MAN-MADE MONSTERS #29: Battlestar Galactica (2003-2009)

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In two thousand and three, Ronald D. Moore resurrected a Camp Sci Fi seventies TV show. Battlestar Galactica, but he made it darker, grittier, far more relevant to a paranoid post 911 culture. Conceit was simple. Artificially intelligent robots known as Cylons were created by man. The Cylons evolved to eventually look and sound human. They rebelled, wiping out most of the human race, with a few human survivors fleeing on spaceships in search of a new home.

There are 12 different humanoid Cylon models. Some are known, some live amongst the human survivors in secret. And they have a plan. Join me as we continue exploring the evolution of man-made monsters and we discuss Ronald D. Moore's dark existential sci-fi odyssey, Battlestar Galactica.

Welcome back to the evolution of horror. My name is Mike Munzer, and as ever, I am your host. In this podcast, we explore and dissect the history and the evolution of the horror genre, one subgenre at a time. We are currently in the middle of our eleventh series. Exploring the evolution of man-made monsters, and this is part 29. In this week's episode, oof, we are tackling an

An epic five-season television show. We are gonna be talking about Battlestar Galactica, the show that began with a miniseries in 2003. and then was followed up by four full seasons Leading up to 2009. This will be a spoilerific discussion. We will be trying to tackle this entire show, including its ending, within this discussion. So if you don't want to be spoiled on a show from 20 years ago.

Uh give it a watch, I guess, before you listen to this conversation. Although y it may take you a while. There's a lot to get through. Uh, and there's a lot to discuss. I've tried this before a couple of times. We did an episode on Buffy. We've done an episode on the X Wiles. It's always a challenge covering an entire TV show in one two hour discussion.

But let's give it a damn good go. Joining me to discuss Battlestar Galactica, I've got two returning guests with me, both Battlestar Galactica fans. So first of all, a big hello to Alex Ayling. Hello, Alex. Hi Mike. Hello. It's been ag I'm trying to remember when you were last here. Was it to talk about piranha? franchise, yes, absolutely it was. That classic. Don't forget Piranha three D that we also talked about. Absolute masterpiece. Exactly. Um welcome back and another big welcome to

Ben Travis. Hello, Ben. Hello. Hello. How are you, Ben? Last time you were here was Bone Temple, so it's not been that long. It's not been that long, no, but this is probably the longest I've ever prepared for a podcast. I've spent like six months rewatching Battlestar Galactica. Yes, I know. We we three book

This in like last summer, I think, right? We're like, right, the prep begins now. I've been so excited for this because this is one of my favourite TV shows of all time. It was one of the things that I've been most looking forward to talking about when I sort of announced

this season. Um let me just start off by asking you guys your own histories kind of with this show, with Battlestar Galactica. So Um, Alex, w did you kind of watch this back in the day? When did you first discover this show? What are we classing as back in the day? Is two thousand and three like back in the day now? Absolutely. It's twenty three years ago, Alex. It absolutely is. Disgusting. Uh yes.

I'm ashamed to say or you know, I'm outing myself once again. Uh for the age that I am, yeah, I watched it go out live. Um I have I have a really strong memory of watching it on Sky One. I can't remember which day it was, maybe it was like Wednesdays at eight PM. But I didn't have a little bit of a little bit of a little bit

what was called Sky Plus at the time or whatever it was called back then, so I couldn't record it, so I had to watch it live. And I remember I was in I was in the living room and then my girlfriend at the time was in the bedroom on it on the second T V that we had, aren't we, swanky? Uh she was watching the O. C. because they were on at the same time on E four. And so that was that was how I know what time to be alive. What time. So that's how we started.

But then I managed to bring her over to my side. So from season two onwards we were watching it together. But yeah, I watched it live. I didn't I didn't watch the mini series. No. And then I went straight into season one and got very confused about

one of the characters that seem to be in two places at once for a while. Right, yeah. Of course. We'll get to that. We'll get to that. But you enjoyed it, I take it. Like did the show grab you immediately at the time? Absolutely loved it from the beginning. I mean I do remember Because obviously there was an original Battle Star Galactic in the seventies and that used to be on like I think it was on like I T V on a Saturday afternoon in in the like night rider slots in the eighties or whatever.

Um and so I remember that a little bit. Um and I remember actually my biggest exposure to it was in the opening credits of the A team, uh where there's a Cylon that walks past as a kind of like nod to um a nod to the previous show. But yeah, so so I was predisposed to sci fi and and TV and so but then I got

Oh my god. Incredible. Ben, what about you? Did you watch this at the time when it was going out? No, I didn't. I watched all of this. I bought the box set. I've got the D V D box set at home and I I re bought it on digital when I did this rewatch'cause I can't be faffing around with all the discs.

I know. Uh controversial finale and all. And just liking geeky stuff I'd just heard This show is amazing, but I think uh for me, a lot of these like sci-fi shows from that time that are just called Name of Ship all sound a bit generic. And so I bought this show kind of on faith, hearing that it was amazing. And I remember watching the mini series

And the start of season one and going like, Oh, that's what this show is? Right. There's like the the last tiny vestige of humanity running away from killer robots across space. This Fucking rules. Sorry. Yeah, thank you. Thank you.

I mean same here. I I I was similar to you Ben. I came to it after the show had finished. I had heard about it as this kind of big deal. I I remember even m it might have even been Empire magazine where they did one of those kind of greatest ever TV shows lists. And in amongst things like The West Wing and Buffy and Twin Peaks and S the Sopranos was Battlestar Galactica. And I think it was a show that because of the original seventies version, because of its title.

I sort of dismissed it for quite a long time as being like a bit of a naf sci fi channel thing. And then I had exactly the reaction that I think everyone has when they first start watching it, which is, Oh my god, this is so much darker. and grittier than I was expecting. Um, Alex, I got a a funny message from a listener this week actually when we announced we were covering it. Oh yeah. And they said, I've just dived into the first episode of the of the mini season.

Holy shit, a character has just snapped a baby's neck. This is not what I was expecting. That is the exact moment when you lock in and you're like, This is what it this is what the show is, this is the places it is prepared to go.

That's not even the darkest thing that happens on this show, right? No, exactly. But it really laid its stall out from the beginning. Holy shit. I mean we'll I mean it's it's kinda too much to kind of give a plot synopsis. So what we'll probably do is kinda talk through plot point as we go. But it does it really goes hard, Ben, doesn't it, at the beginning. Like the fact that you're gonna start your show with essentially the death of humanity, right? It's like, and the tone of it is so

bleak and somber, isn't it? Yeah, we begin and it's judgment day. Terminator two style. Uh on on Caprica is the planet which is a sort of analogue of Earth. And we basically just see like all of humanity get wiped out. And as you say, there's something about the massiveness of that that is like almost incomprehensible, but to then give you that moment of of uh six, Caprica Six, the Cylon snapping a baby's neck of just like and you can read that moment in so many ways of is it like

Is it like a mercy killing ahead of this nuclear blast that is gonna go off? Is it I always wondered if if it was like a moment of curiosity of like, ooh, these tiny puny humans, look how weak they are. Whoops, oh no, I just I just killed a baby. That's horrible. Um and, you know, all the way through the show there is this push and pull between Okay, well what are the Cylons? What does it mean to be Cylon versus being human? What is what's the beef there?

Uh in a big way. And it comes through in those little moments uh right from the beginning of the show and also the massiveness of just like, okay, we have created these robots that are now totally wiping us out and it's it's yeah, down to these last surviving humans to try and escape. So what do you think like Like Ronald Ronald D. Moore, when he created this kind of revival of the show, uh Alex, how much was this show kind of responding to the world and culture?

culture and where we were at at the time with that kind of really bleak nihilistic tone that it sets itself up with. I think it's worth I'll d I'm not gonna do the whole plot, but I think it's worth saying like the backstory of where we join the characters are um

In the past they created these robots to help them, um, and they effectively became like a a kind of slave underclass, and then the robots got intelligent enough and had a revolution, then there was a war between the humans and the and the Cylons. Then the the war came to an impasse and the Cylons fracked off to a to the other side of the galaxy and there's been nothing. No one's heard of them. And then when they come back

some of them now look like humans and and then they've come back and they're like, No, we're ready, we waited forty years and now it's time to destroy the whole of humanity and and they basically do that. And um To answer your question, Mr. I I mean I was watch I I wonder if it's different for me because I was watching it in two thousand and three and two thousand and four, which was at the height of the kind of erased sort of a

um in response to nine eleven. You know, it was heady it only been two years since since nine eleven since the planes had flown into the two towers and and I think the thing that I always think about this show is what if the shoe was on the other foot. What if it was America, the world's great superpower, that lost and then became the refugees and then were on the run? And that's always the lens that I've seen

this show through is like what then? What um and what does what does it mean from that? And then the more You know, and I and I don't want to talk really about contemporary politics, but the more the more that I was watching on this rewatch and everything that's happening in the world right now, it just It like it has never felt more real. Like the phrase that they say in the show all the time is all of this has happened before and all of this will happen again just

hits you in the solar plexus every time because it's so true. All of this is cyclical and and things like that. But yeah, I I saw this as a complete kind of allegory for for for that time in the world. The the way that all the best sci fi is. Yeah. Frankly. Completely. I agree. And I guess like Ben also, yeah, the

The the whole vibe of this, that sense of paranoia, because as we've mentioned, humanity is wiped out, the last remaining survivors flee on a group of spaceships into the depths of space. But of course, we have these human model Cylons that are ha that are in a living amongst the humans, right? So you don't know who to trust.

You don't know who is going to at any moment blow up the ship that you're on or kill you or whatever. And so as well as this absolute nihilism and destruction, there is this absolute sense of paranoia, right? And that is

For me, Ben, that's one of my favourite things about the show too, right? That idea of like who can we trust here? Yeah, totally. And and tying into, as you say, the sort of nine eleven of it all, the sense of like we have been Struck by an enemy that we didn't see coming and now that total paranoia of like when is the next strike, where's the next hit coming from? There's an episode in season one. It might even be like the first episode of season one.

where the Cylons are attacking every like thirty something minutes, every thirty three minutes. Yeah. And we have to keep jumping away. Yeah. Uh like sort of light speed jumping the ships effectively. every thirty minutes before we get God. And you know, it's it's there, it's so, so kind of coded in the text of the show. This is early two thousand television and you know there is

an element of like diverse ish casting. And the same of the lost was. It was like diverse yet also slightly tokenistic um spread of ethnicities. As much as this is effectively humanity on the run. It's like Americans on the run. They all speak. English effectively. They uh it's a a largely an American cast with a couple of sort of um major exceptions.

And So you have as well not just the fact that this um attack has left this this group of survivors, but it then becomes clear of like, okay, we need a government on the Galactica, on the ships that are surviving. And so how is this government gonna conduct itself and how are we gonna try and root out the cylons that are hiding among us?

And so it very quickly becomes this sort of political text about how America dealt with nine eleven, is dealing with nine eleven, is dealing with hunting out this enemy, is like trying to hold itself together as a nation in the in the wake of that and how do we conduct ourselves and um I guess in the way that like the West Wing, which I will say I have never watched, but people talk about that as now reading like a piece of like

of blissful fantasy politics of a rosy attire. Battle Soul Galactica, there is like There is darkness and there is cynicism there, but there is also there is a kind of a handful of quite heroic characters who you believe will do the right thing and behave in honorable ways, even when the impulse is to react.

rashly and with violence and with fear. There's hope. And so again, as you say, like watching this now, it is both very timely, but also you feel like the the government that would be created uh a in the Galactica now maybe wouldn't be quite as um as uh admirable as President Roslin. But we get to explore populism.

It's so relevant to today. There's populism, like the kind of politics of that comes through. There's religion, there's kind of evangelicals versus mm-hmm, you know. And that's the that's the other thing I'll say about the silons that we haven't mentioned is that They are pursu this is a religious war for them. They're pursuing this war from their quote unquote one true God. So the the humans have got a kind of m um uh what would you call it? Multitheocracy.

po polytheistic. Yeah. They got they believe in multiple gods basically. It's sort of Greek Greek goddy. Um but the Cylons have one true God which feels a bit more Judo Christianity, Islamic, you know, that kind of Abrahamic religion. Baked in, and they don't shy away from it. Like that, that's the other thing that I really applaud the show for is it just goes there. Absolutely. And we'll talk about it as we go. The religious element

ultimately for some people think ends up being the show's downfall by the end as well, which is really interesting. And I think people are very divided on that. Um, what a time for television. I mean you did mention this just now, Alex, in terms of like what else, you know, like your girlfriend was watching while you were watching this. But Ben, like t if if we go back to two thousand three, two thousand and four

24, The West Wing Lost obviously started in 2004. This was the first kind of golden era of HBO too. We were in the midst of shows like Six Feet Under, The Sopranos, The Wire, Sex and the City. Was this television's first? kind of big golden age, which I think it was. And I think it was in a way that almost at the time wasn't necessarily um notice. I think it was even not that much further forward, but like a couple of years later there was a hindsight of like, oh, there is incredible

deep, rich storytelling, complex storytelling happening on TV. For me, this time absolutely is lost. Like that was the first show that I really watched.

week in, week out as it aired. And I think there are a lot of similarities with Battlestar Galactica as well, especially the way in which, as you say, the religious themes And how you have a a show that is a on the one hand a sort of sci fi adventure show but then really embraces religion, fantasy, belief systems, and ties that in in a way that is totally inextricable from the sci fi uh to the extent that I think half of the original audience goes

I didn't sign up for any of this mumbo jumbo. I'm not into this anymore. Um but I I think it really works in Battlestar Galactica because There is, you know, we we're talking about this in a horror context. There is a total like existential quandary to this entire show. It is like humanity is on the run. If we don't s if if if we don't escape on these ships.

