Ronald D. Moore and Jeffrey Jacob Abrams (known as J.J. Abrams) share a connection to Star Trek, but while Moore invested considerable time and effort in bolstering and expanding the Gene Roddenberry creation, Abrams is attempting to reboot it with the forthcoming Star Trek XI movie. Since Moore and Abrams are both 40-something post-baby-boom-generation guys with considerable influence over what happens to the science fiction space adventures genre, do you imagine that they lose sleep at night pondering the responsibilities they have to the genre?

Moore’s work on Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica speaks for itself in upholding the highest standards of storytelling within the science fiction space adventures genre. More importantly, Moore has already proven his financial viability in show business within the genre.

Abrams, on the other hand, has much yet to prove. Paramount cannot be faulted for wanting to keep the Star Trek franchise living long and prospering financially. That the Star Trek franchise exists at all is because of show business, so the show must go on if the Star Trek franchise has any life signs left in it. The business reality is that the Star Trek franchise needs a reboot since the franchise recently faltered financially in terms of attracting ongoing audience loyalty.

Enter Abrams to attempt rebooting Star Trek. A sneak peek of the U.S.S. Enterprise under construction for Star Trek XI appears ahead of the Abrams-produced Cloverfield, a powerful emotional rollercoaster ride of a horror movie. However, the young, good-looking characters in Cloverfield and the horrifying fate that befalls them should set off more than a few alarms.

Stop and ask this question: Is Cloverfield an early warning about what to expect Abrams to deliver in Star Trek XI?

Pictures of the young cast that Abrams has assembled to work on Star Trek XI very easily can be found on blogs today. The publicity machinery in Hollywood requires a buzz be created over the Star Trek XI cast. Even though Star Trek XI will not open until Christmas 2008, Paramount needs online activity in blogs and social networking sites about the Star Trek franchise to happen now to build momentum at the beginning of the year for the film’s release at the end of the year. That much is clear.

What is not yet knowable is whether Star Trek XI will more closely resemble Cloverfield than the previous ten Star Trek motion pictures or the over 700 episodes of the five Star Trek television series.

No matter what else is true, Roddenberry’s Star Trek was not about young, good-looking characters whose chief significance was that they faced emotionally-wrenching fates of do or die significance. There certainly were young, good-looking characters in the original Star Trek series, in all four of the subsequent Star Trek series, and in all ten of the Star Trek movies. One can also find numerous emotional thrill rides throughout the Star Trek franchise.

What distinguished Roddenberry’s Star Trek from all other science fiction space adventures, however, was certainly not the youth or good looks of characters, nor that characters provided emotional thrills for audiences. How Star Trek characters and their behaviors represent ideas worth considering by the audience members is what distinguishes Star Trek characters.

There is wise old adage that beauty is only skin deep. If all of the considerable financial resources behind Star Trek XI result in mere skin-deep beauty, the science fiction space adventures genre certainly will suffer a deep and serious blow.

One need look no further than what Ron Moore has already accomplished with Battlestar Galactica from 2003 to today to understand something: Embedding ideas worth considering by the audience members into the behaviors of science fiction space adventure characters does not in any way take away from the visual appeal of youthful, good-looking characters, nor their financial viability in the show business context.

The terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, and the subsequent war in Iraq provide the political and cultural context for the producers and writers of Battlestar Galactica to pose urgent, controversial questions about military and political issues for viewers to ponder. Battlestar Galactica challenges its audience’s core perceptions, beliefs, and values in ways that one rarely finds in commercial television programming.

Ronald D. Moore, Battlestar Galactica’s showrunner, manages, controls, produces, and often writes or rewrites the series’ episodes. He has stated that he uses a “different prism” through which stories and characters are “twisted” from the expected or anticipated norm in ways that few, if any, other television shows ever attempt.

Moore’s storytelling technique deliberately distorts what viewers may deem as “normal” or “expected” perspectives on people, politics, organized religion and moral issues. The specific purpose of this distortion is to serve a rhetorical process that aims to convince Battlestar Galactica’s audiences to look at individual political, religious, and human moral issues from a variety of perspectives.

By bringing the ambiguity of these issues into the foreground, Battlestar Galactica challenges average citizens to think about the potential merits of perspectives they oppose and the drawbacks of perspectives they embrace. In commercial television–the dominant entertainment medium in the United States–this is a relatively recent development.

You can preview this new examination of the persuasive power within Battlestar Galactica by Woody Goulart and Wesley Joe at Trekology.com ahead of its June 2008 publication in New Boundaries in Political Science Fiction from the University of South Carolina Press.

