Battlestar Galactica is an American military science fiction television series, and part of the Battlestar Galactica franchise. The show was developed by Ronald D. Moore and executive produced by Moore and David Eick as a "re-imagining" of the 1978 Battlestar Galactica television series created by Glen A. Larson. The pilot for the series first aired as a three-hour miniseries in December 2003 on the Sci-Fi Channel, which was then followed by four regular seasons, ending its run on March 20, 2009. The cast includes Edward James Olmos, Mary McDonnell, Katee Sackhoff, Jamie Bamber, James Callis, Tricia Helfer, and Grace Park.
Battlestar Galactica is set in a distant star system, where a civilization of humans live on a group of planets known as the Twelve Colonies of Kobol. In the past, the Colonies had been at war with an android race of their own creation, known as the Cylons. With the unwitting help of a human scientist named Gaius Baltar (Callis), the Cylons launch a sudden sneak attack on the Colonies, laying waste to the planets and devastating their populations. Out of a population of several billion, there are about 50,000 human survivors; most were aboard civilian space ships that were not near the initial attacks. Of all the Colonial Fleet, the Battlestar Galactica (an older ship about to be decommissioned and turned into a museum) appears to be the only military capital ship that survived the attack. Under the leadership of Colonial Fleet officer Commander William "Bill" Adama (Olmos) and President Laura Roslin (McDonnell), the Galactica and its crew take up the task of leading the small fleet of refugee survivors into space in search of a fabled thirteenth colony known as Earth.
The series received critical acclaim at the time and since, including a Peabody Award, the Television Critics Association's Program of the Year Award, a placement inside Time's 100 Best TV Shows of All-Time and 19 Emmy nominations for its writing, directing, costume design, visual effects, sound mixing and sound editing, with three Emmy wins (visual effects and sound editing). In 2019, The New York Times placed the show on its list of "The 20 Best TV Dramas Since The Sopranos", a period many critics call a "golden age of television".
The series was followed by the prequel spin-off TV series Caprica, which aired for one season in 2010. A further spin-off, Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome, was released in November 2012 as a web series of ten 10-minute episodes and aired on February 10, 2013, on Syfy as a televised movie.
Contents
Series overview
Battlestar Galactica continued from the 2003 miniseries to chronicle the journey of the last surviving humans from the Twelve Colonies of Kobol, after their nuclear annihilation by the Cylons. The survivors are led by President Laura Roslin and Commander William Adama in a ragtag fleet of ships with the Battlestar Galactica, an old but powerful warship, as its command ship. Pursued by Cylons intent on wiping out the remnants of the human race, the survivors travel across the galaxy looking for the fabled and long-lost "thirteenth" colony: Earth. Unlike most space opera series, Battlestar Galactica has no humanoid aliens (the antagonists are man-made Cylon androids), the primary armaments used by both military forces utilize bullets, rail guns, and missiles instead of lasers, and the series intentionally avoids technobabble. Instead, most of the stories deal with the apocalyptic fallout of the destruction of the Twelve Colonies upon the survivors, and the moral choices they must make as they deal with the decline of the human race and their war with the Cylons. Stories also portray the concept of perpetuated cycles of hate and violence driving the human-Cylon conflict, and religion, with the implication of a "God" whose possibly angelic agents appear to certain main characters (most notably Gaius Baltar).
Over the course of the show's four seasons, the war between the Colonials and the Cylons takes many twists and turns. Despite the animosity on both sides, the humans and a faction of the Cylons eventually form an uneasy alliance, in the wake of the Cylon Civil War. The Cylon leader, a Cylon-humanoid "Number One" named John Cavil, precipitated the schism in the Cylon ranks. Cavil deceives the other models by obsessively hiding the identities and origins of the remaining five humanoid Cylon models, the "Final Five", who, known only to him, are a more ancient type of Cylon, created by a previous iteration of human civilization. Other plotlines involve the mysterious destiny of Kara "Starbuck" Thrace, who is the subject of a prophecy claiming that she is the "Harbinger of Death" who will "lead them all [humanity] to its end", as well as the redemption of Gaius Baltar through the Cylons' monotheistic religion, after he becomes a pariah within the fleet.