Humanity is totally done. Um the the Cylons are wrestling with the fact that they were created by us and then just immediately screwed over by us and and sort of placed into servitude, and then you have all of these characters because the Cylons or certain Cylons are disguised as humans. You have so many characters in this who at some point wonder if they're a Cylon. They don't know if they're human or not.

some of them discover they are Cylons and have to reckon with like, I am not fundamentally the being that I thought I was, and what does that mean for me? And so There is like an existential horror baked into this that is both. Extremely tied to the sci-fi of it, but also totally tied to the religious themes that come through. Completely. Completely. Alex, what do you think of this, you know, we w this wasn't HBO?

It wasn't a network show, right? This was a cable sci fi channel show, which I'm assuming probably means it was Probably a slightly lower budget show than maybe some of those other things that were on, like Lost, for example, at the time, which was so kind of glossy, right? D do you see that? Does it have uh kind of constraints, does it feel like it is a low budget show when you watch it? So l at this time I was working in cable television in the UK.

And so I was um uh you know, I was in the milieu of it the whole time. So I was sort of seeing seeing it from like not a quasi insider thing. And I think the the thing you have to remember is that um I think the term

peak T V was coined in around two thousand and eight, two thousand and nine and it still grew after that, right? But but but um we were very much on the up at this point. So when you talked about Twenty four, the West Wing, um I guess ER was an early proponent of this, of like high quality network television.

And then you had HBO and then that was sort of it. And then you had the the sci fi channel and occasional like you had Bravo and a few other smaller channels that would do their own thing. That I get that that was more kind of reality. Um but The other thing to remember about this time is that advertising revenues were

so much higher. So you could survive on a cable channel and have a modest budget, like but m like ha less than half of what you'd get on Lost, maybe like a third of what you'd have on Lost per per hour. Um, but you could get by because you knew your your advertising revenue and your syndication revenue that you would get from selling it around the world would be enough to sustain

these kind of series and that's why I think eventually this show got a bit more expensive and Sky it was doing well on Sky so Sky became like a co pro and you'd you'd do you do other things like that. But this was very much on the up and so I don't think a show like this

would exist today. I think a a concept like this, you'd you'd demand a huge budget, um, it would go straight to streaming, it would be prestige, you'd get ten episodes every two years, it would be like House of Dragon levels of like bringing bringing it back and you wouldn't get like you say, the constraints is exactly the right word. Like I love the creative constraints of this. I love the

It's a bit hokey and y you sort of go with it. Like I've got I like Ben, I've got all I got all on DVD and I and then I've got the second half of season four on Blu-ray and I was watching them on the Blu-ray and there's a little sign that comes up on the Blu-ray that says, As Blu-ray is a new format the high definition is gonna show up some of the stylistic choices. These are intentional. So you Yeah, you get you get this little note. But um like I the the only thing I can think of now is like

something of this sort of level of ambition. It reminds me of something like the OA on on Netflix. I don't know if you've seen that. Like it's it's got that kind of breadth but the amount of money that was pumped into that show made it untenable after two series and they had to cancel it. Whereas this, because it was small,

And it wasn't on network television, so it's not living and dying by the weekly ratings. Yeah. It's able to sustain itself on on just the advertising revenue. Also on a fundamental filmmaking level, how they did this and how they got away with having those low budgets is kind of incredible. The show, as much as some of the CGI um uh Cylons, like the old style Cylons, the toasters uh look pretty janky. Yeah. But they again in that early to mid 2000s style

This is like as shaky cam as a Jason Bourne movie. And they use that both to give this sense of like documentary verite, that you are like in the situation with these characters. There's an urgency to the camera work. um that when uh our our characters are in these massive sets, they built a couple of like really strong core sets that they just reuse. They walk up and down the same corridor a million times from ten different angles.

Um, but you're constantly like having these tiny little zooms in um while characters are having conversations. And then when you cut to uh the Vipers launching into space, the sort of individual one man spaceship. They use the same shaky cam

uh quick zoom uh sort of s camera style that masks over so much of what must be fairly ropey CGI if they just present it i in these beautiful clean shots. Right. But because Um, you are given the perspective of a camera struggling to keep up with tracking this ship that's just blasted out from the Galactica. It looks and feels This is such a clever way of making this fill this series for like fifty p an episode and just about getting away with it from week to week.

Well, it is big. It's a big world, right, that it has to introduce in that initial miniseries. And let's talk a little bit about the miniseries and how this world how this story begins. Because as well as as we've mentioned this idea of Cylons kind of blowing up the the the twelve planets and so we have this huge like genocide that the story starts with, we also have the Battlestar Galactica out in space, right? And it's in orbit.

And Alex that first It I think it is post credits the first shot we get, which is this beautifully long One one. It's a wanna, isn't it? It's a larva tracking shot where we are introduced to a lot of characters. And that's the other thing about this that reminds me a bit of Lost and some of the other shows from this era. This isn't a small cast of like three characters. It's huge. And so that opening not just the opening miniseries, but the opening shot of the miniseries.

Introduces us to like Commander Adama and Starbuck and Chief Tyrrell and all of these characters that we get in that astonishing wanna, right? I mean it is incredibly directed, I think, isn't it? It reminds me of one another. thing we've talked about on your podcast, which is that corridor scene in Donnie Darko where they go down the corridor and they see all the different characters and you get

You get a sense of everyone's relationship to one another. This ship, the last of her kind still in service, was was constructed over fifty years ago during the early days of the Cylon War. Now, originally there were twelve battle stars, each representing one of Cobalt's twelve colonies. Galactica represented Caprica Silent war is long and rage, yeah. Must not forget the reasons why. Commander Odama, if I may. Captain. I just wanted to say what a pleasure to be.

Serving with you under command, sir. Captain McKelly. It's been my honor. Good luck in your next assignment. Thank you, sir. The Cylon War is long over. Yet we must not. Good morning, Starbuck. What do you hear? Nothing. but the rain. Grab your gun and bring in the cat. Boom, boom, boom. Attention. Autograph detail can port to Starboard hangar. Yeah, I mean, I love it. It's so good.

Battlestar Galactica itself as a as a set, like Ben was talking about the set. The thing that I think is really clever about that feeling janky as well is like The only reason that that is the ship that survives is because it's so old. It's so old. It's basically about to be turned into a museum and they're out there kind of like sending it off on it

to live on a farm up state. Um and because it because it doesn't have the new computers and the new networking, um, it is not susceptible to the virus that the Cylons unleash and drop all of the defences. So the the mere fact of its kind of decrepitude And it's um

like not keeping up has is the thing that saves it. And then that that can then play into the kind of set design and and it plays even into the narrative as the series goes on as it starts to fall apart'cause it's not it wasn't built to keep going at this at at this pace. It gives you that like Star Wars used universe thing where everything just feels a bit grubby and a bit shit.

Yes. And it's more aliens. Aliens. Uh actually a s a a T V show from the same year, Firefly, as well, did that same thing, right? Where you get this feeling that this ship is kind of a bit old and janky, but It has so much character and so much personality. And the fact of the fact of you know, including

It's not just the military top brass who are your main characters. You've got people on the decks who are fixing the ships and you've got Chief Tyrrell and Callie down there on the launch and you've got the all the pilots and you've got a little bit of seeing throughout the ship. It's not just you're not just on the bridge, you know, with the with the with the executive class. And I and I I sort of love that for understanding How everybody's responding to this.

Like you say, this genocide. Like it's it's striking to me, like at the beginning of every episode you get a number. This is how many humans are left in the g in the galaxy. And then every episode it's going down. Sometimes by like a few, sometimes by a couple of thousand.

And then there's one episode where it goes up by one'cause a baby's born and you're like, Oh they got the number. I know. Unbelievable. And I think that's right, like there is this feeling of like in when we're on the battle star we're in a place of safety, but yet this like absolute atrocity is happening. down on on on the planets and outside of this world.

And we meet these characters that are like like you said, Ben, that that they are these kind of safety net characters that have this real sense of kind of right and wrong. Uh let's start with talking about Commander Adama, shall we? Like played by Edward James almost. Really c he's like top build star. for this show. Ben, what do you think of him? How important is this character of Adama in in kind of centering this entire show?

And sometimes he's like too military for his own good and he's a bit like closed off. But then always by the end of the episode you see this like beating heart um underneath him and he is like a physical embodiment of the Galactica itself. He's like He's been through the wars, he is all busted up on the outside, but he's still ticking on in the inside. And um he becomes this like real focal point of the show. Uh because you he becomes the guy who you always trust.

To eventually do the right thing and to uh persevere against all odds. And so then there are times where. it feels like a dharma's lost his hope and that's when you really feel as an audience member of like, Oh god, we're so we're so fracked. We're so fracked. If a if a dharma um crumbles

humanity as a as a unit dies. Uh so there's a lot weighing on his shoulders and it's um an incredible performance. There's such a like a warmth to him, even though he's a character who especially as we meet him, he's lost one of his sons. Um and he has then a very fractious relationship with his other son, Leodama Apollo And So there are very uh kind of clear reasons why in some ways he's closed off and yet at the same time he is so in touch with his crew.

And he takes it so seriously. Like there's Y y he seems like a good boss. You know, they all all these people are very loyal to him. And then there's one episode where

he is like he's doing this mantra and you you can't really understand what the mantra is, but the mantra is he's trying to remember everybody's names. He's trying to remember the names of the people who bring him the coffee. This is the person who's on the con and he knows who everybody is on the ship. Um and Yeah, he is he is absolutely

The heart. He's incredible. You just you love him more and more and more as the show goes on, don't you, as this kind of like patriarchal kind of figure almost, but like such a loving, warm one. And Edward James Almost is just so good because he has that kind of like he's slightly aged, he's slightly croaky, slightly craggy, but like again, there's just there's this like a

There's like a magic in his eyes as well at the same time, isn't there? He's lived a life. And and and again, one of the very first characters that kind of he comes across in that opening one uh is Starbuck, right, who is who is running laps around the corridors. Starbuck, who was played by a man in the original series, I believe, and has been kind of recast here. Um Starbuck, Alex. Tell us a little bit about your thoughts on Starbucks as a character.

Oh you see you would have missed the Ferrari when it was announced and Starbucks a woman. Oh really? Yeah. Yeah, Starbucks they've ruined it already before it's even started. It's gone like I don't think we'd invented the word woke at this point, but this shit this is this shit. this show's too woke, like so all all of this stuff has happened before, it will all happen again. There we go. There we go. Yeah. And uh Starbucks incredible. What an a what an incredible performance that is. And um

You know, the it's so easy to see like the tough guy y you know, the woman being the tough guy, like trying to fit in with the man as a pilot, but she is fully embracing her entire personality. This this Like in the in the original Battlestar Galactica, um it's you know, he's smoking a cigar and he's a ladies man and he's all like suave and whatever else and like

Starbuck is so fracked up, like she's so broken and barely holding herself together the whole series, and yet is the best pilot in the galaxy, um, is loyal. is disloyal, you know, is and is is allowed to be all of those things. And I think that's you know, she's not a she's not a one trick pony, she's not it's not a one note character. It's

I I love her. I think as well I think that's the thing, like Ben, Starbuck is kind of really emblematic of the show in as a whole because she's she's a pretty flawed morally grey character. Like she she does a lot of bad shit, doesn't she, in this? And I think it introduces that idea of the the moral uh the uh grayness of this entire universe and all these characters, right? Yeah, totally. And she, you know, especially as we meet her, she is like held together by whiskey and uh and vibes.

Uh as you say, she is an incredible pilot, but she's also just a total frack up and um it's caught up in all of the Adama family grief as well. She was um w she was with Commander Adam is the son who died, Zach.

Uh but also always really fancied Lee, the brother, and so there's this kind of awkward family like love triangle, but one of the corners of the triangle has died, and so everybody's deeply messed up. And also like she might be slightly responsible for his death because she feared him to She

was with him but she probably he probably wasn't ready. And also A Admiral Adama uh Commander Adama is like her father almost and he keeps calling her his daughter, so it's all very strange and incestuous that whole I think. Yeah. And then over the course of the show as well, she is sort of emblematic of the show because her story and her

essence basically becomes more and more tied in to the sort of religious fantasy element of the show. And so she starts as this character who is very like Down to earth survival lists. crack pilot um hot shot. And then over the course of the show becomes more and more tuned in to whatever uh theological stuff is is happening um out there in the galaxy. And so um yeah, she she is an incredible character and one, as you say right from the beginning, she isn't one note.

Uh but she becomes like a whole symphony over the course of this entire show. She's incredible. There is an also this idea that Alex I think what it does with sort of gender is really interesting in this show, right? Like

There's a ki there's a there's a kind of androgyny, I suppose, to the characters on Battlestar Galactica and and just generally in this world, in this society, the way in which, like, just little things like they will call um women in power, sir, for example, and like all of these like little things that Um, there is this kind of beautiful mesh, isn't there, of of of of all types, of all genders, of all sexuality. We're in a world where

It feels like that almost just doesn't really matter in Battlestar Galactica. Yeah, but it's not but it's also not a post prejud prejudicial society. Like there is there there is racism, but it's not racism in the way that we experience it. Like the racism is not based on the colour of your skin, it's based on the planet you're from. So everybody's like taking the piss out of the pycons because they all do this and they don't believe in

You know, they don't believe in medicine or whatever it is. You know, there's there's there's something and there's so it's it's absolutely not that it's a pr uh a non prejudicial society. It's just using that thing that sci fi can get to do, which is like show a um show a different side of things, show a reflection of like a dark mirror on on our world.

