Battlestar Galactica

First up, some pictures from the show (courtesy
of scifi.com)






























Battlestar galactica is a home(US)-grown scifi tv series which my brother brought with him back from US when he came back from his studies. It quickly became my favourite tv series and I am extremely excited as season 3 is returning during October.

Now in case, the cute blond gal or the handsome captain hasn't caught you attention, I'll provide a brief description of the show.

It starts off, as all sci fi shows usually do, with the total destruction of the home world of the human race. Now, in the show, the humans live on 12 planets and do not live on Earth. The Cyclons are a race of robots who were created by humans, but evolved themselves and declared war on earth, before disappearing for many many years. After many many years, we see that cute blond gal, who is actually a cyclon, signing a peace treaty with a human representative from on a space station seconds before the entire space station is blown up. Now cyclons, apparently have this ability to transfer their memories wirelessly juz before they die into a new body and so can 'reincarnate'.

Subsequently, humanity is almost entirely destroyed, save for 1 battleship, Battleship galactica, which is led by commander Adama in search of a legendary 13th colony of humans living on a planet called Earth.

Now, what strikes me most about the show is the amount of character development and how 'human' the show was. Unlike other sci-fi series that focuses mainly on the different wonderful new technologies, this one focuses more on politics and human interactions in an enclosed environment.

There is a civilian president, as well as a military commander. The civilian president, was well, an ex kindergarten teacher who well erm became Minister of Education(which is really really low down in the ranks). But in the cyclon attack, all the top ppl all matied. The military commander was a well respected colonel. Naturally, the first human-human politics arises right after the cyclon attack- who should lead the fleet? I mean come on. A kindergarten teacher.

On one hand the commander wants to regroup and fight back against the cyclons, which is really suicidal considering the cyclons wiped out the rest of the fleet with hardly any casualty; and on the other hand the president made use of the religious belief of a mysterious 13th planet with humans living somewhere else to attempt to give the fleet a direction. Eventually, the commander realises that the president is really capable, but not before a military (attempted) coup and throwing her in jail.

Eventually the viewer is led through many themes, including whether the cyclons are really evil and we get an episode from the cyclons' perspective.

Some quotes:

Lt. Kara 'Starbuck' Thrace: [after Starbuck has to plan a vital mission] I never wanted this kind of responsibility.
Commander William Adama: The Cylons never asked us what we wanted. Welcome to the big leagues.


Number Six(the 6th in a series of cyclons who look like human. The cyclons are, surprisingly very religious): [ominously] God has a plan, Gaius. He has a plan for everything, and everyone.


Episodes can be downloaded from: http://www.tv.com/battlestar-galactica-2003/show/23557/downloads.html