I’ve mentioned this before, but I’ll go ahead and repeat. While watching the final season, I really had the feeling that the creative team had gotten the word that the show was not going to be renewed for another season (never did find out if that was actually the case), and were scrambling to tie up loose ends any way they could. And unfortunately, ran out of time.
The Cylons may have had a plan. They never told the writers what it was.
For the writers were Cylons, you see.
In discussing the ending, I have encountered a number of people who defend it on the grounds that right from the beginning, the religious elements were explicitly stated, and that therefor the revelations of the finale were anticipated. I think that sentiment completely and utterly ruins one of the great thematic strengths of the show. For the vast majority of the run, the uncertainty in the balance of reason vs. belief is maintained. Characters draw strength and direction from their faith, and yet they never get the unequivocal proof they so crave. For each suggestion that a divine presence is involved in events, there is a vaguely plausible explanation for why it might just be the work of chance or mere mortals. That inherent conflict is powerful and thought provoking. The idea that a set of beliefs can drive our actions and give us strength and drive and yet we will never know for sure if we are right or not is a powerful idea. And just as powerful is the question of to what extent any of us would be willing to follow a leader who doesn’t share our own beliefs. For all their certainty, for all they promise us, are they really just leading us down a path to our own doom? What is the correct course of action to take when my commander, the person I’ve sworn to follow and has always proven worthy seems to be willing to risk everything on mere superstition? It’s an extremely difficult question, one that we should all think about in our own lives, and the exploration of that idea is a great achievement of BSG.
And then in the end they tell us God did everything.
The problem I have with the ending is not that the answers had or had not been foreshadowed at some point. My problem with it is that they take a powerful, challenging theme of ambiguity and then completely undo it in the final act. Taking that core tension between reason and belief and giving a simple answer in the end was absolutely the wrong way to approach the conclusion.
I’ll thank you to keep your snark to yourself.
Yes! This exactly (although the last thirty seconds were so goddamn stupid that it was a whole nother layer). I had a very similar problem with the movie Contact except that it resolves the doubt in the other direction.
I thought this was uncalled for, but then I read what you were responding to and it seemed vaguely familiar; I really had to hunt for the reference, though.
As someone watching it for the first time (they were still going up the rocky ridge on Kovol when I last checked) … and no problem with spoilers … I am experiencing the show as making the case for materialism. The gradual acceptance that machines have emotions, “free will”, and what we experience as souls to at least the same degree as we do (or don’t) … except that they actually do get reincarnated and in exactly the same body, and the set-up that such realization means that we humans are machines of sorts as well. Something many of us of course accept but something that many in the general public do not. Yes, I’ll not be thrilled when I get to the God guided it all part in some particularly strange riff on deus ex machina … ?deus ut machina? I have found the apparent need for religion and faith in the Cylons to be a clever bit less in regard to if “God” or “gods” exist or even the question of following or not following those who lead based on faith but in regard to how this level of cognition seems to be primed to have such belief be it valid or not.
Do we ever see Cylon agnostics or atheists or are they all fundies … I mean deeply spiritual?
Some of the Cylon models are more closely examined than others; most of the ones focused on are fairly religious. I get the feeling that a couple of them – the doctor, the guy who often has that orange sportsjacket (can’t remember their names/numbers anymore) – are less devout, but at least still pay lipservice to their monotheism.
That’s a bit more understandable if you see Caprica, but never actually to the point of a necessary revelation. Just a background “oh, that’s probably why the Cylons are so big on their religion”.
Although there is an appearance by a literal deus ex machina late in the series*, “God” doesn’t really influence much of the action at all. All of the mess that everyone in is wholly the fault of the humans and Cylons, really.
It’s Kobol, by the way. (Showing its Mormon antecedents as a riff on Kolob).
The machina is a Viper, by the way.
Gotcha. 
It does look like a really out-of-line response if you don’t catch the joke. Kudos to Otto.
Drinking game: try to spot any instance of multiple Doctor Cylons. I think there was one, a wide shot. All the others get two- and three- and many-ups, but not the doctor. Weird. Or racist.
and I figured Ron Moore used to be a programmer…
Kobol came from the original BSG series, so it was Glen Larson. Who I don’t think was a programmer, but I believe is Mormon.
My recollection is that the Cylons aren’t as religious on the whole as they pay lip service to. It’s been a while since I’ve seen the show but the squirrelly reporter guy (Doral), and the crazy one that Starbuck interrogated (Leoban) are written as fundamentalists. The Sharon’s are written as spiritual but compassionate. The 6’s on the whole I think are mostly agnostic though Head Six is very religious. The 3’s, and one in particular, are heretical - she’s searching for an entirely different set of god’s. The 1’s are definitely atheist, though like a good fundamentalist leader he knows how to use religion to manipulate his flock.
