I couldn’t be more excited that the creators of “Battlestar Galactica” are not going to make us wait until next January to get our interstellar fix. Even though the final season won’t be airing until next year, they’ve just announced that a two-part TV movie will air in November (thanks, Fandom, for keeping us in the loop)

Rear Admiral Helena Cain (Michelle Forbes) in command of the Pegasus in “Battlestar Galactica”

If you are not familar with the show, you should be. We’ve certainly talked it up plenty at PopPolitics.

And you don’t have to be a big science fiction fan to enjoy it — because at its core it’s a great story that resonates deeply in our present-day world. As a piece of visual literature, it’s full of well-written, complex characters in continuously compromising situations. And as a gripping allegory, it holds up a cracked mirror to our contemporary political and social life — specifically, the post-9/11 culture of fear, the Bush doctrine and the Iraq War.

If you don’t believe me, take a look at this recent analysis of the resurgence of science fiction and fantasy by Gareth McClean in the Guardian. He argues that “Battlestar Galactica,” with the help of shows like “Firefly” and “Lost,” is responsible for making the genre more relevant than it’s been since, well, its Golden Age.

He begins the piece, in fact, by speaking in awe-inspiring terms of Battlestar’s allegorical power:

It’s not every day that you hear a justification for suicide bombing on an American TV drama - and certainly not one as vigorous and heartfelt as this: “I’ve sent men on suicide missions in two wars now, and let me tell you something - it don’t make a goddamn difference whether they’re riding in a Viper or walking out on to a parade ground. In the end, they’re just as dead. So take your piety and your moralising and your high-minded principles and stick them some place safe … I’ve got a war to fight.”

The fact that the character talking is not some swivel-eyed terrorist but, in fact, a hero - or, at least, what passes for a hero in this TV show’s murky, shades-of-grey universe - makes his speech more surprising still. In a further do-not-adjust-your-set moment, the show in question is Battlestar Galactica. Yes, that Battlestar Galactica.

Somewhat provocatively, McClean sees the “Star Trek” era of the late 20th century — which encompasses many other shows including the original version of “Battlestar” — as a nadir, a time when science fiction narratives, at least those in the popular consciousness through TV and film, were “cheesy” and detached from real life.

The reimagined BSG, as it is now known, is light-years away from its cheesy late-1970s incarnation starring Dirk Benedict, later of The A-Team, and Bonanza’s Lorne Greene. The premise is the same - the last vestiges of humanity are being pursued by the sentient monotheistic robots that they created as labour-saving devices - but instead of cheese, there’s grime, the harsh realities of living hand-to-mouth in space, and some of the sharpest, smartest writing on television. Gone is the comforting binary of “humanity good, robots bad”, and in its place is a universe in which the good guys practise torture and recruit suicide bombers, while the bad guys are devoutly religious, embarking upon a genocidal war in the belief that they are cleansing the universe of corruption.

This is science fiction for the 21st century. What’s more, it’s sci-fi about the 21st century. Fans of the genre have long known that quality sci-fi and its sister genre fantasy hold up a mirror to the times in which they were created, but never before have the TV shows involved seemed so resonant or indeed so influential. Science fiction has never been more now, fantasy never more real.

I would, of course, be remiss if I didn’t attempt to qualify McClean’s argument by noting — as I think he himself implies — that written science fiction during the “Star Trek” period — all the novels and short stories — did not suffer the same fate. In fact, many might argue that with the emergence of such literary luminaries as Ursula Le Guin, Philip Dick and Octavia Butler — as well as the rise of cyberpunk and other dynamic sub-genres — we’ve been in a second Golden Age for awhile now.

And that’s a nice way of transitioning to the fact that this past week we celebrated the 100th birthday of possibly the giant of all late 20th-century giants of the genre, Robert Heinlein. He passed away in 1988 but not before he had established much of the conventions and the controversies that would dominate science fiction narratives up to the present-day.

For a great appreciation, see Brian Doherty’s homage in the most recent issue of Reason Magazine.

One final note. “Battlestar” fans might be interested in knowing that the two-part movie in November will, as executive producer Ronald D. Moore has described it, chiefly explore a backstory — the adventures of the Pegasus before it met Galactica in Season 2. But he promises that it will, in a some small way, help bridge Seasons 3 and 4. Don’t miss the preview.