As expected, Battlestar Galactica's 'Season 3.0' has come to an end, leaving our heroes dangling on a perilous cliffhanger for five weeks until the season resumes on Sunday 21 January 2007. The latter batch of episodes has restored some faith in the series, which after the barnstorming four-episode opening arc had been looking decidedly ropey.
Unfinished Business had a somewhat bizarre framing device - an onship boxing match - but the flashbacks to the year on New Caprica were interesting, showing Tyrol and Cally settling down, Adama and Laura relaxing together and, most notably, revealing the destructive events that tore Apollo and Starbuck's relationship apart. The episode has some good music and a tremendous sense of melancholy since the audience knows that the society they are building will soon be shattered by the Cylons. There is also a very funny scene where Adama and Roslin take time out to smoke a joint. There are some flaws, most notably the exercising of the subplot in which we find out how Starbuck and Tigh became buddies all of a sudden, but overall this is a satisfying episode that answers a lot of dangling questions.
The Passage is a 'prelude' to the two-parter that bridges the mid-season divide. The Galactica and her fleet have to force their way through the blinding layers of radiation surrounding a dense star cluster to reach a lifebearing planet so they can replenish their food supplies. The Viper and Raptor pilots have to guide the civilian ships through the radiation storm, but the heavy workload and stress of the mission start to take their toll, particularly on Kat, who is also being blackmailed by a mysterious newcomer. This episode gets points for the 'passage' storyline, which is nicely filled with tension and some breathtaking CGI, but the soap opera-ish elements revolving around Kat's secret past are a bit tedious.
The Eye of Jupiter is the first part the mid-season cliffhanger and is an appropriately superb episode, the best of the season since Exodus, Part 2. The Galactica and her fleet are resupplying food stocks from the brilliantly-named 'Algae Planet' when Chief Tyrol stumbles across what appears to be a temple left behind by the Thirteenth Colony. The Cylons soon show up looking for the temple and a stand-off ensures, with the Cylons threatening to destroy Galactica if she tries to recover the mysterious 'eye of Jupiter' from the temple, whilst Adama threatens to nuke the temple if the Cylons try to land on the planet. This stand-off is a catalyst for a number of impressive confrontations as various storylines that have been building over the past few weeks come to a sudden fruition: Three and Baltar find themselves working together; the deception over the fate of Helo and Athena's baby is brutally exposed; Athena and Boomer come face to face; and Lee and Anders clash over Starbuck. The episode is nicely written, not too obviously cut to pieces by the editors (a problem that has been plaguing the show all season), with a number of interesting 'firsts' (such as the first time the Cylons actually talk to the crew directly rather than just try to kill them), the multiple cliffhanger works quite well and a number of very interesting issues are left open to be resolved. A welcome return to Galactica's better form.
309: Unfinished Business ***
310: The Passage ***
311: The Eye of Jupiter ****
Forthcoming: Rapture (21/01/07), Taking a Break From All of Your Worries (28/01/07), The Woman King (04/02/07), A Day in the Life (11/02/07), Dirty Hands (18/02/07), Maelstrom (25/02/07), The Son Also Rises (04/03/07), Crossroads, Part 1 (11/03/07), Crossroads Part 2 (18/03/07)
Showing posts with label bsg tv. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bsg tv. Show all posts
Saturday, 16 December 2006
Tuesday, 28 November 2006
Galacticawatch: Season 3
Harlan Ellison recently handed over a writers' award to Ronald D. Moore in Los Angeles, telling him he'd taken the worst SF show of the 1970s and turned it into the best of the 2000s. Certainly the modern iteration of Battlestar Galactica is a substantial improvement over the original in terms of acting, drama and special effects. That said, the tiresome "GINA" versus "TOSsers" argument still raging in some corners of the web is somewhat tiresome and pointless.
Season 3 of Galactica has been running for a few weeks now. It picked up the dangling threads from the Season 2 finale, Lay Down Your Burdens, which ended with nearly 40,000 of the 50,000 survivors of the human race under occupation by the Cylons on the bleak planet of New Caprica, whilst the under-manned battlestars Galactica and Pegasus fled into space to avoid destruction. Season 3 thus started with two stories unfolding in parallel: the battle between the human 'insurgents' and their occupiers on the planet, and the unfolding of a dangerous, complex plan hatched by Admiral Adama to rescue his people. The first four episodes of the season - Occupation, Precipice, Exodus, Part 1 and Exodus, Part 2 - form a continuous, building narrative which starts by turning our American-analogue heroes into suicide bombers and doesn't let up. The idea that the only show on US TV at the moment bold enough to directly address the issues raised by Iraq is a science fiction show featuring sexy robot women and space pilots called 'Hot Dog' is pretty ridiculous when you think of it. Yet Galactica delivers in spades. Wisely, Moore chose not to milk the Occupation story arc across half a season or more, instead resolving the plot in just four tightly-plotted episodes. Exodus, Part 2 sees the rescue of the civilians from New Caprica through massive ground battles, the most astonishing space battle sequence since Deep Space Nine's Sacrifice of Angels episode in 1997 (outstripping all three Star Wars prequels for imagination and design) and, significantly, one of the most emotionally powerful moments of television drama I've seen in years. Needless to say, Michael Hogan and Kate Vernon won't be getting their Best Supporting Actor Emmys next year (what? A scifi show with good acting?), and that is a crime.