And use it use a different way as an a like a like I said before, like an allegory. Um but yeah,'cause it's like I don't I don't read a lot of sexism. There's a little but but also it's not postgender world either. Like people are using their sexuality as a weapon, people are trying to Jumping around each other's bunks the whole time. Oh my god. It's a very horny show, actually, isn't it? Like they are all

at it the entire time throughout this series. I love it. Um we don't have time, sadly, to go through all of these amazing characters that we meet on Battlestar Galactica. Um but do we have any particular favourites, Ben? I mean for me it's Soul Tai, it's Colonel Ty. maybe the show's biggest bastard, right? I love him. I couldn't give a frack, Bill. Yeah, exactly. Like uh if can uh if Commander Adama is essentially like a lovable, grizzled guy, um

It's in comparison to to Saultai, who is like so grizzled and such a dickhead for so much of the show. Awful. He's an awful man, but we kind of love him as well. We love him because he's Commander Adama's best friend and we know There's gotta be some good in him if he's mates with a dharma.

Um yeah, I mean this there's loads of great uh characters and this I think the best character in the show is somebody who we're gonna talk about um yeah uh a little bit down the line. I will just say for me this show is a total tie of like Some of the best characters ever on TV and a bunch of characters who I cannot

Stand. Yes. I am a tirel hater. Me too. A Callie. Me too. This is fight. Ben, you've got the best opinions. I always appreciate your opinions. Mike does not agree, by the way. We've been texting. So whiny and annoying. Get them out of the airlock. I really I really like Chief Tyrell. I don't like Callie. She she's my one of my least favourites, but uh I l I mean I think ch yeah, Chief Terrell i again, all these characters are fucked up in different ways. The character I really

I really find the the most boring, I suppose, in that he kind of is the most pure. He's the Jack from Lost. is is Apollo, is Liodama. I you know, because he's the I think I prefer the characters that are bastards in this. So I love Starbuck. I quite like Tyrrell. I really love Soultai. Apollo is just the good looking all round he's the hero. He's the you know, he's the good guy. He's so beige though. Exactly, that's what I mean. That's what I mean.

Super. And in the Jack from Lost thing, like beige hero with daddy issues. Exactly. We don't need more of that.

Thank you very much, you know. Well, you've got you've always gotta have one. You've always gotta have one. No offense to Jamie Bamber. And to be fair, Apollo does some interesting things as it goes on, it with regards to kind of his sort of political heads and th and you know, sometimes how he can bump up against the military for that reason and stuff. So he gets to do some fun stuff, but he's very pure. He's the kind of moral center, isn't he, of the show, I suppose.

Um but let's talk about some of the other really interesting characters. Um maybe we should start by talking about the first Cylon that we meet. Opening scene of the miniseries, you know, we see the kind of the slightly janky toasters, the Centurion uh robot. And then we see this very sexy blonde woman strutting towards the camera, right, who is, as it turns out, one of our uh one of our humanoid cylons.

And before she kills a man, she kisses him and she says, Are you alive? right and she has and she's the one who, as we've mentioned, also goes on to snap a baby's neck on screen in the miniseries. So she she is clearly like incredibly deadly, but she has this kind of curiosity about her, right? And this obsession with like humans and what it means to be alive.

Played by Trisha Helfer, we never learn her name. She is referred to as number six because she's the sixth model in the twelve cylon models. Um What do we think of her of number six, Alex, and her importance in this show? I I just think it's absolute genius. Like extraordinary performance. Like you can see why she was hired.

Right. Oh, like like So she was a model, right? And so they hired her and they probably thought, We'll put a few scenes in, we're gonna make the Cylon sexy you know, that's probably what sold that's probably what sold the pitch to Yeah, it always looks a bit It almost looks a bit species or something, doesn't it? Like they put her on the they put her on the poster. Totally. Yeah, she's always front and center. Yeah, exactly. And it's that whole trope.

And then, you know, and then in she's always like mostly naked, which she's obviously very comfortable with being because she's a model and so, you know, she's very used to using her body in that in that way as like a kind of to to pan clothes off or to do or to express herself in that way. and so there's a lot of like sex scenes at the beginning, like just sidebar. I feel like Like if you were trying to blend in with humanity when you're having sex, maybe your spine shouldn't glow red.

I'm just saying. It's a bit of a giveaway. I feel like that only happens in like the first season, doesn't it? Yeah. This is probably a bit of a giveaway. Um because there are lots of other Cylons that end up having sex. Anyway, um I I think I think she's an extraordinary actor. I can't die. When this body is destroyed, my memory, my consciousness will be transmitted to a new one. I'll just wake up somewhere else in an identical body.

You mean there's more out there like you? There are twelve models. I'm number six. I know what it does. Because by the end of the show, she has played probably seven or eight different characters. Um and they're all distinct. They and some of them look exactly the same. Some of them have got a bit of a different hair colour. But even even that, like beyond the the

the the costume and the makeup and the hair, the comportment, the way that she is walking into a room, you can tell which of the versions of six she is at any moment. And I just uh And I and I think she's fascinating because she's because the six that we see most

is actually not even a real is not even a real version of six. It's it it appears in the imagination of Baltar, that we'll a person that I'm sh hopefully we'll talk about soon. But um but uh so uh So there's that and then there's the other versions and then there's horrible versions and then there's

she gets some like some of the grimmest storylines as well. Like the the on the Pegasus when we get to that, like the the Gina version, like, oh my God. I just think what an incredible invention of a character that you can have You can play multiple versions. Like it's obviously been done loads in film and TV before, but like it's never it for for my money it's never been better than than than number six.

I agree. I agree. I think I think the best performance in the whole show, probably. And I think some people dismiss her almost because she's just like she's the blonde sexy one or whatever. But what an astonishing thing, Ben, that she was this like model.

But also turned out to be what an incredible versatile performer that she gets to be in this show. Yeah, as you say, over the course of this and the more iterations of six that that Trisha Helfer gets to play, she really gets to play lots of different notes. It's a character who when we first meet her, I'm I'm still quite conflicted on and I would love to know from like female fans of the show uh how they feel about this character because I do think the show

sort of has its cake and eats it too in in being an early two thousands sci-fi TV show that's like, eh, we got a sixty robot lady. And at the same time Um it's so inherent to that character and especially the context that we see six in. particularly early on, like the sexuality of that character, the overt sexuality

um, is such an important facet of it because it's so tied to the character of Gaius Baltar and what he represents and the role that he has played in the Cylon attack. And so You have a character who is undeniably Sexualize.

Um, but there is a real purpose often to that sexualization whilst at the same time this is early two thousands T V. I really hope um Trisha Helver did feel comfortable with lots of these scenes because she is easily like one of the uh actors on the show who is not wearing many clothes for a lot of especially the early run.

Um and I think there are so many facets to that character that it makes for a really interesting discussion on the ways in which Um you know, it the s the show uses those elements of the character to um some really sort of interesting and thought provoking ends and the ways to which

It possibly is slightly exploitative of that at the same time. Totally. I completely agree. It's it's a really interesting thing. When we talked about the kind of interesting uh um I don't know, kind of fluidity almost of some of the characters, the human characters, with this character it's

So unbelievably male, gazy, sexy woman, um kind of coded, particularly at the beginning. But As you said, Ben, the point is that she's kind of been built this way for a reason, right? And there is this incredible moment. She She's established in the opening scene as this deadly Cylon who has blown up a a ship and killed people.

And then the next time we meet her, she's walking into a man's apartment, right? And she's clearly in a relationship with this guy who we are introduced to as Gaius Boltar, played by James Callis, and he is this how do we describe him, Alex? He is this kind of Rich, arrogant tech bro, right? Yeah, and I can't think of any of those these days. Uh this could possibly be. The mu the Elon Musk energy. Ahead of his time, honestly. Um like he

He absolutely is in that mould, right? He is one of the one of the people that you'd see at the y you know, at the front of the queue when it comes to, you know, the inauguration, he was in that front line. Let he'd he'd own he'd own one of these big networks, but he's also Like he n he doesn't wanna he doesn't wanna run anything. I I've never I was never clear

Like what his job was. Everybody seems to know him. Like everybody he's famous. Like everybody knows who Dr. Guyus Boltar is. Like even normal people. Even before the show. Even before it kicks off. So he's got he's got a profile, but I don't know like if he owned a tech platform or whatever else. But yeah, he is he's a he's a genius. He's a computer genius. He actually is a genius. And um more than more than that, he is also a political genius.

And he is extremely good at self preservation and understanding what he needs to do to maintain his own life and how he can manipulate the entire fate of humanity around whether he lives or dies and what he gets to do and how he gets his rocks off. Um and so y yeah, he again I just think What a a really fascinating character that goes on just such an interesting The journey througho throughout the series. Yeah, he he he represents humanity's kind of absolute dogged

uh kind of determination to live, right, and prevail. Ben, is Gaius Baltar the best character on this show? He's a total piece of shit and I absolutely love him. And they relish how much of a piece of shit he is, that he is like the the the very dregs of humanity, um, the the our like most base instinct to, as you say, to survive at all costs.

um to self uh pre preservate to self preserve at all costs, to um seek pleasure at all costs, even at the downfall of other people. He is like horny and wretched and the smartest guy in the galaxy and also a total like fuck up again and uh he can't help himself in any situation Um, you're screaming at the TV uh'cause you're like, what are you what are you doing? And uh the downfall of humanity comes from the fact that he is sleeping with the Cylon number six, who he does not know is a Cylon.

Um gives her access to all of the human mainframe stuff, which means that they can blow up Caprica. So is it is It couldn't be more his fault that this genocide has happened. Yeah. If you're a silent, prove it to me right now. I don't have to.

You know I'm telling the truth. You see, stating something as the truth doesn't necessarily make it so'cause the truth of the matter is I don't believe a word of it. You believe me, because deep down you've always known there was something different about me. Something that didn't quite add up in the usual way.

And you believe me because it flatters your ego to believe that alone among all the billions of people of the twelve colonies, you were chosen for my mission. Your mission? What mission? You knew I wanted access to the defense mainframe. The defense mainframe? What exactly are you saying? Come on, guys. The communications frequencies, deployment schedules, unlimited access to every database. Oh my god. I had nothing to do with this.

You have an amazing capacity for self-deception. How do you do that? And then when humanity escapes. Everybody's like, Thank God Gaius Baltar's here. He's the genius. He's the one who's gonna save us all. Meanwhile, all he cares about is shagging anything that moves. Uh but also in among all of this, he might be like chosen by God to have prophetic visions. He is he sees A version of six in his mind's eye

Who talks to him and he ha he converses with out loud. So he's also always talking to himself, but he's actually talking to a manifest manifestation of six in his head. But also the manifestation of six seems to have some corporeal abilities to manipulate him physically in the real world. And it's a constant question in the show of What is that six in his head? What what is going on with Baltar?

Has he been chosen? Is this some religious intervention? And if it is a religious intervention, why Gaius Baltar of all people? So it's it's this incredible mix of like he is the absolute best and the absolute worst of humanity. all rolled into one and From episode to episode, you don't know what the hell this guy's gonna do.

uh and what kind of scrapes he's gonna get himself out of. He he's an incredibly ahead of his time character, I think. If we said the the number six Cylon character feels a little bit early two thousands in the way she's portrayed, I think Gaius Baltar as a character and what he represents has aged like a fine wine, right? This like egomaniac tech bro, this privileged, good looking white guy who no matter how many awful, awful, awful things he does.

He just keeps getting away with it and keeps getting away with it and he uses his charms and his wiles and his political nouse and his, you know, whatever. slip through like a cockroach every time, doesn't he? And and he's awful. He's snivelly and awful. But how good is James Callis as a performer as well? Because he pulls it's it's a really difficult balance, right? Because it's not like he's so awful that you just don't want to watch him or be around him. But he he's so pathetic.

He's so he's such a little weasel and there is so much pathos to that performance. You you just like you almost if he wasn't such a prick, you'd feel sorry for him because he's in so deep over his head. And so there is like a terrible, terrible humanity to that character. Um, and you can't help but like in some ways root for him because the odds are so stacked against him in every situation. You're like

Nobody else could get away with this. But there has to be something like special about you that you are the person who seems to slip through every single net.

I said before as well, like the vast majority of the cast members here are American. James Cowlis is British. Classic will cast the British guy as effectively the villain and get him to be very British and snooty. And uh very posh sounding. He's like, Yeah, he's like a kind of he's kind of like a junior sort of Jeremy Irons or Alan Rickman or something, you know like that kind of British villain vibe. Yeah. Um Alex, Ben mentioned this.

You are important. You are chosen. You're you are important to the future of humanity. And again, like I think there's a really interesting tension, isn't there? Particularly in the first season.

Where it's like, is this just a an absolute narcissist egomaniac who really believes that he is chosen for something greater, you know? Um how do you find that kind of the way th th the show kind of pulls that stuff off? Yeah, I always I always read it as that she was a figment of his imagination and even when she appears to be giving him like new information that he doesn't have

I w I was assuming that that was just his instincts and subconscious, like finding a way to tell him the kind of things that he is supposed to do. And the the and and like a way of visualizing You know, he's such a Machiavellian kind of plotter. But he doesn't have a confidant, you know, he doesn't have

He has he'sn't hasn't got like Varys and Littlefinger. There aren't two of them, you know, from Game of Thrones like whispering to each other. There is he hasn't got anyone to talk to. He's on his own. And y so you have to find a way, I guess, as a writer, to express that. that sense and and so I've always at the beginning I always interpreted it as like she's a figment of his imagination.

