S3 sucked only when it came to the triangle of death. Otherwise, I still thought it was quite good (though I guess, in retrospect, the weakest of the three seasons). Here's hoping RDM actually WRITES some of the damn scripts this season...

Sigh. Once again a reminder that "fan" is short for "fanatic."

I have a question. Is there any way to watch BG in High Def besides purchasing the HD or Blu Ray DVDS after the season is over?

Considering that the last three seasons sucked, why should season four be any different?

Sci Fi forums? You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villiany...

Someone should tell these folks to chill out and wait until the season premiere starts before they render a verdict, good or bad.

Oh internet, I love you, but I hate many of the people who use you.

@EGN: Ditto.

I think that the Star Wars sequels set a new standard in lowering expectations: The first two movies were so terrible that the third one looked decent by comparison.

I expect the same thing with BSG.

@B: They play BSG on the Universal HD channel. Check your listings (you also need HD Cable).

I thought any suckage of Season 3 was caused by Kat. (Damn, she annoyed the hell out of me.) She's really really dead, right?

I would actually be for never posting user 'fan' comments in articles. Most of them are fairly moronic.

I'm all for withholding judgment until you've actually seen the season, but given the wretched and stupid appearance of world beat covers of Bob Dylan songs in the last season, I'm more than slightly concerned...

What's that? People on the internet are opinionated and have faulty logic? Zut alors! The people in my corner of the internet are so reasonable.

Season 3 wasn't that bad. And if we think of trilogies, often the middle section is the weakest as it is setting up the conclusion.

Except for Star Wars, Terminator, and The Matrix. Then the rule doesn't apply. But it did for Lord of the Rings. Mostly.

Oh hell, we'll just have to wait and see!

Season 3 wasn't that sucky. It just had a few boring episodes in the middle. The occupation on New Caprica was fascinating. And the scene in "Exodus" of the Galactica jumping into the atmosphere over New Caprica and free-falling toward the surface is one of the best moments of science fiction television ever.

Also, anyone who uses the word "ergo" should be automatically ignored.

Hopefully its as good as Galatica 1980 :P

+ Watch video

OK OK This is the only episode I really liked from that short run :/

@extracrispy:
Agreed. And that is because they had to extend the season at the channels request.

Though, I must say, the whole Dylan/hidden Cylon thing did piss me off.

And kudos to everyone here for ignoring the two obvious (and idiotic) trolls.

@extracrispy: Fun use of paradox, extracrispy. We should ignore your post because it contains the word "ergo", but then...

Hey io9... How about asking a less leading question in your title. Rather than how much will it suck... How good will it be?
@extracrispy:
Yeah... 3 wasn't that bad at all. Name one TV show that hasn't had a couple of mediocre episodes. Hell the Sopranos had 3 full seasons of them at the end and everyone still loves that. Vote Baltar.

@PVIII: Will it have the new episodes? I've been using that channel to catch up on the previous seasons.

@AhnyerKeester: I thought the rule of triologies was the third one is the worst. Except for BotF, where the second was the weakest. Although, part 3 was pretty sucky as well.

I haven't been terribly impressed with what I've seen of the series so far, so that leaves me with low expectations.

I also doubt that they'll manage to bring the story arc to any sort of sensible conclusion (much less an awesome one), so that lowers my expectations further.

My plan regarding this show is: wait until it's over - if it somehow actually ends so well as to make it worthwhile, borrow somebody's DVDs and watch the whole thing then.
-Kle.

@B: As far as I know, it won't be week of, but they're usually not all that far behind. Don't know if it'll be worth the wait though...

I love the show and I thought the third season was totally on par with the first two. The thing that throws people off, I think, is that BSG covers a lot of angles, from politics to religion to simple morality and basic human rights. I appreciate the fact that its not just one space battle after another, and they take the time to slow down and explore the challenges of maintaining a society in the face of extinction. That said, I have a lot of hope for season four so long as they continue doing what they're doing. One way or another I want to know who the final cylon is!

@B: Sci-Fi recently added an HD version of the channel. I know Comcast has it, but I dunno about other providers.

@SavannahJack: Yay, someone else hates it too!

