three stars ***
 

WIRES, Well forget them, Eve(Muffet] was wonderfull in this episode,

* tp 4****
 

***1/2

Better than most disaster movies, some silly scenes but suspensful too...

My kids loved the part where Boomer smushes Boxey's MUSHIE. :P:

Another good Galactica episode based on World War II. The premise of the story is based on the U.S.S. Ben Franklin, a World War II American aircraft carrier that sufferd kamikaze attacks and then was miraculously saved after a horrendous fire. The number of people killed on that carrier was horrific. The fact that it was saved is a tribute to the bravery of naval firefighters and her surviving crew. If you can ever see images of that carrier after the battle it is truely amazing something can take so much abuse and fire and still float.

Was it the Ben Franklin or the Ticonderoga ?

At the Fort Ticonderoga museum (in Ticonderoga, NY--where else?) there are parts of the Japanese kamikazi aircraft that hit the Ti on display. I think the biggest part is about the size of a piece of paper. (Sorry to go a little OT, folks.)

Although many U.S. aircraft carriers in the Pacific took a beating by kamikazees the U.S.S. Franklin is famous for the ensuing fire and loss of life. It's massive burning and fire fighting effort was filmed in fairly good detail for happening in the middle of a war. As such it has been the focus of a few World War II documentaries and shows including I believe an episode of the naval classic series, Victory at Sea.

It amazes me to see the condition some of those World War II warships looked like as they returned to port after battle.

A testiment to the quality of the construction, I think. Some of the bombers that made runs over Germany, too, came back so shot up it was amazing they didn't just fall our of the sky like a rock. B-27's, weren't they?

I am
Dawg
:warrior:

B-17 Flying Fortresses. Got to tour one at an air show once. Really makes you think.

A check of the history books shows that the Ticonderoga (CV-14) is the ship that seems to most closely resemble the Galactica in this program. At least two other carriers suffered kamikaze hits, as did a large number of smaller ships.

The Ben Franklin (CV-13) was bombed. It wasn't a kamikaze. The ensuing hangar deck fire very nearly sank the ship. The damage was far worse than what the Galactica suffered.

Kamikazes also hit the Bunker Hill (CV-17), which suffered extremely severe damage and was knocked out of the war.

Enterprise (CV-6) suffered a kamikaze hit on the forward elevator. It "only" blew the elevator about 300 feet into the air and rendered the flight deck unusable, but it didn't cause the extent of damage suffered by the Franklin and Bunker Hill.

The Ticonderoga (CV-14) was hit by two kamikazes, was swarmed on by others, suffered serious damage, but was not crippled to the extent that Bunker Hill and Ben Franklin were. Her story comes closest to the Galactica's, I think.

By the way, that episode may have been one of the most serious dramas in TOS, but it did perhaps the most damage to the elementary laws of physics. But I won't go there right now.

Well, with airplanes, probably yes, with aircraft carriers, probably no. Our carriers had wooden flight decks to save weight and create more room for airplanes, while British carriers had armored steel decks but could carry fewer planes. If the Franklin had had an armored flight deck she probably would have suffered very little. Her wooden deck did nothing to keep the bombs from penetrating to the hangar deck. Now, a battleship would hardly have even noticed the impact, but the carriers suffered terribly for their fragile construction.

Great job on the research ThomasBombadil! Thanks.

Well whatever the source of inspiration for this episode my kids absolutely love it.
I'm beginning to like it more and more each time I see it. :thumbsup:

Thanks for posting your analysis Antelope. I find myself looking and finding some
of the things you pointed out. It makes the ep more interesting to me.

best boomer show with maren liked muffits saving the firefighter worst scince show FIRE IN SPACE SMOKING PLANT VAPORS good dr doing the country doc trick

Any time!:salute:

I liked the episode,but...would someone please design some type of door for the
GALACTICA landing bays!

Not sure that a door is what they need, but rather some kind of defensive shield or force field that would prevent an unauthorized craft from penetrating the area in front of the Landing Bay and making a suicide hit. Vipers and shuttles should have a security code of some kind to get through it (in the way that security codes were needed to get past the force field to Endor in Return Of The Jedi).

Wilker should forget about repairing Muffit and get to work on that! :)

In one of the novelizations, TLL if I recall, it was stated that in the event of landing bay damage or fire, the atmospheric force field could be shut off, and the bay depressurized, snuffing any fire. Obviously, this wasn't done it FIS, and we must assume the reason was that the machinery was damaged to the point where the field could not be shut down the usual way. Tigh said that all communications were out on that side of the ship. We can assume that the blast cut alot of cable trunks, and damaged other mechanisms. I think most fans were smart enough to grasp this, though the critics obviously weren't.

I have seen a door covering the Big G's landing bays in Steve W's wonderful renderings.

Yes, there are some serious continuity and effects issues with this episode, but no more so than a large number of other episodes.

The Sheba launching scene only bothers me a little. Apparently they were trying to get it into production too fast, and didn’t have time to shoot Sheba launching with a Galactica helmet, so they used stock from LL. I have always wondered why they just didn’t let her wear the Pegasus helmet for the episode. Her jacket still has the Pegasus patch on it.

The wires didn’t bother me too much either. What did was the shot they kept in which Starbuck’s sleeve rode up over his wrist, showing bare skin while they were outside the Galactica.

I hated the effects of the Boraton runs, but again, considering the technology of SFX in those days, its not bad for the time they had.

I think that the naming of their fire-fighting agent "Boraton" was rather enlightened, suggesting with it's shown use that not only does it have the properties of a fluorinated surfactant, but also a thermal component. Boreas is Latin for the cold north wind.

I always thought that there should have been some point-defense above the landing bay entrance, or at least to cover the rear approach better. That’s a real serious design flaw.

As for fires burning in the bays, I always figured that they were either plasma fires, or as suggested here, the atmospheric maintenance fields were malfunctioning and could not be disengaged (although if that were the case, why didn’t they shuttle fire crews to the entrance of the bay to fight it from both sides?).

For all of that, I think this is a pretty good episode, with a great deal of technical info for us gear-heads, and some great character interaction and development.

My 2P

Bill

The Sheba helmet part I wasn't bothered by. In fact, when I did an adaptation of the episode I wrote a scene that had her still wearing the old helmet the first time out but then changing as she realized more the need to adapt to her new surroundings.

My biggest problem with the episode is (1) Muffit the super-daggit at episode's end and (2) after the charges are blown, why is there that rush of air surging over the people trapped inside the storage compartment? They're sealed inside, they shouldn't be hearing or feeling anything! And this raises the question of how did they get out since that means that the compartments on either side of them are open to the vaccum and they don't have pressure suits to get out. (These too were things I felt the need to fix).