QUOTE (Bronn Stone @ Mar 21 2009, 20.56)

Upon reflection, I don't think we can understate the necessity of saving Hera.

38,000+ humans and Cylons landed on Earth and spread out all over the planet. But only those who descended from one little half-Cylon girl in what would become Tanzania survived.

Again, this is because the writers said so. There's no established, rational reason why that had to be the case. 40,000 people is plenty to start a new species. Doubly so if they're not dumb enough to spread alone to the far corners of the earth. Maybe her half-Cylonness ensured she could breed with the cavemen or protected her and only her from earth born diseases. But if that's the case, than the happy ending is much less happy and I don't think they'd go so far to imply that let alone actually do it.

QUOTE (Bronn Stone @ Mar 21 2009, 20.56)

The refugees from the Twelve Colonies SHOULD have been able to populate the planet by themselves. But they didn't. And the writers know that we are smart enough to notice that and didn't have to spoon feed the answer to us.

If that is the 'real' ending, which is a possibility, than stopping on earth is about the worst thing the rest of humanity could've done. Their 'salvation' is a cruel joke and they all die off. A tad morbid. So the species doesn't survive, just a half breed and her cavemen half-half breeds. But if that's the case, Hera's still irrelevant and so are the rest of the Colonials. Their entire 5 year struggle all for naught. Because they die off with no meaningful contributions to the gene pool and if Hera wasn't there, most likely another 'Eve' from the cavemen would've done just as well.

Unless we're positing that something in Hera's genetics was necessary for the survivability and/or development of the aborigines, or for whatever random reason only her 'strain' survived and all others died. But it still comes down to a 'Because the writers said so' solution. She's necessary to the survival/progress of cavemen/colonials because they said she is. It fits a little bit given her superblood and unique heritage, but I'd still be curious to the answer of why she was necessary? Why couldn't the colonials breed and/or why did they die out? Were the cavemen destined to remain cavemen without her and why? Did she represent a shift to anatomically modern humanity that never would've occurred without her?

Yeah I can fill in the potential pieces on my own and they're not nonsensical ones like much of the rest of the show is, but it still strikes me as a tad lame and deterministic. Not to mention depressing and fruitless for the entire cast and series, since the inevitable conclusion is that they all die out on their 'newfound paradise'. It raises a real 'What was the point?' question. Homo-sapien didn't survive, Homo-colonialis didn't survive, Hera-sapien did.

QUOTE (aynatal2000 @ Mar 21 2009, 23.53)

What's really funny is that everyone is ticked off about the ending...but they got part or even more than they wanted!!!!LOL
We all wanted Baltar to be a...Cylon; a hybrid anything rather than the shallow self srving twit he appeared to be - and we got a different Baltar - an honorable decent man who shed his skin and went back to his roots... a farner.

We wanted the Final Five to be mystical, powerful - a bridge to change or discovery- and we got that
Everyone wanted Hera to be this great, super hybrid able to bring a new awareness to both sides and hopefully stop the war...and we got that. Moore gave us the great space battle we were drooling for - and gave some serious payback to folks who thought their shit didn't stink.( The look on Tory's face was priceless and the one on Galen's face was maniacal as he killed her.)Boomer saying she felt she had made her last choice and telling them to let the old man know she had owed him one... without the crappy flashbacks you wouldn't have known what she was talking about.
And what about the old man? Pathetic as he watched Galactica dying - cylons on her decks changing her forever.Hard on a soldier to see his love dying before his eyes and he had to watch it 24/7 with Roslin dying too.But his ladies put it to him in the end; stood up and did the nasty, gave him something to go out and roar about and they still held on And Kara?Last but not least the fact that everone agreed to give up all the amenities of their superioir lifestyle to be farmers, to work hard to not have to run anymore or slowly starve or beware that a familiar face might kill you - that seemed to surprise you all after the viciousness of the recon mission and the thousands they had lost? You can all complain about it but you will be talking about this finale for a long time...and that is just what Mr Moore and company wanted

Wha what? Is that klingon or something?

QUOTE (aynatal2000 @ Mar 21 2009, 23.53)

You can all complain about it but you will be talking about this finale for a long time...and that is just what Mr Moore and company wanted

He could have aired 3 hours of maggots taking apart an animal carcass and people would be talking about it for a while. That's not necessarily a good thing.

Also, all that insane random bs you listed? Nobody wanted it.

QUOTE (Yagathai @ Mar 22 2009, 03.57)

So, you know, I take back what I said earlier. You didn't have to like it -- that's fair. I can see how chicken liver is not to everyone's taste. It's even OK to hate it. But to say that it was crap, or it didn't work, or that it made no sense, well, that does actually mean that you didn't get it.

