A New Battlestar Thread (Spoilerzies)
 

Major finale spoilers will likely follow in this thread.
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Now that season three is over, I think we can make do with a new thread about the show. Seeing how the last thread hasn't seen much action since... yeah?

If I had to do a line chart for the quality of season three, I think it'd look like the Wonder Woman symbol (see the black line i drew on the attached picture). The first few episodes were, IMO, the best the show's been since the miniseries -- if not ever. The last four episodes of the season were also (mostly) stellar. The midseason two-parter was pretty good, but nowhere near the heights of the beginning and end, let alone its season two counterpart (Pegasus, you rocks. Hards.)

Anyway, the season ended on another WTF. On par with last season's. But I'm willing to give the writers the benefit of the doubt on this because of how drastically my pessimism after Lay Down Your Burdens contrasted with the kick-ass-ocity of Occupation through Collaborators. I feel a bit betrayed by the revelation about Tyrol in particular -- essentially the show's most likable, relatable character. The character whose death would most piss me off, and this -- at first -- seems almost as bad. But there's something fundamentally different going on here, as evidenced by multiple ambiguous interviews.

Anyway, there's a long damn wait until the Pegasus (Hooray!) movie this fall, and an even longer wait before the season four premiere in January. The finale was bizarre enough that I can wait at least a little while. But once those teasers start rolling in, I'm sure I'll get excited again. Last year's WTF taught me to trust them on this one. I guess we'll see in 2008.

Oh, and Zeke -- I guess you won our Starbuck discussion. But to be fair, the writers and Katee Sackhoff lied through their frakking teeth about her character's fate. I was mostly expecting something like this to happen. But I wasn't really expecting it to happen this soon (well, until I heard the word "bogey" last night -- that sealed it). Anyway, congrats on your constant vigilence for sci-fi cliches all along the watchtower.

Not seen the end of the season yet, but generally an interesting season, and impressively, even more depressing and dark than the previous two.

I'm somewhat impressed by the development of Baltar, and the way the Cylons have been developed a bit, but overall I felt this season was rather...ehh. It felt like the bit in a mediocre book where there's just oh-damn-we-need-to-advance-the-plot, and no real interest. Obviously this is an extreme parallel, but...I just felt it dragged quite a lot. Several episodes seemed...a bit dull.

Overall, though, still probably the front-runner in current sci-fi shows, I'd say, although Atlantis may catch up if the season cliffhanger was anything to go by....

Here's another post-finale Q&A RDM did on the sci fi boards -- for those interested.

The show did something similar in season three that it did with season two, though I would say to a lesser extent. The twenty episode seasons have given the writers more room to breath, but also allowed more room for filler episodes. Pretty much all of season 2.5, with the exception of the Resurrection Ship and Lay Down Your Burdens episodes were filler. Here, the same thing happened. But it was sandwiched between some really well-done episodes so the effect wasn't quite as harsh. I find 2.5 very difficult to sit through, but I don't think I could say that with either half of season three with the highpoints the show experienced on each end.

I will eventually post my thoughts on this one, honest. (I have a number of them.) But in the meantime, it should be noted that chess grandmaster Peter Svidler is a Cylon.