In the final episodes, an inexplicably resurrected Kara Thrace leads the surviving humans and their Cylon allies to a new planet, which Adama names "Earth". The first group of survivors settle in ancient Africa. The "real" Earth that the Colonials had searched for during their years in space was revealed in an earlier episode to have been originally inhabited thousands of years before by a previous form of humanoid Cylons; the "Final Five" were the last of these Cylons. Ironically, these humanoid Cylons had created their own Centurion robotic slaves, who waged a nuclear attack against their masters, devastating the planet and making it uninhabitable. The new Earth is found to be inhabited by early humans, who are genetically compatible with the humans from Galactica and the rest of the fleet, but who possess only the most rudimentary civilization.
Cast and characters
Main cast
Edward James Olmos as (CDR/ADM) William Adama, commanding officer of Battlestar Galactica; his call sign was "Husker" when he was a young Viper pilot
Mary McDonnell as President Laura Roslin, sole survivor of the former Colonial Government; was Secretary of Education before the destruction of the Colonies
Katee Sackhoff as (LT/CAPT) Kara "Starbuck" Thrace, hotshot Viper pilot of Galactica
Jamie Bamber as (CAPT/MAJ/CDR) Lee "Apollo" Adama, elder son of William Adama, CAG of Galactica, later CO of Battlestar Pegasus
James Callis as Dr. Gaius Baltar, a brilliant scientist, and later President
Tricia Helfer as Number Six, a humanoid Cylon
Grace Park as:
Number Eight, a humanoid Cylon
(LTJG) Sharon "Boomer" Valerii, Raptor pilot of Galactica; a copy of Number Eight
(LTJG) Sharon "Athena" Agathon, another copy of Number Eight; later also a Raptor pilot of Galactica
Supporting cast
Michael Hogan as (COL) Saul Tigh, executive officer of Galactica
Aaron Douglas as (CPO) Galen Tyrol a.k.a. "Chief", leader of the combined engineering/maintenance/safety/supply department, senior non-commissioned officer of Galactica
Tahmoh Penikett as (LT/CAPT) Karl "Helo" Agathon, an electronic warfare officer of a Raptor, paired with "Athena"
Alessandro Juliani as (LTJG) Felix Gaeta, combat information center tactical officer of Galactica
Kandyse McClure as (PO2/LTJG) Anastasia Dualla a.k.a. "Dee", CIC communications officer of Galactica, later married to Lee Adama
Paul Campbell as Billy Keikeya, personal aide of President Roslin
Nicki Clyne as (SPC) Cally Henderson, member of the landing bay deck crew of Galactica, later married to "Chief" Tyrol
Michael Trucco as (ENS) Samuel "Longshot" Anders, athlete, Caprican resistance leader and later Viper pilot of Galactica
Recurring cast
Donnelly Rhodes as (MAJ) Dr. Sherman Cottle, chief medical officer of Galactica
Bodie Olmos as (LT) Brendan "Hot Dog" Costanza, a Viper pilot of Galactica
Leah Cairns as (LT) Margaret "Racetrack" Edmondson, an ECO of a Raptor of Galactica
Rekha Sharma as Tory Foster, President Roslin's PA succeeding Billy
Kate Vernon as Ellen Tigh, wife of Saul Tigh
Richard Hatch as Tom Zarek, extremist political figure and former terrorist, later vice-president under Gaius Baltar's Presidency (Hatch played Apollo in the original Battlestar Galactica series.)
