1) EXPLORERS vs. REFUGEES

Gene Roddenberry called it “Wagon Train to the Stars.” We know it as “boldly going where no man/one has gone before.” Our thirst for exploration is powerful, and it has led to many excellent narrative fictions. One could argue that the whole genre of science fiction arises from the human instinct to explore the unknown.

The problem is, exploration as a narrative carte blanche is not as satisfying as a story with a specific goal. BSG has its share of exploration: in the pilot episode, the convoy declares their intentions to travel “beyond the red line” into uncharted space. But they’re not trekking out there for the sheer thrill of discovery. The stakes are much, much higher; they have lost their homes, their families, everything they know. They’re trying to find a new home, in the form of the legendary planet called Earth.

In Trek’s history, only one series employed this narrative technique: Voyager, a show about a Starfleet ship that gets transported 75 years across the galaxy, and has to search for a shortcut back home. The stakes were high for this series, and in its earliest days, it showed more promise than any other Trek franchise. Alas, it quickly reverted to the Trek formula; its writers and characters seemed to shrug and say, “Oh well, we’re out here in the middle of nowhere. We might as well explore.”

There’s another problem with Trek’s formula. In a post-colonial age, exploration often seems a lot like invasion. “Wagon Train to the Stars” evokes the pioneer ethos, complete with manifest destiny. Because of the thorny ethical issues raised by this approach in TOS, the TNG writers felt they had to implement a non-interference policy (The Prime Directive). And that meant even less interesting stories. Because how can the stakes be high for characters who don’t even consider themselves involved in the action?

2) STARFLEET vs. GALACTICA

Writers of TNG, DS9, and VOY were constantly handicapped by the Prime Directive. You could tell that they wanted their Starfleet captains to act like Kirk, stepping into dangerous alien situations because it was the right (and the dramatic) thing to do. But this raises another problematic issue with the Trek series. Is Starfleet justified in messing about in other species’ business? Isn’t that a little bit like certain superpowers invading other countries and influencing their politics with a show of military force?

Starfleet was always a paradox for Trek writers. They didn’t want to give their heroes militaristic mentalities…and yet, they obviously wanted them to have enough cool phasers and photon torpedoes to be able to win the day. The result was a quasi-military institution that got away with more than it should have on most occasions, especially considering the Prime Directive.

BSG writers seemed acutely conscious of the ethical dangers of having a military juggernaut charging around the galaxy, imposing its will on every planetoid it meets. But instead of trying to whitewash it, the way Trek writers did with Starfleet, they made the Galactica unavoidably militaristic…and then they set Galactica’s commander up with a non-military counterpart, President Roslin. The gap in perspectives and policy between Commander Adama and the pacifist president put all these ethical quandaries squarely in view of the audience…and, especially in Season One, resulted in some of the greatest political sci-fi in decades.

3) EXTERNAL THREATS vs. INTERNAL CONFLICT

The tension between Adama and Roslin would not have been sustainable in early incarnations of Trek, because of one of Roddenberry’s overriding policies about future societies: everybody gets along. Roddenberry was a humanist and an idealist, and he wanted Trek to reflect that vision. Thus, in the 24^th century humans don’t argue about race, or gender, or religion, or…well, anything. They just don’t argue.

Even when I adored Trek, I always thought this was a pretty dubious step in human evolution. But the real problem was, it left the various Trek crews without any potential for conflict…and, I’m sorry, Gene, but conflict is the heart and soul of good storytelling. Trek writers had to look outside their crews for conflict and threats. In TOS and TNG, this meant that characters were routinely being possessed by alien ghosties, or infected with viruses that made them fight—but only until the crisis was resolved, after which they’d have a laugh about the whole thing and warp off into the sunset.

Later series attempted to bend Roddenberry’s vision, but it was too deeply ingrained in the ethos of Trek. Thus, Voyager’s crew was originally comprised of both orderly Starfleet officers and chaotic rebel agents called Maquis. A great recipe for strife and conflict…for about five episodes. If long-term conflicts ever did arise, you could rest assured that both combatants had honorable reasons for failing to see eye to eye.

BSG’s characters are frakked up. Their flaws define them, and they sometimes become so embroiled in internecine conflicts, they forget all about their common enemy, the Cylons. What’s more, they are unpredictable, and don’t always fully understand why they need to fight (understandable, if you’ve just lost everything you hold dear). When external threats arise, they usually do rally together. But on any given day, they remain more dramatic characters than even the loosest of Trek’s cannons.

4) CHEERFUL IDEALISM vs. CAUTIOUS REALISM

Seeing the future through Roddenberry’s rose-coloured telescope created another narrative challenge for the Trek creators. If science fiction is an imaginative mirror, reflecting our own cultural concerns and preoccupations, then Trek had to find ways to comment on those issues without directly implicating their ethically superior 24^th century humans. Once again, these issues usually came from other parts of the galaxy; for example, racial discrimination did not exist on the Enterprise, but Kirk found it on a planet of half-black, half-white people (“Let That Be Your Last Battlefield”). And when TNG and DS9 clumsily attempted to address same-sex relationships, the homophobia usually came from outsiders, not from the series regulars.