And then as the series goes on, you find out that maybe there's more to it than that, actually. And maybe there's you know, and he starts to have you know, well, I think it's when he first gets to Kobol and he's like injured. But he's injured and he starts to have visions of this opera house which becomes a really important like theologic part of the theological kind of storyline that's going on. And

I can imagine the writers putting in as like a very useful narrative crutch for how do we get the inner voice of this character who's so important, how do we express it? Becomes then this thread that they pull on and and then by the end of the series, spoiler alert. It was real. Like the whole time. Like it was an angel that was talking to him. Yeah. That was giving him divine intervention. You know, and uh and and And there was a you know there's an equivalent.

uh as she as we get to know her, like the six who was on Caprica who caused um who struck up that relationship with Baltar. She is seeing and hearing a version of Baltar in her head, who is also like this idealized sex object to her. She's in love with him. He's in love with her. They're both having visions of each other. And to have those two as like mirrors of each other

Again, is part of to me why the sixth character ends up being so great because they they kind of really flesh out and um and balance those scales and and present that six in particular and Baltar as like mirrors of each other and um sort of these two halves of each other who um yeah both receiving divine intervention but to the humans and to the Cylons to like manipulate this situation. in what we get to understand is like a repeating loop of history that is just like an inevitability of

humans will create, our creations will destroy us, we will flee, we will survive, we will evolve again, we will create again. Our creations will destroy us. Um but that in the mix of that there is some entity, some being who is, you know, pulling the strings and and pointing characters in certain directions, maybe to ensure that this happens again, or maybe to ensure that um there is just some level of survival that if there weren't strings being pulled

maybe there are no silence and no humans and then there's nothing and that's worse than

um this loop continuing it's it's kind of left up to the viewer to to decide. Yeah. Well I wanna get into some of these big theological, philosophical ideas that the story delves into. But first of all, there's one more character we should mention that we're introduced to at the beginning, a really important character, and that's Laura Roslyn, right? Who is

When we first meet her, the very first scene she is being diagnosed with cancer, right? Terminal breast cancer. Then She ends up w when the the nuclear holocaust happens She happens to be up in space on the battle star, right? Why is that again? She's doing it for some sort of political job.

Galactica into the museum and she is like one of the lower ministers and the government just needs to have someone there. A representative, exactly, because she is, I think, Minister of Education, right? Essentially. She was a teacher and then she joined she went into politics. And then when the genocide happens and humanity is wiped out, the line from the president downwards

is wiped out essentially. And I think because she was up in space and while the planets were being nuked and she's something like thirty fifth in line or something to power, she automatically becomes president of the colonies and basically becomes the sort of civilian equivalent to Commander Adama, right? So you have Commander Adama in charge of the military, and then Laura Roslyn, this kind of like ex-school teacher with a terminal illness.

becomes the leader of the civilian human race, essentially. Played by Mary McDonald, Alex. We've talked about Merry Macdonald already in Donnie Darko, funnily enough, but what what do you what do you think of uh Laura Roslyn? And scream for. And scream talks about her initially. Exactly. There's a lot. She keeps coming up. Oh God, I love her so much.

Because again, she presents as this kind of um you do depending on your politics, she presents as this kind of bastion of democracy and sh standing for the right thing and doing the right thing and she's you know, there's a there's a bit of a tension between the military and then whatever else. And she's gonna do the right thing whatever it takes until She's about to lose power, in which case she

She's very happy to throw an election. She's very happy to just be able to do it. She does some fruity fucking questionable things throughout this show. She thinks she can do it better than the person who might replace her, and so she'll do whatever she can to to hold on to that power because you know, the greater good. Um and she uh I just I just love the You know, we haven't really talked about the politics of the show.

Um, but I I love that the show makes space for everybody. It makes space for every point of view. Like it doesn't feel Um you know, I I I'd be really interested to know like the makeup of the writer's room. And what kind of people they had in there. Because they got like a ri it's got a real kind of pro

Well I know, like one of the things you said like is is the show pro military and I was like I don't know if it's pro anything. Like it's it's sort of it it it takes every subject And blows it apart and looks at it from every angle and and shows you how everybody is is potentially a failure. And that includes

Laura Rosalyn, who like you say, she's like this I think she's like you know, this left wing, like whatever, idealistic, let's have elections, whatever else. Humanist and everything. Yeah. Yeah, humanist and then but then also like one of the first things

that she has to decide is whether to ban abortion. Oh my god. And she's like, Yeah, I think we do have to ban abortion because we need m people to h start having babies and like if we want that number to go up And and so that immediately the show just goes to places that I think is really

Brave actually. The politics is some of the most interesting stuff for me. Ben, how do you find Laura Roslin and that kind of political side to the show? Oh, it's it's fascinating because you love that character. I think Um even when she is uh not really making great choices. Again there is a warmth to that character, you understand that there is a core of goodness to that character. Um I think if the show is pro anything, it is largely pro democracy.

because the times we can feel conflicted about Laura Roslyn is when she is gonna subvert democracy for her own ends. But even then as a viewer you understand that she's trying to subvert democracy because who the person who might be elected uh by uh a d democratic vote. is somebody who is gonna like fundamentally be a danger to the entirety of humanity. And when power uh is taken away from that character, when that character does not have power,

some uh pretty heinous things happen. And so, you know, it's great because it it questions all of those things, but that is maybe why the f why the show sort of still feels like an early to mid two thousand show is because it has a really strong core value of democracy matters and the Whatever is happening on Galactica, whenever ev like especially as the show goes on, um it can't all be Cylon firefights every week.

So a lot of episodes, especially as you head like into season two and three, is like, oh no, this situation is happening on the Galactica and these people don't have food. So what's the government gonna do to sort it out? And so a lot of the show becomes about like, yeah, how are the political structures of Galactica

either serving people or not serving people, uh, what are the failings? How can that be rectified? And how do these individual characters who you wholeheartedly root for How are they caught in the machinations of that system and forced to either make really hard decisions

or hold the line against um a potentially understandable but non democratic decision being made. So it really, really gets into the nitty gritty of it. And it it is uncomfortable because You love Laura Roslyn. I love Laura Roslyn. And uh again as the show goes on, there there is there is a r sort of long, slow romance between Laura Roslyn And Commander of Dharma and my god, especially on this rewatch, I was rooting for those crazy kids to make me too. It's so cute though, isn't it? But but

And they have such a brilliant evolution of their relationship too because the the initially they clash, right? You know, when when when shit goes down, when humanity is wiped out, when they're under attack by Cylons, you've got Commander Adama that is like, Let's fight, this is war

And uh she pulls rank and she's like, I'm the president of the colonies, we're gonna run. We have to run, we have to survive and he's like, How dare you? I'm not taking orders from a schoolteacher, we're not running, we're fighting And, you know, so there is this constant kind of back and forth between the two of them as who's in charge. Should this be like a a military, like a martial law type thing, or should this be a democracy?

What's our best chance at surviving? And then they just become the most adorable little team, don't they? As it goes on. And I was crying by the end of season four with these two. Mate. Incredible. The the I tell you that on the I watched the last episode um and at the very end of the the last time we see those two characters I had big fat tears just rolling down my cheeks because I was like they're so I just was like Ben was saying, I was rooting for them so hard. Yeah.

Oh my god. Just beautiful. Just re this rewatch especially. Completely, completely. So we've gone through all of those incredible characters. We don't have time to get through all of the story beats, but I wanna go through the way that this show kind of evolves and some of the major story beats, particularly with r in relation to the Cylon lore and

And I guess how the sci-fi man made monster stuff kind of evolves as the show goes on. Um so in this initial miniseries when the humanity is under attack and we learn that there are twelve Cylon models. We meet number six. Ch Trisha Helfer, we don't know who else is going to be a Cylon at this point.

And then we meet a couple more. I think we meet a number is it a number four or something? He's like a I can't remember the numbers either. But there are a couple of kind of slightly B or C tier characters that we meet in the miniseries. One is becomes known as Liobin, right? And um

uh you know, we kind of uh introduced this idea that okay, there might be a couple of other random baddies. But the big, big reveal, the big cliffhanger at the end of the fur of the miniseries before we hurtle into series one is that there is a character called Sharon Valeri, right, who is a pilot. She's part of the Battlestar. We've already got to know her across the miniseries. She's great. She seems very kind of like heroic and morally good.

she is a Cylon, right? And there are multiple versions of her out there as well. That's the other thing about the Cylons, is that there are multiple versions of the same model. Um and then in uh throughout season one and Alex you mentioned this because you missed the mini series so you delve straight into series one.

Uh and we have to deal with the fact that there are two Sharons, right? One that is known as Boomer on the Battlestar, who is kind of grappling with the idea that maybe she is she doesn't know she's a Cylon. But there is something about her that is maybe waking up or activating throughout the season. She's effectively a s she's a sleeper agent that's about to get triggered. Exactly. She's sort of like Th a lot of shady stuff is happening.

Like she's waking up completely drenched in water. Oh god, and then somebody sabotaged the water on the ship. Somebody sabotaged the water tanks and she's like, Oh It's incredible. So we know she's a Cylon. She doesn't know, and no one else on the ship knows she's a Cylon. Then meanwhile, confusingly, down on Caprica on the planet that has been nuked.

we meet another Sharon who very much knows she's a Cylon, but she goes through a bit of a journey where she starts to turn sort of good and joins humanity's side. Because she falls in love with a guy called Agathon, right, as well. So

How do you find that kind of tension, Ben, of the of the the Cylon models, particularly in the first season and what they do with Sharon? Oh, it is one of the best elements of the show and one of the key narrative drivers to this of like

the the overarching mystery of who are the twelve Cylon models, who else is gonna be revealed as a Cylon. And then it's not just about knowing who they are, it's then like experiencing through these characters what it means when they realise that they are silence, that they are traitors to the human race, that they are not human, that at their very core, they are not what they thought they were, that they're

They don't know how much of what they remember is real. What is an implanted memory, what is not, when did they become integrated with um the rest of the human race? It throws up all of these questions. that are existentially quite terrifying. This goes back to Blade Runner, right, and Decad. This is this is do Androids dream of electric sheet? This is

In my opinion, I think this show does it better than almost anything else I've covered this series about like what it means to be human, what it means to be programmed as a machine, have your memories programmed. Does that still make you human ultimately, even if you're programmed?

It's it's genius the way it's dealt with here, I think. And what I think is so key to this, and I was really watching out on a rewatch, and correct me if I'm wrong, but The show never really gives you a fundamental R uh sort of distinction Between what makes a human and what makes a Cylon. The key thing with the Cylons is that because they are

cybernetic to whatever degree. Uh, when they die, their consciousnesses can be uploaded to like backup bodies'cause there's a bunch, as you say, a bunch of these models. Um and so there is an immortality to the Cylons that the humans don't have. As a human, if you get killed, you're dead. If you're a Cylon and you get killed, um you get beamed back to like a base ship somewhere. But

There is as far as I can recall, there is not like a Terminator moment where some like skin gets ripped off and underneath they're like a metal skeleton and full of wires. When the Cylons are injured or when they are undergoing very human experiences like getting pregnant. and all of these things, the show never goes, Oh, these characters are like a bunch of wires. We never actually understand what the Cylons are. And so it is a constant question through the show of like

So what are the Cylons? Does it matter? Is there a difference? Yes, we created them, but also we created the the the toaster versions. And then um there is a question again of like who then created the sort of human style Cylon models, but we never fundamentally understand what they are. And rather than being wishy washy bullshit, That is like the total key to the show for me because you have these characters wrestling with what they are, but also

We don't know what they are, and they don't know what they are, and we don't w it everybody gets to question like, why does that matter? What does that mean? Yeah, completely. I mean, Alex, they are in terms of the design of these robots, these cylons

They're organic, right? They're flesh and bones and organs and everything. So yeah, like ultimately is there a difference between a Cylon and a human in this show? No, and again, this is this is one of those elements that I think is really brilliant that is a constraint Like if you'd had more of a budget.

Maybe you would have done something. Maybe you would have made it so like Well they yeah, they had glowing spines when they have sex, when they have orgasms. Right, maybe to have it every episode. So maybe we won't do that. But but like what that means is then you've got to be really clever about the kind of technology and I love that Because you you do sort of see the evolution because you've got the old

centurions, which were basically the ones from the seventies show. Then you've got the upgraded centurions. Then you've got like the hybrid, which is the thing that flies the base ship, which is the kind of like what you would expect the cybernetic

like half human, there's wires like matrix wires plugged into the back of the head kind of vibes. Yeah. But then the way that the psylons are controlling the ship is like they put their hands into this water, into this fluid, and it's of such an organic um such an organic way of connecting. Yes. That you can imagine, you know, and the thing that I've the thing that I wrote down in my notes here was like I've always felt like this

um this show was more interested in in a kind of emotional truth than it was in a scientific truth. Like it's not it's not interested in explaining away Is it, you know, Midaclorians? Like what is it? Like it's not like nanite. Exactly. It's not little things coming in. Like it's not doing that. It's just like d just take it for what it is. They're completely indistinguishable, except there is a test. If we want to, we can find out how to how to determine them. And even that test is so

um sort of ambiguous and vague, right? Gaius Boltar. Gaius Boltar the least trustworthy character Is the one who designs this like Cylon test. And he says, I can distinguish between Cylons and humans. And there are multiple occasions through the first season when he will test people.

And then he won't tell anyone the results anyway, right? So he finds out He knows the boomer's a Cylon. So he finds out Sharon is a Cylon, even before Sharon knows, right? And Do we think there's a there's a moment and we haven't even spoken about Ellen, we will, but there's a moment when Ellen arrives in season one who turns out to be one of uh the Cylons.

