Battlestar Galactica
Our Review
The 2004 reimagining remains the gold standard of space drama: 50,000 human survivors in a ragtag fleet, fleeing the Cylons — robots who evolved into human form and believe in God — while searching for a mythical Earth. Ronald D. Moore took a campy ’70s show and forged the defining post-9/11 allegory: suicide bombers as sympathetic resistance, torture debates, stolen elections, military coups — all in space, all stunningly acted.
Edward James Olmos as Adama and Mary McDonnell as President Roslin are the twin pillars — career-best work from both. The Cylon reveal at the end of season 1 remains one of the great season-ending twists. Seasons 1-2 are airtight; season 3 stumbles; the season 4 finale divides people (the god-did-it threads, Starbuck’s fate), but the journey is the most adult sci-fi series of its century. 33, the premiere, is a perfect hour of television about the cost of never sleeping.
Verdict: Watch it. So say we all.