Especially this time - that was enough of a spoiler to punch the TV. What the hell?

Good thing I deleted the show already or I'd be tempted to go back and look at that spoiler.

And I loved where Lee is at right now, and the courtroom stuff. But that smell in the air that Helo talks about? I am getting that smell too, the small that the writers have completely lost their sh*t.

I think next week is going to be interesting, and will probably piss me off

And I know nothing about next week, Ive intentionally avoided all that talk. Just a feeling.

At least this finally explains that curious remark Adama made about Roslin's cancer way back in last season's finale. It's been driving me nuts.

"You try to steal this election, you'll die inside. Likely move your cancer right to your heart."

...I thought it was a good show.

The spoilers from last week were 100% accurate, though there was a minor touch here and there that weren't mentioned, such as the Cylon pursuit subplot.

Yea I read those... I am absolutely shocked they are true. This show has so far jumped the shark as to hit a whole new echelon of stupidity.

Absolutely blown away they would do this.

Pretty much the whole show has been about the Cylons pursuing the fleet. Even on New Caprica they were pursuing people.

If you would get your will and have all the characters stay the same all the time, I would've given up on BSG around the beginning of season two. Why is it so bad that the characters develop? They aren't breaking the characters, they're evolving them. No one (and I mean no one) can be the same kind of person all the freaking time, and after all the stuff the fleet has been through I would've been pissed of if they didn't change.

/end rant

I'm sorry if I'm a little dense, but which characters have done a complete 180 turn in one or two episodes? Just asking...

Every tomboyish like chic that I know is exactly like that... so I wouldnt say its completely out of character for her. And she definitely has personal issues that she hasnt dealt with.

PAR

I agree with Kat, and yet I still watch the show. You'd think of all the people to be chugging haterade, it'd be me. And yet...

I think my expectations for television as a medium have dropped so low that I'm rarely let down. During my West Wing/Buffy heyday I would hold television to an incredibly high standard, but I'm just over it. I get home from work and I'm just excited to have anything not work-related to do, I'd be satisfied with monkeys throwing office supplies for 44 minutes.

Anyway, you're all correct. The writing has gotten lazy. But for some reason I can't get worked up over it.

I'll agree with you that that was sloppy writing, but we (read: I) can assume that was about the time she got to know that she had cancer again. She acted strange before, but knowing you have cancer twice in the same spot will push most people over from normal to cuckoo.

I totally agree with you that that was a horrible scene and a very 'meh' episode, but that doesn't shove them all into the horrible character development box for me

This show runs on the imperfections of people and society, and I can't get where everybody gets the idea that people on TV can't have mood swings. Take Kara. As Par said, she's got issues. Not any more, 'cause she's dead, but she had them. She is (was) my favourite character on the show because of just how random she acted sometimes. She reminds me of my sister a few years back, in a weird kinda way.

On this forum I constantly get the feeling that almost everybody just loves to hate this show. I've said it before and I'm saying it again, everyone here focuses on what is bad and throwing a huge frigging magnefying glass on it. Yeah, it's a good show(probably the best I've seen, along with Heroes), but that doesn't mean I expect every episode to be 40 minutes of flawless entertainment.

Or whatever...

This may not explain all of the previous character changes, but I got the feeling with the whole "Tigh's hearing things" events are going to reveal that something in the ship is messing with the crew's minds. (And it possibly the Cylon tracking signal.)

I think Tigh was tuning into the sound, or whatever it is, on that radio at the beginning, and Tory seemed to be very disturbed when she was in the bar later.

I only watch this via iTunes, so I'm not sure if anything was revealed in the preview for next week about this.

Or I could just be crazy myself.

I didn't mind the episode, but way too much stuff happened during that 44 minutes. The Cylons are back on their trail? Really, I had almost forgotten about that. Roslin's cancer's back? Oh, ok. Tigh, the alcoholic, is back on a bad bender? Gotcha. Dee left Lee? Riiight. And that one strikes me as a bit odd, since she stuck with him through a depression, cheating, lying, and now that he's actually sticking to his convictions, she leaves him? Ohhhkay. In a way, it makes sense, since she only seems to be attracted to power, and now that Lee has gone in a different direction she has no reason to stay with him anymore.

Best part of the episode: Head Six and Head Baltar - I loved the scenes they were in. And I get the impression that Lee's character is finally finding his way.