And we never find out what he sees and he says, I'll never tell, or something at the end of the episode. But it's like, did Gaius always know? I'll never tell. Because the writers have not yet figured out all of the side of the floor. But the final five is different, guys. The final five is different. We're gonna get to that. We're gonna get to that. But there is there are a few kind of like pseudosciencey differences, aren't there? Like I think Doc Coddle

mentions that there is a cell cellular kind of makeup to them that he notices that is different between Cylon and they don't have any antibodies in the blood or something. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But essentially one of them one of the I guess uh two of the major things actually that make them different is that at least initially cyanons don't think they can reproduce, right? That's a major thing and and particularly number six.

wants to find the secret to how they reproduce and she thinks it might be to do with love that you need to love in order to uh create life, right? Um so they they can't reproduce, but they can resurrect. Right, and I suppose that's the main thing is that you can't fucking kill'em. As soon as you kill'em, they download and and resurrect again. Do you think they have like slightly increased strength? I feel like at least in season one

seems to have slightly super strength, doesn't she? Later on later on, one of the final five chucks someone across an airlock. Right, okay, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it's interesting again, I know the writers probably didn't know, but some of the final five in season one don't necessarily have super strength in season one. They haven't been activated. They haven't heard that they haven't heard the chairman.

Well we haven't even got to all along the watchtower yet. Oh no, that's so good. I can't wait. I can't wait. But what a brilliant mystery at the heart of this show. So we know roughly four or five Cylon models when season one kicks off. We know that there are at least seven more that could be hiding in amongst our main characters on the ship.

Uh season one, Ben, I think is like one of the most perfect seasons of television. There is, basically. You've got this mystery, this kind of almost whodunit, you've got this action-packed you know, fleeing from the Cylons and the space battles and all of that. You've got all of this politics and religion and character dynamics. Like it's pretty incredible stuff, isn't it? Yeah, I know it sounds damning to say this and I don't mean it in this way, but it is the best season of the show, I think.

Um there are so many fascinating things about seasons two, three and four, but season one there is such a purity to it. Uh as you say, it has such a like a narrative drive to it of just like we just have to escape the cylons. And um You know, there's so much potential in all of these storylines that it's setting up. The characters are so strong. It's very tight. It's a shorter season than the rest of them. I mean, we are in the blissful era, as you say, of like network TV, and so it's like

twenty episode seasons and they were just cranking it out and you spend loads of time with these characters. But season one is a bit shorter and it's um it's more uh like a military show than anything else. So much of it is about the the military command. and about how uh Adama is running the ship in order to just evade the Cylons who are hot on uh uh humanity's tail from the off.

And uh but as you say, you ha also have a couple of other storylines that are really interesting of of Sharon, Boomer Sharon on The Galacticus starting to realise that she might be a Cylon. and then following some characters on the nuked out earth, including another Sharon and uh Agathon, who uh are trying to escape Cylon occupied Caprica and make their way off planet. And so it feels huge, the show. It feels massive, even though um they are doing some very uh like

Obvious filmmaking tricks. I love that there's an orange filter basically over nuked nuked Caprica, you know. They just put a colour on the screen and they're like that'll do. That's that's radiation right there. That's radiation, yeah, exactly. Yeah, they're basically living in threads down on on Caprica. Oh gosh. Um but it does, it has such momentum. But what I also love, Alex, about season one And I I lament this all the time.

But it also, as well as having this driving narrative, it also had a little story of the week too, didn't it? It was like this week we've run out of water. This week it's about the politics and you know and and and it has its little like weekly challenges that humanity has to face as well, you know. It's that perfect encapsulation of like the the there is an ongoing thread, but also as you say, you've got it it strikes that balance so well. And I think the other

Like every other show, i when it when it spreads out, like you end up with mythology episodes and you end up with you know Monster of the Week Story of the Week episodes. Monster of the Week episodes, exactly. Like ever since X Far's, this has always been an issue. Um, but like d what a perfectly contained thing. And the the thing that I will say about this show as well is like by God does it know how to do a season finale.

Oh what cliffhangers from this show. Unbelievable. I love that they're some of my some of my favourite moments. I can still picture like Astins that come out like s on screens when it says like three words that come on screen and I'm like my jaw is on the floor during a season finale.'Cause that first season uh finale uh uh we haven't also mentioned one of the biggest things of the show, which is that

Humanity in escaping the Cylons needs a new home, and the home that they are seeking is the mythical earth that humanity came from. So humans have come from Earth, colonized The galaxy, the universe and the Um and we've lost basically where Earth was. It's been so long ago. Uh there are uh the twelve colonies, um in relation to the lords of Kobol, the the sort of gods that

humanity is serving. So Earth they came from they came from Earth and went to COBOL and then from Cobal they went to twelve different colonies, I think. So So it so we're like we're like backtracking through

Through time. So they've got to get to COBOL first. Is that right, Mike? No, you're putting your pin on the phone. Well, I'm gonna do uh we're gonna get into this as we go. I have actually written out what I think is a timeline of of Battlestar Galactica. But I think I think COBOL is the very, very first place.

I mean who knows? Because I suppose also the point of this show is as we discover everything is looping and actually there could be an earth for every cycle, right? There is a there is an earth

That is the planet where humanity are based, and then it gets fucked and nuked, and then they go find somewhere else, and then eventually they will go and find a new Earth, right? But uh but yes, exactly that c that brilliant can see, and again, a really bleak one in a way, because the mini series ends with Uh Commander Adama sort of giving humanity that hope, saying, We're gonna find a new home, we're gonna find Earth. There are these ancient scrolls that tell us where Earth is.

And hu and so everyone is like, Wea, we're gonna find a new home, we're gonna be okay and then Adama is like, That was a lie. I don't think there is an earth. I just need to give I just need to give humanity something to believe in, right? So The whole driving force of this show is

They're on their way to a planet called Earth, which may not actually even exist, and our main hero doesn't believe actually exists. Then you get to see it slowly falling apart. Like they all believe it. They all and you can see on the inside, like it's only him and Rosalyn I think and maybe there's one other a couple of other people they let it on the secret, but it's like Everybody else believes that he's got the secret knowledge and they need to do this thing. And then he said it.

And then he's got no leads. So then he has to then latch onto this crazy shit from um from Rosalind who starts like getting visions off her cancer medication of of like going doing religious stuff and he's like, Well uh I guess because I've got nothing else. Exactly. And it's and it gradually unravels over all of the time until until they eventually

You know, do find death. Exactly. So this is another interesting th the lore, the mythology that starts to creep in through season one, right, is that Laura Rosalyn, as you said, Alex, she's taking this quite strong medication for her cancer and as such is having hallucinations and and visions. Which she believes are genuine, like visions from God potentially, right?

And that is where we end up at the end of season one landing on this planet Cobal, which is where humanity once lived thousands of years ago, and she's gotta find this like mystical arrow. Um that's gonna point them in the direction of Earth through kind of stars and everything. So, Ben, at at this point, like the show starts dealing with I don't know what if we want to call it like magic rather than sci-fi, but the the almost a kind of spiritual or supernatural element, right?

Which again I know for a lot of people the show ends up leaning too hard on. How do you find that, Ben, that kind of introduction of the visions and the religion and all of that? I love it. I think it's incredible and I think it's It's as is as I said before, so tied into what the show is. Um because The stakes are so High. The stakes from the very beginning are the literal survival of the human race, which is rapidly dwindling in numbers with an enemy uh closing in. And so every decision.

Whether that's a scientific decision, whether that is a logical decision, or whether that is a decision based on a uh the president having cancer visions that seem to correspond with ancient scrolls, I guess. Um every single decision is like humanity, literal humanity hangs in the balance. And so again, the show is questioning like, can we believe this? Like Is it worth believing in this stuff? But what why

How terrible would it be not to take the chance on the thing that you believe in? Because actually that might be right. It even if it's not logical, it might be right. And if we don't follow that, then we're also f fresh.

Yeah, and so it's this constant question. I think for me there is an element of as the show goes on, what I love about it, um, for the most part is that it holds the scientific and the religious uh in ways that feel a bit more ambiguous and they they're kind of um going hand in hand and y it it really is up to viewer interpretation of like quite what is happening. Whereas as it goes on there are things that feel

more explicitly it can only be the religious supernatural angle, which I don't mind. Lost also does the same thing, and I kind of go with it there. Um but in Battlesword Galactica again it's part of why it's f so fascinating because on the one hand it is a nuts and bolts military and space show, but that is also dealing with these big sort of religious ideas and Uh yeah, towards the end of the show it really like makes the religious stuff more explicit.

in a way that is then like yeah, less ambiguous and and down to viewer interpretation. But then it just always makes me always reminds me of the Arthur C. Clarke quote of, you know, any any technology, any civilization that's sufficiently advanced will just seem like magic. So there's a point at which there's a point at which like maybe it's magic anyway, actually, and like you've already suspended your disbelief this much. Like what is magic?

Well absolutely I like it it it never I never rubbed up against it and I like all the people on the internet'cause this was This was the days of forums, you know, it wasn't there wasn't like Twitter or whatever else, it was like everyone was on digital spy forums, like and I just never I never got on board with the hate for all of the religious stuff. I'm like, it's just a story, guys. Like Also, robots are not real.

uh quick storytelling fix towards the end at times. So it's more it's more as a kind of storytelling device. I start to lose it a bit with the religious stuff towards the end. But I think in the early days it's perfect. And I think you're absolutely right, Ben, that that tension between like the scientific and the religious and it's so open to interpretation. The fact that

she's having look, Laura Roslyn is having these like um visions, but because she's actually hallucinating because she's taking really strong meds, right? And so how much of it is coincidence, how much of it is people interpreting scripture and religion in a certain way to fit what they want it to be. And that is you know, so I think all of that is I think handled so well, especially in the early early season.

I hear what you're saying about narrative shortcuts and I don't disagree, but also like I would love to give it its props for actually having an ending. Yeah. Like choosing to end and being like, This is definitively like you could not you couldn't do a requil. Of this. There's no way to like if you're gonna do it again you've got to restart the whole thing. The ending I I understand the problem people have with it and that I think sometimes in my head I can see the flaws, but emotionally

I love it as an e I think as as an it's such an emotionally satisfying ending, isn't it? You know I'd r I'd much prefer that. If if we're talking about the time and place that this comes from as well though, as you say, it's it's early internet, it's forum days. And it is a time where audiences demanded answers. And Lost was the same thing. I love Lost and actually I love it more and more as time goes on.

for the things that it decided not to answer, because it's a show about a magic island, and we don't need answers to everything in the same way That one of the reasons we love Twin Peaks is because half of it doesn't make sense.

Whereas Battle Soul Galactica, I I feel like they um even though I didn't watch it as it went out, I imagine they were in a slightly tricky situation of like We don't wanna have to give rational answers to everything, but there are very noisy people on the internet who I think will be deeply pissed off with us if we don't explain some things.

In a way that almost becomes slightly detrimental to it as it goes on. Well and uh that I think that's really interesting when it comes to like you talked about the kind of whodunit element and actually the who is it element of the revealing of the Cylons because you guys will have experienced it As a boxer, I experienced it over six years. Yeah. And so so the who are the final five took on this like totemic

kind of thing and they built they built promo campaigns around it and it's like you're gonna find out and it was like when are we gonna find out when we're gonna be right in flight. Yeah, when are you gonna tell us? When are you gonna tell us? And I remember it was like saying some of the final five will be revealed. And then it was like you're gonna find out who it is, and it and it became the meta narrative and it started to distract.

from what actually the the point of the story was and what the story they were trying to tell was. And like on the rewatches I'm seeing it a lot more through that sense of the overarching story that they're trying to tell. And I think the first time through I got caught up in the marketing. Yeah. The hook, which is the

Who are the final five and and all of that? I mean the first time I watched it even on the box set, that was the thing I was obsessed with. That was the thing I wanted to know. I wanted to I I I loved it whenever we got a Cylon centric episode, and we were gonna maybe meet a new Cylon or would be re revealed a new Cylon. That was the stuff that really hooked me.

And actually, less and less on rewatches, I now love all of the other stuff. I love the politics, the i you know, the military stuff, the relationships. Some of the people they bring in to be silent as well, like you get Lucy Lawless and Dean Stockwell, like So interesting, isn't it? And I think there's this other thing about the f television of this era, speaking of loss. Network television and I'm guessing probably cable television is the same where

They don't necessarily know at the beginning how long this is gonna go on for, how many seasons it's gonna be, whether it will even end before being cancelled, right? And so unlike a lot of shows now where it's like Netflix are gonna give you, you know, ten episodes to tell your complete story or whatever. This was much more on a kind of season to season, year to year basis, right? And so The opening captions that we get at the beginning of every episode, Ben, that says the silence have a plan

Was there a plan? Did did did the writers have a plan for who was a silon, who wasn't, where this was going? The silos had part of a plan. Um But th the plan is we're winging it. Um Yeah, I I mean i as you say, it is you can debate whether it's a good thing or a bad thing uh until the cows come home, but it is just a fundamental fact of what T V was in those days.

