One of the things I really enjoy about Battlestar Galactica (the new series, not the old, which I am ashamed to say I have never watched), is the increasing moral complexity of the characters.
Yes, the story has some problems. Mostly, the directors of cinematography seem to do a lot of sacrificing realism for the shiny. For instance, flights of pigeons (doves?) on a planet where supposedly every human being has died of radiation poisoning. Umm, dude? There would be no birds. Also, playgrounds in the middle of the woods. Props that are very obviously taken from the American military.
I don't notice most of that, or at the very least, I don't care that much. I'm always in these stories for the story and for the character development.
The characters in BSG evolve in shades of grey, and they never ever fail to inspire and to break my heart all at the same time. They make mistakes, they grieve, they struggle to uphold their ideals in the face of despair and destruction. They cling to their faith, they cling to each other even while they tear each other apart. They flirt with madness, with forgiveness, with the divine.
TV shows are never perfect. They suffer from poor writing, from gaps in the story, from writers' strikes, from any number of things that can go wrong with a show. But BSG has never failed to compel me, to make me care very deeply about what happens to these people. I don't know how many shows have done that for me, but I can say that they are few and far-between.
I'm going to miss this show when it's gone, but I'm not sorry that it's ending with a bang instead of a whimper.
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