Season 2 of Battlestar Galactica starts on Friday, July 15th, 2005 and I, for one, am excited as hell!  I loved last season and the cliff hanger ending has left me on the edge of my seat since this winter.  The series resumes THIS FRIDAY JULY 15th with ten episodes and then returns in January of 2006 with ten more.  The series continues to fire fast paced action sequences intermixed with complex drama.  The writers channel the Star Trek: The Original Series and Star Trek: The Next Generation concepts of statements on contemporary lives with futuristic settings.  Prison rights, sanity, and betrayal are themes against a backdrop of the space saga.



A brief recap of the series to date:  Robotic Cylons quickly eviscerated  humanity, their makers,  after decades of civil war.  Less than 50,000  refugees remain, scattered among  50  space traveling ships protected by the last Colonial Battlestar, Galactica.  Broken spirited, weakened, and ill prepared, each engagement leaves the survivors with no choice but to flee.  Their only hope is to finally evade the evil robots by finding a planet to safely hide.



The Cylons have a few tricks up their sleeve; the most important being 12 models of robots that look, act, feel, bleed and eat as humans.  These robots are often sleeper agents deployed at the most critical of times to maximize the damage to the survivors.  A Cylon agent played a critical role in the season finale, her action will shape this entire new season.  They also appear to be trying to breed a human-cylon hybrid; while Six, played by the femme fatale Tricia Helfer and the traitorous Baltar, James Callis, will take on the role of surrogate parents.  This child  appears to be spoken of in the prophecies, according to Elosha.  I suspect this also has something to do with finding Kobol (last season) and Appollo’s arrow guiding the way to earth.



Season 2 will introduce us to two more models of human-robots.  Currently we’ve seen four: Number Six, Boomer Valerii, Leoben Conoy (privateer raiding Anchorage station), and Aaron Doral (Public Relations officer).  Who the two new models can be, I have no clue.  I know who they are not, but I won’t give any juicy spoilers here.



What I will tell you about Season 2, is that we’ll see more of a military versus civilian government.  Colonel Tigh is left in charge and he doesn’t care much for President Roslin’s religious quest to find Earth.  She has more visions as result of her treatments against her spreading cancer and becomes a more spiritual leader.  We’ll also see the blossoming of Captain Apollo and Lieutenant Starbuck, but that relationship will be peppered with tension and conflict.  Producers are also trying to complete a day in the life of a Cylon episode for the second half of the season.



I can only hope we’ll see more of Boomer this season but I suspect her two characters won’t be onscreen as much as they both were last season.  Both of them have a lot more complicated existence after the results of the season finale.  Also, for our benefit, I expect Baltar to be reunited with a breathing Number Six instead of one only in his mind.



Since I didn’t want to ruin anything from last season for those of you who might still be catching up, I’ve kept this preview sanitized and spoiler free.  I’ve made up for it, I hope, with some Tricia and Grace Park pictures.  One thing is clear, we need more Boomer (Grace Park pictures).  If Tricia is more your style, you can enjoy Tricia in various states of (un)dress over on Creepy Bob’s gallery.  Thanks for the Gallery Bob!  And to think at first you were like ‘Who?’ when I mentioned her to you so many months ago.