Remember when there were only two Psychons left in the universe; the beautiful and wonderful Maya and her argogant, insane father that didn’t chaff at the idea of sucking the brains out of passign aliens to accomplish his plans?  Remember how we all thought, “Maya’s father is the odd one out – the bad egg in the Psychon basket?”

Enter Dorzak, a great philospher from the planet Psychon and also murderous criminal and we must now wonder, “Maybe Maya is the odd one out amongst the Psychons?”

Ben and Eugene discuss Dorzak.

Synopsis

And then she comes over all strange, and goes to see the prisoner, who is not only in stasis, but also behind a forcefield and doors. Is she under mind control? The computedye hruhfgr ii jr alerts her to the presence of a rogue asteroid, the former moon of the planet Earth, containing some 300 technologically primitive inhabitants. They steer clear.

[expand title=”More…” swaptitle=”Less” tag=”strong”]

Yesta awakes and zaps Dorzak back to statis. Clea is mortified, what has she been doing?! I guess she was under the mind whammy. Then she gets a table ornament and beats Yesta’s brain in, but not before Yesta puts Clea in statis, too. When awoken, Clea spaces herself in shame.

Sahala puts out a distress call to Moonbase Alpha

On Alpha it’s 2009 days after leaving Earth’s orbit and things have probably been running very smoothly, as John Koenig is away investigating some asteroids that might have colonization potential, which does seem to be just the stupid kind of idea Koenig would have. Nonetheless, this leaves Tony Verdeschi in command, and he’s not too keen on letting the Crotons land while they’re transmitting the most terrifying sound in space: The Universal Plague Warning signal.

Sahala explains, don’t worry, it’s a not a plague that can harm you, we’ve got it totally under control, so Tony allows them to land. Yesta is taken to Medical Centre but as soon as Sahala sees Maya, she shoots her with the stasis gun. This does not enamor Tony with Sahala, unlike Alan who definitely has a case of space babe sickness.

Tony doesn’t want to hear excuses, but Sahala explains to Alan that Psychons are mean, nasty, manipulative monsters that brought war and destruction to the Crotons. Alan says, “Maya isn’t like that and if you can revive her, Tony will be on your side.”

She does, but Tony isn’t, not really.

Meanwhile, Maya learns of Dorzak. She knew Dorzak, he was a philosopher and a poet. He could never be the monster they accuse him of being. She wants to talk to him and, over Sahala’s objections, Tony allows Maya to revive Dorzak, but he MUST remain behind the force field until Yesta recovers and can give an independent account of what happened on the ship. Tony also discovers a strange metallic object on the Croton ship, which he takes, intending to have the tech guys study it.

Helena performs surgery on Yesta. In the damaged area of the brain, she finds an identical object to the one Tony found, although neither knows about the other. She must remove it to save Yesta’s life.

Maya succeeds in reviving Dorzak, who is quite reasonable and they chat, but while they chat, Dorzak puts the mind whammy on Yesta, who is regaining consciousness. She blames Sahala for all the terrible things that happens and then she dies. Tony allows Maya to release the now-exonerated Dorzak and puts Sahala back in custody.

Tony takes the device to technical and learns that the device blocks organic psycho-waves, or the waves that are associated with ESP. In just about 300 days, they’ll refer to that very same thing as the Lambda Variant, but that hasn’t happened yet – chronologically, at least. This makes Tony suspicious of Dorzak, and Sahala reveals that they all had the devices to protect against Dorzak’s mind whammy. Clea removed hers because she loved Dorzak (so, wait, that DOES mean she wasn’t mind whammied, or does it?), and Dr. Russell removed Yeta’s making her do Dorzak’s bidding.

Still not convinced, Tony has Maya impersonate Sahala, expecting Dorzak to reveal his evil plan when trapped by Sahala alone, but it doesn’t work. Maya fails to convince Dorzak and she gets mind whammied. First, she is forced to reveal the secret of molecular transformation, which Dorzak did not know, and then she becomes Dorzak and in put in stasis. Dorzak becomes Maya and try to bluff his way through Alpha.

This time it’s Tony’s beer to the rescue. He knows something is wrong when Maya (actually Dorzak disguised as Maya) says she’d love top have some of his beer. He tries to arrest Dorzak, but Dorzak puts the whammy on him. But NO! He does not because Tony let Dr. Russell perform brain surgery on him and implant one of the jammers.