Why are you under this misapprehension that there's something to get? This show has been the victim of adhoc retconing, make shit up as you go along, pure out of your ass, fuck all previous foundation or the complete absense of foundation storytelling for years now. 'God's plan' isn't an answer, its a cookie-cutter catchall for all the things they didn't have a plan for or couldn't figure a solution to. Any notion that it all works or fits together is complete delusion because the fact is, anything they came up with (or as is the case for most of this, the 'nothing' that they came up with) would fit because 'Gods plan' covers everything you want it to by default. There's nothing thought-provoking or intrinsically creative about it. They just wrote a bunch of shit season after season without enough thought given to any sort of logical, meaningful, or satisfying conclusion at 4 seasons, 20 episodes later slapped a 'God did it' sticker on it and called it a day.

I fail to see how the fact that they had mystical shit on there before gives them a pass for what can only be called horrifically weak storytelling. Perhaps every show should introduce something supernatural so that they have a get out of jail free card for every tight story spot they write themselves into.

And even if we forgive and ignore this shit, what about the recent instances of storytelling that can only be called nonsensical and implausible by any contextual or real world standard? Noone pitching a fit after Adama decides to send the best remnants of humanity into the meat grinder to save a single girl? The 'lets go caveman' bullshit?

Not only is it crap, but its monumental crap. Trip, fall, and drown in an ocean of shit crap. I'm not knocking anyones taste who thinks otherwise (except for the indefensible statement that it was the 'best finale ever'.), but I'm fairly comfortable saying that there's nothing I've missed. Nothing I didn't 'get'. It just failed on just about every conceivable level. You'd have to try REALLY frakkin hard (IMO) to write a bigger disaster than this. This ain't chicken liver, its chicken shit.

QUOTE (Ran @ Mar 22 2009, 19.21)

Adama went after her because he was making a stand, a probably suicidal gesture, but one that offered a kind of validation for the existence of the human race (and the Cylons, at the same time). It was an emotional decision, and I bought that a lot of people bought onto it for various reasons: a chance to kill Cylons, a chance to make an end without quite feeling like sticking a gun to your head and pulling the trigger, a handful that really believed that the child was worth saving, and so on. The military rationale struck me as extremely low on the totem pole.

...

Well, the stand Adama was looking at making was a moral stand, rather than a military stand.

I assume, given that Adama was the boss of the ship, and the man with the plan, that those who wanted to go out killing Cylons were going to accept whatever crazy, insane plan he had. Rescuing Hera was neither here nor there, I suspect, for a lot of them.

And I don't buy it in the least. Its one of the dumbest moments in the series followed next episode by probably THE dumbest moment. Its also one that can't be papered over with 'God' explanations. Taking the cream of the humanity and the entire colonial leadership structure on a suicide mission to rescue a little girl is reckless and irresponsible. Pretending that not a single individual would raise a note of protest against such idiocy is silly, stupid, and an example of atrociously lazy writing. It could have been sold better, with a heavier emphasis on smacking around cylons (military necessity) rather than risking thousands for 1, but apparently they spent too many film-reels on bird swatting and Adama vomit.

Those things you 'buy' weren't really evident in the build up or execution. Maybe some people wanted to wack some cylons, but that wasn't what Adama pushed nor was that what they did. They didn't go to destroy the colony, they charged in, snatched Hera, and left as quickly as possible. It was only by sheer accident that heavy damage was done to the colony afterwards. The mission was just as absurd as a first glance suggests. Risking everything for a little girl. How fucking dumb does RDM and his staff have to be not to understand that may be a problem? Its shit that could've been resolved with minimal imagination and 5 minutes of screen time.

QUOTE (Myrddin @ Mar 22 2009, 19.51)

I should be surprised by the hate being flung around here, but since these are the same people who've been hating on the show for the last ummm three seasons, I'm not. Perfect ending? What show/book series has a perfect ending?

A perfect ending? That's REALLY what we were looking for. Expecting? That is the true source of our dissatisfaction? What a joke. And a completely moronic argument.

QUOTE (AndyP @ Mar 22 2009, 22.59)

So your wrong, there is nothing in the idea of Hera being the Mitochondrial Eve that precludes any of the other colonist from having succeeded.

So that about settles it. Hera was completely useless and the decision to rescue her just tragically stupid from any rational point of view.

QUOTE (Myrddin @ Mar 23 2009, 09.51)

The finale is certainly open to critisicm, as is the entire run of the show. I actually enjoy reading the discussions for what worked and what didn't. There is much to criticize show and I can fully see how logical and rational people can fall into every category in my lame quiz.

I continue to find it interesting that the people who hate the show the most A) still watched it to the end and B) spend more time, effort, and passion discussing the show than people who enjoyed the experience. And C) seem to assume that anyone who disagrees is stupid and has no taste.

