The short non-spoiler take: Holy crap! My take on the Battlestar Galactica series finale was that it was 99% incredibly satisfying and delivered beyond what I was hoping for. In the end, it seems destiny will be what it will be, much like fighting gravity.
The finale was heart pounding. I did not need coffee to stay up for this one. The advertising for this final episode spouted endlessly that we will know the truth. Indeed. The ending was satisfying, sad, fulfilling and the truth of it all confused me.
Sure, there were a few loopholes or discontinuities but I chose to focus on where they were going, not what they were missing or glazing over. They had to get somewhere without being so verbose that it distracted from the end game.
DVR / DVD SPOILERS LAY AHEAD BEYOND THIS POINT – Come back after you’ve bought or watched it and add your thoughts then!
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I sat down and committed my household to Battlestar Galactica (BSG) all night long. I started focusing on it during the replay of the special from Monday evening when Ronald D. Moore quipped about the phrase on how it “all happened before and it will all happen again” came about from a scene he saw in Peter Pan where they said that.
I don’t remember anyone in BSG thinking happy thoughts, or flying… except out of airlocks!
A Nagging Theme Or Two
The one theme that has been present since the very first episode was No 6 in Baltar’s head telling him “Trust in God’s plan for you.” This was presented to us time and time again throughout the 4 (or was it 6?) seasons!
The other nagging theme that always lurked below the surface of my tortured mind was a point made midway through the series, and that was the ability that Cylons had to project themselves into fantasy worlds that they build in their heads.
Why? Because of the visions that some of the humans had throughout the show. Baltar with his hot No. 6, in his head. Lucky Bastard. But there were the shared visions between Baltar, Caprica, Hera, Athena and Laura had of the opera house. That always had me suspicious, period.
And Starbuck? She didn’t have visions. But her artistic tendencies to draw symbols from mankind’s destiny and being called the harbinger of death kind of makes you wonder about her. Then coming back from death but not being a Cylon? WTH was that? But more on all this later. Or will there be? Maybe I’ll just stop typing… and call it God’s plan.
The Finale Delivers In Bucket Loads
Watching scenes of our favored characters in Caprica city, “Before the Fall” really drove home their lives as they were developing before it all happened. The back story was great to see. Pondering the label, “Before the Fall“: I have to look back and wonder, was that past tense, or future tense, since this all going to happen again?
Watching the preparations on the Galactica to head off to get Hera back hit home with some good emotional anchors:
- Adama turning over command of the fleet,
- Anders tank being hooked up into the CiC.*
- Lee Adama making Romo Lampkin President, in his absence.
- Or the surreal scene of a squad of Centurions in the flight deck, preparing for battle.
*Tigh telling Adama it wasn’t too late to shove all the Cylons in the CiC out the airlock and Adama saying it would take too much time. – was frakking hilarious and poignant to me. The Cylon TIgh, looking to jettison Cylons, staying true to the humanity, the commander and the ship he grew to love.
Action Stations
When the Galactica jumped in on top of this freaky new looking Cylon ship that reminded me a bit of the Shadow ships from Babylon 5, the ensuing firefight left me wondering if the Galactica would survive.
Then the Galactica ramming into the hull of Cavil’s ship, making their own airlock with the ship and ground teams dispersing into the Cylon ship, looking for Hera. Now that’s how you make an entrance!
Watching new and old style Centurions in battle was surreal. Even if the CGI seemed a little bit funny with the old Centurions. Did you notice that?
A Momentary Truce
The humans get Hera, but Cavil snags her back. Finally, Gaius, for all his chitter chatter, finally hits his stride and serves his purpose in this entire mythos as he talks Cavil into a truce.
It’s here that Gaius says that he tells Cavil that he sees angels (The In-the-head Caprica and Gaius) and that there are other forces at work via puzzles deciphered in prophecy, by dreams given to a chosen few.
I was on edge waiting for that other shoe to drop from Cavil’s side, and boy, did it. Tyrol interrupts a data stream when he discovers that Tory was who killed Cally and in his rage, Tyrol kills Tory, which ends the cease-fire everyone had. So much for peace.
