“Battlestar Galactica” is working hard to make an indelible impression on your cranium. Season 3 ended with the reveal of “sleeper agent” Cylons. Folks we’ve known and trusted as guardians and saviors of the human race (Anders, Tyrol, Tigh & Tory) outted as Cylons! And the fan-frakkin’-tastic “Starbuck” has returned from the dead to lead our rag-tag fleet to the fabled planet Earth… Or is she?
You see, there is still one more ticking-toaster-time-bomb that has yet to go off. Only then will “The Twelve” be revealed and the true plan for our Cylon and Human combatants will be known. Who will win the race to earth? Will the human race survive? Will the Cylons render them extinct and move up the evolutionary ladder into first place? What’s that old saying about not out living your children?
Season 4 picks up right where we left off. Galactica and the Colonial Fleet are once again at the mercy of a far superior Cylon force. Basestars and Raiders rain an un-holy amount of ordinance down on our heroes. Galactica in turn throws every run down, beat up Viper, Raptor and Pilot it has at the enemy. And I’m here to tell you these are some of the best interstellar battle scenes on television ever! I think only the latest “Star Wars” trilogy has animated more densely populated, insanely choreographed, dog fights.
Our wayward wagon train is saved only by the enemy within; As Sam Anders confronts a Cylon raider, his guns jam and he is scanned and recognized by his fellow cyber-being. The raider signals the rest of the Cylon fleet and they suddenly and quite oddly, disengage and withdraw. Why? Hell if I know.
All the while our living dead Viper jock returns to Galactica to spread the news that she has been to Earth, seen it, photographed it and is here to lead the fleet to their awaiting sanctuary. Unfortunately she’s been gone for two months and been presumed dead. Yet she claims to have only been gone a few of hours? Huh, Wha’? Meanwhile in the Pacific Ocean a mysterious island has trapped our survivors in an electro-magnetic bubble and sent Desmond to the past to save the future… sorry, wrong show.
When the enemy looks just like the rest of us, it’s hard to know whom to trust, who to fight and who to hook up with ya know? The Cylons have successfully infiltrated the human race with nearly perfect carbon-based copies. There are twelve versions of the humanoid death machines. We had previously met seven of the twelve, who are known throughout the fleet and easily recognized. But the final five were unknown until the season 3 finale. Four of them were revealed, no other copies are known to exist, and the fifth is yet to be discovered (by us or them).
In the second episode of this season Starbuck continues her downward spiral of insanity, Baltar embraces his newfound position as a cult leader and a standard barer for the “on true god” religious movement among the humans. The President, her cancer returned, does not trust Starbuck, fearing she may be a Cylon infiltrator. And as always the Adama boys (Bill & Lee) lend their considerable weight of emotion to the show.
We are also treated to peak inside the enemy camp as Cylons one thru seven start to come unglued and become more human. There is mistrust, deceit, and murder as Cylon turns on Cylon and the Sixes and the Centurions begin a military coup.
Like many (all?) sci-fi series on TV – “Battlestar Galactica” is often dismissed or overlooked altogether. I get it, I’m a geeky fanboy, and so many that have come before have been canceled before they can find footing. So it’s great that SciFi has stuck by this show and let the producers flesh out the story and even allow them to end the show on their terms. And like the resurgence of story telling on LOST, the writers of BSG are on fire this season!
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