Battlestar Galactica is Over
Need I say that this post will contain spoilers? Cause it will.
Lots.
Let’s throw in some space. And some Jamie Bamber.
The finale would have been better if it had just been this image on the screen for 2 hrs. 11 min.
I agree with many of these opinions, so I’m not going to rehash them here. I’m going to talk about my two biggest issues.
In short- I didn’t like it. I’m going to come at this from a writer’s standpoint, not a fangirl’s. See, I’m trying to learn this craft, and although much of writing is talent, there are rules to follow.
For example: you leave hints for your audience along the way. You let them believe that you’re leading them somewhere. Also known as Chekov’s gun – if you hang a gun on the wall in the first act, it has to go off by the third.
And I’m sorry, but I’m a romantic and have been rooting for Starbuck and Apollo since Day 1. And you do not build five years of sexual tension and love between characters only to have her disappear at the end, with no acknowledgment of their feelings. And I mean none, not even a lingering, smoldering look, with words unsaid between them. The hints they left for us the entire series: the sexual tension, the tight bond, the frustrating marriages to other people, the infidelity, and the big one, the deaths of both of their spouses (remember, Starbuck’s religion, while apparently saying it was OK to cheat, was against divorce), led us to believe that the two were going to either get together at the end, or die together. Something together.
It could have been doomed. That’s OK. Romeo and Juliette were doomed. But this was nothing. A fizzle.
(And don’t give me the bullshit about, “well, Starbuck was dead.” That was a cheat.)
Second, and I can’t believe no one else has mentioned this, but Gaius and Caprica Six were responsible for genocide. GENOCIDE, people. Yes, Gaius was fooled into it, but he was a slimy little waste that worked on self-preservation and sex for five years. The way you redeem someone like that is not to have him pick up a gun and go shakily into a firefight and then talk down a murderer, but have him gloriously give his life for someone else.
That was the path Boomer took. She shot Adama, slept with Helo, and stole Hera, and at the end she gave Hera back and was killed (kind of in cold blood, actually) by a vengeful Athena. She knew it was her destiny, that she deserved no better. But she knew she had paid the old man back.
But Baltar was fine: he didn’t get injured, he got his freedom, and he found love. Since their second meeting (post kablooey of TWELVE COLONIES) there has been no sexual tension between them. She implied he was nothing to her: a tool, a means to an end. But then he picks up a gun and he’s the action hero she always dreamed of? There were no hints, no breadcrumbs (see above with Apollo and Starbuck), no reason for him to be rewarded with the object of his obsession, and the reason for his downfall.
Oh. Wait. He didn’t have a downfall. He was happy and healthy at the end.
Yeah, there was a trial, and Baltar was found innocent. But we’re talking about the overall arc of the story. We the audience knew what he did, and the fact that he got away with it is just so disgusting. When you take, or destroy, your redemption comes in giving and creating. Baltar did nothing in the series that was not linked to his own preservation. Not a goddamn thing.
So yeah. I disliked it. It was bad writing, sloppy endings, and about the only thing (besides Boomer) that happened the way it was supposed to was Laura’s death. We knew it was coming, she lived like it was coming, and she went out with dignity and grace.
Like the show should have done.
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Well Mur, I have to humbly disagree. I liked the end. Was it perfect, no. What it did do though was take the time to give an end to all the characters. I felt maybe it went on a little long but it was in the end what it was through out. I never thought Starbuck and Apollo would ever get together. I would have been disappointed if they had in the end.
I rather liked Baltar’s tale as well. It was maybe a bit heavy handed, but it was not terrible. I always saw his arch as a redemption story. Especially in this last season he tried so hard to prove he was not the sniveling coward everyone saw him as. He even saw that in himself. As tot he Six relationship, she was clearly still in love with or the “angel” would not have come to her in his image. She may have told him he was tool but you say a lot of things to protect yourself from folks you know are not good for you. It doesn’t mean you mean them.
All in all, I thought the ending was good. Not last episode of MASH good or anything but it gave me what I needed.
But millage may vary. I know folks who did not like Firefly so not everyone will agree.
Very similar thoughts. I loved the series, but felt it was losing steam as it rolled towards the finish. The second half of this season felt like the fifth season of Babylon 5. That is to say, filler. Did we really need another mutiny?
It felt so empty of Adama to change his mind about going after Hera. It felt so wrong that no one objected saying “Look, we’ve all lost relatives, friends and lovers. Why are we risking everything for this one child.” Really? No one in the fleet had a question?
And why was Cavil so willing to just give up the fight because the final 5 were going to give him resurrection — again. Hadn’t he already stated he could pry the information out of their brains. And would take pleasure in doing it?
Then there is the question of Hera What made her so important to the Cylons and the Humans? Humanity mostly walked away from her, apparently capable of interbreeding with the natives. And the Cylons left without her. The fact she scribbled notes on a page just didn’t feel like enough of a justification for her alleged significance.
As someone on Twitter said, they loved the scifi action porn in the first half of the finale, but it wasn’t enough. We deserved better. The show deserved better. And the characters are owed an apology.
[...] #2: And Mur nails it as well. My god. This ending breaks every rule of good fiction. [...]
Mur, you nailed it.
This piece of crap breaks every rule of good fiction I’ve come across. If one of my author friends had handed me a book that did what this episode did, I’d burn it and send them the ashes. This was PATHETIC.
It’s so very sad that a show as brilliant as this one can be completely ruined in one two hours finale. But I’ll never watch anything from these guys again.
Valid points, Mur. A couple other things that really bothered me:
1. “You are the harbinger of death, Kara Thrace.” Really? Didn’t see it. Unless they’re talking about the fact that she WAS dead, which is a fairly loose interpretation of the word harbinger.
