QUOTE (Shryke @ Mar 14 2009, 20.45)

Who was gonna object?

Adama's reasons are fairly simple. It's the picture that sets him off. Hot Dog talks about the pictures that are left behind. They are all of people who are forgotten. The only people who know them are dead. And Adama sees Hera and HE remembers her and he finally just ... snaps. He's thinking "Fuck that. I remember Hera. I'm getting my men back" (except in this case men = Hera)

Galactica's dying and Adama has decided he's goign to ram it down the Cylons throats and skull-fuck them with it. And who's gonna object to that? It's pretty much what everyones wants to do anyway.

Maybe people who think the survival of the species is a higher priority than one little girl.

QUOTE (Shryke @ Mar 14 2009, 21.24)

Again, who was gonna object?

Don't give me some vague bullshit, give me a name. Give me a title at least. Give me someone who doesn't think "Let's take the last Battlestar, and instead of leaving it to rot, let's kill some fucking Cylons with it" is a good idea.

That wasn't his rationalization. Not to himself nor to them. He made no effort whatsoever to sell it on those grounds. In fact there was no selling or convincing of any sort. Just a bit of tape + gruff voice. As to who specifically would object? Bob the plumber. Jonie the deckhand. Carl the janitor. The literally thousands of people on Galactica who we've never met and know nothing about, many of whom (most of whom more likely) would have to have some problems with the notion of throwing away a third of the able military personnel in the fleet for a suicide mission to rescue a little girl.

If it was just the dying basestar, I wouldn't anticipate many problems. But its the basestar, its commander, its XO, the acting President of the colonies, the real President of the colonies, all its best pilots, a large portion of its fighter fleet, many of its weapons, most of its marines, no doubt many specialists and technicians. But the only person sent back to the other side of the line is the fricken doctor? I understand that doctors are important, yet Cottle's not expendable but the de facto leader of fucking humanity is? Give me a fucking break. Everyone just pretended that there was nothing wrong with this exercise is monumental stupidity. How the hell does that not strike you as absurd?

QUOTE (Shryke @ Mar 14 2009, 21.58)

He doesn't need to rationalize it to anyone. Everyone knows the reason. The Cylons took something from us, we're getting it the fuck back. Also, we're killing the hell out of the people who genocided us. Who needs a reason to kill Cylons? Who's gonna object to killing Cylons?

It's not just about rescuing a little girl, it's about hitting back at the enemies of humanity. And humanity has reached it's ragged edge and their fucking tired of getting pushed around and their gonna blow their enemies to hell. And I don't see anyone objecting to that idea.

Well apparently Adama, Ronald Moore, and a few others need this memo because the only reason explicitly put forward was to save a little girl. Pardon me if I doubt that evokes much passion from the struggling remnants of humanity, each of whom have already lost just about all of their family and friends. If this is indeed their last suicidal charge into the breach, their 'fuck it all, MASADA BABY!' moment, than perhaps they could've taken some screen time away from drunken Lee swatting birds to develop that a bit. It doesn't fucking take much. Instead we had an hour of (thus far) meaningless flashback followed by tape + voice in the last 5 minutes.

And while I have no doubt that many would be to the tipping point, ready and willing to give up and throw their lives away out of spite and vengeance (which have no doubt, that is what this mission is about for everyone not interested in saving a little girl...which is pretty much everyone not named Adama, Helo, Athena, Starbuck, and Roslin), there are gonna be some who still have a bit of hope left for humanity and see this for the senseless idiocy that it is. But apparently none of them were born with working vocal chords.

QUOTE (mcbigski @ Mar 14 2009, 22.10)

While I think it's kind of a cop out that all of the sudden Galactica is falling apart and can only make a few more jumps before it just disintegrates, assuming that's true, then sending it on a suicide run is the logical choice.

