Battlestar Galactica has started up its third season, and the American war in Iraq is clearly in play. Slate figured this out (thank you for the tip, Jo Ellen!). MetaFilter caught it. It's pretty up-front, what with an insurgency fighting against a putatively well-meaning occupying force, suicide bombings, a collaborating and occasionally secret police force, information operations, and so on.
I'm a bit surprised and disappointed that the religious aspect of the Cylons has been minimized, compared to the previous seasons. That does align well with the American occupation's nominally secular stance, I suppose, but I would like to have seen the armed theocracy developed further. I suspect we'll see a return to that, in response to one Cyclon's faction's, ah, reversals.
We caught the war on terror notes from previous seasons earlier this year. And they're not "hinted", as Slate suggests; it's clearly a show deeply concerned with the war on terror. I can't think of a more interesting, sustained, and powerful cultural representation from American culture. If this keeps up, this "ripped from the headlines" a la Law and Order approach, should we expect an Iran analogue? Maybe a Cylon splinter faction, or a rogue human group, is threatening from afar...
On the Gothic angle, noted by Alana Kumbier as apparent in the second season: the Kara Thrace story worked like a Gothic short story, I think, especially considered in the American home-family vein. Then there's simply fine writing about horror in the classic Gothic tradition, like Tigh's great, quietly delivered ode to terror:
"Which side are we on? We're on the side of the demons, Chief. We're evil men in the gardens of paradise, sent by the forces of death to spread devastation and destruction wherever we go. I'm surprised you didn't know that."
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