“The idea was, the more naturalistic the environment and the people, the more you can accept it as a drama. And then the science fiction kinda comes in after that: Okay, it is about robots, and its about flying through space, and it is about all these insane notions of identity and immortality and reincarnation through Cylons, and all that sort of stuff. You can accept that once you’ve accepted the world.” —Battlestar Galactica excecutive producer Ronald D. Moore

Battlestar Galactica: Razor came out on DVD yesterday, a little while after it was shown on the Sci Fi Channel and a good month or two after it leaked to the internet. It’s essentially a TV movie, feeling like one really long, really great episode (it clocks in at a little over an hour and a half), but more importantly, it reminds viewers why Battlestar’s such an amazing show.

Which is good, ‘cause after season three’s silly finale, I was damn near ready to write off the usually startling, relevant, and exhilarating Battlestar as having jumped the shark. (I won’t spoil it for anyone who hasn’t seen that finale yet, but let’s just say it involved an unfortunate reliance upon an unfortunate cover of your mom’s favorite Dylan and/or Hendrix tune, “All Along the Watchtower.” It was… rough, shall we say. Or we could also say, “It was fucking terrible.”)

But Battlestar’s rebounded very well with Razor, which is pretty damn great—easily demonstrating that the show’s creators still know what they’re doing, and still have a few surprises in store for the show’s fourth and final season.

Rather than coming after season three's finale, Razor goes back along the Battlestar timeline, filling in what happened when Lee Adama (Jamie Bamber) took over command of the Battlestar Pegasus. For its bulk, Razor kicks back even further, to show Admiral Helena Cain's (Michelle Forbes) command of the Pegasus after the first Cylon attack. (That synopsis, no doubt, is gibberish to anyone unfamiliar with the show. Fair enough, non-nerds; best to stop reading here, and just go watch the first three seasons already.)

One of Razor's timelines is more interesting than the other: While the Adama-era sections have some great moments, it's the flashbacks to Cain's command of the Pegasus that really work, explaining a ton of stuff about the ship and its crew, and giving a lot of weight to events we've previously seen in Battlestar Galactica proper. (Even better is a quick sequence that has a young William Adama, in the first Cylon war, stumbling across a creeeeepy Cylon secret.) There are some astonishing visuals (including a great sequence showing the Cylon attack on the Pegasus), solid acting across the board (Forbes, as the crazy-ass psycho Cain, is particularly good), and yes, even some hot lesbian girl-on-Cylon action. (As much as that phrase sounds like some distressing fanfic hastily written by The Simpsons' Comic Book Guy, it really does make sense in Battlestar's character-driven universe.)

Razor could have felt like a quick cash-in--a way for Sci Fi to make some cash in between the show's seasons. But it isn't; by more or less going back to the series' roots, Razor captures a lot of the themes that made it such a gripping show to begin with--while infusing that drama with all the info, be it about humans or Cylons, that we've learned from subsequent seasons.

(And shit, that reminds me: In a couple of scenes that're surprising enough I'm not even going to detail them here, Razor brings in a couple of chrome-y guest stars who'll delight fans of the original '70s Battlestar series. I can get all sorts of geeky analytical about this type of stuff, but no one really wants that--so I'll just say that it's pretty cool to see. That said, if they stick around past Razor, they--like the series' increasing reliance on mumbo-jumbo mysticism--run the risk of getting really old really quick.)

In terms of special features, there isn't much that's surprising: Commentary by exec producer Ronald D. Moore and writer Michael Taylor; a few puff promo pieces for season four, a blabby sequence in which those involved with the show talk about their favorite episodes. Two standouts: "The Look of Battlestar Galactica," a short doc on the show's beautiful production design and cinematography, and some webisodes originally broadcast on scifi.com. It's an okay DVD overall, but the real draw is Razor itself, which not only reminds us how great the show can be, but should also get viewers stoked about season four. Which, considering that Hendrix business, is no small feat.