Destiny Takes Its Path
Chaos ensued and Adama yells at Starbuck to jump them out of there but she has no coordinates. Instead she inputs the numbers that she’s associated with the song that Hera drew out and gave her.
Plop. Kara’s coordinates put them right on top of the moon, our moon, with our Earth in sight. I actually never expected to see this. Despite being teased us at times when we could see constellations in the background we recognize, like Orion, but I just thought they were messing with my mind. (It’s not that hard sometimes!)
After scoping out the planet and its spear carrying human species, they decide to stay and blend in. But how they do it confused me. Or more in-line with the show, took a leap of faith to follow their actions.
What’s left of humanity shuns technology and blends with the natives… our ancestors.
Adama makes the decision to have Anders drive the ships of the fleet and all its technology into the Sun, and live out their years with the natives, without their technology. Technology has been their curse. They’re done with it. No one seems to argue.
William Adama tells Laura that he calls this Earth because Earth is a dream they’ve been chasing for a long time.
Tough And Touching Moments
Starbuck saying goodbye to Anders in his tank, who pulls through his Cylon induced fog to tell her that he’ll see her on the other side. Eh?
Watching William Adama being the last person to leave the Galactica in his old Viper, looking over the fleet one last time.
Watching William Adama bid farewell to Lee and flies off into the distance with Laura in the Raptor with him, who dies in-flight. Bill builds a little home and talks to her grave, updating her on what’s up.
Not a surprise, Tyrol has had it with people and goes off to his own island.
Gaius and Caprica together with no trauma going on in the background finally. For possibly for the first time, Gaius can have a grieving moment for his father. They then head off to do what Gaius knows… farming.
My “What the Frak” Moment
Lee and Kara are talking about what they’re going to do, now that everyone is off doing what they’re gonna do. Kara says that she is leaving. She’s done here and has completed her journey and just vanishes in mid conversation. That’s it.
Backtrack: Remember when Baltar announced to the assembled crowd that his study of Kara’s blood proved that Kara was 100% human? If you paid attention, Gaius said that the blood on the pendant that came from the corpse is 100% human. I got caught up with everything the first time and missed that. I thought he was proving Kara was human, but I noticed this the 2nd time through, he proved the dead pilot back on the burnt out Earth was human.
The Future Happens Anyway
150,000 years into the future, we see downtown New York. We learn that humanity has discovered the mitochondrial Eve, the woman to whom all of humanity can be traced to. Hera. We also see humanity starting to build bipedal robots and what not… here we go again!
The Big Reveal
Looking over Ronald D. Moore’s shoulder in his cameo appearance in one of the final scenes, stands the in-their-heads versions of Gaius and Caprica. WTF? They make note of the fact that Eve was discovered in Tanzania and how Eve was found alongside her Human and Cylon parents.
Caprica said something about how even though it happened before, that mathematically speaking, there’s a chance it won’t happen again. Then they mention god, and Gaius reminds her that he doesn’t like being called that. Eh? The Matrix?
I got confused here. Is society pretty much Cylon at this point? Are these two really angels, or Cylons? Has this just been a big master plan, a tale from god that we’ve watched all along? Are we being being set up for a sequel in case they decide to go with that?
My Take
The finale was a big payoff.
I really enjoyed just about every single second of it. There was tons of satisfying action. That final jump by the Galactica was way awesome! As it popped out of FTL flight near Earth, it flexed, wobbled and rippled – pieces and parts being flung off in the aftermath. I thought it was going to end right there.
Yet once everyone is on the planet, everyone seemed agreeable to give up technology for spears. I get it… yet really, would you? NO! I want my microwave and cell phone and laptop damnit. Hmm… that would mean building the internet all over again.
It was a very fairy tale ending in this rag tag fleet of humans just seeming to go along with this decision, so I had a little bit of a problem with this. Yet, like I said at the front of this article, suspending disbelief to allow for the story to be moved along.
