Battlestar Galactica

Synopsis

The concept of the show, as described by the opening text in each episode of the first two seasons (references to the number of survivors and Earth have been dropped in season three):

Battlestar Galactica follows on from the 2003 mini-series to chronicle the journey of the last surviving humans from the Twelve Colonies of Man after their nuclear annihilation by the Cylons. The survivors are led by President Laura Roslin and Commander (later Admiral) William Adama in a ragtag fleet of ships with the Battlestar Galactica, a massive warship, at its lead. Pursued by the Cylons who are 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.

Plot

Episode list

Season 1 (2004-2005)

Following the Cylons' genocidal attack on the 12 colonies, the surviving Colonials flee through space in hope of escaping their attackers and finding a new home. Ongoing storylines in Season 1 include:

Helo's struggle to stay alive on Cylon-Occupied Caprica and his unwitting involvement in a Cylon plan that employs a copy of Lt. Sharon "Boomer" Valerii. The juxtaposition of military and government forces as the assumed leaders and decision-makers for the only surviving members of the human race; most chiefly represented by the mercurial collaboration between President Roslin and Commander Adama. The struggle to provide ample resources for the remaining ships and their inhabitants. The suspicion of humanoid Cylons hidden within the fleet. Some of these infiltrators have been programmed to believe they are human, and are unaware of the unstoppable Cylon mission they are designed to perform. Boomer, the copy of Sharon Valerii on Galactica, spends the season trying to reconcile the increasing amount of evidence that she is one of these "sleeper" agents. The accidental discovery of the planet Kobol, which, according to Pythian Scripture, is the birthplace of humanity and holds the key to finding Earth; however, it is also occupied by Cylons. Adama asks Baltar to build a "Cylon Detector," but this process is hampered by Baltar's persistent hallucinations of Number Six and her insistance that God has a plan for him, as well as his fear of being unmasked as the traitor whose actions allowed the Cylons to execute their attack on the 12 Colonies. The question of the elusive "plan" that the Cylons have and their true nature behind their hateful fascination with humanity, which may have something to do with the destiny as foretold by the "one true God" they believe in (the religious Colonials are polytheistic).

Season 2 (2005-2006)

Moore has stated that in the second season, he wanted to resolve the many cliffhangers from the first, while examining the Cylons and the religious themes already introduced in more detail. The second season went on scheduled hiatus from September 2005 to January 2006.

The second season's main story arcs include:

Commander Adama's recovery from Boomer's assassination attempt. The Kobol landing party's struggle for survival and subsequent rescue. Starbuck's mission to Caprica to retrieve The Arrow of Apollo, which Roslin requires to complete her role as "the dying leader who will lead her people to Earth." The escape from Caprica of Starbuck, Helo and one Caprican copy of Boomer.Deposed president Laura Roslin's escape from imprisonment and expedition to Kobol, in search of the way to Earth. The progression of Roslin's cancer and her eventual recovery. The discovery of a group of humans on Caprica who have survived the Cylon attacks and maintain a resistance against their presence on the planet. Reconciliation between Adama and the fugitive Roslin and Apollo, and eventually the fleet as a whole, after Adama reunites with the fugitives on Kobol and shares their discovery of the prophesied "map" to Earth. The discovery of perhaps the only other surviving Battlestar, Pegasus, under the command of Admiral Helena Cain, and subsequent conflicts between Cain and Adama.The birth of Caprica-Boomer's baby. The use of propaganda to further one's cause. Prisoner abuse and the implications of being a cylon in human captivity. The campaign for the Presidency of the Twelve Colonies. The discovery of and settlement on New Caprica.

Season 3 (2006-2007)

The third season of Battlestar Galactica premiered in the US on October 6, 2006.

