...I’ll always love my Cylons clad in shiny silver armor.
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Note: The following review has been corrected on March 7th, 2008 to contain a wild copy and paste error that resulted in a number of 'Battleship' replacements of the word 'Battlestar.' The reviewer would like to warn others against the dangers of technology when using cut and paste to surround film titles with double quotes.
I grew up loving the old "Battlestar Galactica" television series with Lorne Greene and Dirk Benedict. I had a Colorforms playset where I could enact out battles between the Cylon Raiders and Vipers of the Galactica. "Star Wars" was my first love, but "Battlestar Galactica" bested "Star Trek" as my second favorite science-fiction outing. There was a lot of hesitation to my time being invested with the 2004 reimagining of the classic cult series. For starters, Starbuck was now a woman and not the Han Solo-clone portrayed by Dirk Benedict. Cylons were now gorgeous blonde women and not silvery tin cans with "Knight Rider" like eyes. The Sci Fi Channel brought back my beloved series with a big budget miniseries and resulting television series, but they made a lot of changes to things I loved about the show. At least the original Vipers were brought back in some measure.
This 2004 reimagining of "Battlestar Galactica" follows many of the themes from the original television show. In a sentence, the Galactica leads a fleet of surviving human starcraft after a Cylon war where humans were nearly eradicated and they head off for a secret world for the survival of humankind; a world called Earth. That much is exactly the same between both shows. This time around, the Galactica was being decommissioned to become a museum ship. A few vintage Vipers were being restored for the ceremony and the Galactica´s old-school Commander, William Adama (Edward James Olmos) refused to connect the Galactica´s computers to the network. The Battlestar is an aging mistress forty years removed from a vicious war. She is a reminder to the bloody war, but her technology is old and she is destined to become a tourist attraction.
However, the Cylons quickly attack and twelve various models of Cylon exist. Some of them are humanoid in appearance and have an organ structure that is difficult to identify as machine-built. One of the Cylons, Number Six (Tricia Helfer) kills a human during a yearly peace meeting that had never previously seen a Cylon attend. A second model of Number Six has romanced the scientist behind the defence force´s computers and that scientist, Dr. Gaius Baltar (James Callis) has given her the knowledge to bring down the Battlestar´s and their Vipers and leave the twelve colonies open for attack. Caprica, the home planet of the Galactica, is attacked with nuclear weapons and the Cylons attack takes a devastating toll on human life. The eleven other colonies suffered as similar fate and within moments, humankind is nearly eradicated.
The Cylons bring down the defense computers of all the Battlestars and their Vipers. However, the Galactica´s computers were never tied to the network and she survives the attack. However, her newer Vipers are quickly eliminated by the wave of advancing Cylon Raiders. Adama orders his son, Lee "Apollo" Adama (Jamie Bamber) and pilot Kara "Starbuck" Thrace (Katee Sackhoff) to lead a squadron of older Vipers against the Raiders. Their old computers do not use Baltar´s code and the aging starfighters find victory against the unsuspecting Cylon attackers. When the dust has settled, the Galactica is the sole remaining Battlestar because its computers were not networked and a rag-tag band of pilots are forced to fly ancient fighter craft against the capable Cylons.
Laura Roslin (Mary McDonnell) is a teacher who holds a cabinet position with the government. She survives aboard Colonial Heavy 798, a civilian freighter and quickly finds out that her forty-third position as successor to the presidency makes her the sole survivor and she becomes the President of the Twelve Colonies. Her background as the Secretary of Education pits her against the military background of the Galactica´s Commander Adama, but an agreement is made for them to share responsibility of the Battlestar and its convoy of surviving civilian ships that house roughly fifty thousand surviving humans; the possible last of the species. Roslin and Adama work frantically to keep order among the pilots and crew of the Galactica and the fleet of star vessels.
The first season begins with the Galactica and her entourage having to make faster-than-light (FTL) jumps every thirty three minutes because of routine Cylon invasion. The FTL engines allow the human fleet to survive, but they quickly learn about the humanoid Cylons and the realization that Cylons have infiltrated them and are keeping tabs on the human survivors, which is the reason for the attacks. Baltar continues to see very real visions of the woman he thought was Shelley Godfrey and the Number Six model Cylon confuses Baltar on her feelings towards the human race, but also the reason she continues to appear to him. The Adama men continue to mend their fractured relationship as father and son after the death of one of Adama´s sons and Starbuck clashes with the Galactica´s Executive Officer, Colonel Saul Tigh (Michael Hogan).
