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akashiverAlas, BSG, we hardly knew ye.
Ah, Battlestar. You have declined from your glory days of awesomeness, but you still manage to cursh my soul occasionally, and for that I am grateful. For me, Galen's painful question of mid-season 4 - "How many of us have ended up with the people we truly wanted to be with?" - hung over the series finale. You see, I didn't end up with the finale I originally wanted to be with. Like a lot of season 4, it was imperfect, incomplete, and ultimately incapable of delivering on the full promise of BSG's earlier seasons. But that said, at least I (like, say, Caprica 6 and Baltar) ended up with a version of the thing I had wanted. I'm glad that the writers tried to close as many mysteries as they could at the end, and opposed to dropping them. I'm glad that even now, they didn't shrink back from tragedy. Galen throttling Tori? Gold. Boomer's death + flashback? Excellent. Roslin's death? Well-earned. Black crosses on foreheads? Oh, I wish we'd had more of that. I even liked the abruptness of Starbuck's disappearance - take that, Lee/Kara shippers! - even though I wanted A LOT more explanation as to what she was.
The bad/disappointing:
1)Hera. really, everything to do with Hera. I liked the replay of the opera house scene, but really... what was the big deal? Caprica 6 and Baltar didn't do anything exceptional to save her - Athena or Roslin would have picked her up if 6 didn't. Baltar (but not 6) did manage to get Cavil to put the gun down, but a) ...really? It's *that* easy to convince ultra-rational skeptic that God wants him to give the baby back? and b) ...I expected something a lot more heroic, or at least dramatic, from the angel-seers.
2) "Let's plunge the fleet into the sun, because technology = evil!!!!" Um, really? Couldn't you at least *try* to invent a better explanation? Something about the cylons invading or them never being able to repair the ships... Something that made sense?
3) Adama flashbacks. Why show the scene of him vomiting in the alley / bitching with Tigh? The other flashbacks were good. Adama's didn't add much until the end (though I'm curious as to what job he was turning down). I'm all for showing the flaws of characters, but I'd have been a lot more interested in seeing Adama's flawed relationship with Zach or his wife - something that reminded us of his more private failures.
4) Roslin being reduced to a cipher. Again, she didn't really get to do much in the finale. It's understandable, what with the dying n' all, but she had spent at least 2.5 seasons as a prophet & guide to earth. It seems unfair (not to mention problematic) that she goes out merely as Adama's romantic interest. (See girls? You can't wield political power/have a career AND a man.)
5) Kara Thrace. So she was an angel who didn't know it? What? Why would God (or whatever) bring her back ignorant of her real nature? And why did her mother tell her she was special in the first place? And how could she find her body on Earth 1 when she crashed way out in deep space? And...?
6) The God Plot: God, of course, is the writers. And apparently what God was building towards this whole time was giving the humans/cylons a chance at a mutual fresh start, which would then be rejected by Galen, which would be ok because Angel Kara would punch in the lucky numbers and jump to earth, leaving the bad cylons behind. I appreciate the "choice" part (I guess that was Plan A and Kara was Plan B?) but... what about Baltar getting his harem guns? Why was that part of God's plan, given that we never see them again? And why blow up Cloud 9? And... oh, never mind.
So, overall:
I really liked the finale's emphasis on personal tragedy. Ultimately, BSG has been a show about loss and about the cost of survival, and we got to see that in the conclusion, particularly in Galen's storyline. (Weren't he and Tori an item back on Earth 1? So basically, 2 of the women he loved killed 2 of the other women he loved, and all 3 betrayed him. That sucks.) I wasn't terribly happy about Galen and Adama wandering off to die in the wilderness, though I understand the writers' need to provide those characters with some form of closure. But still... I would have preferred Adama simply to committ suicide (too depressing for tv, I guess) and Galen to retreat into his projected fantasy house with Boomer.
As for the other characters endings: I wanted a few more flashbacks. I wanted one for Tori, so that we could be reminded as to why on earth we should care about the most unsympathetic cylon in the final 5. I guess I also wanted one for Hoshi, just to remind us that it should have been Gaeta, not Hoshi, receiving the Admiral's pins. I would have liked to have been reminded of a few more characters that have bit the dust over the years.
And I liked that Baltar and Caprica 6 ended up together at the end (hurray for dysfunctional couples!). Baltar never made the grand heroic sacrifice that I was expecting of his storyline, but... I like that and Caprica made it to their happy ending. And Ellen and Tigh, and Doc Coddle, and Lamkin...
I am curious as to what "The Plan" is going to cover. I hope that Leoben and D'Anna get some closure, and I particularly hope that Kara Thrace!Angel! gets a final scene with Leoben, because I for one want to know what the frak was going on.
Ah, Battlestar. You have declined from your glory days of awesomeness, but you still manage to cursh my soul occasionally, and for that I am grateful. For me, Galen's painful question of mid-season 4 - "How many of us have ended up with the people we truly wanted to be with?" - hung over the series finale. You see, I didn't end up with the finale I originally wanted to be with. Like a lot of season 4, it was imperfect, incomplete, and ultimately incapable of delivering on the full promise of BSG's earlier seasons. But that said, at least I (like, say, Caprica 6 and Baltar) ended up with a version of the thing I had wanted. I'm glad that the writers tried to close as many mysteries as they could at the end, and opposed to dropping them. I'm glad that even now, they didn't shrink back from tragedy. Galen throttling Tori? Gold. Boomer's death + flashback? Excellent. Roslin's death? Well-earned. Black crosses on foreheads? Oh, I wish we'd had more of that. I even liked the abruptness of Starbuck's disappearance - take that, Lee/Kara shippers! - even though I wanted A LOT more explanation as to what she was.
