Friday, March 27, 2009

TV review – “Battlestar Galactica: Season 3” ****1/2

One of the great things about the new Battlestar Galactica is it tackles all those hypotheticals you find yourself thinking when you imagine the concept – in particular for Season 3, what would it be like if the Cylons ruled the humans instead of just trying to kill them?

On the negative side the series has two of my least favourite characters: Anders, the cool former football star turned war hero (he’s like this 80s action hero character in an otherwise relatively believable cast of characters), and Lucy Lawless, the Cylon with a Kiwi accent. Having said that Lawless’ character has some real meat here – it’s just that bloody accent that’s all.

Some fanboy musings – I think it was wrong for Helo not to be part of biological warfare against the cyclones. It wouldn’t have killed all of them and militarily it was entirely justifiable. (What was myxomatosis if not biological warfare?) Also the prosecution case against Baltar was run really badly – I know Ron D Moore likes to argue that he writes characters who are imperfect and make mistakes (eg Adama) – but I wish someone would tell the directors and actors because that prosecutor acts all cocky like an idiot.

Best things about the series: the terrifically exciting escape off New Caprica, the brilliant boxing episode, the exploration of inter-planetary culture of the colonies. The combat sequences are consistently strong. I wasn’t as wild about all the religious mumbo-jumbo. (You can’t tell me the writing team of season 3 didn’t get stuck into the shrooms at some stage or another). Also the use of ‘All Along the Watchtower’ towards the end was really jarring.

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