BSG will screen from the beginning to the end for the first time on Australian TV. Source: Supplied
TIME magazine and the American Writers Guild both call it one of the best TV shows of all time and, with high profile fans Joss Whedon, Steven Spielberg and Quentin Tarantino, Battlestar Galactica shouldn’t be written off as a mere space opera.
It celebrated its 10th anniversary last year, but BSG has never screened in its entirety in Australia.
It will finally do so from January 4 on SyFy.
“I would argue our fans are more intelligent, better looking, funnier, more witty and better dressed than any other fan at a convention,” laughs Jamie Bamber, who played Lee Adama.
“I put the gauntlet down to all you Stargate people, Firefly people, Walking Dead people — the Battlestar fan is more discerning.”
Tahmo Penikett (Helo) says many fans didn’t even like the genre.
“Many were not science fiction fans in any way,” Penikett say. “Die hard fans who were absolutely moved by the show would come up to us and say this is one of the most powerful things I’ve ever seen and now I make it a point to make sure that whoever I can, I want to share it with them.”
‘More discerning’ ... Battlestar Galactica star Jamie Bamber says Battlestar Galactica fans are better than Stargate, Walking Dead and Firefly fans. Source: Foxtel
A remake of the 1978 Star Wars cash-in, the series begins with the robot Cylons wiping out most of humanity and hunting down the remaining 50,000 in a fleet protected by one ageing Battlestar. With Cylons able to pass for humans, the fleet’s racked with paranoia that anyone could be a Cylon in disguise. Made two years after September 11, the show’s really about the War on Terror including rigged presidential elections, torture, religious persecution and heroes who bomb crowded places ...
With the rise of ISIS, Bamber believes the show is even more relevant today now, with jihadists: “coming back to fight us from within, and the fear that engenders”. The show isn’t preachy though. Bamber says left and right wing viewers can watch and “both can agree the show is on their side.” Shot in high definition and wide-screen, BSG actually looks better today than when it was originally broadcast in low-res, 4:3 aspect. Re-watching the opening miniseries for the 10th anniversary, on the big screen at the Kodak Theatre (home of the Oscars) Bamber says it still looks incredible.
“I was blown away by how well it stands up,” he says.
Battlestar Galactica, SyFy, Sunday, 7.30pm