The third season's main story arcs include:

Colonists on New Caprica form an insurgency to fight against the Cylon occupation. President Baltar's personal decline as he tries to balance his desire to protect the human population versus the fear that he will be killed by the Cylons if he is too assertive. The Galactica makes contact with the colonists after jumping away to escape the Cylon fleet four months before. The Cylon's attempt to find the half-human baby born to Sharon in season 2Galactica mounting a possible rescue mission to the people of New Caprica

Themes

Battlestar Galactica in its current incarnation deals with a number of themes. As in the original series, it is loosely based on ancient astronaut theories and carries over several motifs from the Original Series which Glen A. Larson based on Mormon theology. But the producers of the new Galactica decided to take a more serious approach to the concept of refugees fleeing mass genocide. Conflict and even violence between the Colonial characters are the rule rather than the exception. By taking this "heavier", more naturalistic approach, the show attempts to raise meaningful questions about human nature and the meaning of life.

Family

The evolution of the troubled relationship of Adama and son is a cornerstone of the show. In a more metaphorical sense, Galactica's characters are all members of a family -- the extended family of the whole ship, and their individual "families" like Chief Tyrol's deck workers. The theme of family is always present in the show, sometimes latently and sometimes very clearly.

The Adama family features a complex dynamic between Bill Adama, his son Lee (Apollo), Kara Thrace (Starbuck), and Adama's dead son Zak. Commander (later Admiral) Adama loves his son Lee, but has difficulties becoming close to him due to personal differences—at one point, these differences place the Commander and his son on opposing sides of what almost becomes a civil war. (When Adama decides to resolve this and re-unite the fleet, he refers to it as "putting the family back together"—referring not only to himself and Lee, but metaphorically to the entire fleet and crew of the Galactica as a family as well.) Starbuck and Apollo's relationship is competitive and even violent, yet deeply close. Executive producer David Eick has described it as "like a brother and sister, or two repressed lovers -- pick your metaphor." Lee admits in the second season to loving Starbuck, and throughout the series feels a gamut of conflicted feelings towards her. In other episodes, Starbuck is considered the Adamas' last link to Zak, although Adama himself says he loves Starbuck like a daughter. After endangering the fleet searching for her, Adama explains, "Kara was family. You do whatever you have to do. Sometimes you break the rules."

When Chief Tyrol has a psychotic episode and attacks one of his deck crew, his priest tells him to return to work and face them because they are his family. Similarly, Roslin grieves at the death of her aide Billy, explaining he was the closest thing to family she had left.

Religion

The humans worship the Lords of Kobol, these being the gods of the ancient Greek Pantheon (references to other pantheons are scattered throughout the series - to date only the Greek Pantheon has been specifically named as being on Kobol). The series implies that humans believe they originated from the planet Kobol where they lived with the gods "in paradise".

In contrast to the polytheistic beliefs of the humans, the Cylons gained their concept of a soul and a unique religion. Unlike the polytheistic humans, the Cylons are monotheists, believing in "one true God", like prevalent modern Earth Abrahamic religions. Like the Abrahamic religions, the Cylon God is said to be one of love. The clash of beliefs between the Colonial and Cylon religions is a major theme of the show: the Cylons believe they have been ordered on a religious crusade by their one God to eradicate the unworthy humans. Yet there are some Cylon factions that believe the genocide was a mistake, claiming that a God of love would never have ordered the destruction of humanity and that by doing so the Cylons have become no better than the very people they were trying to replace. There are still other Cylons that are atheists.

There are nonetheless many shared beliefs between the Cylons and humans—they share a belief in eternal recurrence and in the validity of ancient human prophecies to the point where Cylons quote human scripture and claim to know it better than the humans themselves do.

In a deleted scene, members of the Galactica crew are discussing Kobol and reveal that paradise was supposedly destroyed when one god tried to take control from all the others. The illusory Six explained that this god was the only true god and the others were pretenders. This suggests that the Cylon god was one of the Lords of Kobol, and rebelled against them, making Him perhaps the equivalent of Lucifer. It is unclear if this deleted scene is canonical.

