Review: Battlestar Galactica Season Four

So here it is, the big finale to my summer viewing of Battlestar Galactica. It's been a long, but mostly enjoyable road with the exception of some speed bumps occurring in season three so far. Unfortunately, a lot of problems persist into the series' final chapter along with a few new ones. But, I still can't hate on it too much, as it easily provides the most exciting and complex set of scenarios found in the show, and ends up tying up most of its loose ends up rather well, even if it isn't quite how I would have done it. It's one of those situations where I want to criticize it for not being as good as the rest of the series, but I must acknowledge that it is still much better than a vast majority of its contemporaries.

Season four kicks off well enough, avoiding the painfully slow start of the previous season, but quickly starts delving into all-too-familiar sci-fi territories. As the show hit the season 4.5 finale (due to the writers strike), themes reminiscent of works like Blade Runner, Planet of the Apes, and Heart of Darkness had started cropping up all over the place. I'm not about to say that borrowing from these works is necessarily a bad thing, but when the uses become so gratuitous and transparent, it makes for a more predictable and boring viewing experience.

However, it is only right around the finales when the show gets this caught up in tired messages. For the rest, there is still plenty of character intrigue, drama, and mystery for the most part, some of which gets wonderfully left up to interpretation (although I assume that some may have wanted absolutely everything explained). But (again, for me personally), I almost wish that the last episode never existed, or at least, was made a bit shorter by cutting out all of the heavy-handed hand-holding that explained what Battlestar Galactica was 'really about.'

My main objection comes at the final few minutes of the entire series, where Gaius Baltar and Caprica Six address one of the main themes of the show in some of the most forced and contrived dialogue I've ever encountered. So, in a way, my complaint is more about the way it was executed (poorly) more than the message itself, but I am not without issue there either. To put it simply, this little exchange sells the entire series short because there is easily more than one single conclusion to be drawn from the experiences of these people, yet the show seems to insist otherwise.

Even through all this bashing though, I can't say that I wouldn't recommend Battlestar Galactica. Upon the final montage, I still felt like I had experienced something truly special. If there is one way for me to wrap up the show, I would say that it is somewhat like the flagship itself: although it may develop some deep flaws over time, Battlestar Galactica hangs in there long enough to get you somewhere meaningful and worthwhile.

Review: Battlestar Galactica Season Three

Once again, I am here with an update on my sort of 'summer reading project' that consists of me making it through Battlestar Galactica and reporting my findings as I go. Up to this point it has been an absolute pleasure following the human fleet escape from the Cylons by the skin of their teeth time and time again, but I knew going into this season that things were going to be different. Both the creators of the show and I seemed to know that the original cat and mouse formula needed a new twist to maintain interest. And, while it's good that there were changes made to the Battlestar plotline to change things up, it's unfortunate (as the fact that Nickelback is playing in the background of this trailer may subliminally suggest) that these changes in Season Three make for some of the weakest parts of the show thus far.

First of all, the first handful of episodes seem to drag themselves way to far out for their own good. The story arc that starts the season, while somewhat intriguing as it is new, also seems like it could only end in one way, and it does. It's this combination of slow pacing and predictability that initially put me off on this season. I even thought that if they don't wrap it up soon enough, I may either try to skip ahead or quit watching altogether depending on how much catching up I had to do. Thankfully though, most of it is resolved in the first five episodes, and the later developments in the season (especially in comparison) really pick up steam towards the end providing a lot of momentum heading into the final season.

Other than those first few episodes--and a bizarre use of Jimi Hendrix's "All Along the Watchtower" towards the end of the season--Battlestar Galactica still shows that it has chops and is worthy of being considered among the greatest of television shows. Even at its low points, the show remains miles above most everything else.

Review: Battlestar Galactica Season Two

Don't let the questionable music choice for the above trailer fool you, part two of my quest to conquer Battlestar Galactica has been quite an enjoyable experience, even though this season is quite as tight and polished as the first.