The bad/disappointing:
1)Hera. really, everything to do with Hera. I liked the replay of the opera house scene, but really... what was the big deal? Caprica 6 and Baltar didn't do anything exceptional to save her - Athena or Roslin would have picked her up if 6 didn't. Baltar (but not 6) did manage to get Cavil to put the gun down, but a) ...really? It's *that* easy to convince ultra-rational skeptic that God wants him to give the baby back? and b) ...I expected something a lot more heroic, or at least dramatic, from the angel-seers.
2) "Let's plunge the fleet into the sun, because technology = evil!!!!" Um, really? Couldn't you at least *try* to invent a better explanation? Something about the cylons invading or them never being able to repair the ships... Something that made sense?
3) Adama flashbacks. Why show the scene of him vomiting in the alley / bitching with Tigh? The other flashbacks were good. Adama's didn't add much until the end (though I'm curious as to what job he was turning down). I'm all for showing the flaws of characters, but I'd have been a lot more interested in seeing Adama's flawed relationship with Zach or his wife - something that reminded us of his more private failures.
4) Roslin being reduced to a cipher. Again, she didn't really get to do much in the finale. It's understandable, what with the dying n' all, but she had spent at least 2.5 seasons as a prophet & guide to earth. It seems unfair (not to mention problematic) that she goes out merely as Adama's romantic interest. (See girls? You can't wield political power/have a career AND a man.)
5) Kara Thrace. So she was an angel who didn't know it? What? Why would God (or whatever) bring her back ignorant of her real nature? And why did her mother tell her she was special in the first place? And how could she find her body on Earth 1 when she crashed way out in deep space? And...?
6) The God Plot: God, of course, is the writers. And apparently what God was building towards this whole time was giving the humans/cylons a chance at a mutual fresh start, which would then be rejected by Galen, which would be ok because Angel Kara would punch in the lucky numbers and jump to earth, leaving the bad cylons behind. I appreciate the "choice" part (I guess that was Plan A and Kara was Plan B?) but... what about Baltar getting his harem guns? Why was that part of God's plan, given that we never see them again? And why blow up Cloud 9? And... oh, never mind.
So, overall:
I really liked the finale's emphasis on personal tragedy. Ultimately, BSG has been a show about loss and about the cost of survival, and we got to see that in the conclusion, particularly in Galen's storyline. (Weren't he and Tori an item back on Earth 1? So basically, 2 of the women he loved killed 2 of the other women he loved, and all 3 betrayed him. That sucks.) I wasn't terribly happy about Galen and Adama wandering off to die in the wilderness, though I understand the writers' need to provide those characters with some form of closure. But still... I would have preferred Adama simply to committ suicide (too depressing for tv, I guess) and Galen to retreat into his projected fantasy house with Boomer.
As for the other characters endings: I wanted a few more flashbacks. I wanted one for Tori, so that we could be reminded as to why on earth we should care about the most unsympathetic cylon in the final 5. I guess I also wanted one for Hoshi, just to remind us that it should have been Gaeta, not Hoshi, receiving the Admiral's pins. I would have liked to have been reminded of a few more characters that have bit the dust over the years.
And I liked that Baltar and Caprica 6 ended up together at the end (hurray for dysfunctional couples!). Baltar never made the grand heroic sacrifice that I was expecting of his storyline, but... I like that and Caprica made it to their happy ending. And Ellen and Tigh, and Doc Coddle, and Lamkin...
I am curious as to what "The Plan" is going to cover. I hope that Leoben and D'Anna get some closure, and I particularly hope that Kara Thrace!Angel! gets a final scene with Leoben, because I for one want to know what the frak was going on.
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no subject
Date: 2009-03-21 09:45 pm (UTC)Did you understand why they all decided to sacrifice themselves for Hera, or was it just me who didn't understand? Also, I liked the way that they brought the opera house back and fulfilled that vision, but then they didn't really do anything with it, so what was its purpose at all? Meh.
So generally, it was like they had the right idea, but just not good enough writers to pull it all together? I dunno. Still, I don't feel like I wasted my time watching the show, at least.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-21 10:07 pm (UTC)You can see the cracks in the narrative that come not having a plan but wanting to have the illusion this was all part of the plan, but over all, I was really surprised by how good the finale was.
And, you know... it's all about Baltar and Caprica Six anyway. *dreamy smile*
no subject
Date: 2009-03-22 03:00 pm (UTC)Thinking on it some more, I think one of my frustrations with the final episode is that the characters had already made their choices, and just had to watch things play out. Boomer got to make a choice in the finale that affected the outcome of the climax; so did Galen, and Cavil. Baltar's choice was just to be there; ok, but I would have liked another choice at the crisis moment. Caprica 6, Athena, Roslin, Helo et al.... Their choices pretty much had already been made.
I guess that was in part the meaning of the flashbacks: Roslin, Adama, Lee+Kara's trajectories were all decided by decisions they'd made much earlier in life - Roslin choosing politics over her personal life, Adama refusing to move beyond his life as a Battleship commander, Kara+Lee deciding not to be together... but in teh interest of DramaZ!, I would have liked a few more characters to make a few more important decisions in the finale. Decisions that didn't include just "being there."
That said you're right. It was all about Baltar and Caprica 6 anyway, and so I am happy.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-22 03:50 pm (UTC)