I did not watch the newer version of Battlestar Galactica. After it had been on for a while, I started hearing good things about it, and it began to interest me. Not wanting to jump in in the middle, though, I figured I’d probably catch it all later on DVD.
But then came the finale, which seemed to be universally despised, at least by most of the folks who type on the intertubes. Apparently there was an overtly religious aspect which rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. (For the record, I am not religious, but I don’t necessarily mind fiction that has a spiritual aspect to it. I liked Eli Stone, for example.)
So, is the ending so bad that I should just skip the whole series? Did the God stuff come out of nowhere, or had these themes been introduced or at least hinted at earlier on? Did anybody here actually like the finale? Why?
I already know the big Starbuck spoiler; any others are probably minor in comparison, so don’t be shy.
The religious stuff is present throughout the whole series, although it’s never quite as overt as the big Starbuck spoiler. They certianly have no issue with quoting scripture, following prophecies, and the like, and there’s a continual theme of the humans’ 12 gods as opposed to the Cylons’ single god.
I haven’t seen the finale either, but I’ve scanned several summaries of it. It strikes me that people may be mistaken in thinking the show is overtly religious. Surely, it’s filled with religious themes, but to be “overtly religious” I’d think the show would have to explicitly endorse the notion that in the BSG universe there is a God (or Gods) who are directly manipulating events. And Balthar and Six explicitly deny this towards the end, when they say of the being that people have been calling “God” that “It doesn’t like to be called that.”
Sounds like the Cylons have been calling it a god, but it itself explicitly renounces any claim to that status. The safest bet, then, I think, is that it’s not a god.
In the original BSG, I recall an episode in which the heroes believed themselves to have found the gods, but discovered that what they’d found was instead simply an advanced race. (I don’t remember whether in that episode it turned out the gods just were an advanced race, or whether it turned out that this advanced race was not in fact the same set of beings as the BSG gods.) It seems to me the new series has taken a similar tack.
But, like I said, I haven’t actually seen the finale, so probably I’m missing something.
I liked the finale and as others posted there is a religious/spiritual thread through-out the series. I’d definitely not classify it as a show based upon religion though, it is really really good sci-fi, blow 'em up good in space, fun and doesn’t ignore that in an advanced civilization of billions (well, at first there are billions then… well you know) there are religious sects/beliefs. Additionally it is not surprising that in bad times (i.e. just about everyone is dead, you’re being pursued by a relentless enemy) some people turn to any form of belief for salvation. Characters are excellent and well developed and even thoughs who didn’t like the finale have to admit to becoming emotionally connected to at least one, and most likely several, characters in the show.
To be honest though, even if you don’t like the finale and how they wrapped up the story arc, to avoid it only for that would be missing out on some very amazing television through-out the series. I’m talking heart-pounding sci-fi action here!
I’d heard good things about the series but didn’t start watching until the final season aired; also caught some earlier episodes On Demand & during marathons. When it’s good, BSG is some of the best TV I’ve seen. Didn’t love all of the finale but–damn. Some fans just love to have conniptions & feel personally violated if a series isn’t 100% perfect.
Will definitely go back to the beginning & watch the whole thing, when time & hardware allow…
So, is the ending so bad that I should just skip the whole series? Did the God stuff come out of nowhere, or had these themes been introduced or at least hinted at earlier on? Did anybody here actually like the finale? Why?
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I loved the finale, but I really accepted the whole “God did it” aspect of it. For me, the final 35 minutes or so was a wonderful payoff for characters and story and I loved it entirely. It’s the best finale I’ve even seen, actually.
I have not understood the wide hate for it. It’s brilliant.
She basically did die in season 3, and was some sort of angelic being after that, even though she could touch people and things and physically existed.
She disappeared once she realized her purpose was over.
Yeah, the finale basically changes the whole dynamic. It turns out that the Six in Baltar’s head, the Baltar in Caprica Six’s head, and the returned Starbuck were all “angels” acting at the behest of some higher power who has been manipulating events since the beginning. He may not like being called “God,” but there’s nothing to suggest that he isn’t a god, at the very least of the mythological sort.
I didn’t think the finale was awful, although thinking about it in hindsight I’m less and less impressed with it.
