Battlestar Galactica Season 1

Finished up watching Season One of the new Battlestar Galactica this week (DVDs are exclusive to Best Buy until September when there is a genral release). I am awed by it. This is what a science fiction show should be like. Like a lot of great science fiction, this show uses an unreal premise to explore real concerns. The creators have made a realistic science fiction setting. Technology is limited and believable, even the faster-than-light travel is limiting and difficult. The spaceship is dark and cramped. This is no sanitized science fiction: people die and have sex, they eat and drink, they run out of water (no limitless supplies), there are even bathrooms that we see on the ship, and most interestingly the show is heavily involved with issues of politics and religions. The “bad guys”, human made robots/androids that have come back to destroy humans, are monotheists, while the humans polytheists. Religious belief is a frequent issue for many of the characters. Politics is convoluted and causes almost as much trouble (if not more) than the enemies, with a distinct struggle between the military and the rest of the people. There are a ton of characters, and we get a real feel for their strengths and weaknesses. There are no perfect heroes, yet we can see the characters’ flaws and forgive and like them.

I was skeptical about this show at first, considering the pedigree, but any possible expectations were exceeded by a great deal. This is easily up with Deadwood as my favorite ongoing show. Like Deadwood it is very much about creating a society (in this case a society in space of the few remaining humans) and the struggles that ensue within the group even while outside forces are threatening.

It occurred to me today that the show also has a lot in common with one of my other favorites Lost: the isolation, the only partially known enemy (one that sometimes looks like us), the infighting, the struggle for survival and attempts at some kind of social construction while trying to deal with the past.

I strongly recommend this show to anyone. If you can get by the sci-fi premise you’ll love it.

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