Battlestar Galactica (Sci Fi, Fridays at 9 p.m. ET), now entering its third season, is not science fiction—or "speculative fiction" or "SF," or whatever you're supposed to call it these days. Ignore the fact that the series is a remake of a late-'70s Star Wars knockoff. Forget that its action variously unfolds on starships and on a colonized planet called New Caprica. And never mind its stunning special effects, which outclass the endearingly schlocky stuff found elsewhere on its network. Sullen, complex, and eager to obsess over grand conspiracies and intimate betrayals alike, it is TV noir. Listen to Adm. William Adama (Edward James Olmos) gruffly rumble along as a weary soldier in a crooked universe. Check out the way that Hitchcock kisses lead seamlessly to knives in the gut. Just look at the Venetian blinds.
The palette is doggedly sober—a downbeat blend of gun-metal grays, military greens, matte blacks, dull whites, and deep blues. The shadows shift like paranoid fantasies, while the sunlight seems to brood. And when BSG's producers want to introduce a shock of brightness (and their story doesn't immediately call for a small apocalypse of digital explosions), their go-to girl is actress Tricia Helfer, who plays Number Six.
Number Six is a Cylon, and Cylons are robots, mean ones bent on crushing what remains of the human race. Old models, called "toasters," resemble RoboCop as reinterpreted by H.R. Giger. Number Six, however, is of the new school, a skin-job. She's a dime-novel femme fatale as Joe Eszterhas might have written one—adultery-red skirts and a pop of platinum hair. It says here in the press materials that Number Six "can resurrect herself by downloading into a new version of her body." How many boys do you suppose have gone looking for that URL? Shouldn't they all get out more?
I had to rely on the PR kit to sort out some of this business because I am new to Battlestar Galactica, and Battlestar Galactica—like the movie version of The Big Sleep—is not especially eager to make any sense. That's not strictly a bad thing: Its comic-strip story (Humans vs. Robots, Round 15) is as elemental as they come, so the show's moments of ambiguity and its clever subplotting lend it some needed substance and shading. The tricky storytelling is part of the noir charm. Tonight's episode, for instance, begins with a man in a ski mask liberating Cally (Nicki Clyne) from her robot captors. She takes off sprinting through the woods, and—cut. "One hour earlier," reads the title card, and, happily disoriented, we slide out of the frame narrative and back in time.
The show also tries terribly hard to be heavy, piling on allusions to the war on terror and sluggish existential hoo-ha in a way that may get you wondering what's in the fridge. It's all very groovy that you can read Battlestar Galactica as a political parable, but the program doesn't seem to have a complete confidence in its goals—in its ability to work as both a piece of art engaged with life during wartime and as a slip of entertainment about robot hotties. Some of that noir gloom is the show's self-seriousness about its own Seriousness. There's no reason for Battlestar Galactica to push its tone to the point of dreariness; it already works perfectly as a space-age mood piece.
Correction, Oct. 13, 2006: Due to a production error, actress Rekha Sharma was originally and incorrectly identified in a caption as "Tory Foster," the name of the character she plays.
Apocalypse Noir: The gloomy charm of Battlestar Galactica.
Troy Pattersonis Slate's television critic.
Still from Battlestar Galactica by Carole Segal/Sci Fi. Photograph of Tricia Helfer on Slate's home page by Patrick Hoelck/Sci Fi.
COMMENTS
Remarks from the Fray:
I would suggest that asking if BSG supports the Iraqi insurgency poses the wrong question. Yes, there are clear parallels between the insurgency on New Caprica and the Iraqi insurgency, and the show is using its contemporary resonance to great effect. And yes, BSG wants its viewers to seriously think about what motivates insurgents, what it might feel like to be occupied by a power, even one who acts (or some of its members want to act) in the name of a greater good. But there are more complex questions here as well. Roslin confronts Tigh over the morality of suicide bombings. Cylons suffer as humans (this isn't Terminator). We feel sympathy for Jammer and those that join the New Caprica Police in an attempt to stave off the violence of the insurgency.
