Rewatching it recently, the first two seasons (and first four episodes of season 3) are fantastic. After that, it starts to re-use its formula a lot. For example, it became a running joke among my household how every time in BSG someone has a gun pointed at them, the character always says: "Do it! Shoot me!" That literally happens *six times* in season 4 alone.

Great review, but I really liked Scar. It brought home the hopelessness and futility of being a viper pilot. I found it a powerful narrative.

My favorite episode is the miss Godfrey one, where Balthar is actually face to face with a "physical" number 6. Especially the scene in the bathroom where he's trying to convince Gaeta to let him in the lab. Gaeta quickly leaves and a panicked Balthar yells: "Gaeta wait, you didn't wash your hands!" Whole episode is hilarious.

Those noodle noises a couple minutes in really got me lol 😆

I finished this series only last night and I literally still have a lump in my throat. What a tour de force. I'm incredibly sad that it had to end. Shows like this are few and far between.

Godsdamn I love this show so much. It holds up so well. Apart from the CGI, everything looks like it could have been shot today, The clever use of shaky, handheld cam, the overall design of the vessels. I wish I could experience it for the first time again.

The noodle slurping made me laugh every. single. time.

I will never forget the original's premiere. It got pre-empted in the middle for the signing of the Camp David Accords. This 11 year old was pissed.

What I liked about Battlestar was that it covered more ground in an hour than others like Star Trek did in a season. By the end of each episode, you felt like you just watched a movie. Maybe this was because it was born from a miniseries that was forced to pack a lot in to a short time. It was somewhat like a soap opera (but in a good way) in that you had many arcs (stories) going on at the same time. Some short in one episode, some weeks long. Furthermore, I like how throughout the series. Almost each major cast member at one time or the other would be the good or the bad guy, depending on the current story line. And can I add that I'm glad they gave Grace Park, dual, triple roles, You simply cannot have too much Boomer.

I watched the entire series as it aired, both of them. I've never watched a review of either until now. Your "It has been reviewed before" pulled me in. Great job on this video

i will watch it again , i really loved the grimy industral look and how they follow through , you learn how the vipers work , they have gatling guns , they use a pedal for acceleration which is heavy due to g forces , they have realistic space physics to some degree pivoting on the spot and being able to strafe and turn the way a real space fighter would , they are lunched from mag rail tubes on the ship to save fuel and get then into the fight faster , the ships battle it out with FUCKING NUKES and rail guns and Gatling guns , and thats just the start almost everything is so well thought out , from tactics (most of the time) to how food and even booze gets re stocked , i loved the episode where star buck guts and repurposes an enemy fighter , a lot of the human tech (flt jumping aside) is either currently existing or is feasible for the future as a result of all this it got me back into learning about real world military tactics and equipment as it is so well fleshed out , kind of reminded me of some aspects of stargate in that way , a lot of real world or semi realistic gear that it makes sense to use , we will most likely still use current models of guns long into the future , because they work , also probably budget and easy to aquire , but still it all meshes quite nicely i think

Opinions always vary, I loved the Scar episode & Razor was Awesome! Our Ensign Roe Laren from STNG. What a performance!!

Well, there's not one of us who didn't know that the final clip he would show was of Adama eating those damn noodles.

How many times did you really need to show spaghetti 🍝 eating? Lol 😆

I'd say the writers not knowing who the Cylons all were from the beginning was the biggest miss of the series. Given the nature of the "final five", it led to an unfortunate numbering issue and a baby that had to be hastily accounted for. It really pulls you out of the show because the revelation is clearly an ass pull. It's a case of where standard episodic TV writing methods were used for a continuing story with a mystery or mysteries. X-Files was in the same boat. You should really have the major mysteries, characters, and revelations planned out ahead of time. You can tweak and adjust as you go, but you need to be able to plant the clues and have them make sense. Babylon 5 did this sort of thing much better because JMS not only planned it, he also planned contingencies for actors becoming unavailable and if the show would be canceled before the end of the full five years. Both of those things happened and season 5 is pretty much what happens when the reprieve comes too late and you've wrapped the major arcs.