The problem with this approach is, it makes complicated issues very black & white (no pun intended). The undesirable attitudes (racism, sexism, homophobia) come from guest star characters, whose perspectives usually appear woefully ignorant when compared to the enlightened, civilized starship crews. There were rarely attempts to see these complex cultural issues from more than one angle. As a result, many episodes (especially in TOS) felt preachy and dismissive.

Since BSG’s recurring characters are flawed, they can exhibit, explore, and sometimes overcome these cultural challenges themselves. So far, they have grappled with issues such as racism, the treatment of prisoners in wartime, labour unions and child labour, POW torture, genocide, and suicide bombing. Let me emphasize: they haven’t stumbled upon these issues while exploring the galaxy; they live these issues, and they don’t always make the decisions we’d prefer.

This is, I think, a cautiously realistic approach to human evolution. It may not be as inspiring as Roddenberry’s future, but it performs an equally valid task: it reflects our own struggles and ethical quandaries in honest, thoughtful ways. The inspiration comes when the BSG crew (hopefully) comes out OK in the end, and we say, “Gosh, if people that frakked up can still make their future work out, then maybe there’s hope for us all.”

5) SERIES vs. SERIAL

Of course, this difference takes us back to Point Number One, because the BSG crew is actually in the process of making their future, whereas the Trek crews are already living in the future. In order for them to live happily ever after, they simply have to ensure that the status quo returns at the end of each episode. This form of storytelling leads to a series of episodic, self-contained narratives, as opposed to what’s called a serial—an ongoing, changing storyline with only one ultimate ending.

The Trek shows were mostly created as series due to the economic realities of television. In order to be valuable as syndicated properties (ie. as re-runs), Trek episodes had to be interchangeable and rearrangeable. In later Trek franchises, larger story arcs were added, but they usually took a back seat to the narratives du jour presented each week. In Season Three of Enterprise, the writers did attempt a season-long story arc; but they reverted to shorter story arcs in Season Four, presumably under pressure from their network.

BSG is a serial, not a series. This is partly because its narrative has a terminus (ie. reaching Earth), and partly because of TV’s changing economic landscape (witness the success of other serial shows like Lost and 24, coupled with rising DVD sales). Why does this make it better than Trek? It allows for a deeper and more elegantly paced narrative to develop. It rewards attentive viewers by bringing plot points back after many episodes have passed. And it allows for characters to evolve along with plots—a deficiency that made even the best Trek characters incredibly boring after awhile (so Data’s quest for humanity stagnates for seven seasons, until he suddenly gets emotions in the feature films).

I admit that this preference may be personal. Some viewers may prefer smaller, self-contained storylines that don’t require you to scrutinize every single episode. But even casual viewers must surely agree that there’s nothing quite so satisfying as the successful execution of…

6) CLIFFHANGERS 

In 30 years, Trek had only one truly awesome cliffhanger. When Locutus of Borg turned his glaring red laser pointer at the Enterprise crew and said, “Resistance is futile,” and when Riker gave the order to fire on his recently assimilated captain, we all held our breath. How could we wait the entire summer to see how TNG would resolve this unparalleled crisis?

Mind you, the series was still relatively young (the end of Season Three), so it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that they might actually write Captain Picard off the show. Later, we realized the truth: as in all episodic series, the “Best of Both Worlds” cliffhanger meant that our sense of happily-ever-after was only briefly suspended. We learned not to take Star Trek cliffhangers so seriously. And they never did manage to top Locutus. 

The BSG writers, on the other hand, seem infinitely resourceful when it comes to crafting cliffhangers. They come at the end of each season, and once or twice mid-season, too. Often, they will pile multiple nail-biting events on top of each other, to simulate the sense that the whole BSG world is just about to crumble.

And guess what? Since BSG is a serial, not a series…sometimes the world does crumble. Major characters die. Human characters are revealed to be Cylons. In one of the show’s most astonishing moments, an entire year goes by in a single jump cut…and, in a heartbeat, everything (including Lee Adama’s waistline) has changed. 

Because the writers know how to write gripping cliffhangers, and because the audiences cannot rely on the series structure to restore everything to happily-ever-after, watching BSG is frequently a stressful, draining, and mind-blowing experience. I love every minute of it.

7) TECHNOLOGY vs. TECHNOBABBLE 

When the BSG execs wrote their series bible, they included a small, ingenious detail that would affect the way technology is handled on the show. The series is set 40 years after a war with artificially intelligent androids called Cylons. In order to protect their ships from viruses and other forms of electronic invasion, the military made the technology on their battlestars deliberately retro: no networked computer systems, no wireless transmissions.

Not only does this make good sci-fi sense, but it also gives BSG a different technological aesthetic than practically any of its television predecessors (the only one that springs to mind is the short-lived cyberpunk series Max Headroom). Most of the technology on the ships look retro even by our standards. There are big, clunky phones and hand-drawn star-charts, and the battles are fought with nukes instead of phasers. Despite the size of the Galactica’s command centre, one often feels like the series is unfolding inside the pressure cooker of a WWII submarine—a much different atmosphere than the bright, plush interiors of most Trek ships. 

