Welcome to the Battlestar Galactica Analysis Blog

Submitted by brad on Tue, 2007-04-03 01:20

For a few years my favourite TV show was the new Battlestar Galactica. I watched the original as a teen-ager, since it didn't have much competition at the time, but Ron Moore's new version is literally and figuratively light-years ahead. Like many great shows, it is not only a drama but a mystery. There's a hidden backstory for the audience to puzzle out as we watch.

While watching it, I did a lot of detailed analysis. I even worked out an invented backstory that was a mixture of where the writers appeared to be going and some interesting ideas of my own.

Some of it turned out to be right. I made good predictions that the Final Five would be old (and could be characters like Saul), that Ellen Tigh was the 5th because of the romance and that Earth (at least the first one) would likely be vacant and in ruins.

However, my near-certainty that the story would be set in the future, and have real-SF explanations for its events turned out to be quite wrong, and the "god did it" ending in the past was so disappointing that I ended up dubbing it "the worst ending in the history of on-screen SF."

Nonetheless, the blog is here, with smart and stupid moments, as it contains some worthwhile discussion of the hard details of the show, the science, and where it was great and where it made mistakes.

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Comments

Anonymous

Thu, 2007-04-05 12:25

Didn't Col. Tigh serve with adama in the first cylon war?

brad

Fri, 2007-04-06 00:02

They met after the war, but Tigh did serve in it. He's a Final Five Cylon. They're thousands of years old. You think the building of the Cylons 50 years prior to the series was the first time somebody managed to make Cylons in the 4 to 5 thousand years humanity in the show has had advanced technology?

Anonymous

Thu, 2007-04-05 20:57

I like your analysis of BSG--lots of fun. Thanks, Craig

Anonymous

Thu, 2008-04-24 13:04

This is all very interesting. I agree that BSG must be set in the far future and that human civilization must have started on Earth - if this indeed a show without time travel and aliens. The colonials are using the Zodiac of Ptolemy (late 2nd c. A.D.) and Messier's catalogue (late 18th c.). If space travel had been (re)invented on Kobol the Colonials would surely have come up with astronomical catalogues of their own.

Of course there are many other clues to Earth such as Classical mythology, family names, etc. But I'm not sure how consistent the producers are about their references to Earth. For instance, the Colonials use the Latin alphabet but the sacred scrolls from Kobol are written in a different script. It is also quite obvious that the line "all this has happend before..." refers to periodic wars between man and its own (bio)mechanical creations. From there everything is speculation.

I wonder whether the F5 can download into human bodies. This would explain their great antiquity and their human frailty. As purely virtual beings they could have guided humanity for a long time. But this is also just speculation. A few more months and we'll know for sure.

Bolderbob

Tue, 2009-03-03 17:46

Hey, read your blog, for about 40 minutes. Whoa. Good stuff, hadn't noticed the star fields, etc. Quick thought, wonder on your thoughts, re: Final Episodes. Am beginning to think this is not the final season of BSG, but rather the season dedicated to the final five. Also, that the show being launched about Caprica would make a fine cover story to continue funding & filming BSG next year. Mostly, just seems like too much to wrap up show in 3 episodes, and I would not be surprised if the producers wanted to go big budget and make a movie a la Star Trek tv to big screen.

Alvin

Tue, 2009-03-03 18:03

Wish it wasn't, but it is.

Alvin

Tue, 2009-03-03 19:20

There is a TV Movie called 'The Plan' this summer. I had been of the opinion that they would probably wrap up the series in the finale, and make the movie a self-contained vehicle, ala RAZOR, but the closer we get to the finale (and less and less time to resolve so many dangling threads), the more I wonder if the movie itself will be the true finale. Hmm.

Anonymous

Tue, 2009-03-03 19:26

Somehow the cast and crew who aren't in The Plan seem to think that the story gets resolved in the finale and The Plan is like sprinkles on top of the Sunday, all you need is the ice cream, sauce, whipped cream and cherry, but sprinkles are a nice added bonus.

mrd

Tue, 2009-03-03 21:32

As I understand it, The Plan mostly tells Cavil's story, which means it will likely be as anticlimatic as Razor (which mostly showed us things we had already been told about).

Anonymous

Sun, 2009-03-15 09:17

Seems like the show for you is Firefly. It was short run, but the science is much more solid than BSG and contains a relevance to our world. A very direct one in fact.

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