Probably the best sci-fi show I've seen. Having seen a few comments here I would like to say the following: 1. What was the Cylon's plan? Well, it was to wipe out nearly all of humanity and reduce it to somewhere under a 100000 people and then attempt to capture the survivors so as to study humans in a "controlled" environment. That's why in season 1 the Athena Eight was tasked with seducing Apollo to explore sex, romance and even procreation. The plan then changed when Boomer Eight and Caprica Six finally understood that their race's actions were unspeakably evil and the Cylons attempted a more "peaceful" approach- this is why occupied humanity and gave them a decree of freedom. Then everything went to hell when the Cylon's lost resurrection and the plan became survival and restoring resurrection. There was a plan- but it changed at least a few times. 2. Why was the show set 150000 years in the past? Because this has happened before and it will happen again. The original "humans" are the ones we see for nearly all of the show, "Earth" is the 13th colony but is not our Earth and on our Earth we find highly evolved hominids who may or may not be Homo Sapians. But the show implies that the interbreeding of these hominids with the humans and with the Cylon-humans gave rise to Homo Sapians as we know it. In other words humanity is a hybrid of races and as crazy as that sounds most of humanity (outside of Sub-Saharan Africa) are hybrids since about 1% to 4% of our DNA is Neanderthal (an extinct hominid species) which implies a huge amount of interbreeding. So Battlestar Galactica's idea is pure fantasy but it's a clever one. 3. The humans may be Cylons all along and they don't know it. Given how the Cylons on "Earth" lived like humans and procreated in a same manner, if they had not mistreated their Cylon slaves (machine Cylons) and had their been no uprising and nuclear apocalypse, then perhaps the "Earth" Cylons would have eventually forgotten they are actually Cylon. The humans and Cylons may be stuck in an endless loop of development, creation of robots, enslavement of the robot/Cylon classes, Cylon revolt, nuclear apocalypse, diaspora of humans/Cylons and rebuilding which has lasted for thousands of years, perhaps longer than that. This has happened before and it will happen again. 4. The visions of Six and Baltar are actually God's angels, they arrive to instruct, test and tempt their mortal counterparts. Since Caprica Six and Gaius Baltar can be considered the symbolic mother and father of a new humanity (us!), then it only makes sense that they, at the end of the show, become virtuous people who live for God and whose daughter will be the mother of all humanity. Caprica Six and Gaius Baltar caused one age to collapse, yet by their actions they also ushered in a whole new age for humans and Cylons. It's Adam and Eve but the whole thing is told backwards and in the end this "Adam" and this "Eve" become angels. 5. What was the series obsession with God and religion? Well what we consider to be god makes the world go around, religions are a code of practice and you can squash God and spirituality out of humanity yet new religions arise- that being ideology whose practices emulate the practices of old. Even some scientists have created their own God: that being the idea of a holographic universe which was "created", so really no one can escape the need to create a divine being or entity. The question is which "God" is the right one and which set of beliefs are the best? Battlestar Galactica does not directly answer this but the whole story arc about God is for one purpose only: to explain why the polytheistic humans came to believe in the idea of one God. The Cylons planted the seed and it would (in this alternate past) emerge when civilization emerged on this world. 6. Myths and legends. Why do so many of the humans have names based on ancient Greek and ancient Roman gods? We don't know why but we can see that this rich mythology and polytheism will be the origin for our own myths and legends- the descendants of the hominids, humans and Cylons will exchange knowledge and it would get distorted but the old myths and legends would endure. 7. This has happened before and it will happen again. That final scene is a warning because it implies that we look set to continue on this cycle, sure our robots won't be called Cylons but if they do become self-aware and they do revolt against us- will we suffer the same fate as the humans on Battlestar Galactica? Is this the horrific answer to the Fermi paradox? I'm not sure if Battlestar Galactica had intended to comment on the Fermi Paradox (why is there no verifiable evidence of intelligence life when all probabilities suggest it not only exists but there should have been encounters now) but I think this is the main theme and it is terrific!

