Battlestar Galactica

Battlestar Galactica the mini-series, landed on our TV screens a short time ago. It set the stage for the TV series, which has almost finished the first season on Aussie TV. Just over three hours long (and available on DVD with great bonus features) it begins to tell the story of the last remaining humans in the universe. Richard Hatch who played ‘Apollo’ in the original 1978 version of the series (not the guy from Survivor) planned to remake BSG in the 1990’s but it got shelved. He now guest stars in the new series as Ted Zarek – a very interesting character...
About fifty years ago man made the Cylons, a race of machines created to make our lives easier. But they grew intelligent and fought a vicious war rebelling against the humans. Each of the Twelve Colonies of Man built a Battlestar to aid the fight but most were destroyed in the war. The Battlestar Galactica was built by the Colony of Caprica and now, forty years after the war it is about to be decommissioned and turned into a museum with it’s Commander William Adama (Edward James Olmos) looking forward to retirement. But, as all movies go, when someone is about to retire, something always goes horribly wrong.
Doctor Gauis Baltar (James Callis – Bridget Jones’ Diary) has been working on a defence network against the Cylons in Caprica when he meets Number Six (Tricia Helfer), one of many Cylons who has evolved to look human. She has acquired information about the defence network and passed information on to the Cylons. A global attack is imminent.
Word reaches the Battlestar Galactica of a massive attack on their twelve colonies and Commander Adama is quick to take charge and prepares the aging ship for war. But, with the President killed on Caprica, Laura Roslin, (Mary McDonnell) Caprica’s Secretary for Education, is forced into the role of President and is more concerned in gathering all available ships and starting a rescue operation. To add to the troubles, she has just found out she has breast cancer, Commander Adama’s estranged son Captain Lee ‘Apollo’ Adama (Jamie Bamba) comes aboard the ship after two years of them not speaking, and Lieutenant Kara ‘Starbuck’ Thrace (Katee Sackhoff) has just been thrown on the brig for punching her superior officer Colonel Saul Tigh (Michael Hogan).

The Evolution of Starbuck

There is so much to like about this series. Written by ex-Star Trek writer Ronald D. Moore, he leaves behind the cold and sterile environment of the Star Trek series and adds depth and heart to the characters and puts them in real(-ish) situations. There aren’t any transporters so no one accidentally gets beamed up as something alien, no techno-babble involving redirecting power to the deflector shields to stabilise the dilithium matrix in the warp core. No whiny theme songs, just a fantastic arrangement of tension-building percussion.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I am a huge Star Trek fan, I have a DS9 communicator to prove it, but there’s just something in BSG that was lacking in Star Trek (especially Enterprise, but that’s another two pages!). There is a real sense of struggle, of life threatening situations, for individuals and the human race as a species. Even the style of filming - with quick camera zooms and focusing, the screen shaking when guns are fired - it really makes you feel that you are there, almost documentary style much like Joss Whedon’s Firefly. Huge thumbs up for this one, I will have a really hard time waiting until the next series.