Needless to say, season two of Battlestar picks up right where season one left off, continuing the human effort to escape the cylon threat. This time around though, there are more than a few isolated story-arcs, making parts of the season come off as more episodic than I would have liked. The show just seems to lend itself more towards following a main story rather than delivering seemingly random, slice of life pieces.

With that aside, every episode is still consistently strong. The only bad thing about season two is that it marks the beginning of a series of increasingly bizarre events that continue throughout the rest of the season, and these events can be rather off-putting, especially for casual viewers. This is not to say that the neurotic Dr. Baltar's constant conversations with a woman that lives inside his head isn't weird; but, let's just say--for the sake of avoiding spoilers--weirder stuff happens this season.

Other than that though, you can expect a similar feeling of 'hey, this is Battlestar Galactica, and it's pretty good' from pretty much every episode. The entire cast turns in a strong performance, especially Mary McDonnell, Edward James Olmos, and James Callis.

So, in summary, Battlestar is still a really strong show by the end of its second season. While it probably will not win you over if you did not like the show's first season, it is definitely a no-brainer that you should check it out if you did.

Review: Battlestar Galactica Season One

Going into this summer, I discovered that Sci Fi's critically acclaimed show, Battlestar Galactica, had recently aired its final episode. As one that can almost never follow an ongoing TV show on a regular basis, this discovery is what finally spurred me into checking it out. Since the summer began, I have been making it part of my regimen to watch at least one episode a week so that I can eventually make it through the series and have a better idea of what makes this show one of the Best 100 TV shows of All Time. Fortunately, Battlestar Galactica makes this an easy task, as it is such an excellent program that I have wasted more than a few beautiful summer days camped out in front of my television trying to cure myself of a bad case of 'ZOMG-what-happens-next' fever, and Season One of Battlestar is surely capable of giving all but the most elitist or anti-sci-fi fans this malady.

The show tells the same story we heard back when the first iteration of the show aired back in 1978 of the war between the humans and machines referred to as 'cylons.' Humanity lived comfortably on twelve colonies until a traitor known as Baltar allowed for cylons to attack the twelve colonies, forcing the remains of the human race to flee, boarding whatever ships they could in hopes of some day escaping the cylon forces and finding the fabled thirteenth colony known as 'Earth.'

From the very first episode, Battlestar Galactica immediately dumps you into the action, starting with the intense back-end of the escape from the initial cylon threat; crews haven't slept in days and the cylons seem within reach of eradicating the human race. It is this intensity that makes Battlestar Galactica a gripping program, and the show's reimaginers, David Eick and Ronald D. Moore, only ease the tension slightly to later ratchet it up even further throughout the show's first year, making for an incredibly tight, high-impact narrative that will leave you most assuredly wanting more.

With a strong cast composed of established actors like Edward James Olmos (Commander Adama) and Mary McDonnell (President Roslin) as well as relative newcomers Katee Sackhoff ("Starbuck"), Jamie Bamber (Lee Adama), James Callis (Dr. Gaius Baltar), and Tricia Helfer (Number Six), the show never feels like it has to lean too heavily upon one role or another. The great thing about this is that the show tends to weave together several plotlines that involve entirely different characters, and, without high quality acting, some narratives might come off as particularly weak, but this is not the case for Battlestar, and it is these strong side plots that help build a more believable and involved universe; a key ingredient in making a quality sci-fi show.

While the phrase 'weave together several plotlines' may seem like either a way to postpone some inevitable plot point or create confusion among viewers, Eick and Moore handle the intricacies of parallel drama deftly in Season One such that viewers are shown a wide variety of the happenings in the human fleet, but are always kept constantly aware of humanity's main goal of surviving the cylon attacks and trying to find Earth. This 'all killer, no filler' formula for a show that--by the way--has some of the best special effects I've seen on TV, makes Battlestar Galactica's first season an incredible first step in the right direction of compelling sci-fi drama.