And I I like that, to be honest. Like again, sorry, I keep bringing up lost, but it's such a like a key, it's a core. It's an easy parallel. And it is an easy parallel. But to me, there is an energy sometimes that you get from these shows.

of the fact that they are doing the the Wallace and Gromit, laying down the track in front of the train, the runaway train as it goes, that yeah, it's not gonna marry everything up perfectly. They might take some weird detours, but the the pace and the energy and the excitement of just like we kind of don't know where we're going, but fuck, what's the next crazy thing that could happen and where's that gonna lead us?

is partly why these shows are so great and so addictive and that, as Alex said, gives you incredible finales. The first season when they get to Kobold season two, the end of season two, when um they find a habitable planet. It's a horrible planet, but it's habitable. And so they're like, I guess we should leave the Battlestar and like settle down here for a while and totally shift the the what the show is for a while, those are huge exciting moves and they can kind of um

Just follow their nose of what they think is exciting and where it's gonna lead. Even if it doesn't mean uh that on a rewatch uh that you go, Oh, they clearly knew exactly where they were going all along. They didn't, but that's okay. Absolutely it is.

They had a pretty good go at explaining it. Have you seen the plan? Uh oh only first time round, so I haven't watched that in like twenty years. Like it's not it's not w like it's it's like retcon the movie.

It's basically like how are we gonna how are we gonna retroactively make it seem like all of the choices that we made along the way actually were intentional? But but but like Ben said, I don't need that. I actually don't mind a few storytelling holes. I think the more I've The older I've got, the more I love um these shows from this era, whether it's Buffy, Twin Peaks, X Files, Lost.

shows that maybe are a little bit janky and slightly kind of go back on what they are. Like I think those are the ones that somehow are more interesting and they're the ones that are more rewatchable. than these kind of perfectly crafted little ten hour film TV shows that we get these days, you know? Um and you can dive into certain episodes and everything as well.

Um so season one ends on a banger of a cl as as you mentioned Ben Cla finale. Yeah. And and after this kind of adventure on this planet Cobalt and they everything seems great and they get back to Battlestar Uh Sharon Valeri, the secret sleeper agent, wakes up, right, and she shoots a Dharma, that's it. It's like this almighty panic. Dharma is bleeding out. Uh Sharon is a Cylon, everyone knows.

End of season one, right? Unbelievable. Uh season two gets bigger. It's twice the length of season one. We uh meet new Cylons, new characters. We are introduced to characters like Sam Anders, who becomes a new kind of love interest. for Starbuck. We meet new Cylon models played by, as you said, Alex Lucy Lawless plays number three. Uh we've got Dean Stockwell, uh playing number one, who we meet towards the end of the season. We've got...

another battle star that comes into it as well, right? Then how did you find season two and some of those kind of new directions that the story goes in? I both in some ways as better and bigger the Pegasus arc where they find another battle star that had already it was already in space when all the uh Caprica shit went down

And so, uh, they are also on the run and have been through terrible, terrible things themselves. And you're like, Great, we have another battle star now, but also we've met this other faction of humanity that maybe doesn't align with uh uh Galactica and the other surviving ships and it creates this huge like human civil war. Adama's now outranked. Yes, Adama is outranked by the the leader of the Pegasus.

So you have incredible storylines like that that I had totally forgotten about from my first watch through and on a rewatch I was like, Oh my god, this is incredible. Uh that's one of the best little mini arcs across the whole show. It's like the core of season two, isn't it? It's right in the middle of the season and it's so exciting. That commander of the Pegasus is she's a brilliant character as well, like terrifying.

But also human too and has been through so much and it's so layered and so interesting, you know. So that stuff is great, but then some of the episode of the week Um, oh, we're this person, uh these people don't have enough shoes. What do we do? No, um, I can't remember what the ins and outs of them. There were a couple of episodes, like two-thirds of the way through the season, where I was like.

I I wanna press fast forward on this. There are a couple of dodgy ones, yeah. And actually one of the elements we haven't really talked about in this show, which in a way it was kind of famous for even initially in the seventies, was its kind of Pew pew pew space fights against raiders and stuff, right? And uh there are a couple of episodes in season two where it's like there's one particular r like raider called

Scar that becomes like the focal point of an episode and stuff as well. Yeah, there's definitely a bit of filler going on, right, throughout season two. But I don't know, Alex, high highs though as well as low lows, right? High h I I agree. It's it's that typical thing of when you get bigger it just gets a bit flabby round the edges. But I I agree. Like there are some incredible moments, like the Pegasus again. I think season two

I think season two might be my favourite just because it's got Pegasus and it's got New Caprica at the end. Like those and the the that that final episode. Um uh like the highs are so high and and it's still it's still on the up Yeah, everything is still kind of Um, you know, and you get you get like you say, new reveals of new Cylons and it all feels like it's still the world is still being built out and And um you know, I really it doesn't it's it's bleak but it's not like

full nihilism that you get in season three and especially the second half of season four, which gets really sad. Just just depressing. Saying that though, some of the fallout of the Pegasus stuff when then like Um s some of the guys from the Pegasus come across to Galactica and they're gonna like rape Sharon or something. There's s a few moments where it's like, oh, this is really gnarly and upsetting

Um It's in that torture porn era. It's like it's like verging into that sort of territory, isn't it? But as we said as well, like dealing with the politics at the time, it's like okay, dealing with these militaristic characters who are exuding power and exuding force. to do actually really represensible things in the context of this conflict where they feel justified in doing it and there is a clear enemy. Um, so why shouldn't they be sort of inflicting terror upon people?

And so it's it's really getting into stuff. It's not shying away from things, but I think it also And on the front page of the newspaper was Guantanamo Bay. It's all parallel. I I kind of applaud it for not pulling its punches, but there are There are elements of it that I like Hard to watch these days. I was shocked by some of that stuff. Yeah, and I think sh uh again, the character of Sharon Valeris.

is so interesting, right? Because she uh even after all she is you know, shoots a dharma and turns out to be a Cylon agent, she's kept in a cell throughout most of season two. But I think season two is where the kind of of moral ambiguity starts to come in where actually some Cylons actually genuinely might be good, some might be bad.

Um and actually you find during that Pegasus arc that a lot of the humans are gonna stick up for the Cylons over some of their own fellow humans, right? For example that scene when the two men attack Sharon. And it's like, no, that's not n none of none of our main characters, no matter how much they want to fight or kill the silence, think that that's a cool thing to do, you know, and

I I love that that kind of this is where the kind of Cylon versus human binary, Alex, starts to kind of bleed in season two, doesn't it? As well. There are gonna be good humans and bad humans, good Cylons and bad Cylons. And then it becomes it becomes a story about people. I'm trying to think of the right word. Like it's about humanity.

And people like what what counts as people. And um i i you're more you know, I guess the the the central kind of thesis is you're defined by your your actions and your decisions more than you are like where you've come from and whether you were made or born or or whatever else. And I think Sharon Valeri is is the kind of crux of this, right? Her Cylon model is Uh, I don't know, slightly more inconsistent, slightly more changeable. She's led by her heart, right? You've got the

the sleeper agent boomer who does some terrible things, but then, you know, does she actually have all of this guilt? You have the other Sharon down on Caprica, who starts off as a Cylon working for the Cylons, but then she falls in love and switches sides. kind of talk about her model as being weak, as being flawed, right? Because she constantly is switching sides, switching allegiances. She is led by her heart.

By love. She's the one that gives birth to a human baby or a Cylon human hybrid baby, right? So in a way, Ben, Sharon as a Cylon character is the kind of heart of this show, isn't she? And she is the M She's emblematic of the idea that are Cylons any different to humans, right? Yeah, and you've got Sharon who was on Caprica with Agathon who is pregnant.

And so over the course of this season in particular, but as the show goes on, she aligns more and more with the humans and becomes accepted by the humans. But Boomer Sharon, once she's activated and what she shoots a darmer, obviously there is uh a lot of upsets on the human side from that and so there's a lot of retaliation against her and over the course of the show she becomes more and more radicalized and leans further into sir her her

Silonity, if we're gonna coin a terrible word. Um so it's she's an interesting character because certain models, you get the sense they are who they are. Um and they're always gonna have a predisposition to be a certain way. Sharon, as you say, yeah, is fluid and we see different Charons react in different ways and go on different tr uh trajectories.

over the course of the whole show. Alex, there's a real kind of nuance, isn't there? Because in some ways all of the various um versions of the same model are the same. They look the same. They have the same personality traits, but like you said when you were talking about the various sixes

there are also differences too, right, that come in and it's really kinda nuanced and interesting. It's um it's nature versus nurture. And I think it that's the that's the thing that's really interesting to me. So like before before I had kids I was like, it's all about nurture, you know, that's it's the it's about the environment that you're in, blah, blah, blah. And then when they turned up, they were born with their personality and a completely specific

thing and they do certain things or whatever else and it that they were always gonna do those things. But but it so it is more of a mix. And I think that's what's interesting, is like there's there's the nature of each of the Cylons. And then depending on their situation they are more affected by the the nurture and their their environment. And you're you're dead right with the the number fours, like the Sharons, they are they're the ones that are the most

susceptible, I guess. And then you've got the the number ones You know, and eventually when we get to the end of in when you get to season four and there's a Cylon Civil War, you see this kind of split where certain models go on one side and they're very fixed in their ways and certain models are more amenable to thinking differently and and being Exactly. Showing that they're basically exactly the same as humans, right? A hundred percent. Um so there is a big kind of moment that happens.

uh towards the end of season two. Politically it gets really interesting. Alex, you talked earlier about how this uh series almost kind of anticipated the rise in populism, right? And there is a moment in season two when we have a general election for a new president. And Laura Rosalyn is running to be president again, but she's up against Uh, toxic tech bro Gaius Bolta, right? Who who really does embody that kind of populist politics where he essentially tells the fleet.

whatever it is they want to hear, no matter how realistic it might be, in order to get votes and be loved and be popular. And this is around the time when they have discovered a new kind of wasteland planet, but it is inhabitable. There is a planet that they could technically go and live on. It has oxygen, it has, you know, whatever, but it is The temperature, the quality of the air, the you know, there is no like vegetation, it's wasteland.

Laura Rosalind is like, we cannot land on this planet. This is a bad idea. Follow me. I have visions. I'm gonna take us to Earth. Uh Gaius Baltar is like, Don't you think we've been following visions from a mad dying leader long enough? Let's land on this planet right here. We will call it New Caprica. We will make it our ha our home. You can lay down your burdens. We can finally stop running from the Cylons and fleeing through space. Let's make this planet our new home. And of course

They go with him, right? Even though all of the experts are saying we should not land on this planet.

And this is where the show slightly takes a turn, right? At the end of season two, uh midway through the sea this the whole series, um The humans land on New Caprica and create a home. Uh and God, shit gets dark, Ben, right? Yeah, and a as Alex said, uh incredible finales in this because Um the halfway through the final episode, it's like boom, we're on New Caprica, we have a time jump.

We catch up with all the characters like a year or so down the line or below. One year later. And those are three words, Alex you were talking about. Inside Colonial One and then zooms back out again, and you're like, Oh, the things look a bit different. One year later, I remember my jaw hitting the floor. And then every character you've known comes back in a different wig. They've all got long hair. Um and and maybe an eye patch. Yeah, or maybe like uh uncomfortably a bit of a fat suit.

Um god. So fun through Fat Liadama is hilarious. And it and then and then he does a couple of press ups and he goes back to normal the following week. Incredible, incredible. Oh my god. Network TV guys. Um And yeah, so uh uh th they land on Caprica, um, they're like, Ooh, it's nice to be off that battle star then suddenly the fracking Cylons come in Uh occupy humanity on New Caprica. Gaius surrenders. He gives a complete surrender.

And the fleet fracks off. And the fleet fracks off'cause they're like, we've got a skidaddle. Uh so there's barely anybody on the battle star, but they've managed to escape. Most of humanity is on New Caprica under Cylon occupation. Guy Spelter has uh has surrendered to the Cylons and it becomes a big thing across season three of like That was a terrible decision, but also what choice did I have? They would literally have just murdered us all.

And uh yeah, it starts this like really dark storyline of um humanity living under Cylon rule in this But they go for it. They really go for it and they go into like collaboration. They go and then it becomes like a second world war. It becomes it becomes It becomes a Nazi Germany allegory, doesn't it? So the first like four or five episodes of season three are

Yeah, we're living in a kind of n yeah, this kind of sci-fi version of Nazi Germany where like the Cylons are rounding up people to take them away and execute them. You've got like rebels, you've got collaborators, you've got you know, enemies of the state and all of this. Poor Soltai gets his eye poked out'cause he's in the rebellion, right? It is

This stuff is uh actually on this watch I loved all of this stuff. Alex, how did you find the new Caprica arc? I I again I think it's one of my favorites just because of the the way that they take a subject and then tease it out. retcond it in the first episode and gone like, Oh, um that were done But they'd spend, like you say, four or five episodes going through it and then the ramifications of it carry the whole way through

And and then there's, you know, there's the council of people of like who are hunting down collaborators and then sh shooting them like giving them a b uh like a kind of kangaroo court and shooting them out of airlocks if they were working with the Cylons. Like there's full It's like taking Taking these kind of story beats and then really, really interrogating them and m and and like milking them and getting all the juice and uh from every angle. Nobody comes out of these looking good.

Everybody has flawed. you and and you're sort of there and you're thinking like one thing about one person and then they're actually secretly helping. Oh um and and and you say like what would what would I have done in that situation? Like that's that's the greatest That's the greatest compliment you can play. I think there's a one of the key examples is is Ellen Ty, right? Saul Tai and what she does.

And she is secretly sleeping with one of the Cylons, but she's doing it because she wants him to f like you know, free her husband and and save her husband but She's also giving them information in order to try and save her husband and so then Saul has to kill her for being a collabor. Like, it is bleak, isn't it? So fucking bleak.

