside to hide?
They didn't know that she's an infiltration unit.
nonsense, they all are navy pilots that know the code being used, secondly the shot across the bow would have stopped them even if that was the case
and lastly ARMED nukes onboard = zero chance of it being a "mistake"
Nukes + nobody looking out the windows, speeds up to meet the fleet, why is it in such a hurry.
It was also Crash Down who did the message, Boomer was just flying the ship and handling wireless comms, you can see him fervently typing into his console when Dee is instructing what message to send
@@conor6436 and beside she didn’t know she didn’t she was a Cylon until the season 1 finale.
Sometimes it takes a person with a soul to wrestle with their humanity to do something awful for good. The right decision isn’t always easy.
One of the best scenes from one of the best shows ever made
I remember this episode, and it still gut-wrenches me Galactica had to waste a civilian ship that was tiring her survivors fleet every 33 minutes that just started running from destroyed homes, then started acting like a kamikaze. Gods forgive Apollo he pulled the trigger that killed this civilian carrier first.
One of mt favourite episodes of the series. It really had the feel of what constantly on the run would feel like
Something I didn’t notice until a rewatch was the last civilian ship jumped right before the Olympic Carrier blew up. It makes Lee’s monologue in the season 3 finale more impactful.
At this point, no civilians were residing on Galactica. So no one in the fleet knew this is what actually happened to the ship and likely assumed the Cylons destroyed it. Love the little details like these that the show has.
Battlestar Galactica is the most "real" science fiction series. Real people, real emotions, real problems... Only in an unreal universe.
I love it.
I forgot how good this show was, gonna have to rewatch series
And re-listen to the dialogue and the music is top notch!
The climax of one of the best episodes of television...ever.
Rewatching this series a few months ago, as well as this scene just now, reminded me of how amazing Bear McCreary's score was through the entire series. That huge percussion accent when Gaeta calls out "DRADIS contact!" as well as the next accent after Adama calls "action stations" are small, yet perfect gestures to snap us immediately into attention while we watch these events unfold.
yup!
It's like two wakeup calls to the audience... I LOVE the score to bits! Such intensity!
And to hear the "apollo's theme" at 7:30 is gold. It reoccurs in Black Market many times, understating the crisis of Apollo.
@@MistedMind Especially because you kinda start to feel the exhaustion of the crew and pilots
This was a great episode. A relentless enemy with no solution in sight until the Olympic carrier disappears then reappears. Fantastic writing.
I really like the angle at 5:31 showing the Olympic Carrier and the Vipers flying alongside her while the music plays
Unbelievable that the regular series’s first episode was the best one.
just finished the series two days ago. I still remember it like it was yesterday
BSG's pilot episode is one of the best pilots of all time, absolutely sublime.
I love it when Baltar slams the table and everyone jumps.
The destruction of the Olympic Carrier set the tone for the whole series, and was only the first of the impossible scenarios our fleet would face as they sought their new home…
Literally "just" finished this series (for the . . . 4th? 5th? time) this morning. No other sci-fi series even comes close.
"Thank the gods you're with us" "God's got nothing to do with this" I mean probably a writing slip but could also be a really sneaky tell to Baltar's monotheistic sympathies/future
"I'm not the one who asked the enemy to mix in with the civilian populace and use them as a cover to attack us."
- MSG Brad "Iceman" Colbert
They wouldn't have kept approaching the Galactica unless they intended to destroy her. They wouldn't have kept going once shots were fired across the bow. There were no passengers visible and as I understand it in one of the other Cuts they did have them visible but in the end they couldn't take a chance.
5:03; full 3 axis maneuvers, haven’t seen that since Babylon 5’s Star Furies
This was one of the most intense moments I ever watched in the series. I wish the network didn’t have them redo the original plot for this episode though.
The BEST episode to start the series.
I would repent too. Is not Bear McCreary's use of percussion wonderful?!
Mark Mance -- Amen to that. Had to go back and listen to the percussion, I was so wrapped up in the tension watching this clip. Bear McCreary is the man.
@@tedball8677 The music builds and then _completely stops_ at the exact right moment. Yeah, I have trouble paying attention to music _and_ dialogue.
The music lends all the weight to Baltar's confession: Mary McDonnell didn't need any help though. Her entire demeanor, everything about her; Brilliant.
I remember seeing this for the first time. Talk about “setting the scene”. Absolutely bonkers.
The series had its highs and lows, but that's one of the best pilot episodes ever.
I love when Starbuck says, "Copy that".
"When you are in command, Command" Admiral Halsey. Don't ask for command if you cannot handle the responsibility that comes with it. Adama has no problem with the weight of command.
Your conclusions were all wrong, Ryan. Halsey acted stupidly.
