Battlestar Galactica: The Plan

Warning: There are some spoilers to Battlestar Galactica and particularly to The Plan in this post. If you just want to read my recommendation, skip to the last paragraph.

A couple nights ago, I finally put in Battlestar Galactica: The Plan to watch. I've had it for about four months but never got around to watching it. I haven't heard very many flattering things said about this one, so I had been avoiding it, but since I'm still waiting for the next season of West Wing to arrive and was looking for something to watch, I figured now was as good a time as any.

The movie is supposed to show more about this "Plan" that the Cylons evidently had from the beginning of the show. It opens with the two Cavils from the end of season two, showing them standing over the bodies of the Final Five as they lay in wait to have the consciousness of their counterparts downloaded into them when they die.

Flash to the two of them on Galactica being marched to the airlock to be spaced after it's been revealed that they were Cylons and the Cylons were tired of chasing them around.

The show basically follows the time between those two points, primarily focusing on those two Cavils. One of them finds himself with Anders and his resistance cell on Caprica while the other one finds himself on Galactica among all the surviving people. Pretty quickly, the "Plan" is revealed: the Cylons want to kill all the humans.

Wait. What was that? That's it? They just wanted to kill all the humans?

Yup. And Galactica Cavil is pissed because they failed in their mission. He did not anticipate anyone surviving their initial onslaught (and, in fairness, if it weren't for Adama's mistrust of technology, they probably would have succeeded) and now he's stuck in the human fleet with about six Cylons to support his attempts to destroy the fleet. We've seen a lot of what happens - Doral's suicide bomb, Six's attempts to oust Baltar, etc. Every one of the Cylons in the fleet fails at their objectives and Cavil is rapidly running out of people to help him. He's amazed to see the Final Five actually, from his point of view, not learning anything he wanted them to learn. They still value human lives and embrace their human experiences. He hates everything about them.

Meanwhile, Caprica Cavil joins with Anders' group and tries to hear what Anders feels and believes, wondering if Anders has had any change of heart. But Anders refuses to acknowledge that the Cylons may have been forced to take this action and says he'll never forgive them. Even the humans who have died, Cavil realizes, are more important to him than the Cylons that lived.

Basically, both Cavils are learning that it may not be the Final Five who need to learn about things, but rather the Cylons who need to learn about love. Caprica Cavil embraces this and even throws his weight behind the movement hinted at in the main show, while the Galactica Cavil, completely cut off from the Cylons back home, rejects it.

When the two are reunited and sent to their deaths, they have a short debate with each other about what they've learned and what they think about each other's opinions. Galactica Cavil still refuses to change and promises Caprica Cavil that he's going to box him as soon as they are resurrected, and that he's going to put the Cylons back on the right path.

In all, the show did give us a few answers to mysteries, but the fact that the Cylons' plan was, essentially, no further than "kill the humans" was disappointing. What about the Farm that Starbuck was captured by in Season Two? That was referenced in The Plan, but no explanation for it was given beyond that it was a pet project of the Fours. It was disappointing that there was no overall reason for the Cylons doing what they were doing beyond the attack. No mention of the Olympic Carrier and what the Cylons had done with it. The Pegasus was completely ignored. What the Cylons went through after Boomer and Caprica Six reunited with them was never touched on. The only reason I can find for the Final Five being so secret was that Cavil didn't want anyone else to know about them.

As another "episode", though, I thought it was just fine. I enjoyed seeing some new material for the characters, and it was fun to see Anders and his group trying to build an effective resistance cell. Unfortunately it really de-fanged the Cylons from the beginning of the show. I felt like the idea of the movie was to make the Cylons more sympathetic.


My recommendation: watch it if you like BSG, but don't expect it to be anything more than a lengthy episode. It's not going to shed much new light on the story and not really going to fill in any new plots.