DOES God exist? Or do Gods? Or is the whole idea of mono-and polytheism simply a concept created by humans to make humans and Cylons feel better?
Yes, folks, these are the very questions that have kept the 39,698 lost souls (not to mention the millions of fans) who are traveling at warp speed around the universe in Sci Fi’s often brilliant “Battlestar Galactica” afloat for the past three seasons. And they are the very questions that keep the show from becoming just another Star Wars ripoff.
Tomorrow night begins the show’s fourth season, and if you haven’t been following it and would like to start, there are thousands of blogs with thousands of words explaining the tiniest bit of minutiae of “Battlestar.”
This premiere begins with a review of last season, including a mini homage to “2001: A Space Odyssey” with one of the pilots aping the scene of Keir Dullea traveling uncontrolled through the black hole with a close-up of his odd stare through his space helmet.
Fan fave Kara Thrace, a.k.a. “Starbuck” (Katee Sackhoff) seemed to have been brought back from the dead after her ship exploded at the end of last season, swearing she’d been to Earth – the place the lost and embattled group has been trying to find for three long seasons now. But it turns out that she thinks she’s been out for six hours, when in fact she’s been gone (and dead) for two months.
Admiral William Adama (Edward James Olmos) isn’t buying her story. They saw her ship explode; they know she’s dead. An examination of her ship shows it to be shipshape, and she seems unharmed.
Meantime, Gaius Baltar (James Callis), the doctor/creep who in Season 1 fell under the spell of Number Six (Tricia Helfer), the blonde bombshell Cylon – not to be confused with Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan), the other numbered blonde bombshell from outerspace – is stuck on the only ship that will have him.
It’s filled with post-hippie weirdos in space. Even though Gaius resides in perpetual guilt from having given up the entire human race by revealing its defense grid to the above-mentioned blonde bombshell Cylon, he never fails to get lucky with the girls. In fact, while contemplating God (or Gods), he lays his hands upon the perky breasts of a woman aboard the ship, who then asks him, “Do you feel God’s presence?” No. Implants maybe but not God. He’s a ruined man.
Riveting as ever, “Battlestar Galactica” proves again that sci fi doesn’t have to be clap trap.
“Battlestar Galactica”
Friday night at 10 on Sci Fi