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October 06, 2006

Battlestar Galactica Season 3

Well...it's been a long year without BSG. For those who weren't aware, the SciFi channel has been running what they call 'webisodes' for the last five weeks, ten in all. Each is a two-to-five minute snippet that, when taken together, provide a decent overview of what has happened since the Cylons occupied New Caprica. As could be expected, it has been an unpleasant few months. While many humans are simply trying to live under the Cylon occupation as best they can, some have created a resistance movement, with expected results. The entire plot line will be an obvious analogue for the American occupation of Iraq, with the Cylons in the role of the United States. While I was initially somewhat skeptical of this decision, the ten webisodes looked remarkably interesting, and the first episode of the new season suggests that the show may finally be hitting its stride.

While I, as a fan of the original show, wanted to see BSG improve on the original, it became clear in season two that Ron Moore's heart wasn't really in the 'fleet on the run' theme. While season two had high notes, it also had a number of clunky episodes that I believe were partially a result of Moore having run out of really good ideas. By shifting the focus of the show to something different, perhaps Moore can catch fire and actually start building stories along a longer arc.

The opener gives us about six basic storylines: Cylon internal politics, humans collaborating with the Cylons, humans fighting the Cylons, members of the fleet preparing to rescue the humans, members of the fleet preparing to continue the search for Earth, and Starbuck and Leoben. Among these they set a number of subplots, so there are a lot of balls going into the air in this episode. Most of them are very interesting, although I confess the Starbuck plot did nothing for me; the Cylon fascination with religion leaves me cold. The rest of the plotlines, however, are quite engrossing, and while I think that attempts to equate the Cylon occupation with the U.S. occupation of Iraq are doomed to failure (and, in fairness, given some of the things the Cylons do, I don't think the equivalence is intended to be strong to begin with), but watching each side of the battle promises to be very intriguing. I am still curious to see if Moore will eventually decide who the good guys are in this, but after this opening episode, I am very interested to find out.

BSG is back. If it can maintain the momentum generated by tonight's episode, it will well deserve the title of the best show on TV.