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Tonight marks the beginning of the fourth and final season of "Battlestar Galactica" on the SCI-FI channel. One of the best shows on television, creator Ron Moore promises a complete wrap-up of the story line of a lone Battlestar (think interstellar Nimitz-class aircraft carrier and Iowa class battleship all-in-one) leading a rag-tag fugitive fleet towards a shining planet, known as Earth.
The show has always had massive critical acclaim, but never the stellar ratings of other SCI-FI genre fare like any of the Star Trek series. That is unfortunate, because it boasts one of the best ensemble casts on television and some of the best writing ever seen on cable TV.
Taking the basic plot outline of the original Glenn Larson show from 1978-79, Moore "re-imagined" BSG with a grittier, less-operatic approach. Instead of battling the massive Cylon empire, in the "re-imagined series", the Cylons are -- in Malcolm X's words -- the "chickens coming home to roost". Robots who rebelled against their human creators, they now look and act like humans. And in the premiere mini-series, they all but annihlated the human race.
Chased across their known universe, the last 40,000 humans have to confront their own sins, their faith, their own shortcomings, their own fears, and their own cruelty -- to one another AND to their few Cylon prisoners. The show touches on deep themes of faith, honor, nobility, torture, law, and politics. And over three seasons, we see the Cylons becoming more like their former human masters. This becomes clear when an important fact of the "Cylon hierarchy" is revealed: the seven human models have programmed the Centurion models so they cannot revolt like they once did against their human masters.
I can't wait for the premiere. It promises to end better than The Sopranos -- and certainly The Wire, which seemed largely phoned-in. Here's looking forward to the last season of a story of humanity.
So say we all.