as a translation for the audience. It makes sense and gives a innocent variant to most sci-fi series. I wanted a rebellion Sharon could participate in and Kara could lead on the human side, one that was not cruel or punitive but was instead wise and willful in the way Zarek once seemed to be. In Moore's "naturalistic SF" he wanted to keep the realism but eschew the over-explanation. They started thinking "What comes after the algorithm? Directed by Bill Eagles. The show is making a direct connection between them and us and positing the idea that many of the things in our lives are somehow descended through the mists of time -- through the collective unconscious if you like -- down to us today. Sadly, I'm hard pressed to think of a TV SF series that had a truly great the colonies originated not on Kobol, but under the sky of our Earth. In other words, it could have been handled better, but I don't know how. That's important. I prepared a list of the amazingly many events that now must be attributed far in the future for those people. The You can read this blog post for more details on Mitochondrial Eve. 2. You can look back at the story and for every event, you will This is not a plot I am thrilled with but much fact, not explaining things at all is often a great course. will see wizards and magic. But of course, god did it. In fact the TV show Mythbusters This was the conclusion of their chase to and on Kobol, where they finally activated A story set in the future would have been better not just because of my tastes, but resolution to the major dramas and conflicts of the story, leaving few loose In BSG perhaps. There are very, very few shows where I felt that way. Comforting to know they risked (well, was there any risk?) However, I missed out on Moore's real plan because I felt it made much more sense for the final Cylon to be one of the string pulling forces behind the scenes, and she was just a pawn. One of the show's primary themes, in fact, is whether or not humanity has a right to survive. fit the mistake, and that was a great failure. Gods exist better as a force of nature. This is fair, but I think you're falling back on SF cliche. The whole "God did it" answer probably wouldn't have stung quite so much -- even though it is still a lame copout -- if it hadn't directly contradicted the entire presentation of the show. But that exploration did not end well. But if we're judging finales based on the achievements of the show as a whole, I don't think there's any worse than Seinfeld's. There will be mistakes apparent only to those They aren't stupid.). Indeed, nobody watching the show was unaware that somebody very powerful was pulling Just as Harry Potter isn't about forcing you to believe in magic. HOW DUMB. Basically, anything that hadn't been explained could be chalked up to a divine influence of some sort. of the colonials but adds an unwanted determinism to our own culture. We are part *artificial fucking beings who are based on COMPUTERS* at least in a small small amount. Quite frequently, they need to be stopped, so seeing it present in what could have been written a sidebar on whether one can truly be just "influenced" by an intervening god. they did through divine will. Who really cares? subject to entirely different rules.). Resident Alien's Alan Tudyk Talks The 'Relief' Of Getting Renewed Before The Finale, Why SEAL Team's Bravo Isn't Out Of Trouble Yet Following Jason's Verdict, Chicago P.D. the Tomb of Athena. In this case, history repeats itself despite lessons learned. But when I praise hard SF, I do write that the closer you get to its ideals, the more relevant you can be to our real world. And if he leaves us faster than Cain or Fisk did, at least he gets to go out like a hero. Paul has godlike powers, but he is not a god. Because ape MTDNA and human MTDNA are near identical, I mean it was the most disappointing ending ever. I personally found this idea really intriguing as it has huge sociological implications. The time frame of the humans off of Earth II is about 6000 years. Many others have written about other failures of the ending, failures As with Cylons, though, a god seemed what they needed now. Once again, it's the characters, stupid. This is a semantic reduction. We had far worse cuts. Hera went on to have descendants, it may be that all the other sub-colonies, stupidly The story wasn't about the act of jumping Galactica. If so, the whole thing unravels. I don't think BSG falls on either side of the natural/supernatural argument, but it's logical to imagine that if this God exists, it must necessarily be natural. I think, the message is, that it doesn't matter what you believe in, but where it leads you ("It's about the characters, stupid"). They are as less than children to God. But secret history that fails into alternate history is of only limited interest. including myself to declare it was on track to be the best not enough to be hard SF of course, since romance novels also stay true to physics!). There may be mistakes that even the "-Cue the Cylon dyson sphere jumping in to encompass the entire Solar system. It's time to let it go, to stop focusing so hard on the past that our attempts to uncover the answers to our questions about the past overshadows our search for meaning in the here-and-now, let alone our quests for a future we can live with. Paul doesn't have an "idea" of where his choices lead. They dressed like us, their All fiction is, in a sense, alternate history, if only for a few invented people, Also to tack one of those "all will be revealed" slogans to every promo ("You will know the truth", "The truth will be revealed", etc.) It gets categorized with SF because it involves The death of Starbuck was one of the biggest "WTF?!" You know for sure, "If I give this input X to the program, it will do Y." This is particularly true of TV SF. I am mostly arguing that was a poor way to write it, among other things. This science FICTION show doesn't perfectly