A Phrase I Thought I’d Never Use

Battlestar Galactica is the best show on television.

There, I said it.

As the incomparable James Lileks notes:

Anyway. The new series has not yet broadcast here in the states, but it’s coming. Bottom line: Yes. Yes, indeed. It’s very good. Even the Courtney-Love-as-Starbuck thing works. The slogan for the show: “The World is Over.” And that’s exactly how it feels. The show has a pervasive ache to its tone and timbre, and I applaud all involved.

I would agree, and my review of the series is the extended entry. Those who want to go into the series with virgin eyes can skip on, but if you’re at all interested in some of the best writing in TV today, this January the Sci-Fi channel will have it. The intrepid can read on:

Battlestar Galactica takes on the original premise of the 1970’s schlock-fest: the robotic Cylons destroy the Twelve Colonies of Kobol, and a rag-tag fleet of less than 50,000 people are forced to stay on the run to survive. The original series basically ignored this plotline, and turned it into another planet-of-the-week show.

The 2004 version takes that basic plotline and puts it into gritty reality. The first episode entitled 33 finds the crew on the run from the Cylons. They jump to a new system, and 33 minutes later, the Cylons arrive and attack them, forcing them to stay on the move constantly. At the start of the episode, the entire fleet has been doing this for 150 hours. Every character shows the signs of wear and strain. They’re dirty, snapping at each other, and real. The cinema verité style of the series perfectly meshes with the gritty sets and taut plotting. Even the space scenes are designed to look as though they are handheld camera shots, a technique similar to the FX work for the late, great Firefly. (The same FX studio did both series.)

What makes Battlestar Galactica so incredible isn’t the excellent production design or the state-of-the-art special effects. It’s the characters. Edward James Olmos brings a sense of command, gravitas and depth to the role of Commander Adama. His work in this series is of Emmy caliber. He plays the most convincing spaceship captain in SF TV. He isn’t some perfect commander like Star Trek‘s Captain Picard, he snaps at his crew, he gets emotional, he makes mistakes, but he is fiercely loyal to his crew.

His supporting cast is equally excellent from Mary McDonnell as President Laura Roslin (the former Education Minister who assumes the Presidency when the Colonies are wiped out by the Cylons), Katee Sackhoff as the rogue pilot Kara “Starbuck” Thrace (the change in Starbuck’s gender being one of the most controversial aspect of Ronald D. Moore’s reimagination of the series), and Jamie Bamber as Adama’s son Lee “Apollo” Adama. Even former model Tricia Helfer’s Cylon Number Six gets to show some dramatic range. Her character isn’t there for mere sex appeal, and the way in which she haunts Dr. Gaius Baltar (James Callis) isn’t erotic as much as is unnerving. Unlike Star Trek: Enterprise, each member of the cast has something to do and gets some meaty dramatic moments. Not a character is wasted.

And it is the fact that Moore has focused so tightly on the characters that makes Battlestar Galactica such a masterwork of SF TV. One episode deals with the guilt Starbuck feels for an incident that led to the death of her fiancé — Commander Adama’s son Zach. She confesses to Adama that she passed him from basic flight because of her relationship with him. After that moment, Starbuck’s character is forever changed. She goes from being a rather arrogant character to someone with real depth. Sackhoff plays this moment perfectly, and it is one of those moments that makes Galactica so powerful. Moore isn’t afraid of pushing the envelope and constantly reminding the audience that the “rag-tag” fleet that is all that is left of humanity is under constant threat.

Battlestar Galactica is a gritty, realistic, and dark show that doesn’t engage in the kind of stereotypical space opera cliche that its progenitor did. Everything about the show is expertly realized, from the production design to the special effects to the acting. Sci-Fi has made some mistakes along the way, but it’s nice to know that they’re aiming for something better than crappy monster movies with their original productions. Battlestar Galactica is what SF is all about – taking an incredible concept and finding the human core within the story – and this new series does that brilliantly.

Battlestar Galactica airs Friday nights starting in January on the Sci-Fi Channel.