Moreover, BSG has never restricted itself to one allusion--this isn't just about Iraq. In the search for Earth, we see resonance with the Israelites of the Old Testament. Enlightenment rationalism confronts mysticism, and we're not sure whose side to be on. We have questions of order versus democracy and freedom, and the answer of which one should be valued more is never obvious. Through these overlapping appeals, the viewer is forced to engage with new and radically different perspectives. It's not a call to one side or the other, just an appeal to think.
BSG is not noir. The femme fatales of the show: primarily the Cylons Number 6 and 8 (aka Boomer) really are in love with their respective men, and are actively working to support them. In Baltar's psyche, Six works tirelessly to ensure his survival, and in the real world the Six model the others call "Caprica" does the same. The Number 8 assigned to make Karl Agathon fall in love with her falls in love with him instead and marries him. Not exactly Touch of Evil.
Finally, the absurd reduction of the interactions of a complicated political, social, and religious pair of sentient races to "Human vs. Robots, Round 15" is like calling War and Piece a fluff piece about Russian socialites.
I basically like Battlestar Galactica, but there is a point where you stop and say to yourself: "You know, no one's life is *that* bad".
The major problem I see with Battlestar Galactica is that the various joys of life - even life on the run/under the thumb of robotic adversaries - are treated in an almost perfunctory manner. People get married and have children off screen. But they suffer on screen.
After a while, the endless suffering begins to be somewhat draining. No one on the show really seems to believe there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
In a sense, this endless gloom seems to go back to the most controversial decision in the re-imagining - having Starbuck be a woman. In the original show, Starbuck was always the happy-go-lucky guy who kept the mood light where it would otherwise be wrapped in soul-crushing despair. Sure, the entire human race is inches from destruction and we have to fight across every inch of the galaxy, but a good glass of ambrosia and a woman and Starbuck was just fine with that.
Kara Thrace, irrelevent of gender, doesn't occupy this role in the new Battlestar Galactica. Fun-loving drunkenness gives way to alcoholism. The woman-in-every-port revelry gives way to intimacy issues. Which wouldn't be so bad - it's a different character after all - if anyone was there to step up to the plate.
Even Baltar - consistently amusing, if not in a particularly joyful way, for the first two seasons - is now in an endless funk as he realizes that he's not only guilty of all sorts of unpleasantness, but he's never going to be able to rejoin the community of human beings.
Now, for those of who have watched from the beginning, we can get involved with the character's stories. But imagine just tuning in at the beginning of the third season. Why would you particularly care what happened to these people? I mean, they're all so miserable that maybe it would be better for them if they were wiped out by the Cylons.
Not this this would be hard, you understand; Harlan Ellison hit the nail right on the head when he contemptuously referred to the Glen Larson 1970s original as "Cattlecar Galaxative." The humans spent all their time running from the Cylons, rarely to never taking the offensive or even launching a counterstrike, unless Commander Caine (played by Lloyd Bridges as a cross between Bull Halsey and George S. Patton) and the Battlestar Pegasus were around. People got tired of the human race being portrayed fleeing like a dog with its tail between its legs, ki-yi-ing while the Cylons whipped it with basestars and flotillas of patrol bombers. The show reflected its times perfectly, of America licking its psychic wounds just after Vietnam. But it was lousy science fiction and worse television, and most cheered when it was canceled after two miserable season.
This new incarnation feels much more human and much more believable. About all that remains of the original are a few names, the overall design of the battlestars and the Viper fighters, and the feeling that the human race is in deep, deep trouble. However, what's been added is the feeling that "Yes, although we are in deep trouble WE ARE GOING TO WORK THROUGH IT AND SURVIVE. We will improvise, adapt, and overcome. And one of these days, not too far off, we are going to turn around and smash those damned Cylon robots, chrome and skin types both, into scrap metal! Or if we can't do that, we're going to smash them up so much we'll be able to impose a peace on them." There is more than a little of Admiral Yamamoto's observation, "I fear that all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve," about the writers' perception of the humans in this version of the show.
