Thanks to DVD and iTunes, I’ve been able to take part in the phenomenal joy of the Sci-Fi channel’s Battlestar Galactica without suffering the venal claptrap of network television. Many people have touted the strengths of this exquisitely crafted show, and for those of us who grew up on the new Galactica’s cheesy 70s progenitor, it’s a vindication of the most comfortable kind.
What the original series with Lorne Greene, Richard Hatch, and Dirk Benedict had going for it was a fascinating storyline — the decimation of the human species in a galaxy far far away by cybernetic uber-villains, the Cylons. In those days, the Cylons were actors in shiny plastic outfits, poor and obvious facsimiles of George Lucas’ stormtroopers. The acting was terrible, the plots often juvenile and underdeveloped. It was a showcase for Hatch and Benedict’s velour-clad asses, with liberal doses of Lorne Greene looking official and paternal. The special effects were state of the art for TV at that time and still hold up well — when completely divorced from bad scripts. And the Galactica itself was a coup of sci-fi industrial design — a gigantic, hideously unattractive warship that managed despite its design to be a sublime character in its own right. It was the centerpiece of a what is now a cliche: the rag tag fleet of ships carrying the remnants of humanity in their quest for Earth, the lost thirteenth colony.
What’s so delicious about the new Battlestar Galactica is its drop-dead seriousness. It refuses to cater to the horrible kiddie demographic by giving us cutesy sci-fi characters, a syndrome that always marred the far weaker Farscape. It manages to be sexy, provocative, politically and dramatically complex without sacrificing the sense of grand galactic peril and space adventure you expect of such a tale.
In Edward James Olmos and Mary McDonnell, we’re given two classy veteran character actors who invest their roles with such grace and dignity, you would think they’d been born to play their parts. The supporting cast is uniformly brilliant, alternately bitchy, selfish, explosive, and noble.
The effects are as good as you’d expect from a limited-budget TV show. Light years better than Babylon 5 or Farscape, and far more realistic and interesting than Star Trek. This is a dark, decidedly unshiny future these survivors inhabit, but it’s never grim just to be grim.
Show creator Ronald D. Moore knows a thing or two about TV sci-fi. He’s the guy, who in his twenties, wrote many of the best episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, plus the screenplay for Star Trek: First Contact. He then went on to do TV’s Roswell and Carnivale before, at age 40, finding his stride with Battlestar Galactica. I have to wonder if the standalone, episodic nature of Star Trek drove him bananas, since his approach on Galactica is quite the opposite: long, involved story arcs whose treasures reveal themselves in both subtle and shocking ways over the course of an entire season. The way good drama should unfold.