Too much confusion

The season 3 finale of “Battlestar Galactica” aired tonight. According to the SciFi channel, season 4 doesn’t start until 2008. Word on the street is that there’ll be a two-hour movie “bridging” the season, not continuing from the finale, but introducing things that’ll be resolved in season 4.

In my whole history of watching things, I can’t remember when or if I’ve ever had such a hard time deciding if I liked something. My gut reaction throughout was “oh hell yeah.” But there was just as much “what the hell is going on here?” I really can’t say whether I thought it was unbelievably, unacceptably cheesy; or was one of the coolest things I’ve seen on a TV series. Which means, I guess, that it was the latter.

It goes without saying that big stuff follows, so don’t read the rest unless you want to have the finale (and maybe the whole season) ruined for you…

Now, I’m okay with the plot developments. In fact, I like it quite a bit.

Roslin and Athena having a shared vision with Six? Really creepy, really well done, and just all-around awesome. If they’d actually addressed it afterwards, it would’ve been even better, but I guess that’s where the next season comes in.

Apollo’s speech? Clumsy and overly drawn out, completely implausible in any kind of real trial, but still a good speech that somebody had to make. I wouldn’t have thought it were possible for Apollo & the Admiral to come to a resolution, but that was the best way to do it. (Apollo and Roslin probably won’t be pals anytime soon, if ever). For the past couple of hours, and in fact the whole series, they’ve been describing Apollo & the Admiral’s relationship in easily-digestible one-liners, so it was a really well-written scene to show what’s behind all that, and simultaneously sum up the whole series in the process. If it’d just sounded more natural and less like a monologue, it would’ve been a master scene. And corny as it is, the lawyer guy is still a good character, and he had a good send-off.

The verdict and Baltar’s fan club? There was never any real doubt that Baltar was going to get executed any time in the near future, so it was either aquittal or a sudden rescue. Having the court go into a near-riot was a nice touch, as was Baltar trying to weasel his way with his new best friends forever afterwards. And the Baltar-worship cult was a good way to take him off in a new direction. So I’m for it.

And that’s my thoughts on the show! See y’all next season!

Well, what do you say about the rest? I didn’t see the episodes where Boomer realized she was a “sleeper” Cylon, so I don’t know if this is similar at all — did she do the same thing? Do they just “know?” Because it seemed to me that they were leaving it wide open for the four not to be Cylons.

That would be a great twist on the whole series. Up until now, it’s been an undercurrent through the whole show, humans wondering if they’re really Cylons. Now, you’ve got a bunch of humans who are sure that they’re Cylons, and what do they do with that info? Tons of great material for season 4, and I really hope that they take it that direction, instead of just accepting their self-awareness.

Truth is, though, either direction would be cool, which is probably unprecedented in the world of season finale cliffhangers. If they’re not, you’ve got all the “four high-placed people with a shared secret” angst for plenty of season 4 episodes, along with all the reveals and half-reveals and all that. If they are, then Tyrol’s baby is another hybrid like Hera, and it all builds up to the idea of Cylons & humans one day living in harmony — I wonder if they could actually make it into a non-cheesy version of Women of the Prehistoric Planet, where the two babies form the master race of humans, and we all end up having Cylon blood inside of us, fighting with the Thetans.

The music? I don’t know, man. The reveal on the whole was kind of cool, but there were some really unfortunate decisions made there. Wouldn’t it have been enough just to have “There must be some way out of here” and “There’s too much confusion” and leave it at that? Why have each character deliver a line, pounding the song home like a piledriver? Why force these poor actors to deliver the lines “Said the joker to the thief” and “I can’t get no relief” and try to make them sound natural and dramatic? The only thing more awkward and cringe-inducing is when they’re all standing there and start humming it together.

As for the song itself, there are definitely worse songs they could’ve chosen. I can definitely see the lyrics’ fitting into future plot developments. And it raises all kinds of questions about how the colonies tie in with Earth. An interesting theory I read on a message board: they’re receiving transmissions, Contact-style, but they’re 40 years old, tying into the “Galactica 2009” theory we’re all looking forward to.

Which is all leading to me believe I probably liked it. The thing is, it’s really hard to shock an audience nowadays. Especially when you have a series that’s had so many big reveals ever since the miniseries, and keeps upping the ante. So including a song that’s so out of place was a great way to knock the audience out of their comfort zone, and add tension to everything else going on. It’s a little like breaking through the fourth wall and asking, “did we just totally like blow your mind, man?” And a lot like me answering, “Yes, yes you did.”

Plus, Starbuck’s still alive. Nobody really believed she was gone for good, right? (Although I thought I read that the exec producer of the series promised in a podcast that she was really, genuinely dead. Is he a damn dirty liar?) Good call on putting her name only in the ending credits.

So she’s been to Earth, and she says it’s awesome and Lee should totally check it out too. There are all kinds of ways they could handle that, with her being the Final Fifth or a Lord of Kobol or jumped into a wormhole or stowed away on a Basestar or whatever — there’s not a lot they could do there that would be unacceptably awful. I wonder if she and Apollo are the “two riders were approaching” from the end of the song, right before the wind begins to howl?