© 2008, University of South Carolina. This material is excerpted with permission from New Boundaries in Political Science Fiction, edited by Donald M. Hassler and Clyde Wilcox, forthcoming in June 2008 from the University of South Carolina Press.

This writer chose deliberately to refrain from reading blogs about Battlestar Galactica until early December 2007 brought the arrival of the unrated extended version DVD of Battlestar Galactica Razor. What a wise choice!

Experiencing Battlestar Galactica Razor on the unrated extended version DVD proved to be most engaging and all-consuming. This one DVD is proof of why broadcast and cable television will never be able to stand as the sole vehicle for producers and writers. Yes, this DVD is that excellent.

One must conclude after experiencing Battlestar Galactica Razor that the future of the franchise is very bright, indeed. Even though we have been assured that the upcoming fourth season which starts in early 2008 will be the last of Battlestar Galactica, it is difficult to imagine that Ron Moore and the entire team of cast, crew, writers and directors responsible for this series will let it pass into history after the remaining twenty or so episodes have been aired.

Looking ahead, perhaps another movie-length production like Battlestar Galactica Razor would make financial good sense for NBC Universal after the resolution of the writers strike. No question that Ron Moore and company have proven with the Battlestar Galactica franchise that they have what it takes to succeed financially with the science fiction space adventure genre.

Battlestar Galactica Razor provides a great deal of backstory that even the most fervent fan would never have guessed was out there. At its most basic level, Battlestar Galactica Razor is an exploration into the deepest psychological and emotional depths of Helena Cain, an admiral in the fleet who commands the battlestar Pegasus. Cain is a complex and brutal person. The portrayal of Helena Cain by Michelle Forbes is one of the strongest performances by an actor in the entire history of this series since this character demands a redefinition of what it means to be a woman and a military leader. Some bloggers have speculated that Helena Cain is not a human being, and that she will be revealed in the final episodes of the fourth season of Battlestar Galactica as the very last of the previously unidentified Cylons.

But, Battlestar Galactica Razor also presents never-before-told details about the early military experience of William Adama–played by Nico Cortez. In his later years, we get to know William Adama as an admiral in the fleet and a crucial character to the entire Battlestar Galactica series. Had it not been for Battlestar Galactica Razor, however, we never would have had the opportunity to understand why Adama is so driven to defeat the Cylons. The unrated extended version DVD devotes significant time to flesh out the young Adama’s emerging trait of heroism brought on by his deep commitment to justice and fairness. This unusual storytelling time spent in the past also clarifies the essential male military role-model icon for which the Battlestar Galactica franchise is known. Since this particular perspective on the young Adama occurred some four decades back in time (relative to the current timeline of Battlestar Galactica), regrettably, future episodes of the series will only be able to present this younger version of Adama in flashbacks.

The same holds true concerning the Battlestar Galactica Razor character of Lt. Kendra Shaw, played by Stephanie Jacobsen, who is killed off before the story of Battlestar Galactica Razor ends. The character of Shaw was never-before-seen on Battlestar Galactica and it is quite obvious that producers and writers required this particular character to weave together the story told within Battlestar Galactica Razor. Once the character of Shaw had served her storytelling purpose, she was expendable. While Shaw’s life was important to the crew members of both the Pegasus and the Galactica, her death–vaporized by a nuclear explosion that she set off to save others–was all the more significant. Battlestar Galactica Razor presents some of the strongest female characters ever depicted within the Battlestar Galactica franchise. This aspect is certain worthy of further study.

An online report from the recent Atlanta Dragon*Con quotes Battlestar Galactica’s Jaimie Bamber as saying that Sci-Fi Channel may divide up the final season of the series spanning 2008 and 2009. Do the math. This is a simple way for Sci-Fi Channel to keep making money from Battlestar Galactica after the production shuts down. This possibility is an effective way for Sci-Fi Channel to abuse the audience of Battlestar Galactica. Asking the audience of Battlestar Galactica to wait until 2009 to see all the new epsiodes is a very strange way for a network to reward audience loyalty.

We wait in anticipation for November 2007 January 2008 April 2008, which brings the fourth and final season of Battlestar Galactica. This important series in the short history of science fiction television deserves to be savored–especially by those who have not yet become devoted viewers. So, catch it while you can. Catch up with the previous seasons on DVD before the final season begins this fall January April.

