Battlestar Galactica

Before I proceed, I'll just add a quick comment for those slating the series without seeing it: please, stop it. Instead, wait and see what the new show is about and give it a chance. Unless of course, you want to miss one of the best dramas currently airing...

BSG is a very human story. Yet unlike Star Trek, they're not resolved by the end of the episode. Here the characters are real people who make mistakes, grow and learn from their errors. Or maybe they don't...

The point is that in the new BSG, the impact of the loss of the Colonies is something everybody must deal with, be it on a resource-management level to dealing with the loss of their families. The impact of the Cylon attack - never explored in the original series - is a major emphasis in the show and the viewer genuinely does get the feeling of the "rag tag fleet."

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the original series as much as anybody, but it was a product of its time and audience-slot. The new BSG is a much more adult production, both in terms of the writing and performances and the intended audience.

Additionally, the show is very non-sci-fi, but in a good way. Whenever any "science" turns up, it's integrated in such a way as to have minimal impact on the plot and, unlike Star Trek, it isn't used as a Deus Ex Machina to simply resolve the "crisis of the week." In fact, I'd go as far as to say the show is closer to 24 or The West Wing than it is Star Trek or Babylon 5, with the focus being much more on the people and their individual actions, rather than a wide-scale "space opera."

Performances are all strong, with James Callis being the real star. His tortured performance as the guilt-stricken Baltar are a joy to watch as he flips from near-hysterical lunatic to scheming toad to smooth womaniser. Olmos has the presence to give Adama the air of authority required. Sackhoff's performance as Starbuck is "subtly obvious" - she plays the brash, cocky pilot a little too well, something that's explained in later episodes. And Bamber's Apollo is a mix of heroic action and self-doubt which balances well. Mention must also go to McDonnell's President Roslin who, over the course of the series, has grown in stature and presence in a very subtle manner.

Quite simply, Battlestar Galactica is one of the most consistently strong shows I've ever seen. Considering this is only the first of (hopefully) many seasons, it's amazing to see how the show has "hit the ground running," with each episode being an improvement on the last. And considering the high standard of the first one, that's quite the achievement.

Watch it. You won't be disappointed.

It's 2025 and I just now watched Battlestar Galactica. I'm not sure why I put it off for so long but I did. After years and years of hearing how good this show is and seeing it on every best sci-fi shows ever list I've seen I finally gave in and I'm glad I did. Now, even though I really enjoyed it I wouldn't have it on my best sci-fi shows ever list. It's good, I just didn't find it great. I know we've come a long way in technology and CGI but the CGI on this show is bad. It looks like it's from the 70's or 80's, not the mid 2000's. I know it was a sci-fi channel show and they obviously didn't have a huge budget but still. It's bad, especially the cylons and spacecraft flying. It seems like I'm bashing this show but I'm not. It's just not the best sci-fi show I've seen. I really liked it though and would recommend it to any sci-fi fan.

Having watched the original series as a child I put off watching this for some time expecting it to be a virtual remake but with CGI and characters who had been gender switched for no obvious reason... I'm glad I eventually decided to watch it though as I could not have been more wrong! This is nothing like the light hearted original that I loved as a child; series creator Ronald D. Moore has taken the original premise and made something much darker and much more grown up. As with the original the series starts with the destruction of the Twelve Colonies where humanity has settled and the survivors head off into space in search of the mythical thirteenth colony; Earth. Here the similarities end though; the Cylons that destroyed the colonies weren't crated by aliens; they were created by humanity and rebelled against their masters. As well as the familiar Centurions we soon learn that there are some Cylons that can't be distinguished from people and some of those don't even realise they are Cylons. As humanity flees they will have to struggle against both Cylons and themselves if they are to survive and find their new home.

I really enjoyed this series; the story may have been familiar but the characters were much deeper than in the version I saw as a child and there wasn't the feeling that if a character was a regular they would inevitably survive; in fact many major characters die including some that manage to survive for several seasons. The cast did a fantastic job; most notably Edward James Olmos, Mary McDonnell, Katie Sackhoff, Grace Park, Jamie Bamber, Michael Hogan, Tricia Helfer and James Callis... and even listing this many stand out performances seems unfair on the rest as just about everybody was great! Fans of the original series will be pleased to see Richard 'Apollo' Hatch return; this time his character, Tom Zarek, is far from heroic. I don't usually think to comment on the music for a series but here I must as composer Bear McCreary did such a fine job and later on some of the music is actually integral to the plot. As with all series there are some weaker episodes but even the poor Galactica episodes are better than much of what is on television. When the series finished I was left wanting more but all the key story threads had been tied up and it was good that it ended while it was still good rather than overstaying its welcome. If you haven't seen this series yet I strongly recommend it; just remember to watch the miniseries before series one as that sets up the whole story.

