Battlestar Galactica: What the frak happened in the series finale?
I thought about posting last night, but I’ve gotten into a rhythm this season with letting the episode marinate in my brain overnight and then posting on Saturday morning. I know a lot of people TiVo shows nowadays (myself included) and end up watching the episode later that night, the next day or the next week, so there isn’t a huge rush to get something up.
Was it a great finale? Absolutely. Was I blown away? Not entirely.
Let’s start at the beginning (which is always a good place to start) — more flashbacks of life on Caprica. Bill is thinking about retiring and entering the private sector, Roslin has a blind date with a former student, Lee gets to know Kara. Great, let’s move on.
Back in the future, Baltar’s vision tells him that he will “take mankind’s remnants and guide them to their end.” Last week, after watching him struggle with the decision in the hanger, I wondered whether or not Gaius would in fact volunteer to go along with the rescue mission. The truth is that it should have been obvious that he would. Creator Ronald D. Moore wasn’t about to take one of the main players out of the game in crunch time.
After an emotional scene between Roslin and Doc Coddle, Laura had a great line:
“Don’t spoil your image. Just light a cigarette and go and grumble.”
Then the planning began for the assault on the colony — that’s when the episode really got going. The final four move Sam to the CIC (more on this later) and Galactica prepares to jump.
Like just about every battle scene in the entire series, this one rocked. Galactica jumps in and immediately starts to get pummeled by the colony’s weapons. After the terrific rescue mission on New Caprica, the show had a lot to live up to, and once the birds were away and Bill ordered his crew to ram the colony, Moore and Co. had cleared the bar. It was very cool to see Lee leading a group of Centurions into the colony. Even when they’re on “our” side, they still scare the ever-loving crap out of me.
It’s still a little incredible that Kara’s group would find Hera so quickly, but Boomer came to their aid. She broke that Cylon’s neck (!!!) and got Hera out of there. It just goes to show what kind of an effect that little girl has on people/machines. After a great scene with Boomer, Athena, Helo and Kara — with Kara’s great line, “Uh, can we not tell her the plan!” — Athena kills her “sister” and the group makes its escape. When Boomer said that she owed the old man, I thought she was referring to the fact that she once tried to kill him, but apparently she was talking about one day when she was a rookie and Bill gave her another chance to complete her raptor landing. (Maybe it’s just me, but I think she owes him more for the attempted assassination.)
Meanwhile, on Galactica, Gaius and Caprica Six are chitchatting while they’re waiting for something to shoot. That’s when they both see both visions, who say, “You will hold the futures of humans and Cylons in your hands.” Now there has been a lot of speculation about what his/their visions represent, but they’re not crazy and they don’t have chips in their heads (or at least Gaius doesn’t). Moore said on “The Last Frakking Special” that Baltar’s visions were divine. They were guiding him down this path, and his storyline over the last few episodes revolved around his possible redemption. He turned over the keys to Caprica’s defense systems to his Six and that allowed the near-destruction of the human race. Granted, he didn’t know that’s what he was doing at the time, but he is still responsible for his actions. Anyway, Baltar starts firing his gun and it turns out that Lee and his gang are just around the corner. Then there was this subtle yet fantastic interaction…
Baltar: Sorry about that.
Lee: Doc, you did good.
Succinct and to the point, that was one of the most touching moments in the entire finale (for me). Lee has always been one of Baltar’s harshest critics and for Gaius to do enough to earn a compliment from him (which was no doubt boosted by the Doctor’s decision to stay on Galactica), it was a major milestone in Baltar’s road to redemption.
So Hera runs off as Helo is shot, and the whole opera house flashbacks begin. This was a very cool way to intertwine the show’s past with its present and give meaning to those dreams. I’m guessing this was Moore’s plan from the start. Usually, when you’re writing fiction, you know how it begins and how it ends, and you’ll figure out the middle later. I think once Moore introduced the opera house dream, he knew that it was going to come full circle as all the parties involved search for Hera on Galactica. The dreams made Caprica Six and Baltar look nefarious, as if they were snatching the girl away. But in fact, they had the best interests of the girl at heart. This all led to Baltar and Caprica Six taking Hera into the CIC, where the final five were positioned above them, same as the dream. Very, very cool.
All right, so somehow Cavil gets a hold of Hera, and instead of Bill or someone else putting a bullet in his “brain,” Baltar finally redeems himself. If he’s not on Galactica (the one true, selfless act that Lee was talking about earlier this season), then he’s not there to convince Cavil to give up the girl, and who knows how that confrontation ends. Gaius talks about the visions, refers to them as “angels” and gets Cavil to buy into the whole “let’s break the cycle of violence” plan, providing that the final five give the cylons the key to resurrection. Only the plan goes awry when Tyrol sees Torry’s memory of killing his wife — so he flips out and kills her. Cavil, ever the survivor, says “frak” and offs himself. This doesn’t make any sense to me.
Anyway, now it’s time for Starbuck to take over. Moore did a great job of setting up this scene. From the final four hearing “All Along the Watchtower,” to Hera giving the drawing to Starbuck, to her interaction with her “dad” in the bar, to her working with Anders to try to put the song into some sort of numerical connotation, it was a long, fleshed-out journey. Of course, the fact that she jumped Galactica to a second Earth (which oddly enough, has all the same continents as the original Earth) requires a huge leap of faith. It’s clear now that Moore is pushing the idea of intelligent design, which he (possibly) sees as a compromise between the inaccuracies of the Bible (as they relate to established science) and the finality of atheism. This is confirmed when Bill, Gaius, Coddle and a few others are observing a tribe of prehistoric humans walk by. The fact that humans evolved independently requires some sort of a belief in divine intervention.
