Battlestar Galactica: the review

When I heard they were doing a remake of Battlestar Galactica, I said, “Wow, is Hollywood out of ideas. An unbelievably terrible and cheesy show from the 70s? Seriously? That’s all they can come up with?”

Darin felt much the same way. We didn’t watch the miniseries. A few friends told us it was good. I said, “Uh huh.”

During the first season, friends kept saying, “Are you watching? It’s so good.” I was like, Right, I’ve seen the damn ads: they’ve turned the walking-toaster Cylons into hot blonde babe Cylons. It’s a show for adolescent males (which, sadly, still does encompass many of our friends, no matter what their actual sex and age).

One Sunday I even invited Mitch over for dinner and he said he couldn’t. Amongst the reasons? Staying home to watch BG…and he has TiVo.

Okay, okay, we wanted to know what everyone was talking about, so we bought the miniseries and season 1 boxed set. And about six or seven days ago we sat down to watch part 1 of the miniseries.

Tonight we will be watching the final episode of Season 1.

I will say unequivocally: BEST SHOW ON TELEVISION.

I am so sorry I have missed the first half of Season 2. I’m gonna have to buy those DVDs, so I can be ready for the second half, which starts in January.

For those three people out there apparently not watching this yet: Battlestar Galactica is nothing like the one you may have watched as a tot. I did watch it as a young Di. I can’t remember a damn thing about it except the two fighter pilots were Apollo and Starbuck, and Starbuck went on to The A-Team, which led me to my favorite phrase, “Amo conventum instituti,” which of course is Latin for “I love it when a plan comes together.” But I digress.

In this show, the Cylons were robot servants of the humans who became intelligent enough to rebel. The Cylons and humans fight, and then an armistice is declared. No one hears from the Cylons for forty years. Then, on one terrible day, everybody hears from the Cylons, and humanity is almost completely wiped out. The last 50,000 set off to find the mythical “Earth” that their religious legends speak of.

Edward James Olmos is Adama, commander of the almost-retired Battlestar Galactica. Mary McDonnell is the Secretary of Education who unexpectedly finds herself promoted to President of the Colonies when everyone else is wiped out. Apollo is still Adama’s son, only now his name is Lee and his call-sign is Apollo. (Despite the fact that apparently the major religion is the worship of the twelve Greek gods, I don’t think there have been any jokes have been made about how Apollo got that call-sign.) Starbuck is now a woman, the tough (yet blonde) Lt. Thrace.

There’s intrigue. Paranoia. Sexual tension. Sexual intrigue — yes, the Cylons do look human now, including the sexy blonde babe, but she’s not there just for the sex. (One failing of the show is the male Cylons so far have been uniformly kind of scuzzy, whereas the female Cylons are babe-alicious.) The drama is just great, from the excellent sf situations (like in episode “33”), to the tensions and problems between individual characters. And so far every character has done something surprising, something I haven’t expected. And the tensions between the rational and the spiritual (especially between the humans and Cylons — definitely hadn’t expected that!), between humans and robots, between military and civilian, between men and women… So many levels.

Excellent writing. Pretty good acting. (I was less-than-impressed by Jamie Bamber’s (Apollo) acting, until I discovered he’s British. One of the best American accents I’ve heard!)

To give you an idea of how into this show I am, when two characters slept together, I went, “Nooooo!” Darin said, “They’ve been foreshadowing that.” I said, “I know, but…STILL!”

This show is good stuff. I hope they keep it up at this level for a while.

Nota bene: If you haven’t watched any of the show and plan to catch it, definitely see the miniseries first. It not only explains stuff, but there are a few killer surprises in it…one of which is given away every week during the credits of Season 1.