Battlestar Galactica Series Review

Blah blah blah Sharktopus joke,blah blah Ghost Hunters is fake, blah blah.

I've done reviews for all four seasons of the epic sci fi series, so now it's time to look at the series as a whole. I should say now that I'm not gonna be doing the usual "in a nutshell, the good, the bad" format, nor will I do a final rating, mostly because, for an entire series, that would be a pain in the ass to write, and frankly really stupid. So let's get started.

The Cylons were created by man (yes, they're robots). They rebelled. They evolved. They look and feel human. And they have a plan. Part of that plan involves nuking the crap out of the Twelve Colonies of Humanity in a surprise attack, making the human population go from billions upon billions to about 50,000. Now, the survivors have a ragtag fleet of ships searching for a new home, called Earth, the fabled 13th colony mentioned in their scriptures. The fleet is headed and protected by the Battlestar Galactica, under Cmdr Bill Adama, whose pilots and marines are the only thing standing between the surviving humans and annihilation at the hands of the constantly-chasing Cylons.

The show is one of the most realistic military dramas I've ever seen, which is ironic seeing how they're in space. Seriously, they nail protocol and terminology perfectly, complete with a dark, gritty tone, and it leads into some amazing space battles. The space battles are the icing on the cake for this series; it's awesome to begin with, but then they throw in some of the greatest space battles ever, complete with amazing special effects (don't worry, the ships don't look like Sharktopuses).

The action in the show alone is great, but it's there along side what's a story about people and how they act in one of the most undesirable situations imaginable. You've got great characters here, like dedicated Cmdr Adama, maverick viper pilot Kara "Starbuck" Thrace, daddy-issues ridden pilot Lee "Apollo" Adama, teacher turned president Laura Roslin, and interesting scientist Gaius Baltar (I won't go into detail at the risk of spoilers, but Baltar is probably the most interesting character on the show). These characters, who you genuinely like and root for, are dealing with Cylons, who are probably the most interesting, complex, charismatic, and just plain violent villains to ever grace television (want to tell spoilers but can't).

The political aspects of the show were surprisingly interesting; I hate politics, I honestly do, and I was interested by the various political mini-arcs that every season had.

And then you've got the quest for Earth, aka the theological aspect of the show. If you're insulted by the existence of religion, don't bother watching this show, because faith and God are very much at work here. The quest for Earth was one of the most compelling parts of the show, partly because for the first few seasons you wonder when this takes place in Earth's chronology so you can't help think "what's gonna happen when they actually get there", and partly because it's just damned interesting. And it all ends with a final scene that, if you're like me, will make you go "wait... OH MY GOD!".

As far as the seasons themselves went, I'll break it down like this:

Season 1/the mini-series: starts off a bit slow, but when stuff starts going down, it gets amazing and you do not want to stop watching, save for one somewhat painful episode.

Season 2: Starts off absolutely incredible, then declines a bit in quality after episode 12, mostly because of a few pointless filler episodes. Then it ends pretty spectacularly.

Season 3: The first 13 episodes are amazing beyond belief and set the bar way up there, then they do a few fillers that frankly really sucked, and then, once again, it ends perfectly.

Season 4: Very inconsistent, with amazing highs met with crushing lows. Fortunately, it all concludes well with one of the best series finales ever.

Overall, BSG is one of the best sci fi shows I personally have ever seen, and if you haven't seen, go watch it already!

So have you seen BSG? What'd you think of it? Comment below, let me know!

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