Battlestar Galactica 4.22 - "Daybreak (part two)" (spoilers)

[Cervaise]

Spoiler notes: There are no more regular episodes of BSG after tonight, so I'm tweaking the policy slightly to reference future spin-offs (the upcoming series Caprica and the standalone TV-movie The Plan, for example). I am also removing the reference to spoiler-boxing previews, because it was really only a consideration as we approached the end of the series, and every glimpse into the future became more and more significant; I agreed to spoiler-box previews out of consideration for those who wanted every last moment of the dwindling number of episodes to arrive pristine. With a new series, I don't think that will be necessary any more. So...

Spoiler policy: If you want to discuss a future plot point from not-yet-released BSG spin-off material (TV or direct-to-DVD movies, subsequent TV series, comic books, etc), something you know is going to happen because it's been revealed in interviews or some other canon source, put it in a spoiler box, and label the box so we can decide for ourselves whether or not it's something we want to know. If you're simply speculating about what might happen in upcoming spin-off material, or if you're discussing something that has already aired (including previews/promotions for those spin-offs), there's no need for a spoiler box.

Sample spoiler demonstrating "label" concept:

You probably saw the announcement that comics publisher Dark Horse is starting a new series entitled "Boxey: Porn Star." The title of the first issue has been leaked--[spoiler:3ky5rps4]Hung Like a Daggit.[/spoiler:3ky5rps4]
This week's episode title: "Daybreak," Part Two. Written by Ron Moore; directed by Michael Rymer. This is the two-hour series finale. Actually, on the schedule, it runs eleven minutes over two hours, so if you don't yet have a DVR and are recording via manual scheduling, please take episode length into account.

Regarding episode numbering, see comment here. Note also that on the scifi/battlestar site, this is officially episode 422, despite what's found on other sites.

Sci-Fi's preview for the episode. Re the alternate preview from Canada's Space network, I scoured YouTube and came up blank.

Note there is also an hour-long special, sort of a retrospective farewell thing, that's been airing the last few days and will get a couple more repeats. I haven't seen it so I can't address its spoilerosity. I'm TiVo-ing it and will watch it later.

Discussion of previous episodes can be found on The Other Board at this link.

Side note: In last week's thread, I said I'd be starting two threads, one a live-watch-along and one for post-airing discussion. I've since rethought that; I don't know how necessary it will be, since the traffic here suggests it will amount to maybe a page's worth of posts. If there's disagreement on this, then let's talk.

[Oakminster]

Really hoping the show is worth watching tonight. Hated last week. Didn't like the one before that. To be fair, I fully intend to be considerably less than sober by the time it starts, so I'm doing what I can to make it easy to entertain me....

[Pork Rind]

I wish I could add something insightful, but all I really got is this: I'm nervous as hell. I've made a big commitment to this show. I don't think I've watched anything else this regularly since Twin Peaks. And we all know how that ended.

[Chimera]

Frak me with a Battlestar!

[Pork Rind]

I think I need to go change my pants.

[Hellestal]

The show hasn't started yet for me, but I just need to get my expectations on record here:

I don't need absolutely everything tied up with a pretty little pink bow on top. A few things can be left open, unexplained, unexplored. But for a show that's been so much about the characters, they've put Starbuck through a lot of shit that we in the audience can't relate to. There's another player out there pulling on her strings: rezzing her, dumping her broken ship on earth, fabricating her a sweet new ride. She's been a god-damn punching bag, and a chief piece of her character is missing until we find out who's been doing the punching.

The story itself can go on without a tidy conclusion, but I'm going to be pissed if I don't learn more about why Starbuck is the way she is.

[Alien Crouton]

My final take: OK, fair enough. Some stuff didn't get wrapped, enough did.

[Pork Rind]

There's stuff I still wish I understood better, but overall: pleased.


Did we already know about "The Plan" show?

[Oakminster]

I missed the first half hour, because it started at 8 instead of 9 tonight. I'll catch the rerun at 11.

From what I saw, I didn't like the fake out with Helo. Athena left him for dead, and apparently someone offscreen cast cure light wounds or something. Knew Boomer was gonna buy the farm. Galen screws the pooch yet again, and no one really seems to mind that much. Didn't see Cavil going Bud Dwyer coming. Frak, indeed.

The second hour is open to interpretation. I think the last Baltar/Six scene was the angelic versions, which are apparently observers/agents for some unknown entity. Starbuck may be something similar. All of this may happen again. Especially if financing happens to be available.

Overall, it wasn't a bad ending. I give it a preliminary grade of "B", subject to revision after seeing the first half hour.