No its not. Or if it is, only with a bare minimum of expendable personnel. Because what I'm trying to pound home is that they're not just taking a dying ship with them, they're taking the cream of what's left of humanity and throwing it into the meat grinder to either save one loan little girl or to vent their frustrations over a pint of cylon blood (paid for with gallons of their own)

QUOTE (mcbigski @ Mar 14 2009, 22.10)

Humanity can spare another thousand or so, especially if it means a chance at ending Cavil's pursuit - and not all of the people on the mission are expecting to die, unless the plan is put Hera in a Raptor and then have everyone still alive commit ritual suicide. I don't get why Hera is essential though - if the future is cross breeds, then they're going to need to breed so many more human/cylon children anyway that Hera would be superflous.

How are they not expected to die? They're sending one crippled battlestar into the heart of enemy territory. A place with one entrance, exit, and upon which all guns are trained. Adama flat out said he expected it to be a one way ticket. Are they gonna have raptors enough to load most every volunteer when they abandon ship? If so, well shit, you're risking even more essential resources. Raptor's don't grow on trees. Humanity can spare a thousand. But not this thousand. The entire military and civilian leadership is gonna be on this mission. The best pilots. Most of the marines (saw alot of them crossing that line). Undoubtedly many techs, mechanics, etc with important, even indispensable skills. They are taking the best of what's left of the species and sending them to their likely death. That is not sensible. And its utterly ridiculous that noone raised an objection to it.

QUOTE (Ran @ Mar 15 2009, 07.13)

I think the fact that this is really a long, three hour episode broken into two parts perhaps explains some of the oddities. That said, I remain constantly amazed by the reactions some people have at storytelling that doesn't hammer plot-plot-plot all the time. Maybe the development of the characters is the whole point of the exercise. This show hasn't won critical plaudits because of the cool plots, but because of the implict allegory combined with complex characterization. As Faulkner said, the only stories really worth telling are those about, "the human heart in conflict with itself."

No surprise that the characters are in the forefront, again. If I had a guess, I think these flashbacks are providing us the truest picture of where these characters were before the Cylon attack, so that we can compare to where they are (and where they're going to be) at the end of the series. And that's how it ought to be, I think, for the closing episode to the series.

Eh? A bit of a mischaracterization of the opposition here. We're (or at least I'm) not pissed that it doesn't focus entirely on the plot all the time, but that it routinely neglects the plot in favor of so-called character scenes that are often redundant, excessive, and sometimes even pointless. If you can fit that shit in while maintaining a cohesive plot, properly developed with a strong foundation, fine. But they don't. They skip things that most sensible viewers would think is pretty essential to telling the story. Rush through things that demand to be more fully developed. And its not like they're consistent with their characterizations in the first place. They've been more than willing to alter how a character should (according to what we know about them) react to serve the particular plot twist of the moment. Lee is a regular victim of this schizophrenic character assassination via convenience.

This episode was one of the most glaring offenders. 40 minutes spent on minutia and flashbacks with 3 minutes devoted to the actual main plot of the finale that largely came out of nowhere and could not stand a rational examination because it was not properly developed in the least. And as a send off to the entire series as a whole its doubly disappointing for many of the reasons the Sci-fi board poster pointed out in a rather amusing fashion. This shit is getting really self-important and self-indulgent.

QUOTE (Werthead @ Mar 15 2009, 08.26)

We probably need to see what Adama's plan is before totally condemning it. Remember this is the guy who came up with the atmo-drop, so I'm assuming he has more of a plan in mind than just sacrificing the ship.

Do we really need to hear the plan to think this might not be a good idea? None of the 'tape-line volunteers' knew the plan, yet noone on either side of the tape raised objections. They just quietly went along with what was described up front as a suicide mission. I find this ridiculous.

QUOTE (Werthead @ Mar 15 2009, 10.23)

I see where you are coming from, but 'this episode' was never supposed to exist by itself. Originally it was one two-hour finale, episodes 419 and 420. Then they wrote and filmed so much stuff they extended it to three (419 and 420/421) but decided not to screen the three hours together for reasons never adequately explained (since next week Sci-Fi are showing all of Season 4.5 in one uninterrupted block from the afternoon through to the end of the finale). These first 44 minutes were never supposed to function by themselves as a single coherent episode. That's why it just stops almost mid-scene. If they'd planned from the start for it to be an episode by itself, it may have been different (or at the very least had a proper ending).