Jen Halley as (SPC / ENS) Diana "Hardball" Seelix, a Viper pilot of Galactica
Luciana Carro as (LT / CAPT) Louanne "Kat" Katraine, a Viper pilot of Galactica
Sam Witwer as (LT) Alex "Crashdown" Quartararo, a Raptor ECO, paired with "Boomer" after "Helo" being stranded on Caprica
Dominic Zamprogna as (SPC) James "Jammer" Lyman, a deckhand of Galactica, later an officer in the New Caprica Police (NPC)
Mark Sheppard as Romo Lampkin, an appointed public defender of Gaius Baltar
Michelle Forbes as (RADM) Helena Cain, CO of Battlestar Pegasus
Callum Keith Rennie as Leoben Conoy, an arms dealer and smuggler/Number Two, a humanoid Cylon
Themes and allusions
Time described Battlestar Galactica as "a gripping sci-fi allegory of the war on terror, complete with monotheistic religious fundamentalists (here genocidal cyborgs called Cylons), sleeper cells, civil-liberties crackdowns and even a prisoner-torture scandal". The show attempted to maintain its realism by referring to familiar elements of contemporary history – Laura Roslin's swearing in on Colonial One directly "cited the swearing in of Lyndon B. Johnson after the Kennedy assassination" – and the developing political situation since the September 11, 2001 attacks. Many people have drawn parallels between the Cylons and Al Qaeda" and according to The Guardian "Battlestar Galactica is the only award-winning drama that dares tackle the war on terror". The show has also tackled issues regarding terrorist sleeper cells with stories involving the reality and fear of Cylon suicide attacks, Cylon Number 5 (Aaron Doral) in the episode called "Litmus," sneaks aboard Galactica and blows himself up in the middle of the corridor and sleeper agent Lt. Sharon "Boomer" Valerii activates after destroying a Cylon basestar and shooting Commander Adama at the end of season 1. (Note that Sharon, as with some of the other human-form Cylons, had no idea that she was a Cylon.) Similar themes are revisited in season 3 (Episode 3.1, "Occupation") with a far different perspective: the humans, rather than the Cylons, are the suicide bombers. It has been suggested that these plotlines extensively "hinted at war-on-terrorism overtones." After 9/11, the original series' "broad premise – the human military's struggles in the wake of a massive terrorist attack – suddenly gained resonance" and let the show tackle issues like suicide bombings, torture ("evoking the darker side of the war on terror") and "civil liberties crackdowns".
Executive producer Ronald D. Moore points out that the Cylons and Al Qaeda are not necessarily intended to be allegorical: "They have aspects of Al Qaeda and they have aspects of the Catholic Church and they have aspects of America." On the other hand, abortion is illegal throughout the fleet, because the survival of what remains of humanity is at stake. In contrast, with the New Caprica storyline the show's humans have been discussed as an allegory not for an America under attack but for an occupied people mounting an insurgency and turning to suicide bombings as a tactic. There is a consensus that with "its third season, the show has morphed into a stinging allegorical critique of America's three-year occupation of Iraq" as the "cameras record Cylon occupation raids on unsuspecting human civilians with the night-vision green familiar to any TV news viewer. The reasoning of the Cylons is horrifically familiar, they would prefer not to be brutal but they won't accept the failure of a glorious mission." According to Slate "If this sounds like Iraq, it should", and "In unmistakable terms, Battlestar Galactica is telling viewers that insurgency (like, say, the one in Iraq) might have some moral flaws, such as the whole suicide bombing thing, but is ultimately virtuous and worthy of support." The "really audacious stroke of this season was showing us a story about a suicide bomber from the point of view of the bomber and his comrades... because the cause of this terrorist was unquestioningly our own. We sympathize with the insurgents wholeheartedly." If the Cylon occupying force is an allegory of the Coalition Forces in Iraq, then some of the other references are equally controversial; the "scene of the shiny, terrifying Cylon centurions (a servant class of robots that actually look like robots) marching down the main road of New Caprica while the devastated colonists looked on was the Nazis marching into Paris."