Battlestar Galactica is so beautifully written and acted that it takes you into their world in such a great way. I never saw the original version from the 70's because it was before I was born but I can't imagine it being as good as this. The special effects aren't very good but it doesn't matter because that's not what makes a good show anyway. It's the writing and acting and that's as good as these reviews here have said. Just look at these reviews, 90% of them are positive. It has 95% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 8.7 here, making it one of the highest rated sci-fi shows on IMDB. The story is consistently moving forward and never feels like there's any filler episodes. This show contains real social, political and religious issues and does it in such an entertaining way. I binged through this series as fast as I could and when it was over I wanted more.

I watched this when it first aired in the 2000s, having enjoyed the short-lived 70s original, in simpler times, and I have just binge watched it again. For me, it was better the second time around. Perhaps that says something about me, twenty years later, but this show is definitely a better watch without the weekly wait.

I remember being glad that it was done after four seasons and that it was time to end it, but that was not quite how I felt the second time around. I do think that this length for the show was about right, but I wasn't fed-up with it by the time it got there this time around.

Some of the episodes are a bit dull and the series generally is bleak (even if for good reason), which on a weekly basis can make that harder to go on with, and be entertained by (that is the point, right?), but being able to move straight on to the next episode can negate that sense of disappointment or dismay from dull or especially bleak episodes. The binge-watching, and the ability to move straight on to the next episode, improved the experience for me from the first time around.

There are still things that irk. Without giving too much away, the use of characters and places that existed only in someone's head, that no one else could see (with the odd exception), started with one character and then got spread to being (over)used for others.

For Cylons, the explanation that they had the ability to project such things inside their minds, as some advanced form of daydreaming, might have been acceptable in itself, but for the fact that this started and occurred regularly throughout the run, with a human. It was then used with other humans at certain points, and was relied upon way too much for storytelling.

The main character, that this (projecting) is regularly used with, could only have been insane for this to happen. It was surely a manifestation of their mental illness. Although this was to some degree left open to other more mystical explanations, I never accepted that this was down to anything other than their own insanity, even with the epilogue trying to tell me otherwise. To then have some other human character use this 'projection', if for different reasons, I didn't like nor buy into. It just became an overused way of telling the story that took away from why it was used in the first place - which was because of the monumental guilt of one character, over their actions, and their resulting mental instability. This was also to enable the regular appearance of another character who could not otherwise be physically present. On the plus side, it does occasionally give rise to some wry humour.

I did not buy into any of the mysticism of the show, nor that a major character died and then returned from the dead without any rational explanation, or really with any kind of explanation whatsoever. Some strange events here were NOT left open to interpretation as being something that could have had either a rational OR a mystical explanation, which you could then choose to believe whichever way you prefer. Given where the show ends up, I felt that this was a terrible, divisive choice, that clashes the mystical with reality. It was used to paper over the killing of a character and subsequently bringing them back alive (?) without any adequate level of explanation, of any kind. At least it didn't happen in a shower and mean disregarding some past episodes, so it wasn't quite that bad, but still...

This is essentially why I cannot give the show higher marks and I have been unsure of a 7 or 8 out of 10, but did decide on an 8 as more befitting than a 7.

This version took the 70s original, kept the titular ship and its "Vipers", some of the main characters, albeit changing some of their names to callsigns, upgraded them and the Cylons and, despite the reservations and misgivings above, made it more realistic in terms of storyline and its characters. It deliberately made it bleaker than the original, perhaps too much so at times, but that would have been more in keeping with the situation that the human race found itself in, than the somewhat unphased, upbeat 70s version and its fully episodic format.

The characters had flaws, made mistakes, sometimes monstrously big mistakes, and they were certainly more rounded than the original ones (who were too thin as characters by the time we got to 1980, let alone the 2020s). This time they had the character depth demanded by a 21st century audience, to be able to survive as a show at all and outlast the original.

And what to do with crimes and other mistakes by these characters, when you have such a limited number of survivors and people who were able to take over roles. This makes for interesting plot choices and levels of forgiveness.

It was also extremely well acted, from the top down, which also says a lot about the writing that enabled that.

I had been unsure as to whether I wanted to watch this again, given how I felt about it the first time, but I'm glad I did. It still stands up 20 years later in terms of SFX and storytelling and acting, and outshines all too many of the more recent sci-fi shows that have come in its wake.