One of the great things about science fiction is the opportunity it provides for taking issues and casting them in a new light. Star Trek so often taught parables of tolerance, framing them with Klingons, Romulans, and others in a way that got through to people when the same story told with blacks, Muslims, or gays would have had Americans turning the channel.
Now I know there are some of you that don't have cable, and others who even don't have a TV. Good for you. But I'm telling you, go to a less civilized neighbor and bump them off the couch, because in just the first five minutes of the season opener, BattleStar Galactica has made it clear that they're going to go far, far, far past anything you'd see outside of sci fi.
We Americans, you see, are Cylons.
If you've not followed the show, at the end of the last season the tattered fleet which is all that is left of humanity, was driven by politics (and bad decisions) to establish a new colony on what was thought to be a hidden planet. However, the planet turned out not to be so hidden, and as the last minutes of the season unfolded, the Cylons swept in to force humanity's surrender.
As this season opens, we're four months into the Cylon occupation and the lines being drawn between what's happening on "New Caprica" and what's going on in Iraq are being drawn with thick, bold, and very dark strokes. Already we've seen "insurgents" planting an IED to blow up a group of Cylons. We've seen a human tortured and taunted in a dirty cell while his wife is forced into prostitution. We've seen the former human leader noting that the Cylons are "recruiting humans to act as police for their fellow humans," a tactic she finds disgusting. And we've seen the Cylons debating tactics on ending the insurgency -- including using ever more brutal methods. We've seen a human gleefully kill the Cylon who was holding her hostage.
We've also seen a Cylon leader complain that while they came to bring poor mankind the "word of God," they haven't "exactly been greeted with... oh frack, you know."
This is the first five minutes.
Science fiction can draw metaphors with situations the public finds it difficult to address head on, but this is metaphor as blunt as a tank driving down a dusty road. If you thought "V for Vendetta" drew some uneasy allusions, you haven't seen nothing yet.
I can't believe this show will go unnoticed. If you missed the first showing, it will repeat again at 11 EST.