My Favourite TV: Battlestar Galactica – The Mini-Series (2003)

When I first heard that they were remaking (reimaging I suppose) Battlestar Galactica [BSG] I just couldn’t stop laughing. What on earth, I thought, possessed anyone to remake such a truly awful show? I mean, I know that the original series is still popular with a certain crowd but personally I don’t have good memories of it. OK at times it was just about watchable but generally it was badly written, badly acted late 1970’s camp.

Then I saw the first trailers and I thought, oh, this looks different and somewhat interesting. I liked the space scenes (largely silent) and the fact that they used guns and missiles instead of lasers. Then I saw a bit more and I was hooked. It was dark, broody and very, very modern. No camp here. So I sat down and watched what turned out to be the initial mini-series of 4 episodes. Against all of my expectations it quite simply blew me away.

I was, almost from minute one, impressed with the acting talent, the acting itself, the way it was filmed (and just the SFX) and the script. Set 40 years after the first series the initial focus was on the decommissioning of the last of the original Battlestars – essentially space capable ‘aircraft’ carriers – that had fought in the first Cylon War. Coincidentally the Cylons have decided to finish the job they started decades ago with a combination sneak attack and a widespread infiltration of human society with 8 variations of Cylon almost indistinguishable from humanity itself. As you might imagine, if you don’t already know, the attack on the 12 Colonies goes with predictable machine efficiency and humanity is almost wiped out in a single short blow. Except for a ‘rag-tag fleet’ cobbled together by the new President – 43rd or 46th in line to the position. Of course the Commander and crew of the only surviving Battlestar want to ‘get back in the fight’ but, as the President keeps reminding them they’ve already lost and right now need to ‘start having babies’ if humanity has any chance at all of survival. So they do the only thing they can do – run. But where and how far? Then the Commander pulls a rabbit out of the hat to give everyone the one thing they no longer have – hope. Hope of a refuge, hope of a new home. A place called Earth.

I read somewhere that the mini-series and the later episodes where distinctly different and I can see why. It seemed that the mini-series was a kind of half-way house between the original and the new. Reference to the original series from the fighter design (beautiful by the way) to the fly-by theme, to the child Boxey (fortunately without robot dog and for only one episode never to be mentioned again) and, of course the names of the characters – thought interestingly Apollo is now a call-sign rather than a name as such (nicely commented upon when the President said that Apollo had ‘a nice ring to it). Then, thankfully, there were many, many differences. Probably the most striking (and seemingly most controversial) was the casting of women in roles previously held by men. For one thing – it being the 21st century now – we have female fighter pilots exemplified by ‘Starbuck’ played by the superb Katee Sackhoff. ‘Boomer’ is also a girl played by Grace Park (incidentally who is having an affair with the engineering crew chief against regulations). Then we have the XO played by Michael Hogan who is a drunk, Commander Odama played by the also superb Edward James Olmos who is still coming to terms with his son’s death in flight school, his other son ‘Apollo’ played by Jamie Bamber who blames his father for his brother’s death whilst secretly wanting to take his place in the bed of his girlfriend who just happens to be Starbuck and then we have the new President played by the great Mary McDonnell who is completely out of her depth and who has just been told she has terminal cancer.…. So, you can see how it’s VERY different from the almost cosy 70’s version. Needless to say, as the series roll on, it gets even darker and moves into some very dark places indeed. But that’s in the future and I wouldn’t want to spoil things too much by looking too far ahead.

For an essentially 4 episode mini-series I’ve barely scratched the surface. I haven’t even mentioned the human form Cylon we’re first introduced to (Six) played by Tricia Helfer who was the series sex-symbol (honestly doing very little for me) and her lover/human traitor Gaius Baltar played by James Callis. There’s so much more going on that I could probably fill a few more pages but I’m neither going to precis the 3 hour show nor analyse it to death. All that I will say at this point is that my view of the show turned 180 degrees from my first impression. The mini-series hooked me for the next 4 years into some of the best TV I’ve ever seen. But don’t just take my word for it. Check out the mini-series (if you haven’t already) and then watch the rest of them. It’s often uncomfortable viewing and certainly not for the faint of heart but by the Gods of Cobol it’s worth it.