2. The opera house vision. For something that was shown fairly often for the last, what, three years? it really didn’t pay off. Through that repeated dream sequence, viewers were led to believe that Baltar and Six would walk off with Hera and this would be a momentous event. When it actually happened, not so momentous. They lost her five minutes later. The important bit was right after, when Cavill got her.
Both of these things are poor storytelling, foreshadowing for the sake of building tension and hoping we don’t notice that it never really pays off.
So the Executive Summary for five years of BSG is: “Baltar wins”. That’s saved me several years of TV watching (I only got to see the first series before it was yanked from the UK TV channels I could access).
Next: Executive Summary for LOST, sometime next year, please!
So much denouement, so little resolution. The whole angel angle was a cheat. The jump to the future was insulting. The writers seemed driven by not doing anything to limit future revenue generating vehicles. If there were anything gutsy in that episode I would have accepted all of this happening before and maybe again as a fitting (non-)closing.
I’m glad it is over. I can think back to those moments I enjoyed so much without wondering where they are going. Lacking as it was nothing was ruined for me.
Caprica Six really should have been shot or spaced, not jailed. Yeah it destroys the potential for a rekindled romance between Baltar and Caprica, but no justice was served to the prime perpetrator of the genocide, the catalyst for the events in the series, and I thought that they knew she was the prime perpetrator? That was really the only big problem I had with the series.
The biggest problem I had with the episode was leaving the technology behind. There really was no disagreement or conflict and there should have been. All in all, loved the episode. Deus ex machina happened in some parts, and in others where it was claimed to have happened it didn’t since those parts were alluded to since the beginning. Deus ex machina is “an active agent that appears unexpectedly to solve an insoluble difficulty.” Seems to me that the intelligent guiding force and destiny themes weren’t unexpected.
Perfectly said, and admirably restrained.
Baltar was the one character who HAD to die. Caprica, too, but in a way, the whole series has been about Baltar redeeming himself. One courageous decision doesn’t cut it. And he didn’t talk down Cavill. it was Tigh’s offer of Resurrection that ended the stand-off. Baltar was just filling time.
They DIDN’T pay off Roslin’s death. It was prophecied over and over that the dying leader would not live to enter the new world. But she did. And then, after years in the stale air of a ship, Adama takes her in a Raptor to die. That’s just dumb. She’d want to die on the ground, under the sun, with fresh air in her lungs. Though the prophecy, of course, would forbid that scene.
Starbuck was an angel? Look, as a writer, there is no greater sin than reliance on Deus Ex Machina. If you’re going to say God enables everything that the characters do, then what’s the point of me watching it? Anything can happen, probably will, and intellectual curiosity is an enemy.
But not only was the ENTIRE finale reliant on an unseen God’s string pulling, it was preachy and dumb at the same time.
These 39,000 people are going to die of disease and starvation and exposure and dysentery, and they are NOT going to agree to go native conveniently. It’s dumb.
On and on.
A major disappointment adorned in pretty lights that I did enjoy watching blink for the first 45 minutes, until I realized there was not one damn thing under the tree.
I think I agree with you, but I still liked it and will miss the show. I’d love to see your “fan fiction” take on things. Battlestar Murlactica.
[...] Mur Lafferty [...]
“Goodbye Kara Thrace. You will not be forgotten.”
You know, if Starbuck had voiced this fear of being forgotten sometime during seasons 1 or 2 (or maybe during the only real post-coital talk the two of them had on New Caprica), this would have had some real meaning. Saying it two seconds after a forced flashback… not so much.
People are complaining about Kara’s end. I don’t have too much of an issue with the spiritual nature of the series end (but I do with the “Let’s become Amish, it’s the only way we can break the cycle” theme).
What I have an issue with is Lee’s reaction to Kara’s ‘end.’ No falling to the ground due to the loss of your one true love? Or over the realization of spiritual power in the universe by one of the more pragmatic individuals on the show? What do we get as Lee Adama’s grand exit? A confused look, then resignation and peace?
People are complaining “That’s no way for Starbuck to go out.” I’m sorry, but that’s no way Apollo should have gone out… a weak, empty reaction to Starbuck’s exit. Bleh.
Spot on. Looks like I’m a little late to the game, but I can’t really disagree about anything you said, though I’ll nitpick on one point…
I’ll agree that Boomer’s ending was appropriate, given all the stuff that had happened prior. With all her bridges burned down, the best she could hope for was a chestful of bullets and a sliver of redemption… the only question was whether Athena, Helo, or Tyrol would get to her first. However, it wasn’t a satisfying conclusion for the Sharon Valerii that graced the first two seasons. The writers started butchering the character after the new caprica storyline, and she became more of a plot device to make everyone miserable than an actual person with motivations. I made a blog post about it, if you’ve got the patience to slog through a 3000 word rant: http://ianmorrison.wordpress.com/2009/04/09/a-battlestar-galactica-rant/
Also, to speak of sloppily placed flashbacks, I had to marvel at the writer’s revolutionary new idea of foreshadowing an event AFTER it has occured. Not only that, but it falls apart as a justification for Boomer rescuing Hera. You can’t seriously expect me to believe that she did it for ADAMA after all those scene of her and Hera bonding. The explanation that would have taken her actual actions into account would be that she couldn’t bear to see sweet little Hera chopped apart like a frog in an 8th grade biology class.
Damn. I should have been reading your blog for the last 4 years or so… Despite the flaws of the finale, I am still horribly depressed about BSG’s passing. It is with me even today as I contemplate rewatching episodes I’ve Tivoed from season 4.5.
Will you watch/download/buy “Caprica”? It’s due out soon.
Laters,
b