Battlestar Galactica (2004) - Frakkin' Amazing And Not Just SciFi

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.

The Robinsons: Lost in Space (and in a drawer somewhere...)

I recently came across the unaired pilot for a proposed reinterpretation of the classic 1965 series Lost in Space called The Robinsons: Lost in Space, and I finally sat down to watch it this morning.  (Go visit IMDb, here, for more info) I went into it with limited expectations, which helped me get through the first 30 minutes of clunky exposition and teen angst.  It wasn't until I had already started watching that I looked up anything about the show. My first concern was trying to find out why Penny Robinson was replaced by an older sibling named David. The answer was pretty clear when, at the end of the pilot, (Here there be spoilers! Highlight ahead to view...) David was either killed or taken hostage by attacking aliens. Wrong though it may be, it's more acceptable culturally and easier to watch a male get killed/captured.  Anyhow, in the process of my investigation, I learned that the pilot was directed by John Woo, explaining the slick look (other than some of the missing effects that were never added because the series wasn't picked up), and written by Douglas Petrie, from the Joss Whedon brain-trust, explaining why, despite the initial clunkiness, the pilot was able to hold my attention.

So, we have the Robinson parents, who are not changed to the point that they aren't recognizable, and Will Robinson, who is pretty much the same brainy kid.  The remainder of the cast illustrates the departure from the plot of the original show, which is why I'm referring to this as a reinterpretation rather than a remake. First, there is no sign of Dr. Smith in the pilot.  There's no sabotage and, when we briefly see it, the robot is a creation of Will's, designed to protect him from bullies at school.  Judy appears to be a 19 or 20 year old girl (returning to canon,  after Heather Graham played an older version in the 1998 movie).  Instead of aging Judy, this production chooses to make Don West younger, reducing the age difference in order to focus on the romance that was prominent in the movie but never developed in the original series.  Unfortunately, Mike Erwin, who was 26 at the time, looks like a high school kid and just isn't believable as a seasoned military pilot.  So, that leaves Penny who, as mentioned above, is rewritten as a boy and renamed David.  It's not clear to me whether he's the oldest sibling, a year or two younger than Judy, or maybe Judy's twin. (I like to think twin because they get along far better than a pair of teenaged siblings ever should.)  Penny is just gone, unless the random baby that Maureen (Mom Robinson) is schlepping around through the later half of the show happens to be named Penny...

So, I have a pet peeve with remakes that pretend that they are the same as the original but then make random changes for no apparent reason.  This extends to television shows being remade, TV shows that are turned into movies, movies turned into TV shows, and books made into movies.  I don't think that I'm unreasonable about this.  If the changes make sense in the context of the show then, hey, awesome. (The Battlestar Galactica reboot is an example.  I loved Dirk Benedict in the original, but the whole 'Starbuck is a girl!' really added to the Apollo/Starbuck dynamic.)  However, if you change character names for no apparent reason or make gigantic changes to the main plot that turn it into a completely different story, well... change the name of your final product. (For example, the Angels & Demons movie should have been renamed to "A Very Loose Interpretation of Angels & Demons That Eliminates Major Plot Points And Is Unquestionably Inferior, But Could Have Been An Acceptable Summer Movie If It Had A Different Title.")

Oops, I digressed.  The point that I was tap dancing around like an over-caffeinated squirrel is that, in spite of some crazy plot changes, this show actually worked.  The Robinsons are not alone on the Jupiter 2 initially, and they aren't in charge of the trip to colonize another planet.  They are part of a group of civilian colonists.  Dr Smith and Robot - and the whole sabotage plot - are replaced by an alien attack on the "main ship".  In the process of evacuating, the Robinsons and Don West find themselves on the Jupiter 2.  Yes, a main character was completely reconceived but, as noted above, it makes sense with the plot.

So, if you happen to stumble across the unaired pilot for The Robinsons: Lost in Space, I wouldn't discourage you from watching it. (Unless you have a serious problem with cliffhangers because, let's face it, we're never finding out how it ends.)