At some point, Starbuck/Lee have a flashback to the time that they met, and it turns out that they almost slept together. But the most important part of the flashback was Kara revealing that she isn’t afraid of death. It’s not that she doesn’t know fear, she does, but she’s not afraid of dying, which was yet another clue that she was not human (nor cylon). Whatever she is — some sort of angel that walks the Earth, twice — she is built in such away that she’s not afraid of death, and this lack of fear has allowed her to do amazing things in her time with the fleet. Regarding the other flashbacks, I think we were supposed to see just how close Bill was to not being in charge of Galactica at the time of the attack and what it took for Roslin to convince herself that a move into politics was the right thing for her. I’m not sure why it took sleeping with her former student (though that’s admittedly a bit on the sketchy side, even that late in life), but that’s what it took.
Back to New Earth. Not unlike the finale to the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, this one had about five or six endings. It’s understandable — the viewers want to know how each major character moves on, and it’s impossible to do that quickly. I think that this is why they decided to do a two-hour combined finale instead of breaking it up into two episodes. It just wouldn’t have worked as well separately.
All right, so the assumption is that the fleet is willing to give up all of their technology and live and breed with the natives. There’s no other way to explain the lack of technology, so I guess I’m willing to buy it. I just have a hard time believing that the fleet, after arguing about every little thing, would be so homogeneous in its position on this.
Back in April of 2008, I wrote the following on the blog entry for this season’s (first) premiere…
Based on what I’ve read, it does appear that the fleet will find some version of Earth this season. They could arrive in our past, our present or our future, or they could arrive to an alternate version of Earth. They could be the first humans to settle on Earth (maybe the two hybrid babies are Adam and Eve – though all the technology would be a problem) or they could arrive to a futuristic Earth that has the ability to fend of the Cylons. A grimmer possibility is that they arrive to find that the human civilization destroyed itself, not unlike the ending of “Planet of the Apes.”
It turns out I was almost right. (Mind you, this doesn’t mean anything — I floated all sorts of theories on this blog so I was bound to have one or two that turned out to be right.) They did find a “Planet of the Apes”-type Earth, but they found it early in the season, which opened up more possibilities for the finale. It was revealed that Tyrol’s son wasn’t really his son, so the Adam and Eve thing was out (which is probably good, since Moore is going with more of an intelligent design explanation) but it did turn out that Hera was Eve…mitochondrial Eve, that is.
So let’s see…
– After killing Torry, Galen is sick of people and wants to live and die alone. In about five years, I picture him sitting in a tent somewhere cold (with a huge, grizzly beard), wishing that he had some interpersonal interaction. Before he leaves, Tigh says that he would have done the same thing to Torry had she killed Ellen. Apparently, Tigh is the only one who is allowed to kill his wife…
– We were treated to a semi-useless flashback of Ellen and Tigh in the strip club where she says that all she wants to do is spend time with him. So now they get to spend a lot of time together. (How’s that going to work if they don’t have any booze?)
– Helo is going to teach Hera how to hunt. No, Athena is. No Helo is. I get it. They’re happy. (At least Helo didn’t die — when he got shot, I thought he might be Moore’s sacrificial lamb.)
– Bill takes off with Laura to show her some wildlife. The way he said goodbye to Lee and Starbuck (after saying, “I don’t have much time left.”), I thought he was going to fly off into the sun. After all, he can’t leave that raptor lying around for future scientists to find, right? So I’m assuming that after he buried Laura, that’s just what he did. (I’m not sure why he kept talking about the cabin after she died though. I think that’s where the title of the last three hours, “Daybreak,” came from.)
And here’s a tip: If someone tells you that they think their “work is done,” don’t look away. They’re just going to disappear. Starbuck is apparently some sort of angel (who can’t see Baltar’s angels) who was sent to Caprica to help guide the fleet to New Earth. Moore didn’t have a whole lot of options with her when he said that there would be no more “surprise cylons” after they revealed the final five. She couldn’t be a cylon and she couldn’t be human, because she found her body on Earth. So she had to be something else. So that’s what she was — something else.
And then there’s Baltar and Caprica Six, who decided to start a farm. Baltar knows about farming because of his dad, which was one of the purposes of his flashback. And this is one of the problems I have with Lee’s intention to break the cycle by saying, “no cities.” People are eventually going to settle down. When they learn how to grow things, they’re going to stay in one place, and that’s how towns are developed. When there are towns, there are eventually going to be cities. And when there are cities, there are eventually going to be killer robots. Or I guess that’s what Moore is saying.
When we jump forward 150,000 years to modern day New York, was anyone really surprised? It was a really cool transition — the camera hovering over Central Park before shooting up to show all the skyscrapers — and that’s when Moore actually made his cameo. He was the guy holding the magazine about mitochondrial Eve that the vision of Caprica Six was reading.
I get the sense that the vision of Six and the vision of Baltar are actually angels that can take any form. In this case, they took the form of Baltar and Six so that they could communicate with the real Baltar and Six. Moore left them in that form for the final scene for continuity’s sake, as it would have been strange to see two new actors in their place. Moore gets a little preachy here with all of the “technology run amok” talk, and the implication is that we’re headed towards destruction if we continue down this path. I’m not sure exactly what path he’s talking about, but given the montage of shots at the end, he’s most likely referring to the work being done in the world of robotics. I’ve heard this story before.
The vision of Caprica Six says that she thinks this time it will be different, saying that something unexpected may come up because “that too is in God’s plan.” This is when Baltar says something odd, and I’m not really sure what it means…
“You know it doesn’t like that name… Silly me. Silly, silly me.”
