As the start of Battlestar Galactica Season 4 quickly approaches (Friday, April 4th at 10/9c), I’m doing my best to watch all 6 discs of the newly released Battlestar Galactica Season 3 box set. I’ve done pretty good considering the NCAA basketball tournament has taken up most of my weekend television viewing and am about 2/3 done with Season 3. As I get closer and closer to Season 3’s season finale, I’m starting to wonder what it is everyone was complaining about.
After watching Seasons 1 and 2 of BSG I heard and read a lot of complaints by Battlestar fans that Season 3 was just not that good and that the show had really dragged on in certain parts. Now while I will say there have been a few slow episodes that I could have done without, what show can say that every episode is a great one? Not only that, but I really enjoyed the early episodes during the Cylon occupation of New Caprica. So I have to ask all the Battlestar Galactica fans out there, what was it about Season 3 that you disliked?
I have to add a caveat which is I think there is a big difference to watching a season on DVD as opposed to watching the show live. When you watch a show live you have a whole week (or months if they decide to split a season in half like the Sci-Fi Channel is talking about doing with Season 4 of BSG) to sit and think about/discuss the previous episode. When it’s a bad episode it makes it even worse. When you watch a complete season on DVD you don’t have the same time frame. If an episode is bad (or good) most people don’t sit around and dissect it the same way because you just move on to the next episode and then the next and the next.
By watching a season on DVD, the viewer is able to grade the series as one complete story as opposed to each individual episode, which in some ways is a much better way to evaluate a television show. But, this also skews from how most people watch and grade TV shows. So while my judgment on Season 3 is from looking at the overall season/storyline, most people who watched it live graded it on a week to week basis. I’d say this mean’s my judgment is a little off from most. So this brings us back to my main question, what was it that fans disliked? Or, have I just not gotten to the worst part yet? With 7-8 episodes left, a major chunk of Season 3 I might add, I reserve the right to change my opinion of Season 3 until I reach that final episode.Bonus: Here is the video of last week's The Late Show with David Letterman's Battlestar Galactica Top Ten List:
