The first episode of Battlestar Galactica’s Season 4 (“He That Believeth in Me”) dove headlong into the deepest rooted beliefs and traditions of Christianity, and who knows where it will all end up. The title is taken from a verse in the Book of John, Jesus’ declaration that “I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness.”
Religious overtones are not new to BSG, and were apparent even in the original BSG series. The flight of humankind and search for Earth is a retelling of one of our oldest stories — the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt. (Remember the old pilot helmets, which resembled the Egyptian head dress that adorns the Sphinx?) And let’s not forget that humankind was divided into 12 planets, just as the Jews were divided into 12 tribes.
The exodus continues in the new series (the Cylons attacked after 40 years of peace — 40 is a Biblical number, the same number of years the Jews wandered in the wilderness looking for the promised land.) A promotional photo for the start of the new season features many of the main characters in a rendition of DaVinci’s “The Last Supper.” And Gaius Baltar’s character and his mind’s-eye Six have taken on Messianic qualities, in a disturbing sort of way.
Anyway, in this episode, I thought the Baltar storyline was advanced a bit with his “rescue” by the “cult of Gaius.” The whole pseudo-messianic story line around Baltar is intriguing. I mean, here’s this decidedly un-Christ-like character to whom “Christ-like” things keep happening. Recall Apollo’s soliloquy from the witness stand in which he talked about sending Baltar out the airlock with the hope that all of the fleet’s “sins” would go out the airlock with the weasel. Now we have him healing a sick kid, but he’s really just following the prompts from Six, sort of going along with the joke, not really believing any of the stuff he says.
It’s interesting that we haven’t seen the Cylons’ reaction to the “red eye” retreat. I wonder what they thought when the attack was suddenly called off. Ya know, even though we’ve been told the Cylons “have a plan,” I’m not sure that the Cylons themselves know what the plan is – at least not the skinned Cylons that we’ve seen so far. It’s almost as if they’re waiting for something to play out to see what happens. Do they know that “four” are in the fleet and what do they think it means that the attack was ended? What if none of the four had been in a fighter?
There are so many other Biblical under/overtones to the whole story. I’ve already mentioned the Exodus. Maybe it’s the Cylons themselves who have on an Exodus, waiting for a chance to find Earth, the promised land. For the humans, Adama makes a great Moses, and will probably never see Earth himself — or is Laura Roslyn “Moses?” She seems to have the strongest vision that Earth is where they need to go.
Because she’s seen Earth, is Kara John the Baptist? Apollo makes a great Peter, always impetuous and following his heart.
I keep thinking about the paradigm shift we had in Babylon 5 when the Vorlons became “order” (not “good”) and the Shadows became “chaos” (not “evil”). What similar paradigm shift awaits us with Cylon vs. Human? What happens when everyone realizes that Heaven/Earth/Nirvana/God is both right in front of us AND unattainable?