Also, Doc /Sherman/ Cottle? Interesting.

Maybe next week will come around and change my mind, but this development and support needed to happen before the line in the sand + speech moment. And I thought they had ample time to do it. But they chose to spend that time with flashbacks that answered questions that noone was asking. Yeah they were interesting enough character bits, but as I said when they pulled the piano shit, fine a season ago or so, a bit of a waste of limited screen time when you have a few hours of the ENTIRE show left. Its not like these characters haven't been sufficiently fleshed out in the 5 year run. Its not like there's any great internal mysteries about them (from a character standpoint, not from a 'what really happened to starbuck' perspective) that demand answers. They are not going to be any less rich and complex without these scenes. Quite frankly, I don't see why they were necessary. Or at the very least, they struck me as infinitely less important than actually fleshing out the main plot of the episode/finale in a convincing enough manner.

But who knows, maybe they'll pull a rabbit out of the hat next week that makes it all fit fine. I doubt it of course. I fully expect them to disregard all of the shit in this episode that had me raising my eyebrow to the ceiling. I doubt they even regard those issues as a problem. But Caprica? I can almost guarantee we're gonna see a bunch more of that.

QUOTE (Bronn Stone @ Mar 15 2009, 17.33)

You'd have a hard time making a worse ending couple of episodes for a series than those that finished B5.

The difference being most of BSG's problems are self induced. B5's final season was rough largely due to the fact that for a long stretch it didn't appear that they were gonna get one. Kind of threw a wrench in the mix. And that's only one in a long line of internal and external problems B5 faced during its existence. BSG by contrast has received little more than incessant support from Sci-fi, who heralded it as their flagship show. They had a budget and level of talent that B5 could only dream of, faced few of the constant troubles that B5 did during its tenure, and yet still manage to trip all over themselves on more than a few occasions.

QUOTE (Werthead @ Mar 19 2009, 07.10)

Since the last thread reached boxing stage.

Interesting article in the Guardian here which asks if BSG is better than The Wire. The answer is no, of course. But at its best, not far off.

Such a laughably absurd notion that I won't even bother reading the article. The Guardian should feel ashamed to have printed it. They've destroyed every ounce of credibility they've ever built up in their decades (centuries?) of print. Noone should ever buy the paper again. We should all laugh and snicker every time someone brings up a Guardian article as a source for any subject. The paper should be banished to the 9th level of hell and anyone who speaks of it again should be shot.

Now I'm off to General Chatter to scour the threads for a Guardian link so that I can mock the poster and dismiss their arguments as preemptively and self-evidently invalid.

I know there's an hour or so left...but this is fucking stupid.

That was worthless. A monumental waste of 2 hours, let alone 5 fucking years. Dear god its barely worth the effort to type this post or the bandwidth to send it on. I feel bad about strain I'm putting on my computer and keyboard. I knew for certain to expect the worst during the 'Last Frakking Special' special. The moment Ron Moore said 'Fuck the plot, its the characters stupid!', I knew we were fucked. No we won't bother with answering any of the enduring questions that have been with us since the beginning. No we won't make the slightest effort to make sense of any of the weird shit that we've been tantalizing you with for season after season. We'll feed a bunch of action sans reason or inspiration to keep the neandrethal crowd happy, than we'll follow it with an hour long Discovery channel nature special. WHOOPTIE-FUCKING-DO!

After a lame ass speech by Lee, the entirety of humanity decided to become neo-luddites? Seriously Ron? That's your pathetic way of tying this into our 'real world' history? We can't think of a real solution, so we'll write it off to spontaneous stupidity across the remnants of a species. But I guess its not that unusual considering the collective idiocy on display last episode which we've already covered here. There is no remotely rational explanation for throwing all the remaining progress of humanity, all the knowledge and technology into the sun. Fucking stupid...that's all that can be said about it. 40,000 people and not a single individual saying 'Fuck no, I'd like a ship/city/bar/lazy-boy nearby?' Fucking stupid.

