Battlestar Galactica "Water" TV episode Written by Ronald D. Moore Directed by Marita Grabiak Original air date: January 14, 2005

Sabotage reveals that there is at least one Cylon aboard the Galactica.

Read the story summary of this episode at the Battlestar Wiki

Notes from the BSG chronology

This episode opens 3 days after the destruction of the Olympic Carrier in "33".

Didja Know?

This is the first episode to use the "...And they have a plan" preamble at the beginning of the "Previously on Battlestar Galactica" intro. 

Characters appearing or mentioned in this story

Boomer

Callie

Colonel Tigh

Apollo

Commander Adama

Billie Keikeya

President Roslin

Dualla

Lt. Gaeta

Chief Tyrol

Crashdown

Baltar

Helo

Caprica-Valerii

Number Six

Sherry Bennett (mentioned only, presumably deceased)

Starbuck

Edward Prima (mentioned only, presumably deceased)

Kimiko (mentioned only, presumably deceased)

Didja Notice?

Boomer emerges from the tool room on the flight deck after awakening from her spell and changing out of her soaking wet clothes. How did she get into the tool room in the first place without being seen? You'd think people would notice a soaking wet Boomer walking across the deck in the first place!

Boomer is depicted as having used G-4 plastic explosive to blow the Galactica's water tanks. It seems to be very similar to our own C-4 plastic explosive.

When Apollo confesses to his father that he can't stop thinking about the Olympic Carrier, Adama remarks that was 3 days ago. Apollo destroyed the Olympic Carrier with all hands aboard as it seemed likely it was compromised by the Cylons and being used as a nuclear bomb against the fleet in "33".

After the Presidential ceremony, Dee mentions a ship named the Virgon Express standing by to take on water supplies.

As water is being pumped into the holding tanks of the Virgon Express at 13:19 on the Blu-ray, notice that gun emplacements are visible above the pipes on Galactica.

Gaeta and Baltar use the term "JP" as a unit of liquid measurement for water, but the term is not defined further. The Battlestar Wiki does some calculations based on the figures thrown around in this episode to estimate that 1 JP is very roughly equal to 1 pint.

At 17:44 on the Blu-ray, notice that there are crewmen examining the hull ruptures both inside and outside the ship.

Trying to defend her "coming back" to Caprica for him in her Raptor after they find it swarming with Centurions, Caprica-Valerii tells him, "I set the jiggers to pulse." A "jigger" seems to be an electronic countermeasure used by the Colonial military to help mask a ship from detection.

At 22:49 on the Blu-ray, a boat can be seen jetting across the bay as Baltar looks out at the view from his dream balcony.

For his Cylon detection process, Baltar claims he needs more tetrahydrocycline. This appears to be a fictitious chemical compound (though the root words make it sound like a drug that incorporates 4 water molecules per unit).

As seen in previous episodes, a number of the books stacked in Adama's quarters do not have the cut-off corners that Colonial books traditionally have.

At 26:57 on the Blu-ray, notice that Adama is about to wash his hands as he re-enters his quarters, but thinks better of it what with the water rationing he and the President have just ordered for everyone else in the fleet.

Roslin tells Adama that she only brought one book with her on the trip to Galactica (before the Cylon attack against the Colonies), A Murder on Picon. Adama gives her Dark Day by Edward Prima. These are, of course, fictitious novels of the Twelve Colonies. Propworx sold the prop book of Dark Day used in this episode; the inside text was that of the 2000 novel Quill by Neal Drinnan.

Also seen in Adama's quarters are the books The Juror (a 1995 novel by George Dawes Green), Sarum (a 1987 novel by Edward Rutherfurd), The World's Last Mysteries (a Reader's Digest book), something by Carl Jung (1875-1961), Encyclopedia of Morals (1956), and volumes of Encyclopedia Britannica.

Crashdown tries to name a small asteroid he and Boomer are scanning "Kimiko" after an old girlfriend.

At 30:50 on the Blu-ray, we can see from the ones Starbuck wears on her neck that Colonial dog tags are hexagonal in shape.

Baltar gives Starbuck a cigarette made from "the finest fumarella leaves on Caprica". The word "fumarella" here is an homage to "fumarello" on BSG70, the Colonial term for a cigar.

At 39:39 on the Blu-ray, the ship Celestra is seen in the fleet. The Celestra was also a ship of the fleet in BSG70.

When Apollo explains his feelings about having destroyed the Olympic Carrier to President Roslin, notice that he uses the same words his father said to him to help him get past it. "A man has to accept responsibility for his actions. He doesn't second-guess the choices he makes. He lives with them. Every day."

After asking Apollo to become her personal advisor on the military, Roslin tells him he can still keep his day job at the CAG. Of course, CAG is a title (Commander, Air Group), not a place of work. But this is an intentional gaffe by the writer, to show that Roslin needs all the help she can get concerning military interactions; it could possibly also be interpreted as an intentional gaffe on the part of Roslin to impress upon Apollo how much she needs his advice.

At 42:00 on the Blu-ray, the President's whiteboard shows the fleet's population at 47,958. This is down 15 persons from the end of the previous episode (47,973 in "33"). It's unexplained how these additional losses occurred.