REVIEW - Battlestar Galactica season 3 (2007)

THE ZONE now has my review of the third series of BSG. 

It also has links to my reviews of the first and second series.

Go forth and read...

Comments

[A.R.Yngve]

Review quote:
"As evidenced by the amount of alcohol that gets drunk on screen, [...]"

What with the chronic shortages of just about everything on the convoy of ships, where DO they get all that booze??

OK, OK, artistic license.

Still, you could make the issue of scarcity a real part of the BSG plot: how to keep people from starving, how to recycle, how to prevent anyone from hoarding...

Speaking of scarcity: if there were more quality sci-fi shows on TV, people wouldn't praise BSG nearly as much... it's praised because there's so little competition.

[Jonathan McCalmont]

Well to be fair, if people in prison can brew their own booze, I suspect that the fleet can pull together bathtub gin. It's the cigars that I find problematic.

I think you're right that people praise it because there's so little competition. That and because it's really good at pretending to be really intelligent and deep while actually being a bit silly.

[Patrick H]

"I think you're right that people praise it because there's so little competition. That and because it's really good at pretending to be really intelligent and deep while actually being a bit silly."

I think both those are true for a lot of F/SF. I think it was Robert Stack who, upon winning the Emmy for best TV actor, said (somewhat unfairly) something along the lines of "This is what it feels like to be the world's tallest midget." Sometimes I look at the Hugos or the Nebs and think "There goes the world's tallest midget!"

P

[Jonathan McCalmont]

That's a trifle unfair (especially as BSG didn't get the Hugo... "nearly the world's tallest midget"?). I think a lot of modern TV falls into the trap of trying to be profound while in fact being hokum... post series 2 Six Feet Under and post series 1 Sopranos to name but two.

TV can and occasionally does do depth. BSG's writers are just good at making something look like it's deep without it actually being so.

[Franky]

Watching a once-great series lose its way is always painful - I felt the same about "Earth final conflict". BSG was once a realistic depiction of the remnants of a society running away from an implacable enemy. It's become a strange combination of emotional soap opera and opaque metaphysics, with ever-widening holes in the plot. (The writers have some serious explaining to do about these "final five". And why the hell wasn't Baltar's collaboration with the cylons *after* New Caprica even mentioned during his trial ?!)
All we can hope for is a return to more continuity during the 4th and final season, as the writers bring the show to its conclusion.
I have to disagree with your analysis of Chief Tyrol, though. Tyrol is a union man, but he is first and foremost a soldier, and soldiers obey orders. So I think he really agonises over his decision to call a strike. And the reason why he "bears no ill will" towards Adama is that Adama grants him an audience with the President immediately afterwards, and that his revendications are finally satisfied.

[Patrick H]

I've never watched more than a few episodes BSG, it was a general comment on "serious" SF.

"TV can and occasionally does do depth. BSG's writers are just good at making something look like it's deep without it actually being so."

Oh, absolutely, I think Frank Stack was self-deprecating to the point of self-hatred. I guess he wanted to be Brando, but there's all sorts of acting and actors. Is Ewan McGregor really a better actor than, say, Julie Goodyear?

Similarly, in SF, is Silent Running (say) better than Star Wars just because it's all serious about the man and shit? I that this question (or a variant thereof) is the one that ultimately led us to the dreary pre-quels, although that's partly a function of his film-school background, I guess.

P

[Jonathan McCalmont]

Franky -- As a frenchman, you should know better than most that unions tend to have permanent professional heads. Tyrol got 5 minutes with the president and a pat on the back and then it was never mentioned again. The President simply said "oh those are really good points" and then the reset button was hit and the union stopped being a plot point.

In the real world, as head of the only human union in existence, Tyrol would have to stop working as a deck hand and I'd be very surprised if any 11 year old union member would vote for the guy who just caved to management and was then appointed to the job by management.

I loved the first two acts of that episode but the way it ended was just horrible.

[Jonathan McCalmont]

Patrick -- That's a good question. Silent Runnings in a different kind of SF to Star Wars anyway.

One way of looking at it is that there's a sub-genre of gritty dramatic SF and BSG is good at ticking those boxes without ever really understanding the nuances of the genre.

I'd say the same of Scott Lynch's writing actually, if I weren't no longer talking about fantasy ;-)

[Franky]

"In the real world, as head of the only human union in existence, Tyrol would have to stop working as a deck hand and I'd be very surprised if any 11 year old union member would vote for the guy who just caved to management and was then appointed to the job by management."

I think Tyrol's union ceased to exist when the Cylons invaded New Caprica, and anyway Tyrol can't be an union member now that he's back in the military. The closest thing to an union head in the fleet now is probably the guy who gets jailed for "pissing off the President" (forgot his name). The writers probably expect us to assume that Roslin will now be returning this guy's calls...

Besides, maybe I got the wrong impression but it seemed to me that Adama only threatened to execute Cally because of the strike on the Galactica itself, not the strike on the refinery ship ; and that this strike was the only one Tyrol had to call off. I think part of why Tyrol doesn't hold a grudge against Adama is that he understands he went too far when he called a strike on a military ship in time of war.

I agree that this episode's conclusion was rushed and unsatisfactory, but I don't think Tyrol's actions were ever unrealistic or out of character.

[A.R.Yngve]

Ah yes, the cigars...

"*Puff*... *puff*... Starbuck, where do you get these cigars?"

"They're made from recycled toilet paper."

"*KOFF* *KOFF*"

;-P