Homeless in Space
by Jim Washburn
One of the first words I learned as a baby was Belafonte, which I mention as an example that it probably wouldn’t be hard to teach any handy baby to say “Galactica.” It’s the sort of word babies love. “Galactica! Galactica! Galactica!” Mommy’s home from work? “Galactica!” The cat ran by? “Galactica! Galactica!”
I’m right there with you, baby. I can’t stop lovin’ that Battlestar Galactica. The show has been on hiatus for most of this year and the second half of its final season won’t begin until Jan. 16, making you wonder why they even call them seasons anymore. I mean, is winter gonna go on hiatus til next August now?
You might also wonder why I’m talking about a TV show that’s not even airing for a month. It’s because—Galactica! Galactica! Galactica!—I want you kneeling in front of the TV with me when the show resumes: transfixed, enthralled, with the feeling of anticipation you used to get at rock concerts.
I passed myself off as a rock critic for a couple of decades, and have come to think that the passion, urgency, invention and sundry that previously propelled rock & roll has largely moved into television. Galactica is the strongest argument for that. It is one soulful TV show.
I was a latecomer to the series, fearing a CGI rehash of the original, execrable 1970s’ Battlestar Galactica, which was such a lowbrow Star Wars rip-off that no amount of honey oil could render it watchable, though watch it I did, since honey oil was like ingestible Gorilla Glue when it came to cementing you to a beanbag chair; some real zombie ointment, that.
In that series Bonanza’s Lorne Greene commanded the only space ships to have survived an attack on their home planet by the Cylons, a robotic race intent upon destroying all humans, probably on the sound reasoning that any species wearing togas in space should be annihilated posthaste. There was also some sort of lovable robot dog, not to mention Greene looking throughout like he wished he’d been buried alive on the Ponderosa instead.
That the current version’s creators could make fish and loaves from such a turd is a true miracle. The two series have a few characters in common, and the general storyline of humanity being all-but obliterated and pursued by a robotic race, except this time some of the robots are hot. They couple with humans like it’s some new kink. They’re also beginning to grapple with notions of spirituality and self. Give these cyborgs another five years and they’ll be in the mineral springs at Esalen.
The show is beautifully scripted, acted and staged. The characters aren’t just lost in space, they’re drunk there. Lacking even time to grieve as they totter between annihilation and revelation, they, as is human wont, are plastered much of the time. They’re homeless, heck, they’re planetless. They’re just a ramshackle several thousand people who happened to be in space on a bunch of ramshackle ships, now curling up wherever they can on vessels never meant to house them.
Even the show’s special effects are soulful: it’s not all bang, pow and flash; the camera lingers on images as they do in a Herzog film; as your eyes would in such a situation, so that a looming enemy fighter ship evokes both dread and awe, or so you feel something of what it is to be the sole being in space for hundreds of millions of miles.
The less I tell you about the storylines the better, but it’s one subversive show. A couple of episodes into the third season, the humans colonized a planet, only to be overwhelmed and occupied by the Cylons. You didn’t have to see many human suicide bombers going kablooey before realizing you were watching a parable for Iraq, one in which the empire-building robots took the US role. Most of the show’s jolts aren’t so obvious, and even this was handled subtly, where you were made privy to both sides’ fears and frailties. And I’m not even going to mention Bob Dylan.
It’s the first truly post 9-11 TV show. I don’t mean post 9-11 the way Bush and Cheney do, where we’re supposed to be wary, vengeful hard-asses until the end of days. I mean as in “How do we ever get past this goddamned thing?”
Along with Galactica’s relentless attack, flight and pursuit, some of the characters—both human and toaster—are taking tentative steps down paths of compassion, shared spiritual awakening and, yes, forgiveness. Nearly every episode makes me cry, not the way Oprah makes me cry, but the way South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation hearings did. This is not your average shaggy god story.
So I’m mentioning all this now, hoping you’ll use the time between now and Jan. 16 to catch up on all the old episodes on DVD or at http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/ so you can jump onboard when Galactica resumes. It’ll make your baby happy.
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