There are four 2007 Emmy nominations for Battlestar Galactica. Arguably, one of the very best episodes from any season of the series — “Exodus, Part 2” — from the third season has produced 3 of these nominations:

Outstanding Directing For A Drama Series

“Exodus, Part 2″
Felix Alcala, Director

Outstanding Sound Editing For A Series

“Exodus, Part 2″
Michael Baber, Music Editor
Vince Balunas, Sound Editor
Daniel Colman, Sound Editor
Jack Levy, Supervising Sound Editor
Doug Madick, Foley Artist
Rick Partlow, Foley Artist

Outstanding Special Visual Effects For A Series

“Exodus, Part 2″
Tom Archer, Lead Compositor
Brenda Campbell, Lead Compositor
Doug Drexler, CG Supervisor
Michael Gibson, Senior VFX Coordinator
Jeremy Hoey, Lead Matte Painter
Gary Hutzel, VFX Supervisor
Andrew Karr, CGI Supervisor
Alec McClymont, Lead CGI Artist/ Animator
Adam ‘Mojo’ Lebowitz, CGI Sequence Designer

The fourth 2007 Emmy nomination is for the writing efforts of Ron Moore for two other episodes “Occupation” and “Precipice” –also from the third season–which have been edited together as one two-hour presentation).

Outstanding Writing For A Drama Series

“Occupation/Precipice”
Ronald D. Moore, Written by

In his blog on the day after HBO aired The Sopranos finale, Ron Moore chose to comment on the “poetic” and “exciting” and “perfect” choices David Chase made to end this legendary series:  Moore admitted with obvious respect that he wished he had thought of writing such an ending.  More to the point, Moore credits Chase with being so provocative that he must have “balls the size of Volkswagens.”

That Chase’s The Sopranos influenced Moore’s Battlestar Galactica should be well-known because Moore has written and commented verbally about this.  It seems very appropriate, therefore, to find Moore taking time to comment in public about The Sopranos finale and for Moore to honor Chase with high praise.

Karl “Helo” Agathon (played by Tahmoh Penikett) is a pivotal character on Battlestar Galactica. He first appears in the 2003 miniseries and has a continuing role through all three seasons. How he interacts and communicates with other characters on Battlestar Galactica provides a clear indication about his inner feelings, thoughts, and beliefs. If you have watched all of his on-screen appearances like this writer has, you have witnessed a great deal upon which to draw conclusions about this character.

In the miniseries, Helo demonstrates extraordinary selflessness and courage. While on a patrol mission in a colonial Raptor, the planet Caprica is nuked by the Cylons along with all other home worlds of the human race. Helo willingly decides to give up give up his seat to others on what turns out to be last outbound spacecraft to leave the doomed planet. His fate—and that of others left behind—would surely be a slow and painful death from radiation poisoning on the planet’s surface.

Due to the popularity of the character, however, an editorial and production decision is made to spare the young, handsome Helo from an untimely demise on Caprica. Throughout the first season of Battlestar Galactica, we watch Helo struggle to stay alive with anti-radiation medications and shelter as he runs from Cylons who are chasing him. More importantly, we see Helo interact on Caprica with Sharon Valerii (portrayed by Grace Park), who is his former pilot from the Raptor. The terrible truth is ultimately revealed: This woman is Cylon Sharon—an agent on a mission on Caprica to get Helo to have sex with her. How could any viewers—male or female—not find themselves drawn to a heroic male character who is spared a terrible death and instead is given the fate of being chased by an attractive female who must have him sexually?

Throughout the first season, Helo’s behaviors on the occupied planet Caprica with Cylon Sharon reveal his strong drive to protect her and seek an escape for them both from the Cylons and the radiation. Not surprisingly, because of the time that they spend together on the run from the Cylons, Helo becomes sexually attracted to Cylon Sharon. This enables her to complete her mission of getting him to impregnate her. But, theirs turns out to be more than a purely physical relationship. Instead, they develop feelings of genuine love for one another.

 Even when Helo discovers that Sharon is actually a Cylon, his love for her is undiminished, adding further to his credibility as an honorable and decent man. Helo is not merely a soldier who engages in battlefield sex as a means of mood-altering escape from his stress and troubles. His choice to be lovingly devoted to Cylon Sharon, and protect her, even knowing that she was an enemy agent on a military mission to seduce him, gives Helo the status of very high credibility. Then, he takes things one step further by marrying her, which brings upon them both a wide and general disdain and disapproval from his fellow human beings. He is not only sleeping with the enemy, he has produced an offspring with the enemy as well.

Few details about Helo’s background are revealed in any of the stories told on Battlestar Galactica from the late 2003 miniseries through the end the third season in 2007. Viewers must fill in the blanks on their own regarding why Helo behaves as he does, but there are ample opportunities to learn more about him. In one episode, he defends Cylon Sharon on Caprica against a violent attack by Kara “Starbuck” Thrace, even though Helo seems to be taking sides against his own people in favor of the enemy. In another, he opposes the decision by his own people to use biological warfare against the Cylons. In yet another episode, Helo takes an unpopular position when he accuses a medical doctor of killing some patients aboard the Galactica. But, despite his unpopularity, Helo is proven to be morally right once again! This prompts the ordinarily stoic Admiral Adama to admit that he actually admires Helo for his rare “voice in the wilderness” courage to speak out against wrongdoing.

Perhaps Helo has had a good upbringing as a youth that have provided him with such a readily accessible moral compass as an adult. Whatever the reasons might be, Helo emerges as the stand-out character on the entire series with the clearest inner sense of what is right versus wrong.

This cannot be explained away by spiritualism. Compared to all other characters, Helo does not seem to be one who adheres to the polytheist religion of the human race. Religion does not define nor explain who Helo is. Yet, neither is he a shallow, “squeaky-clean” character who would be boring for his incapacity to do anything but good every time. In fact, over the span of stories covering more than 50 episodes, Helo is shown to struggle with numerous military, political, and interpersonal choices that he must make. But, he consistently arrives at behaviors that reinforce his solid, steadfast nature of a genuinely decent man. Especially if one compares him as a character with all other characters on Battlestar Galactica, it becomes very clear that Helo leads by morale example, time after time.

Even when confronted with literal life-or-death decisions, Helo nonetheless makes the best choice about what he must do. The most difficult choice for him is when Helo chooses to kill Cylon Sharon—note that Cylons do not die and they are instead reincarnated in a duplicate body—so that she can be reunited with their daughter, Hera, who is being held on a Cylon ship. No other character on this series could have faced such a formidable challenge as this. The choice to send Cylon Sharon into reincarnation (by shooting her with his service revolver at point blank range) is the defining moment for the character of Helo on the series. He uses his weapon to kill, yes. However, Helo’s weapon in this context is more about the reunion of mother and daughter that it enables. Of course, Helo’s wife is not truly dead because of him. She is reincarnated on the Cylon ship, where she gets to be with her daughter, and ultimately, husband, wife, and daughter are together again aboard the Galactica.

Although technically, Karl “Helo” Agathon is not billed as one of the “major” characters on Battlestar Galactica, he is unique and it is accurate to conclude that no other characters could replace the functions that Helo serves in the storytelling on this series. Viewers can readily accept this character in the story as seemingly true and genuine as compared to people that we all know in real life. Never is it possible to view this character as make-believe or an actor playing a part in a fiction.

Watching this character in the stories told on this series asks viewers to feel admiration for him and to feel drawn to him. The actor who portrays Helo (Tahmoh Penikett) obviously is physically very strong and highly masculine in appearance. He is an excellent military role model. Yet, the actor creates a character who can reveal a deep sensitivity to the feelings of others around him rather than using his muscle and masculinity to force others to comply with him. Helo is precisely the kind of man that one would want to have nearby during battle because he is highly intelligent and clever. Plus, while he knows how to use his physicality for military successes, he does not stereotypically “throws his weight around” as a means to force others to do his bidding. A less commanding male could not portray this character successfully as does Penikett.

After watching him in the stories told, you cannot help but feel as though you would like to know someone like him in real life and even to be involved with someone like him in the service of a common goal. You would not want to face him as your opponent in a fight, however.

  Helo also is a character that unmistakably invites viewers to think of him in a sexual context. This is especially true because of how Helo’s sexual relationship with Cylon Sharon was depicted so vividly on screen during the first season.

The couple is shown sharing a bed as husband and wife during season three, but not in a sexual way. Now they are married.  And bored with each other?  We may wonder whether Helo and his wife still can muster the unforgettably passionate lovemaking that we saw them enjoying outdoors on the planet Caprica.

When you become aware of the ties that Battlestar Galactica stories have to ancient Greece and Rome in our world, you will likely discover that this character’s surname, Agathon, comes from the writings of Plato. Such ancient writings deal with a young Greek man who was named Agathon. He was depicted as handsome and well-mannered—someone attractive and worth emulating. Whether or not Battlestar Galactica stories in the fourth season will be connected more directly and deliberately to the ancient world of planet Earth, the choice of the surname, Agathon, for this character does not seem at all accidental. Clearly, this character is one that viewers can easily find worth trying to equal in real life.

