Always the Journey
Warning: This post contains spoilers for the series finale of Battlestar Galactica, ‘Daybreak’. If you don’t want to know what happens, then you should stop reading now.
With the airing of last night’s series finale, Battlestar Galactica has passed from the realm of “what is” into “what was”. Even though the show ran for only 4 short seasons, its run lasted almost 6 full years. Watching the end of BSG last night among my friends, I was reminded that as with the end of many great TV series, it’s not always about the destination, but rather the journey.
Overall Daybreak was a very satisfying end to the grand experiment that was Ron Moore’s Battlestar Galactica. The finale was filled with much of the action that has been missing in recent weeks, a final confrontation with Brother Cavil, and answers to some important questions about Kara, Baltar and Six. The parts I enjoyed the most were the ones I knew were coming – the heart-pounding attack on the colony, learning the fate of Galactica itself and particularly the final moments between Bill Adama and Laura Roslin. I’ve really enjoyed the Laura/Bill subplot since the very beginning and their last flight together to find their “cabin on the hill” was moving and everything I had hoped it would be.
In contrast, Starbuck’s story line left me disappointed. From the series’ inception, Katee Sackhoff’s skillful turn as Starbuck made even the most stubborn old-school BSG fan a convert. Her performances as Kara Thrace proved to be a favorite of mine time and time again, until her fateful encounter with the Eye of Jupiter. Her “death” in Malestrom fundamentally changed Starbuck’s character and not in a good way. Call her what you will, angel, ghost or guardian, Kara Thrace died, was reborn and sent back to the Colonials a shell of her former self. It’s now clear that Moore’s intentions for the character were meandering at best, and deeply unsatisfying at worst. Starbuck started BSG with a bang but ended as only a whisper on the wind, and for that I’m sad.
On the good side, Tory finally got what was coming to her, Cavil ended up buying it even if he did take the coward’s way out (something very out of character for him), Sam was sacrificed at the altar of technology and the fleet finally found Earth. Not the ball of radiation soaked sand that Starbuck originally led them to, but the lush green Earth of eons past. With this discovery, humanity decides to make a clean break from the fleet that has sustained them since the genocide of the 12 colonies and fans out across the planet to start anew.
I honestly didn’t think coming into the finale the fleet would find a new home, but I’m glad I was wrong. These scenes on Earth were a welcome change from the dark, gray days on New Caprica or the nuked earth of Crossroads. How sad that even this crowning moment was scarred by the main characters deciding to take separate journeys from each other. It would be great to think of Bill, Lee, Galen, Baltar, Six, Sol and Ellen sitting around some campfire on a young Earth toasting marshmallows and finally getting a chance to relax, but that’s just a fantasy. Lee is left utterly alone. Tyrol decides to isolate himself and become the sole inhabitant of Ireland and Adama would rather spend his days grieving over the body of Laura than be with his surviving son. Bittersweet to the end.
Although I still believe the final season of Battlestar Galactica to be the weakest of the entire season (especially the run-up to the finale) in my heart, I can’t fault the series. On its worst days, BSG was head and shoulders above where 99% of other TV dramas reside. Those shows usually rack up undeserved awards and accolades for being nothing more than the cop or doctor show of the week. Battlestar Galactica gave viewers a fresh look at subjects like politics, terrorism, morality vs security and religion. I feel sorry for anyone who won’t take a chance on Galactica simply because they “don’t like sci-fi”. They will never know what they’re missing. Although I wasn’t blown away by the finale as some seem to have been, I did enjoy it. And although I didn’t find the final destination to be everything I had hoped for (probably a self-constructed impossibility), none-the-less I still had a hell of a fun time getting there. For that, I will always be grateful.
I actually thought Cavil’s suicide was very much in character. I believe we were shown over the course of the series that Cavil’s only desire was to become more machine. He was holding on so he could resurrect out of the flesh body. The moment Tory died and that was impossible, he would rather die than continue.
Didn’t hate the finale, but it didn’t stack up with the best of what the series had to offer. BSG was a show that was always lean on dialogue and tight on editing. If something didn’t need to be said, it frequently wasn’t. (In recent weeks, witness the fact that Tyrol just appears in the brig without wasting precious minutes depicting his arrest. Also, the rescue of Adama from the firing squad…we didn’t need a bad-ass “put those guns down” scene; we simply saw the result.)
The finale went in the opposite direction. The last two minutes were especially superfluous: did anything with the Six and Baltar angels in Manhattan truly need to be said? Yes, I know I’m supposed to think about the role of technology in our society…it didn’t need to be spelled out so explicitly. And I didn’t need to hear Watchtower yet again.
