Battlestar Galactica is, at its most basic level, a survival story. I begin with the same line I used to open my review of the miniseries because 1) I couldn’t think of anything else, and 2) That idea applies even more so to this episode, as “33” is a gripping and powerful exploration of a group of people desperate to survive.
“Are you alive? Prove it.”
Battlestar Galactica is, at its most basic level, a survival story. The human race has been stripped down to around 50,000, and over the next 70~ episodes, we’ll get to know a small fraction of that, a group of characters whose worlds are shattered, who are forced to rebuild themselves–and by extension, humanity as a whole–bit by bit, day by day, battle by battle. Where this miniseries succeeds is really delving into our various characters and the places they occupy in the community, and we get a real sense of who they were before and how this situation changes them. BSG isn’t as much interested in telling stories about newfound lands and strange discoveries than it is about a ship and its crew placed into chaos.
