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Warning! Spoiler alert! The following review contains very signficant spoilers, including several regarding the final episode of the series. If you wish to remain spoiler free, do NOT read the following review.
In the words of the immortal Butthead, forewarned is . . . uh . . . something.
I am astonished that the finale of BSG is proving to be controversial. I watched the final episode with a sense of excitement, delight, and deep gratitude. I found it moving and appropriate to the series as a whole. I would rank it with the best series finales that I have ever seen, alongside BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER and SIX FEET UNDER. In particular I found the final 20 or so minutes to be especially gratifying, as we see the final 38,000 some odd survivors of the long journey from the 12 Colonies to New Earth finally find their new home. Did everything end precisely as I wanted? Of course not. But what is important is that it ended the way that Ron Moore clearly intended it to end. I had long suspected that one of the first things that had been conceived was the role of Hera (or someone like Hera) in the overall scheme of things. That she would indeed prove to be "The Shape of Things to Come" was something of which I was confident, and I found the role ascribed to her -- essentially the DNA mother of our own humanity -- as both powerful and fulfilling of the great importance assigned to her. [And Ron Moore's brief cameo as the gent reading the magazine about what is obviously Hera's remains was similar to J. Michael Straczynski's cameo at the end of BABYLON 5.]
The 2008-2009 television season has seen the ending of a string of truly great series. BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, THE SHIELD, and THE WIRE managed to end on their own terms, with their overall arcs ended on their own schedule. Other equally great series like PUSHING DAISIES were stopped in mid-stride. That a show as great as PUSHING DAISIES could be cancelled makes me all the more grateful that some shows like BSG manage to make it all the way to the end. My own television viewing will now be greatly diminished by the end of BSG. No show of the past five years has so consistently obsessed me. It wasn't always as consistent as I would have liked. FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS is a far steadier, more consistently brilliant show, but while it has never had anywhere near as many as weak episodes as BSG, neither has it ever reached BSG's best moments. Never, ever have I had a series (with the exception of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER) at its best so completely shock and amaze me. No other show (except BUFFY) has managed to astonish me so frequently. And it did this by almost never recycling stories seen on other series. BSG not only never recycled stories from other shows, but never recycled its own stories. Any stunning plot twist, once used, was never used again.
Rarely do series redefine their genre, but BSG has done more to alter what one can do on a television Sci-fi series than any since STAR TREK first debuted in the late sixties. No future serious series in the genre can ignore the achievements of BSG. They might decide not to take up the challenge that BSG has laid down, but even that is a way of acknowledging the new standards it has laid down. Series like STARGATE SG-1 now seem oddly simplistic in comparison. Ron Moore stated in his initial mission statement that his goal was to completely redefine TV Sci-fi and in this he was supremely successful. It is impossible to overstate the importance of BSG in taking TV Sci-fi to the next level. Many have noted that it was the first important Sci-fi series that was made for adults rather than teens, but it is also the first that was directed to thinking adults instead of only Sci-fi geeks. BSG expanded the audience of those interested in Sci-fi, with thousands of people who had previously been determined not to watch any show in the genre obsessed with the fate of those on Galactica. And it has also been a huge hit with academics and intellectuals. The only television series that has received as much attention from academics has been BUFFY, and the only show to attract as much attention from nonacademic intellectuals has been BUFFY and THE SOPRANOS. Who would have thought a show based on the passionately maligned 1978 series (a show that has a small but dedicated cadre of fans, but which is otherwise attacked by TV critics and serious Sci-fi fans and writers as one of the worst series in TV history) could have ascended to such heights?
I have started rewatching the series from the very beginning in light of the series finale and I am amazed at how good it all feels knowing how it will end. The series finale of BSG fit the rest of the series so perfectly that it managed retroactively to make the rest even better. I frankly have long suspected that Ron Moore is a big, fat liar. He has often stated things that were not true or at least were only partially true. I think he had a great deal of the overall story planned from near the beginning. I believe he had many of the main arc details in mind from the beginning. I do think that he left a lot of room for alternation and development, but I believe he knew from the time of the miniseries that he intended to have the remnants of the human race align with the Cylons to become the genetic ancestors of our own human race. One of the first moments in BSG of note was when Caprica Six looked at an infant with amazement, shortly before she broke its neck (an act that is one of the most effective mission statements I've ever seen -- after that, you knew the show was capable of anything). And the crucial moment came when President Laura Roslin stressed to Commander Adama that it was crucial that they leave that part of the galaxy to find a new home where the survivors could "start having babies." Early in the first episode of Season One Head Six asks Gaius Baltar if he would like to have a child. We then soon learn of the mission of the other Sharon on Caprica to try and make Helo fall in love with her and get her pregnant. In retrospect, we see that "The Plan" was to perpetuate the Cylon race by biological reproduction.
