Review: Battlestar Galactica Season One

Going into this summer, I discovered that Sci Fi's critically acclaimed show, Battlestar Galactica, had recently aired its final episode. As one that can almost never follow an ongoing TV show on a regular basis, this discovery is what finally spurred me into checking it out. Since the summer began, I have been making it part of my regimen to watch at least one episode a week so that I can eventually make it through the series and have a better idea of what makes this show one of the Best 100 TV shows of All Time. Fortunately, Battlestar Galactica makes this an easy task, as it is such an excellent program that I have wasted more than a few beautiful summer days camped out in front of my television trying to cure myself of a bad case of 'ZOMG-what-happens-next' fever, and Season One of Battlestar is surely capable of giving all but the most elitist or anti-sci-fi fans this malady.

The show tells the same story we heard back when the first iteration of the show aired back in 1978 of the war between the humans and machines referred to as 'cylons.' Humanity lived comfortably on twelve colonies until a traitor known as Baltar allowed for cylons to attack the twelve colonies, forcing the remains of the human race to flee, boarding whatever ships they could in hopes of some day escaping the cylon forces and finding the fabled thirteenth colony known as 'Earth.'

From the very first episode, Battlestar Galactica immediately dumps you into the action, starting with the intense back-end of the escape from the initial cylon threat; crews haven't slept in days and the cylons seem within reach of eradicating the human race. It is this intensity that makes Battlestar Galactica a gripping program, and the show's reimaginers, David Eick and Ronald D. Moore, only ease the tension slightly to later ratchet it up even further throughout the show's first year, making for an incredibly tight, high-impact narrative that will leave you most assuredly wanting more.

With a strong cast composed of established actors like Edward James Olmos (Commander Adama) and Mary McDonnell (President Roslin) as well as relative newcomers Katee Sackhoff ("Starbuck"), Jamie Bamber (Lee Adama), James Callis (Dr. Gaius Baltar), and Tricia Helfer (Number Six), the show never feels like it has to lean too heavily upon one role or another. The great thing about this is that the show tends to weave together several plotlines that involve entirely different characters, and, without high quality acting, some narratives might come off as particularly weak, but this is not the case for Battlestar, and it is these strong side plots that help build a more believable and involved universe; a key ingredient in making a quality sci-fi show.

While the phrase 'weave together several plotlines' may seem like either a way to postpone some inevitable plot point or create confusion among viewers, Eick and Moore handle the intricacies of parallel drama deftly in Season One such that viewers are shown a wide variety of the happenings in the human fleet, but are always kept constantly aware of humanity's main goal of surviving the cylon attacks and trying to find Earth. This 'all killer, no filler' formula for a show that--by the way--has some of the best special effects I've seen on TV, makes Battlestar Galactica's first season an incredible first step in the right direction of compelling sci-fi drama.