After an exceptional 2003 miniseries that was a "re-imagining" of the original from 1978, the new Battlestar Galactica began airing in January 2005 and it was one of the earliest shows I reviewed.
I'm a sucker for good science fiction, and BSG was cutting edge back then – gritty, realistic, with the flavor of 9/11 and the war on terror. BSG gave us the destruction of entire worlds, a woman president (Mary McDonnell), human-looking Cylon clones with fundamentalist religious beliefs, and the mystery of the invisible Number Six (played by the remarkable Tricia Helfer). There were follow-up movies and an unsuccessful spinoff, Caprica.
And yes, after being deeply into it for years, I was both impressed with and disappointed in the somewhat religious ending. That might be why I haven't felt the urge to rewatch.
But I retain affection for BSG and it's been on my site for a long time, even going back to when it was billiedoux.com.
So say we all.
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Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.
BSG remains one of my favorite shows with a tremendous cast of characters and its focus on interpersonal relationships and drama over flashy space battles and strange alien cultures or planets. Its heroes were flawed and made mistakes, sometimes catastrophic ones. And while science fiction is almost unavoidably political to some degree, BSG's willingness to parallel current events such as the US war in Iraq were striking. It's been a big influence on subsequent TV science fiction programs like The Expanse and Star Trek: Discovery.
ReplyDeleteI saw an interesting article recently that argued that BSG was a great example of why sometimes it's better for creators working with established IP's to ignore the fans. Fans of the original hated many aspects of the reimagining, particularly a female Starbuck and human-appearing Cylons. But the show worked on its own terms and earned its own fans rather than depending on fan-service to exploit an existing fanbase.
Another of my favourite shows.
ReplyDeleteAlongside Lost, it changed the way stories were told on TV. Shows like Star Trek, Buffy and Stargate were starting to become more and more serialised, but each episode still mostly stood alone. BSG and Lost had the confidence that you'd tune in every single week, and the expectation that you either kept up or accepted being confused.
The effects of that are still being felt now, and not always for the better, with seasons of TV becoming one long 10 hour movie, but BSG hit the sweet spot in between that allowed for spectacular storytelling.
This was such an amazing show for so long, although I barely remember the last season, which just got...messy?
ReplyDeleteI think I read recently that the network demanded a lot of changes in the last 1-2 seasons, with more standalone episodes or something, and in my opinion that's what made it less appealing to me.
I also didn't love the ending, although in the past 20 years (dear lord how is time like this?!) I've come to care less about the end as a marker of overall quality.
I started watching this in 2006 or so, and I was reading along with your reviews once I caught up! I didn't have cable back then, so I had to wait until the newest episode was available through iTunes. It would take 45 minutes or more to download.
Now that this much time has passed I feel the need to confess. I liked the ending. It was unexpected to go that big and the religious theme was always strong so it didn't feel unexpected. Also, I liked Caprica better than BSG anyway.
ReplyDeleteI've never seen the new one, but loved the original as a kid! I'm not sure I would like the new one to be honest. I had a bunch of the toys and models (both a colonial viper and Cylon raider models were quite nice once put together), and of course that iconic section of the A-Team intro with Dirk Bendict (original Starbuck) and the Cylon!
ReplyDeleteI had no idea there was even a new show until someone mentioned the board game and I was all ;'Oh from that old TV show?' and they looked at me like I was crazy! XD
The new BSG was an intensely heavy, grown-up show and I don't think, other than the basic plot line, that there was anything in the new show that was like the old one. I don't know if that makes it more appealing or less.
Delete@Morello, as I see you're currently watching TNG from your comments, I have a suggestion to figure out whether BSG is for you or not. If DS9 is your favorite Trek, you'll probably love BSG; if it's your least favorite, it may not be your cup of tea. Ronald Moore was an important creative force in BSG and DS9 and the shows share a lot of DNA.
DeleteDS9 was good to be sure, not my favorite Trek (TOS), but not my least favorite either (either Voyager or Enterprise).
DeleteI do think the original was more geared towards a younger audience. Not fully of course, it had some adult themes in it, but largely for older kids from what I remember. I was also a fan of the Buck Rogers show of the time, and then Doctor Who shortly after.
Another one of my favorites, I did a rewatch 9 or so years ago and commented on each episode review I think. S1 is one of my favourite seasons of TV ever, and while it never quite captured the heights of that season, another one that would make a favorite list for me, and probably slightly higher than 19!
ReplyDeleteBaz, this is a completely numerical countdown. These are the 20 shows with the most hits, not my favorites. Although of course, many of them *are* my favorites, or they wouldn't have gotten reviewed. :)
DeleteOoooh shoot, I missed the criteria for the numbering! You should post us your top 20 list at the end to see how it would match up! :)
DeleteBaz, it's a thought. I'll keep it in mind.
DeleteAn absolutely incredible show. One of my faves.
ReplyDeleteI have to confess that I have never watched the original Battlestar Galactica. Should I give it a watch?
ReplyDeleteI *have* watched this newer version of BSG, though I was very late to the party. I didn't watch it when it first came out - I honestly couldn't tell you were it even aired over here in Germany, it's practically unknown by non-scifi nerds here. So I watched it for the first time a few years ago, and the reason was...that I saw Billie Doux had reviewed it! :-D And since Billie had reviewed some of my very favorite shows and seemed to like this one quite a bit as well, I decided to give it a try - and was absolutely not disappointed.
This is a phenomenal, incredibly smart and brave show that has a lot to say about humanity and morality. It was always intriguing and surprising, and very intense a lot of the time, especially for the perfect and tight first season. This is one of those shows, I think, that would have benefited from shorter, 12/13-episode seasons, as the longer seasons (2-4) each had trouble keeping up momentum for a whole 20 episodes. That said, every single season has some fantastic highlights and is worth a watch, including season 4, which I felt was a little underrated.
I was not a huge fan of the series finale myself, though not necessarily because of its religious overtones, which imo were a part of the show from the very start. It's hard to pinpoint, but the ending just...didn't really feel like it fit together well with the rest of the show, I guess?
Nevertheless, that doesn't change for me that this is a brilliant show over all with fantastic acting and writing!
Chris, I am so honored that you tried new BSG because of me. Wow. :)
DeleteI honestly can't tell you about the 1978 BSG because I didn't watch much of it. Can anyone else help?
Oh, it's one of quite a few shows I started watching because of this site :-) I can think of at least three from the top of my head - Veronica Mars and Six Feet Under, for example. And you have a pretty good track record because I loved all of your "recommendations" ;-)
DeleteSo say we all!
ReplyDeleteThis show was such an amazing surprise for me. For several years, I heard the title "Battlestar Galactica" and saw snippets on the SyFy Channel, and just kinda dismissed it. Started watching after I graduated from high school and quickly burned through all of it. So damn good; even the rather flawed final season has some stunning, unforgettable moments. Watching it again a couple years back, with the knowledge that the writers had pretty much no idea where any of it was going, was interesting, given the effort they put into making it seem like they knew where it was going the whole time.
> with the knowledge that the writers had pretty much no idea where any of it was going
ReplyDeleteWow, really? I didn't know. Like you said, it seemed like they knew where they were going.
I really should go back to watching this show. To this day I'm not sure why I dropped it.