And So Say We All

I have to admit that I had very little interest in Battlestar Galactica when it first started. I remember watching the original series as a kid and being totally unimpressed. Then, once the remake had started, the few episodes I caught didn't impress me much either, mostly because BG is the most confusing thing ever when you're dropping in halfway through season 2.

Anyway, over the past month I finally sat down and watch all four seasons from start to finish.

When the credits rolled on the finale, I was sure I'd just watched one of the best sci-fi series ever recorded, but I was even more sure that there were a ton of plot holes, unanswered questions, contradictions and some pretty inexplicable character interactions.

The best way I can describe it is it feels like two writers alternated episodes and they couldn't quite agree on how the characters felt.

For example, Adama starts with an understandable hatred for the cylons, then is completely won over by Athena, then flips the fuck out when he hears Saul is a cylon…but then tells Saul he's the best friend he's ever had in the next episode. Chief Tyrol is even worse. You never know from second to second who he likes and who he hates. One second he comes across as one of the good guys, the next he's clubbing a number 8 over the head with a wrench without blinking. Don't even get me started on Starbuck… she flips from a sympathetic character to an insufferable bitch from second to second.

The weird thing is that it's a lot of these contradictions that make it such a great show.

It's the first sci-fi series I've ever watched where there isn't a single two-dimensional cookie-cutter character. They're all flawed, and in a lot of cases, profoundly damaged. The good guys don't always win and the bad guys don't always get their comeuppance. It does something all good sci-fi does, it holds society up to a mirror. It shows he last survivors of humanity, some who sacrifice themselves for the greater good, and the others who take food from starving children.

Long story short, it's a great show.