The best show on TV (Battlestar Galactica) went out with a whimper…and a lot of unanswered questions, and those that were answered, were completely unsatisfying. Spoilers below (though I’d say the writers already spoiled it).
Okay, so Kara Thrace is a ghost? Really? REALLY?
– what’s with the opera house? They never actually used it.
– why was Hera so important? I get it, she’s the first ‘human’…but why did it matter if she died or not? It didn’t.
– Why did Adama leave? Wouldn’t he want to be with his son? That just didn’t ring true.
– Who was God? They said he didn’t like that name.
It was also a copout that everything was blamed on God. Destiny, blah, blah,
How a show that was so good so fall so flat is truly amazing.
You know, I read a bunch of complaints on Wired.com this morning, much similar to yours, and I thought “man these people are dumb”, so now I’m thinking that maybe I read too much into it last night?
Kara was an angel. She died at the end of the 3rd season, and the person who led everyone to earth was an angel, the hybrid kept referring to her as a Harbinger of Death – because she led to the end of the Cylon race.
The Opera house was a vision which got everyone in the place they needed to be for the pivotal moment in the series to happen.
Adama left because as we saw throughout the show, Galactica was his life, he headed off into the hills to build the home that he and Laura had dreamed of. Adama had to leave the people so that they would not be tempted to follow his leadership and Lee would get to be his own man.
I also think that Lee’s decision to go exploring had on some level to do with his desire to find his dad.
The show started out saying “All this has happened before, all this will happen again.”, and they went through the cycle.
Hera had to be alive to bring that moment with all the Cylons and humans on the CIC, and which then led to Kara putting in the notes, which Hera had written, which led them to the True Earth.
We (humans now) are descendants of Cylons/Capricans.
God was an it, not a he.
I REALLY enjoyed the show, and I thought it was a great ending, although I would have rather the show ended with Adama telling Laura his plans for the cabin (a holdover from the 2nd season).
Make no mistake…I GOT it.
But it was completely, and totally unsatisfying.
I got that the Opera House was merely ‘people playing their parts’ (though those parts ending being completely and totally irrelevant). That’s all it was? Just a premonition about the future? That those characters weren’t somehow inexplicably linked (they weren’t…they just all chased after Hera). So damn, the Opera House, really, meant nothing. It was just a premonition.
And that Kara was an angel of some sort (not a biblical angel). You could argue that the final scene with her and the two Adama’s was the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost.
I GET that. But that is STUPID.
We wait an entire year to figure out what Starbuck is, and it ends up she’s an angel. Really? REALLY?
Look, ma, God explains everything! God did this, and God led them here, and God directed them by doing this, and God made characters come back to life.
That’s Dues Ex Machina at its finest because the writer’s didn’t have the answers.
I could go on and on about how every question was answered in such an unsatisfying way. Questions from three seasons ago…and all it is God? That’s the answer? Yawn.
Then even the tie-up: they found Hera’s bones 150K years later, but why no raptors? Why no guns? Why no supplies? Am I nitpicking? Perhaps. Except you can’t suddenly say ‘well, that doesn’t matter’ because everything in the show matters.
Then the whole Kara as a Harbinger of Death. She WASN’T! And if you could argue she was by taking them to earth (thereby ending pure humans, or pure cylons) well then EVERYONE was a harbinger because they all had parts to play. Hell, Racetrack single-handedly destroyed the entire colony! Nope, Kara wasn’t a harbinger by any definition (and I looked it up thinking that maybe I misinterpreted it).
Admiral Adama — you mean they’ve been through countless wars and bloodshed, and he realizes his son is better off without him? Really? REALLY?
Lee already was his own man. He mutinied (in season 2). He quit the service. He defended Baltar…he became a lawyer, became president.
ARRRGH! Ready to pull out my hair.
My final opinion: the writers got themselves stuck in a corner — they couldn’t get themselves out. There only hope was divine intervention…which they used.
You might be right, I don’t know why I enjoyed it (although it did feel a little like Lord of the Rings, the first hour kind of wrapped everything up and then we had an hour of epilogues), I like the spiritual stuff though and I always have. A lot of people say that the original BSG had religious undertones that were much more emphasized in this series, but to be honest I don’t remember the first series.
Char asked me which I liked better, last night’s episode, or Serenity, and there’s no question for me, Serenity was a better coda to a series than BSG’s finale, but it was a MUCH simpler show.
I thought the Adama thing was more about him finally retiring, and he just wanted to be alone with Laura…I honestly thought he was going to crash the Raptor into a mountain or something equally suicidal which was setting me on edge because that would be entirely out of Adama’s character.
Yeah, I know what you mean about the last 45 minutes. Except I kept expecting the other shoe to drop.
Serenity — now there was an ending! Some lived, some died. Answers given, people can move on with their lives, one way or another.
Not all was bad with BG. The first hour was one of the best hours I’ve ever seen on TV. Its just the answers for me simply weren’t satisfying.
@Ryan
Why don’t you answer my emails anymore? I’ve sent you a couple this week and nothing…but you respond to my comments. You’re totally junk mailing me aren’t you?
I NEVER get emails from you (and I’ve even un-spam blocked you). Oh wait…there was one in my spam (just checked) about Chris Cornell. I do have his last one (not the current one). It’s okay. The best song was the James Bond song. For a guy who does all the writing/singing when he’s in a group, he doesn’t seem to do that well in a solo setting. Maybe he needs someone to edit him down (which a group would do).
Did you notice the fearful overtone of the final few minutes? Here we asre 150000 years after the arrival on earth. We are making robots that move and look like us. It has hall happened before. It will all happen again.