Galactica continues to charm critics, Part 2

The new year is a time of critical assessment and critics have found much to praise in Battlestar Galactica's third season. To help further build interest in the upcoming fourth season, here is a higher-res version of the EW photo (now interactive at EW.com) without dots:

BostonNOW: "An impressive year for TV Dramas" (includes photo)

1) Battlestar Galactica (Sci-Fi)
I am not sure how much more praise I can heap on a show whose creators must have had to buy a new house to store all their critical raves, but there is truly nothing else like this on television today, and maybe not ever. It's the best written, best acted, most intense show since Homicide: Life On The Street, which I consider to be the best show ever on television, and before it's done it may climb even higher. BSG continually takes on the important and weighty issues that come with war and does with an unblinking eye. Anyone who says, "there is nothing good on TV" is simply not watching this show.

New York Times: "Robots, Lies and Smoking for $800, Alex"

‘BATTLESTAR GALACTICA’ A Sci Fi favorite that transcends the genre. The series, which follows the survivors of an apocalyptic attack on their home planets by a rebellious race of robots known as Cylons, is out of this world, literally.

Film.com: "The Best in Sci Fi TV in 2007"

Oh, BSG, BSG, how I'll miss thee during the writers' strike. Obviously, Battlestar Galactica, with its female-centric Razor "TV event," was the creme de la creme for challenging gender politics this year. Fans saw the return of Admiral Cain (or Ensign Ro, depending on which sci-fi generation you're from), the introduction of the morally tormented Kendra Shaw (both a woman and a minority!). But to me, the highlight of the entire BSG season was the episode, "Maelstrom," aka, "The 'Death' of Starbuck," focusing on the breakneck pilot's over-foreshadowed destiny. It ain't often a viewer is rooting for a main character to off herself.

Time Out New York: "The best (and worst) of TV 2007"

8) Battlestar Galactica (Sci Fi)
BSG’s hard left turn into the realm of Cylon mysticism could have been a disaster, but it quickly built to the series’ most gobsmacking cliff-hanger yet (no small feat for a program where each season has improbably ended on a more shocking note than the last).

USA Today's Pop Candy: "My Top 10 TV Shows of 2007"

2. Battlestar Galactica

AICN: "The 10 Best Scripted Hours on TV"

1) BATTLESTAR GALACTICA (SciFi).
Only 11 hours of the series aired in 2007, beginning with “Rapture” and ending with “Razor.” The algae planet’s sun went supernova, Tyrol welcomed Baltar back to the fleet and a rogue D’Anna got to meet the final five. “Dirty Hands,” the class-struggle episode written by Jane Espenson, may be the series’ best stand-alone episode since season one. The three-episode arc that concludes season three (it deals with the introduction of wily kleptomaniac Romo Lampkin and the trial of Gaius Baltar) is phenomenal, capped by the reveal of four more Cylons. And vipers rocketing into battle to “All Along the Watchtower.” A song that, candidly, always belonged in outer space. Supercool on every level.

See Part 1 here (EW, MSN, Chicago Tribune).

Thanks to Mark Verheiden and the excellent Galactica Sitrep blog!