Kara
What in blue blazes was Kara Thrace? A ghost that EVERYONE saw? Another angel? An ascended being from Stargate. (She’s in a lot of trouble if that’s the case)
Was Kara something that everyone wanted, or needed to see? It’s been said that Moore said she can be whatever we wanted her to be. That feels like a cop out. Why, after delivering so many answers, do we get this grey answer to one of the biggest developments in the mythos? I’d like to have had Kara explained. Plain and simple. Especially since everyone saw and interacted with her. Especially since she had a life she lived which fed to this point in time.
As far as we can tell, even she didn’t know until that very last moment. Come on, Moore. I would have liked you do give more than this to us.
Angels?
So if we go back to literally day one of this whole thing, angels have been guiding Gaius and later, Caprica on their paths? Has this really been their story all along? Have the humans been nothing but pawns in this entire series?
If so, the sufferance of humanity seems cheapened by this new wrinkle. Well, at least it didn’t end on a Holodeck, but it sure felt close to that.
I’m not unhappy
The entire series broached a whole new kind of entertainment. The kind that deals with our fears and hopes and realities of what is and what could be. It dealt with how we do have control of our destiny. But we can only control our destinies just so far until they intertwine with others. Then the group destiny that we become a part of, no matter what else we do is what dictates our end game. That’s what I took away from the series.
Now we have to watch this whole series all over again, and watch it from the angels point of view as they guide our hapless characters along their sordid way.
The Sad
But for now, there will be no more new episodes. Sure, we’ll have a few movies that take place during the series time frame. Sure, we’ll have the prequel, Caprica. But the end of the show has been laid before us. Battlestar Galactica, the journey, has found its goal.
It’s time to say farewell to the journeys of William Adama, Laura Roslin, Kara Thrace, Lee Adama, Gaius Baltar, Saul Tigh, Doc Cottle, Helo Agathon, Galen Tyrol, Ellen Tigh, Felix Gaeta, Sharon Valerii, Caprica Six, Tom Zarek, Romo Lampkin, Cavil, Sam Anders and the coolest, new Centurions.
My Question To You
For you, what character really made the show. What event really hit home in the series that resonated with you?
Update: 3/29/09: I’ve added some perspectives on some of Moore’s approach to the Battlestar Galactica series in a new article we’ve published.
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143 Comments
When they found earth the first time I was sure they would settle down there and become us, it happend with delay.
-its been done lots of times that the future is the past, and they end up becoming us, adam and eve so on..
But- it was a nice twist, even if you could see it coming…
PANDA
There were a few things that were tossed out during the show that were never meant to be followed up on – remember when Caprica (in his head) lifted Gaius off the floor way way back? Moore said they shouldn’t have done that because there was nothing to it.
Daniel was also of that ilk… just a detail they never meant to pursue.
WOOBABY43
Yes… the music with the ships headed off into the Sun… nice tribute indeed, hearing the ghost of the original theme song. Never saw that coming!
IAN:
I forgot about the Starbuck corpse location… another fuzzy detail where she died over some other planet, but then ended up on the destroyed Earth… another WTF!
I have no idea why Adama wanted to leave his son behind… another deed with no connecting logic.
GINGERBEER:
I think there are some of us who loved the show, loved the characters, but needed more connections, or explanations to events that seemed to just happen with no connecting logic or explanation.
BLAH! BLAH! BLAH! It seems everyone wanted the show to end with a nice pretty bow rapped around it! Of course there were parts we liked and didn’t like but our society is spoiled with sci-fi fantasies always having happy endings and all our questions being completely answered.
GET OVER YOURSELVES! The show wasn’t Star Wars or Star Trek. It was what it was, a reflection of our world and the naive, sometimes caring, sometimes selfish, humble sprinkled with arrogance, hopeless dreamer, always needing closure, and more that is part of human nature. We believe in God and have unexplained miracles and phenomena everyday but heaven forbid a great TV show end with a few teasing questions.
