20 Years Ago, The Best Modern Space Opera Delivered The Most Badass Scene Ever
It’s barely a debate that the rebooted version of Battlestar Galactica is one of the best science fiction TV shows of the 21st century. And, at this point, it’s been over two decades since this “new” Battlestar debuted on Syfy Channel in 2003 (and you know it’s been a long time, since for most of the run of BSG, the network was still called “The Sci-Fi Channel”). In 2026, Battlestar Galactica doesn’t really need to be designated as the reimagined series, because at this point, as charming and wonderful as the 1978 show is, collectively, most of us think of this version of the franchise when we think of Galactica.
And part of the reason why the contemporary Battlestar is hard to top is that it’s the perfect blend of cool, thought-provoking science fiction, and unflinching, complex social allegory. While rarely on-the-nose or pedantic with its cultural parallels, Battlestar did, very often, give fans exactly what they wanted when it came to awesome sci-fi action. And one example where BSG’s social and political significance was totally eclipsed by sheer badassery was the epic battle in Season 3’s “Exodus, Part 2.” Twenty years after this pivotal episode aired on October 20, 2006, one moment is still burned into our brains.
After a fraught two-part season opener, in which BSG fully committed to the new status quo of most of the characters living on a crummy planet called New Caprica, the two parts of “Exodus” eventually resulted in a massive reset button. By the end of these episodes, humans and Cylons alike left New Caprica, and the spare Battlestar picked up in Season 2, the Battlestar Pegasus, was destroyed.
There’s a lot going on in “Exodus, Part 2,” but everything pretty much revolves around all the humans scrambling to rise up against the Cylons and get to whatever ships are on the ground on New Caprica. Meanwhile, Adama (Edward James Olmos) brings in the literal big guns from space in order to give his stranded people the help that they need. In “Occuptation/Precipe,” which sets up the two-parter of “Exodus,” Adama says, almost to himself, as a promise: “It’s gonna be okay.” This is the moment in which that optimism is tested. And, if BSG ever had a desperate Star Wars-style moment, it comes in this episode, which features an incredible sequence that puts all other audacious starship battle moves to shame.
Essentially, in order to get the Viper fighters launched as close to the planet as possible, Adama jumps the Galactica directly into the atmosphere, and has the massive aircraft carrier of a ship fall into the atmosphere as the starfighters streak out to protect the people below. As Helo (Tahmoh Penikett) says in the scene, the ship is “falling like a rock.”
When the Vipers are launched from Galactica, we get a great line from Hotdog (Bodie Olmos), who says, with a perfect deadpan, “Well, this oughta be different.” For sci-fi fans of other franchises, this scene would be like if the Starship Enterprise warped directly into the clouds of a planet, then started launching X-wings as it nearly burned up in the stratosphere
Today, the spiritual sequel to this kind of scene is Last Jedi’s “Holdo Maneuver,” in which Admiral Holdo engaged the faster-than-light engine as a kind of ramming weapon. What BSG does in this scene, instead, is to push the naturalistic boundaries of the show’s aesthetic by really making you worried that the Galactica could be seriously damaged by basically warping into the atmosphere. There’s no real equivalent of a Scotty-type character on BSG, but you can imagine that person was pissed at Adama when this happened.
While the rest of this episode is great, it did set up a somewhat uneven run of episodes that followed. BSG had never done action sequences like this, at least not on this scale, before, and in some ways, the events of “Exodus, Part 2” feel more like a season finale than the start of a new season. (Though with today’s shorter TV seasons, this episode would already be almost halfway through certain contemporary runs.)
The point is, showrunner Ronald D. Moore didn’t hold back this idea and save it for later, which only suggested to fans that there was no stopping BSG after this moment. Director Félix Enríquez Alcalá was nominated for an Emmy for this episode, while writers Bradley Thompson and David Weddle delivered some of the best work of their careers. Which is saying something: the pair worked with Moore on Deep Space Nine, and more recently have penned episodes of For All Mankind.
With “Exodus, Part 2,” these artistic collaborators are at the height of their powers. Battlestar Galactica nearly always felt essential, original, gripping, and enthralling. But, with this episode, with that specific scene in general, the show also reminded us all that it was deeply cool. As the show went on, there were certainly bigger twists and some shocking revelations, but did the show ever seem as cool as this moment? Maybe not? So say we all?