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May 22, 2005 That funky late 70s TV show, which looked almost as good as Star Wars at times (and even used some of the same props), is back. The original show was very unique in some ways, and pretty lousy in other ways. I watched it when I was a young'an, in re-runs, and had fond memories of it. Watching the old shows again as an adult makes me scratch my head – some of it is really good stuff, some just a weird mix of 70s pseudo-something (Science? Archeology? Atlantis?), combining lost tribes (of Israel, perhaps?), with astrological horoscope references, South American Indian religion, and other oddities. This piece is about the new Battlestar Galactica – possibly the best scifi on TV right now, the highest rated series Sci-Fi has ever had, and just really entertaining TV in general. This is the fourth in a series of mine about recent and current scifi. The first was about the Treks, the second about Farscape, and the third about Firefly. The next will focus on the new Dr. Who. First some background. Here are some brief spoilers about the pilot, but nothing more than previews and clips reveal. In the BG universe, there are 13 colonies of humans, 12 of them together and known to each other and named after astrological signs, the Sagitarians, the Picies, etc. Caprica City seems to be the capital, or at least a major hub of importance. An act of sabotage takes place there, and the nukes start to fall. The military prepares to do battle with the Cylons, who are responsible, and who had seemingly vanished since a truce was reached 50 years prior. The Cylons are what became of thinking-machines – a bit like the Matrix, the machines turned on their human masters once they became self-aware. It seems that they have returned. The military has Battlestars – basically air-craft carriers in space – large spacecraft that can launch smaller fighters. The sabotage which brought on the surprise attack also caused the deactivation of electronic defenses, and the Cylons are able to shut down ships remotely. The good guys become sitting ducks in space, and the colonies below are nuked. Only one Battlestar survives, the Galatica. It's an older craft from the first Cylon war and ready to be mothballed and therefore immune to the electronic shutdown. This along with a hodge-podge of other vessels, everything from prison ships to cruise liners, carry the remaining humans that survived the initial onslaught. Adama, the highest ranking living military leader, tells the remaining humans that they will attempt to find Earth, the lost 13th colony of their religion. Adama himself doesn't believe this, seemingly an agnostic in regards to their multi-god religion or at least to some of its myths. He also understands people need a goal, however, so he gives them one. Interestingly enough, the Cylons are very religious, and believe in just one god – the details of which we don't really know. The Cylons have also evolved, and now some of them look human. Amazing characters and human drama are a common thread for these new and successful shows. If George had hired some of their dialog wizards for his movies, we wouldn't such cheesy, cardboard, comic-book caption-like speech in Star Wars. BG has an array of deep characters; Baltar is probably the most interesting. He has a Cylon in his head. He isn't sure whether it's some sort of implant, or his own mind going crazy, but she seems real enough. She talks to him, helps and hinders him; basically controls him for her own agenda. Seeing Baltar wrestle with this internal-demon all but makes the show. It's at times funny, at times scary and always interesting. Baltar is hailed as the surviving genius of their age, and quickly gets accepted into the inner circle. He isn't evil per se, he is just interested in personal survival, no mater the consequences. His Cylon mental companion is a main character in her own right – a very sexy blond supermodel type. Very religious, very sensual, very exotic in personality. She seems at times genuinely torn, but between what we aren't quite sure. We are given other hints that she is a loyal Cylon, and a key player in the Cylon world, but we are also left with some doubt. Many of the main characters are the pilots and mechanics who work on the ship. Two of them love each other, but sexual relationships are apparently not allowed in this coed military outfit. Two others have a history that's crucial to many of the characters in the show. Boomer, Starbuck, Apollo – the names might ring a bell for fans of the old series. A nice twist is that this time around, Boomer and Starbuck are girls. Several other members of the crew are key players in the show – they don't have analogues from the original series. A pretty young girl that works on the bridge and the young male adviser to the president are also main characters. The president was a cabinet member before their holocaust; she was the highest ranking civilian leader. She has an uneasy relationship with Adama. Adama agreed to keep the old style democracy going, but this is more for show than anything else as Adama seems to be the real seat of power. Adama is the wise old battle-hardened commander type that tends to be quiet, contemplative and has a cabin like a study; he is obviously an intellectual, and reads good literature. Head butting with the president makes for some tense drama. His second in command rounds out the main characters, and is one of my favorites. He is a classic career military man. He has a drinking problem that he struggles with, along with baggage from his past; he is the resident hard-ass on the ship. The show is very ambitious not just in the amazing special effects, but in juggling such a large and interesting cast. The plots and subtexts for the various shows in the first season are simply amazing. The first episode after the pilot has to be seen to be believed – possibly one of the best hours of TV ever in any genre. One thing I like about the series from a scifi/geek perspective is that, like in the real world, nothing is easy when it comes to engineering. The Enterprise in TNG seemed to have an amazing level of automation, but at the same time, had no robots (besides Data). It often felt more like a hotel in the sky, without maids and cleaning crew, where everything could be managed from computer terminals. In BG, we don't have near-infinite long range sensors, for example, and some of the crew routinely go on scouting missions. When things break, whole crews of workers in spacesuits are sent to investigate and repair, missions to planets require large details of workers and equipment, and not every stop in space happens to be inhabitable by humans. TNG seemed to lack bulldozing equipment, for example, and we needed Warf to move heavy boulders around. There is a sense of hope in the show, but also constant stress. We have not only the never-ending pursuit of the Cylons, but the struggle to handle the basics needed for life (water, food, etc), along with the restless survivors of humanity – 50,000 of them. Like Farscape, the show feels strangely relevant and asks questions such as, “how transparent should government be, and why?”, “What is the limit of sacrifice and violence to protect the greater good?”, “What threat is great enough to break the accepted rules of governance and take matters into your own hands?”, “What is life, and what does it mean to be alive?” BG is a fresh and exciting drama – each show is great, with many plot lines running the length of whole season and beyond. I expect that if Sci-Fi doesn't kill this show, it will grow stronger each season and get quite a following indeed. I for one can't wait until season two starts... Next up, Dr. Who. I have some mixed feelings about this one – I will compare it to the older Dr. Who, the longest running scifi show in history, and one of the longest running shows overall. ------------ About the author Frederick Smith: I enjoy writing about the positive virtues of humanism - humanists are the good guys. 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