[Pork Rind]

Did you anyone else notice that the Raptor attack team was staged on the closed launch pod? The side that's glassed in and laid out as a museum? When they were released, all we saw was flashes of light from inside the pod. So they jumped away from inside the Galactica. Then later, when Adama left in his viper, that whole launch pod was just _wrecked_. Just like when Boomer jumped away too close. Wow.

[Oakminster]

The first 30 minutes were pretty good. Still going with the "B" grade. Good, but not great.

The Colony looked something like a Shadow ship from B5. Maybe they should have ended with a shot of Zathros turning off the Great Machine.....

[silenus]

That's the first thing I thought: The Colony is Shadow!

I liked it. Enough booms to satisfy the geek, and enough character to make the wife cry.

I almost teared up when they reprised the original theme music.

[Alien Crouton]

I almost teared up when they reprised the original theme music.

Yeah, that was a very nice touch.

[Chimera]

The Cynic Realist in me kept waiting for the predators to show up on this new Earth (real Earth).

When they were walking past that pond, I half expected a croc to leap out and take one of the down.
When Hera ran ahead, I'm thinking "where are the Lions?"
Thinking "Where are the poisonous snakes, the spiders, the small things? These people are idiots to be roaming off alone!"

[Alien Crouton]

Alright, so other thoughts...

So much for the plot line of Baltar's chick cult.

So much for the dying leader not seeing the promised land.

So much for "what IS Kara Thrace"

So much for figuring out "All Along The Watchtower"

"Admiral" Hoshi? OK, I could see Captain, but a brevet Admiral?

Good fakeout ending scene on the CIC of Galactica, though.

[silenus]

To answer the above:

Cults are fake and a distraction from what is real, both in BSG and in Life

So, they rang a minor change on Moses. I would have been very sad if Roslin hadn't at least walked on Earth

Kara is an avatar of an angel, just like Six and Baltar

Dylan is God

The slop-shop was out of Captain's bars, so Adama made do

Great scenes all around. I strongly disagree with the ending, but it was true to what they were doing. No way would every person elect to return to "clothes on your back" hard-scrabble living. Not when they have dozens and dozens of ships that can be landed and used for shelter, supplies and raw materials.

[Oakminster]

Apparently, somebody writes/performs All Along the Watchtower on every civilized planet. That last version we heard, on the boombox, sounded like the Hendrix version.

Like Silenus, I don't see a bunch of people doing the "clothes on their backs" thing. At the very least, they'd be taking some guns, blades, and tools.

So...the first "Earth" was....Mars, maybe?

And "God" = Baltar's dad? Maybe when Six put him out to pasture, she zapped him to the other side of the galaxy to start fixing up Earth2?

Who built the Temple of the Five on the Algae planet? There was no evidence of people living there. So the Final Five puled off the Galactic Expressway long enough to build a temple to themselves on an uninhabited planet? Why would they do that?

The Starbuck thing really makes no sense. Her viper exploded over a planet something like Jupiter, yet magically manages to reassemble itself in time for a controlled crash landing on Earth1, to keep Starbuck's corpse handy for discovery/funeral pyre. Starbuck2 then returns to the fleet, in a shiny new viper, claiming she'd been to "Earth" and seen how nice it was. And once they found the nuked out Earth1, nobody wanted to ask her any questions?

Also note that the only two people in the fleet who really faced consequences for their actions were Gaeta and Zarek. Helo passed on a chance to end the cylon race with a bio weapon, later led a mutiny against Starbuck...nothing happened to him. Galen fucked up by the numbers time after time...and then wanders off to invent kilts and bagpipes in Scotland.

[phouka]

I really enjoyed the finale as I watched it, but afterwards, there were several things I didn't like.

First, way, way, waaaaaaaaay too much deus ex machina. The way it's left, God wrote the song, God programmed all of the wakeup calls for the Final Five, God sent out the prophetic dreams, God rezzed Kara and built a brand new viper, et cetera. Anything and everything Ron didn't bother to explain became, by default, God. That's both poor writing and poor theology. I especially dislike it when they had a handy agent to explain all this - Daniel. Daniel could have been working Cavil just like Cavil was working the Five, setting up plots within plots, implanting the song, leaving clues, and even rezzing Kara. I really would have preferred Daniel to God.

Second, Kara was what? If she was a head angel like Caprica and Baltar, she was everybody's head angel (and had a head angel of her own to boot), and she was far more physical. If she was a completely resurrected human being, then she shouldn't have gone *poof* with nothing left behind. In fact, if God is responsible for rezzing Kara, God's an asshole for leaving her twisting in the wind for several months with no idea of who and what she is or what she's supposed to do.

Third, so the Caprica and Baltar head angels are actually Crowley and Aziraphale? Hmmm.

