Seminal

There are only a few ground-breaking, seminal SF shows in the history of television.

First off, without question was The Twilight Zone, Rod Serling's master piece of anthology television. You can see the Zone's influence in many movies and TV shows today. The excellent ABC series, "Lost" in many ways plays like one long, huge, Twilight Zone episode.

The next big paradigm shift in SF television was the original Star Trek. The vision of Gene Roddenberry, and the writing of Gene Coon, made Star Trek the bold vision of the future that it was. Star Trek has a magic that is hard to attain.

The next shift came in 1993, when J. Michael Straczynski's Babylon 5 started its 5 year arc. JMS's B5 broke new ground. It was the first SF show to use a multi-year story arc. Story arcs of that type had only been done in British television, and usually not for as long as 5 years. JMS set out to write a novel for television, and he did. It was a true epic. And its vision of the future was a break with the Star Trek mold in terms of the characters. The Trek characters over the decades had become totally perfected humanity. JMS's humans (and aliens) were not. They were conflicted personalities, who underwent tremendous growth in their characters, and they were forever changed from what they were in season 1, by the time season 5 ended.

B5 ended in 1998, and it was not until 2003, that the next seminal shift occurred.

Ron Moore's reimagined Battlestar Galactica blasted on to the sci-fi channel in December of 2003. Season 1 of the series started in January of 2005. Season 2 started in the summer of 2005, with the second half of season 2 returning in January of 2006. Moore show is a bold departure from all previous shows, while building on the great shows and movies before it.

On BSG, the characters are flawed, and imperfect. The struggle is dark, and not the bland optimism seen in the later incarnations of Trek over the years. Moore and his team are not afraid of controversy, and always seeks out the strongest possible emotional resonance in the drama.

It's a bold creation. It's a far cry from the original Battlestar, so much so that after a time, who will even remember the 1978 series?

It will be interesting to see if BSG keeps up the momentum they've built up thus far. Just when you think Galactica could get stale, it gets refreshed, and goes in new directions, that are totally unexpected.

It's the best show on TV, without question.