I spent the majority of my time at home last month watching, experiencing the entire run of Battlestar Galactica. I saw the miniseries on January 2nd, and somehow I was able to watch 60+ episodes and a tv movie by the end of the month. I was aided in this by not having my normal weeknight/end commitment of roller derby, but still, that’s a lot of TV in one month. But I don’t regret it, because BSG is fantastic.

Battlestar is definitely as good as everyone told me it would be. The writing is tight and unpretentious; the characters are well-defined and believable; the acting is solid ensemble-wide, and there’s a delicious blend between action, politics, personal relationships and thriller-type suspense plots that makes for a very satisfying show. If that wasn’t enough for me, the creator/writer/mastermind behind it is Ronald Moore, who wrote for Star Trek: The Next Generation (during the really good seasons) and penned the movie First Contact, easily two of my favorite sci-fi media ever. This Trek-style moral dilemma writing carries over into a lot of the episodes on BSG, except darker and more tense.

I don’t think you need to like sci-fi to like BSG, but it doesn’t hurt. I feel like, as it goes on, the show reminds me more of Twin Peaks than TNG, with its use of mysticism and visions as means of discovery for the characters. This is actually a good thing, and unlike Peaks, BSG still manages to balance the headier aspects of its plot with a hard, realistic portrayal of the nomadic existence of the Colonial Fleet.

I could go on and on here, but I’ll just leave it at the fact that getting into Battlestar has been totally worth it, and I’m now current with the episodes that are airing, so we may speak about it without fear of spoilers.

Next year’s “watch the whole damn thing at once” show: The Wire.