Okay, so he’s referring to a higher power, one that he knows well enough to know that “it” doesn’t like to be called “God.” I’m assuming the “silly me” comment refers to the fact that humans will have no other name for “it,” though he may mean something else. Thoughts?
Also, who knew that Bob Dylan didn’t originally write “All Along the Watchtower”? I bet that’s news to him!
So that’s it. The end of a great science fiction show (maybe the best ever?) and less importantly, the end of this blog. I hope everyone enjoyed reading my scatterbrained thoughts each week and that this forum allowed fans to enjoy the series a bit more. During the finale, there were two previews — one for “Caprica,” which I fully intend to blog once it starts, and another for “Battlestar Galactica: The Plan,” which is a two-hour event that shows how the cylons developed their plan to attack Caprica. I knew about the former, but not the latter, so needless to say I’m excited to see what Moore comes up with. I just hope that whatever it is, it doesn’t take away from the finality of the finale. (Try saying that ten times fast.)
3/22 Update: Here’s a link to an interview with Ronald D. Moore. He discusses a number of the last minute decisions, but doesn’t shed any light on why the fleet was so willing to give up its technology.
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Tags: Aaron Douglas, Battlestar Galactica, Battlestar Galactica blog, Battlestar Galactica Daybreak, Battlestar Galactica finale, Battlestar Galactica season 4 episode 20, Dean Stockwell, Edward James Olmos, Grace Park, Islanded in a Stream of Stars, James Callis, Jamie Barber, Kate Vernon, Katee Sackhoff, Lucy Lawless, Mary McDonnell, Michael Hogan, Tahmoh Penikett, Tricia Helfer, TV, TV Action, TV Dramas
Great review, I really enjoy this episode, even though this season wasn’t my favorite.
I will be expecting “The Plan”, but with this episode, I am for now really satisfy
A couple of points that make me feel better about some in continuity. When they find Earth the first time the continents are never completely visible nor is the moon so as not to have it confused with the earth as we know it now. But the thing that bothers me still is the Starbuck resolution. Thats it?? Give her all this history and shes just an Angel??? Cop out. The only thing that was said to me that made me feel better is that the real Starbuck did die and the one that came back was the angel to help guide the people. She didn’t know where Earth was until she died and the replacement was sent. Still kind of pissed, you hear any better explanations let me know.
You know what? Despite a couple of “convenient” tie downs… like Cavil killing himself… this really was an outstanding finale. Lot’s of shows that I’ve seen really disappoint at the end and this one did not.
If you think about it, there really was no other explanation for Kara. And since we established that the vision of Six and Baltar were truly “angels”, it makes sense.
What a great show! I’m looking forward to Caprica and The Plan, but they really have a lot to live up to.
Loved it. Great great finale for a great show. The only thing I don’t like, as mentioned, is Cavil would not have gone out like that. Otherwise, perfection.
I utterly enjoyed the ending, but only four things bugged me:
1. Starbuck just disappeared? I thought there should be at least 15 seconds devoted to explaining her.
2. Why weren’t the references to Starbuck being “the harbinger of death” or “you will lead humanity to it’s end” explained?
3 What happened to Leoben? Shouldn’t he have at least had a little hand in helping Starbuck with whatever, or something?
4. What happened to D’anna Biers? I don’t remember her getting killed
On the other hand, I absolutely loved the fact they had Galen Tyrol found Scotland. A cold island, up north, “highlands”. Yeah, I thought it was awesome.
I’m a little curious as to how blowed-all-up Earth had manhattan, but I’ll accept that as part of the Intelligent Design bit.
I think the best line of the episode goes to Baltar when the Six and Baltar Angels tell Baltar and Caprica that “God’s plan is never complete” and Blatar responds with an almost understated “Great”.
The part of the ending that blew me away was the revelation “150,000 years later” and the conversation between the Baltar and Six Angels. Michael and Lucifer anyone???
Hola Mateo — You’re right. I knew at some point that I saw North America, but that was at the end of Crossroads, not the planet Kara led them to in Revelations. So the continents thing doesn’t bother me now — very crafty by Moore to show “our” Earth and then have Kara immediately lead the fleet to the “cylon” Earth, complete with what looked like Manhattan. Very, very crafty bit of deception there.
This site has pictures from each episode…
http://dssstrkl.wordpress.com/2009/01/18/my-awesome-and-totally-uni
que-bsg-conspiracy-theory/
I didn’t mind that Kara was an angel. Like I said, Moore boxed himself in and he definitely went with the divine bit all the way. I think she was an angel from the start because of her speech about how she was never afraid of death. Lee saw her viper explode and somehow she ended up finding cylon Earth and returning in one piece. She might have died twice on that trip, once in the explosion and once when she crashed on Earth.
Roger — here’s my take on your four issues with the finale…
1) I didn’t mind it. They sort of set it up with the scenes with Lee (both the flashbacks and the scene in the field). A teary goodbye would have been too much and over the top. Besides, Kara’s the type to just disappear, isn’t she?
2) I think that was referring her leading the fleet to cylon Earth, so in a way she led them to their (or at least the cylons’) doom. Prophecy isn’t always clean and precise. Besides, this was a hybrid saying this to her and those cats are jibberjabbering all over the place.
3) Good point on Leoben…not sure what happened to him…Here is his Wiki page…it looks like there were a number of copies running around so we don’t really know who is who…
http://en.battlestarwiki.org/wiki/Leoben_Conoy
4) Biers stayed on the cylon Earth…from her Wiki page:
At the conclusion of “Sometimes a Great Notion”, Saul Tigh approaches D’Anna to tell her that the fleet is about to leave. D’Anna chooses to stay behind on Earth. She tells him: “You know all this is just going to happen again and again.. and again. So I’m getting off this merry-go-round.” She adds that she would rather die on Earth with her ancestors than at Cavil’s hands in the cold and dark of space.
