Forget Star Trek. Forget Babylon 5. The best sci-fi TV series is without a doubt the recent remake of Battlestar Galactica. This show not only demonstrated that remakes can actually be superior to their original (although it may be unique in that respect), but also showed that a sci-fi series can appeal to a wider audience simply on the strength of its writing and acting. However, it can be a bit of a hard sell to get non-SF fans to watch it in the first place, mainly because of the title. I usually tell people it is West Wing in space, just as Ridley Scott sold ALIEN as “JAWS in space”, and it worked.
Like any good science fiction, the show was allegorical, with the politics and religion reflecting what is going on in the world around us. With the quality of the writing the issues explored were done in such a way as to stand the test of time because it was as much about the universal human condition as it was about current events.
What made the series really work for me is the fact that there weren’t any weird aliens. It was purely a human drama, where even the ‘enemy’ were ‘human’. They may have been machines but they had as many foibles as the real humans and, as was revealed as the show progressed, some were not even aware of their true nature, a condition that afflicts most humans.
After four (or three and a half, depending on your point of view) seasons and a mini-series, the crew of Galactica and the rest of the survivors arrive on the mythical planet Earth, only to find it decimated. Completely disillusioned they head of in search of a new home, having to deal with divisions in the ranks of both the crew and the Cylons. If tension is the foundation of good drama, then BG certainly succeeds, as almost every episode has some twist or unexpected turn that leaves you going “Frak”, and this final season (4.2?) is no exception as it leads to the grand finale.
Unfortunately it is almost impossible to get a completely satisfactory conclusion to such a powerful series. It still manages to throw in surprises, plenty of emotion that will bring a tear to the hardest of men, but there are also bits that are just too fluffy, compared with the rest of the series, but the final coda is a nice little pay off that makes up for those little transgressions.
This final season set also has some great special features including a look at how the music is written and recorded, David Eick’s videoblogs, the web-based episodes (webisodes) The Face of the Enemy, a sneak preview of Caprica, the new prequel show, and a condensed run through the previous episodes that you can also see here.
If you haven’t caught up with the whole series yet you can get the rest of it from Amazon
Battlestar Galactica: The Final Series is out on 1 June from Universal Playblack and is available from major retailers including Amazon
Jamie Bamber is doing a signing session at HMV Oxford Street on Monday June 1 at 18:00.
We have three copies of the Final Series to give away on DVD, courtesy of Universal Playback. Click the link below to enter the competition, which closes July 1, 2009.