“All of this has happened before, and it will all happen again”
Ronald D. Moore’s reimagining of the 1978 sci-fi series Battlestar Galactica premiered in 2003 and became one of the defining works to tackle the aftermath of the terrorist attacks that occurred on Sept. 11, 2001. The series kicked off with a miniseries where the android Cylons launched a surprise nuclear strike on Earth. Its flawless first episode, “33,” replicated the impromptu memorial and missing-person walls that appeared near Ground Zero. But rather than treat humanity purely as victims of Cylon aggression, the show’s writers explored the excesses of the War on Terror. The U.S. invasion of Iraq loomed large when the season 3 premiere, “Occupation,” first aired on Oct. 6, 2006. Twenty years later, the episode still feels depressingly topical.
Written by Moore, “Occupation” picks up four months after the devastating season 2 finale when the Cylons invaded New Caprica, the planet where the last surviving humans had hoped to find a fresh start. It’s an extremely dark episode as the show’s heroes try to organize a resistance that seems futile given that Cylons can resurrect themselves. Sergio Mimica-Gezzan, who had previously worked with Steven Spielberg on Saving Private Ryan and Schindler’s List, directs the Emmy-nominated episode, which was inspired by both the Iraq War and World War II.
The time jump was far more effective than the notorious “year in Baltar’s hair” in the season 2 finale, where the newly elected President Gaius Baltar (James Callis) leaned back for a moment to mark the passage of a full year on New Caprica.
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