Admiral Adama after laura’s death and Gaillen after finding out the truth wanting to live the rest of their lives out in solitary is what many of us might do. I was a little annoyed with Kara’s exit but that is a question I bet we never forget:). And no one can deny that the first hour was one of the TV best battle scenes we will ever see. And I bet if any of us were crammed into spaceships for four years we might want some open spaces to. And if they would have found present day Earth knowing us we might have shot first and asked questions later. It was an interesting twist to a show that wasn’t afraid of boundaries and wouldn’t let its self be put in a box.
And for those who haven’t seen it be glad it never turned into Battlestar Galactica 1980!!!
My interest waned during 4.5. Maybe the delays and such. I can’t put my finger on it. It seemed like they set up fuzzy mysteries like who is Kara Thrace? And then gave muddled pseudo-answers. Somewhere along the line I realized that characters were what kept me coming back. I didn’t think the Final 5 identities were known or planned–and there’s no way careful, observant viewers could have noticed anything awry. Mythology, though delivered through actual prophetic utterances, were fuzzy as well. Fortune cookies or funny pages horoscopes would have been clearer.
How do metallic skeletons “evolve” into blood-pumping humans? What is the true nature of the hybrids, including the one from Razor? What really happened to Daniel–and was he Kara’s father?
Since mythology really didn’t matter, maybe this is not worth saying, but we only know that Anders started off toward the sun–we don’t know if he led the ships there, or….
On the Razor DVD, the Hybrid seemed to paint a picture that viewers could hang subsequent events on. Now that the series is over, the future didn’t shed light on the prophecy.
“At last they’ve come for me. I feel their lives, their destinies spilling out before me. The denial of the one true path, played out on a world not their own, will end soon enough. Soon there will be four, glorious in awakening. Struggling with the knowledge of their true selves. The pain of revelation bringing new clarity. And in the midst of confusion he will find her, enemies brought together by impossible longing, enemies now joined as one. The way forward, at once unthinkable, yet inevitable. And the fifth, still in shadow, will claw toward the light, hungering for redemption that will only come in the howl of terrible suffering.
I can see them all. The seven, now six, self-described machines who believe themselves without sin. But in time, it is sin that will consume them. They will know enmity, bitterness, the wrenching agony of the one splintering into the many. And then they will join the promised land, gathered on the wings of an angel. Not an end, but a beginning.”
The hybrid also had this to say. “Kara Thrace will lead the human race to its end. She is the herald of the apocalypse, the harbinger of Death. They must not follow her. All this has happened before and all of it will happen again, again, again…”
“All this has happened before…”
Okay, I get that there is a generational cycle of humans rising up, bringing technology, technology becoming sentient, war, infiltration…
But the prophetic stuff, like about Kara was never general. The prophecies and dreams and stuff were personal.
I forget what Leoben told Kara (in S1 or 2) about her role, but he was specific. Unfortunately, the mythology does not seem to have been honored and fulfilled.
Then there’s “The Farm” which sure implied that the Cylons put something IN Starbuck as well as taking anything out.
I’m all for symbolism with multiple levels of fulfillment, but BSG seemed to throw the prophecies out as if they were important, and then the fulfillment was fuzzy and vague.
To hear that a scene like Baltar being raised up by the Six-in-his-head could get past the executive director is really hard to believe…but then, the nature of Baltar’s Six was another one that was vaguely answered through the seasons.
For a better treatment of mythology and also the fans, I am impressed by JJ Abrams’ Lost, which famously threw out so many mysteries at the start. For a couple of seasons now, major resolutions have come together to begin filling out a story. Incredibly complex and unique storytelling has honored the intelligence of viewers to deliver creative points of view that take us right into the inceptions of those mysteries.
It’s obvious that Lost was not embarked on without knowing the complete arc in advance. I hear that J. Michael Straczynski did this with Babylon 5.
As much as I liked the individual storytelling, dialogue, and acting of BSG, the fuzzy mythology disappoints me, and mythology is what would have had me going out for the DVDs, to watch over and over.
Cookie Garris: It’s not about wanting the series to complete with a nice pretty bow on it; it’s about the show being faithful to the ideas and plotlines it has established over the last 4 years. Some side plot-lines (e.g. Daniel) can be ignored, but the way in which others were ‘resolved’ (the Cylon Plan, the ending of the cycle, the insignificance of prophecy on which the entire story hung in the first place, the involvement of ‘god’ and angels to resolve things, Kara Thrace being the harbinger of death) are simply unforgivable.