Sadly, the enormous quality of BSG's opening arc this year has inevitably led to a bit of a comedown in the episodes immediately following it. Collaborators dealt with the problem of Cylon collaborators among the fleet far too easily, whilst the two-parter of Torn and A Measure of Salvation suffered from a flawed central premise (there are simply too many ways the Cylon virus could have been cured, especially once the Colonials knew Baltar was on the basestar; Helo's actions at the end of the storyline may have been noble but should have landed him in the brig). Hero, the latest episode to air, was simply an ungodly mess of continuity flaws, self-contradictions and a Cylon plot so half-hearted as to be preposterous. Despite these weak installments, the series has consistently delivered quality acting and effects and it is hoped that the forthcoming 'big' three-parter which ties up a lot of the outstanding plotlines will lead to a better second half for the season.
Next week, a big boxing match on the Galactica generates flashbacks to the Colonials' year on New Caprica.
301: Occupation *****
302: Precipice *****
303: Exodus, Part 1 ****
304: Exodus, Part 2 *****
305: Collaborators ***
306: Torn ***
307: A Measure of Salvation ***
308: Hero **
Forthcoming: Unfinished Business (01/12/06), The Passage (08/12/06), The Eye of Jupiter (15/12/06), Rapture (21/01/07)
Season 3 of Galactica has been running for a few weeks now. It picked up the dangling threads from the Season 2 finale, Lay Down Your Burdens, which ended with nearly 40,000 of the 50,000 survivors of the human race under occupation by the Cylons on the bleak planet of New Caprica, whilst the under-manned battlestars Galactica and Pegasus fled into space to avoid destruction. Season 3 thus started with two stories unfolding in parallel: the battle between the human 'insurgents' and their occupiers on the planet, and the unfolding of a dangerous, complex plan hatched by Admiral Adama to rescue his people. The first four episodes of the season - Occupation, Precipice, Exodus, Part 1 and Exodus, Part 2 - form a continuous, building narrative which starts by turning our American-analogue heroes into suicide bombers and doesn't let up. The idea that the only show on US TV at the moment bold enough to directly address the issues raised by Iraq is a science fiction show featuring sexy robot women and space pilots called 'Hot Dog' is pretty ridiculous when you think of it. Yet Galactica delivers in spades. Wisely, Moore chose not to milk the Occupation story arc across half a season or more, instead resolving the plot in just four tightly-plotted episodes. Exodus, Part 2 sees the rescue of the civilians from New Caprica through massive ground battles, the most astonishing space battle sequence since Deep Space Nine's Sacrifice of Angels episode in 1997 (outstripping all three Star Wars prequels for imagination and design) and, significantly, one of the most emotionally powerful moments of television drama I've seen in years. Needless to say, Michael Hogan and Kate Vernon won't be getting their Best Supporting Actor Emmys next year (what? A scifi show with good acting?), and that is a crime.
Sadly, the enormous quality of BSG's opening arc this year has inevitably led to a bit of a comedown in the episodes immediately following it. Collaborators dealt with the problem of Cylon collaborators among the fleet far too easily, whilst the two-parter of Torn and A Measure of Salvation suffered from a flawed central premise (there are simply too many ways the Cylon virus could have been cured, especially once the Colonials knew Baltar was on the basestar; Helo's actions at the end of the storyline may have been noble but should have landed him in the brig). Hero, the latest episode to air, was simply an ungodly mess of continuity flaws, self-contradictions and a Cylon plot so half-hearted as to be preposterous. Despite these weak installments, the series has consistently delivered quality acting and effects and it is hoped that the forthcoming 'big' three-parter which ties up a lot of the outstanding plotlines will lead to a better second half for the season.
Next week, a big boxing match on the Galactica generates flashbacks to the Colonials' year on New Caprica.
301: Occupation *****
302: Precipice *****
303: Exodus, Part 1 ****
304: Exodus, Part 2 *****
305: Collaborators ***
306: Torn ***
307: A Measure of Salvation ***
308: Hero **
Forthcoming: Unfinished Business (01/12/06), The Passage (08/12/06), The Eye of Jupiter (15/12/06), Rapture (21/01/07)
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