Dorzak is once again put in stasis, and the Alphans say farewell to yet another super-advanced race of people with advanced space drive capabilities that might even help them get a home, if only they’d bothered to ask. Good thing John Koenig might have found a promising asteroid for them to live on.

Starbuck crash lands on a Cylon-occupied planet, where he runs into a group of young freedom fighers whive’been giving the Cylons hell.

Can he turn the Young Lords into a credible fighting force and defeat an entire garrison of Cylons?

Ben and Eugene discuss The Young Lords.

Synopsis

Unfortunately, this planet has been subjugated by a Cylon garrison under the command of Specter, and IL series, similar to Lucifer. Subjugated, that is, except for a band of five children who have escaped, and their father, who is being held prisoner by the Cylons.

[expand title=”More…” swaptitle=”Less” tag=”strong”]

While Specter starts lying to Baltar to cover his mistakes, the children make a plan to trade Starbuck for their father. The Cylons agree but double-cross them by sending a dummy instead of their father. Luckily, Starbuck convinced the children to double-cross the Cylons in the exact same way.

Chastised by his almost disastrous command decision, Kyle turns over his command to Starbuck.

Starbuck teaches the kids a song to beat the Cylons by and beat them, they do. Specter has managed to BS Baltar sufficiently that Baltar instructs them to leave the planet and return to base.

Apollo and Boomer arrive just in time to do nothing at all except pick up Starbuck. The children and their father, the last humans left alive on the planet decide to remain, presumably to a future of loneliness, old age, and inbreeding.[/expand]

When a combination of John Koenig’s bad command decisions and a lack of leafy green salads to look at come together there’s bound to be lots of high-drama action or excitement, plus questions, lots of questions, like:

Ben and Eugene discuss the Seance Spectre.

Synopsis 2,012 days after leaving Earth’s orbit, the moon encounters a gaseous space anomaly that they name Tora. Because it bears no similarity to a planet, they think there might be a possibility that there is a planet there, but because that would once again raise the Alphans hopes of a possible new home, Koenig decides the best course of action is to clamp down a total information black out and lock down Command Center so that, when the thing that looks nothing like a planet turns out to be not a planet, no one’s hopes will be crushed like a little fluffy bunny run over by a lawn mower.

Unfortunately, Sanderson, head of a Surface Expedition unit has gone totally nuts and is apparently bringing his whole team along to crazy town. He thinks Koenig is a tyrant and a dictator too wrapped up in his own egotistical power trip. Hmm, come to think of it, Sanderson might not be so nuts after all.

[expand title=”More…” swaptitle=”Less” tag=”strong”] He and his team have been holding hands in the dark and concentrating and he has predicted a beautiful green planet, perfect to the Alphans to settle on and exactly the kind of thing that would destroy Koenig’s brutal reign of terror.

They attack Command Center, shooting everyone there trying to get Koenig to reveal the truth.

Koenig; however, is in space and has just detected a sudden change in position of Tora. It is now on a collision course with the moon. He tries to alert Alpha but everyone in Command Center has been shot.

When he returns, Sanderson and co get arrested and confined to Medical Center but not before Koenig agrees to fly into the cloud, without his onboard computer, to see if there’s a planet. In Medical Center Helena diagnoses them, especially Sanderson, with Green Sickness – a longing for green leafy salads that causes hallucinations.

Koenig, doubtful that there’s a planet inside the cloud, plans to escape the cloud the instant there’s any indication of gravity, which does rather seem like he’s running away if there is a planet. Sanderson and Co escape, sabotage Alpha’s computers, causing Koenig and Maya to crash on the planet. Oh, did I mention? There is a planet. A worthless, lifeless one, with a poisonous atmosphere and no leafy green salads.

The Eagle is damaged, blah blah blah…. Maya turns into a massive leafy green salad so Koenig can breathe her waste gasses… blah blah blah. What will we do about the planet? Blah blah blah, let’s detonate our nuclear waste and change the course of the moon. Etc etc etc

Meanwhile, Sanderson is convinced that the moon will be going into orbit around a beautiful planet with leafy green salads for everyone, so he tries to stop Koenig from detonating the nuclear waste and he falls in a big hole and gets blown up real good.

To cure everyone else of Green Sickness, Helena proscribes Aversion Therapy, forcing everyone to stare at leafy green salads until they’re sick of them.[/expand]

A small town connives to get a group of battle-trained warriors to help defend their town against maurading bandits.

That description sounds a bit generic – and so does this episode!

Ben and Eugene discuss The Magnificent Warriors.

