*Minor Spoilers Ahead*

The above picture of Cavil unfortunately sums up my feelings on the very unnecessary Battlestar Galactica DVD movie, The Plan. I remember first seeing a promo for The Plan during season 4, and I thought seeing the attack from the Cylon perspective was a terrific idea. Ron Moore had sprinkled the idea of the Cylon Plan throughout the series, but it was never actually detailed. I always thought the plan was simply total human genocide! Nope. According to the movie, it goes something like this:

The attack on the 12 colonies was all Cavil’s idea and it was meant to serve another purpose besides genocide: it would resurrect the Final Five. Before the attack, we get a glimpse of what the Five were up to, and I though this was a pretty cool to see. Cavil even pays Ellen a visit at a strip club on Caprica (providing us our first instance of gratuitous nudity in the movie) and is disheartened to learn that she digs the humans. In fact, all of the Five are content with humanity. This makes Cavil grumpy.

After the attack, the rest of The Plan is essentially a glorified string of deleted/extended scenes from seasons 1 and 2. They use way more footage from the series than I expected, so sometimes it felt like watching a highlights episode. Time jumps ahead frequently and they use the old footage to let the fans know where we’re at.

Speaking of fans, The Plan is definitely not meant to rope in any new ones. It’s completely geared towards existing fans who I feel are going to be really split about it. Personally, I was really underwhelmed and I don’t think I’ll be buying it for awhile. It’s exactly how I feel about the Star Wars EU; some of the material enhances my enjoyment of the universe, some of it I just ignore. I’m not going to need The Plan in my life to enjoy BSG anymore than I already do. But if you’re a completist, obviously shell out for it.

I’m not saying it’s entirely a mess. It retains a lot of the themes of the series, and as the lead, Dean Stockwell (Cavil) was terrific. He essentially plays two Cavils: Evil Cavil and Not-So Evil Cavil. Not-So Evil Cavil is playing spiritual adviser to Anders and his group of revolutionaries on Caprica, while Evil Cavil is screwing Six on Galactica. Rick Worthy (Simon), who got minimum screen time during the series, really shines as a a version of Simon we didn’t see in the series. He’s living contently with a wife and child, and sees no point in destroying the human race. Him and Cavill have some great scenes together and I’m glad we got some back story on an originally barely visible Cylon.

Another great touch was showing how Evil Cavil was creeping around Galactica, manipulating Boomer throughout the first season. We see him egging her on moments before she sabotages the water supply in “Water,” his pep talk to her before she shoots Adama in “Kobol’s Last Gleaming,” and other nice early season tie-ins. The moment that made me smirk the most was the shot below… all of the Final Five are in it!!! But sadly, all of this does not make up for what is an unimpressive effort. I’m just going to leave it out of my personal BSG canon.

The Plan is out on DVD and Blu-Ray tomorrow, October 27, and will air on the SyFy Channel November 1.

- Oh Mars