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Warning! The following contains spoilers. If you haven't seen Season Three and want to remain spoiler free, do not read this review.
Season Three of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA was the most debated and controversial yet. Much of the controversy stemmed from the number of hot button political topics it addressed. What other show would take several major characters we know and love and have them execute another character we had known from the beginning of the series for collaborating with the enemy, demonstrating in the process the extreme danger to justice inherent in independent military tribunals (disturbingly similar to the ones that the Bush administration has advocated)? What other show takes up the logic and ethics of suicide bombing by having "us" attack "them" by the death of another semi-recurring character in an effort to kill recruits for the local police force? Many of the episodes outraged those on the political right, as the parallels with the situation in Iraq was, despite efforts to minimize the resemblance by references by creator Ron Moore in interviews to Vichy France, became increasingly blatant. To his credit Moore, a member of the left but a self-admitted Rush Limbaugh listener, has not had the show lean too heavily to the left for most of the show's run, but in the season's first several episodes that balance fell away. And in the most controversial episode of the season (debated on Internet boards more passionately than I can ever remember any episode of any show) the question of whether genocide against a murderous enemy is justified, pitting several of the major characters on the show against each other.
On the other hand, Season Three had several surprisingly uninspired episodes. All of these were of the "stand alone" variety. All of the "mythology" episodes (to use the X-FILES terminology that Ron Moore himself often uses) were outstanding. In posts on boards, podcasts, and interviews Moore has said that most of these episodes are produced by the insistence of the network. The thinking is that having nothing but arc episodes intimidates potential viewers. But the brute fact is that at this point in the series it is a sheer impossibility for anyone to start watching at this point. This is the beauty of DVDs. Anyone who wants to watch BATTLESTAR GALACTICA can by buying the DVDs, borrowing them from a friend, downloading them from iTunes, or renting them from Netflix or their local DVD rental store. Bizarrely the networks don't seem to have comprehended the ways that viewing patterns have changed.
Season Three is structured around the Cylon occupation of New Caprica and the ongoing effects of that occupation following the rescue of the humans by Galactica. Many of the characters on the show never quite get over their experiences there, in particular Tigh and Kara. Interpersonal conflicts that were created on New Caprica, especially between Kara and Lee, take much of the season resolve, and the whole New Caprica experience doesn't really come to an end until the close of the trial of Baltar in the season finale. In one way or another the experiences there color almost everything that happens during the season.
Instead of summing up individual episodes or talking about the major story arcs, I would like to highlight my ten favorite moments of the entire season.
1. The Adama Maneuver: During the rescue on New Caprica Adama gets crucial Vipers into the fray by jumping into the upper atmosphere of the planet. Since Galactica cannot fly in an atmosphere, they launch the Vipers as the ship plunges in a fiery ball towards the surface, jumping again just a couple of hundred feet before smashing into the earth. It is - and I say this with little fear of contradiction - the most extraordinary special effect in the history of TV. No one who has seen it has been able to forget it. It is inconceivable that the show won't win the Emmy this year for Best Special Effects (but then, it is impossible to see how they lost to LOST and its black smoke effect last year) and when it does, this is the special effect sequence they will show at the awards.
2. Leoben has imprisoned Kara in a living situation that parodies that of a married couple. As they dine Leoben stands beside her and tells her how beautiful she looks. She smiles and rams a pair of skewers through his neck, kicks him back and falls on his chest stabbing him repeatedly. She returns to the dining table, takes a bite, then daintily dabs at her mouth with a napkin, oblivious to the blood that covers one of her hands.
3. The death of Jammer: In "Collaborators" several characters we've known and loved kill Jammer for being a collaborator during the Cylon occupation of New Caprica. We've known Jammer since Season One when he, Cally, and Socino tried to make a still. But that doesn't prevent him from being shot out an airlock. Nearly as good was the near execution of Gaeta later in the same episode.
4. Five great Sharon moments. This is a total cheat, but here are five great moments involving Sharon in Season Five. 1) The last time we saw Sharon in Season Two she was deeply distrusted from not having told Galactica about Cavil being a Cylon. She had told Helo that she wanted nothing to do with him or anyone on Galactica. Our first shot of her in Season Three, her cell door is open and we see it filled with comfortable furniture: a desk with books, an end table and coffee table, wall hangings and curtains, a comfy chair, and a large and extremely comfortable leather couch. Adama is sitting beside her drinking tea and he tells her that he feels all alone, except for her. Clearly in the previous year, somehow Sharon had become just about Adama's closest friend. 2) Because of the new trust Adama has in Sharon, she becomes an officer in the colonial fleet. Through the rest of the season she repeatedly tells others - whether human or Cylon - that she has given the fleet her word and she intends to keep it. Though some doubt her, Adama's faith in her is repaid repeatedly in the season. 3) Sharon enters the Cylon Detention Center on New Caprica to recover the launch keys that are crucial if the humans are to escape from New Caprica. She gets interrupted by D'Anna Biers, who tries to tempt her into coming back to the Cylons with the news that Hera is still alive. Sharon responds by putting a bullet into both her D'Anna's knees. She walks away, saying "Adama wouldn't lie to me" (and it turns out he didn't, since he didn't know that Laura stole Hera and faked her death). 4) Sharon and Boomer come face to face. One of the season highlights had to be the show's two major Number Eight's meeting. The irony is intense, since at the beginning of the series Sharon was completely on the side of the Cylons and Boomer was with the fleet, unaware that she was a Cylon sleeper agent. Now, however, Boomer like D'Anna before her tries to convince Sharon that she doesn't belong with the humans. Her reply is to the point: "I made my decision and I know where my loyalties lie." 5) Boomer does, however, tell Sharon that her daughter is still alive and is on the nearby Cylon basestar. After Adama confirms with Roslin that Boomer's story is true, Sharon rescues Hera by talking her husband Helo into killing her so that she will resurrect on the Cylon resurrection ship. Only seconds after reaching Hera she plots her return to Galactica. The irony is that only a few minutes earlier Roslin was dressing down both Helo and Adama for their faith in Sharon. Knowing that Sharon is downloading into a new body she tells them, "And now all of our lives are in the hands of Sharon Agathon. All we can do is hope that your wife is worthy of the unconditional trust you place in her, Captain. And you as well, Admiral." What is wonderful is that Laura states all this as if it is in doubt. But less than an hour later Sharon is back on Galatica with Hera. Oh, and Sharon is given her own handle: Athena, a nod to the original series in which Athena was Adama's daughter. And in this one Sharon has become one of his surrogate daughters.