This was a complete cop-out ending. Since you brought up Star Trek, this is equivalent to the war that led to (in DS9) a massive Jem-Hadar invasion fleet coming through the wormhole and the Federation facing a massacre, a great story built up all season, only to be resolved with a snap of the wormhole-gods fingers and all the Jem-Hadar were gone. It’s poor story-telling whether its Star Trek or BSG.
There are a lot of people who seem to be saying that we should stop whining and be happy with this ending because its the way the writers intended it to be… well, firstly, I’d question that since there are several things that Ronald Moore seems to have completely neglected during final editing (the interviews are widely available, so I won’t elaborate more).
Secondly, why should we just sit back and accept what the writers create? If you don’t question what you read/watch, then what’s the point of reading/watching in the first place?
I’ve watched the finale again since first posting and I hate the ending even more now… it really was a cop-out ending to the show.
On a side note, I think I need to scour this season for hints that Kara wasn’t really there.
+I kinda accept that everyone gave up their worldly possesions to live on Earth, I mean, look at when they went to New Caprica. They’ve been on tight ships with short supplies for years, I think they’re used to sacrifice by now…but it did come off pretty ’someoone wrote this and it comes off a little gimmicky.’
Oh yea, and when it came to the business of What Kara is…I remember something from Cowboy Bebop, that went along the lines of, “religion is only as powerful as we say it is, and all our gods be dead once we are.” Religions barely manage to last 2 or 3000 years, let alone 150,000. That’s why they keep things as ambiguous as possible. It’s not that important what you believe, as long as you can believe in something.
Battlestar did something I didn’t think it was big enough or even had the balls to try and do. It linked religion to science, in that once science has gone as far as it can, we’ll always believe something ties it all together. *Jerkoff Alert* I remember this Einstein quote, “It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.”
Humanity always triumphs and I will always love Battlestar.
I think it was a shame that after the whole fleet went through so much together, many of them ended up dying alone, or were reduced to prehistoric farmers. ahh
Gaius Baltar ability to adapt to virtual any situation made him so entertaining and the best character. kudos to a awesome series (accept for those standalone in season 3)
it wasn’t that it wasn’t a fairy tale ending that bugged some of us. It was just story plot that was initiated, and not finished.
We wanted to see the dirty, nitty gritty endings to the ideas that were started… wth was Starbuck?
So that evident answer was an angel or spirit that didn’t even know who it was. The ghost of christmas past, whose impact on humanity did not turn out to be what it was foretold… was that an error on the writers part, or an intentional oversight?
I believe the show has placed it’s stake in the story by saying to us, that much like the story of 4 seasons, some amount of absolute faith has to held that this is what it is, regardless of what they told us.
That’s the part that’s disappointing.
Would you like to be told that you’ll get a good pay raise, and then have that not happen and be glossed over by some other event, then no one expressing to you why it didn’t happen?
That’s where some of us are coming from. We’d like to be told why. Yea, that’s life, but it would have been nice to have someone try to tell us, or explain it.
Well, Moore was right about the ending. Some will love it, some will hate it. He did indeed say that, and at least he was right there!
Like the show, the ending is keeping us questioning things, talking about it.
For you, what character really made the show. What event really hit home in the series that resonated with you?
Dee’s sucide hit me hard as hell. It hit this sad nerve in me as bad as when Boomer shot Adama in the first season and shocked the hell outta me like when the bombs dropped on Gaius in the miniseries.
But then there was when Gaeta and Zarek got let out the airlock. Completely different story, but that ep coudl’ve been a movie by itself.
@Gary. I like that idea somethin fierce. The Father, The Son and the Holy Ghost. Works in at least a couple strong ways.
