20 Years Ago, the Best Sci-Fi Show of the Century Delivered the Most Epic Space Battle in TV History
The article revisits the rescue of humans from Cylon occupation in Battlestar Galactica’s “Exodus, Part 2”, first broadcast 20 years ago. Admiral Adama’s daring manoeuvre, sending Galactica plunging into New Caprica’s atmosphere to launch fighters, remains a landmark television spectacle, but the article argues that Pegasus’s destruction is even more striking. The battle also ends the New Caprica storyline and restores the show’s central premise of humanity’s survivors searching for Earth.
“Exodus” was originally planned as one episode, but its many plotlines and costly production led the creators to split it into two parts. Part 1 builds tension through the resistance’s preparations and the characters’ choices; Part 2 brings the uprising and rescue to a climax. After Galactica is damaged and surrounded, Lee Adama uses Pegasus to buy his father time, evacuates its crew, then rams a Cylon basestar; the explosion sends debris into another, helping decide the battle.
- Galactica’s atmospheric plunge became an iconic television manoeuvre.
- Pegasus’s sacrifice delivers the battle’s decisive blow.
- The two-part rescue closes the New Caprica occupation storyline.
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Battlestar Galactica is a science fiction television series about humanity's last survivors fleeing enemy machines called the Cylons. The show focuses on a fleet of civilian and military ships searching for a legendary planet called Earth whilst being hunted by Cylon forces.
The show's characters eventually landed on a planet called New Caprica, hoping to establish a settlement. However, the Cylons discovered them and occupied the planet, prompting a resistance movement to organise a rescue operation.
The episode "Exodus, Part 2" depicted the military rescue of the human colonists from Cylon occupation, centring on a major space battle involving the fleet's two largest warships. The battle concluded the New Caprica storyline and returned the surviving humans to their mission of finding Earth.