The first season showed two characters, Roslin and Baltar, neither of whom were particularly religious, gradually growing in faith. While Roslin's beliefs prior to the events of the first season are uncertain, she has a series of visions partially induced by an alternative drug she is taking to treat her cancer. These visions, and the interpretation of those visions by Roslin's priest Elosha, gradually convince Roslin that she is playing out the prophesied role of the dying leader who will lead humanity to the promised land. At the end of the first season, she has become so convinced of her faith that she suborns mutiny aboard the Galactica in order to retrieve a sacred relic from occupied Caprica.

Baltar's conversion follows a similar path. Due to his recurrent visions of Number Six and a series of events throughout the first season, Baltar's staunch atheism gives way to a fanatical belief not only in the Cylon God, but in his own status as an instrument of God.

Other issues explored in the second season include the influence of religion in a largely secular society. Roslin reluctantly uses her role as a religious figure to secure support during her conflict with the military government established by Col. Tigh, as well as during her escape from Galactica, creating tension with her more secular supporters as well as with the atheist Tigh and Adama, who at one point dismisses Roslin's faith-based appeal to the fleet as "religious crap". These very tensions later place her in conflict with Tom Zarek and eventually Dr. Baltar, who establishes leverage in his presidential campaign by attacking Roslin's use of religion in her governing practices. The colony of Gemenon is also established as a particularly religious society—the survivors of Gemenon are among the first to flock to Roslin's cause during the division of the fleet, but later remain a difficult constituency to maintain due to the issue of abortion, in much the same way as the issue of abortion is central to certain religious groups in the United States.

While there have been some similarities between the Cylon religion and latter day Christianity, the first episode of the 3rd season mentioned that it was a mandate to spread their faith through any means necessary, even if it meant through fear. Fear was described as a "key article of faith" by an atheist. This was accompanied by the suggestion to round up all members of the Human insurgency and their sympathizers for public execution, or to cut down the size of the Human survivors to less than 1,000.

Politics

Unlike the original series, the new Galactica has a fairly detailed and significant political aspect. Adama commands the military but he is not absolute ruler; Initially Laura Roslin and later Gaius Baltar lead a civilian government under at least nominal rule of law. The hard choices that have to be made in such extreme circumstances are a constant source of conflict and dramatic tension. The character of Tom Zarek, portrayed by Richard Hatch who played the original Apollo, is a former guerilla fighter echoing Yasser Arafat or Nelson Mandela. Although he is definitely an antagonist, he is not unsympathetic and often raises "inconvenient truths" the main characters would rather not deal with.

At the end of season one, President Roslin interferes with Adama's authority over his own people, convincing Starbuck to hijack a captured Cylon spacecraft and return to Caprica. As a result, Adama stages a military coup and assumes total authority. This results in unrest, rebellion, and ultimately the break-up of the fleet -- a situation which is not resolved until several episodes into the second season.

In addition, later season two episodes have seen extremist factions emerge. Both Cylon sympathizers who want to negotiate human surrender, and anti-Cylon hardliners who believe the military has been infiltrated and duped by the Cylons, have used violence and sabotage to achieve their aims.

The Cylons, too, are beginning to face political dissent and internal conflict. The second season finale introduced an atheistic Cylon who, until discovery, was masquerading as a human priest. Coupled with the events of the earlier episode "Downloaded", this raises some questions about how united the Cylons' society's beliefs are. Previous episodes implied a rivalry between some models, with the Sixes considering the Eights (Sharon) unreliable, and the theme is ripe for further examination in future seasons. Ron Moore has stated that the Cylons are a young species: they have not yet encountered significant internal differences or contrasting beliefs, but gradually begin to.

In the first episode of the third season the humans on New Caprica resort to suicide bombings at least twice, even giving a slight positive light on the idea stating that sending a soldier to their death, whether in a dangerous mission with a high casualty rate or with a set of explosives strapped to their chest, is still sending a soldier to their death. Both Roslin and Baltar highly disapprove of such methods, though.

Main title

The first season's main title is divided into two segments, the first containing clips from the 2003 miniseries, and the second an action-oriented montage of images from the coming episode. Moore intended the montage sequence to be a direct homage to the titles of Space: 1999, which used a similar device at the start of each episode of its first season.

