Sometimes a Great Notion

Sometimes a Great Notion is an episode of the TV series, Battlestar Galactica, and aired during the show's fourth season. The episode continues from "Revelations", where both the colonial fleet and the rebel Cylons finally found Earth, only to find it devastated by a nuclear holocaust at least 2,000 years before, and the discovery leads to despair all across the fleet.
==Plot==
=== Teaser ===
The episode opens on the shores of a ruined city as Col. Saul Tigh gazes out. The various members of Admiral William Adama's landing expedition are heartbroken of their discovery, with each discovery being worse than the next. In the hours since landing, none of the teams across the planet have spotted signs of human life, including radio broadcasts. As Cpt. Kara "Starbuck" Thrace and Leoben leave to go track down the source of the beacon, Dr. Gaius Baltar determines the local ecosystem has been tainted by radioactive materials and people are advised not to drink the water. The scientific findings determine the entire planet was beset by nuclear bombardments roughly 2000 years ago, and there were no survivors. Petty Officer Anastasia "Dee" Dualla has a breakdown during the expedition and is visibly shaken on the Raptor trip back to Galactica. The expedition Raptor returns to a hangar deck filled with crewmen desperate for any good news, but President Laura Roslin cannot bear to say anything.
=== Act 1 ===
Starbuck and Leoben continue their search through woodland where they find debris from a Viper which appears to be the same one which landed on Galactica and thus the same one which exploded in the gas giant.
Back on Galactica, Dee is babysitting for Karl and Sharon Agathon to take her mind off the expedition.
A Cylon expedition finds the remains of the planet's inhabitants, along with the head of a mechanical being similar to a Centurion. Bringing them back to Galactica for further examination, it becomes clear that the planet's inhabitants independently developed technology comparable to the colonies' Cylon technology, only for the two races to wipe each other out in a genocidal war. Baltar's testing of the skeletons however, reveals synthetic DNA comparable to that found on Humanoid Cylons, with his conclusion being that the Thirteenth Tribe were not human.
While walking around the city ruins, Chief Galen Tyrol has strange feelings about a shadow on a wall which he feels is his own. As he touches it, he witnesses the events leading up to the nuclear holocaust, with himself walking around a fruit market right as a bomb goes off.
Dee finds Apollo in the pilots' ready room alone, thinking of the many pilots who died for a failed dream. Dee reassures him to keep looking forward, that if he shows leadership people will continue to have hope, and they arrange for a date in spite of the recent events.
Starbuck and Leoben walk through a field of long-grass. Seeing something in the distance, they approach and find the upturned cockpit of a Viper. As they turn it over, they find the corpse of a Viper pilot with blonde hair. Starbuck pulls off the bloodstained dogtags which say "K. THRACE". Even Leoben is disturbed by the discovery and stumbles away as she begs for an answer.
=== Act 2 ===
While on the beach, Samuel Anders finds the remains of a guitar on the beach and begins to hear himself playing and singing to The Music. As he runs away he finds Tyrol who is just as disturbed as himself; as they talk about their mutual experiences, Tory Foster reveals she has had similar experiences and recognises the three of them were friends before the holocaust. How they fled Earth is not known.
Roslin sits in her room on Galactica, incinerating her copy of the Book of Pythia. Adama walks in to ask about her, having heard she has refused to continue her Doloxan treatments or to hold a press conference. Distraught at her collapse of faith, she pleads with Adama to leave her alone as she destroys the rest of the book.
As dusk falls, Starbuck builds a funeral pyre for the corpse and burns it.
Dee walks with Apollo home from their date, with Dee's reassurance having helped him recover and even see the chance of them getting back together. Lt. Felix Gaeta compliments her on the date and the two bond for a moment, but as soon as he leaves the room she takes out her sidearm and shoots herself in the head.
=== Act 3 ===
Apollo and Adama stand over Dee's body in the morgue, trying to come to terms with everything. Adama is shown to be clearly drunk, and begins crying as Apollo leaves, blaming himself for the suicide. In a causeway, Adama orders a Marine to surrender his sidearm, and walks through the ship as it falls into chaos with fights and acts of vandalism being ignored by anyone else. He bangs on Tigh's hatch and pours drinks for the two to talk over. In his drunkenness he mocks Tigh and accuses him of faking their friendship, finally turning it to mocking her marriage to Ellen and how he should have had sex with her when he had the chance. Tigh finally grabs his own sidearm prepared to shoot him, with Adama daring him as he puts his own to his head. Tigh realises he is being coaxed into murder because Adama can't do it himself. As he calms down, Adama talks of his uncle who had problems with foxes attacking his hens and how he once saw a pack of dogs chase them - some foxes would fight, some would swim across a river, and some would simply stop in the middle and drown.
Apollo stands alone in the Presidential office on Colonial One, and is soon greeted by Starbuck who claims to have lost track of the signal which will have to remain a mystery. Apollo gives her the news about Dee, still unable to come to terms with it. 
Adama walks across a vandalised corridor as crewmen sit down crying. With Tigh he enters CIC; Hoshi is re-assigned to Dee's position, and Gaeta is asked to search for any nearby G, F or K-class stars while they and the rebel Cylons search for a potential alternative home to colonise. On the wireless, Adama gives a speech on the successes of the thirteen tribes in their desperate exodus from Kobol and survival out in deep space.
