Amazing Space

Image credit: Battlestar Galactica Photograph by Gregg Segal

Like most things sci-fi, the original Battlestar had a small but rabid core of fans. So even before the 2003 miniseries aired, Moore's rejiggering of favorite characters and plot points — cigar-smoking alpha male Starbuck is now a woman? Cylons that look like humans? — raised the hackles of the change-fearing online owls. ''When Galactica landed on my table, I cringed, a butt-crunching cringe,'' says Bamber (Band of Brothers), who plays Apollo, the character originated by Richard Hatch. ''It was so of its time. Why do it again? I had remake-itis.'' Sci Fi Channel president Bonnie Hammer, on the other hand, was itching to resurrect the title — and Moore's take was the first in years to jibe with her own. ''It wasn't campy,'' says Hammer. ''You can't create a series that deals with a civilization being threatened and have it be blue skies.''

The fans ultimately bought that logic. The two-parter did so well for Sci Fi — scoring more than 4 million viewers — the network picked it up as a series. Moore, who had previously spent 10 years toiling in the clean-uniformed Star Trek universe, dived headlong into Battlestar's grim alternative reality, weaving together stories of religion-fueled conflict, ugly wartime politics, and sex. ''We go at the same issues [as they do] on 24 or The West Wing,'' says McDonnell(Dances With Wolves). ''There's this docudrama reality brothered with fantasy escapism.''

But sometimes Battlestar's reality can get so intense, the cast longs for a little fantasy. During a ripped-from-the-headlines episode in season 1, Starbuck (Katee Sackhoff) brutalizes a fundamentalist prisoner à la Abu Ghraib. (In one of the show's many sympathy-subverting twists, the humans practice polytheism while their Cylon enemies massacre mankind on behalf of the one true ''God.'') ''I was having nightmares for a week afterward,'' says Sackhoff. Jokes Grace Park, who plays Boomer, a sweet-faced pilot who periodically turns saboteur for reasons even she can't explain: ''This is entertainment? It's like watching a car wreck.''

And this week's pileup is taking a while to film. As the camera crew sets up a complicated shot, half a dozen costumed cast members, waiting to be marooned on the planet Kobol, form a rowdy circle beneath the damp leaves. Park wanders toward the noise.

''What the hell is happening here?'' she asks.

''We're playing the laughing game,'' says Tahmoh Penikett (a.k.a. strapping Lieutenant Helo).

Sackhoff lets out an impressive witchlike cackle. Jamie Bamber draws kudos for his maniacal bellowing. But Mary McDonnell trumps all with a throaty, pained impersonation of her husband.

''He laughs like he broke his rib,'' she giggles. Around here, it seems, any semblance of suffering makes for a good show.