Have you actually read the thread? Most of the 'stupid/no taste' type comments were directed at the many who disliked the finale. Your 'observation' is nonsense. Explain to me how 40,000 people spontaneously turning caveman is anything other than stupid and I'll give your further 'observations' the time of day.

QUOTE (Ran @ Mar 23 2009, 18.26)

As that fellow I linked earlier suggested, this is the least-bad decision they could make, given the need to break out of a cycle created by technology creating a false imperative to dominate in humans and then in Cylons. Doesn't mean most of them don't die in the first three years. But it does mean Hera survives long enough to have children.

Its a stupid decision on every conceivable level, not to mention an impossible one as 40,000 living, breathing humans are not going to go along. Even if it was possible, casting off all modern medicine, tools, shelter, food production, preservation, and technology of every sort is indeed the MOST-bad decision they could possibly make short of mass ritual suicide, which is the decision a third of Galactica pretty damned near DID make the week before with the rest of Galactica going along with it. How can you accept this shit? It doesn't just strain credulity, it kneecaps and curbstomps it into a quivering bloody pulp. You know this. Why are you willing to give them a pass for this incredibly weak horseshit?

And its all based on the incredibly flimsy and implausible internal show logic that technology inevitably leads towards slavery + robot genocide. You have to accept alot of silly shit for this to be even the least bit rational. And just because they say 'Happened before/again' a bunch of times doesn't make the premise any less silly. You're arguing from the point of internal show logic and quite frankly, their logic is fricken weak. And even if we accept it, the decision still remains stupid and impossible.

QUOTE (Werthead @ Mar 23 2009, 19.38)

On the podcast RDM is discussing the first plan they had for Season 4.5 and it sounds considerably more awesome than what they came up with. The final battle was going to be between Cavil's forces and an absolute shitload of rebel basestars accompanying /Galactica/, and half the civilian ships were going to be totalled. /Galactica/ was going to crash-land on Real Earth. The Final Cylon, Ellen, was going to be a much bigger deal because she was going to side with Cavil voluntarily. Gaeta and Zarek were going to survive and be allowed to take a chunk of the Fleet who agreed with them off to find another planet. Kara was going to find Real Earth based on the gas giant and yellow star shit she was talking about in the first episode of Season 4. The arming of the Baltarettes was going to be followed up on.

Hmm. Then they chucked that out during the writer's strike so they could have the piano-playing, the Tigh/Six/Ellen soap opera and the pigeon.

Interesting. That does explain a lot. Starbuck was always going to vanish with explanation though. And they kept the arming of the Baltarettes in, even though now it went nowhere.

Weird.

That sounds infinitely better than what they gave us. Now I'm really fucking pissed off. As you say, they took away all that cool shit and...you know...actually tying previous foundation into the eventual conclusion...and gave us bird swatting and Adama vomit.

QUOTE (Myrddin @ Mar 24 2009, 19.39)

You've hated the show for years. Nothing anyone has to say will change you mind.

When the show was good, I praised it. When the show was bad, I criticized it. Its had alot of bad to criticize the last several years. But when it was good, I was on board. The Gaeta storyline was one of the best they put on during the post 1.5 run of Galatica. It fares well against the best things the series has done. The only really bad thing about it (IMO of course) is that it didn't last long enough and ended too neatly.

I watch the show for moments like that. I've long since given up on the show returning to its first season and a half form on a consistent, start to finish basis. But even during its darkest days, the show always had the potential to give us the strong and even mind blowing series of episodes. And at its worst, its still a well acted, competently produced show. I shake my head alot with BSG. I roll my eyes alot with BSG. But I rarely feel the need to cringe. It takes an atrocity of dialog, a meaningless, self-important flaky speech that produces a slow-clap, the high school play quality line delivery to get me to that point. The type of thing that embarrasses me for watching it even if noone else is around. Happens all the damned time with Heroes. It rarely happens with BSG.

So even if the foundation is absent, ignored, or poorly exploited, even if the character reactions are incomprehensible, even if the latter seasons are retconned to hell and back, even if they constantly talked about a plan without actually having one, even if they continually pulled shit out of their ass with barely a thought as to how to rationalize it, even if they exposed us to needless filler shit when they could've been taking care of those things...at least BSG doesn't make me cringe much.

There, that's my praise. Now have I earned the right to watch the show and talk about it? Or is that only reserved for those engaged in a circle jerk of fawning praise? I get this shit enough on IMDB chat boards, this notion implied or otherwise that if you have bad things to say about the show, your voice isn't welcome. That 'haterz' need not apply. Well, live with it. Not everyone who watches and discusses the show is gonna love it. Even fans of the show are gonna have substantial criticisms when warranted. Its not exactly breaking news that this show has warranted TONS of criticism for quite a while. None of us are criticizing it because its 'not perfect', we're criticizing it because sometimes its just flat out bad.