And yeah, there was really so much necessary shit that they couldn't have possibly stuffed it into two hours. I mean how would the finale be complete without Adama vomiting all over himself or throwing a tantrum during a lie-detector test. Did they even know Cylons had skinjobs at that point? Why would they ask him?

And a fucking B-movie style warning against the evils of technology. Gee, what a profound and powerful message Ron. I'm sure I'll take that to heart. What is the message exactly? Dismantle all modern technology and go til the fields? Or simply if we do decide to create sentient robots, make sure we disable the genocidal tendencies chip? What.The.Fuck? When you fuck things up this badly, 'Its happened before and will happen again' doesn't become mythic, not profound, its just a silly ass tagline.

And even though they seemingly blew the ENTIRE FX budget for the season on this episode...anyone else feel underwhelmed? I've been wowed by the space battles of BSG before, but I sure as hell wasn't here. Monotonous and uninspired.

And largely pointless. Humans can procreate. Our species can survive. Why was Hera REMOTELY necessary to the survival of humanity? Another thing they didn't even bother to explain. She's no bridge to further human/cylon understanding, there's nothing left to understand. No technology left, the Cylons inclined to further murder are gone, and everyone's spread to the four corners of the world. Yes I get that she's the fossilized 'Eve'...so what happened? Did the other 40,000 people die out due to earth born diseases? Why couldn't they have been the cornerstone of the future of humanity? Or the many spear-chucking natives? Fuck it. i ain't even gonna try to make sense of it. Why? Because I know the writers didn't bother to do so, so why the fuck should I or anyone else try?

Fucking worthless, nonsensical, drippy, smell shit. Anyone...and I mean ANYONE who suggests putting this series into the top spot of Sci-fi shows ever after this revolting piece of shit finale needs their head examined. Seriously, you should all confess this, say 5 B5's, and beg forgiveness. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. FUCK FUCK FCUK!!

5 years. I want it back. I'll come to my senses in time and simply remember the moments when the series genuinely was brilliant. But fuck this noise right now. Fucking stupid and unforgivable. I feel that much dumber for having watched it.

QUOTE (Whiskeyjack @ Mar 20 2009, 22.41)

Can somebody please explain who was orchestrating everything? What was behind Head Six and Head Baltar? What brought Kara back from the dead (or as a ghost) to fulfill her destiny?

God. That's the answer to everything. Everything that doesn't make sense in the series. Every inconsistency that hasn't been retconned away. God. That's all you got to say. Saying anything else is a waste of thought and effort because rest assured, the writers didn't put any thought or effort into making sense of it themselves. Or if they ever did, they'd long since given up. Its god, god, God, god, god. Fuck this show.

People actually fucking liked this shit?

QUOTE (Aemon Stark @ Mar 20 2009, 23.37)

Maybe I feel myself more of a casual viewer at this point, but I'm not sure why the lack of explanations about absolutely everything really matters. In fact, I'd argue that any answer to the question of "who orchestrated everything" is going to sound overly simple and probably unsatisfying.

Well that's the risk you take when you create major mysteries in your show; at some point, you're gonna be called upon answer them. The answers might be disappointing or underwhelming, but you still have to fucking answer them. You do not get to send riddles to the viewers that keep them curious, keep them guessing for season after season, adding in no small measure to your overall viewership, than at the last moment say 'SURPRISE, we don't really have an answer and you're a fool for thinking we'd give you one!!'

QUOTE (Aemon Stark @ Mar 20 2009, 23.37)

It's left to your interpretation in the end (and I'm pretty sure that was Head Six and Head Baltar in the last scene).

Leaving to your interpretation presupposes that there's something to interpret. They gave us nothing. Several seasons of random, inexplicable weirdness than nothing. Its not an answer. Not a mysterious answer nor a 'to your interpretation' answer. Its a copout because the writers weren't creative enough to come up with solutions to their own self-made problems.

QUOTE (Aemon Stark @ Mar 20 2009, 23.37)

I also really enjoyed the emphasis on character this past season - it's about frakking time. While I do hold the first two seasons (or season and a half) as some of the best parts of BSG, they are plot-driven to the virtual exclusion of detailed characterization. The archetypes work very, very well, but they were never sufficient to sustain the series when the plot momentum ebbed or we were faced with a vaguely "stand alone" episode. It's the little details about each character that matter, though, and they finally started developing these toward the end.