The writers have made Adama as played by Edward James Olmos much less the messiah that Lorne Greene played. He's challenged by his staff, ship captains and what passes for the civil government. Always respectfully, but he is never followed blindly the way Greene was. This makes him much more believable than Greene ever was.
The old Baltar was a semi-pure villain as John Colicos played him, with just a touch of opportunist. The new Baltar is an ambitious but weak man subverted by the Cylons into a role halfway between Vidkun Quisling and Miklos Horthy. The decisions he has made since he became President of the Colonial survivors are surely going to bite him in the ass when Adama brings the fleet back to rescue the humans currently trapped on Cylon-occupied New Caprica. Commander Caine would shoot the sonofabitch out of hand; so, I suspect, would Colonel Tigh, here a Marine officer type and Resistance leader instead of the naval/staff officer he was in the original series. Whether Adama will be that ruthless (and that smart; once a traitor, always a traitor in my book) reamins to be seen, but I am sure it's going to come to that at some point this season.
The bottom line is that the show has next to nothing in common with its original incarnation; certainly nothing in terms of story lines except the ongoing hope that one day the "ragtag, fugitive fleet" will find the missing 13th Colony known as 'Earth.' It can be grim at times, but it's good, solid entertainment with well written stories, reasonable plot lines, and character viewers can care about who are NOT two dimensional. I'll also point out that the Peabody Award which BGS holds is never handed out lightly or for no reason.
The show is watchable. I'll even go so far as to say it's worth buying the past seasons on DVD to understand how things got to where they are at present, and that's not something I say casually about TV shows. If you haven't given it a try yet, do so. I don't think you'll feel your time has been wasted when you do.
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Remarks from the Fray:
I would suggest that asking if BSG supports the Iraqi insurgency poses the wrong question. Yes, there are clear parallels between the insurgency on New Caprica and the Iraqi insurgency, and the show is using its contemporary resonance to great effect. And yes, BSG wants its viewers to seriously think about what motivates insurgents, what it might feel like to be occupied by a power, even one who acts (or some of its members want to act) in the name of a greater good. But there are more complex questions here as well. Roslin confronts Tigh over the morality of suicide bombings. Cylons suffer as humans (this isn't Terminator). We feel sympathy for Jammer and those that join the New Caprica Police in an attempt to stave off the violence of the insurgency.
Moreover, BSG has never restricted itself to one allusion--this isn't just about Iraq. In the search for Earth, we see resonance with the Israelites of the Old Testament. Enlightenment rationalism confronts mysticism, and we're not sure whose side to be on. We have questions of order versus democracy and freedom, and the answer of which one should be valued more is never obvious. Through these overlapping appeals, the viewer is forced to engage with new and radically different perspectives. It's not a call to one side or the other, just an appeal to think.
--seg25
(To reply, click here.)
BSG is not noir. The femme fatales of the show: primarily the Cylons Number 6 and 8 (aka Boomer) really are in love with their respective men, and are actively working to support them. In Baltar's psyche, Six works tirelessly to ensure his survival, and in the real world the Six model the others call "Caprica" does the same. The Number 8 assigned to make Karl Agathon fall in love with her falls in love with him instead and marries him. Not exactly Touch of Evil.
Finally, the absurd reduction of the interactions of a complicated political, social, and religious pair of sentient races to "Human vs. Robots, Round 15" is like calling War and Piece a fluff piece about Russian socialites.
--Archytas
(To reply, click here.)
I basically like Battlestar Galactica, but there is a point where you stop and say to yourself: "You know, no one's life is *that* bad".
The major problem I see with Battlestar Galactica is that the various joys of life - even life on the run/under the thumb of robotic adversaries - are treated in an almost perfunctory manner. People get married and have children off screen. But they suffer on screen.
After a while, the endless suffering begins to be somewhat draining. No one on the show really seems to believe there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
In a sense, this endless gloom seems to go back to the most controversial decision in the re-imagining - having Starbuck be a woman. In the original show, Starbuck was always the happy-go-lucky guy who kept the mood light where it would otherwise be wrapped in soul-crushing despair. Sure, the entire human race is inches from destruction and we have to fight across every inch of the galaxy, but a good glass of ambrosia and a woman and Starbuck was just fine with that.
