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Battlestar Galactica (2004 TV series)

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 This article or section contains information about an in-progress television show(s).
It may contain information of a speculative nature on future episodes, based on aired episodes, commercials for the show, its website, or other advance publicity. The content may change as future episodes are broadcast and more information becomes available.

This article is specifically about the 2004 Battlestar Galactica television series; for more information about the 2003 reimagining of Battlestar Galactica, see Battlestar Galactica (2003); for the miniseries that led to this television series, see Battlestar Galactica (TV miniseries); for other versions, see the main Battlestar Galactica page or Battlestar Galactica (disambiguation).
Battlestar Galactica is a science fiction television series created by Ronald D. Moore that first aired on October 18, 2004 in the United Kingdom on Sky One, and January 14, 2005 in the United States on the Sci Fi Channel. Repeats of episodes have also been shown on NBC. The introduction to the television series is a three-hour miniseries that first aired on December 8, 2003 on the Sci Fi Channel.

Contents

Synopsis

The concept of the show, as described by the opening text in each episode[#endnote_intro]:

The Cylons were created by Man.
They Rebelled.
They Evolved.
They Look and Feel Human.
Some are programmed to think they are Human.
There are many copies.
And they have a Plan.
47,875 survivors [#endnote_intro2]
In search of a home
Called Earth
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

[Spoiler warningSpoiler warning]: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Episode list

Season 1 (2004-2005)

While the first season mostly consists of stand-alone episodes plus one two-part episode, it features a number of major story arcs, including:

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:

Themes

Battlestar Galactica in its current incarnation deals with a number of interesting 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 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 subliminally and sometimes very clearly. Starbuck and Apollo's relationship is competetive 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". When Adama decides to resolve his dispute with Roslin and re-unite the fleet, he refers to it as "putting the family back together". 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.

Religion

The Gods of Kobol

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". The first season revolves around the ancient book of Pythia in the Colonials' scripture, which tells that any return to Kobol has a price of blood, a declaration set forth by Zeus. (Pythia was the title given to the ancient oracle at Delphi). This occurred sometime later than 3,600 years ago when Pythia received her vision of the future events unfolding in the series.

As stated by Roslin, seemingly quoting scriptures, the humans apparently believe in the version of eternal recurrence. She came to believe that she was playing a part that she had played before and that would eventually play again.

The \"One True God\"

The Cylons, created by the humans as simple labour-saving robots, rebelled for unknown reasons in the fashion of many popular movies (The Terminator, The Matrix, Blade Runner) and Karel Čapek's play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots). In the 40 year period during which the Cylons retreated from the 12 Colonies, they developed bio-mechanical models of Cylon, including twelve models which were effectively indistinguishable from humans (to the point of being able to reproduce sexually with humans). Their minds can be downloaded and resurrected into other copies of these bio-models.

Over time after their rebellion, the Cylons either developed, or were given, their concept of a soul and religion. In a twist on audience expectations, the Cylons are fundamentalist monotheists, believing in "one true God", like prevalent modern Earth Abrahamic religions. 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. Number Six has often asserted the Judeo-Christian idea that "God is love" and while Baltar began as a secular atheist, has found himself believing at times that he is an agent of the Cylons' One True God.

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; Laura Roslin leads 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 Yasir 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.

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 , which used a similar device at the start of each episode of its first season.

The U.K version of the title sequence for season one featured a Hindu mantra, 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" which was originally included as temp music. As of season two, the main title sequences in all territories where the show airs now uses the UK title sequence, the Gayatri Mantra written by miniseries composer Richard Gibbs.

The words in the mantra are "OM bhūr bhuvah svah tat savitur varēnyam bhargō dēvasya dhīmahi dhiyō yō nah pracōdayāt", 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.

As of 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.

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 Gaelic and Latin as well as a spoof Italian operatic piece entitled "Battlestar Operatica," which includes the lyrics (translated from Italian):

Woe upon your Cylon heart
There's a toaster in your head
And it wears high heels
Number Six calls to you
The Cylon Detector beckons
Your girlfriend is a toaster
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 Celtic 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, usually whenever the theme of family is brought up in the storyline.

