Reality: a special effect

An out-of-the-blue, world-altering attack. Nuclear weapons. Suicide bombers. Tortured prisoners. Faith-based policy.

Sound all-too familiar? The post-9/11 culture, in all its scary ambiguity, gets the full treatment in -- of all places -- outer space as the surprisingly sophisticated remake of “Battlestar Galactica” begins its second season July 15 on the Sci Fi Channel. A marathon of Season One, the cable channel’s highest-rated series in its 13-year history, will start at 10 a.m. Wednesday.

Created in the charged and confusing months of early 2002, the show has managed to energize viewers on both sides of the political debate through its portrayals of inconsistent leaders and unresolved, high-stakes conflicts. In the process, it has also revolutionized science fiction on television, elevating a genre that is often dismissed as cheesy escapist fantasy into the ranks of the most serious prime-time dramas. Indeed, the new “Battlestar Galactica” has won over fans of the original dubious about a remake as well as television critics who like its relevant social and political themes as much as its military hardware and sexy Cylons.

According to “Galactica” co-creators Ron Moore and David Eick, the goal for the show was to create naturalistic, multidimensional characters as opposed to the squeaky clean heroes of traditional sci-fi TV. Rather than advancing any particular political agenda, Moore said, the characters act on the basis of their own deeply flawed natures.

This “Battlestar Galactica” is “designed to make you think, to make you question strongly held beliefs,” he said. “Good people can make bad decisions and bad people can make good decisions. I mean, life is much more complicated than it’s usually portrayed on television.”

Provoking viewers to the edge of discomfort, Eick said, the show also asks, “Are you rooting for the right side?”

For those who need to catch up, the drama follows the human survivors of a nuclear holocaust as they alternately run from and attack the enemy Cylons -- man-made machines that developed the ability to pass for human. Led by spaceship Cmdr. William Adama (Edward James Olmos) and President Laura Roslin (Mary McDonnell), the humans’ hopes hang on reaching a mythical planet called ... Earth.

Despite a cult following and nifty special effects, the original 1978 series never rose above its simple moral lessons and spandex spacesuits. The Lorne Greene original was often called “Bonanza in Space.” In contrast, the new version starring Olmos and McDonnell as deeply flawed military and civilian leaders of a band of space war survivors has been labeled “The West Wing in Space,” and “24 in Space.”

Not directly ripped from the headlines, the plots of the new series still hit the hot-button issues of the day: The president believes her visions fulfill an age-old religious prophesy. The Cylons slip through security with explosives under their vests. The rogue pilot is a woman who tortures prisoners. Everywhere there are shadowy characters, like populist leader Tom Zarek (Richard Hatch) -- is he a freedom fighter or a terrorist?

In the new season, one episode will examine whether a fetus should be used to save a life. In another, a journalist at a news conference challenges the president to answer another reporter’s question before moving on to his own.

“If you look at the original ‘Galactica,’ conceived post-Watergate, it’s almost as though it’s saying, ‘Don’t trust the political leadership, trust in family.’ It was the only thing you could trust,” said Mark A. Altman, publisher of CFQ/Cinefantastique, a Los Angeles-based science fiction, film and TV magazine. “What you have now, as in society, is a disintegration of the nuclear family. You can’t trust anyone. Anyone can be a Cylon.” Since 9/11, that paranoia has increased, he said. “Anyone could be a terrorist. This show does a good job of capturing the zeitgeist in that way.”

On the Internet, the show has sparked much debate between liberals and conservatives. One fan wrote on the scifi.com bulletin board, “Tom Zarek is a cowardly, self-serving toad.” Another wrote, “My only regret is that I cannot vote for him.” A third said Zarek reminded him of too many politicians today: sounds good, but no constructive alternatives and can’t be trusted.

Many saw Cylons as stand-ins for Al Qaeda and the abuse of prisoners as metaphors for Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. “BSG is holding a mirror up to us,” one fan wrote. “If putting panties on their head, piling them up in a gay pyramid or dunking them under water saves the lives of the innocent, I’m all for it,” wrote in another, going beyond the show’s plot.

