Tonight was the last Battlestar Galactica episode in the four-season series and I was pleased with the way the writers ended the show. One of the biggest problems that television fans generally run into with niche shows like Battlestar Galactica is that they don’t often last too long (in this case, only four seasons) and when they are canceled, the show generally doesn’t have a chance to write a decent ending for the fans. Thankfully, that was not the case with Battlestar Galactica.
I’ll put up a more thorough review of the entire series in the next few days, but I wanted to offer some quick comments on the finale itself.
- Endings: It was nice that all of the fans of the show were allowed to see the respective stories of each of the main characters come to a reasonable end. It can be assumed that General Adama spent the rest of his life living near to the grave of President Roslin, who we also saw enjoying her last few minutes of life. The sudden disappearance of Kara “Starbuck” Thrace was a little weird, but it speaks to the nature of her being nothing more than a ghost for the last season. Still weird.
- Connections to Today: I thought the writers added a nice touch by having the planet which the refugees finally landed on be our earth, but 150,000 years ago. And making Hera the “mitochondrial Eve” that made so many headlines a few years back was a nice spin, too. Also, it was a nice touch to have the angel versions of Caprica Six and Gaius Baltar walking around modern day earth with early versions of what could grow to be cylons as part of the backdrop.
- The End of the Cylon/Human War: The final battle between the Battlestar Galactica and the cylon colony base ship was well done and it looked great in high definition. Also, the way the “war” ended between the two civilizations (complete with the cylon leader blowing his head off) was a good way to end the constant conflict.
So that’s the quick and dirty review of tonight’s Battlestar Galactica series finale. All in all, a great show which answered all of the right questions. Sure, some people will want to know more about how the human refugees went from an extremely advanced civilization to essentially nomads and there might be an opportunity in the future to tell some of that story via a made-for-TV movie or maybe through some quick webisodes shorts or something. However, I think that most people will be content with what they saw and will be eager enough to see the coming made-for-TV movie “Battlestar Galactica: The Plan” this summer!
And for those of you who are a little down now that Battlestar Galactica is over, don’t worry. The spin-off series, Caprica, is coming soon!
Unfortunately, I have to side with the “this was crap” camp. It is
amazing to me how easiest part of movie production * The Plot *
can be so ignored, and so disrespected by the writers after 4
years of great riveting storytelling. This ending was sloppy, lazy
and obviously hurriedly put together. Didn’t they concern
themselves with the HUGE plotholes and inconsistencies? Didn’t
they concern themselves with characters’ motivations, or
consistency with prior behavior in previous circumstances? For a
storyline that is premised upon an Epic journey to a great
destination * the ending is the most important episode of all, the
one that should be most perfect in form and content. Yet, here we
have them literally throwing away the tools for their survival, no
concern about the Cylons chasing them down anymore, Starbuck
evaporating w/o explanation, the most deserving characters
condemned to solitary banishment, death or purgatory, and the most
heinous receiving enlightenment and joy. WTF!