I watched the series finale of Battlestar Galactica last night. I hung in on this series though it was starting to resemble a veeery slooow moootion train wreck. And the people on the train were so busy chewing the scenery that it became embarrassing to watch them. That was one set of characters. Some of the others looked like they had been sedated.
Let me start by saying that I missed several episodes this season, and here’s the damning statement — it didn’t make a damn bit of difference. Many episodes felt like they were frantically vamping, hoping to drag the series out to the contracted length. They were filled with slice of life flashbacks to life on Caprica before the fall. If they were supposed to deepen our understanding of the characters all I can say is “a little late now”. I couldn’t help but wonder if they were trying to build the sets for the new series Caprica, and charge some of the cost off to Galatica.
WARNING: If you haven’t watched your Tivo yet stop reading because I’m going to talk about things that happened. A few things did happen in this two hour finale.
I was confused by a lot of the motivations Why exactly did Adama decide to go and rescue Hera? But my biggest problem was the overall resolution. The characters who in the beginning of the series who had seemed like tough, effective people were rescued by supernatural forces.
Starbuck who was dead, but had returned. I wouldn’t call her a Christ figure, but certainly one of those angels that Baltar kept blathering about. She heard the music that became the path to a habitable planet. Little music of the spheres action there.
Then we had snarky dream 6 now joined by snarky dream Baltar weasring a really ugly suit appearing to tired, stubble-faced Baltar and a sad 6 while they were rescuing Hera.
The big speech to stop the fighting was given to Baltar about how he saw angels. I couldn’t tell if this was meant to be redemptive for the character. Sort of building upon the fact he’d become a weird religious cult leader. If so, it didn’t work for me because I thought Baltar as prophet/preacher was deeply creepy, and they played it like it was just a way for him to get girls.
Alternatively I wondered if they gave him the money speech because he was the human whose involvement with Cylons had caused the problem, and his obsession with the 6 showed his love for the Cylons. But if you want a bonded human couple why not use Hera’s mommy and daddy?
So, now you have these formerly tough effective people being rescued by “angels’. They’ve found this verdant new world, and _they decide to throw the ships into the sun_ and go all back to nature on me. I know they were going for the whole ancient astronauts thing, but it made me just think these people were not only ineffectual they were stupid.
Let’s see — no antibiotics, no modern medicine, no books, no learning once you’re past the third generation. Hope everyone was looking forward to death during childbirth, astounding infant mortality rates, starvation, death due to exposure. And the argument that this commune life-style was somehow going to break the cycle of violence? Oh please, the Roman conquests, Gengis Khan, the Crusades, Jihad, the Inquisition., the holocaust. Yeah, that really worked.
There were some nice personal resolutions between Adama and the president. I was glad to see the lawyer (who is one of the best actors on the show) get to be president. Baltar gets to cry. I guess because he’s come to accept that at heart he’s just a farmer and he should forget about all that genius stuff.
We flash forward to snarky Baltar and 6 wandering through a modern city, and close with pictures of robotic research as if to imply dangerous! dangerous!, and then it ends.
So, what was a viewer supposed to take away from this investment in time and energy over a number of years? That technology is bad, and we all need to get back to nature? That human effort is ultimately doomed to fail, and that our best hope is to rely on divine intervention?
If your hanging out on my website and read my novel you know that message really doesn’t resonate with me. In fact, I find it pretty loathsome. In a time when as a species we are facing profound and dangerous issues — global climate change, a crumbling economy, drug resistant diseases — I would really rather put my faith in bright people looking for solutions instead of waiting for the angels to come and fix things.
