I am – Hercules!!

How do the Cylons “evolve” into humanoids without knowing what “the final five Cylons” look like?

What are the five unseen Cylon models doing inside the Eye of Jupiter, which was supposedly created by the 13th human colony?

Why has Kara been painting the Eye of Jupiter all her life?

I think you’d have to go all the way back to season one’s “Kobol’s Last Gleaming” to find an episode of “Battlestar Galactica” as intriguing as last week’s “Rapture.” It restored much of the Cylons’ – and the series’ – mystique.

To recap:

* All but one of the Cylon raiders turned back from the algae planet, so Galactica Actual put away its nukes.

* Karl Agathon put some ordinance in his wife’s heart so she could rescue baby Hera Agathon.

* Lee Adama ordered his wife to risk her life and rescue Kara Thrace. But Lee didn’t say anything about not slapping Kara around a little.

* Galen Tyrol’s hesitation allowed the Cylons to put off the destruction of the Eye of Jupiter for a few minutes. When the algae planet’s sun went supernova, The Eye went all Well of Souls, and D’Anna Biers was allowed to see the faces of the “final five” Cylon models. “You,” D’Anna said to one of The Five. “Forgive me. I had no idea!” She then collapsed and died.

* “Tell me, I have to know!” Gaius Baltar begged the dying D’Anna. “Did you see my face?” But before Baltar could see for himself, Tyrol welcomed Baltar home with a blunt object to the skull.

* Six snapped Boomer’s neck and helped Athena (or somebody who looks just like Athena) escape to Galactica. So both Baltar and Six are back on Galactica now.

* Helo demonstrated to Starbuck that she’s been painting the 4,000-year-old Eye of Jupiter image all her life. “It’s just something Leoben said once,” pondered Kara. “That I had a destiny … that had already been written.”

* In another seeming nod to “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” Cavell put the last of the D’Annas into cold storage.

One last question. Why does Bill Adama, knowing that the Sharon models can be programmed as sleeper agents, keep Hera’s mom on active duty? Isn’t that sort of … insane? “Galactica” is losing one of its seven main players this season; could the Sharon model be the next to get boxed up?

If you’re wondering how “Galactica” did, ratings-wise, on its first Sunday night last week, we have word from Multichannel News:

The first of 10 episodes from the popular Sci Fi Channel series’ third season debuted Jan. 21 to a lukewarm 1.4 household rating/1.8 million viewers, according to an ABC Cable Networks Group analysis of Nielsen Media Research data.

That’s below the 1.9 rating/2.1 million viewers the show averaged during the second half of its sophomore season from January-March 2006, when it aired on Friday nights, along with lead-in series Stargate Atlantis and Stargate SG-1. …

… Despite the ratings falloff, the network said Battlestar was the No. 1 basic-cable entertainment program for the day among viewers 18-49 and 25-54. It also increased its viewership among those two demos by 60% and 18%, respectively, compared with its Dec. 15 finale. …

Read all of Multichannel’s story here.

Tonight’s episode is said to deal with the disposition of Baltar, and the disposition of the Dee-Lee-Kara-Sam quadrangle.

10 p.m. Sunday. SciFi.

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