Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Hugo award winner for Best Dramatic Presentation of 2009.
Let’s break it down into categories with a minimum of spoilers:
BEST NOD TO THE ORIGINAL SERIES: The few bars of the original music just before Galactica meets its final fate.
BEST LOOK OF PURE MURDEROUS FURY: The Chief just before he furiously murders someone.
BEST USE OF A BLONDE ANGEL NAMED KARA: Me
SECOND BEST USE OF A BLONDE ANGEL NAMED KARA: Ron Moore
BEST SINGLE LINE: “You can SEE them?!”
BEST USE OF A GUN: Cavil
BEST POTENTIAL CAMEO THAT NEVER HAPPENED DURING THE LAST 45 MINUTES: Ford Prefect and Arthur Dent
BEST EXTRA ELEVEN MINUTES IN A TWO HOUR SHOW: The last eleven minutes of this episode
BEST WAY TO CONVINCE ME NEVER TO BUY A ROOMBA: Rewatching the last eleven minutes of this episode
PAD
• 
That ending was the best tribute the Douglass Adams I have seen in a long time.
Ok, just my two cents…
For me, on the Earth? Which Earth thing, IIRC, when they found the first Earth, they were pretty careful to NOT show any easily recognizable continental outlines. They were ‘sorta’ familiar, but not obviously ours. And the ruins they found, were all shown as generic city, no statue of liberty, or WTC or Empire State Building or other landmarks.
So, then when they came up over the Moon, and say what was unmistakably Africa, I laughed. Well, We are Looking for Earth, and this is what we have found, so it is Earth! Any one in a corporate culture will recognize the idea!
Charlie
So they became THE FLINTSTONES…
Yabba Dabba Frakking Doooo….
Frankly, I thought BSG’s finale sucked real, real hard. I let all the contrivances go: the nukes on Racetrack’s ship, Tigh hanging out on the platform with the other final five in the middle of a huge firefight, CapSix with her super hearing ignoring Athena’s cries for Hera, Cavil killing himself. Helo walking around like nobody’s business after getting critically shot in the leg and suffering massive blood-loss… ok, whatever, show, the space battle and the Centurions going at it was cool to watch!
But the colony silently accepting the destruction of all their technology was stupid. Ðámņ stupid and shortsighted, because half of them will be dead in a year. The old people, the kids, those with no hunting/gathering/or farming skills, the sick or injured, all dead because Bill and Lee Adama decided everybody is better off without the Tools To Help Them Survive.
The worst part is that not one person gave any dissent. Now, I know the Adamas were running a dictatorship at that point, but I would think someone would argue in favor of, I don’t know, living? Romo, maybe, or the Quorum who talked about stripping Galactica a couple episodes ago? Anyone? Bueller?
It made no sense.
This is for, well, everyone who wanted everything explained out by the finale–
The questions are the answer, and the journey.
No they’re not.
I’ve made several negative comments on this thread, so I thought I should point out that I actually did enjoy the final episode, for the most part.
I’d pretty much given up on them answering any questions. So even though that bothered me, it wasn’t by much. I didn’t like the flashbacks, mostly they told us stuff we already knew or were artsy and useless like the bird in Lee’s apartment. They didn’t integrate well with the main story, there was no particular reason to show any particular flashback at any particular moment in the episode. The speech by Baltaar sucked.
But the human drama is the main point of the show and they did that pretty well. They had a great battle between the two forces. Seeing the Chief strangle the woman who killed Kally was very satisfying.
So for me it was a mixed bag, but still a pretty good ending.
I didn’t like the flashbacks, mostly they told us stuff we already knew or were artsy and useless like the bird in Lee’s apartment.
I actually took the bird to be symbolic of the voyage he was about to undergo, particularly in terms of how it was juxtaposed with Starbuck. Consider Noah’s ark, in which birds were his avatars to determine if the disaster was over. Galactica was, in many ways, a retelling of Noah’s ark, a handful of humans surviving disaster, and Starbuck was the equivalent of the dove who flew out from the ark and returned with an olive branch.
PAD
Symbolism that has on it a big, neon sign flashing “SYMBOLISM!” doesn’t work for me. We’re at the end of the story, we don’t need a symbol of the journey, we’ve just seen the *actual* journey. Adding a symbol of the journey doesn’t actually add anything, it just repeats something we already knew in a more artsy way.
Given what was happening, I (just me talking) took the bird to symbolize Starbuck’s liberation from her task.
I love how Ron Moore recentlly fessed up that
even he has no idea what the bird means. Turns
out he just liked the idea of having a bird
chased out of a house by someone. Didn’t even
have to be Lee.