Fourth, ENOUGH with the flashbacks. I did not need every single line of significance explained with five flashbacks, and I'm one of those people who really likes context. This was overboard, and it used up time that could have been put to better use.

Now that I'm done bitching, here's what I liked:

- I really liked that the series ended on a hopeful note for humanity, both the fleet's survivors and us. I liked the connection with Hera becoming mitochondrial Eve (which actually means that Athena is mitochondrial Eve, and through her, Ellen, and mitochondrially speaking, we're all Cylons), though the fossils were a bit gratuitous, I can see where it was the most effective way to put the two together.

- I loved that Roslin got to see, sit on, walk on, and fly over Earth. I love that she died peacefully with Adama beside her. The admiral's grief just about broke my heart.

- I loved the robot sequence at the end.

- I loved the original BSG theme as the fleet flew off into the sun.

- I loved that we're the second Earth.

- I loved that I jumped and squeaked and flinched all through the battle scenes.

- And yeah, I love that Tory got her neck broken, just like she deserved.

- I respected that the generalized fate of humanity was hopeful, you could tell several individuals were not looking at such happy ends. The admiral is probably going to grieve to death. Tyrol will be dropped off, apparently, in Scotland to mope for the rest of his life. Ellen and Saul had a moment of "oh, shit, we really are together for the rest of our lives" recognition. Lee was utterly alone. The only main characters who looked like they had a hope in hell of being happy were Baltar/Caprica and Helo/Athena/Hera.

- I am really glad they didn't kill off Helo.

[silenus]

The Helo fake-out was very well done. Reminded me of the Codelia fake-out on BtVS. For that matter, the whole "sent back by TPTB to get our heroes on the right track" arc of Starbuck's was like Cordy as well. Of course, it is a well-trodden path in myth and legend they were walking down. All they really needed was Camlann scrawled on the side of Anders' tank.

[Hellestal]

The story itself can go on without a tidy conclusion, but I'm going to be pissed if I don't learn more about why Starbuck is the way she is.

Okay, I'm not pissed. But it is one serious weakness of the story, and it's one of many.

My thoughts aren't in order, so I'll probably just be rambling, but...

There were some serious miscalls here. If I'm on those ships, I don't give a frak about a "blank slate". I'm taking the technology. If the other humans don't want to use it, then that's more stuff for me. I think the show's always been best when it has people acting as people, and to squeeze in the "we're descendants of Cylons!" plot-line makes them take a ridiculously inhuman choice for the sake of a pretty pink bow that they didn't need.

This also means that both Earth and Earth 2.0 (i.e. us) have an identically shaped North American continent. With identical constellations. Which gives a radius of about, what, four light years for the two Earths? Are they absolutely sure it isn't the same planet? Maybe they just forgot to travel around to the African side the first time they showed up? I did enjoy the dancing robots at the end, and it is at least partially satisfying to have the narrative wrapped up, even with those loose threads all over the place. But I can't help but think that the choice was in some ways too easy, too simple and unconvincing. Closure can be nice, but it doesn't need to rule the story.

I also didn't think much of their attack plan for whatever reason. I guess that's no big deal.

More important, Cavil deserved better. He was the main villain of this piece from the Cylon side of things, and even he had his reasons. He was truly demented, but that was awesome to watch, and it would've been nice to see him walk through the choices available to him as the humans started to attack his previously hidden and supposedly impregnable fortress. If Adama had offered him a choice of giving up Hera or getting nuked, that would've made an interesting conversation.

And then there's Starbuck. I'm not happy at all about her. In that final scene, everything down to the narrow camera angle on Lee telegraphed that she was about to vanish stupidly. And then she vanished stupidly for no reason, no explanation, no purpose. Her puppeteer was a major player, a major part of who she was. That was the most important thing to deal with, and that was the main thread they left hanging. Unacceptable. Completely unacceptable. In order to give myself piece of mind, I'm going to fanwank the hell out of this shit. Cylon #7, Daniel, is still her father. He has no weapons, no warships with which to fight his brothers and sisters. But he does have an alternate resurrection technology, and he has a Star Trek transporter. That's how he beamed up Starbuck at the end, same way he beamed up her ship after it went splodey in Maelstrom, to drop it again on Earth 1.0. Meanwhile, he'd been tinkering for a way to awaken the Final Five, to very limited success.

Also, he's a gigantic asshole.

[Hellestal]

Much more satisfying on a second viewing. It's easier to ignore the continent silliness and everything else that makes no sense.

[phouka]

Well, I'd rather Daniel were an asshole than God, at least in a theological sense.

And yeah, the whole thing with Kara bugs the hell out of me, but at least they ended it better than some other series I can think of.

