January 20, 2006
BATTLESTAR GOLIATH:
ACROSS THE UNIVERSE: A battlestar is reborn (NANCY FRANKLIN, 2006-01-23, The New Yorker)
For further, excruciatingly detailed plot points, you can read the millions of words about the show that have been posted on the Web by fans of the old series, many of whom have invested tremendous emotional energy into deciding whether Moore’s version is good, bad, or acceptable on any level. Some fans, for example, were bothered by the fact that this version does not pick up where the last one left off; it starts all over from the beginning. And a couple of very important characters who were men in the first series are now women. But what interests people who normally don’t care about science fiction is how timely and resonant the show is, bringing into play religion and religious fanaticism, global politics, terrorism, and questions about what it means to be human. (There are also a couple of funny jabs at the media, particularly at talk-show airheads who don’t, or can’t, distinguish between news and entertainment.) There’s no woozy space-aginess in the show, no theremin or symphonic music—the score consists mainly of taiko-inspired drumming, sometimes to the point of tedium, as if you were at a never-ending Iron John weekend. “Battlestar Galactica” is frank and graphic about sex and death. It’s not the kind of show where you find out after the fact that someone is pregnant and everyone is wondering whether the baby will be an alien; here, you see the baby being made. The central twist is that both the Cylons and the human beings they’re trying to kill are religious: the humans believe in gods, and the Cylons believe in God. In killing people, they think they’re doing God’s work. A wrinkle in that twist comes when the President (played by Mary McDonnell)—who arrived on board as a Cabinet secretary, forty-third in line for the Presidency and now in that job only because the forty-two ahead of her are dead—begins to believe that she is destined to lead the survivors to a promised land, and it’s not clear whether her visions are to be taken seriously or are side effects from a cancer treatment.
Here's a helpful hint for viewers: always root for the technologically-advanced monotheists. Posted by Orrin Judd at January 20, 2006 1:37 PM
The writing is amazing. Everbody 'knows' that if a gun is seen in Act I it will be used by Act 4. On this show they set up the MacGuffin and then throw it away. Absolutely unpredictable. I love it.
Posted by: Gideon at January 20, 2006 3:15 PMI watch the show every week and like it. However, one thing drives me up the wall. If you are down to a population of roughly 50,000, why would you let your women fly fighters and engage in battle? I mean come on. Men are disposable in a way women just aren't. In fact, there was an episode where Starbuck (female) saw a medical ward where the Cylons were using human females to breed something and she was horrifed. I just don't get why a show that good is so blind to that issue.
Posted by: Pepys at January 20, 2006 6:34 PM"However, one thing drives me up the wall. If you are down to a population of roughly 50,000, why would you let your women fly fighters and engage in battle?"
Maybe because Starbuck is the best pilot in the fleet? And if the pilots she teaches aren't there to defend the fleet, it won't matter how many women are pregnant. Or maybe because nobody relishes losing teeth attempting to tell her she has to stay home and be pregnant.
Posted by: Pete at January 20, 2006 7:48 PMStarbuck looks disturbingly like Macaulay Culkin.
Other than that the show's gold.
Posted by: Ali Choudhury at January 20, 2006 8:26 PMPete, seriously, so what if she is the best pilot in the fleet? Aren't her reproductive abilities more necessary to the survival of the race? As far as teaching, that would be great! She could do that pregnant! Your final point is another thing that annoys me, the show routinely shows slender women battling trained men to a draw or even winning. Please, I've been trained up and there is no way a 125lb woman could take on a 200lb man. Impossible. A 125lb man can't take on a 200lb man.
Posted by: Pepys at January 20, 2006 9:52 PMTV show.
Posted by: oj at January 20, 2006 10:12 PMi just can't get into this show. have tried several times but everyone looks so beat and worn down, it's a big turn off. B5.
Posted by: toe at January 20, 2006 10:30 PMPoint taken OJ.
Posted by: Pepys at January 20, 2006 10:38 PMThe miniseries which sparked the show was AWESOME.
There were some logical inconsistancies, but the affect of the episodes was right on - the agony of losing ALL, and more than all. It was Ozymandian.
Posted by: Michael Herdegen![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://brothersjuddblog.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at January 21, 2006 5:11 AM
Best. Show. On. TV.
I wonder who the Cylon "God" turns out to be, their mainframe back home? Judging from the function of the Resurrection ship destroyed in the last episode, the Cylons have "Souls" made of software code. Theirs would then be a religion based on knowledge, not faith, since they know for a fact that God exists and their is life for them after death. Destroying that ship in effect killed their very Souls, a fate worse than Hell.
That was a great 2-part story arc for so many reasons, starting with the superb performance of Michelle Forbes as the crazed Admiral Caine. IIRC GK Chesterton once said that a mad man is someone who has lost everything BUT his reason. The cold, ruthlessly rational Caine was the perfect example of that.
Then there was Adama asking the Cylon Boomer "why do you hate us". It turns out they don't, they just don't believe that we deserve to survive. So Adama calls off his hit on Caine, explaining to Starbuck that it isn't enough to merely survive, we have to worthy of survival.
Best written and best acted show on TV. Period.
Posted by: bplus at January 21, 2006 7:49 AMI'm hoping "God" will be Dirk Benedict.
Posted by: Ali Choudhury at January 21, 2006 1:00 PM