Synopsis

What luck! There’s an agricultural colony not far out of their way. Adama makes plans to trade an energizer for seed. One hitch, the only suitable energizer in the fleet belongs to Siress Bellaby and despite the fact that she’ll die along with everyone else on the fleet she refuses to give it up without concessions from Adama. Specifically, she wants Adama to woo her. Bellaby also insists on going on the mission to make sure they get a good deal for the energizer.

[expand title=”More…” swaptitle=”Less” tag=”strong”]

Starbuck and Boomer enter town. The mayor of the town is more interested in them taking a job as constable than he is in trading for an energizer – or so it seems. On their way back to the shuttle, Starbuck and Boomer are attacked and the energizer stolen. Starbuck returns to town as he thinks he knows who stole the energizer.

Starbuck starts winning the money he needs to buy the seed by playing pyramid against the local yokels, but when it comes to the final hand, Starbuck is tricked into accepting the constable’s shield (and unknowingly, the office it represents) in the final kitty.

When Adama and the rest of the Colonials arrive and ask to speak to the local lawman, they’re introduced to Starbuck.

Another raid by the Borays happens, but this time the constable doesn’t die because the Borays are met with Starbuck, Apollo and Boomer with laser guns. Instead, the Botrays just capture Bellaby and go home.

The warriors follow the Borays and, with Starbuck’s unique understanding of the lazy, self-serving, interested in own pleasure mind of the Boray’s leader, he secures Bellaby’s release and works out a unique arrangement to stop the Boray raids on the town.

Bellaby, impressed with Starbuck’s talents, but unimpressed with Adama’s ability to get her released, dumps Adama.

There’s a pinwheel in space and we all know what that means!  Psychic phenomena run amuck!

Ben and Eugene discuss the Lambda Factor.

Synopsis

Despite the peace, there have been some discipline problems and Koenig is sleeping badly, haunted by visions of the people he’s murdered. Meanwhile, Sally, one of Helena’s staff is attacked by a poltergeist-like phenomena and killed. Security Officer Tony Verdeschi finally has something to do and is on the case. Sally had been one leg of an unfortunate love triangle. She was once engaged to Mark, but they broke up and Mark took up with Carolyn, Sally’s roommate. There may be some hard feelings, certainly these are things that lead to murders.

[expand title=”More…” swaptitle=”Less” tag=”strong”]

She conducts tests and discovers that 3 people are exhibiting, unconsciously, ESP powers, Carolyn is one of them.

When Mark breaks up with her, she kills him with her mind powers.

Koenig has a catatonic breakdown and, in a first for Moonbase Alpha, Helena cures him. Meanwhile Carolyn takes over all the personal of Moonbase Alpha, although she seems to have no reason to do so. Koenig, it turns out was the fourth person with heightened super-ESP and has more than anyone else, because OF COURSE IT DOES.

Instead of hating Carolyn, he shows pity and compassion and her brain wipes itself and the thing in space leaves. All returns to normal except for Carolyn, who must be retrained as if she were a child.[/expand]

There’s a planet.  With a gun on it. A frozen world – one might even call it an “ice planet.”  That planet is known as Arcta, or perhaps Kalpa, but we shall call it “Zero – Ice Planet Zero.”

And we shall do so for no apparent reason whatsoever.

No matter, because the Galactica is in a heap of trouble if a rag-tag planetary assault team doesn’t take that gun out of action before the fleet gets there.

Ben and Eugene discuss Gun on Ice Planet Zero.

Synopsis

The weapon is a massive pulsar, which can destroy all the ships in the fleet unless it is put out of action.

[expand title=”More…” swaptitle=”Less” tag=”strong”]

The rest of the team are all prisoners with specialty experience.

Apollo says farewell to Boxey, who wants to go along because he’s never seen snow.

Soonthe team is shot down over the planet and they discover that the obnoxious little shit, Boxey and his damned daggit stowed away on the almost-suicide mission.

One the planet, the warriors, effectively on foot, are discovered by Theta-Class lifeforms – AKA clones, created by Ravershall, who also created the weapon for the Cylons.

The clones are willing to help because the Cylons view them as less than human and use them as slaves. Ravershall has been turning a blind eye to the Cylon’s killing which goes against his pacifist ideals, but ultimately gives Apollo the info he needs to destroy the pulsar.

As the fleet approaches certain death, our heroes blow stuff up, rescue Cree and free the clones from the Cylon tyranny.

