The Cylons are watching...

I waited on purpose.

This way I wouldn’t have to wait for the series of cliffhangers and long periods of time before any televised new shows. I waited for the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica to take its full course before watching them. It's that simple.

It’s a good thing I did.

Now I have nearly four years of episodes to be catching up with... and discover the story arcs that moves through the series. And watch how the character development shapes the number of people on board the mighty ship.

But here’s the kicker. There are no aliens in this series. Just people and robots.

The heart of the story: the fight between the robots and their masters. In some ways, the series owes very much to another bleak future vision of Phillip K. Dick whose stories dealt with robots who looked like people. Same concept we find in the Battlestar series. This series moves through poetry. The writers know how to craft their stories.

It’s actually better than the original run of the series that was popular in the late seventies. The new version of Battlestar Galactica strips down to the barest and rawest stories to deal with human emotions at the very center. And what makes the robots tick with their ideas and feelings. The series becomes an exploratory tool of who are the bad guys and the good guys. And what is really the worth of a war that seems endless.

The series begins with the devastation of the twelve human colonies as the robot Cylons rebel against their human masters. Several of the planets are bombed and the fewest numbers of the human race is on the run. Humanity has been reduced to dust. The command falls to the military commander Adama and the president Laura Roslin, splitting the most difficult decisions between them.

I like this series.

It’s a beautiful show. With some fantastic surprises.

Certainly an improvment over the old series. The stories are tighter, the plot more condensed. Characters and dialogue are better written. It’s deeply textured. Like a running novel being brought to the television screen. The stories are more densely layers to bring in more thought-provoking questions: the most asked question is, "What is God?"

There are some really good performances in the series made by the lead actor Edward James Olmos who personifies the series with his strong presence. And you need someone with a very powerful screen aura. (Much like Lorne Green who gave the old series a much needed presence). And now Olmos takes over this role… as a mentor, father figure, military strategist.

There are times when I thought he would simply blow up in frantic anger, yet he sighs, remains calm… like a storm brewing inside him. His acting remains remarkable. I’ve only seen him lose his cool a couple of times throughout the series so far.

I like the fact that he gives the series a family triangle of relationships… his suffocating relationship with his surviving son is matched by his greater ease in fathering his adopted daughter Starbuck. This is really good writing.

I am subjective when it comes to oriental actresses and I do like the character Boomer portrayed by Grace Park. I like her a lot. She’s a very lovely girl and also has very good acting skills to match. I find it more interesting that she is given a lot to do in the series… by playing several different parts. She’s obviously a robot in the midst of the human race. Yet she is becoming more human because of her constant exposure to them. It is confusing her.

The writing is a constant in the series. They are regaining some sense of beautiful science fiction by exploring the human agenda and the robots’ intent in stamping out mankind in the cosmos. Their war has stretched throughout the stars. It’s great to see that writers are becoming more important to this series rather than the eye candy of special effects.

Too many series have made that mistake. They didn’t care about the emotional crux of the story. They wanted the “boom” in their stories.

We’re still getting the “boom” or “bang” in space, that’s to be expected even though sound can’t travel through space. But the series has heart.

But don’t worry this series has not forgotten its old history. As they have a reoccurring character played by Richard Hatch throughout. A sort of knowing nod.

There are only a few problems going along with the series. The use of “frak” as a kind of expletive swear word… it’s true that you can’t use certain words on television. But it’s getting too frakkin’ much. I would have preferred them to find another way of swearing on television much in the same way the stars did on the show Firefly by cussing in Chinese. That’s good. It’s very imaginative way of dealing with this problem.

I don’t care much for the documentary styled camera work on the series. It bounces and jerks around and rarely stays still. I got to the point where I wanted to beat the camera man as I shout, “Hold still!” But these are really minor occurrences.

For the money, Battlestar Galactica is going in the right direction with its ideas. They know that story is about people. And they revolve all the action around the dilemma of the characters. The writing remains very much a flowering prose that challenges the viewer to dare. To dare them into thinking about the consequences of playing god when building machines. And how it will turn around and bite you in the ass.

I’ve got a whole mythological lore to explore. Four years worth. And I’ll be able to watch the characters transform over a long period of time. And the legends are in the making with the lonely starship drifting lost in space with false hopes. But they keep going because that’s what mankind does: it survives.