The show is worth watching, I think. It cannot be called a complete success, because they set up a lot of stuff in the early seasons which they totally failed to pay off by the end, because the writers didn’t have any sort of idea of how things should go. They were just making things up as they went. And that’s itself not objectionable, but with this series in particular, which told the audience at every turn that things were headed somewhere, it was a letdown. They sold the show on the basis of something they had no intention, and no capability, to deliver.
However, they did an awful lot of things really well, including very good character work with a lot of different characters, the serious treating of questions of morality, prejudice, and humanity, and awesome space battles. The miniseries and first couple seasons were good, but with flaws. The latter two seasons, IMO, were up and down – the third season in particular opened with a spectacular, game-changing idea, which they then abandoned much earlier than they should have.
The other problem of course is that it was released in such chaotic ways that it’s hard to get the whole thing in order, to wit:
I thought the final episode was awful. I really hated it. But the good parts of the series are so very good that they more than make up for any disappointment I felt about the ending. Give it a try, I don’t think you’ll be sorry.
I wouldn’t skip the whole series just because of the mediocre ending. The series, as a whole, is phenomenal, and although the ending was not well received by many, there are still those that enjoyed it.
I really enjoyed the finale. And, even for those that didn’t, it was ballsy.
Anyways, the God/Gods aspects were always there. From the beginning. Though, of course, in the beginning it was used more for another difference between human and cylon (humans being polytheists and cylons being monotheist), but you had a lot of prophesies and religious based storylines throughout.
I really kind of wished the whole series had ended with “Revelations” (the last show of season “4.1”). It would have been a horrible downer ending, but it was such a great twist.
It’s not that the god aspect of the finale came out of left field. It’s that god was hamfistedly employed to “wrap up” every open plotline, some of which had involved lots of interesting twists and intriguing hints about the ultimate truth. (As any evolutionary biologist will tell you, “goddidit” is the most boring answer ever.)
Using a god is always subject to this kind of problem. If god could turn everyone into idiots at the end and make them do things normal humans would never do (give up all tech and live as the natives), why all the prophecies, head-angels, and hints? If you’re god, and you can make things the way you want them, why not make things the way you want them? And if there are good reasons for not doing that, why is it suddenly OK in the finale?
So I don’t think many fans were mad just because they object to a religious aspect; it’s that the all-powerful being was used as a cheat, after we’d been strung along trying to figure out the answers to these puzzles.
Caprica explains how the Cylons got religion in the first place.
Frankly the end was too much of a Deus Ex Machina thing for me…almost literally.
Kara Thrace, per the show’s producer, said she is whatever you (the viewer) want her to be. They consciously left it up in the air with no real explanation. While sometimes I think it is ok to leave things to the audience in this case I think the writers opted for a cop-out as they just could not figure what to do with her.
Frankly the shift in a sci-fi show to spirituality evaded more interesting sci-fi explanations. However it is easier when you can fall back on “it’s magic!”
That said I agree it is one of the best TV series in a looong time and well worth the watching.
As far as the existence of God or the gods, while good-Sharon is leading them to the tomb of Athena, she acknowledges that the beings the humans called gods actually existed, but just denies that they were actually gods. In an interesting twist, good-Sharon herself eventually takes on the name “Athena”. Given that there’s also a major character who goes by “Apollo”, I was hoping that they actually would become the mythical gods somehow at the end. Then again, I was also hoping that the whole “Arrow of Apollo” bit at the end of Season 1 would be resolved, not by the ancient artifact, but by a weapon wielded by Lee Adama. Prophecies are boring when they can be taken literally.
I’m ok with that actually. Whether they wanted to or not, giving up their technology was a foregone conclusion. It’s pretty much been a reoccuring theme in the show that the fleet can’t sustain itself forever. Parts break down and can’t be replaced.
And driving the fleet into the sun is actually a pretty good idea. What’s the alternative? Leave a couple dozen chunks of metal the size of office buildings or larger in space and hope their orbit doesn’t decay to the point where one day one of them falls out of the sky without warning?
Really, I would just turn it off once you reach the epilogue with Head Six and Head Baltar in modern day Earth.