This “reverse engineering” of the character named Karl “Helo” Agathon demonstrates how one can use the Trekology.com writer’s methods of analysis.

• Is there a plan to cross-breed the Cylons with the humans? If so, why?

• Are there Cylons who have infiltrated the Twelve Colonies whose purpose is to affect the course of human destiny and development? If so, why?

• Are the religious beliefs of the Twelve Colonies compatible with the religious beliefs of the Cylons?

• Can the human civilization of the Twelve Colonies engage in ongoing battle with the Cylons and yet remain a lawful society based on democracy?

• Do the humans from the Thirteen Colonies seed the planetary civilizations and cultures of Earth as we know it?

These are the 5 essential questions asked by Battlestar Galactica from the miniseries through all of the third season.

Cross-Breeding

The cross-breeding question seems to have an obvious answer: Yes. The most stunning proof of this answer is that Karl “Helo” Agathon (a human male) and a Cylon female called Sharon (whose Galactica callsign is “Athena”) have produced a female child, Hera, who is half human and half Cylon. But, the purpose of this child has not yet been explained in any of the Battlestar Galactica episodes. Perhaps the answers to this question will have to wait until 2008 when the fourth season of Battlestar Galactica begins.

Infiltration and Seeding

The infiltration question also seems to have an obvious answer: Yes. Here again, there is clear proof. The Cylon female known as Caprica 6 manipulated Dr. Gaius Baltar sexually so that he would provide her and the Cylons with essential technical information that enables the Cylons to nuke the humans across all their home worlds. But, the apparent motives of the Cylons for nuking the humans seem unclear. Some Cylons even admit that the Cylons made a big mistake in attempting to kill all humans. Caprica 6 at times also seems to be genuinely in love with Dr. Gaius Baltar so that her motives as an enemy agent do not seem purely military in nature. More importantly, by the end of the third season, viewers are led to believe that at least 4 important humans aboard Galactica are probably Cylons. Understanding this apparent infilitration–if that’s what it really is–defies understanding, especially since this storytelling aspect is accompanied by the use of a Bob Dylan folk song from our world in a Battlestar Galactica episode! Maybe the fourth season will explain this puzzle to us? And, perhaps the use of “All Along The Watchtower” in Battlestar Galactica begins to suggest that Earth as we know it today was, in fact, seeded by the humans and Cylons in ways that the 1968 book Chariots of the Gods?: Unsolved Mysteries of the Past by Erik von Daniken suggested.

Religion

That anyone would ask questions about religion after watching this series no doubt brings great delight to Battlestar Galactica’s producers and writers. Few science fiction television series dare to deal with dieties and dogma. Apparently unafraid of being too controversial, Battlestar Galactica regularly compares and contrasts the humans’ polytheistic religion with the “one true God” religion of the Cylons. But, it seems unlikely that the series will attempt to resolve the question of the compatibility of these two religions, especially since leaving the question unresolved allows for a wealth of storytelling possibilities for Battlestar Galactica.

Law and Democracy

The Battlestar Galactica question as to whether law and democracy can survive in an ongoing war is perhaps the most compelling of all the questions asked by this series. Without any doubt, at the very essence of Battlestar Galactica storytelling across most of its episodes is the basic conflict between the behaviors necessary for victory in battle versus the behaviors necessary to maintain a lawful and democratic society. The injecting of this question into the series into science fiction storytelling–along with the various answers that viewers must inevitably find for themselves–is one of the most noteworthy accomplishments of Battlestar Galactica.

Those of us who’ve watched every minute of Battlestar Galactica from the 2003 miniseries up through the first five episodes of the third season in 2006 know very clearly what is going on.  Battlestar Galactica challenges our perceptions about politics and religion.  Battlestar Galactica deliberately and skillfully pulls us into a highly intense emotional connection with its well-defined characters.  Then, as our reward for making such a devoted connection, Battlestar Galactica breaks our hearts with poignant and controversial situations and plot turns that one rarely encounters anywhere else but in major motion pictures. 

Battlestar Galactica chooses to hit us hard emotionally, and as we find ourselves reeling from the impact, we may be unaware of how many of our deeply-held perceptions about politics and religion are being challenged.  This process is not limited to only one episode.  In truth, there probably is a cumulative effect.  The more you watch Battlestar Galactica, the more impact it may have upon your perceptions.

