STACK #121 Nov 2015

The Cylons were created by man.They evolved.They rebelled. There are many copies. And they have a plan.

BSG returned as a three-hour mini-series in 2003, developed by veteran Star Trek writer/producer Ronald D. Moore. This was followed by four seasons, comprising a total of 75 episodes. Reimagined as a gritty space opera with theological undercurrents and allusions to the War on Terror post 9/11, the new look Battlestar Galactica was everything its now somewhat cheesy ‘70s predecessor wasn’t. More a ‘novel for television’ than an episodic weekly series, it continually cut to the chase with something momentous occurring in every episode, as the last of the human race battled the Cylon menace whilst searching for the mythical planet Earth.

London-born Jamie Bamber plays Lee Adama – call sign ‘Apollo’ – in the reboot of Battlestar Galactica (2003–2009), and admits he didn’t have great expectations for the show at first, simply seeing it as “a job that was around”. But he was quickly swayed by the quality of the scripts and the commitment of colleagues. “With a good script you can have people that are only interested in the most facile elements of it,” he says. “But when I started working with [director] Michael Rymer and Edward James Olmos, they made me realise that people were taking this really seriously.” Bamber was delighted with the journey his character took over the course of 75 episodes. “When you’re an actor in an ensemble, there are moments when you are wondering what the hell the whole thing is about, where you’re going… I’ve been very fortunate to be front and centre of this show for five years.” He attributes the show’s success to its basic and elemental nature. “There’s no aliens with three heads – it was just people stuck in a tin can with nowhere to go. What if everyone you know is dead? What if everywhere you know is gone? What is the point of life? That’s a question that I think we all answer even without losing everyone and everywhere we know. It resonates right down to the most horrendous, naked truth, which is that we have to create a meaning for our life. That’s basically what the story is about.” Bamber looks back at his time on the series with great fondness. “I was really pleased,” he says. “Especially now I’m looking back at it with hindsight and I realise that the whole thing was a very special chunk of my life for many reasons. We were telling an epic story with soap operatic tinges. The final 20 episodes are the best by a mile. I’m very proud of it, very nostalgic.”

The rebooted series shared a number of characters with the original: Commander Adama (Edward James Olmos), Apollo (Jamie Bamber) and Baltar (James Callis), with a gender change for Starbuck (Katee Sackhoff) and Boomer (Grace Park). And the Cylons were upgraded in both appearance and sex appeal – the latter in the form of Tricia Hefler and Lucy Lawless – although the more traditional robotic design (nicknamed “Toasters”) did occasionally feature. A massive hit with critics and viewers, the series received multiple Emmy nominations in addition to two Peabody Awards for its “plotlines that are deeply personal and relatable, while never compromising their affinity and passion for science fiction”.

The new BSG also spawned three spin-off telemovies.

Razor (2007) featured the ruthless Admiral Helena Cain (Michelle Forbes), commander of the Battlestar Pegasus (believed to have been destroyed during the attack on the Twelve Colonies), and bridged the gap between Season Three and Four. The series’ opening titles always declared that the Cylons “have a plan”, but what was it? Prequel telemovie The Plan (2009) set the record straight, revisiting the events of the first two seasons from the Cylon perspective. Blood & Chrome (2012) looks even further back to the tenth year of the First Cylon War, and the adventures of rookie pilot William Adama (Luke Pasqualino). Conceived as a potential pilot for a new BSG spin-off series (which was sadly never green lit) and initially released as an online series of 10 webisodes, Blood & Chrome will be available in an extended edition on DVD and Blu-ray on November 27, and as part of the TV Movie Collection on Blu-ray.

The Complete Galactica in HD is available on 27 November.

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