Even if you don’t relish the old-timey feel of the series, you’ll probably be glad that the writers eschew technobabble. Problems are never, ever solved by rerouting the diatronic converters from the plasma coils into the deflector array. When fantastical technologies are employed (eg. the FTL, or Faster-Than-Light drive), they are used only as conventions to forward the plot. The series rarely dwells on them, the way Trek often did.

Some viewers might miss the whiz-bang technologies of the transporters and the holodecks; but more often than not, Trek writers used those technologies in irrational ways, to create and/or resolve narrative problems (How many TNG episodes began with holodeck malfunctions? Why did they keep using the damn things?), whereas BSG writers have no choice but to stick with accessible, character-focused stories.

8) CYLONS vs. BORG

One area where BSG arguably falls back into technobabble is the Cylon menace. These inscrutable cyber-organic villains recall the Body Snatchers of the 1950s and the Terminators of the 80s and 90s. They are alien, they are machines; yet they are us. Their methods of communication, transportation, reproduction, and even reincarnation, are fraught with mystery.

In the Trek universe, the Cylons’ closest cousins are the Borg. They are both partly robotic, representing our fears of technological assimilation. They are both collective consciousnesses, signifying our fear of losing our identities and individuality. And, like the Borg in later episodes, they have individual dissenters within their infinite ranks, some of whom become allies of the persecuted humans. 

Yet something very interesting distinguishes the Cylons from the Borg: we created them. This detail did not come from the original BSG series; Ron Moore added it, perhaps to implicate the humans more fully in their own persecution (this is one of many plot points that makes BSG a terrific post-9/11 sci-fi narrative). The poetic notion of humanity’s having created our own downfall is as old as storytelling; indeed, it is such a compelling archetype that Trek fans crafted an apocryphal origin story, pointing to V’Ger (in Star Trek: The Motion Picture) as the human contribution to the Borg’s genesis (this version of events also appears in the non-canonical video game Star Trek: Legacy).

After four or five solid episodes (and one fine feature film, First Contact), the Borg seemed to lose steam. Unfortunately, the writers never found another alien race as intriguing or horrific. BSG continues to surprise and delight viewers with unexpected revelations about Cylon technology, society, spirituality, and even sexuality. 

9) REPRESENTATION OF FEMALE CHARACTERS

Considering Roddenberry’s humanitarian vision, this is something that Trek took a long time to get right. Even if one overlooks the miniskirts and workplace discrimination of TOS, the more recent series still had trouble elevating their female characters above stereotypical gender roles. One look at Counselor Troi’s inappropriate attire (see Seasons One through Six of TNG) tells the whole story. 

There are some exceptions—Captain Janeway, Commander Kira, and Tasha Yar, who bore some resemblances to BSG’s Starbuck before her early death—but from TOS right on down to Enterprise, one gets the sense that the final frontier is very much a male environment, and while women are tolerated and occasionally celebrated, they do not have equal ownership of the future. Maybe this is partly because space is nasty and brutish, but most women, underneath their Starfleet uniforms, are sensitive creatures who just want to be loved.

I suppose the women on BSG also want to be loved…but they sure have funny ways of showing it. Right from the pilot episode, when Starbuck (genderbent from a male character in the original series) decks her executive officer in a poker match, you can tell these women are not going to fit into any comfortable stereotypes. By the time you meet Admiral Cain in Season Two, you have no doubt that she’d snap Captain Janeway like a toothpick before she had a chance to fix her hair. Space is tough? These gals are tougher.

President Roslin is a perfect example of the kind of complex, inspirational-yet-challenging female character that Trek could never quite pull off. She’s gutsy enough to overrule Commander Adama and put Baltar in his place; she’s sensitive to people’s emotional needs, yet she’s capable of making utterly ruthless command decisions; meanwhile, she’s grappling with her spiritual destiny and dealing with breast cancer. 

I think science fiction in particular has a responsibility to show characters who break out of traditional gender expectations. Trek creators spent decades trying to do this, and I commend them for their efforts. Yet, once again, BSG seems able to overtake right from the starting gate.

10) SEVEN OF NINE vs. NUMBER SIX 

And now, to cheerfully undermine everything I’ve just written about the need to deconstruct gender stereotypes about female characters in science fiction, let me just say this: Jeri Ryan? A seven out of nine. Tricia Helfer? Praise the Lords of Kobol!

Actually, you can take your pick—Katee Sackhoff, Grace Park, Kandyse McClure—or, if you don’t fancy any of the ladies, look to Jamie Bamber. BSG is a scrumptious cast. They make Voyager’s efforts to appeal to the adolescent male viewership (“I know! Let’s add a busty Borg in a jumpsuit”) seem neutered by comparison. 

If you’ve made it to the end of this epic, I’m honored—and a bit relieved to know there are others even geekier than I. Please let me know what you think. Next time: is Lost really better than Gilligan’s Island? (Spoiler: Yes).