Oh, and there’s some drama with the criminals trying to escape and do criminal-type stuff.[/expand]

The Alphans are rescued! Just like that time on Gilligan’s Island when the faster-than-light ship from Hawaii arrived and brought all the castaway’s friends with them, despite the fact that hundreds of years had elapsed back on Hawaii.

Only Gilligan could see that their rescuers were actually headhunters from another island using their power of illusion to get the castaways to sacrifice a virgin to the island’s volcano, causing a massive explosion that will kill everyone on the island.

It’s very much like that, only about the moon, and space aliens.

Synopsis

Not so, says Maya, in an odd piece of science exposition that minimizes the threat from Koenig’s bizarre actions. You have to insert nuclear fuel into the nuclear waste to cause an explosion she explains to Tony who ought to know that already.

[expand title=”More…” swaptitle=”Less” tag=”strong”]

Dr. Russell is unable to diagnose Koenig’s bizarre behavior so she attached him to an experimental brain massager because OF COURSE SHE DOES. It’s his only hope but she doesn’t know what the potential side effects might be!

About that time a faster-than-light ship from earth arrives carrying friends and family of the entire command crew of Alpha. Earth now has faster than light travel, don’t worry your little heads about the technical details, and soon you’ll all be home on Earth!

But there is something strange, the rescuers from Earth are exerting some form of mind control on the Alphans, trying to arrange the death of Koenig. He’s a strong leader after all, say the rescuers who obviously have no concept of a strong leader.

John awakens, the treatment seemingly successful, but’s it’s clear his memory of events in the Eagle are very different from reality. Helena excitedly tells him of the rescuers from Earth and he rushes to meet them, only to scream in mad terror when he sees they are hideous putrefied monsters. He goes on an insane rampage and must be stunned and restrained. Each time he awakens it is the same, he sees monsters where no one else does.

Clearly the side effect of the experimental treatment is insanity.

For no logically explained reason, the rescuers explain that, since the moon is getting too far away from Earth, they must immediately select three people to return to earth in a small pilot vessel contained within their ship.

Through mind control, Tony is manipulated into selecting the three members of the nuclear monitoring team. They leave, however, Koenig sees that it is an Eagle flying off, not a faster than light pilot vessel.

Maya agrees that the probability that everyone on the rescuers crew is family and friends of the Alphans is unlikely and since generations have elapsed back on Earth, something might be rotten in Denmark. Perhaps the experimental treatment on Koenig has given him immunity to their mind control. Maya volunteers to undergo the treatment and, when done, can see the creatures too.

She tries to infiltrate them and when that fails, Koenig Maya and Dr. Russell storm the Command Center, play some white noise on the com system and free the Alphans of brain control.

All, that is, except the nuclear monitoring team who believe they are on earth. In fact they are working towards inserting nuclear fuel in the atomic waste, an action which, according to at least two prior instances of foreshadowing dialog, will result in the waste exploding, destroying Alpha and releasing the radiation that the creatures need to survive.

Much fafing about occurs and finally Koenig stops Carter from destroying them all. The creatures tell Koenig he is a fool and leave.[/expand]

Starbuck in on a long patrol and he needs to put some distance between himself and the women in his life.

Ben and Eugene discuss The Long Patrol.

Synopsis

Once they discover there is something else out there, they decide to build an army of robots, known as the Krikkit Warriors to destroy everything…. Wait, sorry, wrong story, but strange parallels now that I think about it.

Once they reach the whole new galaxy, they begin scanning for signs of life.

[expand title=”More…” swaptitle=”Less” tag=”strong”]

Adama grants Athena the night off so she can surprise Starbuck at dinner and boy, is he surprised! As he attempts to juggle two women and keep them from finding out about each other, the Galactica discovers life signs and calls for an early launch of the recon probe. Starbuck gets a reprieve – but only just, the two women discover each other after he leaves for patrol.

To speed up Starbuck’s ship, they’ve removed the lasers and installed C.O.R.A, an AI flight system which stands for Computer Oral-Response Activated. C – O – R – A, but seriously, shouldn’t it be “Oral-Response Activated Computer” or ORAC?

CORA is a wise-cracking, female computer that is none-too-impressed with Starbuck’s flight skills, and can outrun and outfly anything the Cylons have. Makes you wonder why they just didn’t build a whole-bunch of CORA-equipped fighters and wipe the Cylons out.

