Last week, the sixth season of 24 made its long-awaited debut after being off the air for over 18 months. Much of the talk surrounding the show’s return centered on how it would reflect the changes that have occurred during its absence. Would Jack Bauer still be torturing our nation’s enemies in Obama’s America? Would Americans still care to watch?
My major qualm with these questions is that they assume 24 was somehow representative of America during the Bush years. Sure, Jack Bauer is the personification of neoconservative ideals, but that doesn’t mean these ideals were representative of America as a whole during that time.
The show that future generations will actually analyze to understand post-9/11 America is “Battlestar Galactica,” which had its season premier on the Sci-Fi Network last week. I have yet to watch a show that has drawn in the larger cultural and political currents of the last eight years, while still maintaining an intricate and nuanced story, like “Battlestar Galactica” has.
The 2003 mini-series that started it all begins with a nuclear holocaust of the human race at the hands of a group of robots, the Cylons, that have rebelled against their creators. The series then follows a rag-tag cadre of humans who escape annihilation, only to be hunted by an enemy that can take on a human appearance and can inhabit any space.
Over the course of four seasons, the series has explored the proper relationship between the military and civilian governments in war time, the implications wrought by a president guided by religious conviction and prophecy, and the ethics of suicide bombing when occupied by a hostile force (the humans were the “good guys,” strapping bombs to their chests)—all with a level complexity and respect for contrasting perspectives seldom seen in its made-for-TV sci-fi ilk.
Perhaps “Battlestar Galactica’s” keenest point in defining the Bush years was its exhibition of the effect a nebulous, open-ended War on Terror can have on every individual. As the series progresses, characters and scenery alike are slowly grinded down until they are shells of their former selves.
Constant fear and threats of impending doom harden every character and callouse their humanity. The human leadership at one point even agrees to use a biological agent to wipe out their Cylon enemies, much like the genocide they suffer at the beginning of the series. Only gradually does it become clear that these people have been mortgaging their humanity in order to save the human race.
At one point a character asks, “Why are we as a people worth saving?” Characters grapple with that very question throughout the series. What’s unclear is whether they will ever find an adequate answer.
The current season, airing Fridays at 10 p.m. on SciFi, will be the show’s last. I recommend beginning with the mini-series and working your way up through what will undoubtedly be an amazing closing chapter.