[Alien Crouton]

- I loved the original BSG theme as the fleet flew off into the sun.

And IIRC, that shot, complete with music, was almost identical to the last 5 seconds of the TOS intro. Except in the TOS intro you didn't actually see a sun. At that moment I was a 7-year-old boy again and I admit I teared up a bit.

I love it when reimagined shows do a nod to the original, especially when it's tasteful and well-executed.

[hatesfreedom]

Kara was an avatar of god, that's why she was so different. She isn't an "angel" like the other two, she is a direct link. As soon as her mission is complete and she learns what she is god takes her back. That's really as complex as it needed to be. When you have a show that admits there is something unknowable guiding events you can do all kinds of things. I.e. when racetracks raptor is hit by an asteroid everybody in it is killed. You see it later floating in space facing the colony when its hit again and her hand falls onto the weapons release switch sending the nukes out towards the colony.

As to the fleet being flown into the sun I think they could have explained better how useless keeping the fleet would be. They probably left all their heavy manufacturing equipment on New Caprica when they had to break camp on the quick. They've got no way to make parts much less ways to make tools to even make the machines to make the parts. No way to jump ships out to get fuel anyway. Within one genration after finding Earth that fleet would have been hulks floating in orbit, and I'm sure projections made it more than obvious what was going to happen to them. So it could have been said that they were just jumping the gun a bit by getting away from the technology that would be gone quickly enough anyway.

I thought it was a pretty great ending although the robot montage at the end was kinda meh. It could have ended with Adama looking over the valley next to Roslyns grave and I would have felt ok.

[silenus]

I find myself really looking forward to the DVD release, with the additional 30 minutes of footage. I'll bet that a lot of what we are mildly bitching about is dealt with.

[featherlou]

I give it an A - I'm still digesting it and thinking about it (we watched it Saturday), and that is the sign of a good show to me. I might like or dislike how they actually wrapped stuff up, but I didn't have any, "Oh, COME ON!" moments, either, and that's good, too.

I don't really see using God for plot points as a cop-out, either - this show made a point of considering God all along the way. If they had just suddenly Godded it up at the end, that would have been a cop-out.

[WhyNot]

I don't really see using God for plot points as a cop-out, either - this show made a point of considering God all along the way. If they had just suddenly Godded it up at the end, that would have been a cop-out.

Not only has this Battlestar Galactica considered God all along the way, but my husband tells me the original series did too. (I didn't ever watch it, so I don't know first hand.) Battlestar Galactica without the spiritualism is I, Robot. (The movie, not the book.)

[Unauthorized Cinnamon]

As I said to my husband, I don't mind deus as such, but too much deus ex machina can make me roll my eyes. Some bits invoking a deity blended smoothly - I thought the opera house dreams were well integrated, and the head-angels were great. But some of it was a hamfisted attempt to tie up loose ends that I'm not convinced they really ever had any idea of the answers for (read: Kara).

Aside from the Starbuck "explanation" and the idiotic and unbelievable decision by everyone to live like cavemen*, I really liked it. I'm mostly willing to overlook those points and say this was a good ending. And weighing the whole series, it still kicks the ass of most other shows ever made.

*I think perhaps I watch too much Survivorman, or the writers watch too little, but it was very distracting to me that the characters were so blithe about surviving when making your way without the support of civilization and technology is really, really hard. I also thought it ironic that Lee talked about preserving peace and harmony by keeping weapons from the spear-toting natives.

[silenus]

The more I think about it, the less the ending bothers me. You have to look at it from the survivors perspective: they've broken the cycle. Both races are virtually extinct. They know Don't Call Me That exists. Know. Not suspect. Not believe. Know. Objective proof. All they have to do at this point is make sure the cycle doesn't start again, and they're golden for whatever they believe is Paradise. Dying is the easy part now. So what's wrong with doing a little mountain climbing in the time you have left?

Yep, the more I think about it the more I like it.

[featherlou]

<snip>
*I think perhaps I watch too much Survivorman, or the writers watch too little, but it was very distracting to me that the characters were so blithe about surviving when making your way without the support of civilization and technology is really, really hard. <snip>

That bothers me a little, too. I'm only a generation or two away from my ancestors who settled the Canadian prairies; if you had asked them if they would like to do it the hard way or an easier way, they would have chosen the hard way because they were Mennonites and were crazy that way, but most people would have chosen to make it easier. It plays nicely on a tv show, but the reality doesn't bear too much scrutiny.

[Batman]

I thought it was a great ending. Every character got a little bit of glory or comeuppance, from Cavill blowing his own brains out to Racetrack nuking the colony.

