SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!
This coming friday night will be the last episode of one of my favourite shows – Battlestar Galactica. For those who don’t know it’s a new take on the old series from the 70’s starring Lorne Greene. The premise for the show in a nutshell is this: Humans invent Cylons (robotic artificial intelligence) to serve them, the Cylons rebel and attack their human masters, eventually an armistice is declared and the Cylons all leave for another world.
A space station was built for Cylons and humans to meet once per year to maintain the peace and every year the humans send an officer but the Cylons send no one. After 40 years the Cylons finally show up (they have a very human looking Cylonwith them – aka “skinjob”) and nuke the shit out of the humans planet (Caprica).
From there, the humans are chased all across the galaxy as they search for their legendary home world called Earth while avoiding Cylon annihilation. From the beginning we are lead to believe that the world being presented has some links to our current place in the universe. There’s consistent references to Earth in their religious texts and a certain classic rock song makes a prominent appearance.
The show touches on many issues such as terrorism, spirituality, forgiveness, and religion and often present the issues without a clear definition of right and wrong. The characters on BG are polytheists and the gods that are described in their religious texts have the same name and characteristics of the greekgods. Another link to present day Earth.
The Cylons themselves are immortal. Well to carlify, they can be killed but have a resurrectionship where they are reborn. It is the kind of show that makes you think and one of the most poignant comments to me was a cylon speaking about immortality. I don’t remember the exact quote but the jist was that mortality is a gift that drives us to be all that we are. We often think of how much we could accomplish if we lived forever, but wouldn’t we lose our motivation if there was not even a small sense of urgency.
It has been an excellent show and will come to an end with a two hour finale on friday night. There are many questions to be answered: How did the human looking cylons come to be? What happened to make Earth a nuclear wasteland? Who/what is Kara Thrace? Not human, not cylon but often called the harbinger of death.What about that song all the skinjobs keep hearing? Will Baltar achieve his own redemption?
And if none of that intrigues you tune in because the doctor on BG is Doc Roberts from Danger Bay. Though I think he was a better doctor to the marine life as he smokes while treating his human patients…
Hmmm….what sophisticated person turned you on to such a show?
hey graham, i just found your blog so forgive me if I missed this but what did you think of the finale?
The finale was pretty good, especially the first hour. It’s hard to tie up everything so as to satisfy everyone but I was happy. I will miss it though. What is a guy to do on a friday night now lol!!!