Battlestar Galactica Movie Destroys Fan Favorite Character For No Good Reason
Battlestar Galactica is a fantastic series that helped usher in a new era of sci-fi television, but it’s also filled with plotholes that make no sense, contradict earlier episodes, and lead to disappointing resolutions. One of the worst offenders, because it would have been so easy to avoid, came in the tv-movie, Battlestar Galactica: The Plan, which runs concurrently with the show. In The Plan, we learn that Boomer was aware she was a Cylon when, in Season 1, she had no clue as to her true nature.
Boomer Was Part Of The Cylon’s Planning Meetings
Boomer (played by Grace Park) is the first of the “skinjob” Cylons we see in Battlestar Galactica Season 1, blissfully unaware that she’s a sleeper agent. When it culminates with the assassination attempt on William Adama (Edward James Olmos), it’s a shocking moment that comes out of nowhere. What The Plan does to undercut all of this is show Number Eight alongside the other Cylons as active participants in the planning of their attack against the humans.
Deus Ex Cavill
If in Battlestar Galactica Season 1 Boomer is unaware she’s a Cylon, why is she participating in planning the uprising? The film tries to explain this by going back to the Cylon Deus Ex Machina, Brother Cavill/Number One (Dean Stockwell), and showing that he had somehow placed Boomer into a trance, allowing him to draw out her “Cylon side” as needed. It’s an attempt to explain the plot hole, and is implied to be similar to what he did to the Final Five, but if that’s the case, why did it work better on the original Cylons than it did on Number Eight?
Fighting Against Her Programming
Battlestar Galactica: The Plan never details what it was he did to Boomer, or why the wooden toy is used as an activator, or even how Athena (the Number Eight found on Caprica), has the memories of Boomer from her time in the Fleet. There is an elegance to the off/on nature of Boomer as a sleeper agent, and if it was on its own, it could work. Yet, she’s shown as fighting back against her Cylon programming, proved when she finds “Cylon” written on her locker, so if she’s fighting back against the programming, why did none of the Final Five display the same inner conflict?
Boomer’s Stronger Than The Final Five
The Final Five were revealed to be the original creators of the Cylons, and it stands to reason that their bodies would be more advanced than those of the Cylons built on Caprica. It isn’t until they hear unexplainable music that they become aware of their Cylon nature. Is Boomer fighting because Cavill keeps turning her off and on again, thus weakening the programming, or is it that Battlestar Galactica doesn’t piece together because it’s a retcon?
There Was Never A Plan
The answer is that it doesn’t quite come together because it’s all a retcon. Creator Ronald D. Moore would admit later that, despite the opening credits, the Cylons never had a plan, and Battlestar Galactica: The Plan was a late attempt, coming after the series had ended, to explain what the plan was….even if it never really existed. Boomer’s treatment between The Plan and Season 1 robs her story arc of its shock value, and seeing her alongside the other Significant Seven before the fall of the colonies is jarring. As with so much about the series, if the Final Five didn’t exist, Boomer’s arc would, even with The Plan as canon, make far more sense.