@El-Zilcho: There is a Sci-Fi HD, but I am nervous about it. They had Ogre starring John Schneider in HD (everyone needs that) the other night, but this morning BSG was on, it said it was HD, but clearly wasn't. Hey Sci-Fi... get your shit together by April 4th. I want new high res Vipers flying across my screen outrunning the camera operator.

We all hope it will be good. We all hope anything in our favorite genre will be good. But if it's not you have choices; 1) Turn it off. 2)Keep watching, even though it is bad, I assume so you'll have something to whine about later.

If it is bad, turning it off and not watching the commercials is the only impact that the ordinary viewer can have on programming. Email the network, tell them their programming sucks and that is why you don't watch it any more. Email the sponsors and tell them you won't buy their products until they support better programming.

If we keep accepting programming geared to the lowest common denominator that is all we will ever get because it is easy money. Better programming requires effort, effort requires money to buy better writers, actors, and production crews. The money comes from the advertizers. Conversely, praise them when they do good. Everybody loves an attaboy now and then.

Repeat after me; I am mad as hell and I am not going to take it anymore.

Did these people not see the first half of season 3? They were amazing! Some of the best stuff seen on television. Yeah there was a great deal of crap with the love quadrangle b.s. and kat was annoying and such. But that does not negate the incredible awesomeness of the New Caprica occupation, escape and the ripples of that (Baltar's trial was amazing! The secret executions of collaborators was horrific and awesome!).

My biggest concerns with season 4 is actually alleviated by season 3. When season 2 ended with that one year jump I was frakking furious - I thought it was a jump the shark moment and I almost didn't bother with Season 3 at all. But those first few episodes blew my mind. So though I am highly skeptical of how they will deal with starbuck's resurrection and the new cylons......I am going to give them a chance to boggle my mind again.

Just please dear god let the love quadrangle crap stay in the past. PLEASE.

I agree that Season 3 wasn't the pinnacle, but didn't people say that after season 2? That being said, it did go up and down throughout the season, and I hated the entire last episode until the final 5 minutes. Even when I realized what was happening, I was regretting it, then it just clicked.

I'm excited to see where they go with it. I really can't decide if it will end on a high note or a low note, which is thrilling.

Season 3 was seriously flawed. The beginning of the season on New Caprica was some of the best, most thought provoking TV in years. Then they did the boxing episode and 5 episodes about Starbuck being a whiny drunk.

If they can save the show from becoming an overly dramatic soap opera and come up with a good ending I'll be thrilled. Surprised but thrilled.

I have high hopes. Even though I wasn't too thrilled with the New Caprica arc, I really did enjoy season 3. And from what I've heard so far about season 4, it seems as though the final episodes and storyline of the show will be relatively well plotted.

One of the things that I thought hurt the show was how the main storyline seemed to get sidetracked every few weeks by the introduction of a new secondary character. From my understanding of what's ahead, this may be cut back some because of the need to wrap things up. While on some level I think the secondary character development added to the depth of the mythology, I think the less of it in season 4, the more well put-together the season will feel.

season 3 had a great kick off, some interesting stand alone episodes right after the exodus, and an awesome mid season cliffhanger.

The resolution of the cliffhanger wasn't as awesome as it could have been. it was merely okay.

The series weakest points came in the form of cylons that acted like squabbling teenagers while a centurion constantly played piano over the intercom system. They have a plan... an inexplicable meandering, somewhat tentative plan. They should have stayed out of the basestars.

Also the season strengthened my hate for starbuck. she used to be my favorite character, but she started acting like she was the only one with problems. most people in the fleet lost their entire families and she's drinking herself to death over which ken doll to fuck.

Luckily edward james olmos cried and broke a ship and restored a sense of gravity to her death.

The second half brought us more solid stand alones and chief and cally pulled a ford prefect/arthur dent and popped out of the airlock like corks. Luckily, they too were picked up before they died.

I think the stand alones made the season feel 'meh' because we were itching to advance the storyline. I think they will hold up better via dvd viewings.

And then the grand finale brought colonial law, impassioned speeches, bob dylan, and a great "oh shit the cylons are here and we're fucked" moment.

seriously. It was good to see the cylons show up again and have it be scary, instead of imagining that they're all inside arguing about what sort of missles they should fire via their watery light-brite control systems.

well, if it does suck, it will be due to a bad case of senioritis. You know what I mean. You know you're gonna graduate,so why try. That goes for actors and writers.

