Battlestar Galactica: The Miniseries Review

This basically represents the riskiest move in the history of TV: Star Trek alum Ron Moore rebooting a failed series on a then failing basic cable network. But it payed off oh so much.

I should probably clarify first that I have not seen the original series, so if you're looking for a comparison between the two, you're out of luck.

In A Nutshell:
So what is BSG ? How about war in space. Not enough? How about a military/naval drama, political thriller, and spiritual discusion all at once. Still confused? Okay, I'll be more specific; The Cylons are robots created by humans, who live on the 12 Colonies of Humanity. They rebeled and a war was fought. After a 40 year armistice, the Cylons, some of which now look like humans rather than walking chrome toasters, launch a surprise attack and nuke the crap out of all twelve worlds. And the Cylons have hacked into the defense grid and can disable humanity's entire computer network. The good news is that the Battlestar Galactica doesn't have networked computers and is therefore immune from the tech-attack. But the bad news is that Galactica, headed by Commander Bill Adama, now has a war to fight while helping to find the 50,000 remaining humans a new home.

The Good:
The miniseries, which I viewed as an uniterrupted 3 hour movie, does a great job of setting up for the four season-spanning series that followed, the premise of which is that the surviving humans are on the run from the Cylons and trying to find Earth, the fabled 13th colony of humanity. Just the premise kicks ass as a metaphor for the post-9/11 world. Now, it's starts off a bit slow, but that was actually a good thing because it built up the tension and intensity in a way that when the guns start firing, you're just like, "oh, God...". After that, there are a few freaking epic space battles. Added into the equation are perfectly written, compelling, believable characters with flawed relationships with eachother that add to the show's drama and tension. Plus, one or two comic relief scenes that just made me laugh like hell and perfect execution of music. And it even feels like a real battleship with people who actually act like they're in the military, that's how well the naval aspect is done. To top it all off, you've got a dense, compelling mythology that's just well-written. You see this was when the SyFy channel actually knew what they were doing.

The Bad:
To be totally honest, I've got nothing. As miniseries go, this was great, and as set-ups for a TV show go, this is better than most pilot episodes. My only legit beef was I feel like there could of been more space battles, but that's probably what the rest of the show was for.

Final Rating: 98%

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