By Joe Gross
Cox News Service/Azcentral.com
July 14, 2005

AUSTIN, Texas - My father often asks: "Why remake some old movie or TV show that was good?  Why not remake terrible things?"  The answers seems obvious: Though rebooting classic material often seems pointless, a lousy concept and execution the first time around is unlikely to work the second.

But the Sci-Fi Channel ignored this logic entirely when it revived "Battlestar: Galactica" and it has paid off in a big way.  Drawing a couple million viewers a week - making it a hit by basic cable standards - "Galactica," which starts its second season tonight, is a well-deserved hit for Sci-Fi, the most entertaining, resonant and enjoyably confusing science-fiction show on television.

A deeply mediocre space opera that debuted in 1978, "Galactica" concerned a convoy of humans who had been driven off their home worlds (called colonies and named after the signs of the zodiac) by alien-robots called Cylons.  A fraction of the population of the 12 colonies survived and, led by the warship Galactica, raced across the galaxy looking for a long-lost planet called Earth.  Hampered by corny scripts but bolstered by nifty space-god mythology (that owed a lot to Mormonism, of all things) "Galactica" was a lousy show with a small, vocal cult.

The new "Galactica" retains the basic plot and some character names from the old show, but fleshes out the world in fascinating ways.

For example, the old show dealt with its post-apocalyptic nature rather glibly.  Here, it has the appropriate gravity, not to mention a heaping pile of post 9/11 resonance.

The humans are polytheists and casually worship the Greek pantheon, while the Cylons, who now look human and have placed sleeper agents within the fleet, are devout monotheists who think humanity has strayed from the one true god.  Sound familiar?

So how does the second season open?  Total chaos.  (Deep breath.)

Commander Adama (Edward James Olmos, stoic as always), military leader of the fleet, has just been shot by Lt. Sharon "Boomer" Valeri, a Cylon sleeper agent.  Adama had declared martial law after finding out civilian President Laura Roslin (Mary McDonnell) sent his best pilot, Starbuck (Katee Sackhoff, sexy and tough) on a mission back to their devastated homeworld Caprica in search of an ancient artifact.  Roslin, possibly delusional from anti-cancer drugs, thinks she could be the messiah, a claim that gains credibility when a fleet shuttle crash lands on Kobol, the colony's legendary homeworld.  Adama's son Lee, aka Apollo (Jamie Bamber, doing a great Tom Cruise impression), is under arrest for supporting Roslin.  The crashed shuttle contains Vice President Gaius Baltar, who seems to be hallucinating a really hot Cylon (model Tricia Helfer).

So Adama might be dead, Starbuck's on Caprica, Roslin and Apollo are in the brig, Adama's alcoholic first officer Tigh is running things, and the Cylons look like us.

Confused yet?  Like any soap opera, "Galactica" is merciless on new viewers - heck, even longtime viewers find themselves lost.  But like HBO's "The Wire" and "Deadwood," the show's complexity is part of its pleasures, rewarding close attention and devout viewing with compelling characters and surprisingly sharp special effects.

Writer/producer Ronald D. Moore has spent the balance of his career tilling the sci-fi/space opera fields on various incarnations of "Star Trek."  He knows the genre inside and out, and has said in interviews that he's trying to overturn space opera cliches. He's done a great job: "Galactica" isn't just for geeks anymore.