Similarly, from early on the show was concerned with ever deepening religious themes, as God (though Head Baltar in the finale tells Head Six that he doesn't care for that name) directed the fate of both Cylons and humans to their eventual fate. Even Starbuck is shown to be an instrument of God, as she is sent back to the fleet after her death in order to help them find their way to their new home. Until the finale we had no idea precisely how deep this idea that God had a plan for them truly was, but as the series comes to an end we realize that Head Six's words to Baltar in the first regular season episode were absolutely true: this all was God's plan. To what degree this God coincides with a Christian or Muslim or Jewish god is very much open to debate, but that it unceasingly is at the core of BSG cannot now be questioned.
BSG begins with the question -- put forward by Bill Adama as he participates in Galactica's decommissioning ceremony -- whether humanity had a right to survive. The answer to this is delayed for the length of the series, as we see the fleet undergo a series of trials. The parallels with the account in Exodus of the Children of Israel departing from Egypt to the Promised Land increase as the series nears its end. Just as the Children of Israel undergo a series of temptations, so do the members of the fate. Likewise, the fleet's Moses, Laura Roslin, is allowed to see the promised land but not enter (she dies as Adama finds the spot upon which to build the cabin she longed for). That humanity has earned the right to survive comes as the crew of Galactica undertakes the ship's final mission, the rescue of the Human-Cylon hybrid child Hera, whose DNA becomes the foundation of a new humanity.
So, the show's many rich and deep themes are successfully and beautifully resolved at the end. Those who found the ending unsatisfying seem not to recognize this. But I'm baffled. What more can one ask of a series than to resolve successfully all its major themes?
While I loved the end of the series, I can understand some of the uneasiness some felt. In order to break the cycle ("All of this has happened before; all of this will happen again") of death and destruction, Lee Adama persuades the survivors to embrace a nontechnological culture. I understand this on a poetic level even as I question it on a psychological level. And like many I found the departure of Starbuck, one of the great iconic characters in the history of TV (it is funny now to remember how upset some were that Starbuck was going to be played by a girl), both too sudden and less than satisfying. But this is nitpicking and should be recognized as such. To carp on something that wasn't quite done to one's satisfaction while ignoring the massive number of things that were done so exceptionally well is petty.
Sadly the end of BSG signals the disbanding of one of the most wonderful and largest casts in the history of television. Only LOST can match BSG in the size and richness of its cast of characters. I'm going to miss Adama, Laura Roslin, Lee, Kara, Sharon (in whatever form), Helo, Hera, Tigh, Tyrol, Baltar, all of the Sixes, Dee, Ellen, Duck, Kat, Billy, Tory, Anders, Racetrack, Cally, Doc Cottle, Jake, Elosha, Sgt. Mathis, Captain Kelly, Zarek, Gaeta, Seelix, Hotdog, Romo Lampkin and all the others (all the way down to the tattooed Asian guy who never had a line of dialogue and whose main function seemed to be to keep Galactica's card games going) -- not to mention the Cavils, Dorals, D'Annas, Simons, and Leobens. And I'm going to miss Galactica itself. For five years this show has been one of the great presences in my life. I won't be saying goodbye easily.
We do have the BSG prequel CAPRICA to look forward to next month (the pilot film is being released on DVD in April and will go to series in January 2010) and the film BATTLESTAR GALACTICA: THE PLAN appears in the fall. The latter will almost certainly resolve one of the final remaining mysteries of BSG: who Caprica Six saw in the miniseries and uttered the words, "I've been expecting you." So, while I'm heartbroken that this great series is leaving us, its departure is eased by the new series and the upcoming film. And I am intensely grateful that such a great series ended so marvelouslyl. I believe that those who are complaining about the finale are way off base and I also believe that as they rewatch the series and reassess the finale in light of that they'll recognize what a brilliant ending it was.
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The extended episodes are worth it alone for the conclusion to this amazing series
Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on August 22, 2009Joel Andrews
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