5. "Exodus, Pt. 2": I said I wouldn't summarize any episodes and I will resist doing that here. But this episode, which contained "The Adama Maneuver" I mentioned above, is easily one of the two or three most unforgettable episodes in all of BSG. At the end of 2006 the well-known Internet TV website The Futon Critic issued its annual list of the Top Fifty episodes of the year. With total justification they named "Exodus, Pt. 2" the number one episode of 2006, not just of BSG but of all television shows combined. It was that good. Four beats made it stand out. First, Saul Tigh's killing of his wife Ellen for collaborating with the Cylons, second the Adam Maneuver, third, the rescue of Galactica by Pegasus and its destruction, and fourth, Kara learning that Leoben had lied to her by telling her that Kacey was her daughter.
6. The fight between Kara and Lee in "Unfinished Business." In the Season Two finale we learned that somehow Lee and Kara had fallen out with each other so completely that they were barely able to talk to one another. In this episode we get that back story. Adama has called for a series of boxing matches to air out grievances that crew members feel towards one another. We see Lee and Kara's story intercut with their pounding on each other in the boxing ring, learning of the night of passion that they spent with each other and their declaring their love for one another, and of Kara's sneaking off and marrying Anders the next morning. As Kara and Lee (who she is able to fight evenly partly because Helo beat up on him in an earlier fight and partly because Kara resorts to dirty fighting) collapse into each other's arms, their faces bloody messes, she tells him, "I missed you." His mouth filled with blood, he is barely able to say, "I missed you too." Her face buried in his shoulder, you can see her smile broadly as the episode ends. One of the best episodes in the show's run.
7. In a stunning scene on a Cylon basestar, D'Anna Biers tortures Baltar while he manages to project to a beach where Six makes love to him to get him through the ordeal. As he tells Six "I love you" D'Anna hears the words as addressed to her and although torturing him feels deeply moved. It is a sequence that has to be seen to be believed.
8. Adama and Laura's intimacy. Through Season Three Adama and Laura grow closer and closer, as intimate as two people can be while remaining completely Platonic. They still have conflicts. When Laura tries to justify stealing Hera and faking her death Adama walks away without even listening to her. And in the finale Roslin feels betrayed by his vote of Not Guilty in Baltar's trial. But you get the sense that they have moved to a new level. That they have an intimacy that can't be affected by mere disagreement. The highpoint of their intimacy might be their smoking dope on New Caprica and cuddling while gazing up at the stars. It is so wonderful to see two people who have shouldered so much in order to save the remnants of humanity to get a few minutes of peace/
9. Lee Adama's moment on the stand. During Baltar's trial Romo Lampkin (magnificently portrayed by Mark Shepard) calls Lee onto the witness stand even though he is serving as co-counsel. Jamie Bamber's performance is one of the season highlights and perhaps the best moment in a season finale stuffed to overflowing with truly great moments.
10. The last ten minutes of the season: In the final few minutes of the season we learn the identify of four of the Final Five: Tigh, Tyrol, Samuel T. Anders, and Tory (the four T's--giving additional credence to the thought of some that Kara "Starbuck" Thrace is the fifth member) by their response to a song that they keep hearing in their heads, which turns out, almost impossibly, to be Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower" (leading some to refer to them as the Dylons). Then the Cylons attack. The four new Cylons ponder what to do before Tigh magnificently tells the other three: "The ship is under attack, we do our jobs. . . . My name is Saul Tigh. I am an officer in the Colonial Fleet. Whatever else I am, whatever else it means, that's the man I want to be. And if I die today, that's the man I'll be. But those lines are rivaled by the last of the season, as Lee pursues "a bogie at my ten" in his Viper and discovers none other than Kara Thrace, who had died spectacularly three episodes earlier. She looks at Lee, assures him that it really is her (a fact confirmed by executive producer Ron Moore, who also confirmed that the four Cylons really are Cylons), and tells him, "It's gonna be okay. I've been to Earth. I know where it is. And I'm gonna take us there." The camera pulls up over their two Vipers and then rapidly pulls back through the colonial fleet, through the pursing Cylons, back through the nebula and an arm of the Milky Way, and then rushes across the galaxy to our solar system, focusing on earth as the season ends. It is an utterly breathtaking moment.
This is absolutely essential television. If you care for great television, this is the kind of stuff you have to care about. The tragedy is that while every major television critics has passionately praised the show and while a host of major publications from TV Guide to Time to Rolling Stone have proclaimed it the best show on TV, it has struggled to find viewers. The irony is that many Sci-fi fans don't watch it because it doesn't resort to the clichés that dominate the genre and make it in most cases completely unchallenging television and many mainstream TV fans don't watch it because they mistakenly think it will only appeal to Sci-fi fans. It is what it is: the best show on TV. You need to watch this.
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