As american audience start watching season 3 of Battlestar Galactica, one wonders whether the sci-fi series will gain wider popularity seldom achieved by sci-fi series.

source: http://news.cincypost.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061006/LIFE/61006...

'Galactica' transcending sci-fi

By John Coffren
Baltimore Sun

"Battlestar Galactica" may be headed where no space opera has gone before, rocketing through the glass ceiling to be recognized as (gasp!) drama.

Like a handful of science fiction works - think Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" or George Orwell's "1984" - the reworking of the campy 1978-79 television series, which begins its third season at 9 tonight on the Sci-Fi Channel, may transcend its genre.

Since last season, "Battlestar," which depicts an epic struggle between humanity and the Cylons, a race of robot zealots, won a Peabody Award and was nominated for three Emmys. It was ranked No. 4 last spring in two Entertainment Weekly TV polls and was featured in September on the magazine's cover. And "Battlestar" cast members appeared last month in a fashion layout published in Maxim.

Nonetheless, though flattered by the attention, the show's creators say they're staying true to their roots.

"As much as I want it to be a drama set in that (mainstream) universe, it is a science fiction series," writer/producer Ronald D. Moore said. "I still want to play in that world."

"Occupation/Precipice," Friday's two-hour season premiere, will launch what may be the show's riskiest storyline: a complex narrative that to some extent humanizes the villainous robotic Cylons by fleshing out their culture.

In previous seasons, "Battlestar," which typically attracts 3 million weekly viewers, primarily has focused on the human characters as they fight to avoid extermination.

But "it was starting to feel to me like we were getting in a comfort zone with the audience where they're not really sweating it when the Cylons show up," Moore said. "So we took the leap forward, and we colonized a planet, put them (humans) under occupation, changed the motivation of what the Cylons are about, what they want from humanity.

"It was really a way to shake up the show."

Longtime fans nonetheless may rest assured. The show will retain much of what has worked for it, including 9/11 motifs and its contemplation of contemporary society as viewed through a sci-fi prism. (The war in Iraq gets the full treatment in the season opener.)

"The humans, the Colonials, do things like Islamic radicals at times, but they also do things like American soldiers. So we try to mix it all up and not make it a one-for-one allegory," producer David Weddle said. "It takes (contemporary issues) and makes them timeless."

"Battlestar's" success may spawn a spinoff titled "Caprica," co-written by Moore and still awaiting approval from the Sci-Fi Channel. In the meantime, Weddle and Moore are hoping to leverage critical acclaim into a bigger audience.

"We're trying to ride that as best we can to bring in new eyes," Moore said. "We think there is a big, untapped audience for the show out there."

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