Hey, I’m not the one suggesting it; I’m just asking the question after reading these comments from BSG showrunner (and former Star Trek writer) Ron Moore:
I think a lot of Battlestar was born at Deep Space Nine in that Deep Space started as much more episodic because of the nature of the show, it became more a continuing serialised structure. I really liked that, and I discovered I really liked that style of storytelling, and also particularly when we got into the later years of Deep Space, and we started telling the Dominion War story (1997-99), we would sit and argue and fight with the powers that be at Trek about making it a more realistic war, about making it grittier, and ugly; adding more ambiguity to the characters, and roughing it up a little bit, and I kept bumping my head against the strictures at Trek. What Star Trek is could not accommodate things that I wanted to do, so I
started to have this sort of pent up frustration about ‘well if we were really going to do it right’, these ideas would sit in the back of my head so when Battlestar came along, I could now do all of those things that I was never allowed to do at Deep Space.
There’s some sense of “Star Trek couldn’t do what I wanted it to do, so Battlestar is better” in Moore’s comments, I think that feels like it misses the point of Star Trek in some ways – Sure, it couldn’t do a realistic war story that’s gritty and ugly, but… Isn’t that kind of asking Trek to be something entirely different from what it is? Star Trek‘s strengths lie in its ultimate optimism and utopian view of science and the future, and also in a metaphorical approach to dealing with real world problems that inserting a brutality and realism would somehow undermine, surely. It’d be like complaining that 90210 doesn’t allow writers the chance to offer in depth investigations of the inherent corruptions within Baltimore social structure. That’s kind of why we have The Wire, you know?
But reading Moore’s comments hit a nerve. I loved BSG a lot – I even liked the series finale, which I realize makes me somewhat of a social pariah within nerd circles – but I also adore Star Trek so much that I liked all of Voyager and more than is strictly necessary of Enterprise, and I got to thinking: Which show is better? What follows is an entirely non-scientific consideration of the facts of this argument. Your mileage, as the saying goes, may vary.
The Characters
Where BSG really shone was the character work; Moore, along with a host of amazing writers including Jane Espenson, Michael Taylor, Bradley Thompson and David Weddle, created characters that embodied the best and worst of who we are, and made us fall in love with them – even if that love was dirty and wrong and filled with self-loathing (Hey! Just like Gaius Baltar himself). Even when the plots and the mythology failed, BSG‘s characters were strong enough to keep you watching, and carry the show all by themselves. Star Trek, on the other hand, goes for a more plot-centric form of writing, and so the characters are more a collection of archetypes, stereotypes and catchphrases than people you can really believe in. Sure, we all know and love Kirk, Spock, Bones, Picard, even Sisko and whatever the grumpy Doctor on Voyager ended up calling himself, but they were more a means to an end than anything else.
Advantage: Battlestar Galactica.
The Settings
We’d all rather spend time on the Enterprise than the Galactica (Especially if it’s the groovy, colorful 1960s original. Look at that retro futuristic design!); that’s kind of the point of BSG, after all. But even beyond the lure of clean clothes and lack of people dying in the corridors, Star Trek‘s world seems more appealing than even the future metropolis of BSG‘s prequel, Caprica. While Caprica and the Galactica may be more true to life, that brings with it an element of mundanity than even the fantastical “alien” elements – the V-Worlds, Serge the floating butlerbot – feel bogged down by (And don’t even get me started on Pyramid); Trek‘s universe may be as locked into the time in which it was created, and feel appropriately dated now, but there’s just something more attractive about a world where people get around by teleporter or flying shuttle, and use tricorders and phasers to me. Sorry, realism.
Advantage: Star Trek.
The Outfits
Call me shallow, but if I had to compare military chic, Starfleet’s “brightly colored sweater/black pants and cuban heeled boots” combo beats the 12 colonies’ dark blue jumpsuits look any day. Of course, Enterprise‘s crew worse jumpsuits too, suggesting that if humanity hadn’t been nearly eradicated by the cylons, then maybe future Battlestars would’ve been populated by women with beehive hairdos and short skirts.
Somewhere, I have just given someone the idea for some truly terrible Starbuck Photoshopped fan art.
Advantage: Star Trek.
The Threats
It’s harder to get bigger than the complete destruction of the human race, but Star Trek does come back in terms of variety, considering the Klingons, Romulans, Cardassians, Xindi or Borg, amongst many others. But can even the Tribbles measure up to an enemy that looks just like us, has a horrifyingly understandable objective for completely unknown reasons and has already, to all intents and purposes, already won? Exactly. Maybe it was the zeitgeist, but the cylons were far more threatening and, ultimately, winning as villains than any Trek villain ever managed to be, and I say that as one who never really fell for the obvious charms of Tricia Helfer in the same way as, oh, everyone else on the planet.
Advantage: Battlestar Galactica.
That Said…
BSG didn’t have any sexy green slave women who hypnotized me with one freeze frame in the end credits and I never actually saw that episode until years later, post-puberty when it really didn’t live up to my fevered imaginations.
Advantage: Potentially oversharing.
In the end, it’s impossible to choose between BSG and Trek for me. They’re such different shows, trying to do such different things. I can see the connections between Deep Space Nine (and, to an extent, Voyager) and Battlestar Galactica, but any real comparison or attempt to choose which is “better” shifts results depending on what day it is, or what mood I’m in, or any number of ingredients. Now, BSG and Lost… That’s another story.