@Shadow. I’ll admit this much. They definitely sacrificed some focus this season, because all the other ones, it’d be one ep for the social politic junkies, one for the romantics and one for the faith vs. science crowd. sure the lines weren’t that clear, but you’d get a good mix of those. This season was more 1 and a half note. Maybe the ending was too rushed. Maybe the strike killed some of the episodes a lot of people would’ve wanted, but this show was about so much, if you’re gonna have such a narrow focus on it then this ending just about had to disappoiint a good amount of people.
@Ian. I’ll admit this much. I’m not greedy and the second they started showing all of that Opera House business, I said to myself, alright this show is lost, but it’s characters are always strong and it can really hit it’s personal notes, because they acting is just about always there.
It hit a lot of those, but don’t get me wrong I’d prepare people for this season before they ever watch it in the future. The show jumped the shark a bit when the final four were revealed and was in an interesting limbo from there.
I’m sad it had to end before it should have. When you take a strong look at the plot points of what happened in the finale, they were good, even though they weren’t edited that great and really needed some more episodes to remind people why each of those points had such importance. it’s like Watchmen, there wasn’t enough time to get you as emotionally invested as you needed to be, but some people only needed to hear ‘Battlestar is ending’ to get emotionally invested again.
I thnk the saddest thing about the entire show is: that ending kinda made most of the things that happened in the whole series unnecessary and stupid. I mean, how do you decide to jump 150,000 years in the future and think the 4 years before that mattered much at all, especially when all they needed was Kara to type in some coordinates. It’s not like everyone was infertile on the ships and Hera was the only one who wasn’t. I mean…damn.
Why couldn’t the show just get another season? or at least 10 more episodes. They didn’t give us enough time to let go of everything they spent so long putting in place. I’m not sure I feel like watching this show much at all for the next few…
All of that backstory would have been so much more effective if they’d peppered it into the series over the years. Instead, we got a data-dump of backstory in the finale. This is what comes of not planning your entire arc from the beginning (like JMS did with Babylon 5).
Also, what the hell happened with Kara disappearing? Are we supposed to take that as magic? Divine intervention? Lee imagining her? Super powers? That was rather lame, and just…unexplained. As was the fact that Hera’s blood once saved Laura; so how come when Hera came back, no one thought to transfuse Laura with some of her blood? Also, why was Hera so important to the _humans_? We know why she was important to the Cylons (because without resurrection tech, she was the key to their ability to keep their species going). But why would Adama send a significant percentage of remaining humanity — including some of the most skilled, _useful_ people — out to rescue a single child of no particular importance? Huge, gaping plot holes all over the finale, IMHO.
Incidentally, your sentence “After scoping out the planet and its spear dwelling human species” puzzles me. “Spear dwelling”? They live in spears? An editor might help…
Hey everyone’s intitalled to there opinion and I can see where you guys are coming from.
But I’m finding it very hard to find fault with the last few episode’s. I mean in my opinion and the article’s it was 99% satisfying. The story arcs may not of made perfect sense, but neither does a lot of things in other shows or life for that matter.
I mean do you complain, when Obi Wan appears to luke (it’s the force) or Q from the TNG appears and dissapper’s just because he’s the Q. Quantum leaps religious purpose!!!!
To some Kara’s ending, will have been unsatisfying, probably wanted here to get married to lee and have 2.4 children lol. But i found it very fitting and touching, it reminded me of the scene in Conan when the girl come’s back from the dead and says “do you wanna live forever”
The hole giving up there tech and spreading out thing! It worked and was believable I was right with them at that point as soon as lee said “no not this time”, i said to myself “they’re gonna spread out” so it wasn’t hard to fathom and hey it’s science fiction and fits in with the whole “Some say life here began out there” so I was very happy with that scenario.
There was so many moments to the final that made me smile, Adama and tigh sitting down having one last drink to the Galactica “best ship in the fleet” Anders flying the rag tag fleet off into the sun to the sound of the original theme music. Chief became a scotsman lol
In my opinion critizing for minor flaws which in what is otherwise the best sci-fi show if not television show ever, is nitpicking.
I for one am glad that they ended it the way it did, wrapping up the main story of Galactica’s journey in finding Earth, which I think we all knew from the get go was going to be prehistoric. At least I did with my circle.
