Seven years and 76 episodes later, it has come to an end. A friend of mine actually said that I should be put on suicide watch due to the withdrawals I’ll be going through in the next few weeks. I’ve been thinking about the finale and the series as a whole since the finale aired, and I couldn’t come up with a solid opinion about how I felt with the ending.

First of all, Day Break Pt. 2/3 had big shoes to fill. Throughout the series there have been many questions, story arcs, and plot points opened. The fact that many of these were left open until the very end made me a little suspicious about how they would handle it; there were simply too many loose ends to wrap up.

SPOILER ALERT!
I wanna start by going over a few things from the series finale. I wasn’t as happy with it as the masses seem to be and there are several reasons for it. I’m simply confused by the way they chose to handle many of the open questions. First of all, Earth. At the end of season 3 when we find out that Kara isn’t really dead, the camera pulls out and zooms in on Earth. How do we know it’s Earth? Well, take a look at this screen capture and tell me that that’s not Florida and Baja California:

Once they land on Earth they find out that it is nothing but a nuclear wasteland. They even find the Brooklyn Bridge. So what does the fleet do? They give it the finger and leave for a different home, wherever they can find it. Fast forward to the series finale and they find this thanks to Kara’s musical and mathematical skills:

Africa, Australia, etc. This earth is a primitive one. They decide to settle here and make a new life for themselves with the natives without technology. At the very end of the show we go 150,000 years into the future and are dropped in the middle of what is now the New York City we know. Did I miss something? Didn’t we already find NYC devastated on a different planet? If their point was to say that where we live now is the Earth they finally settled, why was there a Planet of the Apes moment in the first Earth? People I’ve talked to tell me that the first one wasn’t Earth, and that THIS one is… c’mon!

The biggest thing going on during this episode was the heroic rescue of Hera being held in the cylon colony near the black hole. This mission was pretty bad ass (my favorite being the one in Exodus Pt. 2 from New Caprica) and successful. What, may I ask, was the point of this black hole? Was it simply to protect the colony? And was the colony destroyed? We see a raptor nuking the thing to all hell, but we don’t actually see it fully destroyed. Did we see the end of the (bad) cylons?

Hera was obviously a huge plot point since the moment she was conceived. Towards the end of the series her role became increasingly prominent. So much so, that the fate of both the human and cylon races depended on her. Why that is, no one really knows. All we know is that she holds the key to everything.  So after hundreds more die in what is undoubtedly the most epic rescue act the Galactica has ever pulled, after the cylon race is effectively wiped out, and after the Galactica itself is left pretty much in pieces, what happens then with Hera? Absolutely nothing. NOTHING!!! Why do they need Hera at all? Why should half the fleet sacrifice themselves for this kid? Yes, 150,000 years in the future in New York (sigh) we see breaking news of a body being found that is the oldest human-like body every found. I can only assume that it’s Hera, but wouldn’t that apply to everyone that was left from the fleet, not just Hera? Again, she we were told she was important for no reason.

As for Head Six and Head Baltar turning out to be angels, I just don’t know. I guess Head Six being an implant in Baltar’s head would have been too cliché, and making Baltar a cylon would have been expected, so making Head Six an angel was the lesser of 3 evils. Once Head Baltar came into Caprica Six’s head a couple of seasons ago I began to think something more complex was at play rather than simply brain implants. I loved that twist. However, in season 4, Baltar gets a visit from Head Baltar as well, and only to tell him that Tori was special and he should sleep with her like he does with every other girl. Then the expectation for a good explanation became so big that no matter what they did I would be disappointed. So angels they were. However, why do these two angels look like them, but Starbuck is an angel all on her own, without a Head Starbuck?

Starbuck is a whole different issue though. We find out that she really has been dead all along. However, she’s remained a key character throughout season 4. She’s interacted with everyone in the show. Why can they all see her, but not Head Six and Head Baltar if they’re all angels? I guess they’re angels and they can choose to be seen by whom they want. Was every answer we were given God? Most of them were. If you’re telling me that these three (Kara, Head Six, and Head Gaius) are angels, I don’t buy it. I could see Kara alone being an angel, but the other two were utterly useless. Come to think of it, a little side note, we’ve been told that Kara always had a purpose and that she was special. Was that purpose to become an angel? Hmm… And what about all that jive talk about Kara leading humanity to their end, and her being the harbinger of death?

I really liked the idea of the Opera House being Galactica. That was great, but the visions/real life montage made no sense. In the visions, they make it seem as tho Caprica Six and Baltar take Hera for themselves. When it actually happens, they grab Hera and don’t see Roslin or Athena running towards them so they simply close the door behind them. In the next scene, “Oh, hey guys, here’s your kid!”. Ok, so… what was the point of all those visions?

Sending the fleet off directly to the center of the sun was bad ass. And Anders? What a way to go man. A glorious exit to say the least. However, I don’t buy their random decision to rid the world of technology and bring their race back to the speared age at all. Laura’s death was heart-breaking if not tear-jerking. It was a moment that we’ve all expected since the mini-series years ago, and we’ve all wondered under what conditions she would pass. Bravo. They couldn’t have done it better. Cavil surely  won the “what the frak!?” moment of the episode when he took his own life. And the fact that they ALMOST gave cylons resurrection but it all went to hell was a great way to break the cycle. If they would have actually gone through with it, it would’ve been way too predictable. But what ever happened to “Daniel”?

The last scene of the show I also felt was over the top. We’ve already been drilled throughout the entire show that “all of this has happened before, and all of it will happen again,” We don’t need to see another Baltar and another Six, wearing the same damn clothes, walking around NYC, 150,000 years later. And the montage of the robots at the end could’ve been avoided. C’mon guys, you’re beating a dead horse by now.

This brings me to the final burning question; what was the plan? All along we’ve been told that cylons had a master plan, at the same time we were told that God has a plan for all of us. So what were those plans? Was the plan for the cylons to breed a human and a cylon in order to have a child to dissect? They didn’t make that clear. And what was God’s plan for all of them? Was it to bring humanity back to basics on a new planet to start all over? They didn’t make that clear either.

I only point out these inconsistencies and loose ends because I wanted this finale to be perfect. In the end, I’m happy with where the characters and show ended up. BSG has taken me on one of the best TV roller coasters I’ve ever been on. I’ve loved every minute of BSG, even when the flaws have been obvious (I’m sorry to tell you, but it isn’t a perfect show, it just doesn’t happen on network or basic cable television). But I’ve never been as captivated by the characters in any other show, and no show has kept my interest and my devotion for so many years. Hats off to you, BSG, you were good.

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Tags: Battlestar Galactica, Reviews, TV