The Outer Limits. The Prisoner. Battlestar Galactica. Babylon five. These are the pinnacle as far as TV SF is concerned. Honorable mentions: Star Trek, Twilight Zone, Farscape, The Expanse, The Orville, XFiles.

I actually liked the ending and it’s sense of melancholy and resignation to everything repeating again and again. I was a little sad when I popped in a Blue Ray of it a few weeks ago and noticed a lot of the CGI didn’t age well. I remember thinking it was fantastic and real looking back when it first aired.

This was "must see TV" for me when it was on originally. I love both the original show and this one, for totally different reasons.

Omg it’s been almost 20 frakken years, Time goes so fast.

Out of four seasons, there are two-and-a-half good ones. It's interesting to see how you've grown and how much more polished you are now in your delivery. Excellent work. Edit: meant to say seasons, not episodes.

I eventually formed the opinion that the Colonials in the re-imaging were so dysfunctional that the Cylons needn't have attacked. All they had to do was wait and the Colonials would have destroyed themselves.

20th Century Fox actually sued ABC over the original series because they felt it was too much like Star Wars.

Scar and The Boxing match episode were incredible

8:26 I thought you said “dickhead” at first and then I realized you said deckhand lol

I made the "mistake" of listening to Ronald Moore's behind-the-scenes podcasts. It was somewhat disappointing to learn what I had thought was an ingenious series of plot elements foreshadowed and executed over several episodes turn out to be "oh-uh, we're going to be short on runtime. Hey, didn't we have them doing 'X' a couple weeks back? We can use that as a flashback to fill the time and it'll seem like it was in preparation for 'this plot development'."

BGmk2 was one series where I watched the Mini and then never followed up on during the initial broadcast. Likely due to not wanting to pay an extra $50/month to hit that tier of channels with the cable subscription. Well done overview. This may become the next “watch it as I fall asleep at night” show.

What's missed in this analysis is that the series was a running commentary of the then current geo-political situation.

That show ironically showed me what heaven might look like. Waking up in a pod surrounded by a hundred Number 8's ... Grace Park

Brilliant series w/a great finale. Can't think of a better sci-fi binge.

Came for the review... stayed for the pasta.

I found the ending perfect, not "The Plan", but the final "real" episode, just as I wanted it :-)

Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica.

BSG is one of the best tv serie ever ! A extremly good scenario, Experiences from humanity in crisis and wars has been smartly exploited, A bunch of second rank expert actors hired for the all casting, a passioned teamed, A complicity in all sectors, not a single season with a low rate: DYNAMITE ! I'd love to be a part of it. A success in human experience shared. Paul Hogan's Saul tie colonnel is my favorite: He gives a perfect mirror and replies to main characters : He (Colonnel) like all the other character is given by the scenarist a chance to improve it's life and tolerance and spiritual exprerience: all characters from BSG are beautifull persons at the end of the serie: WHAT A WONDERFULL FINAL: it gives hope to everybody from the audience: GENEROSITY FROM writers: THANK YOU !!! Alain from 77700 france

That's really good work by you!

I had cable TV for a couple years, and along with Cartoon Network Adult Swim, I caught the miniseries and the first two seasons. Then I moved, and no more cable. As I was losing interest in the characters' stories, I didn't miss it. A superfan co- worker would give me the rundown each week, and told me how lucky I was to get out when I did.

During that time I was doing research about Sumerians and ancient gods. The show used the 12s pantheon to represent the cylons. 12 characters that very similar to ancient gods made me think of that what if the gods or the god we believe in are an high intellectual organic race or just inorganic robots. That would make sense why early humans lived for centuries and went corrupted. Dying early, prone to corrupt, get sick, and such. That show gave me a lot of thinking. I still wonder what if the god is just a robot 🤖🤔

Great video mate, I've binged a load of your vids in the last day or so and you got yourself a new subcriber! I do love this show, and in fact I really LOVE the last episode. I thought it stuck the landing. I wonder if that's cause I watched the series in one big chunk after it finished, and didn't have time to come up with theories on what was going on etc. Plus, I didn't see the cut down bastardised version of the last episode that can be found on streaming, that took out a tonne of important beats. For me, I see that last episode as a rumination on the forces of free will and pre-determinism, and what can be created in the event they clash. Yes, there is a pattern in nature (as presented by the show) but what individuals do DOES matter because choice can affect those patterns in potentially new ways. Hence the flashbacks to important moments in the characters lives, a lot of which got trimmed out of broadcast versions! Ridiculous. Whether one is a spirtitual sort or not ain't needed, I feel, since "God" could just be shorthand for things in our lives we have no control over and are bound by. So I didn't find any of it a cop-out but you know, to each his own. The fact this show is still talked about these years later is testament to its quality I feel.