Kara Thrace, irrelevent of gender, doesn't occupy this role in the new Battlestar Galactica. Fun-loving drunkenness gives way to alcoholism. The woman-in-every-port revelry gives way to intimacy issues. Which wouldn't be so bad - it's a different character after all - if anyone was there to step up to the plate.
Even Baltar - consistently amusing, if not in a particularly joyful way, for the first two seasons - is now in an endless funk as he realizes that he's not only guilty of all sorts of unpleasantness, but he's never going to be able to rejoin the community of human beings.
Now, for those of who have watched from the beginning, we can get involved with the character's stories. But imagine just tuning in at the beginning of the third season. Why would you particularly care what happened to these people? I mean, they're all so miserable that maybe it would be better for them if they were wiped out by the Cylons.
--Xando
(To reply, click here.)
Not this this would be hard, you understand; Harlan Ellison hit the nail right on the head when he contemptuously referred to the Glen Larson 1970s original as "Cattlecar Galaxative." The humans spent all their time running from the Cylons, rarely to never taking the offensive or even launching a counterstrike, unless Commander Caine (played by Lloyd Bridges as a cross between Bull Halsey and George S. Patton) and the Battlestar Pegasus were around. People got tired of the human race being portrayed fleeing like a dog with its tail between its legs, ki-yi-ing while the Cylons whipped it with basestars and flotillas of patrol bombers. The show reflected its times perfectly, of America licking its psychic wounds just after Vietnam. But it was lousy science fiction and worse television, and most cheered when it was canceled after two miserable season.
This new incarnation feels much more human and much more believable. About all that remains of the original are a few names, the overall design of the battlestars and the Viper fighters, and the feeling that the human race is in deep, deep trouble. However, what's been added is the feeling that "Yes, although we are in deep trouble WE ARE GOING TO WORK THROUGH IT AND SURVIVE. We will improvise, adapt, and overcome. And one of these days, not too far off, we are going to turn around and smash those damned Cylon robots, chrome and skin types both, into scrap metal! Or if we can't do that, we're going to smash them up so much we'll be able to impose a peace on them." There is more than a little of Admiral Yamamoto's observation, "I fear that all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve," about the writers' perception of the humans in this version of the show.
The writers have made Adama as played by Edward James Olmos much less the messiah that Lorne Greene played. He's challenged by his staff, ship captains and what passes for the civil government. Always respectfully, but he is never followed blindly the way Greene was. This makes him much more believable than Greene ever was.
The old Baltar was a semi-pure villain as John Colicos played him, with just a touch of opportunist. The new Baltar is an ambitious but weak man subverted by the Cylons into a role halfway between Vidkun Quisling and Miklos Horthy. The decisions he has made since he became President of the Colonial survivors are surely going to bite him in the ass when Adama brings the fleet back to rescue the humans currently trapped on Cylon-occupied New Caprica. Commander Caine would shoot the sonofabitch out of hand; so, I suspect, would Colonel Tigh, here a Marine officer type and Resistance leader instead of the naval/staff officer he was in the original series. Whether Adama will be that ruthless (and that smart; once a traitor, always a traitor in my book) reamins to be seen, but I am sure it's going to come to that at some point this season.
The bottom line is that the show has next to nothing in common with its original incarnation; certainly nothing in terms of story lines except the ongoing hope that one day the "ragtag, fugitive fleet" will find the missing 13th Colony known as 'Earth.' It can be grim at times, but it's good, solid entertainment with well written stories, reasonable plot lines, and character viewers can care about who are NOT two dimensional. I'll also point out that the Peabody Award which BGS holds is never handed out lightly or for no reason.
The show is watchable. I'll even go so far as to say it's worth buying the past seasons on DVD to understand how things got to where they are at present, and that's not something I say casually about TV shows. If you haven't given it a try yet, do so. I don't think you'll feel your time has been wasted when you do.
--RoyJaruk-18
(To reply, click here.)
(10/15)