Battlestar Galactica: 8/10

A long, long time ago….. When the grass was still blue and the sky green and Croga was just an itty bitty little boy, there was Battlestar Galactica. A hero saga of Apollo and Starbuck and Adama fighting against the robotic Cylon to find their way Home to Earth…..

But that was long ago. In 2005, after a large number of rewrites and a lot of discussion between possible directors, the Pilot “miniseries” Battlestar Galactica 2005 (original name ) is broadcast on Sci-Fi channel.
The success of the mini series is enough to warant setting up a complete series.

Where the original series was indeed a heroic epic, the new series takes a kind of “cyberpunk” approach (to just make a sideway link to my earlier review ). Adama is now played by Edward James Olmos who also played in Miami Vice around the time of the original series. He looks the part of the old Battlestar commander that had rather retired but now holds a ceremonial function.

The scenery has change a lot since the original series as well. The Battlestar is now indeed an old relic, left over from times gone by. The use of lighting (or actually; the use of lack of lighting) here and there emphasizes this. Scenes on planets are shot using high color saturation to give an alien look but also to, again, emphasize the feeling that there is no future for the fugitives. This last idea is felt throughout the series. Even though the characters all try to keep a positive outlook on the future, the reality of futility is clear.

All in all I get the feeling that the main audience of this new series is the same as the main audience of the original series. The same people, only 20 years older. I myself was a teenager when the first series was on television; the perfect target audience for a heroic science fiction series. I’m in my thirties now and the way the new series has been set up finds me looking forward to every next episode.