Adama reveals that a thirteenth colony called Earth has been kept secret and the Galactica will lead the surviving human spacecraft to the planet and defend them against the Cylon onslaught. During their travels to Earth and limited to the thirteen episode length of the first season, the Galactica undergoes a number of trials and tribulations. After successfully overcoming the thirty three minutes attack cycle that limits their ability to sleep, the Galactica finds much of its water supply destroyed and the belief that Cylon spies may be behind the water problem weighs heavy on the crew. Apollo causes an uproar when he uses prisoners from a prison ship to bring an end to the water supply and harvest water from a planet discovered by Lieutenant Sharon "Boomer" Valerii (Grace Park). Water is found, but the divide between Commander Adama and President Roslin becomes more apparent.
It is also revealed that Starbuck passed Adama´s older son during training when he failed a key test and this led to the death of Lee´s older brother. Starbuck is forced to face her past when the number of available pilots is depleted by the continual battles with the Cylon Raiders and an explosion that kills a large number of veteran pilots on one of the Galactica´s flight pods. Starbuck faces her own problems, but also finds herself missing in action after one attack and Commander Adama and Apollo struggle to find the whereabouts of their trainer and highly skilled pilot. This further complicates the relationship between Starbuck and Apollo and between Apollo and Adama. Starbuck is eventually found.
The Cylon that had once only appeared to Gaius Baltar eventually appears in front of Adama to implicate that Baltar had something to do with the Cylon attack and the crippling of the computer network that facilitated the Cylon attack and their ability to defeat the human defence force with little resistance. It had already been apparent that Cylons were part of the fleet and disguised as humans, but this appearance of Number Six on the bridge throws another surprising problem regarding Cylons to Adama and the nature of Number Six´s appearances to Baltar are potentially a computer chip implant or something else that is not explored or explained. Baltar had thought his own sanity was faltering, but after Number Six appears to Adama, he is not quite sure anymore.
More political and espionage battles take place between the Cylons and the humans. A humanoid Cylon named Leoben Conoy (Callum Keith Rennie) creates an uproar when he makes himself public to the human survivors and declares that he has a nuclear bomb stored on one of the human ships. This causes further problems between President Roslin and the military crew of the Galactica. After the water bombing and other problems aboard the Galactica, Roslin and others soon begin to suspect that anybody could be a Cylon operative working to destroy the shallow remnants of mankind. Roslin at one point believes Adama may be a Cylon. The number of altercations between Vipers and Raiders dwindle when politics and subterfuge take center stage.
However, Starbuck does lead an attack against a Cylon controlled planet in an attempt to hinder their resources and aid the Galatica in its quest of victory against the Cylons. Her and Apollo are the two most skilled pilots of the Galactica and having set aside their differences stemming from the death of the other Adama son, they are an effective team that is very good against the Cylon Raiders. The computers were updated to allow the Galactica crew to use the newer Viper fighters against the Cylons after the discovery of the computer attack that left them useless during the early stages of the attack. The battle returns to hidden spies and politics during a Vice Presidential election, when it is believed that the Cylons are trying to bring about mayhem to the elections and Roslin turns to Baltar to become a candidate and he ultimately becomes the vice president.
The two part season finale, "Kobol´s Last Gleaming" further implicates a relationship between Baltar and Starbuck. This brings about uneasy feelings with Apollo and Number Six. Two Cylon Boomers had been in existence during the season and they finally both inhabit the Galactica during the finale and the Galactica based Boomer soon begins to give reason for others to realize she is indeed a Cylon spy. Baltar crash lands on the planet Kobol after a battle with Cylon Raiders. Kobol is considered to be the "Home of the Gods" and a possible key to Earth´s location. However, President Roslin knows the truth about Earth and Adama´s story to the survivors about the thirteenth colony. The two Boomer story comes to center stage when Boomer helps to bring down the Cylon Basestar, but another Boomer shoots Adama in the chest to end the first season on a mild cliffhanger.
"Battlestar Galactica" is good science fiction, but it is a quite different experience from the cult television show. Much of the focus of the first season lies in the Cylon humanoids and their ability to infiltrate the human survivors and cause mayhem. Espionage is married to politics routinely through the first season and when a Cylon isn´t secretly undermining the Galactica, politics are. The relationship between Adama and Roslin is always strained and shows the lines between political rule and military rule. There is far more posturing and relationship tension on "Battlestar Galactica" than there are space age dogfights. There is far more stealth and spying than there are mass cannon firing from the Vipers. This new re-imagining of the cult classic spend a lot of time defining relationships and helping repair and tear them apart than it does in the cockpit of a Viper. This show is about drama and not about action.
