Contains some spoilers!
2021/08/29
Season 3 started off were season two ended, four episodes where most of the fleet now lives on New Caprica for a full year and it is clear already that it is not “heaven” for everyone! But it gets worse, after a year the Cylons find the planet by cheer chance, because of a nuclear blast. The Cylons don’t really want to live with the humans, they much rather suppress them and so the occupation starts! Well I have told it many times already but here I go again, I always felt this felt like the Dominion occupation at the start of season 6 on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Perhaps not so strange considering Ronald D. Moore was also on that writing team back then.
Those 4 episodes for me are the best of this season! Baltar is the president still, but is mere a puppet of the Cylons, he can only do what they want him to do. Sometimes he struggles, opposes but then he gets threatened with his death. In the first year, before the Cylons were there, he hadn’t been much of a president either, much to Gaeta’s disgust. The only thing Baltar cared for were the women he slept with in a comfortable bed while his people lived in a harsh environment, trying to make the best of it. Bill Adama and his son stayed behind on the Galactica and the Pegasus with both a skeleton crew. When the Cylons arrived, both ships could jump away in time but now they have to find a way to free their people from Cylon oppression.
On New Caprica there also was a “police” which consisted of humans from the fleet who would be the “bridge” between the Cylons and the humans, at least according to the Cylons. Although some may have honest intentions, they in fact were the oppression tool for the Cylons. Those four episodes where great television, for me, it did not become any better that season, I thought most of it perhaps was okay, but not as good as the first two seasons.
With this last rewatch I have to say I gained more respect for Apollo’s character. His character definitely grows in the these first 3 seasons. The Cylons get more and more screentime, their inner conflict among them, Six and Sharon and D’Anna on one side. It really does not interest me very much, I find it boring and I simply don’t care enough for any of these Cylons. And I believe it’s important to create an adversary who is/are interesting, so the adversary characters get more layered, 3 dimensional…more interesting. I do think they were successful in doing the first two (more layered & 3 dimensional), but still for me, these Cylons really don’t interest me in the slightest. In the first two seasons, Baltar was positive annoyingly but in season 3 where he mostly resides on a Cylon ship, he is mostly just annoying to me and I’ve had it with his six feet tall blonde angel on his shoulder all the time.
The rest of the season, after the first 4 episodes, it never gets this exciting anymore, at least to me. There is one episode I particularly wasn’t fond of, episode 9, “Unfinished Business”, that boxing drama and Starbuck constantly being so annoying, had a tough time watching the episode till the end. Also Bill Adama quite annoying towards Helo in episode 14, The Woman King” where Helo tries to tell his story to Adama, but Adama wouldn’t listen at first. Okay he apologizes in the end but that was too little too late. Another example, episode 16, “Dirty Hands”, where he threatens the Chief with the death of his wife Callie. Even though he helps him afterwards with a talk with the president, it looks like he would have gone through with it had the Chief not backed down. I wouldn’t trust him no longer as my commander.
Episode 17 “Maelstrom” Kata Thrace, aka Starbuck seems to die! And by now you all know I am not a fan of this character, so I wasn’t sad to see her go, but in the back in my mind I could not imagine that she actually died. They did held out for a couple of episodes, which was nicely done. The last three episodes is about the trial against Baltar and I have to say I did enjoy these episodes a bit more than episodes 5-17. For a large part due to Baltar, Apollo and of course Mark Sheppard as Romo Lampkin the advocate of Baltar. And in the final moments of the episode we see Kara return. The question of course is: is she a Cylon?
Season 4 continues with the 4 Cylons who live among the Galactica crew. They have a hard time staying under the radar. Starbuck has returned after Lee has seen her ship explode. She is back and was gone for 2 months but for Kara this feels like 6 hours or so, she believes she was gone for 6 hours. She says she has been to Earth and she thinks she knows how to bring the fleet to Earth but when she “feels” the ship is going in the wrong direction, she takes matters into her own hands…those are moments I dislike the character even more.
For me season 4 never reaches the quality of the first two seasons. The direction in went into, is for me the main reason I believe, not sure how to explain it but the drama with the Cylons, the civil war between the different models, it really did not interest me, everything that happened on the Cylons base star did not matter to me, not one character I found remotely interesting, Cavil perhaps, I thought he was an interesting, slightly disturbing character but he was interesting to me, the other Cylons models never garnered that same feeling with me. I really tried to love the last two seasons but it is just not my cup to tea. The first episode which got a 8/10 rating for me, was episode 10, where the just unboxed model D’Anna almost escalates the situation over the 5 Cylon models. Episode 11, “Sometimes a Great Notion”, where the Earth they find is not what was expected and my favorite character takes this very hard and takes a surprising and disturbing action, is probably my favorite season 4 episode.
Few times I was annoyed with Adama again, he really is a flawed commander if you ask me, his decision making often left me with question marks, also this season this happens a few times. One of them, Episode 8, “Sine Qua Non “where he first refuses to acknowledge Zarek as president, while this is due process, the vice president becomes president when the current president is dead or presumed death or whatever. Then he stays behind to go and look for Roslin, while he lets Tigh in command of the fleet, and we have seen in earlier seasons, that he is not capable to be the commander of the fleet.
The Lt. Felix Gaeta episodes I found refreshing, to be honest, I had much of the same feelings he had for most of this season, he feels betrayed, he cannot believe Adama trusts the Cylons, especially not after what they did to the human race, first on Caprica and the other home planets and later on again on New Caprica. Gaeta is frustrated and apparently he was not the only one because he got a huge following with Zarek, who was his accomplice. Funny thing is, I thought the Gaeta episodes were spread over more episodes but this was only 2 or 3 episodes. The series finale, not sure what to think of it, first 90 minutes does have a lot of action, but overall I was just glad it was over, a few nice moments between Apollo and his father, Roslin and Adama. Cavil has some nice moments in the finale episodes, Dean Stockwell is a great actor and he portrays the character with a lovely dark humor. The divine intervention thing with Kara, I was not fond of.
Final word:
I really tried to love the last two seasons like I love the first two seasons, but I just can’t, I did not like the direction it went into, the Cylon fraternizing, Cylon Civil war, having the same destiny etc. As I said also, I did not care for most of the Cylon models, and I have to admit, there weren’t many human characters, on the Galactica, I really felt something for. Apollo was the one who grew and evolved into a character I can appreciate, Dualla was a real human person, perhaps the Miles O’Brien of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. D stayed true to herself all throughout the series. To be honest, a rewatch, I don’t think I will rewatch the last two seasons in a long, long while. As I said earlier, seasons 1 & 2 are great, especially the Cain episodes are just perfect, so a rewatch of the first two seasons will likely come sooner.
Screencaps taken from: Frak-That.com
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