The Sky One version of the title sequence for season one featured a Hindumantra, the Gayatri Mantra, taken from the Rig Veda. In the U.S., the music was an original instrumental piece by composer Bear McCreary called "Two Funerals" originally written for the episode "Act of Contrition". As of season two, the main title sequences in all territories where the show airs now uses the Sky One title sequence, the Gayatri Mantra written by miniseries composer Richard Gibbs.

The words in the mantra are "OM bhur bhuvah svah tat savitur varenyam bhargo devasya dhimahi dhiyo yo nah pracodayat", which may be translated in various ways but means approximately: "May we attain that excellent glory of Savitri the Goddess / so May she stimulate our prayers."

For the second season, the Sci Fi Channel eschewed Moore's "in this episode" montage until the fifth episode, as some fans complained that the sequence spoiled the episode.

In season two, the opening intro lists the exact number of survivors in the fleet. The number is updated for each episode following deaths and births from the previous one. However, this feature is no longer present in season 3.

Musical score

The score for the series was created by composer Bear McCreary, generally following the template set by Gibbs for the miniseries but adding a great number of Western influences. It includes a number of vocal pieces, including songs in Irish and Latin as well as a spoof Italian operatic piece entitled "Battlestar Operatica," which includes the lyrics (translated from Italian):

The full lyrics to "Battlestar Operatica" are presented in Battlestar Galactica: The Official Companion (Titan Books, 2005), written by David Bassom.

Another example of McCreary's eclectic approach is the track entitled "Wander My Friends", which aired in the episode "The Hand of God" in Season One. With flourishing Uilleann pipes and vocals, the motif is associated with the relationship between William Adama and his son Lee, and can be heard twice in the episode. The motif repeats at least twice in Season Two, and again in Exodus Part I in the Third season, usually whenever the theme of family is brought up in the storyline.

A sample of the Irish (Gaeilge) lyrics appears below, from the official Battlestar Galactica: Season One Soundtrack:

(original Gaeilge)

(English Translation)

On several occasions, the show's soundtrack incorporates music by acclaimed composer Philip Glass, including excerpts from his albums Glassworks and Metamorphosis Five.

Production

Season 1

The first season of thirteen one-hour episodes was announced by the Sci Fi Channel on February 10, 2004 and aired in the UK & Ireland between October 18, 2004 and January 24, 2005 on Sky One, which co-financed the series with the Sci Fi Channel and NBC Universal. Produced in 2004 by David Eick and Ronald D. Moore and starring the original cast from the 2003 miniseries, it was aired in the United States from January 14, 2005 and from January 15 in Canada. Moore left his position as producer on HBO's Carnivàle after its first season to concentrate more on BSG.

Battlestar Galactica's first season aired in the UK & Ireland three months ahead of the show's premiere in the U.S. & Canada. This rare example of a North American television show being aired across the Atlantic before its first broadcast "at home" was the result of Sky's partially funding the first season's production.

The time lag between the UK & Ireland and the U.S. screenings led to widespread distribution of episodes via peer-to-peer networks, such as eDonkey and BitTorrent, often within only a few hours of Sky One airing them. Although Sci Fi and Moore deplored this and publicly appealed for downloaders not to pirate the show, there was widespread speculation that its unauthorized electronic distribution contributed to the U.S. success of the show by creating a favourable word of mouth impression among key demographic groups. Perhaps in recognition of this, the first episode 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 Sci Fi website.

The series proved successful on its UK & Ireland premiere, attracting favorable comments from reviewers and generating considerable anticipation in the U.S. The first episode aired in the U.S. became one of the highest-rated programs ever on Sci Fi with 3.1 million viewers. Successive episodes proved equally successful. The first episode of the regular series, "33", won the 2005 short form Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation.

