'Battlestar Galactica': Let's get back to base-ics

Is anyone else as bored and disillusioned as I am by this leaden final season of Sci Fi’s “Battlestar Galactica”?

It pains me to write such things, given how the show’s first two seasons were so exciting and refreshing. But after Season Three’s confusing ending (Tyrol’s a Cylon? So why no fuss about his baby?), this fourth and final season has been one long, bleak dud, lacking the common-cause heroism and universal Odyssean storyline that made this retooled drama so compelling.

Last Friday’s episode, “Sine Qua Non” the eighth in the 10-episode first half of the final season (whether we’ll see the second half in the fall or next spring, who knows) was one massive coitus interuptus. When last we saw our valiant crew of refugees, Roslin and company had plugged in the Cylon hybrid, which immediately screamed, “Jump!” and sent the commandeered base ship vanishing to gods-know-where. Finally, a supremely dramatic moment in a season that feels like nothing but marked time! So what happened Friday night on the base ship? Good question. The entire episode never went back to that storyline. All we got was more parental griping from Adama and some creepy old leech revelations about Col. Tigh.

Also, we plumbed the dragged-out depths of the Lee Adama subplot, getting to the heart of why the writers made the thus-far dreadful error of hanging up that hottie’s flight suit. His utterly dreary life thus far as a diplomat seems to be leading now to a run for president in Roslin’s absence a plan crafted by ye olde Scottish lawyer Romo Lampkin. I can’t help but agree with another reviewer who wrote, “I think the ‘Galactica’ writers like Romo a lot more than the guy deserves, as he’s less a character than a collection of colorful tics.” With our surround sound cranked to neighbor-annoying levels, we still couldn’t understand half of what that dead-cat-carting weirdo was yakking about in his burbly brogue, and from what we can tell now he wasn’t saying anything of real consequence anyway.

The ending, in which the elder Adama turns over the Galactica to Tigh so he can sit in a raptor and wait for his true love Roslin to return well, in a word, ridiculous. We’ve been given plenty of clues thus far that a romantic bond was sublimating between them, but nothing whatsoever to suggest it had boiled to the degree that would make Adama give up his ship and sit alone in space waiting for Godot. Uncharacteristic, unrealistic, unfortunate.

The promos for this week’s episode give us great hope, though …

Looks like we’re back to the base ship and Roslin is beginning to get a better idea of her destiny. Deanna’s “unboxed” and apparently talks to someone who is our last mystery Cylon. The road signs have been pointing to Starbuck as this shadowy figure, but I’d probably lay money on Roslin.

Even the cinematographer admits, now that Deanna’s back “it’s coming alive again” …

Here’s hoping they inject some of that sense of humor back into the show!