Battlestar Galactica

Battlestar Galactica
(2003-2009)
Sci-Fi Network (Not that Syfy bullshit)

My love for this show is no secret. I have harangued friends to start watching in order that I may talk to them about it. I've kept an entire friendship alive through discussing it. After the first three seasons, I'd already ranked it as my sixth favourite television show. I've now finished watching all four seasons. It won't ever crack the Top 5, an impenetrable fortress of perfection, but this is one hell of a television show.

It goes way beyond the notion of "genre." This is, I've said it a hundred times before, the science fiction program I would recommend to people who don't like sci-fi. Yes, the enemies are robots, and, yes, it is set almost entirely on space ships. But it doesn't allow the conventions to get in the way of telling an amazing story. At least give the two-part first episode a try before you come to a decision about whether or not you'll give it a spin.

The wealth of material this show provides is incredible. I never once feared the writers were losing direction, or were unaware of where to take things. It is a flawless trail from the first to the last scene. The show remains varied throughout its run, helped in large part by its willingness to deal with a wide breadth of topics. Is it a sci-fi adventure? Is it a political thriller? Is it a character study? At various points, the writers deftly attempt everything. Religion, just barely mentioned in the first two seasons, is a crucial part of the show by the end.What the writers do with it is perfection. I won't spoil anything for you if I can help it, but you'll find yourself pulled along by the story while being intellectually impressed and fascinated by what's going on on the screen.

The show is realistic about the situation humanity is in, cast adrift in space with nothing but a fleet of spaceships. Supplies run low. Ships break down. People break down. Relationships fall apart and come together with that peculiar speed only duress can bring about. The dynamics between characters are constantly, organically, sensibly changing. Nothing ever seems forced; no one ever feels inconsistent as an individual. People don't act illogically, in so as they are always true to their character. You will find yourself disliking people you thought you were very fond of, because they are real, and, like real people, they do some things you'll like, and they'll do some things that drive you up a wall. Over four seasons, I loved and intensely loathed President Laura Roslin, and for that she has left a greater impression on me. There is no Good Guy, there is no Bad Guy. There are only people put in an extraordinary situation. Even the Cylons aren't left as the Big Baddies.

In approximately 75 episodes, the show only bothered me twice, at the end of season 3 and at the end of season 4. Season 3 uses an anachronism, and the last scene of the series works too hard to drive home the otherwise subtle and intimately understood point of the whole show. These are minor gripes in the grand scheme of things. When I attended ComiCon over the summer, the identities of the Final Five Cylons were revealed to me before my time. I was upset at the time, but as I watched the show, I realized I wasn't missing nearly as much as I thought. Not knowing would have been a blast, and it denied me a few gasps, but the writing is so well done that you still find yourself getting caught up in the idea of their identities. It's hard to pull that off, but they did it brilliantly.

Top 10 T.V. Shows: 6. Battlestar Galactica (Reimagining)

Ten years ago, Battlestar Galactica was a mark of the extremophiles of nerdom. To profess a fondness for the 1970's television series, even in passing, was to brand yourself. You were an outcast. You wore the scarlet BSG.

I was not aware of the reimagined Battlestar Galactica when it first came on the air. But I like to imagine, when the first episode of the miniseries was about to broadcast, that a small, quiet group of fans were gathered around the televisions in their parents' basements, hoping that finally, their sweet, sweet love for the original BSG would be vindicated. Their hopes, I can only assume, were wildly exceeded.

To call this a reimagining is to undersell what has been done. The source materials exist solely in the names and set designs. The characters, the stories, the tone... there is nothing here to relate it to the original program. The only reason to keep the name I can imagine is that it was guaranteed to bring the SyFy network- then still Sci-Fi- a certain amount of audience.

I will admit, unlike every other deceased program on this list, I have not finished BSG yet. I am halfway through the third of four seasons. Given that the writers were already focused on how it would conclude by that stage in production, I'm not concerned about the quality sliding. There's nowhere to go from here but up. In some ways, BSG is the show Lost wanted to be. It is cramped. It is paranoid. There is constant tension, without it ever becoming wearing. Things aren't left unexplained, but you are constantly asking questions. The best decision they made with this new version was to make some of the Cylons, the robot enemies responsible in this version for almost wiping out the human race, resemble humans. There are 12 models. You learn of them slowly, one model at a time, as events progress. It's all handled brilliantly, and I love the way the show doesn't shy away from exploring the tension between the humans and cylons on those occasions when they are forced to coexist.

The thrills are a big part of BSG, so it's important to make a distinction here; Lost is a thrill ride the first time through. So is Dexter. But neither of those shows are on this list. Lost stretched itself out for too long; had they stayed focused the whole time, things might be different. More importantly, neither Dexter nor Lost holds any great amount of entertainment value when you start to view it a second time. That's because both shows are predicated on the thrill of not knowing. The characters in those shows, particularly Dexter, are overshadowed by the stories. There's no reason to come back.

There are thrills, there are blistering action scenes, and the special effects look damn good. These things make the show easy to get into. But what keeps me coming back, of course, is that BSG has characters, and it develops them. I just finished watching the episode "Unfinished Business," an entirely character-driven piece centered around a boxing competition. The last two and a half seasons have been relatively relentless in their forward progress. It felt good to take an episode to let everything settle, for us to take stock of where we've been with these people, and to think about where we're going.

(ed.'s note: BSG is one of two shows on this list with the chance for forward mobility.)