Battlestar Galactica is the best damn drama series on television. There. I’ve said it.

The third season premiere is a perfect allegory of contemporary issues, charged with deceit that will enrage you, suspense that will grip you, and duplicity that will shock you. Ron Moore hooked his talons into me, damn him, closing this two-hour premiere with such an unfair ending. We got everything from deceit, the ethics of suicide bombing, revolutionary complacency, the human police corps deluding themselves into fulfilling a duty of betrayal, a fat and soft Apollo, the desperate measures of trust, the most unfair motherhood imaginable, and just too much really.

I’m stunned. Stunned that television can be this smart and ballsy. Really, this thing is the real deal.

[UPDATE: I really shouldn’t be blogging right now, but it seems that various people are really taking the season premiere to heart, claiming BSG to be anti-Iraq propaganda. But is BSG more Vichy France? Or is it pure invention culled from multiple historical and political scenarios? I’m wondering if BSG‘s punch in a relatively gormless television environment is what’s making some of these folks uncomfortable. When a television series comes along presenting a full-blown history, ripe with uneasy streaks of gray and no easy ways out, this must be a shock for anyone prepared to settle for less.]