I’m still racking my brain over that “silly, silly me” comment. What does it mean?! What about “you know it doesn’t like that name” (God) does Caprica give him that look about? Are we supposed to get it, or just one of those things to make you wonder?
Josh — that’s one of my biggest questions that still lingers from the finale. Is he saying “silly me” because humans can’t come up with any other name for “it” or that “it” actually does like the name? I think Moore threw it in there to mess with us. And it’s clearly working.
Something that irritated me was that there was no acknowledgement of the extreme hardship that the colonials had in store for them. Lee wants to explore? He’ll be lucky if he can provide enough food for himself. The high yield crops we have available now like wheat are the result of many generations of selective breeding of far less nutritious varieties. They would have been facing a constant threat of starvation, disease, high infant mortality, predation by wild animals and back breaking labour every day just to ensure that you’ve got enough food so that some people don’t starve. If we’d seen the colonials after a year, they’d be a LOT less optimistic. They just threw away technology that could have allowed them to properly feed and provide medicine to their people!
Is it a coincidence that this anti-science, anti-progress, insanity comes along with supernatural nonsense? I was very upset about this. Could we not trivialise the intense suffering our ancestors went through for centuries to get to this point where we have the luxury of not having to watch our children die of bacterial infections that could have been cured if only the colonials had brought some damn antibiotics and medical equipment with them! Frak me!
Yes, let’s all call this new, strange planet our home, throw all we know into the sun and eek out our last days fighting starvation and wild animals while screwing the natives. Maybe we’ll teach them to talk when we’re done.
Sigh.
Still, it was a crazy exciting episode, to be sure. The God bit does leave me feeling unimpressed, and while I love having a good show end with some ambiguity, this one maybe didn’t leave enough.
Oh well, next time I watch it, I’ll just fade it out after Bill finishes his conversation with Laura’s shriveled remains… that’s a nice place to end it.
I also have a problem with “Mitochondrial Eve”. I think TheInquisitor is right about starvation and/or diseases. It would appear that Hera (along with Helo and Athena) died of those causes or hunting for that matter. Hera’s remains excavated is still that of a child. It would be impossible if they died of old age…
How would they know her remains are the “first”…
lightspec:
Mitochondrial Eve is the term of a woman that passed down her mitochondrial DNA to all of humanity. Ergo, she had to have had children. So she definitely wasn’t a child. But who’s to say she didn’t die young.
I was a little bothered with the realities of living a paleolithic life but I chose to ignore it because all the characters were so happy, and I loved the romance of a return to nature.
All in all I loved the finale. They should definitely have showed Daybreak all at once though, part one made no sense on its own. And the montage of robots at the end was a little much… Otherwise I loved every second of it!
I was with this series to the very last scenes…I felt betrayed, that philosophically Starbuck’s fear, one I think we all have, of being forgotten rang through by coming to modern NYC and not seeing any other manifestations of characters in the flesh walking around with us. It was like ‘the nature of god’ was not redemtive as by not showing us either all of them meeting agian as they ‘cross over’, or maybe 5 years after they land on earthII comming across Bill’s cabin, or having them manifest within our own current universe, shows us that ‘god’ forgot them, teaching our humanity nothing. It was all in vein! Hera even died a ‘young woman’! Their struggle was meaningless as man has come to the same ‘crossroads’ with innovation. it made the series take a ‘song of god’ /original buddist thought conclusion: Escape the pain, seperate as many karmic ties as possible to have few esponcibilities to become a one nothingness which their actions may not have even broke ‘the cycle’.
This was too cynical. I hope the Plan chnages my view so i can proceed to Caprica…otherwise what’s the point?!
Seroisly, would Romo walking Jake across Broadway have killed them???
FINE FRAKKIN FINALE!!!
What a terrific ending! I would like to have known a little more about “God” or “It,” as Angel Baltar called him. I would like to have known more about the “angels” (Six, Baltar, Starbuck). Maybe “The Plan” will resolve that for me.
I also would like to have seen an Iblis character like in TOS. I mean, look, they brought over Pegasus and Cain, so why not Iblis. Of course, this version of BSG is kind of morality-neutral. There’s really no bad, no good – just karma. Bad, in true intelligent design fashion, is an instrument of “God” just as good is.
I look forward to Caprica and The Plan. I also hope Glen Larson gets his green light from the studio that’s supposedly considering a movie based on TOS. BTW, I think I preferred TOS’ mythology/theology over BSG03′s.
Still, one of the Top 5 to Top 10 frakkin all time best series endings ever! Kudos to the writers and producers for an awesome “rollercoaster ride through the eye of a needle” as Helo put it…
The “finding Earth twice, in two different versions” thing is actually from the original series, 30 years ago. The Galacticans found a near-future Earth that the inhabitants called “Terra” (i.e. Latin for Earth) where the Cold War was still going on and both sides had big spaceships, and some angel-thing told them it wasn’t “really” Earth, and they went & found another Earth later that was just like ours in “Galactica 1980.”
So in these particular characteristics Moore is just honoring the source material.
OTOH, the idea that sane people would wander off in groups of TWO, or ONE, thinking they could do anything by themselves but freeze and starve, is pretty absurd. Not convincing.
In Moore’s defense of the fleet throwing away its technology, once he decided that he was going to set their arrival on Earth 150,000 ago, they had to get rid of it, or explain why we’ve never found any of it since then. Was it convenient/semi-ridiculous for everyone to agree to throw it all away? Of course, but I don’t see any other options given the time frame he chose for the fleet’s arrival on Earth.