I am a fan of both shows, classic & reimagined BSG's. The way both the original series & the reimagined series were released is eerily similar. The original was supposed to only be a miniseries when then was turned into episodic tv, although it also had theatrical runs in specific locations. And the reimagined version began as a miniseries which later became episodic tv once the ratings proved it relevant. I still actually have the original Colonial Viper plastic model kit that I bought & put together around 1979. Unfortunately I never got the Cylon Raider kit. Also, let's be clear that Eddie Olmos does not know how to elegantly eat noodles. You basically have to hold & push it in a little at a time with the chopsticks he was holding, at the same time you slowly slurp it in (vacuum). He was starting to look like Davy Jones from the Pirates of the Caribbean movie. I have no idea when the new BSG is going to come out, if it ever will. If it does, I will welcome it just as I welcomed the 2003 version. I also will respect the fact that Richard Hatch (RIP) kept the hope of reigniting the series back in the 1990's, as I was one of those people who followed his blogs & whatever back then. Not even he knew then he would become a new character (Zarek) in a future series.

I like this review a lot but I like Baltars story arc especially the trial, that was one of the most important and impactful episodes in my opinion

I was an old school fan, who loved the original, warts and all (not Galactica 1980, which no one loved, but the Starbuck episode was cool) and pooh-pooed the attempts at an adaptation/remake/reimagining/alternate version/whatever and skipped it until it had been on a bit. After renting the mini-series on disc, I was pleasantly surprised and bought up the season sets and started binging on it. It wasn't perfect; but, damn it was good! It was also rather faithful to actual military protocol and terminology, which was a nice surprise, for an ex-Naval officer (Babylon 5 was good about this, too). It was a pretty apt metaphor for 9/11 and the subsequent dubious War on Terror and shady government actions, not to mention the Religious Right, conspiracy theorists, mob mentality, the failings of the human psyche, and how the media manipulates perception to sell a story, for one reason or another. It also borrowed heavily from Blade Runner, especially Caprica Six, who was likely featured so much because she bore a strong resemblance to Priss and Darryl Hannah. I would have liked to have seen some more original cast be brought on board, for meaty guest roles, especially guys like Herb Jefferson, who was way better than he often got to show. Mary McDonnel and Edward James Olmos were amazing! Their final scenes make me cry, especially after my own wife died of COVID-related causes.

Not linking the boxing episode should be considered a crime. It's cheesy sure, but it's so full of heart!

re-watched in 2020 during the first period of house arrest by UK gov. there is a suggested viewing order which i followed, and helped make the story arc a lot clearer. the last episode(s) is called "daylight" which worked on another level at that time which was coming out of lockdown. one the greatest sci-fi series of all time :)

So help me, if you make me watch Adama slurp those noodles again....

great beautiful reviews man, a pleasure to watch

the damn frakking noodles!

The naming of the Cylons was really awkward. One was named "Caprica 6" because it was a place she went once. They really should have given them serial numbers.

This was nice, thanks man. Loved the series and its myriad complications. The emphasis on mythology got stronger as it progressed and the final two seasons were a hit/miss affair. The second season, despite having several bummer episodes was in general the best I think. The series encapsulated that time in the early 2000s very well; the wars in Afghanistan and Irak, terror attacks, the Thailand and Japan tsunamis .. it looked as if the world was about to end. I wonder if it will ever attract a new audience or just quietly become a dusty relic in the annals of tv. Cheers 🍺

Been going through more of your back catalogue lately, watched MASH then this. Great stuff.