The only character ending that I found a little unsatisfying was Starbuck's. I liked the character because she wasn't bound to the mysticism of the show, she got by on balls and prowess. I was hoping for another explanation for her reappearance but instead we got confirmation that she was an angel all along (or since she died anyway).

And I liked the dancing robots ending too, but then again, I can't say no to dancing robots.

[CornerCase]

I liked the ending overall. It is very difficult to wrap up so much in such a small amount of time. I do agree that a few subtle changes would have improved the ending and made it more realistic/satisfying and less dreamy.

Episodes back, when Lee talks to the Council and they discuss salvaging Galactica, a quick reference to "My ship can't function much longer without supplies" would have better set the stage for abandoning technology when they reached Earth.

When Cavil snatches Hera in the CIC and threatens to kill her, Tigh would had shouted out "Resurrection Technology!" and then Baltar could have started his spiel. Then the calm and the listending to Baltar would have made more sense. It seemed odd for Cavil to listen for so long without backing out of the room and ignoring Baltar.

Surrounding the electronic map of Earth, Adama could have just added, "Now that we've decided how we want to live, here's where we've decided to do it."

On Earth, simply having Galen sport a beard (when saying he was finished and going off to live alone) would have established that enough time had passed for discussions about how/where/with-what to live had transpired.

There should have been jokes about have to get their hands dirty instead of living in skyscrapers instead of suggesting that all of the 38000 people agreed to become farmers. And a mention of dissenters going off to start their own groups.

Three details that I remember most are 1) how well they meshed the Opera house dreams with running through Galactica at the end, 2) Tori backpedaling when she realizes her secret is about to be discovered, 3) and Starbuck saying "Uh, don't tell her the plan".

[Baldwin]

As to the fleet being flown into the sun I think they could have explained better how useless keeping the fleet would be. They probably left all their heavy manufacturing equipment on New Caprica when they had to break camp on the quick. They've got no way to make parts much less ways to make tools to even make the machines to make the parts. No way to jump ships out to get fuel anyway. Within one genration after finding Earth that fleet would have been hulks floating in orbit, and I'm sure projections made it more than obvious what was going to happen to them. So it could have been said that they were just jumping the gun a bit by getting away from the technology that would be gone quickly enough anyway.

That makes absolutely no sense. With the rich natural resources of Earth, and the technology contained in the fleet, they could have restarted civilization. There's no way to rationalize the decision to go directly from star-faring technological civilization to pre-industrial. They did it as part of a mythological arc that doesn't fit into a rational storyline.

I was hoping that the last season would completely invalidate and bury all the religious mumbo-jumbo. But, it's not my show

This also means that both Earth and Earth 2.0 (i.e. us) have an identically shaped North American continent. With identical constellations. Which gives a radius of about, what, four light years for the two Earths? Are they absolutely sure it isn't the same planet? Maybe they just forgot to travel around to the African side the first time they showed up?

Where does that come from? I don't remember ever getting a good look at the continents or celestial picture of "Earth". I always suspected, for that reason, that it wasn't our Earth.

I figured we'd see Ron Moore in a cameo, like Michael Straczynski at the end of Babylon 5. The Six and Baltar space angels, or whatever they were, seemed to be existing physically in Times Square; I wonder if they've been wryly commenting on civilization for 150,000 years.

[drewbert]

I figured we'd see Ron Moore in a cameo, like Michael Straczynski at the end of Babylon 5. The Six and Baltar space angels, or whatever they were, seemed to be existing physically in Times Square; I wonder if they've been wryly commenting on civilization for 150,000 years.

But were they visible? Ron didn't seem to mind or notice Six reading out loud over his shoulder. Would've driven me crazy, personally.

[WhyNot]

I figured we'd see Ron Moore in a cameo, like Michael Straczynski at the end of Babylon 5. The Six and Baltar space angels, or whatever they were, seemed to be existing physically in Times Square; I wonder if they've been wryly commenting on civilization for 150,000 years.

But were they visible? Ron didn't seem to mind or notice Six reading out loud over his shoulder. Would've driven me crazy, personally.

I think, like always, they were visible and audible only to those whom they wanted to be. (In this case, us, but not Ron Moore.)

I really liked that bit, having Ron Moore as, to all appearances, Ron Moore, reading a magazine article which could, arguably, have inspired him to write this whole series. I love meta.

[hatesfreedom]

That makes absolutely no sense. With the rich natural resources of Earth, and the technology contained in the fleet, they could have restarted civilization. There's no way to rationalize the decision to go directly from star-faring technological civilization to pre-industrial. They did it as part of a mythological arc that doesn't fit into a rational storyline.`

I think you greatly underestimate how easy it is to fall.

but yes everybody knows it was part of a mythological story arc. did you read about that part online or put it together like the rest of us.