Ok, just not enough really was it. There were some excellent bits but surely we deserved more answers and less mythology
Starbuck’s disappearance was quite affecting yet totally unstaisfying. Baltar’s ‘Silly, silly me’ thing made no sense. The Times Square scene was ham fisted and a major let down – it was like an end to a Twilight Zone. Adama buggering off to leave his Son and his best friend. Giving up technology. Cavill killing himself after the very essence of his being was self preservation. The Daniel conundrum. In Ron Moore’s interviews he comes across as a college student who wrote it for a laugh – most of his answers being yeah that didn’t mean anything or ‘they were like totally angels dude’
I was really disappointed by this finale. The first part was decent – lots of dense action and all that. But then things started feeling very hurried. Tyrol killing Foster, leading to the destruction of the entire cylon colony in a few seconds, Caval shooting himself for no particular reason, Starbuck jumping them to Earth (the real one this time). Great, I thought, all that over with at half time, they are making room to actually finish the story.
But they never did. Instead they wasted lots and lots of time on sappy character closure.
The main question that needed answering was who Head 6 and Head Baltar were, and what their motivation was. No answer. Just that they are apparently working with or for something that doesn’t like to be called “god”. Or maybe it doesn’t like its plan to be called a “plan”. It’s not completely clear. In either case it’s a complete cop-out.
The second most important question was what the relationship was between the BSG humans and us. That was answered, but in the worst way possible. So, they arrived on stone age earth and mingled with the natives, who just happened to be so incredibly similar to themselves that they could actually breed? The only way that could have happened is if there was time travel involved, or if it was deliberately set up by someone powerful enough to design entire races and ecosystems. But what would the point have been of setting up the mixing of the two (three, counting the cylon part of Hera) races instead of just designing the earth humans right to begin with?
For the entire last half of the finale I was hoping that they actually were a couple of tens or hundreds of thousands of years into the future (our future) instead of the past, that the humans on Earth were the remnants of the first in the cycle of planetary holocausts (ours), and that the “angels” were advanced descendants or survivors of that first holocaust who were trying to guide the human race and its different mechanical offsprings to break the cycle. Because that would have made a lot more sense than the answer they went with. When Hera was running around poking the ground with a stick I was really expecting her to find the top of the Great Pyramid or something like that to hint that they were on future Earth – a Charlton Heston moment, if you will. Sadly that didn’t happen.
The third most important question was what the hell was going on with Starbuck. She was clearly special long before she died and became an angel, what with her visions and paintings and such. And Leoben definitely believed there was something about her, though he may have been wrong.
So there was a lot that needed to be explained about her, and that’s not even counting everything that happened after she was, seemingly, resurrected. But again, no answer. Nothing at all. She literally just disappears.
I was getting worried when I watched that “Last frakking special” a couple of days ago and the writer actually said that they had pretty much given up on finishing the story in the finale and decided to focus on the characters instead. But I was still hoping for something better than this.
Oh well, there is always the tiny hope that some of these things will be explained in the upcoming TV movie. It is called “The plan” after all.
I realise that from a story point of view it was necessary to get rid of technology in order to make it consistent with our history. But there has to be a reason from the characters’ perspectives. Making them do something that makes no sense just so that the story comes out right is crappy writing. It’s like having Anakin Skywalker suddenly turn to the dark side for no reason because he had to become Darth Vader.
It was after watching this finale that I realised this isn’t actually science fiction. It’s merely space fantasy, like Star Wars. Explanations like “god did it” or “it was angels” are utterly unsatisfying non-explanations. For a story to be satisfying, you can’t just set up a bunch of questions and leave them unanswered. It’s fine to have the answers lead to new questions, but this was just so unsatisfying.
And don’t get me started on mitochondrial eve. She was determined to exist at a certain time in the past by statistical analysis of the current human genome. There was no archeological discovery of her body and we couldn’t get DNA from that far in the past anyway. There’s so much misunderstanding about this concept did they really have to go and reinforce the misunderstanding? Was it really too much trouble to read the frakkin wikipedia entry? I expect more from science fiction, and that’s why this show will no longer be sci-fi in my book. It had such potential. Moore worked on Star Trek. He should know better.
Majikthise – “The only way that could have happened is if there was time travel involved, or if it was deliberately set up by someone powerful enough to design entire races and ecosystem.”
I think that was the point. The group of men were marveling at how they could possibly breed with the natives (i.e. that humans developed independently of the fleet), and the implication is that there is a divine hand at work.
You bring up a good point about the “it doesn’t like that name” possibly referring to the word plan, but I think Baltar was referring to the word “God.” After all, “plan” isn’t a name, but “God” is.
As far as technology goes, I think it might be understandable why some people would want to leave it all behind since it got them into so much trouble in the first place, but there’s a saying that goes “don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater.” Certainly, having that tech would help them survive, but once Moore decided to put them in our past, then the tech had to go somehow someway. I agree that it was contrived.
Regarding questions unanswered, I think Moore was hesitant to answer everything with absolute clarity. After all, he’s not L. Ron Hubbard. The Caprica and Baltar “angels” work for this higher power and seem to try to save humanity when things are looking grim. I don’t know that they are completely good, or that Moore’s higher power is completely good, but the three seem to want to keep the cycle going to see if something unusual happens at some point. (i.e. humans break out of the cycle of creating so much technology that it brings about their doom.)
I thought it was a great finale. Loved the twist that it all happened in our past & our reality is a 2nd Earth and an evolution/creation mix with a half cylon being our Mitochondrial Eve… fantastic! Could have done with out the flashbacks. They took more away than they added in my mind. But all in all, a great show and a great ending. I’ll truly miss it. Thanks for the blog John!