The character which resonated for me was always Admiral Adama. In truth, he was the anchor of the series and if you believed in Adama then you can surely bet that the journey was not over.
The one character I was sad to see go was actually the ship, Galactica. You have heard where reviewers have referred to New York as character, I always saw Galactica as another character and it was sad seeing the old girl leave us for the final time. I didn’t get tears cause thats pathetic but it was said seeing it go, like seeing your beloved Mustang being taken away.
I will say this, Fox, if you want to do an Aliens Vs. Predator film right, where the Predators & Colonial Marines team up to go against the Xenomorphs, refer to when they raided the Cylon base ship! That so reminded me of what a proper AVP film could be with Galactica’s crew and the Centurions teaming up.
I didn’t watch the series: Every damn time I tuned in, there was a sex scene going on.
That is NOT what I expect from sci-fi. If I wanted stuff like that, I’d watch Desperate Housewives!
The BSG finale’s plot holes are designed specifically for lovers of this new BSG version. Moore and company clearly felt they could get away with “forgetting” or just simply “ignoring” old plot points because fans of the new BSG are rabid sheep that will swallow anything the writers throw at them. Take a look at the above comments. The finale was pretty much devoid of any sense of logic, and yet people lapped it up anyway, because they’re supposed to, because the new BSG is the greatest show ever invented by man in, like, EVER. Or so people keep telling me. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
AMY:
Hmm… spear dwelling… I was a little excited while writing and kind of combined a whole sentence into two words.
I get that way sometimes.
I goit. (I’ll go fix it)
Thanks.
Jack i don’t know what to say! i mean if you feel that this was rubbish then
1 How’d you see it panning out!
2. Give me a better ending to a sci-fi show.
3. Give me a similar show which is superior and with better writing i would be all ear’s heroes! Lost, knight rider Babalyon 5
Gingerbeer:
Everyone here has great points… no how they differ from each other.
Some would have liked to see stories tied up, while others like the mystery left behind with the ambiguity.
I like the fact we’re all expressing our perspectives here!
Me: I hated the last 15 minutes… I need explanation so things make sense. Yet I ate up the rest of it! I have to respect the entire journey of the characters through 4 seasons and how they dealt with tragedy and trauma the best way they could.
I choose to focus on that part of it instead of letting less than 1% of the finishing storyline mess my head up otherwise.
Or I would feel I wasted a lot of time on this show otherwise.
That’s very true bruce! I’m not having a go at anyone. I’ll just leave it with my opinion that BSG is one of the few show’s i’ve watched form beginning to end and enjoyed thoroughly.
I think time will tell on how good this show was.
I’ve read a lot of complaints about the fact that they only had 4 full seasons of the show. Also, some complaints about the writing being too rushed for 4.5. You forget, they had these written for more than two years and had the episodes in the can for more than a year. The show ended as was intended from the beginning. They planned it as a 4 season show from the start to prevent the story from becoming muddled. And they succeeded nicely.
This series started out fine, but was TERRIBLE in seasons 3 and 4.
The reviewer said that the finale was exciting? Really???? It was drawn out and very boring. I’ve never been so happy for something to just end in my life…and it never did! You thought it was over, you hoped it was over, but it just kept on going. Very boring. The whole thing could have been easily edited down to 15 minutes.
I honestly don’t know why people LOVE this series…or American Idol. Perhaps the two go hand-in-hand?
Hey “oldman” where are you? want to discuss about the “apparatus” that you argued last year? LOL… I told you those “English language”, “spectacle”, “pen”, “paper”, “cigarette” were clues! Haha.
I think the ending sucked! Too “christian” for my taste. Sorry…
jesus frakin christ! c’mon!!
I found the last episode to be wonderful and was not disappointed in the least. I LOVE this show, I think it’s refreshing to finally watch a sci fi show that is for ADULTS and not cute or sugary with some stupid dog or little smart-ass kid genius. I LOVED the sex scenes, the adult relationships, the drinking, the swearing, the real-ness of the characters. This show kicks butt on any, ANY sci fi show on tv now and probably for many years in the future. There aren’t many people strong enough or talented enough to get by the studio exects, who are basically retarded dorks when it comes to sci fi. I worship Ron Moore for being so creative and doing it his way. Thanks the Gods for BSG!