It's really, really good stuff. It's bleak. It's ri it's good stuff. It's good stuff. You know, we're in a horror podcast. Let's embrace the bleak, you know? Um I don't like what they do to Starbuck though, as well. Like, Ben, how did you find this this kind of weird

Weird little mini arc that she where she ends up in this kind of like domestic prison with this Cylon Leobin. Yeah, it's a weird turn for that character because they've already somewhat like domesticated Starbucks a bit. Part of the weirdness of the time jump is

Um, she has like a snap marriage to Sam Anders, who, you know, she was in love with, uh, but also has not spent loads of time with that character And um then they're sort of in a semi happy marriage, but you know that there is like nothing really underpinning it all. And then on top of that, as you say, she's like held captive by the Lioban Cylon, um, where she's sort of forced to live it out these sort of domestic fantasies that he has of living with her and

It's hard to know whether the Cylons are torturing Starbucks or whether the writers are torturing Starbuck for sort of no reason. Well there was that episode in season two with the farm as well. Like Starbuck gets put through a lot of

really horrible stuff and I kinda miss the cigar smoking pilot Starbuck, you know, by this point. You know, th they are giving Starbuck a lot of big things to play, but at the same time you do look at it now and a lot of her storylines are very gendered and maybe some people like that and they say, look, th they they gender switch that character and let

Let's really interrogate what it would mean to be a woman in this situation, but there's also an element to which her stories often then correlate with the fact that she's a woman and maybe unnecessarily so. Yeah. Yeah, completely. It's the big it's the beginning of a a change for Starbuck, I think, um, Alex, that for me I don't love, and that's partly even superficially

She becomes a little bit less fun as well, like as this kind of like rogue hero that she was in the first half of the show. This is where she starts leaning into the am I special? Am I an angel? Am I you know blah blah blah and all of this other stuff that is For me less interesting than what Starbuck was initially. Yeah, and but I guess what she was initially was more of a like a replica of the original Starbuck in in the show before. And actually, like what is the place for that?

in this kind of rich narrative tapestry that you're that you're pulling out. Like if you look at other characters that are a bit more one note, like D, someone we haven't really talked about, because they sort of do one thing and they carry on doing that one thing, but there's not really a lot you can say with that one thing. They try and write a little bit here and there and and, you know, um I I just wonder if they'd kept her as this kind of rope quipping hero. Um Like How does that work?

What do you get you can't like what what does she do every week? You're absolutely right. You're absolutely right. And and again, one of the strengths of the show really is the way in which these characters change and evolve as the show goes on. And actually D maybe not so much, but there are certain characters that are like minor characters.

that then end up with really interesting arcs. I'm thinking of Felix Gator, for example, who like we haven't mentioned'cause he's a very minor character, but he has Some amazing, really moving stuff in the in the final season as well. So um yeah, I mean again, like I for me personally it's less fun to watch Starbucks. in some of the latter seasons, but I I I totally get it, you're right, and I admire the ambition in changing and evolving these characters.

When you've got an actor as good as that, you just want to give them great things to do and you wanna put them in situations where they can show their chops and she is incredible. Katie sacked it. Katie Sac's just an amazing job.

Yeah, absolutely. So season three, very much dealing with the aftermath of new Caprica, right? And and um again I think some of the darkest stuff when they're like even when they're back on the ship they're executing, they're tri uh giving people trials and executions for being collaborators and all of that kind of stuff. And and also Gaius Baltar Uh his journey and his ultimate trial as to whether or not he should be executed for being a traitor as well, right?

Um ha well first of all he goes up first of all he goes off and lives with the Cylons for a bit. He does, he does, yeah. And I suppose that's the other thing, right, Ben. Season three really gives us a lot more intel into the Cylons, right? We spend time on the Cylon base ship. And meet the hybrids and new models and all of that kind of stuff. How do you find the way the show depicts the Cylon kind of s world? I love it. It's cheap as chips. It it is like And it's very like

It's like very dreamy. They use cross dissolves and stuff. And they just they just rig up a couple of disco lights in um in a room that looks like it comes from like a two thousands music video. Um and they're like That's a Cylon Bass Ship. At the same time, I do like that because you feel the humanity and the livedinness of the Galactica. And then you go to the Cylon Bay ship and it is like an apple shop and it's empty and cavernous, but also quite psychedelic.

And so it yeah, again in that question of like, okay, fundamentally then what are the differences between humans and Cylons, that comes through in the base ship because um Yeah, you get a sense that like on a on a cognitive level they are distinct from humans, and that comes through not just in the fact that they don't really seem to have like Culture or stuff?

But they also are living in this like tripped out psychedelic um like weird uh twilight zone. And so that maybe says something about um what the experience of being a Cylon is. I completely agree and I I think it comes from the fact that they can't die. That's why they're in stasis. It's like it's there's How many six of them, right? Just hanging out. It's like it's six of them in an apartment. And if that's not the case, maybe you don't create a

Yeah, absolutely. And and that comes into it, right? I believe I think it's season three or maybe it's early season four, but there there is this reveal that there is the resurrection hub, right? Which is essentially where all of the new Cylons are. r you know, de re downloaded and where the models are are kept.

And actually our humans dis discover if they destroy that resurrection hub, they destroy the Cylon's ability to resurrect. Therefore they're essentially no no more powerful than humans, right? And um there are some Cylon models, I believe number six and maybe number eights, who were like, Maybe we should maybe like maybe it's important that, you know, like you said, like ha it gives us something to live for if we know we can't resurrect.

And then obviously certain other models are like, No fucking way, we can't have this and Yeah, so that actually comes into play, I believe, towards the end of season three, right, where we're gonna destroy the Cylon's ability to resurrect. Therefore I think that's in season four. There's two there's two there's two things. So there's there's one bit where they destroy the resurrection ship.

Which means any of the local Cylons if they die they're gonna be they're gonna be dead forever. So they s they sort of like do a little bit but it doesn't and then in season four it's like No, this is it. This is the technology of resurrection which we will now destroy.

Beehive colony or something from a little bit of a little bit of a little bit about it. That compared to the the utilitarian nature of all the human ships that have all got They've got different shapes, but th the shapes are all meant to do something, but the the silence've all got like Yeah.

Angles and pointy things and everything is very uh it's like octagons, isn't it? On the st on the battle star. Have you noticed that? Even when they read pieces of paper, they've got the corners taken away. Everything is in that kind of octagon shape, isn't it? I love it. I want to get on to we should wrap up on season four.

Soon, um, but let's talk about the big reveal in the end of season three. So, Alex, you mentioned this by about midway through season three, seven of the twelve Cylons we know about, and there was this m six. Because Daniel No but there were seven the s there are still seven there are still seven. There are twelve model yeah, but the seventh model was the one that they created and then and then Cavill killed. Yeah I know but I think there were thirteen including Daniel.

Oh I'm not sure. Either way, we know we know about all but five of the Cylon models, right? And so that was when the the the internet And fans lost their minds because there was this question and they start talking about the final five. Who are the final five? Right. And people have had been having visions and in the opera house and there's five of them that are all lit up and

one of the Cylons has seen their faces and so she knows who they are, but then they put her to sleep before she gets to tell anyone. Exactly. So it became this big mythological point of the show. And if the end of season three

What happens here, Ben? We start hearing some weird music. Yeah, a a bunch of characters across the ship start hearing like again psychedelic tripped out music. Uh like sixties. Literally psychedelic. Yeah. It's in the fracking walls. Oh my god. Soltai is one of them. Tyril is one of them. Um and and it it becomes clear that these are like the Four of the final five

activating and not just hearing music but hearing all along the watchtower, Jimi Hendrix? It's the Jimi Hendrix version of the Bob Dylan song. Yeah. All along All Along the Watchtower, which is the version that Dylan then preferred and played after he'd heard it. But Love this so much. It is so Stupid. It's so

When they're all creeping around the ship going, there must be some way out of here. Out of here. Set the Joker to the thief. Be careful where you watch. There's lots of equipment around. It's all vibes. Said the Joker to the thief. Oh my god, it's so wild. What a wild swing. That's like this show is full of wild swings and this is the wildest and I absolutely Love it. Because then a whole lot of people like were on the forums going And um the writer said.

Canonically, this is All Along the Watchtower. It is the same All Along the Watchtower that Bob Dylan writes. It is a mystical piece of music that echoes throughout all of time and he is the person in our reality who tuned into it. That is the canonical answer. So Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix Cylons? Confirmed? Confirmed. I reckon. Um yeah. Like in in in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy where they say the answer to the universe is forty two.

Here the answer to the universe is all along the watchtower, right? It is the thing. I'm not mad at it. I'm not mad. I'm not mad. That's absolutely fine. Uh So put it put it in the same drawer as Josie turns into a doorknob. Yes, exactly. So we've got out of those four the four of the five we we we find out at the end and Soultai, a character that's been in it from the very beginning, Admiral Adama's best friend. That's a big one, isn't it?

Chief Tyrrell, again, a character who's very much been part of the core group from the very beginning. And then two characters we sort of care less about. There's Sam Anders. They're kind of running out of people at this point. Because the the show has been killing back to the city. And then there's that woman Tori who's sadly slightly underwritten as a character, really. She gets a bit more to do once they realise that they've got no one else that can be a sideline. Yeah, exactly.

And then season four and we then discover I'll just say that we then discover Saul's wife, Ellen, who died, you know, during the New Caprica. She was also one of the final five and she is resurrected and uh but when she is resurrected, she has her memory of being uh like two thousand year old Cylon essentially. So she has a lot of the answers

To the lore and the mythology which we find out in season. Not only that, she invented the silons. Let's put let's re Yeah. Yeah, c can we talk about the insane lawdom? Because there is in season four Samander's Um, has been like shot in the head. Yeah. And it's all of his Cylon memories are coming back to him. And this incredibly dense mythology of like how many generations of Cylons were and who created who and who went to what earth and where they came from. Is delivered in like a ten minute.

The even watching it now I could not keep up with. I was like, what the frack is happening? It's insane. They literally just go br for ten minutes of like Here's the answer to everything you ever wanted to know, and you're like You wanted to know the series is ending. We've announced it's finished. Here you go. Honestly, honestly it

It's hilarious. Careful what you wish for. Do you wanna know? I I've got a really quick breakdown of it, right? This is what this is what I understand explain. This is what I understand it to be. Humans lived on COBOL like two thousand years ago. This planet called COBOL, all of them lived together. Uh they did they created Cylons.

Humans split themselves into twelve tribes. There was a Cylon War. Humans had to find somewhere new to live. The humans went off, left Cobul, and settled on the twelve colonies. The Cylons, the humanoid Cylons. Left uh for a uh their own planet, and that's where they found they were the thirteenth tribe. They landed on Earth. Then they create a new race of humans based on them, uh their kind of humanoid cylon models, uh they're able to reproduce.

They fill the human race with these kind of humanoid cylons that they were, and the final five are part of that race, and they lived on Earth. As we know it, right? Alex and I are like dying inside. Yeah. You you are unsimultaneously breaking it down and it is still coming across as blowing. I know, I know, I don't know, I know. I don't know if I agree. This is what happened, Alex, I'm telling you. And then Ellen, Sam, and that lot, the five, they

design resurrection while they're on Earth because th at this point they had destroyed the the ability to resurrect so they were just living as humans. They design resurrection and then their Cylons, their Centurions, rise up, wipe that earth out, but those five escape into space and resurrect. And

You are confirming this is too complex for its own good. I so I th I agree with all of it except I I thought and I I could be wrong, right, but I thought they were human when they went to the thirteenth colony. Uh well So they were already humans and then and then they turned themselves into silons. Well no, this is kind of the question is like what is human I suppose? Uh because yes, you're right, like either they are human and they make a way to resurrect themselves.

Thus turning them into the city. On Earth, they did. So then becomes the new thing. So the final five were born on Earth, not on COBOL. So they were part of the Cylon race that left COBOL and settled on Earth. And then they designed a way to resurrect themselves. So when their earth was nuked, that five get away and they spend two thousand years

flying to find a new home, uh, because they hadn't invented light speed or something. There's like a throwaway comment about that. So they spent two thousand years getting to the twelve colonies and then they find themselves in the middle of the first Cylon War in the Twelve Colonies where the toasters are rising up and killing people.

They stop that war by promising the toasters we will build you human Cylon models if you stop this war and go and live by yourself. We'll give you resurrection. And we'll give you resurrection, exactly. So they stop the war, they go off for like whatever it is, thirty or forty years and disappear during the armistice, sorry, and then they create the human model. So it's the final five that create

the seven, the six, whatever it is, human models. Yeah, because they create they create Cavil first. Cavil first. That's why he's number one. And then their creations Basically destroy them. So Cavill, Dean Stockwell, decides he's going to kill his creators. He kills the final five. Or wipes their memories or something and then sends them to live on the twelve colonies. uh as humans and that's when they become Ellen and Soultai and Soultai joins the battle star and everything.

So the final five were sort of mem had their memories wiped by their own creation, Dean Stockwell, and were sent to live amongst the humans, and they had no idea they were Cylons, this ancient Cylon race. Until all along the watchtower woke them up. Yeah. Th and there's an amazing line during that bit where the final four four of the final five are revealed. And Chief Turr goes, We are Cylons and we have been since the beginning. And he just says it because it's like

In case you all think we're gonna get ourselves out of this, no, definitively, and we have been since the beginning. So, yes, season four. Whew, there's a lot of heavy stuff going on in the final season. It's very much split into two seasons. We have a writer's strike, there are problems, there were production issues.

How do we find the final season of this show? Ben, what are your thoughts? I like it, but it's really fucking bleak because halfway through this season they find Earth, the previous Earth. And it is an irradiated wasteland. And uh w they thought they were gonna find like a lush paradise and they get to Earth and it's fuck. And All the characters go off the deep end.

