In the event you needed to assemble a time capsule of late Nineteen Seventies popular culture, the unique “Battlestar Galactica” can be a very good place to begin. Not solely was it an unashamed try and money in on the record-breaking success of “Star Wars” — to the extent that George Lucas’s legal professionals wrote some very offended letters — the disco stylings of Glen A. Larson’s big-budget TV house opera tie it to a really particular time in historical past.
The present’s healthful household values, robotic canine, and kitschy, “Saturday Evening Fever”-esque fashions at all times jarred with the grim premise at its coronary heart, because the final remnants of humanity went on the run from a race of offended robots generally known as Cylons. However regardless that the costly, effects-heavy present was dropped after a single season — and the much less mentioned about forgettable Earth-based spin-off “Galactica 1980” the higher — it at all times felt like an idea worthy of additional exploration.
Even so, few would have predicted that reimaginers-in-chief Ronald D Moore and David Eick may flip “BSG” 2.0 into probably the most ground-breaking and most critically adored TV sequence of the twenty first century — one which mentioned much more in regards to the early ’00s than its predecessor had in regards to the ’70s.
A lot as it’s now, turn-of-the-millennium house opera was dominated by two different veteran franchises with “star” within the title. Within the “Wars” nook, George Lucas’s prequel trilogy was incomes huge bucks on the field workplace, but struggling to impress both critics or an older era of followers pining for Han Solo. “Trek”, in the meantime, was limping in direction of the tip of 18 steady years on TV, with “Enterprise” its sole remaining consultant on the ultimate frontier.
The rebooted “Battlestar Galactica” had little in frequent with both. Positive, the mini-series (primarily an prolonged pilot) that debuted in late 2003 featured spaceships-a-plenty, synthetic lifeforms, and narratively handy applied sciences to facilitate faster-than-light journey. However in most different regards this was much less “galaxy far, far-off” than planet Earth relocated to outer house, warts and all.
The residents of the 12 Colonies of Kobol dressed like us, squabbled like us, and — except for utilizing “frak” rather than a extra R-rated F-word — largely talked like us too. Touring by means of the cosmos was onerous work, Viper spacecraft fired bullets quite than lasers, and even the present’s hot-shot fighter pilots have been relatably, typically spectacularly, flawed.
In the meantime, “Battlestar Galactica”‘s well-known robotic antagonists, the Cylons, had been given an improve to appear like people, whereas Baltar (aka the man who offered out humanity to the machines) was much less a mustache-twirling traitor than an unwitting pawn. One man’s vainness and incapability to appreciate that his lovely girlfriend was enjoying him in the end triggered the downfall of a complete civilization.
Had Sci Fi (as Syfy was recognized on the time) referred to as it a day after the mini-series, the reboot would have been fondly (if modestly) remembered — not least for a remaining body reveal by which pilot Sharon “Boomer” Valerii turned out to be an unwitting Cylon sleeper agent. But it surely was with “33”, the primary episode correct (which debuted within the US on January 14, 2005), that “BSG” set out its stall as a present for the ages.
The distinction with the unique sequence’ opening episodes could not have been starker. When Lorne Greene, Richard Hatch, Dirk Benedict, and the remainder of their ragtag fugitive fleet fled the Cylon tyranny, one among their first ports of name was the pleasure planet of Carillon for a spot of R&R. There was no such respite in “33”, nevertheless, because the Cylons tracked down the Colonials, like clockwork, each 33 minutes for days on finish. With the crew working on fumes, it was an intense, bruising hour of TV, by which characters made errors, and selections that might value the lives of 1000’s have been taken in seconds.
It nonetheless ranks among the many best episodes of sci-fi TV in historical past, and marked the beginning of two-and-a-bit imperious (leader?) seasons of best-in-class viewing. And regardless that the present would later lose some momentum — taking misguided turns into extra non secular territory alongside the way in which — its fame had already been lengthy assured. Not even a divisive ending that borrowed a shocking quantity from “The Hitchhiker’s Information to the Galaxy” may alter that.
A lot of what made “Battlestar Galactica” nice was a pushback in opposition to “Star Trek”. Moore had been one of many mainstays of the “Subsequent Technology” and “Deep Area 9” writers’ rooms, however had turn out to be more and more annoyed at long-standing edicts (nonetheless largely in place after “Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry’s dying in 1991) that Starfleet vessels needs to be conflict-free and an HR supervisor’s dream come true.
There have been no such restrictions in “BSG”, the place self-interested people steadily posed as a lot menace to one another because the Cylons on their tail. And in an actual world nonetheless coming to phrases with 9/11 and George W Bush’s subsequent “Struggle on Terror”, “Battlestar Galactica” dared to ask troublesome questions that almost all Earthbound dramas have been nonetheless leaving nicely alone. Who are you able to belief if anybody in your ship might be the enemy? Is torture ever acceptable? And what if the suicide bombers are the nominal “good” guys? “BSG” might have been set gentle years from Earth, but it surely nonetheless tackled weighty themes with nuance and loads of ethical shades of gray.
In addition to reflecting the advanced political panorama of the period, “Battlestar Galactica” was on the forefront of an explosion of high quality serialized TV, steadily talked about in the identical breath as feted contemporaries reminiscent of “The Sopranos” and “The Wire”. The distinction, after all, was that it hailed from a style that had too usually been dismissed as inferior. However, as Time journal so memorably put it when “BSG” topped its listing of the very best TV reveals of 2005: “Most of you most likely assume this entry has received to be a joke. The remainder of you have got really watched the present.”
Whereas “BSG” did not in the end result in a significant renaissance of TV house opera (its rankings have been not often as huge because the plaudits), it is undoubtedly been a significant affect on the Photo voltaic System-set “The Expanse“, and — in an intriguing suggestions loop — the “Star Trek” reveals that got here later. Certainly, of their bleaker, swearier moments, there have been instances when “Discovery” and “Picard” have each seemed like they’re attempting to stay their finest “BSG” lives.
And the potential of yet one more reboot stays, as Common appears to have a minimum of one potential “BSG” venture in growth more often than not. Because the characters within the present are so fond of claiming, “All this has occurred earlier than and can occur once more”. The query is, can “BSG” 3.0 — if it ever involves fruition — stay as much as the legacy of probably the greatest sci-fi TV reveals of the twenty first century?
“Battlestar Galactica” is on the market to stream on Prime Video within the US.
