Moosferatu

Battlestar Galactica Season 3

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I've got to be honest, right now I'm feeling a bit disappointed with how season three is going. It could just be me, but I don't really feel emotionally connected to any of the characters anymore. It's been, what, a year and four months since the last meaningful window into their lives? The characters appear to have changed so much, but I don't feel them anymore. Instead of getting to know them again we're just shown a couple of scenes of them doing shit and all a sudden everything is supposed to be clear. It seems very un-Battlestar like to cut straight to the action without the emotional build first. As a result, for me, nothing that has happened so far really has the weight that it should. The scenes on Galactica are almost laughable, but, besides that, even the suicide bombing bit at the end of the first episode didn't really hit me all that hard. I think having so many different characters has finally gotten to them. I gave them more slack in the first couple episodes because I figured they had so much to get in that I shouldn't really expect them to spend much time developing where the individual characters were at now, but after this past episode I'm beginning to wonder. I mean, half of it was pure padding yet there still wasn't much in the way of meaningful character development, or rather character establishment. What they should have done was start the season one episode earlier and establish who the characters are and what is going on. I don't feel the oppressiveness of the Cylon rule or the lostness of the Galactica like I should, and it's disappointing. I still have faith that the season will improve as it progresses though, especially after the are reunited and a couple more characters bite the dust.

Just so you guys know my friend that I qouted last week isn't a complete idiot, here's what he had to say when I was discussing this with him.

Yeah I saw it and I have to agree with alot of that, the charachters

just don't seem to be all that interesting, oh sure there's all sorts

of stuff going on, they have to keep the baby secret, that person

might die, and she's been helping the enemy, but I don't care. They've

kinda taken away everything that I ever liked about the charachters.

I've also just kinda noticed that the charachters are really

inconsistant in how they react. I mean it goes into a situation and

you're thinking that they'll respond one way while they do the

opposite, and it does that without much reason as to why. Roslan is a

good example some episodes she's looking to perserve life do the right

thing, others she wants to kill and lie and cheat. What ever happend

to Tom being the bad guy anyways? It wasn't even explained he starts

off as a murdering terrorist who's willing to kill to take control and

suddenly he's on the good team. It'd be fine if they took the time to

tell why. Like starbuck, that was a good job there in how they

explained her change of heart, but none of the other charachters get

that. I agree an episode before the first two would have been really

good. That oracle scene felt really hoaky and the fact that she was

allways licking her hand all the time just made it even stranger.

You know most shows they just have a few charachters and they do a

good job of focusing on one charachter for a show every once in a

while, but they'res just two many to remember in bsg and you don't

really know more then the few key charachters, btw I'm pissed that

roslan is still alive, I got all excited about that last episode.

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Wow my response to season 3 couldn't be further on the opposite end. (I'm pretty amazed by how different the reactions can apparently be.)

The only thing I agree with is that BSG could use some more quiet character development, which we haven't seen much of this season so far, but I'm expecting to get that when they get back to Galactica.

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As a fairly obvious Iraq allegory, it's a pretty been pretty decent so far. Character development takes a bit of a backseat here because too much time has passed off-screen (webisodes notwithstanding).

A reasonable comparison can be made between these three episodes so far and the the pegasus/resurrection ship episodes last season; a major shakeup to the "status quo" of the series, as it were. IIRC, many of the main characters were acting in ways that I thought to be off-character; Adama betraying a superior officer, Roslin advocating assasination etc.

The difference, I guess, is that Pegasus happened in the middle of the season; there was a reasonable stretch of day-to-day-Galactica before and after. The Occupation, on the other hand, has to straddle the inter-season gap and lacks that context. Personally I approve, considering that we've been subjected to the same seperation from the New Capricans as the Battlestars were.

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A reasonable comparison can be made between these three episodes so far and the the pegasus/resurrection ship episodes last season; a major shakeup to the "status quo" of the series, as it were. IIRC, many of the main characters were acting in ways that I thought to be off-character; Adama betraying a superior officer, Roslin advocating assasination etc.

I'm not sure if that's the greatest comparison. The Kain trilogy has some of the greatest and most powerful character moments in the entire series. I don't think there's been anything even near as powerful as of yet in the third season. This doesn't make the episodes bad though as not every episode can be a Pegasus or Resurrection Ship. Also, I don't think any of the characters were acting out of character in the Kain trilogy. Roslin always has been a hawkish pragmatist to Adama's idealism. Ok, it might be a little of a strech for Adama to actually plan out the assasination, but he does have very very deep loyalties to his crew and the fleet. It wasn't the first time that he put them first before standard protocol.