The most obvious example of this is a central storyline to the whole, sweeping arc of stories told on this sci-fi adventure series:  A gorgeous blonde woman takes a vulnerable man by the hand and leads him on a journey to the best sexual fulfillment that he has ever experienced.  Once he is hopelessly hers, she shocks him by revealing that she is not a human being.  Worse, she announces that she deliberately has betrayed not only him, but the entire human race.  She may look and feel like a gorgeous blonde woman, but she is this man’s mortal enemy.  She used him sexually to get military secrets that allowed her race, the Cylons, to wipe out most human beings on several planets.  She continues to manipulate him sexually so that she can next sway his political beliefs and behaviors.  She turns him from a highly intelligent, if disconnected and cynical man, who once was happy to stand on the sidelines, into an ambitious politician who ends up winning the election as president of all the surviving human beings.  As if that were not enough of an accomplishment for her, she then works hard towards her next goal of converting this man to her religion.

As we watch these two essential Battlestar Galactica characters–the sexy blonde alien female manipulator, and her vulnerable human male target–we are invited to set aside our perceptions.  We can understand clearly why he falls for her sexually.  She is stunningly beautiful.  But, why does he start believing in her politics and her religion?  Why does he forsake his own human species to aid her and, in so doing, aid the enemy Cylons?  All because she offers him the very best sex that he has ever had in his entire life?

No, there is far more going on here.  We watch as Battlestar Galactica deal with terrorism and suicide bombings in the context of an intense political warfare between human beings and Cylons that has obvious religious overtones.  Some bloggers have commented that Battlestar Galactica has a leftist slant and that watching its depictions of terrorism and suicide bombers can undermine public confidence in the present United States war efforts in Iraq.  (Maybe such bloggers should get a life?) 

True, Battlestar Galactica has depicted suicide bombers in sympathetic ways that no other American television series has.  But, this is science fiction, not a history lesson.  Battlestar Galactica should not be perceived as being an allegory about Iraq or Al Quaeda.

The man who should know all this is Ronald D. Moore.  He specifically said for viewers not to perceive of this series as an allegory or about Iraq.  

Bloggers with misperceptions and everyone else should take a deep breath and stop and read what Ron Moore has to say about Battlestar Galactica.  He is the one responsible for the political and religious content in Battlestar Galactica, but the reasons for doing so are to make you rethink your perceptions:

The show isn’t a polemic you know. I don’t approach it that… I don’t like a lot of moralizing television. A lot of story is sort of structured in TV to sort of teach you a lesson. To tell you this is the right answer to a given set of circumstances. This show is dealing with a lot of complicated ideas, a lot of complicated notions… What does it mean to be free? What does it mean to be safe? I don’t know the answers to a lot of those things. I have opinions and I have feelings and I have a political point of view and I’m not naive enough to think that doesn’t influence what I do. But, I don’t look at the show primarily as a vehicle show… A lot of people draw parallels to the war in Iraq and there’s an insurgency and suicide bombers and so on. But, the crafting of that story was less about okay here’s a political statement about the war in Iraq than it was okay what happens to my people in those circumstances? What happens to these characters that we’ve created and I throw them into this mess and I move some of the puzzle pieces around so that it’s not a direct allegory. So it’s not so clear as to who the good guys and the bad guys are and just see what happens. I want to see what happens. I want to see who’s going to collaborate, who’s going to fight back, who’s going to be trapped in the middle, who’s going to be questioning their own moral judgments, who’s going to become a suicide bomber, who’s going to slap somebody because of that. It’s like dealing with things that are contemporary and you’re dealing with things that are important, but I just try very hard not to make the show a vehicle for that idea. That said, there are fundamental things that I do believe come out in the show. There was a point where I had [former president] Laura Roslin saying “every person gets a trial and it’s not an option that the president gets to dismiss it their way.” I want her to say that because I believe that. But, it wasn’t a show that was all about that. This wasn’t the lesson of the episode. It’s just what that character would say in that circumstance so I had them say it.

Ron More also specifically spells it out quite explicitly:

The show would never be a direct allegory. Laura Roslin is not going to be George W. Bush. The Cylons are not going to be al-Qaeda, but they were going to have elements of it and part of the opportunity of the show was to move pieces around the game board a little bit. Say, okay well we’ve all experienced this set of events, this set of emotions. What if I move this piece over here and what if I put you over there? How do you feel about it then?…One of the foundational elements of the show is the religious conflict between the two civilizations. The monotheism of the Cylons. The polytheism of the Colonies. You know what is God? What is human? What does it mean to be alive?

During the opening credits of each Battlestar Galactica episode, we learn how many human survivors remain after their latest fight to the death against the enemy Cylons.  There are 41,435 survivors listed at the start of “Collaborators,” the fifth episode of season three.

