"Epiphanies" is the thirteenth episode of the second season of the
reimagined ''Battlestar Galactica'' television series. It aired originally on the
Sci Fi Channel
Syfy (formerly Sci-Fi Channel, later shortened to Sci Fi; stylized as SYFY) is an American basic cable channel owned by the NBCUniversal Television and Streaming division of Comcast's NBCUniversal through NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment. Lau ...
on January 20, 2006.
In the episode, President
Laura Roslin
Laura Roslin is a fictional character in the re-imagined '' Battlestar Galactica'' series, portrayed by Mary McDonnell. She is the President of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol and is one of the primary characters in the show.
Character biography ...
orders
Sharon's pregnancy terminated. The order is suspended after
Gaius Baltar
Dr. Gaius Baltar is a fictional character in the TV series '' Battlestar Galactica'' played by James Callis, a reimagining of Count Baltar from the 1978 '' Battlestar Galactica'' series. He is one of the show's primary characters.
Personality
G ...
discovers that the fetus's blood can cure Roslin's cancer, which it does. Baltar aligns himself with an underground group of
Cylon sympathizers whose ranks include the troubled
Number Six copy
Gina.
Plot
Roslin lies near death in ''
Galactica''s
sickbay
A sick bay is a compartment in a ship, or a section of another organisation, such as a school or college, used for medical purposes.
The sick bay contains the ship's medicine chest, which may be divided into separate cabinets, such as a refriger ...
.
Doctor Cottle reports abnormalities in Sharon's
unborn child's blood. Believing the child a threat to the fleet, Roslin orders her pregnancy terminated over Baltar's objections.
Head Six, who regards Sharon's child as hers with Baltar, appears to Baltar and insists he intervene. Roslin's decision outrages Sharon and
Helo, the child's father, who obstructs the entrance to sickbay. Baltar defuses the standoff by announcing that a
transfusion of the fetus's abnormal blood may save Roslin's life. The procedure cures Roslin's cancer within days.
In a sequence of delirious
flashbacks, Roslin recalls negotiating an end to a teachers'
strike
Strike may refer to:
People
* Strike (surname)
Physical confrontation or removal
*Strike (attack), attack with an inanimate object or a part of the human body intended to cause harm
*Airstrike, military strike by air forces on either a suspected ...
on
Caprica as Secretary of Education. Her conciliatory approach angered then-President
Richard Adar, with whom she was having an affair, but she refused to back down. She also recalls seeing Baltar with a
Number Six shortly before the
Cylon attack on the
Twelve Colonies.
A civilian crew member sabotages some ammunition. An investigation reveals she is a member of Demand Peace, an underground group of Cylon sympathizers. Admiral
William Adama
William "Bill" Adama ( callsign "Husker") is a fictional character in the re-imagined '' Battlestar Galactica'' television series produced and aired by the SyFy cable network. He is one of the main characters in the series, and is portrayed by ...
feigns negotiation with Demand Peace only to arrest its representative, Royan Jahee, when he arrives on ''
Galactica''. Demand Peace bombs a fuel refinery ship. Roslin meets with Jahee, agrees to hear his group's case, and warns that further violence will lead to harsh measures.
Baltar meets secretly with Gina on ''Cloud Nine''. Gina rejects his sexual advances but invites him to join Demand Peace; Baltar refuses. Head Six laments that saving Roslin's life prevented Baltar, who is vice president, from becoming president. Baltar concludes from a letter Roslin wrote to him in the event of her death that she will never trust him. Jahee returns to ''Cloud Nine'' and presents Gina with a gift from Baltar: a
nuclear warhead
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions ( thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bom ...
Adama provided Baltar for research purposes in an earlier episode.
Analysis
In his
podcast
A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosin ...
commentary on "Epiphanies", executive producer
Ronald D. Moore discussed his views the episode's portrayal of several of the characters.
*Before becoming President, Roslin would have been horrified by a presidential edict to terminate a pregnancy, but her circumstances have forced her to become gradually more comfortable making tough decisions.
*Gina rejects Baltar sexually because of the abuse she endured while a prisoner on ''Pegasus''; actress
Tricia Helfer
Tricia Janine Helfer (born April 11, 1974) is a Canadian-American actress and former model. She played the enigmatic Cylon model Number Six in the re-imagined ''Battlestar Galactica'' series (2004–2009). She also voiced Sarah Kerrigan in ''S ...
(Gina/Six) came up with this notion. Gina's unavailability frustrates Baltar, who was motivated to help Gina partially by his desire to sleep with her.
*Helo coming to
attention after Adama dismisses him is intended as a genuine gesture of respect.
*Moore speculates that Baltar saves Roslin because he feels unready for the Presidency.
Jacob Clifton of
Television Without Pity
Television Without Pity (often abbreviated TWoP) was a website that provided detailed recaps of select television dramas, situation comedy, situation comedies and reality TV shows along with discussion forums. These recaps were written with sarca ...
notes that "Epiphanies" considers a number of "endings" for Roslin: of her cancer, her affair with Adar, her job as Secretary of Education (from which Adar asks her to resign), and the
Twelve Colonies. He muses that these are commingled because it can be difficult to separate the big "apocalypses" from the small ones. He compares Roslin's interaction with Jahee to her negotiation with the striking teachers: in both cases she has to protect a constituency (teachers or civilians) in the face of a zealous leader who will happily crush them for misbehavior (Adar or Adama).
