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Television: Battlestar Galactica, Season 3
Mon, 20 Nov 2006

Another quick one written on the phone; my thumbs are oh so sore.

As I mentioned previously, recent shows have been attempting (and not so well) longer story arcs - Lost, etc. For a long time our TV writers have been pulling off the background story arc -- House's flirtation with some of the other doctors while they probe what his problem is, etc etc, but few can pull off any long duration story without both messing up syndication potential or getting the big story paced all to hell. Still, a few shows pull it off, and BSG season 3 is one of them.

Season one began with an intensity, though was really just an episodic character driven story -- given enormous disaster, how will these characters fare while trying to survive? It bogged down a little near the end of the season but really got exciting at the end. Season 2 picked off with more mature characters and got into the day to day nitty gritty of running a society in space with heavy military influence, politics, and survival against a superior foe.. but they'd gotten into a routine so not as many were pure survival stories. Great stuff but again, bogging down near the end of the season.. and frankly, I tire of political stories and emotional-pulls about babies etc. Great stuff, but with busy times in my own life I let it sit for a few months so that I wouldn't get beat up on the end of season cliffhanger. Caught up on Dr. Who instead, for a bit..

I noticed the other day that episode 7 had come out in season 3 so figured it was safe to venture into BSG again, knowing that when the cliffhanger struck I'd have a few episodes to go .. so much less stressful. How wrong I was, about the stress..

This is white-knuckle material, television writing at its finest. Really, these first few episodes of the season have probably been some of the best television I've ever seen.. gripping, human drama, fighting against oppression and all that. The psych-screwing still annoys me (enough with the baby plots and mucking with Starbucks head), but its really all just fantastic.

Thankfully I've got a few episodes to catch up on. But, if you have not been following the series .. listen to me now. Its good. Its gorramned awesome. I'm sure season 3 will slow down near the end like the previous two, but perhaps thats the writers just taking pity on us, giving us some respite after the oh so stressful beginnings of each season. My heart can barely handle this right now :)

Television can be good; long story arcs can be good; rarely do these two meet.

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