Starbuck encounters a pair of ancient ships – a Sixth Millennium freighter and fighter. The fighter in pursuit of the unarmed ship. Not liking an unarmed ship being fired upon, Starbuck maneuvers in and saves the freighter. When he follows it down, he finds a smuggler with 500 yahren old Ambrosia. Realizing he can soon be rich, Starbuck is quickly dispatched by the wily smuggler, named Robber and his ship stolen.

Robber, the smuggler and now privateer walks into a bar… nope, sorry, lost my train of though there. Robber, now starts transmitting back to the Colonies, a signal which is picked up by both the Galactica and the Cylons. The Cylons investigate, and the Galactica realizes that Starbuck must be dead and sends Boomer and Apollo to destroy the recon viper and whoever has possession of it.

Starbuck has even more problems. He launches off in Robber’s ship and is soon captured by the fighter he scared off earlier which, it turns out, is the authorities. He is soon imprisoned on a world that the prisoners are actually just the descendants of the original criminals from centuries ago. For hundreds of yahrens, they have been making Ambrosia for the colonies. Unknown to them, all contact with the Colonies was lost centuries ago and the Ambrosia is just sitting at the docks. The deception is a convenient lie to maintain the status quo. Starbuck kicks over the apple barrels and a prison revolt begins.

Meanwhile, Apollo and Boomer have captured Robber and his family. They’re simple, hard-working folk that just want to get back to Ireland…. er, the colony of Aries, unaware that the Colonies are in Cylon hands. With their help, Apollo and Boomer go to the prison planet and retrieve Starbuck, just as the Cylons arrive. They destroy them and welcome some of the prisoners to the Galactica.

Later, at dinner, Starbuck corrects Boxey’s child-like drawing of Earth’s solar system. It seems the cell Starbuck was in was once occupied by The Silent One, a strange man who never spoke and just drew pictures on his cell wall. One of those pictures was Earth’s solar system.[/expand]

Here it is:  The episode you’ve all been waiting for – Space Warp.

John and Tony go on a field trip while Maya suffers the ministrations of Dr. Russell.  Who’s in worse trouble?

Synopsis

First they criss-cross space near where the moon disappeared, hoping to stumble upon the space warp, if it is even still there, but with no luck. They decide to investigate the derelict spacecraft.

[expand title=”More…” swaptitle=”Less” tag=”strong”]

As Maya’s fever gets worse, her delirium gets worse, too.

You might have thought wanting Tony to be at her side was the height of her delirium, but you would be wrong. She gets it into her addled brain that she needs to get to Psychon, her destroyed homeworld, to rescue her father, who, like Psychon, was blown into ity-bity bits. To do that, she transforms into one bizarre creature after another, first trying to steal an Eagle, leading to mass destruction of the landing hangers, and then transforming into a creature that can survive in the vacuum of space and escaping onto the surface of the moon, where, when her transformation time runs out, she’ll die as soon as she changes back.

Alan saves the day and Maya fever breaks, just as full power is restored to Alpha and Koenig and Verdesci pop out of the wormhole.

Everyone is home and healthy again.[/expand]

Capt. Apollo has got a problem.  He’s stranded on a very dark planet with no fuel as the fleet inexorably moves away from him.  There’s also a Cylon Centurion on the planet with him.

Also, how far will Starbuck and Apollo go to avoid babysitting Boxey again?

Ben and Eugene discuss the Lost Warrior.

Synopsis

Apollo survives his encounter with the Cylons and is successful is sending them the wrong way, but he is out of fuel and manages to land on the planet Equelis, a backwater agrarian society of humans with seemingly no spacefaring technology.

[expand title=”More…” swaptitle=”Less” tag=”strong”]

Red Eye is, it turns out, a Cylon that crashed on the planet. Damaged in the crash, he has forgotten what he is and has imprinted on Laserta as his Imperious Leader. None of the weapons on Equelis can penetrate Red Eye’s armor – none except Apollo’s sidearm.

Back on the Galactica, Starbuck and Boomer take care of Boxey while trying to hid the fact that his new father is never coming home. Determined to save Boxey’s dad, Starbuck and Boomer enlist Col. Tigh to talk some sense into Adama and send out a patrol to look for Apollo.

Back on Equelis it all comes down to an old west shootout, Mano y Roboto. Apollo wins, Laserta, his grip on the town lost, runs and Puupis’ mom tells Apollo where he can find her husbands wrecked ship. It may have enough fuel to get him home.

It does, and luckily Starbuck and Boomer are there to greet him