The show managed plenty of characterization in its first two seasons. What they didn't do was shove it in our face and ram it down our throats with endless flashbacks that we can already surmise and don't really need. They weren't necessary and didn't really add much. I already knew who Kara, Lee, Tigh, and Adama were. About the useful bit was on Roslyn, but even that was drawn out further than was necessary. It was gratuitous, self-important trash largely created to distract us from the fact that they had no answers or direction.

QUOTE (Crazydog7 @ Mar 20 2009, 23.57)

So why was the "first" earth a devastated wasteland?

Because they needed a shocking conclusion to that season.

Its a day later and this is still fucking worthless.

QUOTE (aghrivaine @ Mar 21 2009, 16.42)

I can't recall a series finale that was as finely done.

I was gonna try to respond to this without coming off like a condescending prick, but its impossible. You must have exceedingly low standards. Or you've never watched another TV show in your life. I can grudgingly accept that some people don't think this was the mind-blowing clusterfuck, waste of 5 years and 3 hours disaster that I did. But best series finale ever? Are you shitting me? 6 Feet under. Sopranos. MASH. B5. The Wire. Fuck, even Star Trek tNG was better. DS9 was much better. Rome was better. West Wing was better. Hell, there are dozens if not hundreds of mediocre shows with bad finales that are better. Yeah, not everyone hated this. I get that. But who in their right mind places it atop the best finales ever? That's magic mushroom shit.

The action was poorly choreographed and rarely interesting. The dramatic high notes they tried for missed much more often than they hit. It dragged on far too long with RotK style false endings. The flashbacks were gratuitous and needless. Some of them serving as contrived retcons. (Ander's is a robotic, physics loving perfectionist? Where did this characterization come into play in any of the previous seasons? What's that? Pulled it out of your ass at the last moment? Just like most of the other shit in this series?)

None of the series long questions were answered. Every mystery created, every corner written into was copped out. No special significance to the Opera house, just a lame ass vision of several characters looking for a little girl. No special significance to Hera for the humans when you come right down to it. She's needless in the end. Kara played Deus Ex. The rescue mission was still idiotic and Lee 'lets all go caveman' idea not only monumentally stupid, but completely ridiculous that all 40,000 would go along with it.

The 'beware robots and technology' warning was B-movie trash and completely without merit.

Give me 100 chimps, 100 typewriters and an FX budget and I guarantee you'd get a more logical, coherent, and entertaining finale than this.

QUOTE (Ran @ Mar 21 2009, 19.21)

I kind of feel sorry for those railing away at it, having their expectations crushed so. It's sad that, obviously, it didn't push any buttons for them. Go figure -- mileage does vary. I wouldn't call this the greatest finale ever by any stretch of the imagination, but it was a thematically rich, consistent, and appropriately character-oriented ending to the show.

A shame.

I've been watching this show for 5 seasons. I suffered through the 1.5+ filler episodes. I endured the love triangle. I cringed through incoherence, I accepted retcons. I *weep* watched Black Market. And I watched this show tick off its last few episodes without answering much, dealing more with character (sometimes interesting, sometimes not) rather than plot, and tossing on more filler as the last few hours came and went. I did not have huge expectations for this finale. In fact I had quite limited expectations. Though I expected some answers, good drama and action, and a reasonably satisfying end to the series. This was well below that exceedingly average expectations I had going into it. Really it was quite the disaster IMO. I was shouting at the screen how much it fucking sucked with an hour to go. I couldn't believe it. Another needless flashback follow by another nature scene. Rolling my eyes, constantly bringing the clock up on screen, willing the episode and the series to fucking end. You can't make a finale this bad on accident. You have to invest a TON of time and effort into it. It was excruciating from the earth point onward.

