Oh My Gods! BSG 4 on Shelves in One Week

Human? Robot? Like it isn't obvious.

By the end of Season 3, Battlestar Galactica fans (who refer to the show as BSG, use "frak" as an obscenity, and conclude sentences with "so say we all", what's up, nerds!) had a lot to contend with. If you don't watch the show (and why the frak don't you?) here's where we're at.

Eons ago, us humans invented robots--the cylons--to help us run things. Then, shocking plot twist, the artificially intelligent droids asked themselves why they should take orders, and rebelled. After an ugly war (and a hokey 70s sci-fi serial) the cylons took off, spending the next several decades avoiding us lowly humans. But then, just as it seemed the war could safely be called over, the cylons returned and nuked all the inhabited planets.  The remaining 50,000 or so humans on space ships at the time are now floating around trying to find a mythic planet called Earth to settle on, dodge the cylons, and not kill each other.

For the most part its pretty formulaic sci-fi drama--super sexy people in silver outfits doing battle in space. (A friend likes to point out that the producers somehow dug up the only Playboy Centerfold that can actually act. See above.) And the people who aren't lovely to look at are uber-inspiring, specifically Admiral Adama (played by Edward James Olmos of Stand and Deliver fame) who is relentless with his crew but would happily lay down his life for any of them.

But it's much more than just a drama some indeterminate time in the future, it's a space opera, there's even a little singing. The whole series could easily serve as the subject of a freshman ethics philosophy class. The characters are constantly faced with moral quandaries--when to leave someone behind, who to trust, who to kill--and the characters don't always make the choice your heartstrings tell you they should.

If you haven't started the series yet (and why the frak haven't you?) stop reading now. For everyone else, here's a bit of what to expect from the first half of Season 4:
By the end of Season 3, four people who thought they were humans learned they are not. Instead, they make up most of a quintet of cylons called, cleverly, the five, with mysterious powers. Ethical dramas pepper the next ten episodes over who to tell and whether they can continue fighting on behalf of their human friends and families. (Seriously, the show is some kind of philosophy major porn).

Starbuck (Katee Sackhoff), the female heroine, a kind of prophet-figure who drinks too much, gambles too much, and is beloved by all, dies while Lee Adama (Jamie Bamber), who loves her but can never be with her of course, watches. Meanwhile, Earth, the last great hope of humankind, appears to be getting closer. The cylons who began as communists in space, referring to each other only by their model number, are developing personalities and fracturing.

Season 4 picks up where that leaves off, adding more questions about what it means to lead and love, and begins answering the mystery of Starbuck's relentless quest for Earth. There's also the question of who the 5th still unknown humanoid cylon is. A question the first half of the season leaves unanswered, presumably to force you to watch the second half of the season, which begins Jan. 16. A gaggle of my fellow nerds and I are pooling our cash to buy the friend with the biggest television cable for three months so we don't have to wait for episodes to show up the next day on iTunes.

If you, dear nerd-in-arms, have been keeping up on DVD as I have, Season 4 hits the shelves Jan. 6. You'll only have 10 days to catch up, so waste no time. The boxed season includes a doozey of nerdy extras--lots of speculation about that 5th cylon, which has taken on almost Messianic qualities, and a preview of the spin-off series Caprica. It also includes Razor, the between-seasons movie following Pegasus, another Battlestar crew that survived the initial cylon attack.

Watch it, love it, geek out about it. So say we all.

Battlestar Galactica: Season 4, Universal Studios, Releases Jan. 6, Retail $49.98