There are going to be a couple spoilers in here from Season 3 of Battlestar Galactica, so if you are worried about it, stop reading now. Seriously. SPOILERS AHEAD, stop reading now if you don’t want things potentially ruined.
This season, while over all enjoyable, left a lot to be desired. You knew at least one person on the crew would turn out to be a Cylon, and I was pretty sure they’d do the typical TV show formula.. wait until the last moments of the season finale to let you know who. I think it was because people were waiting for that big moment that more people didn’t tune out during what felt like a dragged out season. I am a fan of the character development and interpersonal changes between the characters – it’s something that has helped to set the show apart, but this season it was what pulled the show down. It was like watching a bad Lifetime original movie during moments. We get the fact that the time on New Caprica divided people, and created a lot of emotional trauma. There was no need to repeat the exact same episode, just with a different characters emotional damage week after week. I’ve never seen so many episodes devoted to nothing at all in a sci-fi series and I’ve watched some really bad sci-fi series. Hell, short of a sitcom I don’t think any hour drama has devoted the entire middle part of the season to a long chain of predictable events because everyone is now divided emotionally, spiritually and loyalty-wise. The first two seasons were great at moving along the story, but for the most part in the third season the story came to a screeching halt. There were points I just wanted the Cylons to come along and wipe out the entire whiny lot of them.
My other big complaint has to do with Kara Thrace. The second she died a part of me got angry and it wasn’t because they killed the character; it was because right then and there I knew they were going to do the painfully unsurprising act of making her a Cylon. I didn’t want this to happen – not because I don’t like the idea of her being a Cylon, but they basically telegraphed that they we were going to discover she was one all along. What surprised me more were the other 4 who ended up being Cylons. I’m holding out moderate hope that they go somewhere interesting with this rather than having a string of ten episodes devoted to the deeper meaning of the revelation of who they truly are – I want to watch a good show, not rehash Psych 101.
My last bit of ranting is that this season didn’t have nearly enough big booms. After all the heart of this series is a people being hunted down to the brink of extinction and that’s going to lead to conflict. Not emotional boohoohoo conflict, but “Let’s blow them up!” conflict. It’s not that this season was without it, I just could have stood for a few more minutes of it here and there to break up the monontity of the ever present whining.
Just a Man with a Mash Paddle 