Battlestar Galactica 3rd Season Finale Is Frakking Good

Battlestar Galactica aired the last episode of the third season on SciFi Channel Sunday night and it was a doozy! We learned the identity of four of the five unknown Cylons with strong intimations that President Laura Roslin (played by Mary McDonnell) might be a Cylon also.
The four new Cylons are: Saul Tigh (Michael Hogan), Galen Tyrol (Aaron Douglas), Kara Thrace's widower Sam Anders (Michael Trucco) and Roslin's chief of staff Tory Foster (Rekha Sharma). The Cylons are man-made machines (there are only a dozen different humanoid models) who launched a pre-emptive attack on the human colonies, slaughtering billions but a mere fifty thousand survivors who escaped in a motley array of ships and one battleship, Galactica. The idea that there are deadly enemies of humanity living among the survivors who themselves did not know they were Cylons is an absolutely intriguing notion.

If that was not enough to blow our minds rebellious fighter pilot Starbuck appeared to fellow pilot Apollo while they were both in raptors (single occupant fighting spaceships) and claimed that she had been to Earth and could take Apollo there. This is a huge moment in the series because as far as the surviving members of the human race are concerned Earth is a semi-mythical place and Starbuck was last seen (by Apollo) entering the atmosphere of a planet and her ship exploding in a very pretty fireworks display two episodes ago!

Battlestar Galactica is widely regarded as one of the best shows on television by many critics and has already won a Peabody award. It will return in 2008 for its fourth (and possibly last) season.

Oh, and did I mention the "not guilty" verdict in the trial of the century of the former President of the colonies who has been colluding with the Cylons (and who himself thinks he may be one) from the very beginning of the series?