TV Weekend: She's Back!

Humanity's salvation, or a set-up? / SCI FI Channel Photo: Carole Segal

In another thread yesterday, someone asked why I hadn't posted more on the return (tonight) of Battlestar Galactica. I've seen the premiere episode and reviewed it, briefly, in this week's Time...

Battlestar Galactica Sci Fi; Fridays, 10 p.m. E.T. Company's coming! Starbuck (Katee Sackhoff) tells the remnants of humanity, under attack by humanoid robots, that she's found the way to lost Planet Earth. Her colleagues* are skeptical because last they saw her, she was dead. Is she a hero or a mole? Thus begins the final season of a cerebral space opera that asks what it means to be human. A-

... but I really don't want to add much to that review so as not to spoil anyone's experience. [I've praised the show sufficiently that I should probably explain the "minus" after the "A." It's not that my estimation of the show, which I named one of my 100 best TV shows of all time, just that the premiere episode itself is very good—picking up directly from Starbuck's return at the end of last season—but not a standout as BSG episodes go.]

What else can I say, without getting into spoiler territory? It's probably not a spoiler to say that the overwhelming Cylon attack launched at the end of season 3 does not destroy the fleet; why it ends up not destroying the fleet is the interesting question, and I won't elaborate on that. The exonerated Baltar, meanwhile, continues his spiritual crisis.

But we'll talk more after the show airs. Meanwhile, what do you want to see from this final (or first-half-of-the-final) season of BSG?

*"Colleagues" is a stupid word choice, I know. This is what happens when you try to cram a plot summation of BSG into about 50 words for a review aimed at a general audience.