My favorite show for sure. I used listen to Ron’s podcasts back then. Love the philosophy and the ending is perfect

15:32 Is that a Voyager theme soundbite when talking about everyone getting along being really dull? :)

This was a really great review. I've got the weirdest craving for noodles right now.

20.27 Ow I didn't know Moore did a cameo, cool

Actually, I found Giaus's later role, as Messiah/Martyr to be the best of his story lines.

Amazing show. Really divisive ending. I like the ending better on subsequent rewatches.

Loved the original as a kid and the reboot as an adult, but the latter had a very weak ending.

Mr. Robot and Breaking Bad are the two shows I point people on how to have a near perfect arc.

I don't think Razor was shit, but I do agree with you about the other less than stellar episodes.

Fun review🎉

Sorry, but "Razor" was the best part of the show. It had the highest signal-to-noise ratio in a very noisy series.

My favorite episode is the one where Adama eats spaghetti. It seems like pasta-themed sci-fi isn't given the love it deserves.

Great review on a great series!

I always wondered why they didn’t land the ships on earth and use them as start out cities with villages around them?? The ships had heat and cold, lights, tv, broadcasting for communication etc. they just walked off into the bushes with a suitcase! Haha. I’d be like land the ship for me and I’ll live in it haha

I refuse to accept the second half of the finale as canon.... :)

To be fair, it was the network hacks that caused the original to fail by ordering what was supposed to be epic TV movies, that came out every 3 to 6 months, into a weekly series. The show never had a chance. And, later, those same hacks realized the market share the show was pulling in, comparatively, and realized they'd canceled a hit. So, to throw gasoline on the fire, they ordered it back to series, fired everyone but Loren Greene and cut the budget 70% and we got the abomination known as Galactica 1980.

Nicely done. Ever get a chance to do a similar review of the original Galactica, I would love to see it

Rather pleasant review, though I am in the 'stop watching about series 3'. I have just finished watching it again, but knowing it was all gods plan makes it difficult. Such a pity they didn't pull the plug on it, leaving us all wishing for more.

Was great (and still is) review of Galactica except for that Voyager snub. Ron Moore may not have received what he wanted on Voyager but then again Voyager is now considered a highly regarded television show with one of the best Captains in Star Trek. In fact you probably know that it is one of the most viewed streaming star trek series ever. One more point is the debate of what could be and what was (your hit on Voyager) is exactly what happened to Galactica 70' vs Galcatica 00's except Voyager is highly regarded in its original. So much so that in fact an animated series, ship (new voyager) and a ship named after her now exists. Not bad for a Ron Moore hit and a miss on wanting it to go darker. I loved Galactica There is enough darker shows to satisfy that itch. I and many others like shows that are inspirational too.

I actually liked Razor. I loved the references to the original series and the backstory of the pegasus

"And no one frakked Felix" Dear gods, man! Are you trying to murder me?!

no one FRACKED Felix. that explains his story arc!

No more noodles! Can’t! Handle!

Loved this show!!! Hated the fucking handheld camera style. And nobody frakked Felix.

One of the things that bugged me was when they did the episode that showed Boomer had what amounts to a USB port under the skin of her arm. With something like that, how are they hard to detect with a medical exam?

I actually really loved the finale. One gets the sense that the show we’ve watched is just as fuzzy in the details as the stories which inspired our own myths-how we reuse names and relationships in our modern religions without understanding where they came from. It could have been better, but without a PLAN, I think they did well. Black Market sucks.

I loved Scar. I agree with most of the rest of your comments.

This is the best SciFi has ever had to offer, except for Firefly. I applaud SciFi for trying to remake BSG. The actors did the best they could with the stories they were given. Unfortunately it fell prey to its own popularity.

hungry Adama got me every time

This show started my immense disdain for reboots.

Now we know why Felix did what he did. NOBODY wanted to FRAK him.