@@uncahay Red Oktober, shtanding by
Lee saw that there were no people on the ship and time has proven blowing it up to be the right choice so he has no reason to cry about it 2 seasons later at Baltar's trial.
Because he was trying to get Baltar acquitted...
The original script had the ship being fulled of people
But they didn't want to wake up bad memories of 9/11 (the airplanes that hit the towers)
And they changed it. Moore points it in an intertview.
@@SPACECRUISER96 that explains a lot. The characters' reactions don't make any sense if the ship is empty. I wish they'd have kept to the original script.
@@SPACECRUISER96 Yeah and Billy wasn't supposed to get cucked to death but that's what happened.
@@yoongilimerence I think showing the ship full is too dark, even for battlestar galactica. I would have preferred if they just left it entirely ambigious.
I like how the carrier looks like a boeing airplane without wings.
Gotta give 'em credit. That drum guy was real quick to accentuate the report of DRADIS contact. I'm sure the crew appreciates the notice of something important happening.
Best show ever made. Period.
This was the series' best episode.
This was so good, so tense, I didn't even realize it was in 4:3 aspect until just before they fired.
Mary McDonneaug Who portrayed President Laura Rosalind DID EXCELLENT JOB. Her body language and facial expressions sent chills down my spine. She emoted perfectly what any Leader or Warship Captain has to go through when faced with a civilian ship that ignores orders to keep away. Military commanders have had to sacrifice a small group of Soldiers in order to preserve the entire fighting forces. It’s agonizing sacrificing the lives of your men. But 1300 Civilians it’s a whole new ball game.
People say Game of Thrones is the greatest show ever, it doesn't hold a candle to BSG
Apparently these people have never been in the military because you don't have a say in the matter.
If you have a cruise ship loaded with nukes heading towards a carrier group, that ship's going to be sunk and anyone who remotely refusing to fire would be immediately relieved of duty if not face summary execution.
Iirc there actually is a standing “no approach” zone around modern U.S. naval vessels.. you’re warned if you get to close to it, multiple times.. if you cross into it you’re automatically considered a military threat and dealt with accordingly.. this is a standing practice, wartime OR peacetime..
So Say We All
So say we all!
The radiation warning was all they needed to destroy them.
This mirrors what military pilots faced on 9/11....the possibility of having to shoot down a possible hijacked airliner.
Gets me every time when at ten seconds he orders the fleet to jump then the cylons appear.
During the occupation of Okinawa back in WWII. Civilians were told that they would be torture or killed by the Americans if they do not sacrifice themselves and they jumped to their deaths. Germans used civilians or prisoners as human shield doing air attacks. I remember this scene from the show quite well and it was a dilemma for Apollo and Starbuck. Orders are orders to either use people as political pawns in a cat and mouse game and usually ends not well for those being used. The radiation coming from the ship made it impossible to say that there was people on board and it was the only choice to sacrifice and not take the chance of being destroyed themselves.
They jumped off the island?
@@krashd yup. very sad. It was literally Death before Dishonour. But it was more than just the propaganda threat of what they were told the Americans would do. They would fight to the last man or die rather than dishonour the emperor or their country. Look up the battles on the Pacific islands (especially Iwo Jima), the Japanese just would not surrender. From 21,000 soldiers, only around 200 were captured.
@@fuzzblightyear145 Yeah, I know about that. It's one of the most disgusting cases of "What are you willing to do for your country?"
The Imperial Japanese and the Soviets had no problems with using humans as fodder.
It's actually ironic that the typical go-to insult against us westerners, but mainly against Americans, is that our soldiers are thought to be expendable lumps that we can always make more of when really it was the Soviets and the Japanese who saw men as a single-use commodity that could rush the enemy with nothing more than a spade.
But how could I repent when I've got Tricia Helfer in THAT dress grinding me up against a wall?
I'm reasonably sure it's established somewhere that there were indeed people on the Olympic Carrier. Might have been a convention tho.
They may have been dead. Who knows?
In one of the scripts there was going to be people in the windows.
@@nickjerrat I remember reading that. Imagine the chills?
A deleted scene from the movie "Razor" had Starbuck and Apollo looking at gun camera footage, with Apollo arguing that a shadow they see is from a persom. Starbuck argues it's a trick of light.
If there were, they were probably being held captive by Centurions.
about fucking time you uploaded this. i absolutely love this scene.
My all time favorite SciFi series 👍
4:48 pretty sure those two red lights in the cockpit are centurions. You can zoom in on the mobile app and it becomes a lot clearer.
Can't be, Centurions are mostly silver and save for the eye scanners. Those are the seats and they're far too big for Cylon eye swoops.
Nope, they look like the pilot seats.
What an episode! Truly where no one had gone before!
I had family on the Olympic....this isnt over. People must pay
Probably the ship escaped the lockdown and refused to be quarantined