Moore didn't lose his passion for the show-- Sci-Fi canceled it after four seasons. He HAS to end it.

At least he's getting the chance to do it, with 20 episodes. Most shows get canned without ever getting any wrap-up at all.

I actually felt that season 3 was right on par with the entire series. Granted, I'm a pretty big fan of the show.

It seems that people were disappointed with some episodes of season three because they dealt with social issues within the fleet and character growth rather than pew pew space battles and such. The first four and the last four episodes of the season were all top notch stuff and the mid-season Eye of Jupiter storyline was well done and really moved the overall series plot forward. At worst, you can only say that season three had a few mediocre episodes and frankly, even mediocre BSG is better than 95% of all of the other crap out there.

I really can't think of many recent and semi-long lasting science fiction TV shows that have been as consistently good as BSG - maybe Farscape, individual seasons of Babylon 5 and Doctor Who if your into British shows. Looking at most popular sci fi stuff recently (Star Trek and Stargate) where every third episode is total crap, BSG is a much deeper and much better show and I think that the fourth season is going to rock.

Season 3 sucked only if you compare it to BSG Seasons 1 and 2. Compare it to anything else on TV and it was fantastic. Even compared to S1 and S2 it was decent. After re-watching it last week, all I can really say is that it wandered a bit and had less action. And the interior Cylon Basestar was a bit of a disappointment.

the only reason season 4 is the last is because NBC Universal decided it no longer wanted to "spend money" and instead show bullshit like Ghost Hunters on Scifi.

I love how people have already decided an entire season of a show "sucks" without ever seeing it.

I'm still holding out hope that most of the things in the series were planned, and that that the threads will mostly come to fruition this season.

I'm stupid-optomistic when it comes to BSG though.

... season 3 sucked? What? News to me. Big news. Sort of like if you told me that the world's dominant superpower is actually Latvia and it has been for the last two hundred years.

I've been rewatching the show from start to finish, and the best parts of the show are the highly serialized portions. All of Season 1, then the Kobol/Arrow of Apollo arc in Season 2. When the network starts demanding standalone episodes, that's when the show stumbles. But when the story is hurtling along episode to episode, that's when the show really sparkles. I thought Season 3's standalone episodes were much better than 2's.

I do agree that the show should have stayed off the Basestars in Season 3. They Cylons should have stayed scary.

My hope for Season 4 is that the need to wrap everything up will keep out any standalone episodes, and that it'll just be bang-bang-bang for 20 episodes.

@Huxleyhobbes:
Agreed.

Sorry, naysayers. I'm the most jaded bastard in any crowd and Season 3 left me saying "Holy sh*t...WTF" at the end of pretty much each episode.

That was some good writing. Don't rain on my parade :)

Also meant to mention that for me, BSG is much more about the characters than the space battles and action. I loved the episode Unfinished Business even though I know a lot of people didn't like it very much. Too much "soap opera" for some people, which I think is some fans' way of saying that they want action, not character development. I seem to recall the same charges being leveled against Deep Space Nine, RDM's last big show.

oh yeah. and season 3 didn't have an episode as bad as black market. its the only battlestar episode i hated.

I'm never going to understand how a series like SG1 get's "SciFi of the millenia" award from it's fans but BSG get's ripped apart.

@Garro:
Thank you!

;)

Seriously.

I'll be the first to admit that Season 3 was probably the most uneven so far, but BSG is still BSG.

I wholeheartedly concur with this:

I've been rewatching the show from start to finish, and the best parts of the show are the highly serialized portions. All of Season 1, then the Kobol/Arrow of Apollo arc in Season 2. When the network starts demanding standalone episodes, that's when the show stumbles. But when the story is hurtling along episode to episode, that's when the show really sparkles.

@Garro: I know. Nothing galls me more than the phrase 'People's Choice Award Winner Stargate Atlantis'. Well, then, the People are idiots.

I wouldn't say the season sucked, but I would have liked to have seen more consistent characterization with Lee "I hate my Dad this week because..." Adama, and WAY less of snitty, drunken Starbuck, who for me personally went from becoming the most interesting to the least tolerable character. So as long as season four has more going on than Starbuck flailing around on the deck screaming "WE'RE GOING THE WRONG WAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYY", I'll be watc