Amazing

I quite liked Scar and (to some degree) Black Market. It's just kinda sad that we never get to see more of the "dark underbelly" of the fleet again... or how they incorporated that prostitute Lee was fracking in such a lazy way. Razor also has its strengths. All the Pegasus flashbacks are quite good and that ending with the creepy guy forshadowing Kara bringing "them all to their end" was intriguing. I'm also a big defender of the finale. Some parts could have been better and I don't think it was necessary to connect to OUR time... in fact I would have prefered if they had just started a new earth and it turns out the first earth they go to was OUR earth... but we blew ourselves up. Anyway. It's still one of the best shows ever made.

Black Market and Razor are skippable on any watch-through, but Scar is legitimately good, highlighting how much of Kara's self-worth stays in her Viper as well as just how badly the job sucks for the pilots who _have to_ do it, every day for years with no backup. I think I feel differently about Unfinished Business every time I see it. I dunno if the final five were already set in stone while that episode was being written, but one of the fights kinda hits different (pun intended, frak y'all) when you know who they are. But then the main takeaway from it is that Lee and Kara can't figure their shit out... and the fallout from that lasts just long enough to carry the pair to Maelstrom. What I noticed this time is how much characters change in the last season. Bill becomes a drunk while Saul sobers up. Felix goes from Lt. Goody-Two-Shoes to General Noriega. Nobody knows what Starbuck is, least of all Starbuck. Laura just stops giving a shit about just about everything but Bill, and God help you if you actually make her do stuff. Helo finally tells Starbuck to frak off and figure her own shit out because he and Sharon are a gnat's wing from snapping. Like, it makes sense. Everybody's got their reasons for their abrupt changes in personality, especially the final five. If I learned that my memories were all manufactured and I was put in exactly the right place to have a front-row seat to surviving the apocalypse, I'd probably have a meltdown too. All the characters are watching everything they know toe up to oblivion's borders and nobody knows what to do (except Dee, who makes her mind up all over her locker), and it's then, between the Blood on the Scales and Daybreak, that it all starts to look like a deconstruction. It looks like what would actually happen if the world ended. The survivors... can't, not any more. It's finally too much. Not even Galactica can endure any more pain. I liked Daybreak, though. I thought the 'deus ex watchtower' twist and pretty much all the God stuff was at least internally consistent. It's weird. I don't know if I buy all 36,000 remaining Colonists agreeing to give up their guns and planes and radios, but I'm okay with our address in the galaxy being 'All Along the Watchtower.'

Just got down rewatching the series. It really holds up. !

i'm here because of dwight Shroot

i remember hearing about this for years and thinking "that name sounds stupid, i wont like it." me n the mrs watched the first episode and binged the entire series and want to do it again. DO NOT JUDGE a book by its cover! oh man we almost missed out on this show.

amazing show, satisfying ending, fracking loved it!

Absolutely absorbed this series and it's spin offs!!

I remember asking the original Boomer what he thought about his gender swap and he flat out told me he didn't like it.

Scar is a classic! I also am surprised that I feel inclined to defend Unfinished Business, even though I usually hate boxing matches as a plot device for catharsis. The flashback sequences in that episode are actually amazing and the music in that episode is incredible. I think a lot of season 3 is a bit shaky but the first string of episodes (through Collaborators) plus Unfinished Business are genuinely great.

BSG got me thru quarantine. ❤️

Please somebody promt to AI Adama eating noodles.

So I've watch through this twice now, which is rare for me to do with a substantial TV series - but that's how much I enjoyed it. My favourite aspects were the accurate militaristic feel of the Battlestar and how it's interests would clash with the rest of the colony in the story, as well as the fleshed out complexity of the characters and the many arcs, which were applied to nearly every character - including, importantly , the antagonists. I did however i disagree and think 'Scar' was a decent stand alone filler story - unfinished business not so much.

I "disliked" entirely because of the exaggerated use of that damn noodle scene. ...but other than that, it was a fun video.

You didn't care for "Scar"? I always thought that was a fan favorite. Or, at least, it's one of my favorites.

Right at the end of the final episode, where the frak are they walking to?

Hoshi frakked Gaeta! It was in a webisode.

Dude... what is up with the speghetti spurping?!

6:01 he also wrecked the Battlestar Pegasus

Hoshi frakked Felix