I don’t think the end is as religious as it appears when taken in the context of “Caprica” which was in development at the same time that BSG was coming to an end. There are stories in Caprica where humans are taking the first steps into learning how to resurrect themselves into a virtual world after they die. If that technology is ever invented it raises some pretty crazy questions that I think would have been a lot of fun to explore - alas the interesting questions were wrapped in a pretty crummy show that got cancelled too quickly. Yes there’s a God in BSG but I think the questions Caprica was raising could get to a point where the God in the show is a rational unknown and not a supernatural deity.
Your view is spot on by the way - the show asks the question of where you draw a line between artificial life and real life. There are things the Cylons do that are very human, and things the humans do that are machine like.
Still, though, I seem to remember her being pretty insistently monotheistic when patiently explaining stuff to folks who keep talking about gods.
I want to dissent pretty strongly from this. There were (more and more occasional) episodes up to the end that were good (the last one that I really liked was “Someone to Watch Over Me”, fourth from the end; but it was a long drought before that). And the speech Apollo gave in “Crossroads, Part II” (the third season finale) about how “we are a gang, and we are on the run, and we do what we need to do to survive” was brilliant.
But IMO the show overall took a pretty serious downward turn right after 2-12, “Resurrection Ship Part II”. I have advised anyone I hear about who is new to the series to just stop there (or perhaps to also dig up that speech I mentioned upthread as a coda). Starting in the very next episode, we get into some risible shit (the cliched deus ex machina of using the hybrid Cylon-human blood to suddenly cure Roslyn’s cancer), and even Ronald Moore acknowledges the next ep after that (“Black Market”) is terrible. The whole New Caprica plotline is atrocious IMO, and then with Starbuck dying and returning and then disappearing, Baltar becoming a cult leader, random characters suddenly being retconned as Cylons despite all the plot holes that creates, the opera house nonsense and all the other touchy-feely gooey spiritual murk, not to mention the risible absurdity of giving up technology at the end, the audience-intelligence-insulting epilogue of the movie “The Plan”, etc., etc., it just tarnishes what was a brilliant series up to 2-12. Watch those 27 eps (including the miniseries before the first season) and you will have seen a brilliant, fairly self-contained piece of work. Beyond that point, caveat emptor.
Which is why some of the plot lines are fragmented. The writers never knew how much runway they had.
I can’t say I loved season three and four as much as the first two, but there are some gems in there. My fav episode by far was the escape from new caprica
Yeah, that one made me sit up and take notice again.
Okay. I’m nearing the end of S3, Baltar’s trial is about to begin.
Can someone tell me what happened to the Cylon who was the reporter that did the special on the forces? She was never found out that I know of but we haven’t seen her since that I can recall.
I just thought of her when trying to count up the Cylon models we know now … the first guy on the “plane” that was left after the we met the one on the planet who was became the fundie visionary. Caprica/head babe. Sharons. The atheist/pastor. Xena-bot. Reporter. Doctor Cylon. That’s 8. And whoever the final five are that are unmasked. 13 models all together right?
Whatever happened to all the other Cylons that Baltar was supposed to working on finding before he was tapped for VP? Was Sharon just wrong? Did the writers just drop it and assumed it would be forgotten? Will it come back? Did just come out of hiding and become overclass once the Cylons took over New Caprica?
Xena-bot was the reporter, IIRC.
From your list:
Atheist/pastor: Cavil - Number One
first guy on the “plane”: Leoben - Number Two
Xena-bot.: D’Anna - Number Three
Doctor Cylon: Simon - Number Four
Reporter: Doral - Number Five
Caprica/head babe: numerous names - Number Six
Number Seven: you haven’t encountered this one yet
Sharon: Sharon - Number Eight
Then there are the Final Five.
Sharon had suspicions so went to Baltar in private to be tested. Baltar’s test worked and identified her as a cylon but he freaked out about telling her because he believed her programming would kick in and she’d kill him. So he changed the results and showed her the green bar confirming that she was human. Why he didn’t go to Adama would be fun to talk about I think…
After Sharon he tested Ellen Tigh since (after some comedic run arounds) both Adama and Roslyn thought she was found under very mysterious circumstances. She passed the test as human as well. When 6 asked him if that was the real answer he said that he had reprogrammed the test so that everybody would pass because it was much easier that way…
After the season 1 cliffhanger the powers that be would have, rightly, concluded that his detector was faulty. We really never heard of it again.