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I guess my point is really that the characters are pushed to do things which they would not normally do, and that they are placed in context by the surrounding episodes for the kain trilogy (i.e.: this is Starbuck, this is Roslin, this is Adama. They're behaviour is typically starbucky or rosliny but when things get crazy, they do things which contrast very strongly with that).

In the occupation episodes, there's a big 7 month gap between the close of last season and the opening of this one (and a 6 month gap between the last time there was contact with Galactica and now) . It's no longer fresh in our minds just how Starbuck or Tigh or whatever normally behave; because there's a missing 6 month period of development during which life has not been the usual Galacticish thing we're used to. We remember Starbuck the lone wolf Viper ace, not Starbuck the imprisoned, probably-sorta-crazy, forced to murder a Cylon over-and-over Cain and Abel style... ace.

This isn't really a response to anything anyone's really said here so far, just me putting my take out there.

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Ok, I completely agree with that, which is why I think they should have had at least one episode prior to the events of Occupation to re-establish the characters and provide context.

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If the series continues in this vain for another 3-4 episodes, Moos, then I might be inclined to agree with what you've said.

What's going to be key is when the two groups - Galacticans and New Capricans - collide again and all the fallout that holds in promise. So, next episode (#4) onwards I'm thinking.

I also reckon that if you thought the first couple of episodes made for difficult viewing, you ain't seen nuthin' yet...

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Weird, everyone has assumed the Iraq allegory, but when Spaff and I watched the first couple of episodes the first thing we thought of was the Nazi holocaust. After all, what you have here is not aforce trying to "liberate" the civilians; we have one race which considers itself superior to the other and has complete dominance over it. In this context the "let them out to stretch their legs" moment was especially chilling.

As for the word insurgency.. do the colonials ever call themselves that? i think they call themselves The Resistance. The Cyclons call it the Insurgencey, because words like that are useful for public relations (which is what D'Annas model is for).

Finally, Exodus 1 was less eventful than I hoped for, but boy did it leave me wanting to see the next episode!

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In this context the "let them out to stretch their legs" moment was especially chilling.

Well, that was from The Great Escape.

It's only an allegory for/commentary on the Iraq war if you want it to be.

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Walter, why the hell do you keep deleting posts? I was going to visit that blog you linked to again, and looked through the thread like 5 times until I realized the post was gone. ;(

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Wow, I loved the latest episode.

Ellen! Colonel Tigh! Starbuck! Gaeta! Cylon baby! But Gaius why did you give 3 the cylon baby??!!

So excited.

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[stuff which could potentially ruin my - and others - enjoyment of the latest episode]

There’s a

tag for a reason, muppet. :(:frusty:

Update: Another superb episode, but…

It’s serious head-fuck time methinks, especially for Kara and Tigh.

Marek update your avatar.

Hell yes!

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wow, Exodus pt 2 was phenomenal. It was probably the best action episode that they've ever done.

There were so many unbelievably awesome shots: Galactica lurking in the clouds, Galactica plunging down to earth while launching vipers, Pegasus cruising to save the day and ultimately being destroyed... so, so awesome. There were several outstanding character scenes as well, like Tigh and Ellen and Gaius and Getta. I'm listening to the podcast for the episode now, and now I finally get why the New Caprica storyline was so disappointingly truncated -- money. It really sucks that they didn't have more money to flesh it out as much as it deserved. Oh well.

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Why do you need spoiler tags? Isn't this for discussing season 3? Is it airing anywhere other than US at the moment?

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Newest episode rocked my socks off. Fantastic.

Glad to see Ellen gone, although I'm not completely convinced Tigh would have done it.

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Last episode was sex. There were many things I didn't like about how it wrapped up in the end, but I won't complain about it, because the episode was sex. Oh man.

Galacticadrop.gif

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Oi shouldn't that gif be wrapped in spoiler tags. :P

I read though that ratings were very bad for the ep.

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I read though that ratings were very bad for the ep.

It's very probable that, when directly compared with this season's opening episode ratings, every TV show episode has "bad" viewing figures by comparison. Pay it no heed, it's just negative spin, and should be disposed of as the contemptible turd it is.

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Excellent episode. It's great that after two seasons they've finally gotten over their restrooms and did their first mess hall scenes. I'm really looking forward to seeing where the subplot between Tigh and Adama is going. That scene was incredible.

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This episode basically said: there is no status quo, and everything on New Caprica will have a domino effect for the rest of the season. It makes up for the way the last episode was so neatly wrapped up.

Apart from of course the excellent plot and character development, I loved how the galactica still has visible damage and now has a fuckload of crew and refugees.

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In the credits, it said 41435 survivors. Can anyone remember how many survivors were there after the one year leap? I vaguely remember a 30k number.

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