Battlestar Galactica as Social Science. Eh, What?

I finally have the last half-season of the new Battlestar Galactica in my grasp (more importantly, in my DVD player). Too bad an on-line article not directly related to the show blabbed all its reveals including the ultimate ending, the identity of the fifth Cylon, and what Starbuck finds in the (half-)season premiere! Still, it's always interesting to watch how a story builds when you know where it's going to finish; there's more to see, so to speak.

It's not an overly strong show, and has never quite lived up to its tight first season, and has a tendency for melodrama. But it has always been a strong sci-fi with a well-built mythology, not to mention that it looks great, and there are some things that it does incredibly well. Last night I happened to pause an episode on a frame of Tigh and Adama hunkering down with assault rifles in an airlock while waiting for an execution squad to burn through the door, and it hit me that Battlestar Galactica did something I've seen no other show do: be truly multi-generational.

Starting at the top, we've got Adama, who is literally the Old Man; Tigh, Ellen, Laura Roslin, Doc Cottle, The Cavils (you know, the dude from Quantum Leap and Dune), and Tom Zarek - the 50+ bunch. Then there are my people: Gaeta, Apollo, Starbuck, Hotdog, Anders, Tory, Dualla. Sandwiched in the middle are Athena and Helo, Tyrol, The Sixes/The Leobens/The D'Annas, Baltar. Watching the unfolding of the rebellion that opens season 4.5, I started realizing that the writers have throughout the series presented the members of each generation with the hopes, fears, impulses, and decision-making processes unique to each. It's rare to see multi-generational casts with so much balance in numbers between the age groups; it's even rarer to see each generation be presented well, especially Galactica's older crew who are neither loopy, incredibly obscene for "edgy" or "comic" effect (I'm glaring at you, Little Miss Sunshine!), or more irritable, stubborn, or unreasonable than their younger comrades. Battlestar isn't the first show to have three generations on-screen, but in my experience it's the first show to resist making caricatures of any of them. With this final season, I see how the writers slowly built and tied together the "human family" theme in a literal and solid manner.

I'm looking forward to the end, even though I know what it is, because in hindsight I can see how good the journey's been even during the show's weak patches. And I'm anxious to see if I called it right that the "dying leader" prophecy is about Adama, not Roslin. No magazine or paper managed to spoil that plot point, ha!