Fortunately, the new focus on drama and politics over flashy space battles and overpriced special effects offer an entirely different feel for "Battlestar Galactica." The storylines are very nicely done and flows nicely from one episode to another. In many ways, I see a few parallel´s to "Star Trek: The Next Generation" in tone and execution. This is a show very much about personal relationships and the Galactica is on a mission of exploration and survival rather than aggression. The Galactica is run by a large crew who each has important posts and jobs on the Battlestar. Every man is important. The show´s creators had set out to make "Battlestar Galactica" appear differently than typical science fiction and I feel they have succeeded. This doesn´t look like "Star Wars" and it doesn´t look like "Star Trek." There are no green aliens; only a few mechanical robots and humanoids. It possesses Earth-like worlds where architecture is realistic and not far from our own reality. "Battlestar Galactica" is a show grounded in reality and ignores the science fiction convention of high technology populating every aspect of the population. Beyond the Galactica, her Vipers and the Cylons, this could very easily have taken place in a similar timeline to our own.
The different approach taken by the filmmakers does have its drawbacks. Many viewers who would have tuned into the Sci Fi Channel to experience exhilarating dogfights and a futuristic war will be sadly disappointed. "Battlestar Galactica" has an almost "Soap Opera" feel to some of its storylines and themes. Characters sleep around and there is plenty of female jealousy going around with questions of who is sleeping with who. There is plenty of love and loss in "Battlestar Galactica" and this separates it from many science fiction contemporaries. There is a tainted father/son relationship that needs repair. There is a power struggle for paternal and maternal control over the fleet. "Battlestar Galactica" is built to appeal to a wider audience than young males who worshipped Han Solo or wanted to be like James T. Kirk. This is a mature show that would rather philosophize than photon torpedo something.
The acting is quite good considering much of the cast are a band of unknowns. Mary McDonnell and Edward James Olmos give two familiar faces to the cast, but most of the crew of the Galactica will be unfamiliar to anybody experiencing the show for the first time. McDonnell and Olmos give perhaps the best performances of anybody in the cast. Olmos is a very good actor that has never been given many juicy roles and he is well suited to the aged, tough and respected leader of the Galactica. McDonnell handles being a cancer-stricken female president with class. I enjoyed the rest of the crew as well, although I´m still not sold on Katee Sackhoff as Starbuck or Tricia Helfer as a deadly Cylon. Sackhoff and Helfer seem to be sexual injections into the show to either gather a female audience or serve as pinup girls for adolescent boys. I certainly enjoyed watching Helfer on-screen and I´m not the kind of person to reject the notion of a gorgeous blonde, but I´ll always love my Cylons clad in shiny silver armor.
My personal feelings are that I enjoyed the Miniseries and First Season of "Battlestar Galactica." I have friends who worship this show religiously with the passion and fervor that I worship "Lost." However, I can only say that I enjoy the show and would rather watch it on a home video release than tune in weekly. It is good and the story is captivating, but I don´t think "Battlestar Galactica" is of a thread that pulls me in without missing an episode. There just isn´t enough action and excitement for me to plan my schedule around. The show is good enough that I will watch it on my own terms, but the overly political and emotional dramas that continually build through each episode become tiring. I like the more serious tone to this series than the original, but the camp value and Dirk Benedict trump sexy blondes in space any day. I look forward to watching Season Two, but I won´t do so until it arrives on my doorstep in HD-DVD form and not when it is broadcast on the Sci-Fi Channel.
This is an interesting show with a lot of story to tell. The characters are nicely fleshed out and the creators definitely have a path they are following. I would probably love the show if the Cylons were more of a military threat and flexed muscle instead of showing cleavage. I would have been more inclined to be floored by the show if Starbuck was a testosterone driven hot shot pilot who didn´t look out of place smoking a cigar. No matter how many times I try hard to accept Katee Sackhoff as Starbuck, I can´t buy into her smoking those little cigars and I can´t buy into her being the best damn pilot on the Galactica. It´s not a sexist issue for me, but she is just too cute to be the badass pilot she is supposed to be. I could buy into her being a good pilot on the Galactica that is the trainer and important to their mission. I just can´t buy into the fact that she is Dirk Benedict´s replacement. A modern day Face-man would have been more appropriate.
If there is any particular plotline that I dislike with the show, it is the concept of the Number Six Cylon appearing to our favorite scientist. She looks stunning in her outfits, but this psychological (or is it something else?) element of the show is annoying and tiresome. I could have bought into Baltar seeing her in his dreams, but she appears when he is fully awake and in the middle of conversations with other people. We know it is not a chip implant. We also know this hot robot babe is completely in love with him and just somehow appears to only him for much of her appearances and is perhaps more of an ally than an enemy. I want to hate and fear the Cylons. I want to see them walking around with red pulsating lights on their visors and not wearing skimpy red dresses.
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