Battlestar Galactica: The Miniseries

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Since there are no new Battlestar Galactica episodes for quite some time, I’m going to do something rather obsessive: revisit all of Season 1 and 2 and write a post about each episode. So here’s the first post in the series regarding the Battlestar Galactica miniseries.

The miniseries aired on the Sci Fi channel back in 2003 and was advertised as a “reimagining” - not a sequel to the original Battlestar Galactica but a “reboot” which has become increasingly common these days (Batman Begins, Superman Returns). At the time, the casting decisions were considered rather jarring and possibly offensive, namely casting a hot blonde as a Cylon and Boomer and Starbuck as women. Now, however, these complaints seem rather petty as in almost every way, the new Battlestar Galactica is a vast improvement over the original 1970s television series.

The four part miniseries essentially parallels the original Battlestar Galactica movie, which has a great concept at its core: the human race is blown to heck by robot Cylons, forcing them to evacuate and travel through deep space to a mythical planet Earth. The Cylons were created by the humans long ago, and lastly, it’s ambiguous whether the humans of the Battlestar Galactica fleet are in our future or our past.

The miniseries begins with text explaining how the humans created the Cylons, the Cylons and humans fought a war against each other, and a long period of peace ensued. When Number 6 shows up, indicating that the peace has been broken. Meanwhile the Galactica is about to be decommissioned and put into a museum. We soon meet Adama and his XO (Tigh). Suddenly, the attack begins. We learn that the Galactica, due to its age, was able to survive the technological jamming of the rest of the fleet. All the colonies are presumed destroyed, but a few ships and survivors remain.

At this point, the main characters are Commander Adama, his estranged pilot son Lee, the gruff, alcoholic XO Tigh, the accidental president Laura Roslin, rebellious pilot Starbuck, dutiful Chief and Sharon, nutty brainiac Baltar, and other random characters who will be more fleshed out in future episodes.

On reviewing the miniseries after all that has transpired, it’s striking that while the cast appears so fresh and new in their roles, with no idea what sort of ride they’ll be on the for the next two years. Tigh shows none of his doomsday darkness, Baltar is confused but generally likable, and Adama doesn’t bear stress or the heavy responsibility of shepherding the future of the human race. But the essence of each character is surprisingly solid during these first hours.

Seeing the miniseries again after all that has come afterwards makes for some amusing moments. The Kevin Spacey look-alike Cylon spends most of the miniseries running around as a president’s aide and at press conferences, with no indication that he’s on the other side.

Some moments still seem a bit ridiculous. I never really liked how Adama ended up stuck with the one Cylon on the outpost and had to do him in. Second, the soap opera-y aspects of Sharon and Chief and Dualla and Billy are still pretty cheesy.

One character that still impresses me is Number 6, most notably how she wheedles her way into Baltar’s good graces, showing a careful balance of sinister and sex appeal. There’s one scene where she snaps the head of the baby in public that is quite shocking, yet the way she walks away sums up conflicting emotions: the Cylons hate humans but are simultaneously fascinated by these ridiculous flesh and blood creatures that literally are their makers.

Watching the miniseries on DVD allows for the added treat of a commentary track by the producers. There, Battlestar Galactica is referred to as “naturalistic science fiction” meaning it’s not “space opera”. The producer specifically mentions how these humans exist in a world similar to ours: there’s a president, military, people walk around in suits and ties, and use guns and nukes. The idea is that too much science fiction has artifice, where people are distracted by some chair that looks like a sea urchin or a blue hairstyle that shoots lasers. The idea was to remove all of this nutty stuff and focus on the drama. A good example is how Caprica is “nuked” by the Cylons. Since we are familiar with nuclear holocaust, the threat is more palpable than if Caprica were destroyed by a “positronic heat ray.” This naturalistic approach saves a lot of explanation time so the show can jump right into the drama.

All in all, I feel the miniseries starts off a bit slow (at most tedious is a strange West Wing in space), but near the end when the fleet must escape from a nebula with base stars raining down probable death, it’s pretty cool. Then the end has its own big reveal: The Kevin Spacey look-alike, Leoben, and Sharon are revealed to be Cylons. With these two attention grabbing moments, I was hooked.

Next Episode: 33

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