Does that ever-shrinking number of human beings specifically include James “Jammer” Lyman?

After pleading unsuccessfully for mercy, Jammer (portrayed by Dominic Zamprogna) was literally sucked out of the gene pool.  He was executed by fellow humans who ejected him into the cold vacuum of space outside the Galactica. Such a savage end to a young warrior’s life was brought on by a circle of survivors aboard Galactica.  They found Jammer guilty of collaboration with Cylons after escape from the Cylon-occupied planet, New Caprica.

An imperative of the human race is to keep the species going.  With ongoing casualties of war, will the remaining survivors have sufficient time or initiative to reproduce?  Battlestar Galactica episodes thus far have not dealt in any detail with sexual reproduction.  With the notable exception of the sexual activity between Hilo and Cylon Sharon, more attention is given on Battlestar Galactica to lives ended than to lives begun.

We can only wonder whether Jammer had a chance to contribute towards propagating the human species before his life was ended.  But, when would Jammer have had time to sexually reproduce when he was preoccupied with betraying his own species to the Cylons on New Caprica? 

 One frequent criticism of sci-fi space adventures is that they emphasize special effects instead of character development.  The fourth episode of season three on Battlestar Galactica, “Exodus, Part II,” demonstrates vividly that the producers and writers understand how to develop characters even when the special effects are jaw-dropping. 

This episode involves an essential plot point:  The Galactica intentionally drops out of faster-than-light travel deep within the atmosphere of the planet New Caprica as a military strategy to avoid detection by the Cylons.  The huge ship falls downward through blue skies with white puffy clouds.  

We get to see this happen thanks to some stunning special effects.  We watch the outer hull of the Galactica heat up due to the friction of the ship colliding with the atmosphere.  It appears as if the Galactica will crash in bright yellow flames to a fateful end on the surface of the planet. 

The fundamental purpose of this free fall into the atmosphere is to launch the small Vipers in which fighter pilots will battle the Cylons who occupy New Caprica.  The tension created by these special effects propel the emotional intensity of “Exodus, Part II” into the ultimate victory of the humans over the Cylons.

To the credit of Battlestar Galactica’s producers and writers, the series focus on characters and their stories was not lost for even one second despite such an ambitious plot and the necessary special effects to make it happen.  Others who produce and write sci-fi space adventures should study Battlestar Galactica to learn how character development can come first even in the presence of jaw-dropping special effects.

One of the most important plot points in Ronald D. Moore’s Battlestar Galactica series is sex between human beings and humanoid Cylons. Although human beings deeply fear and disrespect their enemy, the Cylons, and even refer to them with extreme prejudice as toasters, it was inevitable that human beings would have sex with toasters.

This is so because the Cylons had a plan to bring it about. The motivation for this Cylon plan to entice human males to have sexual intercourse with female humanoid Cylons was to give the Cylons the power of sexual reproduction of their species.

 The honor of being the first human male enticee into this liaison goes to Lieutenant Karl “Helo” Agathon (played by Tamoh Peniket).

The female enticee is Cylon Sharon (played by Grace Park).

The happy couple are thrown together by circumstance on Cylon occupied Caprica, one of the home planets of the human race that was nuked by the Cylons.  Helo did not realize that he was being tricked into spending time with Cylon Sharon on Caprica to fulfill the Cylon plan for him to start having sex with her.

He was manipulated by Cylon Sharon into enjoying his interactions with her on the planet Caprica. He grew comfortable with her and enjoyed tender moments of laughter, for example.

Before too much time had passed, however, Helo and Cylon Sharon were drawn together emotionally, and, as planned, he started to show that he felt sexually attracted to her.

He lights her up.  On Battlestar Galactica, whenever a humanoid Cylon female has an orgasm, her spine glows red.

In the first two hours of its third season Battlestar Galactica jumped unflinchingly into controversy. Pity those who have not watched every hour that came before these first two hours of the third season. NBC Universal might hope otherwise, but it is just not possible for anyone to tune in to Battlestar Galactica at the start of its third season and truly understand what this series is all about.

Evidence of such utter disorientation can be found easily by those who Google for blog posts about the start of season three in the United States on Sci-Fi on October 6, 2006.

One must watch every hour of Battlestar Galactica starting with the 2003 miniseries in order to perceive in any detail what Battlestar Galactica is doing. This site provides details of how Ronald D. Moore’s Battlestar Galactica rivals Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek for attempting to persuade audience members with stories that have embedded messages and themes worth considering.