Tigh is back on the surface of Earth, overseeing the completion of the expedition. He finds Three, who has decided to escape from the Cycle of Time and live and die on Earth alone. Reflecting on Adama's words to him, Tigh considers suicide by drowning, and walks out into the ocean. As he moves out, he hears the voice of a woman pleading for him. In a flashback he is a bloodied man in a suit, walking through a ruined apartment building as a nearby bomb detonates. Pulling away debris, he finds Ellen, who reassures him they will be reborn. He holds her in his hands as they are killed.
==Cast==
*Edward James Olmos as Rear Admiral William Adama
*Mary McDonnell as Laura Roslin
*Jamie Bamber as Commander Lee "Apollo" Adama
*James Callis as President of the Twelve Colonies Gaius Baltar
*Tricia Helfer as 
**Caprica Six
**Messenger Six
*Grace Park as 
**Lieutenant Sharon "Boomer" Valerii
**Sharon Agathon
**Number Eight
*Michael Hogan as Colonel Saul Tigh
*Aaron Douglas as Chief Petty Officer Galen Tyrol
*Tahmoh Penikett as Captain Karl "Helo" Agathon
*Michael Trucco as Samuel T. Anders
*Alessandro Juliani as Lieutenant Felix Gaeta
*Kandyse McClure as Lieutenant Anastasia Dualla
*Lucy Lawless as D'Anna Biers
*Callum Keith Rennie as Leoben Conoy
*Rekha Sharma as Tory Foster
*Kate Vernon as Ellen Tigh
*Brad Dryborough as Lieutenant Louis Hoshi
*Jennifer Halley as Ensign Diana "Hardball" Seelix
*Don Thompson as Specialist 3rd Class Anthony Figurski
*Alexandra Thomas as Hera Agathon
*Sonja Bennett as Specialist 2nd Class Marcie Brasko
==Appearances==
===Characters===
*Lee "Apollo" Adama
*William Adama
*Karl "Helo" Agathon
*Gaius Baltar
*Anastasia Dualla
*Felix Gaeta
*Calandra Henderson
*Number Eight
**Sharon "Boomer" Valerii
**Sharon Agathon
*Number Six
**Messenger Six
*Laura Roslin
*Saul Tigh
*Kara "Starbuck" Thrace
*Galen Tyrol
===Locations===
*The Fleet
===Species===
*Cylon
**Centurion
**Humanoid Cylon
**Raider
*Human
===Technology===
*FTL
*Wireless
===Vehicles and vessels===
*Basestar
*Colonial One
*Galactica
*Raider
*Raptor
*Viper
===Organizations===
*Colonial Fleet
*Colonial Government
*Colonial Marine Corps
== Production ==
Sometimes a Great Notion was the last episode filmed ahead of the writer's strike, with it beginning the same day as principal photography. Consequently, there could not be any last minute script-changes to this episode or any other scripts until the strike was over, and actors and crew were facing the serious possibility that Sci-Fi would simply cancel their order for Season 4 and this be the last episode. For this episode, Edward Olmos' hair was coloured grey to give the impression of stress-induced aging, something which would continue throughout Season 4.5.
=== Directing ===
Michael Nankin directed the episode and played out the actors to be confused and depressed. During the opening scene where Roslin is stopped by the press Mary McDonald became confused and went the wrong way; this was kept as it contributed to her character. For the funeral pyre scene, filming of its construction had to be done in order and quickly to avoid easy to spot continuity flubs such as it getting darker and lighter. In the sequence where Adama walks through a corridor, attention was given to making the background actors act separately from one another to add to the sense that nothing matters.
=== Writing ===
This episode was written by Bradley Thompson and David Weddle, and was developed essentially as the second part to "Revelations", forming from the same idea during the writer's retreat that the mid-season would take away the very idea of Earth from the refugees in The Fleet. Moore felt a follow-up to the discovery was important to the show, feeling the characters would not convincingly just leave immediately after finding the nuclear devastation. A core theme therefore is the separate characters' experiences and how it effects them; in Roslin's case her faith has been destroyed and Adama has fallen into a depression while Dee kills herself. When it came to the Adama-Tigh drinking scene, much of the dialogue was ad-libbed, with Olmos and Michael Hogan asked to give a more "raw" performance.
The idea for the reveal regarding the Thirteenth Tribe was envisioned as a breakdown of the Cycle of Time mentioned frequently in the series. In this case, there is a pattern of creation and destruction with humanity fated to create artificial life which rebels against them, and the Thirteenth Tribe inheriting that fate. 
=== Editing ===
When the episode was written, it was to be told in a series of flashbacks as Adama and Tigh sit over a glass before cutting to the expedition. This was changed to run as a standard episode. At some point during location filming, Katee Sackoff cut her neck and had to be bandaged, with it kept on during her scene on Colonial One for continuity. However, the footage of her cutting herself was excised from the episode, leaving it unexplained why she was injured.
=== Deleted scenes ===
Over 7 minutes of footage was cut or trimmed for TV release, and consisted of:
* The original opening in which Tigh is interrupted by a knock on the hatch while looking at a photograph of Ellen. This is intercut with shots of Tigh and Caprica-Six looking out to the shore on the planet.
* Starbuck and Leoben find the crashed Viper's emergency locator transmitter, but continue their search for the rest of the debris. This sequence hits at Leoben's reluctance to investigate further.
* Baltar holds a sermon in his crowded church, talking about the recent spate of suicides that so far number 14. He warns that paradise is coming, but it will not be handed over so generously as they thought, and they must endure a test of faith paid for in blood before they find their home. The sermon is interrupted when Caprica-Six joins, but is welcomed in by Helo and Athena when Baltar declares God's love for the Cylons. Roslin overheard the radio broadcast of this sermon while burning her book.
== Sources ==
== External links ==
* Podcast
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