Break a Leg

Well, it's finally happened. After 73 episodes, 27 webisodes, and a few TV movies and of course the original miniseries pilot, Battlestar Galactica is finally over. As much as I looked forward to staying up late (I'm a father, 10 PM is late) every Friday just to see what ridiculous plot holes the Galactica's FTL drive would jump the fleet through, I'm actually a little relieved that it's over.

My prior opinions on the show are a matter of public record, so I thought it would be an utter delight to look in retrospect at the show now that it's all over. Almost over, rather: The Plan!

Ron Moore made no secret of the fact that he and the writers made the whole damn thing up as they went along, and although that worked well for Yuri and Vlad in the already ridiculous Break A Leg universe it didn't always yield desirable results on BSG. Let's look at the finale for illustration.

Starting with what I liked, I'm actually a bit surprised myself. Considering my prior poor opinions of Baltar as a character and a storytelling device (which really only got worse as the show progressed), his development in the finale, though obvious, redeemed him entirely in my eyes. His speech to Cavil on the bridge of Galactica was a masterful culmination of his seemingly bizarre and random foray into becoming a religious prophet, and I felt one of the only moments in the finale that successfully managed to wrap up loose ends and answer questions in a satisfying way. I had chills.

Another moment in the finale that I loved also involved Baltar, but it was far more basic and emotional. He tells Six about his plans to farm some land that he spotted on the way down to the planet, then cracks as he is reminded of his father, who taught him to farm while growing up. It's one of the most touching moments in the entire run of the show and could only have been possible knowing Baltar's entire history and character throughout the show.

Chief Tyrol snapping that bitch Tory's neck after he finds out the she killed Callie is the moment I was waiting for all season. It would have been even more satisfying had the writers not forgotten about her entirely up until then; since blasting Callie out of a launch tube we've basically neither seen nor heard from her annoying ass at all. Oh well, missed opportunity.

Now for the things I hated, and they are pretty much what everyone on the internet has not liked.

When I first finished watching the finale I was... pissed. Everybody's an angel or whatever? Fuck you! I felt cheated and that Moore just didn't know how to wrap everything up, so he yanked the ultimate deus ex machina (in fact, a literal deus ex machina) out of his ass to wrap up two of the most mysterious and pervasive questions on the show: what is the nature of the Six in Baltar's head, and what is Kara Thrace?

I'm pretending that the Baltar in Six's head doesn't exist, because I had entirely forgotten about him before the finale and kind of wish Moore had as well. 

Now don't get me wrong, I still think he spent the entire season writing himself into a corner (or rather failing to write "hooks" or lay breadcrumbs in prior episodes that he could reference in the finale). I still think he copped out, or ran out of time, or just plain didn't realize how large a problem he had set for himself as he deepened (or neglected to address) the two main questions on the show. When you build up a question as large as (Baltar's) Six's nature over four seasons without a single scrap or clue as to what the answer may be (or even whether there is really an answer), then you really are left with little else than "She's an angel".

However, if you set aside the bullshit copout of answering two large questions as "angel" and examine them in the broader perspective, it starts to make sense. Moore didn't properly set the stage for those answers to work within the context of the show, or for their being angels to feel at all satisfying as resolutions to plot questions. But if you kind of squint your mind's eye and pretend he did his job as a storyteller and prepare the audience properly, you may realize (like I have) that it works. He fucked up the reveal, but it works.

There are of course numerous plot holes. Let's list a few:

Kara's an angel, fine. That explains how she got back to Galactica after she died... on Earth! How did her ship manage to crash-land on Earth with her inside? It blew up in the nebula.

How did her father teach her a song, also written in musical notation by Hera, that wound up being the way to punch in the coordinates to jump to our Earth? Before you say her father is the boxed Cylon Daniel, he's not. Moore has already directly refuted that hypothesis.

I also liked how Adama told his gunnery captain to start firing away as soon as they jump in to the Colony... but then they just don't. At all. It's like they all sit there getting pummeled by the guns, Adama screaming that they can't much more of this (or was that Tigh?), and nobody on Galactica is firing back. Not a plot whole per se, just an annoying lack of attention to detail.

Here's a good one to wrap it up: how in the world, on a ship as utterly massive as the Colony, did they manage to crash the ship (and land the Raptors) within what must have been less than 500 yards of Hera's position? And why didn't Cavil have any Cylon resistance inside the colony? Had there been any Centurions inside at all, the human boarding party would have had no hope of reaching Hera before Galactica was destroyed.

In any event, it's all over now except for the splitting of hairs and counting the money. I'll probably watch The Plan, since the other TV movies were pretty damn good, and I'll give Caprica a shot despite the fact that it looks like all the soap opera of BSG with none of the Star Wars.

I guess I'll miss you, BSG, you were certainly unique and creative, in a medium filled with same and conventional.

Anyone else have any dissenting opinions?

Oh and by the way, spoilers above.