I recently asked a friend if she had watched Battlestar Galactica (the reboot). She replied, "No, I don't really watch scifi." After smacking her repeatedly about the head and shoulders, I grabbed the opportunity to express how much she'd love the show, and how much it really isn't scifi. Let's take advantage of this moment to redefine the Battlestar Galactica reboot as a drama that just happens to take place in space. (I love my scifi, but I know what needs to be done to bring it to the mainstream.)
For the reboot, in addition to wiping out most of the campiness, the writers cleverly scrubbed the more science-fictiony elements from the show. In the original series, the cylons were part of an alien race. These aliens didn't exist in the reboot. People created cylons, who then created more of themselves. The original show focused on fighting cylons and finding the occasional alien life form on the planets they passed. The reboot maintains focus on fighting cylons, with the aliens completely gone, replaced by a surprising depth of characters and stories that focus on the issues of trying to hold together the remnants of humanity and make decisions that are in the best interest of the very different groups that make up this new society. There's political intrigue, military action, radicals on both ends of the spectrum and, in one of the many notable episodes, there are terrorists - suicide bombers - who represent the 'good guys.' All of these story elements could happen in any setting - it's incidental that they're happening in outer space. The cylons, many of whom look human, could be any standard wartime enemy.
After having this conversation, I went back and watched the pilot for the show. The production values are outstanding (surprising when you remember that this aired on the channel formerly known as SciFi) and the acting is amazing. It speaks volumes for the quality of the show when you realize that they landed Edward James Olmos and Mary McDonnell for two of the leads. The story involves the return of the Cylons after a number of years without contact. Their return marks the end of the human colonies which fall under the cylon attack.
The pilot is laden with all the exposition that you would expect, but the writers recognize that we are intelligent enough to figure out the people and the plot without having everything spelled out (another surprise, considering the source channel). The characters on the original show were campy - there were heroic good guys and evil bad guys, but not a real depth to anyone. The re-imagined characters are so much more...well, human. There are flashes of brilliance and nobility and there are moments of sheer, cringe-worthy stupidity. And you may see the entire spectrum from the same character. In fact, there is more than one example of a character who seems either incredibly heroic or incredibly weak coming full circle over the course of a season. One main character - who I despised for his weakness - became a favorite by the end of the series. The pilot, alone, depicts the best and worst of humans. We see society collapse and witness all the desperation, terror and resignation that accompanies this - people at their best and worst. Even the smallest characters have importance. We see a small girl, on her way to meet her parents, who has no idea that the world as she knows it has ended. Later, we watch the same girl play with her doll, unaware of the cylon missiles that are behind her, about to destroy the ship she's traveling on. We watch friends reunited after the colonies are destroyed and we see the silent despair of others who are unable to find their loved ones.
Now, I will be one of the first to admit that the finale of the show was a bit of a let-down but, in this case, it is the journey that's important, not the destination. Overlooking the issues that the finale presents, it does provide satisfactory resolution for the overall story. And it's the story that is the important thing here, throughout the entire series. The writers remain true to the story and the characters in a way that is rarely maintained over multiple seasons. Everyone should watch the pilot and the first two or three episodes before dismissing the show as standard scifi.
