BSG: Colonial Day

In which we look at the political side of life on the run, meet Roslin's economic advisor (who has apparently been there from the start), say good-bye to Roslin's economic advisor, make some jabs at Star Trek, and elect a Vice-President. Also, Zarek brokers for power and may or may not have sent an assassin to do... something.

But don't expect the assassin to come up again. It's not like this show's at its best when it threads long-running plot elements together in a brilliant tapestry...

So, having broken the bank on "Bastille Day," our writers decide that they can now represent other ships in the fleet with... college campuses. Brillaint. Just put a couple lines of dialogue in about how it's a cruise ship and two visual effects shots showing the artificial horizon, and boom! Sold!

The Quorum of Twelve is meeting here, and Sagittaron has elected Tom Zarek, former terrorist, to that august body. Roslin is pissed, but decides to let him attend over Adama's objections. Now as a side note, the only crime Zarek is ever accused of is blowing up a government building (and, y'know, that whole hostage situation on the Astral Queen). By the time Zarek finally gets around to launching his mutiny, Roslin has...

-summarily executed at least three prisoners without a trial.
-deliberately withheld knowledge of her debilitating illness from the public.
-subverted the boundary between military and civilian government.
-ordered the assassination of the fleet's senior military officer.
-unilaterally curtailed at least one liberty via executive fiat.
-attempted to steal an election.
-consistently ignored the will of the people in pursuing an alliance with the Rebel Cylon faction.

And meanwhile Colonel Tigh has used suicide bombers to blow up Cylon facilities, and every single time anyone other than Roslin mentions President Adar, it's usually in negative terms. Adama says he was a moron, and Roslin herself confesses that he killed 13 civilians when he sent the marines into Aerilon City, and that he was willing to get into a shooting war with a teacher's union. Even in light of recent events in Wisconsin, that doesn't exactly put Adar in any sort of positive light. What I'm saying is that Zarek may have had some legitimate grievance. (Which is not to say that he had the right to blow up a building, or even that Adar was president when Zarek was imprisoned 20 years ago. But that's one of the things that's so great about the show; the many shades of gray.)

So Zarek gets on the Quroum, and at the meeting he mentions that Roslin has (almost certainly deliberately, judging by her conversation with Grey and Billy afterwards) neglected to include the election of a Vice-President in the agenda. Wow, Madame Airlock manipulating something for political reasons? Get out. And then everyone starts panicking that Zarek will have Roslin killed the moment he becomes Vice-President. As we see at virtually all of his appearances after this, but most notably when he gives Laura back the Presidency in 3.5, "Collaborators," Zarek is a realist. He knows how governments work, and what they need to make them work. (Hell, he even launches his mutiny from a fairly legitimate grievance that "the Roslin/Adama administration" is blatantly ignoring the will of the people.)

So Zarek says that money doesn't have any real meaning. Man, that sounds familiar. (I'd always interpreted this scene as a not-at-all subtle jab at the socialist/collectivist economics of Star Trek.) He also says that they should become a collective because there isn't any business. Uh, Tom, who made your suit if there isn't any production whatsoever? Did you have it with you on the Astral Queen? (Come to think of it, where did Apollo's blue and dress uniforms come from? I don't think there was any cargo space in the Viper, and I don't think he wore one of them under his flight suit...) Maybe he's just saying this to appeal to the mob, because Zarek is fantastic at manipulating mobs... and Lee Adama.

Except, for whatever reason, in this episode Lee isn't Lee Adama, college rebel who reads banned books. He's a jack-booted thug who roughs up a man for defending Zarek, has the barman turn off a wireless broadcast of Zarek's interview even though other people want to hear him and he has a right to be heard, more-or-less starts a barfight over said wireless broadcast, plays the "bad cop" in a "good-cop bad-cop" routine with Starbuck, and bullies Zarek in the middle of a frakking Quorum meeting. I hereby submit Lee's behavior in this episode for official consideration in The Case For Another Pilot.

Roslin realizes that Grey can't win the election for VP, so she throws him under a bus and gets Gaius Baltar to run instead. That's clearly going to end well. Gaius gets elected, Lee and Kara dance together, and everyone's on speaking terms. No, things aren't going to go to hell next week, why do you ask?

Meanwhile, on Cylon-occupied Caprica, Helo finally sees another Eight running around, and the game is over.

The problem with this episode is that, unlike "Water," which was ill-concieved from the start and only got worse because Grace Park had to learn how to play a sleeper agent on the spot, or "Six Degrees of Separation," which will live or die based on your opinion of the character Gaius Baltar and the writer Michael Angeli, "Colonial Day" is an episode that could have been great. Roslin throws a trusted and valuable adviser under a bus in order to survive a political crisis and an assassin's bullet, and she has to replace him with Gaius Baltar of all people. That's a great story!

...the problem is the execution. Grey should have been seen before this (and sadly, this won't be the last time the writers drop an important new character on us for one episode only, after which point said character is never seen or mentioned again). His loss should have been felt by the Roslin Administration. He could have wound up in the anti-Roslin faction, which would have made him a very awkward ally of Baltar and Zarek during the election.

Zarek is back, and it's sadly the last time he'll be a two-dimensional character for at least a year. Richard Hatch plays him as a congenial politician, which is exactly what the charater needs to be, but he completely lacks the menacing undertones that the plot requires. This is not a fault in Hatch's performance; the fault lies in the fact that the story demands two completely different things from the character of Tom Zarek in this episode in order to make both the fact that he's suddenly a politician and the danger that Vice-President Zarek implies credible.

My favorite scene, which I didn't get to talk about because it was part of another subplot that went nowhere, was the one between Ellen Tigh and Tom Zarek at the bar. I'm paraphrasing a bit because I don't have it in front of me, but the conversation starts something like this:

Tom: Can I get you a drink?
Ellen: Are you the bartender now?
Tom: No. But why should he tend bar? What's in it for him?
Ellen: A big tip.
Tom: But what would he spend it on?

These are two people who both very much look out for number one, but Ellen is just so much more open about that fact. Tom's much more interested in currying favor and racking up an impressive amount of good will and favors to call in later. There are three things I wish they'd done with the character of Tom Zarek: give him another scene with Ellen, put him in the New Caprican resistance (because having to actually work alongside a bona-fide former terrorist would have given Tigh conniptions), and give him a final interview (the last is actually Richard Hatch's idea, and it's great).