Aware that some conservatives have criticized the show for a “blame America” attitude and some liberals suggest they’re advancing a right wing, fascistic view of the future, Moore and Eick denied the show is a direct allegory for current events. “The Cylons are not direct analogs of Al Qaeda. Laura Roslin is not a direct analog of George Bush. The Colonials are not a stand in for the U.S.,” Eick said. Still, he said Roslin has made decisions that are “tough and questionable and parallel those of the current president and administration.”

And in some cases, the Cylons come off as sympathetic. “As much as we find reprehensible the agenda of the real enemies out there, you can’t deny they have a point of view,” he said. “Our antagonists are not at all simplistic. In many ways, they are more complex than the good guys.”

The writers called themselves “patriots.” Eick said their approach to the material is “in its own way kind of Middle America. I’m from a red state, Ron’s from central California. There’s not that built-in tendency for traditional liberal Hollywood storytelling. Anytime either of us felt there was overt messaging going on, political or religious or otherwise, we tend to stop that.”

Altman said Moore, a former “Star Trek” writer, has energized the genre in television, not only with contemporary political themes but also with its dark, gritty “Blade Runner” look and documentary feel. “The sci-fi genre evolved less than any other genre of TV,” he said. Ironically, for a genre about the future, it seemed stuck in the past. “What ‘Galactica’ is doing is breaking new ground in the genre.”

Going where no sci-fi TV show has gone before does have its risks, however. “There is the potential for so many missteps if it’s not handled well,” Altman said. The religious elements might alienate some of the audience, for instance, he said.

Some viewers could not abide unpunished bad behavior in the military leaders. “I don’t care to see my heroes purposefully depraved for ratings,” said one Internet writer. “If Starbuck and Apollo [the human rights abusers] are going to behave this way, then I expect them to be held accountable.”

After watching the pilot miniseries, Bonnie Hammer, president of the NBC Universal-owned Sci Fi Channel, told Eick and Moore that a series would work only if it were greatly different from any other sci-fi series on television.

“We needed a true breakout series,” she said. “Something that lived in our world but had a level of importance and gravitas, that went beyond frolicking sci-fi.”

Hammer said “Battlestar Galactica” -- averaging nearly 3 million viewers per episode -- was worthy enough not only to warrant a second season but also an extra seven episodes for a total of 20.

Moore said that in order to make it easy for new viewers to jump in, the writers “wipe the slate clean” every once in a while so that it’s not necessary to have followed the plot from the beginning. Now, Hammer said, “people are seeing the channel and this special series as not just a good cable series, or good sci-fi series, but some of the best drama on TV period.” Time magazine ranked the show among the top six on television.

While other cable networks are busy branding themselves for niche audiences, what Sci Fi wanted was to reach beyond its predictably loyal fan base to the general public, she said. Audiences that made box-office hits of films like “The Matrix,” “Independence Day” and “The Sixth Sense” still have a preconceived notion that “sci-fi on TV isn’t for me,” she said. “We needed to reeducate the public: ‘You do like sci-fi, you just don’t label it that way.’ ”

But the sort of science fiction that presents an idealized world and bright shiny future has lost its appeal in the last few decades, said Vivian Sobchack, professor of film studies at UCLA and author of “Screening Space: The American Science Fiction Film.”

In an era when it’s often a struggle to get clear-cut answers to anything, not just the political situation, the makers of science fiction have changed their approach.

In films, the “Star Trek” franchises have become increasingly political. This year, bloggers found parallels between George Bush and the Dark Side in George Lucas’ “Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith.” Lucas said the story was written before the start of the Iraq war.

Series television dramas have an advantage over feature films in creating complexity, Sobchack said. In a global market, movies tend to favor less dialogue and more simple plots.

What’s more, relationships and complicated characters are given more time to develop in the typical 13 hours of a series compared with two or three hours of a film.

“Battlestar Galactica” can tackle hot-button topics more directly than, say, “The West Wing.”

“It’s a much bigger minefield on ‘The West Wing,’ ” Moore said. “You’re obligated to give both sides a mouthpiece, to be as fair as you can. You’re constantly dodging around certain words and phrases to not send the wrong message. With us, it’s the Cylons and the Colonials. We can do whatever we want.”

Though the topics can be uncomfortable or scary, Sobchack said considering them through the lens of science fiction offers viewers a sense of control. “There’s this sense that watching it, we will all have survived the possibility of this. Looking at what you fear, knowing it, keeps you free.”