Lower Decks

As one of the milestone sci-fi series of the first decade in the new millennium, ‘Battlestar Galactica’ deserves all the accolades and a pat on the back as it concludes its run this Friday. While I wasn’t one of its biggest supporters (nor ever one of its rabid detractors), I can recognize the considerable achievement of the project that began under such intense controversy but has long passed the point where it has become considered to be one of the most critically acclaimed TV shows today, genre or otherwise. It has come to redefine geek cool.

A host of properties sought to claim the mantle being vacated by Star Trek over the last decade and a half, from ‘Xena’ to ‘The X-Files’ to ‘Babylon 5’ to ‘Farscape’ to ‘Stargate,’ but none possessed quite the right combination of longevity and perfect timing to truly claim the zeitgeist that BSG found itself with. From the initial mini-series to the launch of the series and a buzz-worthy question in its final year (who’s the final Cylon?), to the introduction of “frak” into the regular lexicon, there hasn’t been a more complete submersion of interest since Spock showed up with his pointy ears and his buddies with their transporters and aliens of the week. BSG wasn’t just trying to be different, it was a culmination, much as ‘The Dark Knight’ was to superhero movies, of the ability of audiences to take outlandish situations seriously.

Because no one took ‘Battlestar Galactica’ more seriously than the show’s creators. Originally a quicky creation meant to capitalize on the success of Star Wars for television viewers, that anyone remembered it at all twenty years later was remarkable, but that there emerged two visions of revitalization perhaps moreso. One didn’t see a problem with the broad, operatic nature of the series. The other saw an opportunity to update what was essential, start the story from scratch, and see what was truly unique about it. Turns out the latter mentality had a good idea after all.

The survivors of a conflict are forced to deal with the same antagonists, who have transitioned into more sinister methods at achieving their goal of complete annihilation, subterfuge, which isn’t going to be hard to work with, because the humans are already working on their last legs, and the robots are well-positioned to exploit it. As a game of human chess, BSG might be among the most successful psychological adventures ever filmed.

Yet I cannot write about its conclusion without mentioning the faults I saw from the start. While certainly a grand vision, the reality didn’t always match the hype. Casting wasn’t spot-on, key roles were bungled (even some the fans adored, and others they struggled with deserved infinitely more credit than they ever got), and the forced grim perspective of the storytelling wasn’t always earned in the writing, which often fought to find something interesting to do, and invariably went too easy to find it. Under the right circumstances and better control, it could have gone from good to great, easily, a success rather than an experiment in getting so many of the elements sci-fi fans loved from the recent past done to perfection.

All the same, ‘Battlestar Galactica’ now stands as a property that has earned its place as one of the great genre franchises.