Yesterday, on the anniversary of 9/11, I listened on my car radio as someone remembered the wall of despair, of photographs and pleadings at Ground Zero: Have you seen my father?… Tragic.
I was an adult when The Original Battlestar Galactica Series (TOS) aired, at a time when we were escaping into innocence. Upon 9/11, I was a grieving adult “suddenly no-longer-as innocent.” Then came the rebooted Battlestar Galactica (BSG) helping us to lean in to consider a darker new world.
Right now, we are no longer leaning in: over six months into the Iran war, I sit back, escaping into confusion as missiles fly at the edge of NATO. And as Congress still has not been “invited,” nor “allowed,” to examine the purpose —let alone ponder the war theory and practice— of the White House electing to send missiles soaring into Iran. If Congress doesn’t know, how can I know? Easy to feel confused, weak, wimping out… but is such a feeling desirable for me? As part of the body politic? At least during TOS we felt innocently strong and confident in our rejection of the world.
On BSG, on the Battlestar Galactica there is a board of despair and photographs along a corridor. Watching the characters walk past that awful wall, I was angry at our former selves, and I wrote an angry essay…
… Battlestar Galactica, is “The best show on television” says Newsday, while the Globe and Mail reports that what BSG does is tackle current issues such as 9/11. It is, it does. A seasoned actor said, “You will never see a show like this again in your lifetime.” What strikes me is how different the show is from The Original Series (TOS) during the late 1970s, post Vietnam. If television reflects society, then our society has surely changed.
TOS was happy and shiny, even “campy.” The new BSG is as dark as night with the two words that win wars: “Yes, Sir.” On BSG people take their situation very seriously: “The war is over. We lost.”
Nobody said that on TOS, post Vietnam. As for viewers and society, none of us were truly saying, “We lost.” No introspection. Even idealists would whisper in their hearts “the army” lost. The army merely called the never-declared war a “conflict.” The schoolteacher’s ROM resource base, ERIC, did not add “Vietnam war” until 1983. Viewers who watched longhaired casual people on a Battlestar were viewers turning away from responsibility, away from war, religion and politics.
Religion? The viewers of TOS sang, “Imagine there’s no heaven.” But in BSG both the humans and their enemy, the Cylon robots, have a religion. Following the Cylon sneak attack, the few surviving humans hold a church service, not a funeral, with bodies laid out in rows in front. Here the survivors, atheists and devout alike, take great comfort …I read that “latte democrats” after 9/11, struggled over the fact that regular Americans, in their grief, craved a religious ceremony.
Politics? The very word gave viewers of TOS a “yuck” face. They knew who Nixon was but not their current alderman or senator. They imagined a “community” devoid of “politics.” Innocent. They couldn’t imagine that in the new Century there would be countries where people don’t just talk and filibuster, but swing clubs and form militias. In BSG there is a clear sense that a healthy society requires a Constitution, and legalities, to hold back the chaos that results when groups oppose the community with their private agenda.
(Note: Today we are allowing the White House enthusiasts for Project 2025 to thwart the Constitution—so many evasions and declared emergencies, including evading the law that only Congress is allowed to start any wars)
The innocent viewers of TOS seemed to lack imagination. They wouldn’t think that extremist combatants could launch giant rockets and cross-border attacks without the “politics” for getting civilian permission. (Hezbollah in Lebanon)…
(Note: Last year DOGE, Department of Government Efficiency, did not even have an official (accountable) department head until some poor lady was appointed while she was away on vacation)
Civilians in TOS were mere background, “a rag tag fleet” (in search of the legendary planet Earth) On BSG the survivors are rebuilding a functional society. A schoolteacher is sworn in as president and commander-in-chief. While staying with the civil fleet —not on the Galactica— she doesn’t blindly oppose her soldiers for being “establishment” and “baby killers.” Not like some people did in the 1970s. I think of her as a one-person Board Of Directors: being there to cooperate and guide as well as lead.
(Note: Today, as for “rebuilding,” some believe the federal work force should be purged, and a president should be legally be given increasingly more power, like unto a king)
(Note: Today a wise Board, pressed for time, leaves the line by line bookkeeping to the executives, and leaves the measurable objectives to them too. Instead, the board’s role is to oversea the hard-to-measure goals and ethics that the managers might neglect. Like how Congress, pressed for time, asks questions of people at the very top of a departmental chain of command)
War? The Galactica, as you may know, is like an aircraft carrier, launching one-person vipers. Societies change during war; a squadron leader changes. At first he ends his briefing to the viper pilots by saying, “Be careful out there.” Then, in private, his best friend gives him hell. “‘Be careful?’ You’re supposed to say, ‘good hunting!’—We are at war!”
Soon after 9/11 I realized we could not turn back the clock. But I never imagined a show like Battlestar Galactica …
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Sean Crawford
Kamloops
September
2026
