Re: BSG Finale

On Wed, 9 Feb 2011, pcg wrote:

> *** spoilers ensue from this point forward ***
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> gonna discuss some stuff you shouldn't read if you haven't watched the series
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> seriously, if you haven't seen the show, it's on Netflix in HD

Well, in the U.S., at least.  :/  (Here in Canada, Netflix has the 1970s 
series -- and Galactica 1980, too! -- but not the reboot.  Sigh.)

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And I'll add a few extra spoiler lines of my own.

Five...

four...

three...

two...

and one.

> Okay, so, the good stuff...
>
> 1)  Starbuck was some kind of angel? Is that what we're meant to 
> believe?

Well, she's a deus ex machina.  A plot device.  Yeah.  :)

> 2) Chief crushing Tory's neck might be the most pimp move I've ever seen 
> on television. I loved Cally, and was pissed at the way they kind of 
> trashed her character after she died.

Are you referring to the way they "revealed" that she had been sleeping 
with someone else?  They basically *had* to do that because they wrote 
themselves into a corner when they "revealed" that Chief was a Cylon. 
Cylons can't have kids -- that's what makes that one child (Boomer's and 
Helo's, if memory serves?) so special -- so if Chief and Cally had a kid, 
then obviously neither of them could be Cylons.  But if Chief *was* 
revealed to be a Cylon... then obviously they had to dedicate an entire 
episode to explaining who the "real" father was.

Speaking of which, have you seen the BSG movie The Plan?  The basic point 
of that movie is to re-tell the events of the first two seasons from the 
point of view of the Cylons, now that we know who they all are.  And one 
of that movie's top priorities is filling in all the gaps that were 
created by lazy writing during the first two seasons and constant 
retconning during the last two seasons.

> 4) They did a fantastic job of making the final season *feel* final. 
> With the government structure falling apart, characters committing 
> suicide, a devastating coup attempt that left the military in tatters, 
> Adama turning into Tigh, Roslin losing her religion, and Galactica 
> herself crumbling to pieces, they really sold the desperation and 
> finality of it all. When Zarek had the entire quorum shot to death, I 
> couldn't believe it. That was the moment I realized the writers were 
> going balls out, and it was only going to get worse, not better.

Yeah, that Zarek moment was a stunner, even for someone like me who didn't 
get around to watching Season 4.5 until after I had already found out how 
the series ended.

> Nit-picks:
>
> 1) I'm not much of a grudge-holder, but I did feel it was unreasonable 
> to expect us to sympathize with the Cylons in the final season. I mean, 
> in the pilot, Caprica Six MURDERED A BABY IN A STROLLER.

Huh, I'd forgotten that detail.  The final season was pretty good about 
pinning all the blame on, um, Dean Stockwell.  (The Plan does this too -- 
which is interesting, considering he didn't appear on the series itself 
until near the end of the first or second season.)

> 3) Ellen being the final Cylon. Felt random to me, and sort of robbed 
> her original death scene of it's considerable power.

Yeah.  Especially when her resurrected self turns out to be so all-wise, 
all-knowing, whatever.  They *tried* to bring back some of the tension 
between her and Tigh, but it didn't really work.

> Things that really, really angered me:
>
> 1) Helo needed to die. I wanted someone to kill him. Gaeta, Starbuck, 
> Adama, Athena, Apollo... anyone would have sufficed. I was very, very 
> disappointed that he lived to see new Earth. Gaeta was executed for 
> trying to stage a coup, meanwhile Helo consciously betrayed humanity and 
> snuck behind everyone's back to save the lives of the killers who were 
> hunting them -- and everyone more or less knew it. No consequences? Frak 
> that guy.

Y'know, I can't remember what you're referring to, here.

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