Clifton argues that Roslin wants to abort Sharon's fetus not because of a security risk but because the doubts that Baltar could maintain the cover-up of Sharon's presence on ''Galactica'' if he became president. He further argues that Adama is ambivalent about carrying out Roslin's order but understands her motivation.
Rose Wojnar of ''
The San Diego Union-Tribune
''The San Diego Union-Tribune'' is a metropolitan daily newspaper published in San Diego, California, that has run since 1868.
Its name derives from a 1992 merger between the two major daily newspapers at the time, ''The San Diego Union'' and ...
'' notes that the conflict over Roslin's order "mirrors the
abortion debate
The abortion debate is a longstanding, ongoing controversy that touches on the moral, legal, medical, and religious aspects of induced abortion. In English-speaking countries, the debate most visibly polarizes around adherents of the self-describ ...
in today's world".
Clifton compares the triad of Roslin, Sharon, and her unborn daughter with the
Triple Goddess concept.
In a review of a later episode, he says Demand Peace is "right about ''everything''".
Production
Moore described "Epiphanies" as "our biggest Laura Roslin show to date."
The writers decided to introduce a cure for Roslin's cancer so they could include her in the rest of the series without progressively worsening her conditions. They also found attractive the idea of complicating Roslin's role as the prophesied leader of humanity, who is supposed to be dying. They considered basing the treatment on
embryonic stem cells
Embryonic stem cells (ESCs) are pluripotent stem cells derived from the inner cell mass of a blastocyst, an early-stage pre- implantation embryo. Human embryos reach the blastocyst stage 4–5 days post fertilization, at which time they consist ...
harvested from the fetus to connect the episode to
real-world debates over stem cells, but this was rejected as medically implausible and gimmicky.
Moore felt that the series had not paid enough attention to different points of view within the fleet. Demand Peace was developed to demonstrate dissenting opinions, which Moore regards as inevitable in any body politic. He also considered it "a healthy exercise"
for him and the other ''Battlestar Galactica'' writers, whom he described as generally
liberal
Liberal or liberalism may refer to:
Politics
* a supporter of liberalism
** Liberalism by country
* an adherent of a Liberal Party
* Liberalism (international relations)
* Sexually liberal feminism
* Social liberalism
Arts, entertainment and m ...
, to write an episode whose antagonists belong to the
political left
Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in soci ...
. He notes that Adama's harsh treatment of Jahee runs counter to actor
Edward James Olmos
Edward James Olmos (born February 24, 1947) is an American actor, director, producer, and activist. He is best known for his roles as Lieutenant Martin "Marty" Castillo in ''Miami Vice'' (1984–1989), ''American Me'' (1992) (which he also dir ...
's politics, as well. However, Moore emphasized in his podcast commentary that the episode, like the rest of the series, is not intended to be polemical or allegorical to real-world events.
The writers considered waiting several episodes before re-introducing Head Six after her disappearance in "
Resurrection Ship", but Moore felt that "Baltar was less interesting without Six."
Instead they inserted dialogue to indicate that several weeks had passed without Six appearing to Baltar.
The succession letter is based on a real-world tradition in which each outgoing
President of the United States
The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States ...
leaves a letter for his successor in the
Oval Office. The letter that appears in the episode is less complimentary than letters that appeared in early drafts.
Moore confessed it was unrealistic that Demand Peace would not recognize Gina as a
Number Six copy despite her eyeglasses and different hairstyle.
Reception
"Epiphanies" received lukewarm critical review. Keith McDuffee of
TV Squad
Weblogs, Inc. was a blog network that published content on a variety of subjects, including tech news, video games, automobiles and pop culture. At one point, the network had as many as 90 blogs, although the vast majority of its traffic could be ...
called Demand Peace "interesting" but wrote, "After an amazing double-part season premiere
Resurrection Ship" the show tones down a little." Amanda Keith of the
Los Angeles Newspaper Group
The Southern California News Group (SCNG), formerly the San Gabriel Valley News Group and the Los Angeles News Group, is an umbrella group of local daily newspapers published in the greater Los Angeles area by Digital First Media, which is owned ...
called the episode's flaws "numerous". Clifton gave the episode a B−, praising the editing and several actors' performances but mocking the episode's
technobabble
Technobabble (a portmanteau of ''technology'' and ''babble''), also called technospeak, is a type of nonsense that consists of buzzwords, esoteric language, or technical jargon. It is common in science fiction.
See also
* Academese
* Bullshi ...
and "mangled logic".
Wojnar gave the episode an A−, citing relief over Roslin's cure but noting "some bad acting and some uneven editing."
Simon Brew of Den of Geek praised
Mary McDonnell
Mary Eileen McDonnell (born April 28, 1952) is an American film, stage, and television actress. She received Academy Award nominations for her roles as Stands With A Fist in '' Dances with Wolves'' and May-Alice Culhane in ''Passion Fish''. Mc ...
(Roslin)'s performance.
Connection to other series elements
*Gina detonates the warhead in the second-season finale, "
Lay Down Your Burdens, Part 2", destroying ''Cloud Nine'' and inadvertently signaling the human fleet's position to the other Cylons.
*Roslin's cancer is only in
remission; by the third-season finale, "
Crossroads, Part 2", it has returned.
Notes and references
External links
"Epiphanies"at
Syfy
*
{{Battlestar Galactica (2004 TV series) episodes
2006 American television episodes
Battlestar Galactica (season 2) episodes
fr:Saison 2 de Battlestar Galactica#Révélation