RDM’s Battlestar Galactica Reunion Pilot ’17th Precinct’ Review
I, along with every other BSG fan in the ‘verse squealed with joy when word got around that Ronald D. Moore would be working on a pilot that would reunite Battlestar Galactica alum Tricia Helfer, James Callis and Jamie Bamber. Our hearts were equally crushed when NBC passed on the pilot set in a modern world where magic reigns and followed the detectives that investigate crimes. Recently the pilot popped online and we got a peak into the world that could have been.
**The pilot was leaked online but during the writing of this review it was pulled. If I find another working link I will add it. If you find a link please let me know in the comments or email me at sara [at] g33kpron.com **
I really enjoyed the pilot of 17th Precinct. It left me wanting to learn more about the world they live in, the characters who inhabit it, the looming battle with The Stoics, the yet unseen underground terrorist group set on destroying the magic based society and starting fresh with concepts such as rationality, reason and something called science as a basis of their system.
The hour did feel a bit rough around the edges, introducing the rules of a universe that is like yet unlike our own, at the same time as all our characters and the story is a difficult task that occasionally results in some heavy expository dialogue, but nothing too harmful to the feel of the plot.
17th Precinct was set up as a show that could easily shift from case of the week procedural to overarching story within one episode on a regular basis allowing us to explore the world, our characters, and the dark prophecy that is said to be coming in the form of the Stoics.
Eamonn Walker is brilliant as Wilder Blanks, the intuitive savant who wrestles with the burden of his intuition as a tool for evidence in fighting crime. He is the centre of the precinct as well as the primary savant who is connected to the visions of the stoics, pieces of what to come. He darkly references what happened last time, it has happened before, and it will happen again (see a relation BSG fans?).
Tricia Helfer’s role as necromancer (this world’s equivalent of a medical examiner) is small in the pilot, she is cool, collected and about a foot taller than most of her fellow castmates. She is also in a relationship with Wilder Blanks, the details of which we had yet to explore.
Then there is the Jamie Bamber, James Callis crime fighting duo. They play off each other nicely (but we already knew that) as the primary detectives in homicide. Bamber unfortunately is relegated to an American accent which sounds shaky in the beginning of the hour but seems to find itself by the end. Again, this is a pairing I would love to see more of.
Stockard Channing, comes to the force in one of the more uncomfortably “typed” roles as Det. Sergeant Mira Barkley, the seasoned cop who works alone. Fortunately her pairings would have had great payoff if the show had been given a chance. She seems to have a rocky history with the precinct’s second in command, Lt. Liam Butterfield (Esai Morales), who was formerly Lisa. The two spit insults back and forth like old rivals, a relationship that would certainly warren some exploration.
Blanks pairs Det. Barkley with a rookie (of course) who happens to also be an intuitive savant just discovering his powers. In what may have been the most poignant moment of the episode, Barkley explains to her young partner what he is seeing, the danger that nothing in their society is capable of fighting. The mysterious murder weapon, and the trademark of the Stoics, a bullet.
From the pilot it’s obvious that 17th Precinct had a lot of story to tell, and it’s a shame we didn’t get a chance to see it play out. I would have loved to see RDM take on the battle between the society and the stoics armed with that stellar cast.
What do you think of the pilot? Would you have watched it as a series?