Season 2

Following the success of the 13-episode season one, the Sci Fi Channel commissioned a full 20-episode second season. The season premiered in the U.S. on Sci Fi Channel on July 15, 2005, with the UK, Ireland & Canadian premiere in January 2006. In the Fall of 2005, production on the second season halted as it was part of Sci-Fi Channel's standard production 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 Sci Fi Channel took this break as an opportunity to package the episodes aired thus far into a DVD set, calling it Season 2.0. The final episode of the first half, "Pegasus," was originally 15 minutes too long for broadcast, but according to creator Ronald Moore, the production team decided to cut the episode to time rather than pad it out to fill 90 minutes, as this was deemed impractical. The longer version of "Pegasus" appears on the Battlestar Galactica Season 2.5 DVD set, which was released in the U.S. on September 19, 2006. Sky did not contribute financially to the second season, although UK Broadcasts credit the company at the end of every episode because many of the sets from the first series were co-funded by them.

Season 2.5 began airing on January 6, 2006, after a three-month hiatus during which the Sci Fi Channel mounted a huge publicity effort. Battlestar Galactica picked up considerable critical acclaim from the mainstream press, including being named the #1 show of 2005 by Time Magazine, and being listed on numerous Top Ten lists by publications such as the Boston Globe. The American Film Institute also named it one of the 10 best television shows of 2005. There was some criticism that a few episodes following "Resurrection Ship, Part 2" were not up to par with previous episodes, such as the episode "Black Market" which even Ron Moore especially expressed his dislike for, and his embarrassment at how it turned out. Moore stated in his blog that he felt this was a result of the larger workload the series faced with 20 episodes instead of 13 in season 1. However, episode 15 "Scar" was thought to bring the series back up to its Cain-trilogy levels of quality, and subsequent episodes "The Captain's Hand", "Downloaded" and the two part finale "Lay Down Your Burdens", were hailed by fans and critics alike. Moore has expressed that he feels that the longer break between seasons 2 and 3 (four months instead of two) will help to ensure that all episodes are up to the high level of quality that the production team is trying to maintain.

Season 2 was released on DVD in Australia on August 15, 2006. The entire season is collected in one box set. Season 2 however began its first run on Australian television just 2 weeks prior to this on Channel Ten, at 11pm on Wednesdays, meaning that the complete season became available the day before the third episode aired.

Webisodes

NBC Universal announced that there will be a web series of ten "webisodes" called Battlestar Galactica: The Resistance. The series was designed to focus on events that take place on New Caprica between seasons two and three of the television series, and will air on SCI FI PULSE. Almost no news appeared after the original announcement due to legal issues that had surfaced , but the broadcast date was eventually revealed on August 28, 2006 on Sci Fi's website by Sci Fi's head of Internet Programming Craig Engler. The release schedule was twice a week on Tuesday and Thursday. The first Webisode was posted Tuesday, September 5, and the last posted on Thursday, October 5, one night before the first episode of Season 3.

Season 3

The Sci Fi Channel has ordered a 20-episode third season, which premiered in the U.S. on October 6, 2006. There will be no "split" between episode 10 and episode 11. Production began in April 2006 in Vancouver, British Columbia.

UK fans were disappointed to learn that Sky One will not be screening season three until early 2007; it had been previously reported that the show would return at around the same time as the US screenings.

In Canada, the third season will premiere on Space: The Imagination Station on October 7, 2006 at 9pm. As with the US, both episodes 10 and 11 will be shown together.

Michael Taylor has joined the writing staff for season 3. Taylor was previously a writer on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager and The Dead Zone. He is known for writing the acclaimed Deep Space Nine episode "The Visitor", as well as the teleplay of "In the Pale Moonlight", which was controversial in challenging some of Star Trek's utopian ideas.

The season openers, "Occupation" and "Precipice" (a two hour premiere dubbed "Occuprice" by writer Ronald D. Moore), and the following episodes "Exodus, Part 1", "Exodus, Part 2", "Collaborators", "Torn" and "Hero", continue the story of the Cylon occupation and the preceding year on New Caprica. The Sci Fi Channel debuted the first preview teaser for the third season in July.

On October 4, 2006, with the unveiling of Webisode 9, the Sci Fi channel released the first 12 minutes of "Occupation" .. as a "First Look" preview.