Battlestar Galactica Finale Review - Part 2

So, where were we when last we met? Oh yes, gunfight in the CIC while multiple nukes streaked toward the Cylon base and the Galactica. Let’s go from there.

BOOM! Multiple nuclear impacts on the Cylon base and it’s chaos. Cavil decides that he’s not going to be taken alive and eats a bullet. With the rest of the bad Cylons disposed of and the Cylon base exploding all around them, Adama feels now is a good time to pull out of the base and get out of there. Due to the damage to the ship from the explosion, Starbuck is the only one near the FTL. When asked where to jump to, Adama tells her to jump anywhere that isn’t where they are.

She is then struck by a notion. Earlier in the season, she had assigned numbers to the notes of the Cylon battle song, aka “All Along the Watchtower”. She then types those numbers into the FTL and hits enter. The Galactica then jumps to those coordinates and all is not well. It looks like that place will become their home, since the Galactica starts to buck and all but breaks apart. We are then treated with probably the best shot in the history of the show.

We pan from the Galactica to a surface that looks distinctly like the Moon and suddenly see, as plain as day, Earth. Or, in this case, our version of Earth. Holy shit, they found Earth!!!! Wait a minute; I thought Earth was a barren, post-apocalyptic wasteland. Well, you see, it seems as if the Earth they originally found was their original home planet, while this Earth is much like it, yet completely different. Thoroughly confused yet? Good.

Anyway, Adama sends a Raptor to the rendezvous point that “Admiral” Hoshi led the Colonial fleet and brought them back to this new and improved Earth, now free of nuclear waste. So, they land and survey the territory. Looks as if the people are extremely primitive, traveling in packs by foot with spears. Anyway, this is now home. And here endth the show. Wait, what do you mean there’s more? Oh crap, we still have 20 minutes left.

To wrap things up, the Centurions are cut loose to go wherever they want while Adama slaves the whole fleet to the Galactica and has Sam fly it all into the Sun. You see, Lee decides that technology is bad and they should live in the wide-open expanse of the land, and not be encumbered by massive cities and whatnot. They plan to move people to all corners of the Earth and populate the planet and breed prejudice against machines.

We catch up on some of the survivors. Tyrol is going to go to a cold, lonely island up north so he can be alone with himself. Helo (oh my God, he’s alive!) and Athena are walking (him with a cane) with Hera. Six and Baltar decide to go start a farm together.

We go down to the plains and see Adama and Roslin watching the wild life. Roslin looks like she’s going to die at any minute. I think Adama notices this too since he asks if she would like a closer look. He carries her into the Raptor and says goodbye to both Lee and Starbuck.

Starbuck then tells Lee that she will be leaving shortly too. He goes into some long rant about something or other and turns around and she’s disappeared (probably couldn’t take is babbling anymore). So, I’m still trying to figure out what she actually was. There are just too many possibilities. Of course, Ronald Moore said in an interview that he wasn’t sure either. I’m not sure if I should be pissed off about that or not.

In the Raptor, as they are flying over the wildlife, Roslin silently passes away. Adama pretty much loses it and slips his wedding ring onto her hand. At this point, myself and Seamus (some 300 miles away) both realize our respective living rooms are a tad dusty. Anyway, Adama finds a place to land and goes about to build the perfect log cabin that they had talked about on New Caprica.

We then close in on little Hera and the ground she is walking on. Then, we flash-forward 150,000 years and see writer/executive producer Ronald Moore reading a newspaper and here the news the a body of a girl was found in Africa and is about 150,000 years old, the oldest body ever found. Then the apparitions of Baltar and Six start to talk about how far mankind has come but yet look to be on the same path as previously (it’s all happened before, it’ll all happen again). They feel that man can still save itself, as they haven’t gone down the road yet. We close in on a TV screen in a store window that shows us all the great things being done with robots while we hear a more modern version of “All Along the Watchtower”. We then see them both walking together and blending into the crowd of people walking the streets. Fade to black.

I know that there are so many people who want to beat the crap out of this ending. In fact, if they had ended it with when they first landed on Earth and we found out it was our Earth, just thousands of years in the past; I would have been cool with that. The problem is the tacked on ending felt, well, tacked on.

It seemed like an unnecessary finish and wanted to tie the whole thing up in a neat little package. The best part of this show was the fact that it flew off in all directions and kept you guessing. The minute they saw Earth, I knew all was well and the journey had been about something. They had not only found home, but their second chance. A way to save humanity and not fall into the same trappings that destroyed them in the first place.

The very end with Baltar and Six was overkill as they shoved religion down our throats (but seriously, the show had religious overtones throughout). That said, I liked the fact that we saw just how mankind had evolved and that, while on the same road as others, we still have our freewill in all this. That, combined with a little luck, will mean we won’t befall the same fate as our “ancestors”.

One of the best moments in the whole series was when they found Earth. Moore suckered us all at the end of last season by giving us the barren wasteland of Earth. Shock and awe was pretty much my reaction. It all makes sense now. They were searching for their Earth and, in the end, found a new version of it. Sweet wrap-up to the series.

Seamus, while less than enthralled, enjoyed the finale. He thought the space battle was the best in the series. I will debate that it finishes second to the battle of Galactica and Pegasus against the Basestars above New Caprica in “Crossroads”. He thought the ending was crap and didn’t need to be there. Even invoked the finale of Star Trek Voyager to make his argument. The Duchess, on the other hand, felt the final moments were too preachy. Seriously, I can’t debate her on that.

Here’s the thing, the finale did what the show always did. He pushed the envelope, stayed true to itself, and caused a lot of people to start talking. That’s what the show was always about to me, and that’s why it was great. I think my major gripe was the fact that the show had to end and with such a thin plot point. You want to have a final Cylon/human showdown, I’m all for it, but it shouldn’t be over one little girl. So, I give it 4 out of 5 stars, and eagerly await Caprica and the TV movie The Plan.