[levdrakon]

I figured we'd see Ron Moore in a cameo, like Michael Straczynski at the end of Babylon 5. The Six and Baltar space angels, or whatever they were, seemed to be existing physically in Times Square; I wonder if they've been wryly commenting on civilization for 150,000 years.

But were they visible? Ron didn't seem to mind or notice Six reading out loud over his shoulder. Would've driven me crazy, personally.

Six had her hand on Moore's shoulder and he didn't notice.

[Cervaise]

I have many thoughts but they are unordered and messy and not ready to be formed into words. I've been in the same state for the last several episodes, which is why I've been starting threads and then not contributing to the ensuing discussion. The entire climax of the series, following the mutiny, has been something of a departure — or, perhaps, distillation would be a better term — and I wanted to avoid any snap judgments, letting the whole thing play out, giving the show a chance to put all of its cards on the table, before beginning to formulate a response.

The thing I'm working hardest to reconcile is the evident fact that the series decided, in the last five or six hours of its life, to go full-bore into emotional poetry. This was definitely an element of the show before now, to varying degree, but it wasn't until this protracted climax that the series fully surrendered to that tonal choice.

Large swaths of the storytelling were unsatisfying to me because I was looking for narrative coherence; however, I recognize that I'm bringing my own agenda to the argument, and that it's inappropriate to judge a piece of work according to what it isn't. One must always consider, first and foremost, what something is, and judge it based on that, before anything else. Naturally, if this causes the work to fall badly short in other areas, it's fair to take that into consideration, but that is not, that can never be, the starting point. That is the mark of a lazy or inexperienced critic. It's misguided to watch the show and then say, You didn't give me what I wanted, or expected, and therefore you fail. That's a fair means of determining superficial enjoyment, but if one stops there, it remains superficial. One must be thoughtful: one must step back from one's expectations, and consider not what one wanted the show to give, but what it actually offered, and why. After that, one can decide for oneself whether what was actually offered has value, and is of interest; but one cannot begin to fairly judge those questions if one is blinded by one's preconceptions. Indeed, some of the most interesting creative work is done in direct opposition to audience expectations, and some of the most valuable art in the world is evident only in long retrospect, after having been greeted with initial skepticism and derision. That doesn't mean the snap judgment is always wrong; it just means it should be regarded with caution.

My viewing companion and I had very strong reactions to the finale in its immediate aftermath. We were highly conflicted. We found the show enormously satisfying on several levels, but we also found major elements of uncertainty. We agreed we need to watch the show again, and perhaps even the last half-dozen episodes in a two-day marathon, because we know we need to work on distinguishing between what the show considers important and what it considers unimportant. We need to know if the RDM cameo at the end is supposed to be a lampshade moment, cuing us to regard the subsequent couple of minutes, including the robot dance, as nudge-nudge don't-take-this-too-seriously stuff separate from the rest of the show; or if the cameo was a tonal misstep, and we're actually supposed to legitimately ponder the epilogue as the true thematic summation of the series.

If this seems like unnecessary seriousness with which to approach what is, after all, just a TV show, well, perhaps it will be unrewarded, and my opinion of the series as a whole will be lowered. But given the high level of the show for much of its run, I feel it would be irresponsible to be flip and dismissive; the creators were clearly aiming for something a lot better than your average space opera, and after so many dozens of hours invested in the series, I can spare a few more hours of consideration, to decide whether or not they managed to get anywhere near what they set for themselves as a very small and impressively ambitious bullseye.

More later.

[Oakminster]

The more I think about it, the less I like the ending.

The Starbuck thing is just unforgivable. "God did it" doesn't fly as an explanation even it it was explicitly stated, and it wasn't. Starbuck's viper is seen to explode over a gas giant planet. POOF! Starbuck's dead. Everybody is sad. Time passes. POOF! Starbuck's not quite dead, feeling much better, actually, and she's flying a shiny new viper. She's been to Earth and it's all beautiful. So the fleet goes to Earth, and it's a radioactive wasteland...but there's Starbuck's slightly scorched but very much not-exploded viper, with her charred corpse inside. So Starbuck gives herself a Viking funeral pyre. Fast foward, shit hits the fan, ship about to blow up and kill everybody, and Starbuck randomly jumps the ship using her half-assed conversion of All Along the Watchtower notes to numbers as jump coordinates, and POOF! Shiny new earth. Ewoks dance! Then POOF! Starbuck's gone. Again.

The new viper had to come from somewhere. The not-exploded viper on Earth1 had to come from somewhere. In theory, the charred corpse should have come from somewhere. None of it makes any sense.