Everyone misses the real message in the ending. Just before they flashed to modern day Earth, they showed Eve looking up at the sky and then we see a shadow of a ship. I believe the Cylons came back afterall and killed all of the colonists except for Eve and an undertermined mate who then led to the modern human race.
bsg8181 mentions seeing a shadow of a ship – I’ve looked at the highdef version of this episode – there is no such shadow.
I think the finale was weak. Cavill ending his life was a crock, the giving up of technology was lame, all in all a very soppy sentimental ending to a solid tv series. DISAPPOINTED
From the interview (link at the bottom of this post) about why Cavil killed himself:
I would have preferred Tigh killing him, though they would have had to get him up to the top level and there is no real reason for him to go up there, unless Hera was up there. I think most of the fan base agrees that it is totally out of character for Cavil to off himself, though the actor thinks otherwise and Moore went along with it.
And there was no shadow…let’s not be silly.
Regarding the “robots will destroy us all” theme. It seems that the centurions never returned to earth to nuke us in 150,000 years. Maybe despite all the anti-technology nonsense, Moore accidentally made the robots better than us. I wonder how far they would have progressed in so long.
Technology is good. If you don’t think so then go live in the jungle, and die in the jungle.
I agree, to a certain extent, anyway. And I bet Moore does as well. Like most things nothing is 100% good or 100% bad. Technology is no different.
I thought Baltar when he was saying “silly me” he was referring that he was God, and why would he say “he does’nt like to be called that”. His response, “silly, silly me”. He knows he’s god, yet he’s referring to himself as if he’s not, so “silly me” seems appropriate for his to say.
Interesting theory, Jerry.
Here’s another…
And yet another…from the video blog of the final readthru — apparently a few lines got cut…
Gais: “You know it doesn’t like that name. In any case, it would have required mankind in all its flaws to have learned from its mistakes.”
Six: “Stranger things have happened.”
Gais: “I think i’ll take that bet. What are the stakes?…….Silly me.”
The “silly me” line makes more sense in that context.
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Moore got the 150,000 year timeline for a mitochondrial Eve right, but that screws up everything else. Art first appears with Cosquer Horse in France nearly 40,000 years ago. You mean to tell me that no one (particularly Hera, who was clearly inclined toward artistic expression) never used visual arts for 110,000 years? The “pre-verbal” species on earth? Was that Homo sapiens neanderthalensis or Homo sapiens sapiens? Because if it was the Neanderthals, they weren’t “pre-verbal,” they lacked the resonating chamber that makes humans able to speak.
On to Baltar and the farming thing. BIG problem. In order for that to work, Gaius’ farming endeavor would have fallen out of knowledge shortly after he died, not to be picked up again until about 7,000 to 10,000 years ago.
The last Starbuck scene. The only thing she was afraid of was being forgotten. And the last thing we hear Lee Adama say is that she won’t be. But they’ve collectively blown off civilization, which means that there won’t be a record of any of them, so she’s pretty much forgotten before he even gets the words out of his mouth.
The insistence on a mitochondrial Eve throws a wrench in everything. It requires a bunch of disparate people to make a solemn pact, that everyone keeps for 140,000+ years. But there’s an easier way to make Hera a linchpin so that all that effort to retrieve her from the colony wasn’t in vain.
The fleet arrives on earth roughly 7,000 to 10,000 years ago. Having found an evolved race of humans–NOT Neanderthals–some groups of the fleet enslave them (yeah, it’s bad of them–so sue me). Cities start to emerge shortly thereafter. Starbuck went away, but Lee remembers her, and points to the moon in the night sky to remind people of her, since it was the first thing they saw when she input the coordinates and jumped the Galactica for the last time–to Earth. Over time, his stories about her exploits as a pilot (which he calls “hunting”) evolve, until she is remembered as “Artimis,” the Moon Goddess.
There must be some kinda way outa here.
The “toasters” (who naturally evolved humans call Titans) have been quite busy, and return to Earth to claim Tyrol, Saul, Ellen and Anders, so they can have one last bite at the resurrection apple. They figure they can fill in Torey’s blanks, if they have most of the information Lee, Sharon, Carl, Tyrol, an adult Hera, her husband and a few others from Galactica lead one last offensive. By this time there are some new pilots with call signs like Zeus. There’s even a special amphibious assault unit led by a dude with the call sign of “Poseidon. Carl is fatally wounded early in the battle, so Sharon, call sign Athena, has to take command of the air strike.
As the battle starts to turn in favor of the humans, the Cylons fire their only remaining nuke at earth. During the nocturnal battle, Lee Adama, call sign Apollo, turns his viper into an intercept course with the nuke, which detonates on impact with his viper, harmlessly above the atmosphere, but turning the night into day. Athena leads the final assault against the last remaining Cylon Base Star. Because she is Cylon, she knows where the ship is vulnerable, but she is out of missles. She takes the kamakaze route, crashing into the Base Star and destroying it.
Zeus returns home to Earth with his wife Hera. Because of all that had happened and because so many had given their lives, Hera made sure that mausoleums were erected for Apollo, Starbuck, Helo and Athena. Oral histories associate Apollo with a blast brighter than the sun, and eventually as the sun itself; Starbuck, who did not fight in the last battle is remembered as Artemis, Helo as Ares, and Tyrol as Hephaestus (god of the forge); unfortunately, Tyrol did not get to marry the “babe” Aphrodite, a naturally evolved human, who frakked more dudes than Starbuck. Baltar, who showed uncharacteristic courage in the last battle was also killed, so Caprica (AKA Demeter) passed on what she’d learned about farming from him in the years leading up to the war.
