The New Battlestar Galactica Series

I've always been a fan of Sci-Fi series ever since I was young. Lately, the Sci-Fi channel has been doing quite a load of interesting stories and concepts on several old series and have rekindled the Battlestar Galactica series. All I can say is: It's about bloody time!

The old Battlestar Galactica series of the 1980s talked about a group of rag-tag fugitives that travel alone in space, in search of the planet Earth, which was suppose to be their mythical 13th tribe of Kobol. The Cylons are a robotic race that have supposedly superior technology that attacked their homeworld and destroyed all the 12 colonies, leaving only these few remaining fugitives constantly on the run from attack by them. Starbuck was a man, in a playboyish kind of way.

The new Battlestar Galactica series has changed a little bit of the story. The Cylons were created by Man and they rebelled. A peace treaty was called for and they left Man alone for years. Man tried to reestablish communuication with them but no luck. So in the meantime, mankind prospered in their 12 different planets that housed the 12 different tribes of Kobol. Then the sneak attack by the evolved Cylons, which surprisingly and seemingly had inside info that brought down the entire defence network of the 12 tribes, nuclear attacked and destroyed all the colonies, leaving mankind once again on the constant run to journey through space to find the mythical planet Earth, the 13th tribe of Kobol. Starbuck is a cigar-sucking woman, not the cigar-sucking playboy. The show deals with military and civilian might and rights.

The main change in the story, which I loved, is that there are now 12 models of Cylons, the humanoid model of the old is no more. Now, they have the evolved metallic sentinel robot, and get ready for this, the human model. Yes, Cylons now look, walk, think, feel like humans do and what more, they believe in God! They newest human-cylons are religious, and they think that God has a plan and destiny for them all. In one of the episodes, we also learn that the Cylon raiders are unmanned now, they have no pilots and even have a brain connected to computer servos, nutrient fluids and oxygen! In other words, they're simulating human behaviour more and more.

So far, Season 1 is out on DVD after the fantastic viewership and rave reviews on the Mini-series released in 2003. At present, Season 2 is being screened and I hope that the DVD will come out soon. The stories are exciting, although sometimes, vague, but they make you think for yourself, so that you don't end up like Cylons - useless toasters.

Battle scenes are more realistic with improved computer enhancements and graphics as compared to the older series. No more lasers, now there's ammo and the battlestar docking bays on either side of the ship have to retract for it to make a hyperjump or their Faster Than Light (FTL) jumps. Even the Cylon Base Stars look more scary and shoot missiles. And the Cylons now swarm their enemies with hundreds of raiders.

In Season 1, we learn that the Cyclons are waging psycological warfare on the survivors/fugitives, tricking them but observing their response. They also want to produce their first human-cyclon baby as seen with the characters Helo and Caprica-Boomer. They also believe that their destiny is interwined with humanity and that God has laid out a path for them.

In the end, we have a series, almost comparable to Farscape and Stargate, but of a entirely different genre, the good, old humans versus robots of the old. This series is worth checking out and sticking to.

8.5 out of 10