Battlestar Galactica

Battlestar Galactica is an excellent show with a solid Christian theme, covered in spaceships, robots, and pseudo-Greek mythology. There are no good and evil characters. The show depicts people in fictional but clearly desperate circumstance. The difference between Hero and Villian is based on this. For some characters, death comes unexpectedly before they have time to repent. That’s it. The show buries you in examples of bad guys doing righteous things and people justifying bad actions with righteous posturing. Every villain has a story arc, and all are perpetually placed in a circumstance of being able to choose. Some become faithless, cynical, cruel, addicted in various ways…and the facticity of mortal life is, sometimes there isn’t a tomorrow. But just as many characters do repent, redeem themselves in their various ways…Galactica doesn’t put any character beyond redemption in their momentary choice. It’s a heavy show. But, it isn’t pornographic or voyeuristic. Is slavery real? Is rape real? Do we honor the professional murderers that protect the meek? How do we square that, morally. There isn’t anything in the show that would scare a kid, but there isn’t ten minutes of the show that couldn’t lead your child to ask you a scary question. But, the questions are scary because we don’t have very good answers. Holding your hand over their eyes…it’s not protecting anyone but the parent too squeamish to engage in a mature responsible conversation about facts of human existence. If anything, fantasy sandboxes like Galactica are exactly what you want to watch with your kids. You can help them begin to think using a context that is clearly fictional. It’s unlikely they’re going to worry the Cylons are going to get them after watching the show. If something is too complicated for them, it doesn’t matter. Those are all just simulated traumas.

I watched this show around 2012, when I was twelve. It is mature, dealing with things such as rape, abortion, politics, military organizations, sex in general, genocide, as well as religion and its implications. Season 1 is tame overall, the sex is tame as well, the Pilot which was the mini-series has one mildly explicit scene but can be explained well. Also if your child is 13, you probably should explain the birds and bees. It does have torture of a character that is pretty crude, as well as a suicide bomber. There's also routine execution of people in this show as well. This season also deals with abortion as well, along with the idea of slave labor. Season 2 deals with ideas such as oddly enough ideas of almost immaculate conception, as well as introduces a crew that is highly, HIGHLY in the wrong. There is a separate mini-series during this time called Razor, which explains why to this crew. It has an attempted rape of a character, the psychological and presumed sexual abuse of a prisoner. As well as the execution of one. There is an abduction as well. It also deals with divorce. Season 3 sees an occupation of people and stands in the place of I presume the warsaw ghetto, and see's the systematic execution of political dissidents. This includes one character dying many times in gruesome manners. It also see's people starving, and a character dies from radiation poisoning. Season 4 has a character who commits suicide after losing all hope, and this is when religion really hits hard. So, it's confusing to explain it, and the ending is convoluted. However, this does introduce a mutiny and dream of an assassination. Overall there are really strong characters who are flawed, and some are descent role models like Commander Adama, and even later Six. Also Apollo be one. In general the series is flawless, and deals with these in an expert, not overtly political way. There is no swearing, only frakk in it's place which dates back to BSG 79.