Battlestar Galactica Comes To an End

On Friday evening, Battlestar Galactica ended its four-season run as one of the most popular science fiction shows in recent history. 2.4 million people tuned in for the finale, and reactions to the ending — positive, negative, and often a mix of both — are springing up all over the internet, as are tributes and retrospectives. Producers Ron Moore and David Eick held a Q&A session after the finale to discuss certain aspects of the story and spell out the final status of several plot lines. Fans of the show will have a chance to see the Cylon side of the story this fall in a two-hour TV movie titled "The Plan," and we've previously discussed the spin-off prequel series, Caprica, the pilot for which will come out on April 21st. Be warned: these links and the following discussion will contain spoilers.

Comments

Five minutes too long

[NormalVisual]

The finale was reasonably good, but I would have preferred the last scene to have been Adama on top of the hill next to Laura's grave. What follows after that, although necessary to explain the existence of the "imaginary" Gaius/Six characters, seemed awfully cheesy to me. I'm talking "Galactica 1980" cheesy. I also didn't find the universal acceptance of the "hey, let's discard every scrap of technology and be cavemen!" idea to be realistic or practical in the least.

Re:Five minutes too long

[node 3]

Agreed. I wish that they would have kept the suspended disbelief unexplained, much like the force was before metacloriates (blame firefox for not having a star-wars enabled spell checker). The god thing was a major cop-out for those of us that don't believe in magic.

Wait, you're pissed that they scientifically explained away the 'magic' in Star Wars, but didn't scientifically explain away the 'magic' in BSG?

The thing that annoys me more is when they are not self-consistent. That's the problem with Star Wars. The Force is a mystical thing, then it's suddenly just some funky magic germs. BSG always had this gods/one true god thing going, which at the very end isn't really 'God' god, but more of an Arthur C. Clarke sufficiently advanced technology god.

Re:it rocked

[Davemania]

The god explanation is such a cop out. It doesn't explain Kara or why it doesn't just try and influence or outright stop the genocide in the first place. I thought up to the Opera house scene, it was great and when Galen went nuts (he couldn't control his emotion when the fate of two civilization are in stake ?), there was just more questions raised than answers from that point on.

Unsatisfied

[merky1]

The finale was a decent episode. But I think that ever since the destruction of the HUB, the show was rudderless.

I think that this is one of the problems when the central premise of a show is a "mystery." It always ends up that the big reveal is a huge disappointment.

Also, what happened to all of the basestars that Cavil had under control? Not to mention, the "millions" of cylons on the colonies. Wouldn't they lay out to search for the final five to rebuild resurrection?

I think the finale needed a 20-30 year jump forward to show aging skinjobs scanning earth, and not detecting technology, continue searching for the final five. It would have given closure to the show's overall theme. Instead we just get a "spiritual" explanation. The reason I feel this way is back when they found the temple of jupiter, Cavil advocated nuking the planet and spending an infinite amount of time searching for earth. Even without resurrection, I think that the remaining cylons would have the same sentiment.

The other thing that had not been really discussed, and will hopefully come out in the next few entries, is what happened to the artificial intelligence that was the original cylon race? Maybe "the plan" will give us more insight to cylon society.

Great 4.5 Year Show, Weak Ending

[Faizdog]

Honestly,
I thought it was weak. If you watched "BSG The Last Frakkin Special" that aired last Monday, there was a key comment in there. Ron Moore said that they were at a loss on how to end the series, and then they walked in and decided that it's about the characters.

That told me that they didn't know how to end everything, and decided to fumble through it and fill up time with these character things.

There were so many big stories that needed more elaboration, what was Starbuck, how does the one true god fit in? There was mention that he was a jealous god of the other Lords of Kobol. No mention of them? Starbuck, the one who believed in the polytheistic Lords of Kobol so much that she went back against orders for Athena's Arrow was instead an agent of the monotheistic Cylon God? That's it, head six and baltar, their story just ends so quickly? Things didn't really jive, and that disappointed me. After the whole Tigh and Caprica-6 love each other so much that they had a baby, and Ellen was jealous, that just ended? All of a sudden, we find out Baltar, the womanizer, loved Caprica-6?

