The third season has been moving along a bit slowly and we’ve all understood the Iraq war metaphor, with the insurgents and the occupying forces, without doubt Galactica must be Bush’s favourite show. But to be fair to George Jnr, we’re all a bit sick of the idea of the resistance on New Caprica and we’re all hoping that Baltar is going to snuff it ASAP. Then suddenly, out of nowhere, comes episode IV, like a freight train during the night, it steamed its way into my living room. It was one of those rare television moments when you ask the question which you haven’t asked since you were a kid, “Did you see ………. last night?”

            I asked the very same question to a friend of mine and the answer I got back summed it up, “Yeah, I nearly ………….. in my pants!” Now you can add any expletive you want there and you’ll get the general idea, the episode was literally out of this world.

            The plan; to save everyone from New Caprica and Baltar’s reign. Really this episode is the episode of dilemmas, a rather porky Apollo has to decide whether he’s going to disobey orders and help Galactica with the plan and the Colonel has to decide what to do with his wife who has been fracking around with the Cylons in order to secure the Colonel’s freedom.  We start off with Apollo who decides that he has to obey orders and look after the remaining fleet, and we just know that is exactly what he isn’t going to do. Meanwhile the Colonel’s wife confesses her collusion with the Cylons and so he decides to poison her as she only looks half as attractive through an eye patch. As he administers the fatal poison the Colonel declares his love for. What would he do if he hated her, I wonder?

            In the meantime the uprising starts on the planet just as Galactica arrives and sends out drone missiles to make the Cylons think that are in fact two battlestars where there aren’t. A great scene is where the Cylons hear that Adama is back and their faces go pale, they’re scared of the Admiral. Whilst all this is going on so are the subplots, Starbuck has been with her Cylon husband and child for the last few months and she has killed him several times since then, only for him to keep popping up again, apparently there is no divorce under Cylon law.

            Then the moment comes, Adama gives the order to jump and warns the crew to expect a bit of turbulence. A bit of turbulence, now there’s an understatement. Galactica jumps into the atmosphere of New Caprica, good Gods! As she burns up in the atmosphere plummeting to the ground like a rather large boulder and bits of her a wrenched off, the Vipers are let loose on the Cylons and then Galactica jumps out again into orbit. Thank Gods, the tension was just too much. The Vipers give hell and the insurgents fight on with fully automatic machine guns and C4 explosive, now where did they get that?

            Anyway, up in orbit things are going from bad to worse as Galactica’s FTL drive is shot to pieces and they’re about to be destroyed, cue Pegasus. Apollo disobeys orders and comes to save the day, hurray! Pegasus gets the XXXX kicked out of it whilst suddenly Galactica fixes its FTL, hurray again!

            As things are starting to get better in orbit, things are getting decidedly worse back on New Caprica for the Cylons. They realise that the battle for New Caprica is lost and decide to leave (some message hidden in there somewhere?) and manage to grab the half Cylon baby on the way out. Meanwhile, Starbuck has gone back for what she thinks is her child only to find what must be the fifth version of her husband. To cut a long story short, she says she loves him and sticks a knife in him at the same time. Oh, how romantic.

            The episode climaxes on poignant moments; the Colonel grieves the loss of his wife, Starbuck finds out the kid isn’t hers whilst celebrations go on all around and finally the Admiral shaves off his dodgy moustache, all to some kind of Celtic Titanic type music.

            Simply brilliant!