I was floored when the Galactica rammed the Colony. I shouted “RAMMING SPEED!” at the screen (thinking of the ending of Animal House, of course.)
I would have much preferred an explanation other than “God’s plan/interference” as that never really works for me in any context.
Aside from all the contrivances that Jill Kelly made, I felt cheated that the two characters that were most responsible for the near-destruction of the human race got off without even a scratch. Ellen is no longer a šlûŧ. The Chief and Bill Adama decide to go live (and die) alone. And who would decide to live on an unknown world without medical equipment? I figure everyone except Hera was killed or died of disease within 6 months!
The whole “Hera visions” were just lame on so many levels.
There were some very fine moments, but some really unsatisfactory ones for me.
All in all, I say that Ron Moore, in 2 hours and 11 minutes, has ruined the entire show for me and kept me from buying the entire series on blu-ray when it comes out. I never thought that possible!
I am happy for those folks who can embrace this final episode. I am so forlorn that my favorite series disappointed me so in the end.
C’mon guys,none of the other series closings have been nearly as good as BSG. Ron Moore did the best wrap-up since ” … All Good Things” on Next Gen. (Hmmm … he wrote that one too? Time travel to the creation of the Universe? Do I detect a motif here?)
I know a lot of the allegory here is a bit much to swallow, but he’s been leading up to it since the miniseries; why back off now? And yes, he borrowed a bit from Douglas Adams for the state of things when they arrived on Earth, but it was really the only choice of three that made any sense. Both present-Earth and future-Earth would be so clunky and contrived (see Galactica 1980) it would soon be a parody of itself.
My personal favorite bit is the redemption of Gaius Baltar. Not the Dr Smith wannabe from the original series, Gaius is the consummate anti-hero. I love his evolution thru the series from arrogant scientist/player to misunderstood politician to harem-toting evangelist. But his final act of redempion on Friday night was uplifting. He finally came to grips with what he had done, and what he had to do to make it right again.
So, my Hugo nomination for
BEST DEVELOPED CHARACTER= BALTAR.
Bob
I was surprised Baltar didn’t die in saving Hera — I thought that would be his one selfless act that Lee talked about — but certainly do agree with you.
I liked many of the changes between old and new BSG, including Starbuck and Boomer. But Baltar was by far the best change.
I watched all 3 hours 11 min of the finale (though minus commercials it felt more like two hours) and I feel it works much better when you watch it all at once. The flashbacks seem less intrusive.
It resolves some things well and leaves things open. I’m beginning to think that Kara was a Christ-figure and not an angel. She had physical characteristics, unlike Six/Baltar, and she disappeared suddenly. At times, Jesus appeared/disappeared suddenly after resurrection. I stil can’t resolve why she didn’t realize that, unless she did and was in denial.
Speaking of denial, could you walk away from everything and start totally over like they did? That could be why some decided to live alone. Being around others, especially in cramped gray quarters like they did for 4-5 years, would’ve driven anyone off the rails. I think it was less an anti-tech reason, and more a pro-open spaces “don’t fence me in” reason.
You know, I went back and watched the very first regular episode of BSG this past weekend, titled “33.” I was struck by how well the finale we ended up with came back to the goals and themes of the series as expressed in that single (awesome, Hugo-award winning) episode.
In the pre-credits tease to that first episode, we see Baltar and Six back in his swanky home on Caprica during a “head” sequence. Six’s first words in the regular series were this: “God has a plan for you, Gaius. He has a plan for everyone and everything.” Later in the episode, still in the swanky bachelor home, Gaius speaks of his belief in a “rational universe.”
Yet time and again, we’ve seen the irrational on this series. We’ve seen Head Six refer to herself as an angel, we’ve seen her literally guide Gaius Baltar’s hand toward serendipity. We’ve seen prophecies fulfilled, visions of meaning given, and even death and resurrection. Bringing the series back around to the idea of God or of an unexplained, unidentified higher power is exactly what RDM needed to do in this finale, IMO. If he’d tried to come up with some technobabble explanation for Kara and the head characters, we’d have…well…Star Trek. A world without the idea of God where everything is rational at bottom and can easily be explained through science and reason. That’s not the world of BSG. Never has been. BSG is emotion, not reason. BSG is high stakes action and moral, legal, political, and ethical ambiguity. I love that they came back to the divine, acknowledged it, but wisely chose to leave it ambiguous.
At first, I was bothered by the Earth ending, but the more I think about it, the more it works for me. When you have a show in which 38,000 people have spent five years in metal tubes fleeing from a technologically superior enemy of their own creation, do we really want to see them land on lush green solid ground and immediately say, “Hey, let’s start over! We can rebuild it! We have the technology!” If it were me, I’d say, “Yeah. You do that. I’ll be out here in the woods rubbing two sticks together and building a tent with a stick and a leaf.” The ending we got was built into the very premise of the series, IMO. I’m satisfied.
I loved the finale. The characters got their closure in moving and powerful ways, the series addressed and more importantly left unanswered some important questions about life, the universe, and everything, and ultimately, we got the final chapter of an 80-hour story. I’m so happy with it. BSG may have cemented itself as my favorite television series of all time. For now, at least…
Michael Cravens: “If he’d tried to come up with some technobabble explanation for Kara and the head characters, we’d have…well…Star Trek. A world without the idea of God where everything is rational at bottom and can easily be explained through science and reason.”
In defense of Star Trek: The first Star Trek movie dealt with exactly these themes that BSG had more time (three plus seasons and a 2hour plus finale) to explain. V-ger is essentially a Cylon searching for God’s purpose.
Borg are Cavil-like Cylons without interest in the spiritual only the most efficient (“I had to look at a super-nova with these @##$%$## EYES!!!”)
Deep Space Nine constantly explored ideas of faith among the Bajoran people and Captain Sisko..
Even the Cylon slur “toaster” is a reference to TNG episode, “Measure of a Man” where a judge states at first “Data is a toaster.” Then later states: “Does Data have a soul?…Perhaps we should allow him to find that out on his own”
Star Trek may be momentarily out of favor lately with Sci Fi purists, but no one can say it did not tackle Ideas of faith and a soul.
—Captain Naraht
Oh, don’t get me wrong. I love Trek. I love TNG. I wasn’t slagging it by comparison. What I meant was that in Roddenberry’s vision, humanity evolves beyond the need for the idea of God and religion. I think Trek absolutely deals with some of the themes that BSG does. Like you say, “Measure of a Man” was excellent as exploring AI as “seeking out new life and new civilization,” and the Borg episodes of TNG are also great in this regard. But as far as a space opera series that would resolve itself by acknowledging and relying upon the idea of a higher divine power that’s pulling the strings of humanity? It’s not something I’ve really seen before. I suppose you could say that TNG had Q and Q-Continuum. They’re pretty godlike, and Q certainly played a role in the beginning and end of TNG. It’s a fair point.
Until Kara’s return, I had seen nothing on this show that couldn’t be explained by a combination of technobabble, religious faith and/or delusion, or what I’d call “radical intuition.” That Head!Six appeared to guide Baltar’s hand or perceptions is fine, but I do not remember her ever giving him info that he could not possibly have guessed or intuited by himself. Irrational =/= Existence of God.
I am interested in the show’s revelation of some sort of higher power without ANY exploration into the nature of said higher power. I think that’s part of what’s so fascinating. What do we really know of “God’s” so-called Plan? It never ends, and it involved Hera. Anything else we come up with is conjecture. (I prefer PAD’s idea of “fewer humans = greater power” from TDATL, and I’m using that as my personal explanation of stuff in this show, but I doubt RDM sees it that way…)
I agree with you that much of the fleet would probably be perfectly happy to go “back to nature” as opposed to staying on decaying, stinking ships eating algae soup with carmelized algae cubes with a side of algae-covered algae. That said, I somehow doubt that the “provisions” they all had were limited simply to algae burritos. There were probably some basic tools in there, as well as some basic geologic and meteorological survey work that had been run before simply dumping the folks on the planet. The timeline of the end of the show is far from clear.
Your comment that “The characters got their closure in moving and powerful ways” is probably the most important thing to come out of that last hour. Sure, the human race may have traded living in a submarine for “To Build A Fire,” but that’s general fate stuff. As for the characters that we’ve loved (or loved to hate) for the last five years, however, they all, without exception, resolved their personal stories and conflicts and are in radically different places than they were at the beginning of the mini. That’s a pretty big win.
As far as the fate of human creation/Colonial “civilization” goes, it’s entirely possible that Hera, as Mitochondrial Eve, had something unique in her make-up that enabled her (and her descendants) to combine nominally compatible genes into something truly workable. Who’s to say that her ability to save lives and build odd communities isn’t the key thing that’s allowed us to survive as long as we have? Perhaps building community is the “Shape of Things to Come” and we’ve still got some of that ahead of us.
I can’t believe that I’ve been thinking almost non-stop about this show since it aired. That’s powerful stuff there.
Eric
I very much like what you expressed here. I myself prefer non-religious explanations, and that wouldn’t have been the direction I’d have gone in, but they chose that direction a long time ago, and then they executed it beautifully.
I suppose you could say that TNG had Q and Q-Continuum. They’re pretty godlike, and Q certainly played a role in the beginning and end of TNG. It’s a fair point.
I’d even say it’s a Farpoint. Sorry, but I couldn’t resist.
<>
There were a few things that Head-Six/Baltar could not possibly know/figure out. She predicted the immediate and short term future several times. But the one that sticks out in my mind, while they were in brig, she told Baltar that their child would be born in that brig. Later Hera was born in the brig and the Head-Six said that she was their child. (Which is an indication to me that show didn’t end where they planned.). I think there were times she predicted Cylon attacks before they happened too.
Not to be argumentative, as I haven’t watched many of the older eps in some time, but I often interpreted Head!Six’s predictions as Baltar’s genius making all the right leaps in logic so seamlessly that it would seem like a guess even when it was a very astute pattern recognition. I do not deny the possibility that she was a divine being providing him with easy info, esp. given the religious nature of the finale. However, I think the level of “forced” religion is significantly higher in the finale than in most of the rest of the show.
Eric
I think she meant “our child” in the sense of the child of humans and Cylons rather than in a biological sense.
I too prefer non-religious explanations for things, but I saw “Head” Baltar and “Head” Six as more Loki than angels, regardless of what Baltar called them. So I guess that’s why I didn’t find the ending as troubling as others did.
Criticism of the “God” ending remind me a lot of people complaining about the “explanation” in Y The Last Man. I don’t have the issue handy, but basically, what ending would have been satisfactory? Nanobots? Aliens?
At least the God ending, deus ex that it was, was supported and set up throughout the series. At it turns out, the Six in Baltar’s head wasn’t just a raving lunatic – she was telling us what was going on the whole time, we just dismissed it.
I’m quite happy with the ending. My only hang-up was the two angels talking at the end was a bit ham-fisted and unnecessary. They could have flash forwarded to 150,000 years ahead, panned across the beggar lady with the the song playing, shown us the newspaper, then pulled back to reveal all the robots. Maybe end with a shot where maybe, if you’re paying attention, you catch a glimpse of a red dress in the crowd…
What I posted on a friend’s journal who was upset with the “religious” ending…
I actually quite liked it.
I love that Head Six and Head Baltar were “angels,” as well as Angel Kara. While the humans and cylons perceive them in a religious manner, I view them as basically ‘magic.’ A.C. Clarke (not J.L. Picard) originally said that any sufficiently advanced society or technology would be perceived as magical to us.
Battlestar Galactica (the orignal) based a large portion of their story from the books of Erich Von Daniken of Chariots of the Gods fame, i.e. the Ancient Astronaut theory, that aliens visited primitive man and helped them evolve. For me, the angels were the same premise… these were aliens hoping to evolve man into something higher.
My reasoning for this is that they did borrow liberally from the original series, and the angels DO appear in the original series: the Seraphs (seraphim?) from the Ship of Lights. To dangerously quote the wikipedia article:
The Seraphs tell the Colonial warriors, “You are as we once were; we are as you may become.”
I believe the Seraphs (angels) had, in the past, attempted to help humans evolve, and that led to the creation of Cylons and eventually the first Cylon/Human war. The human race neared extinction, as well as the Cylons, and perhaps the Seraphs saw that their tempering with our evolution was creating a cycle that would not allow either race to sufficiently evolve, stuck in a loop. The Seraphs felt responsible for this… well, it was THEIR fault, after all. They dedicated their immortal lives to helping correct this error as best they could… i.e. break the cycle.
Now, remember, I’m just saying the Angels in this episode were aliens so advanced we couldn’t perceive them as anything but magical, which is what religion is. I’m perfectly fine with this.
In a way it reminds me of Childhood’s End, with its religious and metaphysical themes. Now that’s not to say I didn’t have problems with it. I don’t mind Baltar betraying the human race and not getting sufficiently punished, but he never really did get a chance at redemption, so that really sucked that he got a happy ending. Cavil’s self-headshot? WTF was that about? And I felt the flashbacks were mostly unnecessary titillation that didn’t add anything much to the show. But otherwise I quite liked it.
BSG has been quite possibly the best sci-fi series on TV of late. It eclipses the likes of LOST and even out shines such magnificent series as Firefly. However, the last episode was at least 30 mins too long. I hate shows that tie up all the loose threads in neat little bows. It’s tedious and takes all the punch out of the ending. I prefer to imagine.