Also not liking the "Let's go caveman" thing. That's really not something you do lightly...especially not with 38K people, even scattering into small tribes.

Would have sorta liked the fleet heading toward the sun...then Anders calling an audible, and remote-controling the fleet towards cylon space......

The finale was entertaining...but it was not satisfying.

[dread pirate jimbo]

Well, after a couple days' consideration, I've decided I'm pretty happy with that conclusion. Personally, I liked the return to the mysticism of the show, after several episodes where it seemed to be debunked and lost -- there is and was a master plan at work all along. I also like the Kara as Christ motif, complete with her resurrection, her role of saviour, and her ascending to... wherever she went once her work was complete. We were given hope after many episodes of hopelessness and I found it quite satisfying overall. A perfect ending? Maybe not. But definitely satisfying for me.

[Hellestal]

This also means that both Earth and Earth 2.0 (i.e. us) have an identically shaped North American continent. With identical constellations. Which gives a radius of about, what, four light years for the two Earths? Are they absolutely sure it isn't the same planet? Maybe they just forgot to travel around to the African side the first time they showed up?

Where does that come from? I don't remember ever getting a good look at the continents or celestial picture of "Earth". I always suspected, for that reason, that it wasn't our Earth.

Yeah, it was clear, after the Cylon reveal, that it wasn't our Earth. But NukedEarth had the same constellations, because that was a part of the holodeck gizmo back on Kobol with the arrow. Those were the constellations of the home of the 13th Tribe, which is to say NukedEarth. It just so happens that Earth Junior, which does happen to be our earth, has the same North American continent. And the same constellations as the Kobol holodeck. There is no narrative sense to be made from this. They deliberately ignored North America on Earth Junior, and I almost flipped out when I watched how carefully they were dancing around the obvious. I suppose they were trying to avoid the distraction, but the very omission was, for me, the 800 pd. gorilla in the room.

There is simply no logical sense to be made from the ending, even allowing for a damn near literal deus ex machina. As Cervaise says, the goal was obviously not to make logical sense, which is probably why I found the ending more satisfying on my second viewing when I just let go of logic and tried to enjoy the show for what it was. But if there's no literal sense in the choices, I have no idea what sort of higher narrative purpose was involved. If there is a "very small and impressively ambitious bullseye", I don't have the slightest clue what that bullseye is supposed to be or how close they got to hitting it.

I'd have to rewatch the series, at least from Maelstrom, to have even the glimmerings of a clue about this. And even then, I'm not sure I'd find any illuminating answers myself, if there are in fact any to be had.

[Batman]

Why is it so hard for some people to swallow the mysticism? Events were being influenced indirectly by outside forces, it's not that fucking hard to believe.

And why wouldn't they abandon their technology? What are they going to keep, anyways? Guns? None of the sips were ammo factories. Medical equipment? Cottle's probably got only two years in him anyway. Radios? There's no one to talk to. There's only 30k+ people, most of which have useless skills like piloting and journalism, they couldn't use their tech anyway.

[Oakminster]

And why wouldn't they abandon their technology?

Have you ever actually tried to survive in the wild with only what you can carry? I have, and it's not easy, even for folks that grew up hunting, fishing, and camping as I did. Doing it for a few days at a time can be fun. Longer than that gets tedious quickly. Just obtaining food will take most time not absolutely essential for other things...like shelter, water, firewood ( you can make a fire without matches or a lighter, right?). Can you skin a rabbit? Can you do it without a knife? And then there's predators to fend off. Without guns, I wouldn't want to tangle with any big cat, wolf, bear, etc. Without medicine, any serious injury...and there will be injuries...could be fatal. Radios are handy..."Hey guys, here's a stream with good fishing" or "Oh shit...the natives think we are food, they have spears, and we don't" or "Dude...some killer smoke...better than Caprican Gold...grows right....wait....what?"

[Hellestal]

Why is it so hard for some people to swallow the mysticism? Events were being influenced indirectly by outside forces, it's not that fucking hard to believe.

Hard to believe? What's belief got to do with anything?

Some stories use mysticism well. Other don't. In my own opinion, this story didn't seem to use its mysticism well.

And why wouldn't they abandon their technology? What are they going to keep, anyways?

Everything that would help them survive. At least one group of people would be exploiting what remains of the old tech to ease the transition.

Or even simpler, we can talk literacy. Bare minimum, they're going to hold on to writing. There's no chance in seven hells that they'd give up recording their language.

[featherlou]

What would they keep? Anything metal. Anything with a sharp edge. Knives. Needles. Pots. Axes. All textiles. All paper. All medicines. All the seeds they had.

