If you’re using the “Tigh” Maneuver schedule, here’s what you should be watching this week or weekend…
Battlestar Galactica: The Miniseries Part 1 & 2
This isn’t science fiction. Or at least, Ronald Moore was very direct that he didn’t want it to be the same old space opera you were familiar with.
“Our goal is nothing less than the reinvention of the science fiction television series. We take as a given the idea that the traditional space opera, with its stock characters, techno-double-talk, bumpy-headed aliens, thespian histrionics, and empty heroics has run its course and a new approach is required. That approach is to introduce realism into what has heretofore been an aggressively unrealistic genre.” Ronald Moore’s essay on NSF or Naturalistic Science Fiction.
The mini-series was meant to be a complete 180 from the Star Trek shows (of which Moore was intimately familiar with since he wrote for it) and Babylon 5′ upstarts of the 1990s. Gone were the aliens and endless armadas of ships, insert humans we could be better relate with, who dressed similarly to us, and were facing issues that we could directly identify with. For more details on this, check out the Miniseries Revisited article later this week.
Broadcast note: you can feel free to watch this all at once though when it originally aired on NBC, December 8th-9th 2003, it played over two nights.
Easter egg: In the sky before we first see Laura Roslin, you can see the Serenity flying around, a nod to Joss Whedon’s sci-fi classic Firefly.
Season One: Episode One “33”
Jamie Bamber (playing Lee Adama) and series creator Ronald Moore have frequently called this their favorite and best episode of Galactica. I’ve always been inclined to agree with that assessment. While the mini-series was great at establishing the universe, this is one works great as both a pilot and standalone episode to re-acclimate mini-series lovers and capture first-time viewer interests. It also develops additional key moments, like Roslin’s survivor count board or the memorial wall, into staple fixtures that would come to define the show. Simply put, if you love “33” then you will love the show.
Soundtrack: composer Bear McCreary didn’t come on until the actual show started so while he preserved the feel and aesthetic of the mini-series, this is the first episode where we hear the iconic BSG score in the intro.
Season One: Episode Two “Water”
This episode wisely slows down from the frenzy of the pilot episodes, but nevertheless puts our ragtag fleet through it’s paces. We get a better dive into Boomer’s character on board Galactica along with one of our first resource-collection focused episodes. That concept alone may sound dry however nothing is comes easy in space or when your running from the Cylons.
On the now defunct Sci-Fi blog, Ronald Moore originally thought that maybe they had cut too much from this episode (first cut clocked in 10-12 minutes over broadcast time) and that on repeat viewings, it would make less and less sense. He was subsequently delighted that his initial worries were overblown. After multiple re-watches now, I can definitely say this has held up though some deleted scenes help clear up a bit of the science behind the signature explosion…speaking of which, I’ll talk more about the water explosion in the recap.
Broadcast note: Similar to how the miniseries was broadcast over two nights, “33” and “Water” were originally shown on the same night in the US.
Next Primer: Week of April 13th
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