4 out of 5

Creator: Glen A. Larson

It starts slow and stumbles for momentum toward the very end, but the reimagined Battlestar Galactica truly was (as co-producer David Eick hoped) a true representation of sci-fi – extrapolation and thought, societal study and imagination – not just ships and aliens, but a tool used to consider who we are, where we come from, and where we’re going. But it is a long journey to that point, and fraught with some hiccups. Season 2 and 3 are some of the best dramatic television produced, whatever genre – a strong unity of theme, excellently acted and represented character arcs, budget well applied to believeable sets, wickedly fascinating blending of timely topics with a weird futuristic world… The series wraps around and around the repetition of life, the cycles we go through, and these mid seasons represent this in the most delicious way possible, both with an internal developing logic and world and in a more general, applicable way. The first season tries to jump into this heavy-handedness a bit too quick, though, and feels a bit hammy because of it. It’s slow, it’s overwrought, and while fascinating from afar, reeks of geeky science fiction up close. And as things wrap down, there’s a need to give it all proper scope, so the intense momentum gets the brakes. It’s necessary for a fitting send-off, but allows for a bit too much filler to round out the season. If you can get any adventurous TV fan to sift through season one, there’s such rich food for thought in this show, regardless of your tastes in television.