Thank you Mr. Moore, if you need my help writing the conclusion for Caprica, give me a ringy-ding.
One last problem. The Cylons: they never really established how they aged–or if they did at all. Supposedly, Saul Tigh had hair when he was younger, but Tyrol, Torey, Anders and Ellen were all the same age as when they were downloaded after the “real” Earth had its nuclear apocalypse. Without Torey, Cylons can no longer be resurrected, so obviously, they can die, right? But Moore never explained how (or if) they aged. That being the case, I get his image of the misanthropic Chief Tyrol, who seemed to be able to fix and/or build just about anything, WAY up on the North Pole with a bunch of little pre-skinjob Cylons and this tricked-out sleigh. He hates people, but he’s got a soft spot for little kids, so he sneaks around one night of the year to give them presents, and he’s still sitting up there, all alone with a long, white beard and a bunch of little toasters running around, waiting for him to kick off so they can take over the world.
Or was that just me?
Oh, one more thing: since Lee was so Adamant about Starbuck being remembered, Hera names one of their colonies after her: Thrace.
Why am I not doing this for a living?
I disagree with the TheInquisitor.
Ron’s point was that science without God (or some sort of divine spark) is dangerous, as we lose our humanity and start dropping nukes (or we invent machines to do our fighting for us, which we are currently doing). I think this has really been missing from Science fiction lately. I think back fondly to the debates Bones and Spock would have in the original Star Trek series. The TNG crowd removed that completely, and that is one reason the Star Trek series have generally started to stink. If you remember correctly, when Ron started out he said that he wanted to fix the mistakes that TNG had made. I think he did really well in that regard.
As for Star Wars, anyone who thought it was an improvement to say that the force was really the result of a bacterial infection, rather than some sort of divine connection, needs a lot more meaning to their life. Ron’s point is that kind of change to science fiction is stupid (and makes it more likely we are going to destroy ourselves). A belief in a higher power and science can coexist. I think it is great we are talking about that again.
Chris – I think the bit in Star Wars was that those that were strong in the Force had a high mitochondrial count, not a bacterial infection.
Oh I couldn’t disagree more Chris. Science does not equal technology. What is science really?
Science is ultimately a philosophy of scrupulously honest investigation. In science, the proper course is to devise an false that can potentially be proven false, and then exhaustively try to prove your theory false. Then invite legions of other scientists to try to do the same.
What is it about this rational approach that is dangerous if applied too strenously? Is there a point where the willingness to be proven wrong becomes pathological?
Now consider religious ideas in contrast. Call it god or a divine spark or the force or whatever. Is this idea testable? Is it even coherent? How many atrocities have been committed because of people’s absolute certainties that this god was on their side? How much suffering has there been as a result of the unwillingness to accept that some of our most cherished beliefs might be a load of frak.
I’d really like to understand what it is about intellectual honesty that would be so terrible if it was taken too far.
What is it about accepting propositions on insufficient evidence that is virtuous or moral? What exactly does believing that there is a celestial dictator do for you? I’m really asking. Please tell me.
Sorry where it says “the proper course is to devise an false that can potentially be proven false” should read “the proper course is to devise a theory that can potentially be proven false”.
In my haste to respond I failed to proof read. Admitting your mistakes and correcting them is another part of science that is utterly missing from religious modalities.
Jack your theory was amazing. Moore should contact you to write a follow up to the BSG finale.
I know I’m late but I refused to watch any of BSG on TV at all, so I just finished 4.5 on DVD as a continuous work. I thought it was all it could have been really, and if you take it as TV, it kicks the crap out of most everything else available.
One idea that I have been entertaining is the thought that there is no ‘second earth’, that their arrival was in fact death, and the lack of tension present is all the character’s souls slowly letting go of eachother…
The idea that scientific progress is evil and completely dangerous and religious belief is noble and something that will save us is completely ridiculous. There have been way more wars waged over religious belief than over technology.
I am extremely disappointed that a show that did so well at questioning and challenging blind religious faith of all kinds would end so firmly on the side of religion against science. Especially in the current world climate where it is fundamentalist ideologies that are the biggest threat to peace. These are not small questions and it was for this reason that I loved BSG. For such a long time, it walked a very fine line between science and religion – a humanist line- when it asked these questions, and so for it to end with the idea that we can just give up our technology and science and be left with some kind of monotheistic – “the one true god” bullshit and thus somehow avoid all the pain and suffering that happened before is so sad and so wrong.
In my opinion they got rid of many of the good parts of themselves and kept the more dangerous. The medicine, the community organization, the books, the art, the technology were all good things and necessary to survival. Whereas the narrow religious ideologies and the focus on the individual instead of the community (as they all walked off to start their own little nuclear families all alone in the hills) would not help them survive in tanzania and makes the story seem utterly impossible.
How many billions of people have died horrible senseless deaths over such narrow and individualistic ideas. It is humanities dogmatic attachment to our rigid and narrow beliefs that has hurt us the most. I am not some technology junkie who is anti religious. I see the limits of technology and science, the reductionist attitudes that can miss the entire point of what life has to offer. There are things beyond the grasp of science to date and I have experienced many spiritual moments in my life. However, fundamentalism – (when someone believes that their god is “truer” than anyone else’s), is a very different monster and has been a deadly and dark force throughout history and it certainly not the answer. I really hoped for something more enlightened coming from this show. I really expected something more balanced and less cliche from BSG than “frak science – all hail monotheistic religion”. Shame on them – for not walking a braver, more balanced line and for not giving everyone something more inspiring than that.
on a side note –
I also think kara should have turned out to be the first cylon/human offspring – I thought her daddy should have been number 7 – the Daniel – the artist – the piano player – before his line got killed, or after, (maybe one escaped). That would explain why she knew the song – he taught it to her after hearing the original 5 hum it. That would explain why she was so “special” and possibly why she could resurrect somehow. That would also explain why her mother thought she had to be prepared to be a soldier (other than the fact that she was sadistic).
