LUCIDMEDIA

So Say We All: A Tribute to Battlestar Galactica

Written by Adam A. Donaldson Friday, 20 March 2009 13:51

Friday sees the conclusion of one of the finest television series – be it in science fiction or any genre – ever created. Under the guidance of former Star Trek writer Ronald D. Moore, Battlestar Galactica went from a punchline of 70s sci-fi to being one of the pre-eminent and most highly regarded series on television. Primarily you could say that the story about the remnants of humanity being chased across space by the genocidal, robotic Cylons suddenly found new resonance post 9/11, but what else made this Galactica a dramatic success? And more importantly, what’s going to happen in tonight’s finale “Daybreak?”

All this has happened before, and all this will happen again

At the heart of Battlestar are themes of resurrection, reciprocity and inevitability, and it’s all summed up by 11 words that lie at the heart of the 12 Colonies polytheistic religious beliefs. The story goes that 13 colonies left the planet Kobol in the midst of a supposed nuclear conflict; most settled the 12 Colonies, but one settled the distant planet Earth. In the miniseries, a nuclear conflict with the Cylons forces the 50,000 survivors of humanity to take off into uncharted space in search of a new home. As laid out in the ancient scrolls, the cyclical nature of humanity is secured.

But the assurance of a promised land is dashed when the Colonial Fleet gets to Earth, only to discover that it had been annihilated in a nuclear holocaust of its own 2,000 years earlier. More over, the crew discovered that the 13th Colony was made up entirely of human form Cyclons, making it a mirror for the Cylon Civil war in the present which cost them the ability to resurrect. These are just the biggest examples of the circular implications of the story, so the question becomes: will the cycle be broken in “Daybreak” as all sides resolve to find a way to a new home in peace, or is the story always destined to end the same?

It won't be an easy journey. It'll be long, and arduous

What began as a play to bolster Fleet moral following the escape from the Cylons by Commander William Adama (always played to grizzled perfection by Edward James Olmos), turned into an unbelievable journey. Earth was merely a myth when they started, but over the course of the series the Colonial Fleet followed the clues to draw ever closer to their land of milk and honey, which ironically they thought was free from fear of Cylon reprisals. But as any storyteller will tell you, it’s not the destination that matters so much as the journey, and considering the nearly anti-climactic reveal of Earth as a nuclear charred cinder, truer words have never been spoken.

Implicit in that is what the journey cost. The first episode of the series said that there were 50,298 while at the beginning of “Daybreak Part 1” we learn that 39,516 people are left in the fleet. Casualties have been heavy, but that’s just the physical demands of the journey. There have been shifting alliances, political infighting, and numerous interpersonal relationships that have blossomed and soured depending on the day. Even though Galactica will only amount to about 80 hours of television when it’s all said and done, regular viewers will undoubtedly feel that they’ve lived through enough emotional turmoil for a Gunsmoke-style 20 year run.

The Shape of Things to Come

One of the hallmarks of the series was that it pulled no punches; morally ambiguous situations require tough decisions where sometimes the choice isn’t between right and wrong, but rather what wrong is more right. And Galactica was never one to allow anyone to get away with anything. Decisions made in one episode will have unforeseen, and potentially damning, consequences later. And worse still, those consequences, like so much in real life, are often ones that you don’t see coming because you’re either blinded by emotion, sentiment, ego or foolish indecision.

A prime example of that are Galactica’s infamous cliffhangers. And though the cliffhanger has long since “jumped the shark” as a storytelling art form on television, it was Battlestar that once again made it sing by always leading viewers to the edge of the cliff, arms flailing trying to maintain balance. Think of the first season finale where Cylon sleeper agent Boomer (Grace Park) “switches on” in time to attempt an assassination of Adama; or the mid-season stand-off between Galactica and Pegasus in the second season. Even the event the whole series was leading up to, the discovery of Earth, ended in such a way that nobody expected as everyone wondered if they really found Earth at all, because surely it couldn’t end the way it did, right? Well in Moore’s Galactica,it can, and it did.

Why are we as a people worth saving?

Commander Adama said this in his spur of the moment bout of honesty during the Galactica decommissioning ceremony in the miniseries. So much of the series tests the very notion that by virtue of living that humanity deserves to survive its own apparent extinction. In the vain of sci-fi classics of old, Battlestar tackled this question though the exploration of a number of pertinent modern issues through the genre prism. Through subtle allegory, matters of abortion, human rights, torture, patriotism and racism were explored by the series. And that’s to say nothing of the headier notions around artificial life; what constitutes humanity and what is our responsibility to the things we create?

Accentuating the exploration of these questions is the fact that all the human characters are tremendously flawed individuals. You have the alcoholic Col. Tigh (Michael Hogan) who has a self-destructive relationship with his wife Ellen (Kate Vernon). There’s President Roslin’s (Mary McDonnell), who’s battling cancer while desperately struggling to hold humanity together. But most importantly are the shifty machinations of Gaius Baltar (the excellently squirrelly James Callis), who’s gone from respected scientist to vilified President to rat traitor and finally a religious icon, all within the four year space of the series. Indeed, the most predominate part of Battlestar’s appeal my very well have been its damaged crew members, whose occasionally petty motivations are easy to translate to those of us that don’t live on a starship.

Frak!

Catch phrases are always a good measure of the reach and relevance of a pop culture icon, think “There’s no place like home,” or “I’ll be back,” or “Who you gonna call?” With Battlestar we got the little pop culture that can be summed up in four beautiful letters, “frak.” Sure, this alterno-cursing was one of the few morsels that made the transfer from the original series to its remake. But more than whimsy, Moore and his writing team turned “frak” into an art form, and by far made it a fun way to curse without getting ourselves into trouble for being a potty mouth. Later, other TV shows as diverse as Scrubs, Veronica Mars, Gilmore Girls and The OC all picked up on the vicarious joy of the word, which at the very least showed that not everything about Galactica was all doom and gloom.