Episode Details

Fantasy fiction is about things that never happen

Dragons. Unicorns. Magical portals.

Science fiction is about things that might happen.

Starships. Robot warriors. Faster-Than-Light travel.

But the best fantasy and science fiction is about things that always happen. 

Over and over again. For eternity. 

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Episode 1 of the new Battlestar Galactica, titled “33,” aired on October 18, 2004 in the United Kingdom. 

In an act of revolutionary camaraderie, British fans obligingly served up the episode to their impatient cousins in the US, who wouldn’t officially get it until January 14, 2005, via the then-new, faintly piratical technology of BitTorrent.

“33” would be a tense, gut-wrenching opener for any new show. A fugitive fleet, the last remnants of humanity, is forced to make a faster-than-light jump every 33 minutes, relentlessly pursued by an implacable, genocidal enemy. 

This brutal cycle of flight and pursuit has lasted for five days, running the crew and the narrative to the ragged edge of sanity. The 43-minute runtime of 33 is a masterclass in sustained tension, a claustrophobic portrait of exhaustion, paranoia, and the brutal calculus of survival.

But “33” also captures in miniature the grand, sweeping themes of the entire saga. Mankind is fleeing, again, and again, and again, the machines it created as slaves. This is a cycle that has lasted not just for five days, but for an eternity.

Many questions face the casual viewer. What is this Battlestar? Why is it running? Who is this beautiful blonde woman in the red dress, and how is she here, and here, and also here, inside the head of this sweating, terrified genius scientist?

These are, in fact, the exact questions my girlfriend asked when I made her watch “33,” knowing nothing of the campy, beloved 1978 original, nor of the 2003 miniseries that had served as the true genesis of this rebooted world. She was hooked instantly. We watched all four seasons, the web series, the TV movies.

As should you. Battlestar Galactica is, without reservation, a monumental achievement in televised science fiction. 

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