Battlestar Galactica Renewed for Second Season!!!

Arguably the best sci-fi series on right now, Battlestar Galactica (sorry Stargate) has officially gotten a second season go-ahead from Sci-Fi Network, according the Sci-Fi Wire, the channel's news service. The actual details as to the number of episodes for the next season are still being hammered out currently. The first season contains total of only 13 episodes which ends in a cliff hanger. Writers are currently working on 6 additional scripts to tie up loose ends brought about by the end of the first season. So far with its excellent ratings, don't be surprised that the show gets a full season order (22-24 episodes).

For those of you who haven't had a chance to experience Galactica yet, set your VCR's/TiVo's/DVR's, on Friday night 9pm central. It's one of the few non-reality TV shows on the air right now that is actually worth an hour of your time each week. A fresh, compelling war drama set in space, Galactica is about the created turning on the creators. With only less than 50,000 people left in the human race, the band of survivors from the 12 human colonies take to space after a massive enemy offensive decimating their homeworlds. Led by an old aging warship Galactica, they struggle to evade the relentlessly pursuing Cylons (once created to serve man, but evolved into sentience and rebelled.) Not so much Star Trek (no dough-headed random aliens of the week, thankfully), but a gripping human drama set in futuristic space that should even be accessible to even the most stubborn of non-science fiction-loving viewers (you know who you are).

Battlestar Galactica the series is based on the initial 4 hour mini-series that aired on the Sci-Fi network in December 2003, which was in turn a "re-imagining" of the popular '70's series of the same name that starred Lorne Greene (Bonanza) and Dirk Benedict (A-Team). This re-envisioning angered many fans of the original show because of extensive story and character changes. However, despite the negative buzz, ratings for the miniseries were some of the highest the network ever received, ergo it'd be stupid not to have a series that would bring ratings up for the network, with the Stargate franchise being their only cash cow. The mini-series was an excellent introduction to the Galactica mythology: high quality production values, well developed characters, exciting space battles, and raw emotion drove the story.

The series continues this tradition, expounding on the characters more, their backgrounds, military vs. civilian aspects of life, while maintaining the emotional tension, drama and desperation of a dying race of people fighting for their survival. Very few TV shows are very good in their first season. Most take several years in order to find their footing, story and character-wise. Some get cancelled before even finding it (i.e. Enterprise, in its 4th season no less!) Galactica found its footing right from the beginning, hitting the ground running and never slowing down, to quote a cliché. It's all there, and more. And, with the showrunner being Ronald D. Moore, the man who raised the standard for science fiction and turned Star Trek: Deep Space Nine into an excellent action war drama in its latter seasons, there is a lot of promise for what future seasons will bring.