Guess Who’s Back?

After the announcement that Battlestar Galactica was to be remade (or “reimagined” as the marketing folk would have it) and news started to leak out about the production, for example news that Starbuck was being cast as a woman, all hell broke lose amongst fandom to the point where these people were “openly dissapproving” to the stars of the show when they made public appearances.� Indeed, there are people still who do not watch the new Battlestar Galactica because they feel it desecrates the premise of the original and somehow diminishes it.� These people are idiots.� Battlestar Galactica is one of the most daring, clever, challenging, absorbing and downright brilliant shows I’ve ever seen.� Sky One has just shown a double header (as seems to be the way with US imports these days) to launch series three with the episodes “Occupation” and “Precipice” sewn together into a 90-minute epic.

Anyone who has not seen the show to date could be forgiven for being completely lost if they tried to follow the course of events set out here.� The cylons are in control of New Caprica while the remnants of the fleet are hiding out and wondering what they can do to help.� With strong political parallels to Iraq, there is insurgency from the locals as they rebel against the occupying forces, with attacks and suicide bombings striking at the heart of the Cylons and their coerced, human police force.� The viewer, I am sure, is meant to feel uncomfortable as you naturally take the side of the insurgents against the occupiers and feel an empathy towards the suicide bomber.� It’s an unrelenting show.� Where others may have opted for some light relief or more comic storylines to balance the feel of the stories, here we see every thread interwoven against a backdrop of despair and not-quite hopelessness. Anyone who says there’s nothing good on television any more, just really isn’t trying.

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Tags: Battlestar Galactica, Caprica, Cylon, Katee-Sackhoff, Occupation, Precipice, SkyOne, Starbuck