So, during lockdown I’ve finally gotten around to watching the new Battlestar Galactica. I’m not sure if the word “new” really applies anymore. I mean, it aired between something like 2003-2009 with a couple of specials thereafter, so It ended over a decade ago as of this writing. That said, since I’m old enough to remember seeing first run episodes of the original Battlestar Galactica, I guess the new one will always be the new one unless, for some reason, the entertainment industry decides to give us an even newer version, at which point I suppose they will go “original”, “second” “and new”.
I wasn’t a big fan of the original Battlestar Galactica. It seemed to me like it was just ripping off Star Wars style special effects in order to get those of us who were Star Wars fanatics to watch their TV show. I’ve also tried to avoid TV shows whose premise involves some sort of ongoing specific goal that we know is never going to be achieved because, that’s all they’ve got. If they achieve the goal, there’s no more show. It seemed to me that shows like that eventually got cancelled or went off the air and often without enough notice to wrap it up, so, I just assumed the human race of the Galactica universe would spend the rest of eternity searching space for Earth and never finding it. In practice however, I could actually enjoy shows like that. Lost in Space for example. While the goal was to get home, the real premise of the show was the Robinson family surviving in space week by week. So, I didn’t automatically dislike Galactica for those reasons and happily, it was actually a show that wrapped it up. They made it to Earth and spawned a new show about defending earth from the Cylons. In any event, I didn’t go out of my way to watch the show. I was a teenager with better things to do than watch TV, so, if I happened to be free and it was on, I watched it but I didn’t make a point of it. It wasn’t that bad for the times. The episodes that I saw I mostly enjoyed. I particularly liked the appearances by John Colicos who played Count Baltar (although I liked him better as the Klingon commander Kor on Star Trek and Deep Space 9 and as Mikos Cassadine on General Hospital.) There were some things I disliked, like, the little kid and the robot dog. After it was gone from the air, I didn’t miss it and didn’t think about it again. I did know some kids who were younger than me who absolutely loved it, if only for the fighter ships shooting down their launch area out of the Galactica and into space and then the space battles. You know, the parts ripped off from Star Wars.
I love the new Battlestar Galactica. I love it from top to bottom. I love how sexy it is, filled with beautiful people with beautiful bodies who show them off. Filled with Nuclear War, killer robots, immortals with mini hive minds. Biological artificial life forms who wish they could be mechanical so they could have broader perceptions; “I want to hear X-rays” and of course heroes. When it comes to science fiction and horror, I want things that spark imagination, that send me on a journey into my imagination where I go above and beyond what they gave me. The biological Cylons give me that. It makes me re-think what life, biology and the mind are capable of. I love that. The repeating cycle of human vs machine and the rise of biological machine also does that. The heroism is truly spectacular. Here’s a group of people who’s number one goal must be survival, and yet, to focus them and lesson the effect of despair that living day after day, merely surviving and struggling to survive again tomorrow, their leaders give them a quest to fire their passions and give them hope. The heroes are human and flawed but driven by ideals. Those ideals even bring them into conflict with each other but they don’t give up. They can be driven apart by their ideals and brought together with their ideals. Some sacrifice them, others compromise them, others stay true to them. This show has it all. The greatest compliment that I can give is that I’ve added it to my permanent collection to watch over and over again. Entertaining, thought provoking. I love it.