The way they do that where they're they're all having a party, they're high fiving, everyone's celebrating, there's this triumphant music as all the ships are going down to the planet and then it just it's just a hard cut to just a a Geiger counter clicking. And everybody just staring and it's just like that it's and then it was off air for a year. And then it stopped for a whole year.

And then the final half of the season, like you said, Ben, everyone loses their fucking minds in the second half of season four because that's it. This this one glimmer of hope is gone. They have no home, they have no aim. And there's this almighty kind of mutiny that happens, isn't there? That's kind of like a major arc in the second half of season. Those two episodes are so good.

So good. Really good. Really good. Where these characters have just completely lost it. They turn on each other, they're destroying each other, people are getting executed. Um it's dark stuff. It's dark stuff, but I really like it. And and it reminds me of the final season of Lost as well, where

it it becomes part of a storytelling that a bunch of the characters that you love are technically still there, but they're not really themselves anymore. So it's it's it's a it's a colder, like darker, meaner season overall and um Yeah, Starbuck is not herself because she's dead and has come somehow come back to life.

She's convinced she well, she was convinced she knew the way to Earth and then she loses all hope after Earth turns out to be a wasteland. It's like, what did I come back for? And then she finds her own body. And then there's this whole thing where she has this kind of mystical tune that she learned on the piano from when she was a kid. And it's all along the watchtower, right? And so this is where things go completely mystical.

Starbuck has this magical melody that could end up finding them a new home. Meanwhile, there's a giant in the finale, giant battle between good and evil. good humans and good Cylons versus the bad Cylons essentially. Yeah, and but also like the rebel Cylons have joined the fleet at this point. So the the base ship is now one of the ships you s I love all the bits where you get the ships flying through.

And you can see all the different types of ships and there was Cloud9, which was the basically the brothel ship and like there's all the and they're all different things. And then you've just got the base star that's got all its little points have all been broken off that's floating along. I just uh um and you got some of the And there's the galacticas falling apart and you've got Cylons that are helping patch it up and it's just

This kind of sense of Everything's mesh. Maybe we can all maybe we can all work together. Yeah. I i in again, in the existential side of things, and the existential horror of all this, it ultimately comes down to humans and Cylons need to coexist and that the existence of a a Cylon human hybrid is key to humanity's survival. To to uh stop Galactica from falling apart, they have to use Cylon technology to keep th the the Galactica together for a little bit longer.

and uh the rebel Cylons have to team up with the humans in order for the the kind of time loop to complete. And so It's interesting that as a show overall it comes down on the side of W whatever the difference is between humans and Cylons, we need each other and we need to exist together, hand in hand. That just feels really basic.

actually couldn't we all just get along Yeah but but like good I think that's why it still resonates and why it still works. Like it's a really basic like thesis for the whole show. And the Galactica is uh utterly destroyed in this final battle They're jump they're able to do a kind of light speed jump one more time and st th Starbuck is in control and Adama's like, just get us out of here, jump us anywhere, put in some random coordinates.

So Starbuck decides she's gonna pop in the coordinates from the All Along the Watchtower tune that she knows off by heart. Uh and wouldn't you know it, they land right on the edge of a brand new in uh uh habitable planet. that I guess is our Earth. The shot of them looming over this like it looks like a barren world and then it it gradually turns out that that's the moon and then it comes over and you can see the continent of Africa. Yeah. Just um you know the seat of where

where civilization where human civilization began. Yeah. Just looming on it. And I remember again when I saw that for the first time, I was like, Ooh, they're gonna land on Earth and where they're gonna like meet humans. Yeah. I was not prepared for the kind of humans they were gonna meet.

A hundred and fifty thousand years in the past, right? It's a galaxy far, far away a long time ago, essentially. Right. Uh yeah. And everything comes very beautifully and neatly together at the end, right? Um And again, a lot of people had a real problem with this, with this idea of like Starbucks kind of Deus Ex Machina, you know, this message from God, this mystical tune gets us to Earth after this entire journey.

Uh how do you find it, Ben? How do you find the way that this show ends? I like it, but I get why it's controversial. I again I like the big swing of It's prehistoric Earth. I think at that point already the story has run out of road a bit. And once they find Prehistoric Earth, it has to really quickly wrap up all of these characters' stories. That's the thing that feels a bit rushed. um and that I wish it had a little bit more space for. Um but I kind of loved the the craziness Of it.

Um I I admire it. I um uh it's kinda satisfying. Like I I can't help but feel very emotionally satisfied by watching All of our favourite characters, including Gaius Baltar, including some of the Cylons that are now our friends, you know, all land on this planet and, you know, settle there. You know, Alex, it's kind of beautiful, isn't it? You know? I I completely agree with Ben. Like I find it immensely satisfying.

satisfying. Even at the time I uh there was so much consternation about it and I was like, I love it. And I didn't have the kind of words to be able to describe why, but it's because it was emotionally resonant and it made a lot of sense and everybody got their

You know, everybody's story came to a conclusion. Like everybody end everything ended. But I I also love that because then it's a hundred and fifty thousand years ago and the very, very end of the show is like humanity now, it throws the question on to us of of this whole thing of

All of this has happened before and all of this will happen again. Which I didn't realise comes from Peter Pan. That's a Peter Pan thing. Ah. Yeah, when uh on Disney Versity, the Disney podcasts I do, we we watch Peter Pan and that comes up as a line and I was like Oh my god, this is Battle Star Galactica. Um but then it throws it onto us right aga this whole show has been an existential odyssey. It has always been about us and how we react to things.

But it throws it into the the two thousand and nine, whatever it was, here and now of okay, if all of that happened and we're in these never ending cycles What choices are we gonna make this time? And I like it throwing out that little existential curveball at the end. Well it also brings into play this idea that we are therefore descendants of

humans and Cylons, right? Because this mix of human beings and Cylons landed on Earth. A human and a Cylon mated and had a baby, right? Um, Sharon and Agathon. And so we are descendants of Humans and machines. So this idea of what the show has been exploring the entire time, which is is there a difference between man and machine? Is artificial intelligence just humanity? Is there such a thing as God?

Or are we gods? Do we create each other and keep You know, going through this cycle of destroying ourselves and creating ourselves and destroying ourselves and creating ourselves.

Is it all kind of comes together perfectly at the end there, doesn't it? At a scientific conference this week at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, the startling announcement was made that archaeologists believe they have found fossilized remains of a young woman who may actually be

be mitochondrial Eve. Mitochondrial Eve is the name scientists have given to the most recent common ancestor for all human beings now living on Earth. She lived in what is now Tanzania. Over one hundred and fifty thousand years ago. Along with her silo mother and human father.

Well I've got I've got an additional lens which will bring it back to Man Made Monsters because this this time for the first time There's so the very last thing we see are Angel Boltar and Angel Six, like the people uh the who are who whatever, the visions, and they're going through contemporary Earth.

And them they say to each other, Oh, blah blah blah, God has a plan. Like six says, God has a plan. Uh, or one of them does, and the other one says, You know it doesn't like that name. Yeah. And so I'm thinking is it all a simulation? Like is it a simulation? Is this all happened before, this will all happen again? Is it is it you know the the simulation theory we're all living in a simulation? Is it that we're gonna set it off Well that Boltar and six

Are both extremely matrix coded in that little code. Exactly. Commercialism, decadence, technology run amok. Remind you of anything? Take your pick. Cobal. Earth. The real earth before this one. Caprica before the fall. All of this has happened before. But the question remains Does all of this have to happen again? This time I bet no. You know, I've never known you to play the Optimus. Why the change of heart? Mathematics, law of averages.

Let a complex system repeat itself long enough, eventually something surprising might occur. That too is in God's plan. You know it doesn't like that name. And then we end on this kind of little dark joke really, don't we, where the camera pans across

And we see playing on a T V screen in a shop window, a kind of montage of news items, uh with a kind of evolution in advancements in robotics essentially. So we see a little tiny uh a little tiny robot dancing and then we see These robots start to advance and start to advance, all the while, of course, all along the Watchtower plays and Battlestar Galactica ends.

Ben, let's finish up with this question. It's been 20 years since Battlestar Galactica. How well do you think the show holds up? Uh, you know, is this still worthy of being part of that conversation in the canon of kind of prestige and peak television that we got through that decade? Massively. I mean it has its place in that lineage for sure, but even just watching it now, it totally ripped.

Like buy it, watch it. It is incredible. And as we said, that era of TV, not just the early peak TV stuff. But the network T V twenty episodes making so much out of so little And doing something as incredible as this is I loved rewatching this. I'm really glad I had an excuse to rewatch it. Um, however many hours for a two hour podcast. Oh my god, I can only thank you both for the sheer amount of hours of work that we've put into this conversation.

And you know, it's flown past this two hours. I feel like Alex, we've only scratched the surface. We didn't even get to talk about Gaius, Boltz. uh Russell Brand cult leader phase in the fourth season. Oh my god. The cult leader phase. Oh we didn't we did not mention Tom Zarak once. I know. And he's such an incredible character. There are so many good characters um So many incredible plot lines, so many more kind of meaty themes we didn't get to discuss.

Uh Alex, I you know, we'll just have to find a way to we'll d should we just do a Battlestar rewatch podcast? We'll just start a podcast. Let's do it. Let's just do it. And then we can spend all the time we want getting into it. Um we'll just keep texting each other about it. Yeah, exactly. We'll just voice note each other back and forth. It's fine. Uh Alex, how do you what about you? How how well do you think this show has aged?

Since two thousand and three. You said it earlier. I think it was you. Like it's aged like a fine wine for me. It is incredible. Like I I I think it's more relevant now than it it than it was when when it came out. Like the prescience of this series, the the relevance of the storyline even before they knew where AI was gonna take us. Like the s the themes of it, I guess are tapping into the entire reason why you've done this um season of the podcast. It's about it's about

technology defining what it means to be human. Yeah. And I like for my money n nobody has done it better than this. Like this for me is is the peak of exploring it. Because it had that breadth and that time to do it. Yeah. And I I think it's like it's the the thing by which everything else should be judged at this point. I completely agree. I uh you know, I've covered a lot of c uh films that cover similar themes, you know, whether it's Blade Runner, whether it's ex machina.

These are all interesting, brilliant films and in some ways, yes, th this show had more time to to pad it out, but I think it is the best version of this story. I think that kind of really interesting confusing blend between man and machine and what it means to be either and is there a difference and are we just destined to kind of make the same mistakes over and over again when it comes to technology, religion, politics, everything?

This show covers it all, right? And it does it in such a fucking entertaining way. Absolutely. It's a joy. It's a joy to watch. Like I I loved l like thank you for asking me to do this. I feel massively privileged to be invited back and Like I th I mean I will say I'm very excited to now be able to watch other things all I've done. If you look at my letterbox.

People of the people of who follow me on Letterbooks will see there's a giant gap in twenty twenty six where every evening I've only been watching Bastaker like that. Poor I mean I was thinking about this, Alex, you poor think'cause like I think in the vampire series I you know, we talked about the whole of Buffy and Angel. In our last season I made you watch five piranha films or whatever. Like I promise next year, next season

Uh we'll just do a film together. I don't know what the next season is. Oh my god, I'm gonna tell you off mic. Oh lovely. There you go. Uh guys, thank you so much. Ben, just remind people where they can come and find you and more of your work online. Oh, thank you so much for having me back. Um so you can find me, I'm in Empire magazine. In fact right now the Star Wars Mandalorian and Grogu issue is on sale. I wrote that cover feature. So if you like Star Wars, um go and read that.

I am online. I'm still in the bad place. I'm still on fucking X, Twitter, whatever, Ben S Travis. I just signed up for Letterboxed. I'm finally becoming a bit of a letterbox. I followed you. Thanks, Alex. Uh Micah will find you at you on Letterbooks. A handle everywhere.

So come and find me, let's chat about the movies. Amazing. And Alex, where can people find you? They can find me. I've g I've come off all the bad places, so I'm now I mean, diff the different kinds of bad I guess, but I'm on Instagram. You can come and find me there or letterbox, both of which are Alex J Ailing. I love to talk to people. Guys, thank you so much. Thank you.

Woo, and there we go, that's it for this week. What an epic discussion. A massive thank you to Ben Travis and Alex Ayling for joining me. I hope we managed to kind of navigate most of the major talking points within that two hour conversation.

Obviously there's gonna be stuff that we missed out or that we didn't get to talk about enough. We only scratched the surface of this incredible show. Honestly, the more I think about it, the more I think I want to do an entire spin-off podcast about it, but that's for another time. Anyway, let me know you.

Your thoughts on Battlestar Galactica. Drop me an email, evolutionofhorror at gmail.com. You can also find us on the socials. Of course, I'm on uh Instagram and Blue Sky and the podcast Evolution of Horror is on Instagram and Facebook. If you want to get ad for Add free versions of this uh podcast you can sign up to our Patreon, patreon dot com slash evolutionofhorror. You'll also get bonus episodes there every single week.

This podcast is part of the Evolution of Horror Network. You can also listen to our sister shows, Hammer Time, which drops every Wednesday, and Carry On Up the Podcast, which drops every Monday. You can get those wherever you get your podcasts. So, on to next week. Next week then.

I don't know why I'm doing it to myself, but next week we are going to be tackling another epic TV show in its entirety. Next week I'm going to be joined by Journey Through Sy-Fi's Matt and James, and we are going to be discussing the dark dystopian world. Of Black Mirror. Join us next week for all of this and more on the evolution of horror. Marketing is hard.

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