‘The opposite of war isn’t always peace…’ Battlestar Galactica was one of the most impressive American telefantasy series of the 1970s, facing down competition from the Star Wars franchise and antipathy from its own network to gain high ratings, a devoted fan following and a spin-off commissioned less than a year after the original had ended. In this book, Alan Stevens and Fiona Moore use behind- the-scenes material and in-depth analyses of both screened episodes and unmade stories to explore how Battlestar Galactica interwove relevant political and religious themes into the traditional space-opera format to produce a television programme that is never less than entertaining and frequently thought-provoking. Like the reimagined series it inspired, the original Battlestar Galactica poses difficult questions about the legitimacy of war, the value of love, the perils of leadership and, ultimately, what it means to be human.