BATTLESTAR GALACTICA REWATCH: Season 3 (2006) – #SciFiMonth

ARTWORK by Tithi Luadthong from 123RF.com

After two riveting seasons, Battlestar Galactica loses some of its previous steam in the third one: where the first handful of episodes offers an in-depth look on life in the settlement of New Caprica under the Cylons’ domination, the rest of the season – with the exception of the three final chapters – shifts its focus to a number of episodes centered on the plight of individual characters, not always managing to offer an intriguing point of view or to be successful in the message it wanted to convey.

In the beginning, what I had previously defined as a depressing portrayal of the refugees’ conditions in the newly established settlement, turns into the dramatic representation of their struggle under the Cylons’ government, aided and abetted by president Baltar’s morally weak ineptitude. In a parallel of the ordeals suffered by European countries fallen under Nazi occupation, we witness mass incarcerations and the disappearance of many individuals and the torture and maiming of others, while the resistance movement created by the colonists tries to sabotage the Cylons as much as possible, thus exasperating an already strained situation.   The conditions aboard Galactica and the rest of the fleet, that took flight at the enemy’s approach and is monitoring New Caprica from afar, are not much better: guilt over the forced choice of abandoning the colony and the creeping sense of impotence prey on already fraying nerves, as the decision on how to proceed becomes more imperative.

This physical break between the two halves of the survivors exemplifies the leitmotif of the whole season, where we see both humans and Cylons experience profound fractures that threaten to create dangerous divisions in both groups: as far as humanity is concerned, the reunification of the fleet, achieved through a massive rescue operation that is one of the best and most breath-taking action sequences of the season, does not heal the rift and instead leads first toward a form of “us and them” mentality, where the colonists look at the spacefaring humans as having led a charmed life, and then to a string of summary executions as a clandestine tribunal hunts and sentences those accused of collaborating with the enemy.  The Cylons, for their part, differ on the methods to deal with the humans – reason with them or beat them into submission – and it looks as if prolonged contact with their former creators has “contaminated” them with the same kind of emotional instability that seems to drive them away from their preordained goal.

All these issues are very interesting, and in the course of the season they give rise to a number of stand-alone episodes that more or less successfully shed light on the survivors’ problems: from the strict class divisions enforced according to the planet of origin and hinting at something of a caste system throughout the Twelve Colonies, to the loosely related story of a Mengele-like doctor trying to wipe out the individuals from a specific planet, these episodes show how the drive for survival is not enough to unite these people into a cohesive whole, but rather it exasperates social tensions that were already in place before the Cylons’ attack and have been simmering during the long months of flight from the attackers and of occupation on New Caprica.

Where the show sadly falters is when it tries to create personal drama in the form of a love triangle – or rather quadrangle – that in my opinion takes too much narrative space that could have been devoted to better and more interesting themes. At some point we are treated by the flare-up of the romantic entanglement between Starbuck and Apollo, something we are told must have been simmering for a long time and that the two are now incapable of keeping under wraps, uncaring of the pain they are inflicting on their respective partners. I know that a good portion of my distaste for this story thread comes from my profound dislike of the trope, but there is more that works against it, starting from the total lack of on-screen chemistry between the two and moving on to the totally loathsome way they treat their spouses, guilt over the break of their marriage vows (something we already learned is frowned on in the Twelve Colonies) expressed just in a perfunctory matter. Not to mention that I could not have cared less about their oh-so-contrived on-screen passion…

Fortunately, the last three episodes mark a return to the intense examination of moral questions standing at the roots of the overall story: as the trial against Gaius Baltar for his crimes during the Cylons’ occupation starts, the focus shifts to the meaning of justice – it had been touched briefly in the earlier episode “Collaborators” I mentioned before, but here it examines in depth the differences between justice and vengeance, of the rules of law against the drive of an angry mob seeking revenge. My opinion of Lee ‘Apollo’ Adama went back a few notches after the nosedive it took during the “forbidden love” episodes, thanks to his speech in defense not so much of Baltar but of a justice system that did not take into account the changed conditions for humanity’s survivors and was driven by the unspoken need to punish one man for everyone’s dark deeds carried out after the Cylons’ attack.

If this third season sags a little in its middle, the explosive beginning and the ominous end, revealing the surprising identity of four of the remaining human-looking Cylons, more than make up for it and hopefully lead toward more revelations in the fourth and final season.

And for the usual soundtrack sample I enjoy attaching to these reviews, here is one of my favorites for this season, Bear McCreary’s, Kat’s Sacrifice from the highly emotional episode The Passage:

My Rating: