BSG finale review


Ah, sadness. BSG is no more. The writing quality definitely declined during Season 4, but the series finale and the episodes immediately preceding did create a fitting and satisfying end for me.

For one, I liked the "meta level" on which the last few episodes operated: Adama trying to do everything he could to save the ship, coming increasingly to terms with the fact that Galactica had run its course...not just the ship itself, but the entire way of life the Fleet had known, was coming to an end, and you had to deal and move on (characters who couldn't didn't end well - Dee and ultimately Cavell, who committed suicide, or Gaeda and Zarek who rebelled uselessly), no matter how painful that might be. And that was the message for the show's fans, too...like it or not, BSG the show is coming to an end, you're going to have to accept that and enter the next stage of things (heh, i.e., watching the spinoff series Caprica!) And it was indeed painful, even though the show (like the ship) was clearly kind of falling apart.

And I have to say, Ron Moore gave us the ultimate plot device explanation - angels! Every time so ridiculous deus ex machina happens, you know what, it actually IS, LITERALLY, a deus ex machina! So the asteroid-hits-racetrack's-ship-and-launches-the-nukes thing totally made sense in that context, whereas otherwise I'd be groaning at the utter cheesballness of it all.

Yet at the same time, these "angels" clearly have a specific role: allow enough of mankind to reboot itself every time it wrecks itself. I love the theme, throughout the show, of humanity as its own worst enemy, and how the real "villains" in the show were never the cylons as much as intolerance, paranoia, greed, treachery, and an overreliance on technology. As noble as the four years' exodus was, humanity was doomed, doomed, because they just brought all their vices with them, and the only way to survive was to "reboot" (although even that, apparently, didn't solve things, as "Real Earth" is at least the 3rd human reboot and looks destined for the same fate). And yet all along there are those who want to bring humanity to something better, perhaps guided by the "angels"...

Adama ended on a tragically noble note. He was a man of the old world, with an inability to let go of the old ways. There is no place for him in the new world, just as we saw in the flashbacks when he couldn't sacrifice his pride and give up military service in order to retire. He is admirable, but as Lee criticized him, he forced himself to live in a very narrow box. Roslin, too, couldn't let herself let go of the past (as evidenced in her own flashback), and by the time she sees another way it could be, it's too late - she's missed her chances.

Cavell, too, is a tragic figure, and a foil for Adama. Where Adama is chained to his sense of duty, Cavell is chained to his sense of self-interest. He *realizes* that there is really nowhere for him to go, which is why he commits suicide at the end. He has the humans at his mercy, but what's the point? He's lost his chance at perpetuating his race, he's not satisfied with life without immortality, and even if he had it, what the hell would he do? He has no goal, no vision, just a sense of being cheated by his creators for having made him inferior. He's the end of the road for a philosophy built on greed...either someone destroys you (ala the Colonies) or you destroy yourself. Cavell goes out having brought no good to anyone...at least Adama goes out having led humanity to the promised land. Like Moses, he can't enter it (the last image of him on the cliffside was very Moseslike), but at least he paved the way for others. His sacrifice MEANT something. Cavell's didn't.

Baltar actually uses his "con-artist" powers for good instead of evil when brokering the (short lived!) Adama-Cavell truce. Not sure I buy his transformation at the end, but the line about "I know how to farm" was very moving. On the one hand, it is Baltar doing what Baltar always does - shifting, changing faces, adapting to survive wherever he is - but on the other it's a reconnection with the one kernel of genuine person within him, the way he was raised, his "original" way of life - plus a farmer is someone who gives and provides real tangible things for others. All Baltar's given anyone else before are hollow promises. Sounds like an evolution to me.

Saddest of all is Galen. Every time he chose love, it screwed him over. I always liked his character, the "geek" of Galactica, techhy and slightly pudgy and always getting the raw deal. I hope he actually finds some cute cro-magnon babe in proto-Scotland.

Kara? Poor Kara! Tool of the angels from the beginning. I cried at the scene when Lee turns around and she's vanished, even though I totally saw it coming.

Like rowanarha, I had a VERY hard time believing that all the humans would agree to become hunter-gatherers, but at the same time, where else was there for them to go? Life on the ships sucked, there was no place left to wander, and frankly if the whole fleet was down to one tube of toothpaste, maybe there weren't much creature comforts to give up.
Also, I think the implication at the end was that only Hera's descendants grew into "us", so the rest of the colonials and cylons must have died off...probably because they didn't know how to live off the land... ;)

And hey, maybe all the UFO sightings and "greys" mythology comes from visitations by the freed Centurions... (hey guys, we're bored out here in space, thought we'd come by and anal probe you because, well, we're centurions, and we roll that way...)

Wonder what Moore (nice cameo, BTW) was doing with that last line about, "it's all a part of God's plan", followed by, "it hates when you call it that."

Hates when you call it a plan?
Hates when you call it God?

Not sure what we're meant to take from that...many many ideas, too many to list.

I'm feeling pretty much ok with how this all turned out. And hey, there's a made-for-scifi-movie ("the plan") and the Caprica prequel to keep me juiced from now on...

Solid B+. Went out in style. So say we all?



-SW