Lost, Battlestar Galactica, Game of Thrones … all shows that spoiled the joy when it turned out that the writers hadn’t adequately planned the ending.
That’s the thing about modern premium television … yes, you have the freedom to write complex, novel-length stories. You aren’t locked into the old episodic model.
But, it turns out, you damn well better have written that novel to the end before you make the show. You can’t wing it.
(I loved Galactica, but years later I’m sitting here thinking “what was the Cylons’ plan?”)
I was going to do a thread about this. This one irks me, and just, well, was ruined as badly as Lost. Just clearly in the middle rather than slowly towards the end.
All through the second or third season there was “the other 5” and it was mysterious and had loads of really interesting ideas. Then it just had a completely stupid resolution. Which was as if it was from a different TV series. It was Arya swanning about in Braavos, getting stabbed ten times, running about for a while, then sort of winning in the dark, with her enemy just becoming stupid as well.
Except if that stupid scene then changed the direction for the rest of the seasons.
I tell people to drop Lost at end of Season 3 (and probably skip second half of season 2 except finale). To drop Battlestar Galactica after Season 3. Now it’s Game of Thrones after end of Season 4. Five tainted it but never completely ruined it. You can form your own ending in your head. Pretend they’ve been cancelled.
I’ve done so with the books. I very much doubt GRRIMM will beat mines.
My understanding, from reading an online article sometime just after Galactica wrapped up, was that the showrunners and writers did not, in fact, know who “the other 5” were from the start. When they got to the point in the series where they were going to have to do the big reveal, they sat down in a room, and sorted through each of the show’s characters, reasoning out if there was any reason why that character couldn’t be a Cylon. Once they eliminated the ones who couldn’t be, they settled on their list of five who were.
(And, I completely agree; I loved the first few seasons of that show, but the final season came across, very strongly, that the show’s creators had no idea how to wrap things up.)
You had robots of which you have thousands of each of the seven types. They die. They reincarnate on a ship close by. If no ship close by they die.
Then the other five. Who seemed to have been removed from the others memories. Are just one off beings. Who, I dunno, live forever like a human with eternal life. Did they kill the rest of the models? Why were this lot different?
When it got to the near the end of Season 3, I thought the other five were on a different set of ships, shadowing the humans and supporting the humans. When those of the seven died away from their ships, they reincarnate on the five’s ships. And either be imprisoned, wiped and returned, or work with the five in favour of the humans. Thus a chance of human supporting seven models. Also those of the five who die reincarnate on the seven ships nearby, which can’t have happened, otherwise they’d know who they were. They’d have to be very careful too to not do that otherwise all would be revealed.
This alone made the whole thing nonsense:
The fact that Saul had known Adama all his life, would have maybe have noticed he’s been 70 years old since Adama was a boy. Didn’t make a shred of sense.
