"Battlestar Galactica" (2003-2009)

The drunk XO, Saul Tigh

SciFi-shows have an undeserved bad reputation, and you need look no further than Battlestar Galactica to disprove all misconceptions.This isn't really just a SciFi-show, but rather a character-driven drama show in a SciFi-setting. Like so many other great shows, its labels can't do it justice. I might explain it another way. I'm currently only watching one show at its air-date no matter what (as there's really not that many great show left on the silver screen), and it's actually incidentally also a SciFi-show; Fringe. This past week I've been so wrapped up in Battlestar Galactica (BSG from now) the regular Friday viewing of Fringe was pushed as far back as to Tuesday.

The great thing about creating a SciFi universe for your show, is the unlimited possibilities of doing your own thing and taking on your own issues without having to push too many people's buttons. BSG is the prime example of this, taking on everything like religion, politics, war ethics, racism and military conduct. It's easy to tie it in to issues well known from our own world, but they don't have to take the usual stereotypical approaches to it. When you do it in outer space political issues doesn't have to be pro-democrats or pro-republicans, suicide bombings doesn't have to be linked to the Middle East and racism doesn't have to be about the color of anyone's skin. BSG still have no problem making their issues valuable viewing experiences as well as food for thought.

The Deck Chief, Galen Tyrol

BSG have a simple premise; humans against Cylons (machines). Having the Cylons open the show by attempting genocide of the human race and Caprica-Six killing a baby, it's not difficult to have the viewers favor the humans. It's the beginning of the 2nd Cylon War, but unlike 40 years earlier, now there's Cylons looking like humans. They can be, and is, among the crew of Battlestar Galactica. It adds layers to the show, but that's just the beginning. We're also presented a hallucination of the Cylon Caprica-Six helping Dr. Gaius Baltar and an Eight known as 'Boomer', a Raptor pilot at Galactica, struggling with her Cylon side. In other words; there seems to be more to these machines than all of them against humanity.

This show is about people, fronted by the military leader; William Adama, his son; Lee 'Apollo' Adama, the President of the Colonies; Laura Roslin, the famous scientific doctor; Gaius Baltar and the hot shot pilot; Kara 'Starbuck' Thrace. There's a lot of secondary characters with great story-lines and development, but for the five mentioned I think the show held on too tightly to most of them. Only Adama Sr. stays true to a golden path of storytelling, as the rest are taken all over the place. To me that's one of the main reasons BSG doesn't quite live up to its enormous potential. If they'd rather trusted the secondary characters to step up and take on more of the story-lines, this could have been one of the greatest stories ever told.

Raptor Pilot, Sharon 'Boomer' Valerii

'Cause there's quite a few very interesting secondary and supporting characters that step up and embrace their potential, but too few of them are allowed to take it all the way. If the show-runners hadn't fallen so desperately in love with their main five, characters like Dualla, Cally, Boomer, Helo, Caprica-Six and others could have grown a lot more. Another thing is the fact Starbuck, Apollo, Baltar and Roslin then all could have avoided some of the unnecessary story-waves that overall damaged their characters a lot more than they gained. Thankfully there's a few secondary characters that are very well handled, but to avoid most spoilers I won't go deeper into that terrain.

Speaking about a SciFi show from outer space with a lot of copies of the same Cylons, you have to acknowledge their special effects, and BSG's SFX are very impressive for a TV-show. Having to work week in and week out on a budget, and still pull this off without becoming cheesy is very well executed.

Fun fact; in one of the early scenes of the miniseries Laura Roslin is at the doctor and we can see several space ships passing over the building. One of them is a Firefly-class as seen in the beloved TV-show and following movie both named after its ship; "Firefly" and Serenity. Just another proof the creators of BSG know talent and quality when they see it...

The two webisode-stories "The Resistance" and "The Face of the Enemy", and the additional parts of "Razor Flashbacks" not included in extended edition are all too short/small to get individual ratings with me. Yet they should all be seen of course... Here's a good viewing order for the show, but personally I think you should avoid The Plan all together. In my eyes it's not only a weak TV-movie as it mostly recap stuff we knew, but in my mind it also ruins parts of the early storyline by trying to explain them better, The show, and especially a certain character, was better of without this misguided attempt.

★★★★☆ BSG: Miniseries (2003)
★★★★☆ Season 1
★★★★★ Season 2
★★★★★ Season 3
★★★☆☆ BSG: Razor (2007) [Extended Edition]
★★★★☆ Season 4
★★☆☆☆ The Plan (2009)


★★★★★ Overall