The original Battlestar Galactica series wasn’t something I ever watched, though being a proper SF geek I was at least aware of its existence and could happily hum the theme tune if asked. I’d seen bits of it, here and there, and was not impressed. It was just so camp, so cheap, so dated. It was for this reason that when I heard that the series was to be remade, I wasn’t overly bothered.

There was a mini-series first of all (made two years ago now) which I made no effort to watch. I heard very little about it, other than outrage from the original series’ fans about Starbuck being a woman, which, judging from their vitriol, was much like getting Will Smith to play the lead role in The Passion of the Christ. The mini-series spawned a series of its own, and then, here and there, piece by piece, I started hearing rumours. Rumours that this new series was good. In fact, not just good, but really good.

I had kept myself occupied with the reasonably-satisfactory Star Trek: Enterprise and the criminally now-cancelled Dead Like Me, but I couldn’t avoid these quiet little murmurings drifting across the interweb about Battlestar Galactica. Not many people were talking about it, which I assume is a result of it being shown first in the UK — to my knowledge, only two episodes have been broadcast in the US. But it was getting mentioned, in the same hushed whispers that people used to reserve for Babylon 5.

Obviously, this couldn’t go on — there was some new SF about and it was good. I needed to be in on the action. With no real familiarity with the original series, I set about watching the new, trying to push aside the initial sense that I was watching another Space: Above and Beyond.

And it’s like they all said. It’s really fucking good.

Possible spoilers ahead.

The basic plot is as follows; humans (spread across a dozen colony worlds) made robots called Cylons, who rebelled and buggered off after a war to hang out somewhere else. A few decades later, the Cylons came back to have another go, except this time some of them look, feel and act like humans. Upon their return, they wipe out most of the humans with nuclear weapons (thanks to the inadvertant help of Dr. Baltar). A small collection of civilian ships (plus Galactica) survive and leg it, with the intention of finding Earth, the mythical 13th colony. Oh, there are still bona fide robotic Cylons as well, but they’re a far cry from the tin-foil men of the original series — these new ones have retractable guns and knives as hands.

Produced by Ron Moore, he of Deep Space Nine fame, this new series is bleak, dark and mostly quite depressing, so how could I not love it? I think I got to about episode nine or ten before anything good actually happened to the human cast. The whole cast, incidentally, is excellent. Standing out in particular are Edward James Olmos (Commander Adama), Michael Hogan (Colonel Tigh), James Callis (Dr. Baltar) and Mary McDonnell (President Roslin), but I’m hard-pressed to think of a single character that isn’t perfectly cast and entirely believable — honourable mentions should go to Paul Campbell as the fresh-faced Presidential aide and Grace Park as Boomer. Katee Sackhoff as the new female Starbuck is excellent, as are the human-style Cylons (particularly Tricia Helfer as Number 6).

There’s not been a single episode that hasn’t left me wanting more. Nearly every episode, even when the plot for that episode is resolved, ends on a cliffhanger. The fact that Cylons can look human means you — and the characters themselves — are constantly wondering whether a character has an ulterior motive. There’s also a whole side-plot that I expect to become even more important regarding Dr. Baltar, who has repeated visions of Number Six telling him what to do. Her appearance may be a manifestation of his guilt about accidentally betraying the entire human race, she may be a Cylon in his head, he may be a Cylon, or she may be God. It’s open to debate.

The look and feel of the show is similarly excellent. With the premise that Cylons can easily take over advanced technology, all the tech we see is stylishly retro — big chunky phones with curly wires, guns that shoot bullets, and so on. When you’re on Galactica, it feels like you’re on a military ship. Even something that most SF shows take for granted — travelling enormous distances — takes an effort here, with people pulling out maps, charts and calculators and actually working out how to jump from X to Y without ending up in the middle of a planet. People smoke, people drink, people have sex. They’re almost entirely people who would ordinarily have never excelled, never discovered their potential — a lowly Minister for Education being elevated to the Presidency, a retiring Commander suddenly back in control of an entire fleet of ships, an alcoholic Colonel now the XO of that fleet, and so on. Ah, man, I could talk about this for hours.

Ease off, calm down.

I feel I’m enthusing just a little too much here, but I can’t help it. I’m at a loss to find a flaw, without picking at details such as ‘the theme music isn’t very catchy’. The first series has finished, and though I knew that something fairly big was going to happen, it was still a genuine surprise when it took place. The whole show has been full of surprises. Great casting, great scripting, great sets, great effects.

So, it’ll probably get cancelled due to poor ratings in the US.