(A much smaller point, and more an issue of personal taste…but when Kara enters the jump coordinates, similar gratuitousness takes place. It was a big moment…and it was played like such a big moment that it actually left me feeling underwhelmed. Instead of 30 seconds of slow-motion cuts with Kara pushing buttons, Watchtower screaming in the background, a quick flashback to her writing numbers on a sheet, her entering the same numbers on the keypad, would have about done it for me. A little editing restraint might have left me with a little “wow” moment, rather than, “okay, I get it…what’s the big deal?”)
For the series highpoint, I still look to the Season 2 finale (is that when it was?) on New Caprica. I’ve never seen a show do anything remotely like that, and my head was spinning–in a good way–for days. The series finale did indeed take a few chances, but, for me, watered them down to the point where they don’t resonate.
I should add: BSG is still the best sci-fi series ever, by a mile, and one of the best TV achievements of all time.
Honorable mention goes to the “you-are-there” visual effects on the show, which are probably the best I’ve seen in any production, TV or film, and will likely change the course of how visual effects look for quite a long time.
Greg, I tend to agree with you about the finale, but especially in the episodes leading up to it. No Exit and Deadlock took the wind right out of season 4′s sails.
When I think of my favorite episodes of Battlestar Galactica, I think of 33, The Hand of God, Exodus 1 & 2 and The Oath. Parts 2 & of Daybreak were good, but not among my favorites of all time.
Then again, very rarely are the finale episodes of any sci-fi shows I’ve watched my favorites. I loved Star Trek TNG to death, but All Good Things pales in comparison to The Best of Both Worlds.
I too was disappointed with the Kara “resolution” (if it can even be called that — so she was a headjob like Baltar and Six were, but just visible and interactable with everyone? So much so that she could shoot and kill a mutinous Raptor pilot? Hmmm…), and while I try to rationalize out of it to make more sense within the mythos, I realize that, having watched the pre-show, I fear Ron Moore sometimes just went with what felt right at the time and thought he’d figure it out later. So I don’t think there was any better way to explain it, now that he had written himself into a corner. I was glad they had her dip her hand in the tub just to check, one last time if she was a Cylon. But I’m now convinced that some of these plots were destined to be left dangling, and not in a “cliffhanger” sort of way, but rather a “what the hell?!?” sort of way.
In fact, every time I hear his decision about the four Cylons, Tigh’s selection sounds more like gimmick than anything, but somehow wrangled back into place with the selection of Ellen, which was also a very late-in-the-game decision. Seriously, I had been thinking they knew all along which would be the final five, but it became apparent that, in the immortal (paraphrased) word of Indiana Jones, “I’m just making it up as I go along.” And that’s what happened with Starbuck. When in doubt, just make her vanish.
Ah well, what’s done is done, and I really enjoyed everything else. The first 75 minutes or so were so jam packed with action, and everyone in the room was wincing as the poor Battlestar sat at the doorstep of the colony and took everything it could and then buckled sickly at the end, everyone was cringing. For a SHIP. That’s how well that part was crafted. In fact, I think I was more sad seeing Anders driving the Battlestar into the sun with the rest of the fleet than any other interactions to-date.
It wasn’t perfect, but it was good enough. End of line.
…am I the only one that thought about Hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy when they found earth and the humans? Not sure what I think of this ending… I will miss it… Time to start watching it all over again
I couldn’t stop thinking about Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy either at the end. Luckily for us, it wasn’t a bunch of insurance salesmen, hair dressers, and the like that crashed on Earth this time.
It also seemed like a nod to Disaster Area’s Sun Dive tour when the fleet was piloted into the Sun. I wonder if the Infinite Improbability Drive was on the Galactica
Now that you guys mention it, I’m surprised there was not mention of “42″ anywhere in the finale. That would have been so perfect.
I think they left alot of things unresolved. They never tell you who the final cylon is. I agree that they hadn’t thought out or explain what or who starbuck really was after her return from death. I was one of the hold outs that loved the original series. I didn’t like that fact that they made Boomer a woman and a cylon, I did however like Katie Sackhoff as Starbuck. But I finally came around and could not stop watching it. I agree that this is one of the best shows I have ever watched. I will miss it.
[...] and humanity’s survival was hanging by a thread. There were enough of these moments to push BSG all the way up to my second favorite sci-fi show of all time. If the final season of Galactica had [...]