Sunday, July 24, 2005

A toast to the toasters

I came a bit late to the new Battlestar Galactica series on the Sci-Fi Channel, only really catching up with the show when the network ran a marathon of the entire first season a few weeks ago, and then receiving the initial miniseries from NetFlix to fill in the blanks. But it's quickly become a favorite (and a TiVo season pass), in many ways more than assuaging the melancholy that set in when Star Trek: Enterprise left the air, leaving me without any more adventures of the United Federation of Planets crews to look forward to.

So I was interested to read a little more about the genesis of the series, and it's transformation from its kitschy 80s roots in the New York Times last week: Ron Moore's Deep Space Journey.

One of the most fascinating aspects of the new series mythology (literally) is its under- and overtones of religious dogma, which raise all sorts of ethical and moral questions. A couple of articles from Beliefnet give BSG a faith-based consideration:

Born-Again Battlestar: "Unbeknownst to most viewers, 'Battlestar Galactica' has been steeped in religion since its very inception. First pitched by uber-producer Glen A. Larson as a series of Bible stories set in space called 'Adam�s Ark,' the reworked 'Battlestar Galactica' was also influenced by another religious book: the Book of Mormon. A member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Larson borrowed plot points from his faith's sacred texts."

The Souls of Cylons: "The parallels between the Cylon beliefs and fundamentalist Christian beliefs, yeah, there are certain aspects of it there, but there�s also the roots of the drama, also contains things such as Al Qaeda�s use of its religious practice to justify what it does. That�s part of who the Cylons are too, they aren�t just really stalking horses for fundamentalist Christianity."