Let’s hope the plan aims higher than the finale.
I’m curious as to what you mean when you mention the finality of atheism…I thought all religions required a leap of faith and believing there is no god does certainly require a leap of faith…which means there can be no finality until the ultimate question is answered, which cannot even be answered…so enlighten me please. thanks!
I agree that the ending was abrupt and it actually left me a little angry and wanting more of an explanation.
But after reading what you have written it has made things clearer although still not very satisfying.
But I do have a question.
After Ellen has been re-born, she argues with Cavil about their creation and their limitations in human form and talks about a boxed Cylon by the name of Daniel and how Ellen had made Daniel her favourite child (he was a sensitive and creative Cylon).
My question is this:
Is it even plausible to think that Starbuck’s “Father”, the piano player was in fact Daniel?
Starbuck only starts having “conversations” with the piano player (sensitive and creative) after Ellen arrives at Galactica. Hera gives Starbuck the notes for it and after she plays it realises it’s a song that her father taught her when she was young. I’d think only a gifted Cylon would know about this and would ensure it would be passed down as sort of oral history and in this case from father (possibly Daniel) to child (possible Starbuck).
It this even plausible?
definitely the best scifi show EV ER. i am very confused by the “silly me. silly silly me.” line. WTF??
Starbuck wasn’t an angel, she was a Muse.
I’m disappointed by the characters shunning of their technology as well. It wasn’t even necessary for them to do so in order to keep it from existing through to today or being rediscovered at some point in between. How much technology was lost from the Greeks and Romans? That tech was based on years of development, learning it for themselves. Even if they had kept nuclear reactors, it’s entirely plausible that once they were gone, it would only be a thousand years or so before every trace of that tech was gone. The only thing I could see surviving from any of their technology would be oral history, so keeping their tech could have been a cool way of explaining our myths, like Jack said above.
I liked the ending, but yea i didnt like the whole kara thrace just turns out to be an angel with no explantaion, but i thought the story ended really well.
and to the guy a few posts above me bitching about the religious parts, please stfu this is a fucking TV show i mean yea i can understand the issue between science and religion in the real world but this is a fucking show, did you get beat up by a bunch of christians while you were a kid or something to where you cant bare the thought of religion anywhere? goddamn sometimes atheists try to fill our brains with their shit just as much as religious ppl do.
Am I the only one that has picked this up???
At the end during the 150,000 years later flash forward when for the sake of this lets call them “angels” 6 and Baltar are talking “angel” Baltar starts talking in a Aerelon accent… watch it I promise… 6 looks at him strangely and Baltar imeadiately apologises for it and continues speaking in his adopted Caprican accent
Theory 1: Baltar was an angel since the 12 colonies genocide and the “angels” 6 and Baltar were merely his manifested conscience both of which played the roles of good and bad
Theory 2: After their deaths Caprica 6 and Baltar accend to angelic status for their roles in the salvation of the human and cylon civilizations and it is them we see at the end
I just need to make sence why the angel who took the physical appearence of Baltar seemingly accindently star speaking in an Aerelon accent… Something he never did during the ENTIRE series unless infact it is actually Baltar at the end
Dude – that was the funniest comment post I’ve ever read. Thank you.
Apart from all the other logical problems with the finale that have already been mentioned the one thing that I absolutely cannot believe is that all the women living on those ships would agree to give up birth control and modern obstetrics without any argument whatsoever! So they’re all going to live in primitive conditions with little food and have absolutely no control over how many children they have, with no way of treating any complications leading to higher rates of death in childbirth and infant mortality than they’ve ever had to experience before. And everyone on the ships agreed to this apparently! No one said no wait a minute I don’t really want to become a broodmare thank you very much.
What happened to chief, who did he live the rest of his life with?
starbuck IS remembered at almost every street corner (think coffee)
It seems to be a good show.
But set 150000 years ago?
I felt like the Colonials should have arrived at “Earth” around 14,000 B.C. They then should have founded a new city, and called it Atlantis. That in my oppinion would have been an awesome ending, with the Colonials becoming the Atlantians. That’s my two cents anyways.
Omg that’s what I was thinking as well.. Atlantis!! No explanations, and they could’ve kept their technology.. that would’ve been perfect.
Terri – I like how the entire remaining human race is freely giving up ALL their technology and the one thing you don’t understand is why they aren’t taking their condoms with them ><
I just finished watching the BSG series for around the 4th time in the hope that the penny would finally drop and I would “get it” – I don’t think I did.
But possibly – The destroyed Earth (This has happened before), the New Earth ending (This will happen again) – so the question is “How many times has this happened before?”. Are Humans and Cylons on a perpetual merry-go-round of birth and destruction and has it been occuring for millions of years?
If so – is “It/God” just some millenia old Cylon with highly advanced intelligence that keeps leading both races down the same path. Will the New Earth ultimately destroy itself with the survivors taking to the stars to once again found the 12 colonies? And thereby start the sequence again with another war with the cyclons followed by finding the destroyed earth (New Earth in this case) and another “Starbuck” will make the final leap to the Old Earth which has healed itself over the intervening million or so years?
I dont like shows that leave you guessing and whilst I thoroughly enjoyed almost all of BSG I can’t still help feeling short changed by it all.