Music
The opening theme is a new-age-inflected version of the Gayatri Mantra, a Hindu hymn dedicated to the solar deity Savitr.
Bear McCreary was the primary composer for the television series, having assisted Richard Gibbs on the 3-hour miniseries. When the show was picked up, Gibbs opted not to devote full-time to the regular series' production and McCreary became the composer. He scored over 70 episodes. Six Battlestar Galactica soundtrack albums have been released to great critical acclaim - one for the miniseries, one for each of the four seasons, and one combining music from the inter-season Razor and post-finale prequel The Plan. The Chicago Tribune's Maureen Ryan hailed the music as "sensational" and "innovative", Joanna Weiss of The Boston Globe praised McCreary as a "visionary composer" who did much to create "the rich atmosphere of Battlestar", Alan Sepinwall, then of The Star-Ledger described McCreary's work on the show as "transcendent" and Variety said "Galactica offers some of the most innovative music on TV today."
The music of Battlestar Galactica displays a wide variety of influences and intentionally tries to avoid the "usual" style of a science fiction score. For some of the series' more important episodes, McCreary was granted a full orchestra. Character themes and leitmotifs gradually took on importance, despite being avoided earlier. A variety of instruments have been used. One season 4 episode employed: Chinese membrane flute, Indian bansuri flute, duduk (Armenian woodwind), erhu (Chinese violin), yaylı tambur (a Turkish lute), dumbek (Middle Eastern drum), Japanese taiko drums and four brass players, 30 string players and a 12-voice choir.
There have been several live concerts featuring the music of Battlestar Galactica. In April 2008, more than 1,000 fans attended two sold-out shows at L.A.'s Roxy on Sunset Boulevard, with some fans flying in from as far as England and Australia. A ballet based on McCreary's scores for Galactica premiered on March 7, 2009, for a 13-week run. Entitled "Prelude to War", it was performed by the dancers of the Theaterhagen in Hagen, Germany with choreography by Ricardo Fernando, and the Hagen Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Bernhard Steiner.
Broadcast and release
The first season originally premiered in the United Kingdom, on October 18, 2004, on Sky1. The first season was co-commissioned by Sky Television and Sci-Fi Channel. Season 1 began airing in North America three months later, on January 14, 2005, in the United States, and January 15 in Canada. The first episode aired in the U.S. became one of the highest-rated programs ever on Sci-Fi, with 3.1 million viewers. Subsequent episodes proved equally successful. The first episode of the season was later made available for viewing in its entirety, and without charge from the Sci-Fi website. Moore also sought to address the "Internet Generation" by posting podcast commentaries on individual episodes on the official Sci-Fi website.
Following the success of the 13-episode first season, the Sci-Fi Channel ordered a 20-episode second season on February 23, 2005. The season premiered in the United States on the Sci-Fi Channel on July 15, 2005, with the UK, Ireland, and Canadian premiere in January 2006. In fall 2005, airing of the second season halted, as it was part of Sci-Fi Channel's standard airing schedule normally used for its Stargate series, which was to split a 20-episode season into two parts (a "winter season" and a "summer season") to avoid heavy competition with major networks that follow a spring/fall schedule. The second half of season 2 ("Season 2.5") began airing on January 6, 2006, after a three-month hiatus.
The Sci-Fi Channel ordered a 20-episode third season on November 16, 2005, with production beginning in April 2006 in Vancouver, British Columbia. The season premiered in the United States on October 6, 2006, in Canada the following day, and in the UK on January 9, 2007; with the first two episodes being shown together. The broadcast schedule for season 3 did not include a long hiatus in the middle of the season, as with season 2. The Sci-Fi Channel moved the series to Sundays on January 21, 2007, the first time the show had changed nights since it began airing. Season 3 was broadcast in high-definition on Sky 1 HD in the UK and Ireland, starting on January 9, 2007, and in the U.S. on Universal HD, starting on January 27, 2007.