Personally, I still enjoy the show. It's not the same type of intense television that we saw in season one, but I still enjoy watching it. There were quite a few missteps during this season, but for the most part I really enjoyed the last two episodes.

I actually thought Starbuck was the most consistently written person on the show, if only because her basic character allowed for mood swings and unpredictability. I'm not a fan of how much focus was put on to her love life in Season 3, but all in all, she made Starbuck decisions from her Starbuck mind. She didn't tell anyone that she'd line his wife up against a wall and shoot her just like Cain did.

You aren't the first person to mount this high horse, but I really, really hope you'll be the last. It's kinda getting old. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions here. I know you personally are sick of hearing the negativity, but if I have a negative opinion, why should I not be allowed to express it? If something bothers me about the show, why shouldn't I talk about it?

But I do. Because Battlestar once was 40 minutes of flawless entertainment. I don't see why it can't or shouldn't be again. I'm only holding the show to the high standards that it created for itself. That is, I don't believe in saying "things just suck sometimes"; we should never give out free passes for suckitude. Instead, we should try and fail honestly, learning from our mistakes and improving, instead of giving up halfway through, mindlessly repeating our follies again and again. And that applies to writers of sci-fi shows too.

In podcasts, Ron Moore has said as much as "We gave up" when it came to "Black Market" and "The Woman King". And I think it's clear that the writers have given up with Roslin and Adama, too. Or maybe they're coasting, coasting on the good will and love they assume the audience feels for those characters. But there's only so long that you can coast before you veer off track. I keep watching Battlestar not out of love for the characters - because I don't even recognize them anymore - but because the show was once was so good, and maybe, just maybe, it might be good again. It's getting there, slowly and surely; this past episode was a vast improvement.

Actually, I thought that kinda made sense. Remember back in the beginning of the season, when Dee said to Lee, "You're an Adama. That's why I married you." Kind of a throwaway line, but I really think it's the crux of their relationship. Clearly Dee was more in love with the Adama image that she was with Lee himself. She wanted a carbon-copy of Bill Adama, strong, flawless leader of the Fleet. Instead, she got Lee. And it wasn't until Lee started allowing himself to explore who he really was and wanted to be, instead of following in his father's example, that she left him. I think she could put up with the philandering and the depression, as long as Lee was outwardly an Adama, as long as he was a pilot and a trusted officer and a leader of men, as long as he didn't look too closely (or ask her to look too closely) at what being "an Adama" meant. But now that he is, she wants no part of it.

Or, maybe, it was just lazy writing again. But I do think this makes sense. Before this episode aired, I figured that if Dee were to ever leave Lee now, it would be because she would realize that Lee was not his father, and that she wouldn't be able to handle that.

I guess the reason I can't quite get on board with the "jumped the shark" notion is that from the beginning I've thought this was an amazing series with big themes, high stakes, gut-punch moments, but always some rather glaring flaws... mostly in the handling of the younger characters on the show. Starbuck and Lee especially always rang a little false to me, what with Starbuck's constant intense talking-one-inch-away-from-someone-else's-face confrontations and Lee's reedy voice and sometimes unconvincing delivery. The less said about Helo the better. Some of the choices they've made this season have brought those flaws to the fore, in my opinion (like the love quadrangle of doom), but when this show is good, I find myself chuckling during and after it airs out of surprise and delight from the situations they've put their characters in. It's been a little while since I've gotten that, but Crossroads pt. 1 definitely took me there. I'm actually excited about Lee for the first time in a long time, as I think he's totally doing the right thing here.

And I like how New Caprica has resonated through the entirety of season three. It hasn't always been handled well, but I think so much of that falls on the individual writers, with their strengths and quirks. Michael Angeli, who wrote last week's Son Also Rises, sort of sucks in a verbose "I'm telling you how I feel instead of dramatizing it" way, and I thought there was a big difference in quality between say, last week's Bill-Lee scenes and this week's Bill-Lee scenes, even though the tone was quite similar.

I also don't think it's fair to characterize Moore as having 'given up' in cases such as Black Market and other sub-par eps. What I take from those podcasts is there are often situations where they start with a clear idea of theme and direction but don't always get there, through some combination of script, director, or performance misstep, not to mention time and budget constraints. He does admit when an episode sucks, but I never get the sense that they 'gave up' so much as eventually you have to air it and keep moving forward to the best of your ability.

I'm still not happy with how Kara's death was handled, but I'm counting on some sort of payoff down the road.