A sample of the Gaelic lyrics appears below, from the official "Battlestar Galactica: Season One Soundtrack":

(original Gaelic)

Siulaigi a chairde, siulaidh liom
Mar cheo an tsleibhe uaine ag
imeacht go deo
D’ainneoin ar dtuirse leanfam an tsli
Thar chnoic is thar ghleannta
go deireadh na scrib’.
(English Translation)
Wander my friends, wander with me
Like the mist on the green mountain, moving eternally
Despite our weariness,
we’ll follow the road
Over hills and valleys
to the end of the journey
On several occasions, the show's soundtrack incorporates music by acclaimed composer Philip Glass, including excerpts from his albums Glassworks and Metamorphosis One.

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 United Kingdom 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 three months ahead of the show's premiere in the U.S. and 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 and 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 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 & 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. This episode, "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" will appear on the Battlestar Galactica Season 2.5 DVD set when it is eventually released, which is rumored to be on September 19, 2006. [link] Sky did not contribute financially to the second series, although they are credited at the end of every episode because many of the sets from the first series were co-funded by them.
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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[#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 II" 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.

It was recently announced that season 2.5 will be available on DVD on September 19th, 2006 in the U.S. It will feature an extended version of the episode "Pegasus" along with commentaries and deleted scenes. Price remains unknown.

Australian website EzyDVD.com.au has listed Season 2 for release on the 16th of August, the website also states that the entire season will be collected in the one box set.

Webisodes

NBC Universal announced that there will be a web series of ten "webisodes" called . The series is 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].

Season 3

The SCI FI channel has ordered a 20-episode third season, which will premiere both the US and UK in October 2006. There will be no "split" between Episode 10 and Episode 11. Production began in April 2006 in Vancouver, British Columbia.[link]

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

The season opener, "Occupation", and the following episodes, "Precipice", "Exodus", "Collaborators", "Torn", and "Hero", continue the story of the Cylon occupation and the preceding year on New Caprica.

The Sci-Fi channel has recently announced preliminary plans for a possible prequel spinoff of BSG (currently named 'Caprica'). It will take place over 50 years before the current series, before the original Cylon War, and will chronicle the Adama family and Caprica society as well as show the advancement of technology leading to the Cylon revolt.

Cast

Main characters

Supporting characters

Guest appearances

Boxey was originally intended to appear regularly during the first season, but virtually all scenes featuring the character were edited out of the final episodes; these deleted scenes are included on the season one DVD release. There has been some speculation of some of the cast of the original series, beyond Richard Hatch, possibly guest starring in future episodes.

Military characters

The Colonial military is organized much the same as in the original. From the episodes aired, a Battlestar is apparently meant to be the lead vessel in a battle group which normally consists of many smaller vessels. The reimagined series explicitly places the Galactica as one of two or three battlestars within battle group 75. A Colonial Fleet and Colonial Marines exist; there are very few of the latter as Galactica only had a small contingent on board due to its impending decommissioning.

Officers in the Colonial Fleet are given ranks that are a fusion of those presently used in western armies and navies. Ronald D. Moore outlined the rank structure in a [blog entry] in February of 2005, stating that he wanted to keep the "co-mingled" ranks of the original series rather than reassign ranks based on real-world naval structure.

The Colonial Fleet commissioned officers are identified as:

For enlisted crewmen, including warrant officers, the ranks are: The Colonial Marines have a different rank structure for enlisted men: Private, Corporal, Sergeant, etc. Their officer rank structure has not been shown and it is unknown whether any commissioned Marine officers survived (Marines on the show have only been led by Fleet officers such as Apollo, Starbuck, or Tigh).

The command and executive officers of the Galactica are a Commander and Colonel, respectively, and have been since before the destruction of the colonies. Dr. Cottle holds the rank of Major, as did Lee Adama prior to his promotion to Commander. There are a few senior officers with the rank of Captain as well as several lieutenants. The second season introduced Admiral Helena Cain (played by Michelle Forbes), in command of the Battlestar Pegasus.

Recurring Marine characters include Galactica's Master-at-arms, Sergeant Hadrian, played by Jill Teed, and Corporal Venner, played by Chris Shields. In addition to these Marines, Privates are known to exist.

Broadcasters

First-run

Reruns/syndication

Awards

Notes

  1. ↑  The lines about the Cylons appear in a prologue before the episode. In the second season, the lines "They look and feel human" and "Some are programmed to think they are Human" was removed, but the lines about the survivors in search of Earth were added to the main title sequence.
  2. ↑ The population count is updated in each episode.

References

  • David Bassom's Battlestar Galactica: The Official Companion (Titan Books 2006, ISBN 1845760972) covers the making of season one. A season two companion is due in August 2006.

See also

External links

 

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