Battlestar Galactica - TV Review

Let's cut right to the chase - with Lost and Arrested Development currently on summer vacation, the best show on television is not only on Friday nights (traditionally, a television wasteland), and not only a sci-fi series (a genre gone stale over the last few years), but it's called Battlestar Galactica. A sci-fi remake on a cable channel is the best thing currently on TV? Trust me, I'm as shocked as you are.

When the first season (after the mini-series) debuted earlier this year, I was stunned at its quality, filled with richly drawn characters, complicated themes, and incredible drama (the 10th episode, "The Hand of God" is still the tensest hour of television so far this year). Well, if I was stunned at first, imagine my dismay, as the show kept getting better. Now, back for another season of episodes, starting July 15th, Battlestar Galactica seems on the verge of a cultural explosion as the word of mouth becomes deafening. Jump on the band-spaceship now.

"Scattered" picks up immediately where season one ended, with Captain Adama (Olmos) shot, the President (McDonnell) in jail, Starbuck (Sackhoff) on Caprica, Tigh (Hogan) in charge of the ship, and the crew of Raptor One stuck on Kobol. In other words, the title of the episode is literal, as all of the characters are off on their own adventures. Sound complicated? It is. Battlestar Galactica, perhaps more than any other show on television, requires rapt attention just to follow the plot of one episode, much less to grasp some of the deeper, philosophical underpinnings of the entire arc of the show. My biggest concern/complaint is that picking it up at this point without having seen an episode before, with a dozen characters already spinning in motion across the universe, may be near impossible for new fans. If you're one of those fans who haven't warp jumped on board, all I can say is stick with it. It may seem a little confusing now (I've seen every episode and I had trouble picking up at the same speed we ended last season with) but, in a short while, I think you'll understand it all.

The main reason to watch Battlestar, besides the excellent ensemble, is that it separates itself from the traps of its genre by being about so much more than aliens and warp drives. At its core, the show is about classical human drama from father-son relationships to mortality to belief in free will. I'm as shocked as anyone that the deepest show on television right now is a sci-fi remake but there's no getting around the issues of philosophical identity that creator Ronald D. Moore is addressing brilliantly week in and week out. Like the best sci-fi writers, he uses a fantastic setting to address completely relatable issues.

With recent articles all over the net and in major magazines, people are starting to talk about Battlestar Galactica. I know that a sci-fi remake on Friday nights is not an easy sell but anyone who commits to this show for a couple of weeks will be hooked. If you've never become addicted to a sci-fi series (and, before this, I hadn't since The Next Generation), give this one a shot. As in all great TV, it's not about the genre, it's about the writing. The best TV lately has spun unpredictable concepts like a mobster family man (The Sopranos) or a group of depressive undertakers (Six Feet Under) and proven that dramatic gold can be found anywhere, even in a sci-fi remake.