I think about a world to come where the books were found by the golden ones, written in pain, written in awe by a puzzled man who questioned, "What are we here for?" All the strangers came today and it looks as though they're here to stay.

-David Bowie "Oh! You Pretty Things"

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Battlestar Galactica (2004 Series)


In the middle of the third season of LOST, the show's producers met with network executives to hammer out a definitive end to the series which would happen three years later. Stephen King had told them that they needed to know the end so they could tell their story properly, going neither too long nor too short. The producers cited the success of Battlestar Galactica as their reason for this decision.

On a separate occasion, I'd heard Josh Toulouse of Fat Train say that every good show has had a bad season, but Battlestar Galactica never even had a bad episode. Every hour served a purpose.

So, during perhaps one of the geekiest weekends of my life, that of 2010's Cherry Capital Con (C3) in Traverse City, I watched the mini-series that serves as a pilot for the series and the first two episodes. Though I fell asleep during the second episode, it was only due to exhaustion, because I was enraptured by BSG almost immediately.

Battlestar Galactica is probably the best-delivered science fiction program that television has ever seen. There's a reason that geeks and cult audiences swear by it. But that reason does not preclude casual TV watchers and non-geeks. It's also one of the best dramas of all time, and the character studies are hard to top.

Battlestar Galactica is awesome. So say we all.

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