If the first two hours of Battlestar Galactica’s third season are any indication, there is no question that Ronald D. Moore has surpassed Gene Roddenberry in terms of gutsy attempts by television writers and producers to insert powerful political opinions into “mere” science fiction storytelling. The first two hours of season three depict real, flesh-and-blood details about insurgents in a warfare against occupiers, the true motivations of suicide bombers, and the use of organized religion by unscrupulous leaders to create fear in the hears of their followers as a means of controlling them.

Some viewers–most especially those who have not seen every hour the came before season three–will perceive of Battlestar Galactica in 2006 as being emotionally disturbing. This must be viewed as being quite deliberate. No television writer or producer could accomplish this kind of emotional impact accidentally.

Battlestar Galactica is asking viewers to consider what happens when one goes to war for religious purposes. The series asks important questions: Can any warfare be holy? Are people who fight an enemy based on their deeply-held religious beliefs to be held morally accountable for their violent acts? What makes some aspects of warfare holy and other aspects unholy? And, most importantly, who is capable of judging? Season three is beginning to answer these questions, but in doing so, Battlestar Galactica certainly will be seen as highly controversial. No television writer or producer could accomplish that accidentally either.

Season three of Battlestar Galactica is boldly going where polite society won’t.  The first 3 episodes of the third season have started opening a curtain behind which there certainly may be religious mysteries, and perhaps even evidence of the existence of the Almighty.  This is science fiction storytelling at its very best.

“There is no God but God” is the English translation of what is arguably the most famous Arabic Islamic phrase from the Muslim religion.  The phrase in Arabic, Assalamu `alaykum wa rahamatullahi wa barakatuhu, is found prominently inscribed on The Dome of The Rock in Jerusalem but more importantly, that phrase is the first and foremost thing that Muslims believe about God (Allah).

Should viewers of any faith be surprised to find that phrase – “there is no God but God” –uttered in episode 3 of season with crucial prominence in the story?  The phrase was spoken by an alien leader whose organized religion holds a single deity as central to her life and to the lives of her fellow aliens. 

Note that the word aliens in this context must be understood to mean the Cylons on Battlestar Galactica.  The Cylons are frequently referred to by human beings as machines, and sometimes even Cylons refer to other Cylons as machines.  But, this is not accurate.  The most accurate term is synthetic life form–that is, Cylons are a life form that was created by human beings deliberately; Cylons most definitely do not occur, and would not occur, in nature without being manufactured by someone.  Cylons, of course, learned how to manufacture additional Cylons because they have not (yet) learned how to sexually reproduce (but that’s a subject for another blog post!)

Due to their industrial origins, the humans have a nasty habit of referring to the Cylons as toasters.  This pejorative term originated from the fact that the first Cylons manufactured by humans looked decidedly like shiny and silvery robots whose outer skin is reminiscent of how a toaster looks.  When a human calls a Cylon a toaster, it is a very prejudicial thing.  It is meant to convey great disrespect.  Yet, the word toaster has come to be interchangeable with Cylons, both the humanoid variety and the shiny, silvery robotic kind. 

Despite the fact that these alien life forms were created by humans, the Cylons nevertheless developed their own organized religion that differs substantially from the organized religion of the humans.  Does it follow that the one held to be known as God by the Cylons is also a toaster?

How can a machine, or, excuse me, a synthetic life form, have its own organized religion?  Does is not seem at first glance that the synthetic life forms merely created their own deity?  Did the Cylons invent a toaster God?

Not surprisingly, the humans on Battlestar Galactica mock the organized religion of their creation, the Cylons.  In contrast to the Cylons’ one true God, the humans on Battlestar Galactica believe in many gods as did the ancient Greeks and Romans on our planet.  The humans on Battlestar Galactica scoff at what they do not understand, so it follows that they would mock the one true God as well.  And they do.

But, it seems true that Battlestar Galactica is saying to us that the synthetic life forms most likely had to create their own God, who most likely is going to turn out to be as synthetic as they are.  How can life forms create their own God?  And why would they do so?  Why do sythetic life forms need a deity at all?  Does it not make the whole concept of deity rather suspect? 

Equally puzzling is why do the humans on Battlestar Galactica, who are shown to be smart with advanced technology, insist on believing in many gods instead of the one true God?  How smart or advanced can someone be who insists on believing in many gods?  On the other hand, how smart or advanced can Cylons be since they apparently had to create their own God?

These are all deep and troubling questions that season three of Battlestar Galactica has started asking the viewers to ponder.  This is certainly going to be a most compelling season.