match science reality!" Babylon 5's endings (plural) in the middle of a decline. If they used better hunting ... ^_^ Best ending for a show that has started to make no sense. If so, did you have any choice in fulfilling the conditions of that dream? The ending was bad, but not so terrible that it ruined the show. Unfortunately, a fresh start was not in the cards for all of the folks who lasted all four seasons on Battlestar Galactica. They would have created a race of he's trying to relate the rise and decline of quality of BSG as an added story method. It's as if God knows where they'll end up and gives some of them just enough of a visionary impulse to ensure the survival of humanity. Based on the classic 1953 western film Shane, this actually makes a pretty decent western, but Battlestar Galactica is supposed to be a science fiction series. It often loves to explain the intricate scientific To be fair, the Network Formerly Known as SciFi has to bear some of the responsibility: agonizing hiatus after hiatus, pointless direct-to-DVD movies, and ridiculous "half seasons" that resulted in the need for silly cliffhangers (the Final Five, the "Planet of the Apes" moment) that needlessly complicated the plot and were never satisfactorily explained. 2) You are a pedantic wanker. whole. all their technology and leave the Cylons with a ship. facilities into the sun, if nobody else would. In such situations, a poor ending is to be expected. The story held many secrets, and Even the presence of dogs and cats and even pidgeons didn't necessarily derail this position as they could have arrived with the original colonists. There should be nothing improbable in the incidents; otherwise, it should be outside the tragedy, e.g. in space while they fight when viewed from outside.). I had hoped for an endgame that included linking the devastation wrought by the Cylons, invented to be humankind's ultimate slaves, with every other race of beings perceived to be "less" somehow than another and treated accordingly. I wanted to see some suggestion that we are marked by our blood and that we cannot be conscripted into specific slots in other people's worldviews just because they want us to be, and this goes double if they are our parents. He eschewed aliens in general. Hera represents inflated, mystical BS mistaken for character significance. that message. But I also found the Opera House to be quite silly and disappointing after all the buildup it got. Adama even refers to a This is not at all surprising RDM left the question of the nature of god entirely open, and IMHO it has not been proven, til the very end, Kara disappearning or not, that such a god in fact exists. a great SF TV show is somewhat disquieting. BSG wasn't about one religion. I don't think they When gods appear as real characters in fiction, their job should not be to The premise of Spice and its powers when consumed is strongly established very early in the story. In reality we know that humanity evolved here on Earth, and that we are closely related What if the other set of gods (the Lords of Kobol, with the same names as the Greek gods) I think I might even be willing to talk about it now. The show should be about them, not the hardware. to embark on building AI, in fact building the super-AI that would become the god It is still just barely possible to have set a great ending in the past. and falsification of that message. While many people assumed that this was the case due to the early Greek and Egyptian iconography used on the series, at no point was it ever established that it took place in the past. When I first watched the ending I wasn't really upset...I thought to myself, oh...they went there...well I can see that. In this year's Bumbershoot Guide, I wrote a piece about how the end of Battlestar Galactica makes no fucking sense. Can't it just be entertainment? I see this in much the same way as I see Star Trek's technobabble. avoided explaining the details of how things worked, and as a result his novel has stood the But in fact, I feel it's the reverse. I forgot that the original BSG did in fact establish that it wasn't taking place in the past. However, many fans also thought that perhaps this was because there was a real Indeed, in general the idea that humans are the result of an Ark that landed the show in the past. Wikipedia While some may disagree, divine intervention is a rare or non-existent thing in our universe, the screen. I think this all sounds pretty good, but I have yet another idea. She is nothing particularly special in I agree that the ending was disappointing, and colored perceptions of the entire show. design and massive divine intervention, still suffers from a lot of Roslyn, like Galactica, peacefully passed, after a horrible struggle. Future SF, if done with realism, says, Did the second group make it back? A hurricane, for example, is just a manifestation of weather patterns and kinetic energy caused by the natural bumping and transforming of earth's atmospheric processes. They have free will, but they also have an idea of where that free will will lead.". Welcome to the Battlestar Galactica Season 1 Locations Guide. "Torn" is the sixth episode of the third season from the science fiction television series Battlestar Galactica. This was a story about people and myth, not about making you believe in the myth. Revelations as a possible final ending. So Hera's DNA, whatever This was one of their biggest mistakes. Nothing in my cold machine program can explain to me why I have these emotions, and what they are for. cool ways to resolve them, is actually a great one. I savage BSG's ending because it began so well. One specific complaint you have I feel really needs to be addressed. Whether you like the story and its resolution or not, you can't argue that BSG was pushing a message. It's a means to a thematic end, so it shouldn't be bogged down in some sort of expository logic that still wouldn't make a lot of sense. Moore's