Yeah, it really doesn't bear close examination.

[Batman]

Or even simpler, we can talk literacy. Bare minimum, they're going to hold on to writing. There's no chance in seven hells that they'd give up recording their language.

I'm pretty sure they kept their literacy, it's kind of hard to just forget how to read and write.

When they said they would abandon their tech I think they meant losing all machinery and computers like the ships and any generators. Batteries, ammunition, and even matches will run out within a year if not less - the last fight at the colony probably cost them most of what they had - so the sooner they manage to do without them the better, otherwise they risk having to deal with conflicts over the last pistol or flashlight. They can't make any more, even if anyone knew how to make more bullets and batteries they don't have any equipment to make them. The medical equipment is next to useless without generators or someone who knows how to use them, the three doctors and one nurse aren't enough to treat 30k+ people scattered across the globe let alone teach others how to become doctors or use and repair the equipment.

[rivulus]

Have you ever actually tried to survive in the wild with only what you can carry? I have, and it's not easy, even for folks that grew up hunting, fishing, and camping as I did. Doing it for a few days at a time can be fun. Longer than that gets tedious quickly. Just obtaining food will take most time not absolutely essential for other things...like shelter, water, firewood ( you can make a fire without matches or a lighter, right?). Can you skin a rabbit? Can you do it without a knife? And then there's predators to fend off. Without guns, I wouldn't want to tangle with any big cat, wolf, bear, etc. Without medicine, any serious injury...and there will be injuries...could be fatal. Radios are handy..."Hey guys, here's a stream with good fishing" or "Oh shit...the natives think we are food, they have spears, and we don't" or "Dude...some killer smoke...better than Caprican Gold...grows right....wait....what?"

What evidence is there that they abandoned all but what they could carry? They had Raptors to fly to the various sites. They could have stuffed those Raptors to the top with all the salvage material possible and made several supply drops. Much like when people fly in to locations up in the wilds of northern Canada to stay out in the boonies and hunt or fish. You can fly several trips and haul all your stuff out to the site. OK, so they got rid of their larger ships and computers and such. But they had guns and could have used them for a while to bridge the gap between the present and when they figured out how to use spears, bows and arrows, and whatnot. Keep the knives, matches, flints, and emergency supplies. Keep any plants and seeds that might have still have existed in the fleet. Come up with methods to cultivate algae on a smaller scale. Use these things while they last and do your best to come up with other alternatives in the meantime. Either make contact with or observe the local populations. Use sign language, if necessary, and trade for information, if possible. Imitate the experts at living in the environment. Figure out how they hunt and gather.

There's a middle ground between Survivorman and building a city. (How would they feed the population of a city long term, anyway?) IMO, the smaller colonies make sense with limited resources. Yeah, it would be crappy. But they would be supremely motivated to figure things out.

[Cervaise]

That's a big part of what I was talking about in terms of sacrificing logical narrative coherence in favor of poetic mythology. The show doesn't discuss the specifics, which I read as asking us not to consider the specifics; we're invited to gloss over the details in favor of the larger philosophical issues. That, obviously, is deeply unsatisfying to a not-inconsequential portion of the audience, on a number of fronts. In addition to the basic question of "why the heck would they do that?" there's also the consideration of "150,000 years later, archeologists are confused when they start finding velcro fasteners in grave sites." The show all but begs us to accept the handwaving; I'm working on deciding whether or not the material the show is offering in its place makes it worth it to do so.

[Oakminster]

What evidence is there that they abandoned all but what they could carry?

There's Lee's speech, there's the scenes of major characters walking off into the wild with only the clothes on their backs...Helo, Athena, and Hera had a stick. Baltar & Caprica had nothing visible. Don't think Tigh and Ellen did, either. Don't remember anybody flying around in a raptor much other than Adama.

[hatesfreedom]

That's a big part of what I was talking about in terms of sacrificing logical narrative coherence in favor of poetic mythology. The show doesn't discuss the specifics, which I read as asking us not to consider the specifics; we're invited to gloss over the details in favor of the larger philosophical issues. That, obviously, is deeply unsatisfying to a not-inconsequential portion of the audience, on a number of fronts. In addition to the basic question of "why the heck would they do that?" there's also the consideration of "150,000 years later, archeologists are confused when they start finding velcro fasteners in grave sites." The show all but begs us to accept the handwaving; I'm working on deciding whether or not the material the show is offering in its place makes it worth it to do so.

there's going to be plot holes you can stick your head in all over the place, but we should all remember that most of us had a really good time watching it anyway. we should also laugh at anyone who has a problem with kara being a god because it doesn't make "logical" sense.


MY ONLY REGRET IS THAT LEE LIVED