The Sci-Fi Channel confirmed on May 31, 2007, that Battlestar Galactica had been renewed for a fourth season of 22 episodes, which producers David Eick and Ronald D. Moore later announced to be the series' last. Preceding this was the airing of the Razor TV movie (comprising two of the ordered broadcast hours), while the remaining season of 20 episodes was split into two halves, due to the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike. The first half comprised episodes 3 to 10, while the second half comprised episodes 11 to 22. The series finale aired on March 20, 2009.
Continuation
On April 27, 2006, the Sci Fi Channel announced that a prequel spin-off of BSG was in development. Caprica takes place more than 50 years before the main series, before the original Cylon War, and chronicles the Adama family and Caprican society, showing the advancement of technology leading to the Cylon revolt. On March 18, 2008, Ronald Moore, the head writer, confirmed that Caprica would in fact be produced beginning with a two-hour backdoor pilot. On December 2, 2008, SCI FI announced that it had approved the full series. The first season, composed of 20 episodes including the pilot, premiered on January 22, 2010. An uncut version of the pilot was released on DVD on April 21, 2009, prior to the series' broadcast debut.
On July 24, 2009, Edward James Olmos suggested that The Plan would not be the last BSG movie, saying that he had written a script involving Galactica characters in which a crisis occurs at some point after their arrival on Earth.
On March 15, 2010, Syfy executive Mark Stern said that Syfy was working with Ronald D. Moore to develop a second spinoff of Battlestar Galactica, which would "mark a return to the franchise's space-opera roots" and "not necessarily be a traditional series." On July 27, 2010, it was revealed that the series would be called Blood & Chrome, featuring William Adama during the First Cylon War, and written by Michael Taylor. The series was distributed as a 10-episode online series on Machinima.com starting November 9, 2012, and aired as a televised movie on February 10, 2013, on Syfy.
Home media
The miniseries was released in region 2 on March 1, 2004, and in region 1 on December 28, 2004, and included deleted scenes, audio commentary, and a behind-the-scenes documentary. The first season was released to DVD on March 28, 2005, and September 20, 2005, in region 2 and region 1 respectively and included deleted scenes. The region 1 set also included featurettes, and a tongue-in-cheek promotional special filmed for the Sci Fi Channel in addition to the miniseries. However, it does not contain the special features that were included on the miniseries stand alone DVD release.
The second season was released in its entirety in a single volume in regions 2 and 4, but issued in two separate volumes (dubbed "Season 2.0" and "Season 2.5") in the region 1, which corresponded with the mid-season break in the broadcast schedule. Each region 1 volume contains half of the season, along with deleted scenes and podcasts that were previously available on the official website. "Season 2.5" also contains an extended version of "Pegasus", the last episode of the first half of the season. The region 2 DVDs include the extended version of "Pegasus", as well as the commentaries and deleted scenes from the region 1 "2.0" release, but do not contain any of the commentaries and deleted scenes from the "2.5" release (other than the extended "Pegasus" episode), nor the original, shorter version of "Pegasus" included on the region 1 "2.0" release. The Canadian DVD release of "Season 2.0" was delayed until April 25, 2006, as the episodes had only begun airing in January 2006.
The third season was released in region 1 on March 18, 2008, in region 2 on September 3, 2007, and in region 4 on November 20, 2007. The region 2 and 4 DVDs do not contain any extras but region 2's box set comes with a 45-minute recap of the previous two seasons (consisting of clips of the seasons strung together with a voice-over). The fourth season, like season 2, was released in two parts. In regions 1, 2 and 4, the television movie Razor is included in "Season 4.0" (as it is technically a part of the season despite it being released separately at an earlier date). In region 1, however, both the extended and shortened versions of Razor are included in the "4.0" box set.
