As Alias winds to a close, ...
Question: As
Alias winds to a close, I've had to find a new favorite show. I always have one (
Twin Peaks,
Buffy the Vampire Slayer,
Roswell,
Homefront,
Relativity,
My So-Called Life) — a show that I fall in love with and can't live without. My new favorite is
Battlestar Galactica. Wow! It's definitely the best show on TV right now, and could quite possibly end up as one of the best TV shows ever. I keep asking myself how the networks could have passed on something so awesome, and I'm wondering if they even got the chance. With the obsession for mainstream ratings at the broadcast networks, do you think they would have ever allowed
BSG to become the jewel it is now? The story lines are very controversial (gang rape, men and women in the military as equals, promiscuous sex by the lead female heroine, what it means to be human). I think
BSG would have been so watered down by now if it were at a network, it would be unrecognizable. Do you see this as a growing trend, or just an anomaly for some shows?
Answer: Not only would the networks have watered down
Battlestar Galactica and compromised its bold vision into something closer in forgettable spirit to the cheesy original series (think NBC's insipid
Surface, for example), it would almost certainly have suffered a quick demise (think CBS' entertaining, unfulfilled
Threshold). Remaking
Battlestar, first as a thrilling miniseries and then into a dynamic weekly series — which made my Top 10 list as well as the AFI Top 10 list — is something only Sci Fi would have attempted, and cable is generally more hospitable to nurturing creative visions (FX and the pay networks, most notably). Thanks for the timely question, because it gives me another chance to plug the return of the show this Friday with a spectacularly intense two-part opener. If it keeps up this pace,
Battlestar will be back on my (and, I hope, others') list at the end of this year.
