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October 07, 2006

Battlestar Galactica begins Season 3 -- 'Occupation' and 'Precipice'

Click for larger imageEvery season for a popular series brings a moment of trepidation to its fan base. Can they maintain the quality? If the opening premiere of two episodes last night is any indication, yes, they can.

Battlestar Galactica ended Season 2 by jumping a year into the future, with a nascent colony on New Caprica and more established personal relationships (couples include Lee and Anastasia, Kara and Samuel, Galen and a very pregnant Cally) when the Cylons suddenly appear. Galactica, Pegasus and the last of the Colonial fleet jump away and a venal and craven President Gaius surrenders to the Cylons.

Season 3 picks up four months after the surrender. Not one to leave their viewers in a state of famine between seasons, BSG offered online shorts of the human Resistance movement during those four months.

The opening two hours found characters changed and hinted at several new story arcs. The Cylons are squabbling amongst themselves. Some cynically seeing the humans as just property to be administered and others as sincerely wanting to establish a relationship with them. There's squabbling within the human resistance movement on the morality of certain courses of action -- most notably between Tigh, who is so bitter and singleminded he hardly cares about the people he claims he wants to protect, and Roslin, who is active in intelligence gathering for the movement but opposes Tigh on tactics she feels are beyond the pale and may carry consequences far beyond mere practicality. Meanwhile, we get our first glimpses of what four months has wrought on the fleet that escaped the Cylon invasion. Adama is driven, not the least of which is by a conscience feeding on its own guilt. He pushes the few pilots he has to train, and train again, to the point of their own exhaustion. Surprisingly, the few times we see him calm is not reading in his quarters as was usual in the past, but in his visits with Sharon. 16 months has brought not only an understanding between them, but a certain closeness.

Lee has grown soft -- in more ways than one. The first shot of him, taking a call with a towel wrapped around his now considerable girth, jowls prominent in his whiney rage was shocking. As his wife, Anastasia observes, Lee has "lost his edge." For him, his near-death experience took something from him. Will he get it back? And what will it take for that to happen?

One of the most horrifying and surreal story threads is what is happening to Kara. For four months she has been "kept" by Cylon Leoben in well-appointed apartment, creating a scenario of faux-domesticity that is I love Lucy meets No Exit. Kara murders Leoben with what ever sharp object she can secure, only to have him calmy download to another body and come through the door later "Hi, honey, I'm home!" while Kara sits at on the couch and his old body assumes room temperature on the floor. We learn this has happened five times. Precipice brings a new wrinkle to this story arc as Leoben searches for a way to "turn" Kara. He brings home a blonde toddler named Kasey and claims she is the result of Cylon fertility experiments - the child of Kara and Leoben.

The closing scenes this week, with two hundred humans trucked out to an empty quarry to be slaughtered as an example to the rest, are harrowing.

BSG never plays it safe. It assumes its audience is mature enough that it can present moral ambiguities and allow the viewers to ponder issues theirselves. The writers allow the characters to evolve, to fall from grace, to doubt themselves, to act both rationally and irrationally and to rise to heroism. Humans actually act like humans on this show, and the Cylon hybrids do, too.

It is refreshing to have intellectually engaging, adult content on commercial television.

I hope you're watching along with me.

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Posted by Darleen at October 7, 2006 10:26 AM

Comments

"It assumes its audience is mature enough that it can present moral ambiguities and allow the viewers to ponder issues theirselves."

Unfortunately, it seems to assume incorrectly. I've heard from a LOT of people who think the show's making a thinly veiled political statement about Iraq, and either praise or vilify it based on that assumption.

It's a shame that some people can't wrap their heads around the fact that stories can be COMPLEX just like real life can be COMPLEX. It's not about "America = cylons." It's about "Hey, here's an incredibly daunting situation with no obviously right answers, and various stories about how different people respond to it."

Some people seem to view life as a river, stepping gingerly from simplicity to simplicity, unwilling to get their cuffs wet in the more ambiguous depths.

Posted by: Jeff Harrell at October 7, 2006 04:37 PM

Jeff:

Given Hollywood's track record, is it really surprising that many people leap to the plausible conclusion that Hollywood is once again using it's bully pulpit to attack America?

I am still undecided about BSG, and I'm willing to give it a little leeway....we'll see how the next few episodes go.

Posted by: gahrie at October 7, 2006 05:09 PM

Surprising? No. Not at all.

Doesn't make it any less disappointing when it happens, though.

Posted by: Jeff Harrell at October 7, 2006 07:37 PM