Battlestar Galactica: Thoughts On Season 4.0

June 15th, 2008

This is a “wrap-up” of sorts for this first half of season 4, because the second half won’t air until 2009.

Episode Overview

• Razor: The Battlestar Pegasus from the attack on Caprica to encountering the Galactica, and when Lee was in command showing an encounter with a Cylon outpost and a hybrid.
• He That Believeth In Me: Starbuck returns, the Final Four are confused, a Cylon attack is aborted after one Cylon sees Anders, Baltar is taken in by a cult.
• Six Of One: Cylon civil war begins, Starbuck threatens Roslin, Lee quits the military, Adama gives Starbuck command of the Demetrius to find earth.
• The Ties That Bind: Tory is sleeping with Baltar. The Demetrius has no idea where they’re going, the Cylon civil war escalates, Callie learns Chief is a Cylon, Tory kills her.
• Escape Velocity: Chief is emotionally crippled, Tigh starts interrogating the captured “Caprica” Six, Baltar’s cult fights with others to where Roslin and Lee must intervene.
• The Road Less Travelled: Chief shaves his head and confronts Baltar, Starbuck finds Leoben drifting in space and brings him aboard the Demetrius, to the consternation of the crew.
• Faith: The Demetrius mutinies and Gaeta is shot in the leg. Starbuck takes several crew members to a damaged “rebel” basestar. Roslin comes to terms with her nearing death.
• Guess What’s Coming To Dinner: The rebel basestar and the Demetrius return to the fleet, where the Cylons explain the civil war, offer up the resurrection hub, and declare their intent to unbox Number Three, who knows the identity of the Final Five, who in turn know the way to Earth. Hera runs away from Sharon who kills a Six model. Roslin dreams of the opera house and takes Baltar to see the hybrid. The rebel base star jumps away, along with a bunch of vipers that were preparing to attack the hub.
• Sine Qua Non: With Roslin gone, Lee initiates a search for an interim President with the help of Romo Lampkin and ends up choosing himself. Caprica Six is pregnant with Tigh’s child. Adama misses Roslin and hands command of the Galactica over to Tigh.
• The Hub: The rebel base star locates and destroys the resurrection hub, turning Cylons mortal. Number Three is unboxed and brought aboard the rebel base star. Baltar almost dies but Roslin saves him, after having visions of her death. With the mission a success the rebel base star jumps back to find Adama waiting for them in a raptor.
• Revelations: Upon returning to the fleet, Number Three holds the humans aboard the basestar hostage until the Final Four reveal themselves. Tory gives herself up willingly. Tigh tells Adama he’s a Cylon, Adama cracks up. Tigh, Chief, and Anders are about to be blasted out an airlock but Starbuck discovers the viper points the way to Earth. Lee offers the Final Three amnesty and Number Three relents. The fleet and rebel Cylons jump to Earth and are happy — until a landing party discovers the planet is a radioactive wasteland from some apocalyptic war presumably of long ago.

The Good

• Razor is considered the first two episodes of season four, and it was a really cool movie, providing some back story to the battlestar Pegasus that fit in marvelously well with the season two episodes (Pegasus, Ressurection Ship (1), and Resurrection Ship (2)). Intriguing to me is how the Pegasus lacked a civilian fleet as a check and balance, therefore it turned into a totalitarian, military dictatorship. Another interesting layer was Cain’s romance with Gina (a six model) making Gina’s murder of Cain and her detonation of the nuke all the more tragic. Lastly, a Cylon hybrid offered up some cryptic information, and we got a glimpse of a young Bill Adama in an early Cylon hybrid factory which added some additional mysteries (what happened to those human prisoners he couldn’t free? And is there any significance to him sticking his arm in the tank?).
• All the episodes served to further the stories — there weren’t any ridiculously self-contained episodes where everything ground to a halt.
• The Ties That Bind was a very chilling and awesome episode — Callie finds out the truth about the Final Four and Tory kills her. Chief drifts to the dark side in The Road Less Traveled, flipping out and going Pyle from Full Metal Jacket. Something crazy is going to happen; I hope he attacks Baltar.
• I did like the return of Romo Lampkin in Sine Qua Non, I wish there was a way to make him a returning character.
• I liked the first four episodes and the last four. Include the Razor movie and overall that’s a very solid season in terms of general entertainment value.

The Bad

• Two episodes sagged, predictably in the middle — the Demetrius half of The Road Less Traveled and Faith.
• In retrospect, we got zip answers to burning questions: No explanation of Baltar and Head Six, is Roslin the dying leader and what’s up with her shared visions, who is the fifth Cylon, who created the Final Five, how did they get into the fleet, what is their purpose, or what’s the deal with Starbuck. Some annoying new questions arose: how did Saul get the Six pregnant? What’s up with Earth?
• I was disappointed that the Final Five didn’t begin sabotaging the fleet. Instead, they had secret meetings accomplishing nothing, went nutty, and stood around looking confused. The episode where Tory kills Callie had me hopeful that some dark serial killer rampage might begin, returning to the time of Cylon paranoia (season one) or Tigh’s covert terrorist activities on New Caprica. They couldn’t even figure out the way to earth — Starbuck had to help them. A real missed opportunity.
• I would have expected more conflict on both sides in regards to the human / rebel Cylon alliance. We got some glimmers of distrust in the Demetrius crew mutiny, the Qurom of Twelve’s distrust, and the pilots complaining in Revelations, but that’s it. Based on shows past, I would have expected the fleet to collapse in their own civil war, with different factions breaking off or sabotaging each other over partnership with the Cylons.
• More major characters should be dead already: Callie’s death had me hoping, but Baltar was saved from death twice. The most egregious offense of a character that should be dead by now, is Roslin. This show has been brutally cruel in the past (deaths of Cain, Kat, Boomer, Billy, Crashdown, Number Three), and the present characters have cheated death too many times to where it’s become unbelieveable. Kill some more people; we can handle it.
• More space battles, please.
• Not into Roslin and Adama hooking up.

Conclusion

Overall, I enjoyed this first half season, but felt let down by of several of the plot developments and how they were handled. To sum up, this season wasn’t cynical enough for me. I wanted more characters to die, have the fleet be way more skeptical of the rebel Cylons, have the final five be more vicious, and the human fleet collapse into a civil war of their own.

The scenario in my mind was the fleet gets to Earth in shambles, half the major characters dead, and Adama on the edge of insanity, commanding the Demetrius with a pencil and a bottle of whiskey. So the crushingly negative ending of Revelations was a good thing in my mind, and showed the series as a whole may yet have a bittersweet or outright tragic conclusion.

My favorite episodes of season 4.1: Razor, He That Believeth In Me, The Ties That Bind, Guess What’s Coming To Dinner, Revelations. However, in comparison with the series as a whole, I’d only say Razor and Revelations are up to the level of my favorite episodes overall.