"33": Battlestar Galactica season 1 episode 1 explained

"33" opens five days after the Fall of the Twelve Colonies, with the refugee fleet jumping away from the Cylons every 33 minutes and nobody aboard Galactica getting any sleep. It ends with Laura Roslin ordering a civilian liner full of people shot down to save everyone else. It's the episode that sets the tone for the whole series: exhausted people making terrible choices with no good options, while the Cylons quietly work a longer plan on Caprica. (Battlestar Galactica, "33")

Plot#

The fleet had been running for more than 130 hours. Every 33 minutes the Cylons jumped in, and every 33 minutes the fleet jumped out, with Felix Gaeta counting down the clock in the CIC. Thirty-three minutes was enough time to eat or shower but never enough to sleep. William Adama and Saul Tigh were running on fumes, forgetting things and snapping at each other, and the pilots were kept flying on stimulants. (Battlestar Galactica, "33")

Aboard Colonial One, Roslin kept a whiteboard with the number of survivors on it: 50,298. Each jump risked losing ships whose FTL drives failed or whose crews couldn't keep up. Billy Keikeya handled the flood of reports and requests while Roslin tried to keep a civilian government running on no sleep. (Battlestar Galactica, "33")

On Galactica, Baltar overheard that a Dr. Amarak aboard the Olympic Carrier said he had information about how the Cylons had got through Colonial defences. Baltar recognised the name. He also knew the breach ran through the defence mainframe access he had given Number Six before the attack. Exposure meant he'd be finished. (Battlestar Galactica, "33"; Battlestar Galactica (miniseries))

After jump 237, the Olympic Carrier failed to arrive with the rest of the fleet. It was presumed lost with 1,345 people aboard. Then 33 minutes passed and the Cylons didn't come. The fleet got its first real break in days, and people started to sleep. (Battlestar Galactica, "33")

Hours later, the Olympic Carrier reappeared. Its crew blamed trouble with their FTL drive. Adama didn't believe it. He ordered the liner to keep its distance, but it broke formation and headed straight for the fleet, and stopped answering. Thirty-three minutes after it arrived, the Cylons jumped in again. (Battlestar Galactica, "33")

Then Galactica's sensors picked up radiation from the liner. It was carrying a nuclear device. Adama put the call to Roslin, and she had to decide whether to destroy a ship that might still have more than a thousand of her people on it. Baltar, with Head Six in his ear, was terrified that Amarak would survive and talk. She told him to repent and accept God, and he finally gave in and said it. (Battlestar Galactica, "33")

Roslin gave the order. Lee Adama and Kara Thrace closed on the liner in their Vipers and destroyed it. The fleet jumped. The Cylons didn't follow. Head Six told Baltar that God had looked after him. (Battlestar Galactica, "33")

On Caprica, Karl Agathon had been on the run since the attack, alone in the ruins. Cylon Centurions closed in on him. A Number Six was there too. Before they could take him, a copy of Sharon Valerii appeared and shot the Six, and Helo, who thought she was the Sharon he knew from Galactica, ran with her. (Battlestar Galactica, "33")

Back in the fleet, Billy brought Roslin news that a baby boy had been born. She wiped the whiteboard and wrote the new total: 47,973. (Battlestar Galactica, "33")

What it reveals#

The Cylons can find the fleet anywhere it jumps, and they will turn the humans' own ships against them. The Olympic Carrier came back with a nuclear weapon and no answers, and the show never says whether anyone aboard was still alive. That uncertainty is the point. The Cylons look like people, and now human ships might be Cylon weapons too. (Battlestar Galactica, "33")

The Caprica scenes show the Cylons running something more deliberate than a hunt. Sharon shooting a Six to win Helo's trust only makes sense if the Cylons want him alive and trusting her. Later episodes show why: the Cylons were trying to have a child with a human, and Helo was the chosen father. (Battlestar Galactica, "33"; Battlestar Galactica, "Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part I")

Head Six's role changes here too. In the miniseries she mostly taunted Baltar. In "33" she starts preaching. She tells him the Cylons' God has a plan for him, and she gets him to say he believes. The fleet's polytheist humans and the monotheist Cylons are set up as a divide that runs through the rest of the series. (Battlestar Galactica, "33")

The character turns are blunt. Roslin, who was education secretary until a week earlier, signs off on killing her own people. Lee pulls the trigger and has to live with it. Adama, who already doubted Roslin, sees she'll make the hard call. Baltar learns that his survival depends on a voice nobody else can hear. (Battlestar Galactica, "33")

Characters#

• William Adama: commands Galactica through the jumps and refuses to trust the returning liner.
• Saul Tigh: runs the CIC alongside Adama, worn down to his last nerve.
• Laura Roslin: keeps the survivor count and orders the Olympic Carrier destroyed.
• Lee Adama: Apollo, Galactica's CAG, who fires on the liner.
• Kara Thrace: Starbuck, flying patrol after patrol on stims, who fires alongside Apollo.
• Gaius Baltar: panics over Amarak and prays for the first time.
• Number Six: as Head Six, she pushes Baltar towards God; another Six is shot on Caprica.
• Sharon Valerii: Boomer, flying Raptor support with her new ECO, Crashdown.
• Sharon Agathon: the Caprica copy of Sharon who appears to Helo.
• Karl Agathon: Helo, stranded on Caprica and hunted by Centurions.
• Billy Keikeya: Roslin's aide, who brings her the news of the baby.
• Felix Gaeta: tracks the jump clock in the CIC.
• Amarak: never seen, but his claim about the defence breach drives Baltar's panic.

(Battlestar Galactica, "33")

Continuity#

• Amarak's suspicions about Baltar didn't die with the Olympic Carrier. A Number Six posing as Shelly Godfrey later claimed to have worked for him and used his doubts about Baltar's defence software to frame him. (Battlestar Galactica, "Six Degrees of Separation")
• The Caprica Sharon's plan with Helo moves forward when the two sleep together while Cylons watch, part of the effort to conceive a human and Cylon child. (Battlestar Galactica, "Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part I")
• That child is Hera Agathon, born aboard Galactica in season 2's "Downloaded". (Battlestar Galactica, "Downloaded")
• Boomer's quiet steadiness here sits on top of what the miniseries already showed: she's a Cylon sleeper agent. In the very next episode she wakes up soaked after sabotaging Galactica's water tanks. (Battlestar Galactica (miniseries); Battlestar Galactica, "Water")
• Her programming eventually takes over and she shoots Adama in the CIC. (Battlestar Galactica, "Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part II")