Search - Battlestar Galactica - Season Three on DVD

Soap Opera Galactica

Gregory Tetrault | 06/14/2010

(2 out of 5 stars)

"Battlestar Galactica started out as a military science fiction show (though its science is nonsense). In its second season it became a political drama. In its third season it became a soap opera with cheating spouses, a ménage à trois, emoting Cylons, sex scenes and many shots of nearly nude hunks, dream sequences, imaginary lovers, etc. I assume that the producers and writers decided to abandon the original fans (mostly males who liked action stories) and appeal to soap opera-loving females.



Of note is that the genre changes of Battlestar Galactica failed. Viewership declined throughout the second season and declined more rapidly during the third season. The show's Nielson ratings averaged 2.3 in season 1, 1.9 in season 2, and 1.4 in season 3.



If you were a fan of the first two seasons of Battlestar Galactica, I recommend that you rent DVD 1 of season three to see if it appeals to you."

Not Up to the Standard of other BSG Seasons. Sadly.

Your Role Model | from parts unknown | 07/28/2010

(2 out of 5 stars)

"I would definitely concur with Joshua Feldman's fine review that Season Three was the weakest of all the BSG seasons overall.



Yes, sure, the 'escape from New Caprica' episode was killer, as was the Eye of Jupiter mini-arc in the middle of the season. But there were plenty and plenty of 'throwaway' episodes throughout ('The Woman King' stands out as especially bad), and perhaps worse, a lot of characters seemed poorly-written in this season.



Starbuck comes especially to mind... she's absolutely wonderful and badass in other seasons, but in much of S3 she becomes a whiney, self-centered brat, for lack of a better term. And the continuing romantic drama/quadrangle between her and Apollo and their significant others was strangely annoying, not poignant or heartbreaking. Another S2 ball fumbled.



Heck, even the whole New Caprica arc early on seems one lost opportunity after another, the fantastic 'escape' episode aside... basically Ron D. Moore and friends tried too hard to make it into an Iraq allegory, rather than letting that message grow organically out of the situation. Too heavy-handed, and too obvious.



(and strangely low-tech... the Cylons didn't appear to have any better way to keep tabs on the imprisoned colonials than we do nowadays... doesn't seem realistic, honestly)



The big show trial at the end of S3 also falls very flat, if you bother to be discerning at all about it... while I liked the character of Romo Lampkin, it seemed incredibly ridiculous that Apollo was suddenly going to became this first-rate lawyer and lynchpin of Baltar's legal team.



To be fair to Season Three, though, this is not the first time BSG has engaged in this kind of silliness... Starbuck doubled as a SWAT team sniper in S1, for example. Apparently, one of the 'Big Three' characters (Apollo, Starbuck, Adama) MUST be involved in any major action, no matter what. One can envisage Adama Sr elbowing Doc Codell away from a patient during a major surgery scene, having suddenly developed brain surgery skills, lol.



I'll draw flack from the less discerning fans for saying this, I know, but really, you can skip most of S3 safely... you're really not missing much.



S4 is better, though not as much better as you might like.



The indispensable new BSG remains the Mini-series, S1, and the majority of S2, up until those late S2 clinker episodes started showing up ('Sacrifice', 'Black Market'). This is what happens when you go from a 13-episode season to a 20-episode season... quality inevitably suffers. "Just not enough time to make every episode special"... this is a quote from RDM himself regarding this issue. And... he's very much right.



That said, the new BSG remains one of my favorite shows, its low lights not withstanding. I just wish the good times could've lasted longer than they did."