The next season of Battlestar Galactica is ready to begin...
© Sci-Fi
Series: Battlestar Galactica
Episode: He That Believeth in Me
Starring: James Callis, Mary McDonnell, Katee Sackhoff, Edward James Olmos
Produced By: Ronald Moore
Written By: Bradley Thompson, David Weddle
Network: Sci-Fi Channel
BATTLESTAR GALACTICA: He That Believeth in Me
By: Stephen LackeyDate: Tuesday, April 01, 2008
This will be a spoiler free review of the season premiere of Battlestar Galactica as it doesn’t air until Friday. The return of Battlestar Galactica is easily one of the most anticipated events this year, and for those that aren’t anticipating, you’re missing out. This series, up to now, is easily the deepest and most complex science fiction series on television in the last 20 years, maybe of all time. The series takes the social and political commentary from the original Star Trek era and does it in even more intelligent ways. This series isn’t simply a morality play tied to current situations and current culture as was common with Star Trek, it deals in shades of gray and examines the struggle to get to an end that’s right without doing wrong to get there. No individual in this series is the hero in the classic Superman sense and no species really has the moral high ground. BSG portrays all of this without beating you over the head. You could literally make this series as thought provoking as you’d want. You can get into the commentary and rethink your beliefs on everything from what it means to be a family to what it means to be a suicide bomber or you can just watch the series for a well acted and directed science fiction drama. That’s what’s made this a near perfect series. There are other top notch series out there such as the good Star Treks and Firefly, but I don’t believe they ever tried so hard to be both fun sci-fi and relevant in the world in which they have been created as Battlestar Galactica has.
The series premiere has a lot of baggage left from last year and it carries the load brilliantly from the solid series recap at the beginning to the jaw dropping last 15 minutes. The universe of the series is split with Cylons, the bastard children of humanity, fighting their makers and determined to reach the source of everything first and humans are splitting too with some staying the course of what they’ve always been, and others birthing a new religion with a new God and most likely a new agenda and a morally bankrupt leader in Baltar. The Gods of the humans appear to be revealing themselves, or at least representations of themselves in unknown models of Cylons. We saw four of them last year and we’re promised the last one this year. At the end of last season, we also get the return of a potential messiah figure in Starbuck, a woman who died defending her people and has returned now believing she has the answer they are looking for, the location of Earth. Can these hardened beaten humans believe in a messiah and can she believe in herself?
BSG returns with all thrusters firing expanding the story arc and adding new layers as any good serialized show should. This episode features an underlying theme of faith. That theme runs throughout the series but in this premiere where the characters place their faith is specific and so are the repercussions of that decision. It asks the question too; what lengths should you go to if you are right? Not if you think you’re right but if you believe you’re right. People will hide secrets and kill others in this episode because they believe just that. There’s obvious parallels in that question to decisions we’ve made as a country over the past few years and this episode will show both sides of each decision more than the news has ever shown to us in the real world. Oh yeah, there’s some space battles too.
The writing is solid and the final moments ask questions that will make waiting for the next episode physically painful. It just doesn’t get much better than this series and this episode starts the final season off phenomenally. Seven models of Cylon are out there, four more are in hiding, and one will be revealed. This episode is a don’t miss.
