Television shows are a lot like relationships; you can usually figure out if it’s going anywhere from the first two days/episodes after which it’s all about commitment. Terrible metaphors aside, I find it hard to believe how much Battlestar Galactica has grown on me over the last couple of months. Science Fiction is a genre that has been done to death on TV and then some, but rarely has a show attempted what Battlestar Galactica has. While finding it’s bearings in a kind of pseudo present day society, it still manages to enthrall as a space opera with dogfights and exploding spaceships aplenty minus kitschy overdressed aliens.
BSG is set in a time line nobody is quite sure of (though there are chances this ambiguity may be intentional) and in a universe that may or may not be our own. Cylons are a breed of intelligent cyborgs created by humans who turn on their masters due to… well, religious differences. The Cylons are steadfast believers in a monotheistic God with scary resemblances to the Judeo-Christian version of a loving and benevolent creator. One thing leads to another and the human colonies are destroyed by the Cylons leaving 50,000 odd survivors adrift in space on a fleet of ships led by a single military ship, the Battlestar Galactica. Also, the Cylons can apparently take the shape of humans with the obligatory blonde bombshell thrown in solely for the purpose of satisfying legions of male fans with no social lives to speak of, yours truly included.
What’s different about BSG is that it takes shots at topics straight from today’s headlines; terrorism, suicide bombings, fundamentalism, religion and politics and is far superior to the mindless drivel that crowds the screens these days. The character arcs and plot twists rival those of most other contemporary series although it does seem at times that the writers are working on the story as they go; which I sincerely hope isn’t true. This is the kind of show that needs a grand finale and a much bigger audience.
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