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Galactica
June 13 2008 20:09 Filed in:
Television
Like all shows, with each passing episode and season, a group of fans declare that the show is dead, ruined and downhill. Galactica is no different from any other, but in my eyes, the program has progressively gotten better with each passing year. The mini-series was some outstanding television, but now long forgotten amidst a tapestry of rich characters and storylines that suck the viewer in more like a soap opera than sci-fi entertainment. Season 4 will reach it’s mid-point tonight, and for one and excited as hell.
Many fans thought Ron Moore was insane
at the end of Season 2. Jumping ahead a year and seemingly
drastically changing the format of the program in one momentous
brush stroke. If there was any fault, it was that the show had
reverted back to it’s original format within a few episodes of the
the start of season 3.
By the end of Season 3, he tried to up the ante again as he built the story up to a revelation of startling proportions with of 4 of the final 5 cylons turning out to be long standing characters in the series. Like the way he takes the show or not, Moore has balls the size of watermelons, loving to stop the story on a dime and completey take things in radically different directions than we could have expected.
For me, season 4 is working. It was a risk to take 4 of the series’ established characters and transform their nature. Not only was it unexpected, but these are some of the characters that we were wanting to find Earth for...now we had to ask the question about whether they can complete the journey in spite of them.
Another of the interesting themes of the series as a whole is the monotheistic vs polytheistic religious views of the two opposing factions. When they first announced the reworking of Battlestar Galactica from it’s foundation in the 70s, I groaned to myself and refused to watch the mini-series. It was an interesting concept in 1978, and I ate it up as an 8-year old kid, but ultimately, Star Wars era TV sci-fi took a lot of great concepts and turned them into cheese...almost as cringeworthy then as it is watching it in retrospect.
Now here I am 4 years later giddy at the prospect of Friday nights. Who would have thought that this program who’s humble beginnings 30 years ago were about evil robots trying to kill a bunch of cape-wearing overly dramatic humans would end up becoming about holy war between warring religious factions, genetics and philosiphy?
As the series has progressed, the lines between the good and the bad has blurred. Now as season 4 reaches it’s mid-season “finale” tonight the lines between the humans and cylons as the “good” or “bad” guys are no longer blurred, they’ve been completely erased, and now we simply have two different civilizations struggling through distrust and philosophical differences to attain the same goal. There are characters from both sides that we cheer for and some we hate. And those can change from week to week.
Series 4 started with a bang with one of the grandest and most incredible space battle sequences ever produced for the small screen. As we’ve gotten through 9 episodes, Moore has done everything he has to do to bring this thing to a close. Above all, we have to remember that all religion, philosiphy and science aside, this series is driven by it’s characters. The premises from day one was to portray a group of ordinary people caught in extraordinary circumstances and facing enormous adversity. Through this journey we have seen most of these characters change, in some cases transform drastically while never betraying the character’s roots. Meanwhile, though, it’s wrapped around a pretty damned intriguing story line.
By the end of Season 3, he tried to up the ante again as he built the story up to a revelation of startling proportions with of 4 of the final 5 cylons turning out to be long standing characters in the series. Like the way he takes the show or not, Moore has balls the size of watermelons, loving to stop the story on a dime and completey take things in radically different directions than we could have expected.
For me, season 4 is working. It was a risk to take 4 of the series’ established characters and transform their nature. Not only was it unexpected, but these are some of the characters that we were wanting to find Earth for...now we had to ask the question about whether they can complete the journey in spite of them.
Another of the interesting themes of the series as a whole is the monotheistic vs polytheistic religious views of the two opposing factions. When they first announced the reworking of Battlestar Galactica from it’s foundation in the 70s, I groaned to myself and refused to watch the mini-series. It was an interesting concept in 1978, and I ate it up as an 8-year old kid, but ultimately, Star Wars era TV sci-fi took a lot of great concepts and turned them into cheese...almost as cringeworthy then as it is watching it in retrospect.
Now here I am 4 years later giddy at the prospect of Friday nights. Who would have thought that this program who’s humble beginnings 30 years ago were about evil robots trying to kill a bunch of cape-wearing overly dramatic humans would end up becoming about holy war between warring religious factions, genetics and philosiphy?
As the series has progressed, the lines between the good and the bad has blurred. Now as season 4 reaches it’s mid-season “finale” tonight the lines between the humans and cylons as the “good” or “bad” guys are no longer blurred, they’ve been completely erased, and now we simply have two different civilizations struggling through distrust and philosophical differences to attain the same goal. There are characters from both sides that we cheer for and some we hate. And those can change from week to week.
Series 4 started with a bang with one of the grandest and most incredible space battle sequences ever produced for the small screen. As we’ve gotten through 9 episodes, Moore has done everything he has to do to bring this thing to a close. Above all, we have to remember that all religion, philosiphy and science aside, this series is driven by it’s characters. The premises from day one was to portray a group of ordinary people caught in extraordinary circumstances and facing enormous adversity. Through this journey we have seen most of these characters change, in some cases transform drastically while never betraying the character’s roots. Meanwhile, though, it’s wrapped around a pretty damned intriguing story line.