On August 14, 2007, Universal Studios Home Entertainment announced that the miniseries and season 1 would be released on December 4, 2007, in region 1, on the now discontinued high definition disc format HD DVD. The technical specifications include 1080p/VC-1 transfers of the miniseries and each episode is in 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio, plus Dolby TrueHD 5.1 surround sound and Dolby Digital-Plus 5.1 surround audio options. Each individual season has also subsequently been released on Blu-ray Disc.
Reception
Critical response
Throughout its run, the series earned critical acclaim from Time, National Review, Rolling Stone, Newsday, The New York Times, The New Yorker, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Chicago Tribune, and Entertainment Weekly.
Diane Werts of Newsday wrote: "You can look at this saga any way you want—as political drama, religious debate, psychological suspenser, sci-fi adventure, deep metaphor or just plain fun—and it's scintillating from every angle." Robert Bianco of USA Today commented: "Driven by violence and rage, Galactica is perhaps the darkest space opera American TV has ever produced. In Galactica's future, humans are on the run, and if external enemies don't get us, internal divisions will... You'll understand them [the characters], their conflicts and their desires, because they're recognizable humans in all their glorious complexity. And that's what makes Galactica a great TV series." Peter Suderman of National Review stated that the series is "arguably the most potent, dramatically vibrant series on television. ...[I]t packs the power of a gut punch on screen. For that, much credit is due to the immensely compelling cast of characters... Battlestar Galactica burns with a combustive mixture of political turmoil and human drama that is as achingly real and relevant as anything on television. Jeff Jensen of Entertainment Weekly wrote that the show "has distinguished itself as one of television's very best dramas — on a par with 24, The Wire, and Lost — because it so utterly transcends both its genre and its source material. ...[The] series' sophisticated stories have also attracted a distinctively new breed of fan, one who's not necessarily a sci-fi buff." Moreover, in 2012, Entertainment Weekly listed the show at #7 in the "25 Best Cult TV Shows from the Past 25 Years," saying that producer Moore "expanded the show's central premise into an addictive post-9/11 parable and one of the most critically acclaimed series of the decade." The article credited Starbuck and Number Six as "geek and feminist icons," adding, "best of all, the show introduced this peerless profanity into the national lexicon: Frak !"
Mary McNamara of the Los Angeles Times praised the show's ability to "anchor fantasy with vivid and recognizable human psychology" and declares that the series is "not just a cult hit but a significant piece of television." Maureen Ryan of the Chicago Tribune described it as a "sprawling, enthralling tale of human survival" that is "full of political allegories and fascinating, multifaceted characters." She finds, "Like Deadwood, Battlestar Galactica is interested in exploring how a society on the edge decides to govern itself. What rights and actions are sacrosanct, which are outlawed, when most of the human race is eliminated? ... Thanks to a stellar cast and brave writing, Battlestar soars." Throughout its run, the series has often surprised reviewers with its many twists and turns. Ryan comments: "There's nothing like a good Battlestar plot twist to make your head spin, but the 'holy cow' moments aren't the main point (though they're one heck of a tasty side dish). The show and its twists and turns are grounded in deep curiosity about human nature, and how contradictory and confounding it can be."
Wider influence
On March 17, 2009, the United Nations hosted a Battlestar Galactica retrospective including a discussion with Mary McDonnell, Edward James Olmos, Ronald D. Moore and David Eick on human rights, terrorism, children and armed conflict, and reconciliation between civilians and faiths. The discussion was moderated by actress Whoopi Goldberg and also included Radhika Coomaraswamy, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict; Craig Mokhiber of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights; Robert C. Orr, Assistant Secretary-General for Policy Planning; and Famatta Rose Osode, from the Permanent Mission of Liberia to the UN.
Battlestar Galactica was the basis for a special session at the 2009 World Science Festival. The session included presentations from Mary McDonnell and Michael Hogan, as well as scientists Hod Lipson and Kevin Warwick.
The Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame in Seattle organised a special exhibition on the series with props of three spacecraft models and guest speakers starting October 23, 2010.