It was not thought out, and by the end, they had no idea what to do. I'm really disapointed in BSG. And this ending makes me appreciate Babylon 5 even more. The value of a well thought out, planned and executed story arc where all the pieces fit together because they've been planned that way is AWESOME.

For about 4 and a half years, BSG was the best show I'd ever seen. However, ever since they came back with this last batch of 10 episodes, it's been weak. The big issues, the analysis of humanity in dire straits, the realistic depiction of events, I felt that all fell apart. BSG was still a good show, and the ending sentimental and did provide closure. It wasn't bad, but I had so much more high expectations of the ending, for it all to tie in rather than what we got. I mean that's why us SciFi fans are such continuity freaks, we want it all to fit, that's what makes it more real for us.

Re:Great 4.5 Year Show, Weak Ending

[nine-times]

Yeah, what I found kind of disappointing was that, even knowing it was coming to an end, they seemed to falter. If the last episode had seemed cobbled together last-minute because they were informed a couple months before that the series was being cancelled, it would have been more understandable. But they knew for years, and basically had a whole extra year to prepare after the writer's strike.

I enjoyed the plot of the mutiny and some of the other things that happened near the end, but given that those plots didn't go very far, it seems like a bit of a waste when they could have spent that time wrapping things up.

To me, probably the most disappointing thing was how they wrapped up the opera house dream. What? All those dreams and all that worry about them, and it was just that Caprica and Baltar were supposed to carry Hera 20 feet down a hall? That's retarded. At the very least, I think they should have killed of Helo and Athena and had Baltar and Caprica end up rescuing and then raising Hera. It would have explained them ending up with Hera at the end of the dream, as well as the Head-Caprica telling Baltar that Hera was their daughter.

In general, I've been impressed with the writing on BSG, but the finale is yet more evidence that writers should have an endgame roughly planned from the beginning. The ending wasn't bad so much as it felt unplanned and inelegant, tacked on and not fitting to the rest of the series. Worse yet, the message of the finale seemed to be that God has a very elegant plan for us all, so having that message come in an inelegant and unplanned form makes for a bad kind of irony.

subtlety schmutlety

[CarpetShark]

1. Less talk and more subtlety. This means very little or no explicit dialog, no in-your-face pictures of dancing robots (but maybe Baltar and Six in front of an electronics store),

Serious question: what the hell for? What do you gain from subtlety? A bit of smugness that you "worked out" the oh-so-subtle meaning? The right to ignore the show's message, and still claim to enjoy the show because you "didn't see it that way"?

It's popular lately for all messages in media to be subtle, but that's just a cop-out so it can be mass-sold to everyone, and the many will buy it. It doesn't actually add value. If anything, it dilutes it.

All will be revealed?

[witherstaff]

Ok, I suck at writing, but you get my drift.

That's alright, so do the BSG writers.

After some of the major plotholes left and advertising that 'everything will be answered' they didn't live up to the promise. I didn't want everything gift wrapped and handed to me. I'm alright with Starbuck being an angel / ascended being/ whichever. While overall I think BSG was probably the best sci fi show I've seen there were enough plotlines hanging that I wasn't satisfied. Here's some of them, major and minor.

• What happened to all the other 'bad cylons'? They won't know what happened at Cavil's base so they'll still be out there hunting down humanity. When I saw Hera look up at the end I was expecting a basestar to appear.
• What about the other remnants of humanity on the 12 planets? Was sam's resistance the last group left?
• No one got left behind on New Caprica?
• No more human babies were being made? So you ditch technology and also give up sex? I just can't buy that.
• Without technology at all that means Hera was furthering the population by the traditional method? There's some near bestiality in her future.
• I'm actually surprised they didn't all land on the island of atlantis or mu. Those who wanted to leave tech behind could leave, those who wanted some staple of life would stay. Let the audience chuckle imagining what mishap caused the island to explode.

Then again I'm also the type to wonder why the idiots stranded on the island in Lost didn't put up a wooden palisade around their camp the first time a boar ran through it or someone was abducted. Advancing the plot is one thing, being stupid is another.