For the guy Joe who posted a ways back that the scene of Six and Baltar reading about the skeleton of “Eve” being discovered:” It was not a child, they said “young woman” in the voiceover. So go back and check your TIVO. For the folks who were disapointed: Oh well, you can’t always have it your way.
I loved everything about the show and the finale. Just few things I wanted to say:
Many people assume that since all people alive today can trace their DNA back to Hera, then only her offspring survive. That’s not how it works. It means that her offspring mix with everyone else’s so that eventually all people have a bit of her DNA in them.
Also, I love the fact that they left their technology behind. I don’t think it means that they became spear-toting cavemen. To me, it means that they became farmers. Rather than live together in one big city, they spread out into smaller groupings. What other choice did they have? The tech would have fallen apart eventually anyway. The agrarian existence could have lasted peacefully for hundreds or maybe thousands of years without contradicting anything we know about our history.
I think the fact that they left their tech behind is what allowed them to live 150,000 years undisturbed. Kobol, Earth-1, and the Colonies only lasted 5000 years tops.
Really, 150,000 years is so much time that anything could have happened and then been hidden by the passage of time as far as societies go. Maybe they were just fine until the last Ice Age wiped them from memory. I like that their fate has closure but still open to the imagination.
I thought it was jarring but really cool that Ron D. Moore was in Times Square at the end. He may have put himself in just for fun, but I choose to interpret it as the head characters whispering in his ear about Mitochondrial Eve being the offspring of a cylon mother and human father. Maybe that was the moment he first envisioned the show. Maybe the head characters gave him a vision of the past, thus everything we saw “really happened” and Kara has not been forgotten after all. (Yes it’s a wild dumb idea, but that’s why I like ambiguous endings!)
I kind of liked that the head characters and Kara were just some kind of force of nature beyond our understanding. That’s not a very common idea for a scifi show. I’m left with the question… What is this fore and why would it want mankind to break the cycle? It’s an interesting question the show has given me to ponder. It could be God or some big time advanced being. Again, it’s up to your imagination. Just because some characters labeled them as angels, we are free to disagree if we want.
Sorry for the long post, but I’ve been thinking about the finale for days now. To me, that’s the mark of a good story – something that gets your mind going.
On one last note, I never could decide which show I liked better: Lost or BSG. I now think BSG is the better show and it’s due to one thing… the music! Both shows are awesome, but the music of BSG just raises it to a whole other level. Opera, sitars, bagpipes, accordions… it was all amazing. I’ll be listening to the soundtrack for years to come.
FORRESTER: Dang, I like that NEW interpretation at the cameo of Ronald D. Moore…
I didn’t even pause once to ponder his appearance in that fashion. I just figured he was doing it to do it. Like how Stan Lee or Stephen King pop up in spots in their flicks.
Nice thoughts! Great logic on the different angles.
I’ve already pointed out how much (and why) I disliked the ending. I really wasn’t much into Season 3 or 4; 1 & 2 were amazing, but it definitely started to fizzle after that.
To me, a much better ending (that doesn’t involve imaginary, invisible, wish-granting men in the sky) would have been for humanity to be essentially wiped out by the Cylons, leaving oh, say, a dozen survivors who the Old-Earth Cylons managed to rescue. Faced with extinction due to a diminished gene pool, the humanoid Cylons create a cloning facility (i.e. early resurrection technology) to help the human race survive. Those 12 survivors clone themselves over and over to avoid extinction.
Meanwhile, back on the 12 colonies, the long-term radiation exposure modifies the DNA of the Cylons left behind and, eventually, they gain the ability to reproduce and enough genetic mutation occurs that they are able to reintroduce diversity into the gene-pool. Eventually, there are millions of distinct individuals who rebuild the 12 colonies.
… then a few hundred years later, the clones of the last remaining 12 humans comes back, and the cycle repeats; we, the humans, become the cylons, and vice versa.