QUOTE (Ran @ Mar 21 2009, 19.21)

If Hera hadn't been taken, the suicide mission would never have happened, and Kara would not have been put in the position that at last led to the jump to Earth. Humanity would have died out there in space, wandering around trying to find some suitable homeworld and never finding it. If God nudges but does not entirely decide, the moment Adama and a part of the fleet decide to take that suicide mission is one of the key moments of the series.

Which is still overly convenient, contrived nonsense. Its a 'Because the writers said so' solution. Kara could've typed that shit in 10 episodes ago, but she didn't...because the writers didn't want her to yet. But there is nothing about Hera that makes her intrinsically useful or necessary to humanity. They don't need her to continue the species. Hell, they don't need any of the skinjobs at all. Yet they still led a suicidal mission with the best that humanity had left, risking everything for one unnecessary little girl. Its irrational, nonsensical crap.

I don't think wanting something to make sense is raising my expectations too high.

QUOTE (Aemon Stark @ Mar 21 2009, 19.39)

Except that would seem to be one of the major themes of the show. Who created the Cylons again? It's Skynet in space.

I think the reaction to this finale is inevitably going to be very divided. (that's clear enough here)

But it still comes down to hating on progress for the sake of hating on progress and pretending that its some profound, meaningful message. There are more than enough inevitable and/or highly likely 'ills of progress' to be warned about before we give this half-baked crap a second thought. Yeah its a theme of the show, fair enough. But they don't need to club us over the head with it at the very end with the 'OMG, the JAPANESE ARE MAKING ROBOTS!' crap. I saw more powerful 'beware of tech' messages on the excruciatingly cringe-worthy Maximum Overdrive. Sentient, self-aware machines destroying mankind aren't high on anyones list of worries nor should it be. It was silly, B-movie cheese.

QUOTE (aghrivaine @ Mar 21 2009, 20.28)

EHK is finally right about something! He does, in fact, sound like a condescending prick!

What I liked about this was that it brought everything together, all the disparate threads from 5 years of shows - into one story; the recovery of Hera and taking her to Earth, where she became the progenitor of the next "turn on the wheel". Every character played a role in making that happen, and each of them had their individual stories brought together in that moment, with that action.

But it came together because they chucked it all into a pot and arbitrarily declared 'Its together'. None of it actually meshed in a rational or satisfying fashion. None of it was reasonable conclusion of several seasons of logical foundational buildup. (or if there was any of those things, it was very little) It was not what even the most generous viewer would describe as coherent or consistent. Time and time again it was 'its this way because we say its this way'. This was not a puzzle meticulously pieced together to give us a grand picture at the end. This was a bunch of random pieces from dozens of different puzzles, randomly cut to fit when necessary, redrawn when retconning called for it, fitting together via fiat to draw a picture that is neither consistent nor coherent.

QUOTE (aghrivaine @ Mar 21 2009, 20.28)

It's not that the "Hey, let's all live in teepees!" doesn't strain credulity - it does! But it's a place where we see the clear hand of the writer, bringing it all back in together. It's what leads us to OUR world, OUR earth, which makes the story not just symbolically relevant to us, something it's always been.

It doesn't just strain credulity, it destroys it entirely. Doubly so when 40,000 people spontaneously go along with such nonsense. If the writers want to 'bring it all back together', shouldn't they be required to do it in a manner that makes sense? Instead of simply declaring 'Its together!', which is what they did, shouldn't we demand they exercise a bit of imagination come up with an explanation that doesn't require 40,000 people unanimously chucking rational thought? I'd rather they don't try to fit it in at all rather than do it this way.

Relic describes it quite well a few posts ago. The A's, B's, C's, and D's don't fit together. One does not logically lead to the other. Inconsistencies are ignored or papered over with some variation of 'God did it'. The foundation laid before bears little relevance to the conclusions drawn later.

QUOTE (Sebastian @ Mar 21 2009, 20.36)

Looking through a few different forums and blogs, I'm simply baffled how well this ending is received on average. I'm seriously doubting the sanity of people who like it. This is not supposed to be an insult, I really don't understand. It seems to me like an obvious, almost mathematical truth that this ending is an abomination. I just cannot contemplate that anyone would enjoy it, let alone think it the best series finale ever.

I approve this message.