Battlestar Galactica [2004] - General Discussion

[stillshimpy]

Well I guess I will put this link here :)  AV Club , which only ever reviewed the fourth season (s) -- the poor bastards -- have started with the mini and season one now.    I like the reviewer and she's got a great gift with phrasing.  Glancing through the comments, I don't recognize a soul in them, which was actually semi-painful because the BSG posters over at TWoP remain some of my favorite people in the world.  

 

Good comments though.  Just figured I would give a heads up on it.  

[VCRTracking]

Watching BSG for the first time and getting to the timejump in the finale, "Callie's prego, Roslin's a teacher and keeping an eye on the Cylon baby, Kara's married and got long hair(obviously a wig), Adama's got a mustache(makes him look like Lt. Castillo from Miami Vice again), Adama's walking on the Pegasus. Wait, something's different. I can't put my finger on... Is he...has he gained weight?" 

[Etta Place]

Oh boy, was Black Market a mess.... I'd love to know what he thought of it.

 

Yeah, that's the sort of thing that really stands out to me, when you just have things develop out of nowhere, and then disappear just as fast. I can only imagine Jamie Bamber sitting there, utterly baffled, as he read the script for that episode.

 

That was after he became very briefly suicidal, but before he started banging someone else's girlfriend (not Kara, funnily enough), right? Then there was the Pegasus stuff after that, and that seemed like a really great extension of the character, and a logical step up for Lee, and for the fleet. Well, we know what happened with that.... But it would probably be best talked about in an Apollo thread.

 

I don't know, I feel like the decisions to bring Helo back (which I was happy about) and Anders (which I was not) really marginalised Lee quite a bit, because those two guys both fit into roles that could have been his, in different ways.

We've been on a bit of a hiatus in our re-watch because my husband was on a business trip, but we'll be starting up again soon. We had just gotten through the Pegasus arc and yes, Black Market.

 

This was probably the third time I've seen that episode and I always think "was it really that bad, or do I just remember it that way?" And the answer is, it's really that bad. They tried to do all the character development they hadn't done for Lee in one episode. Let's give him a back story about a girlfriend on Caprica, and a prostitute he's been sleeping with, and a blow-off of Dee. It's my understanding, at least, that there were some Dualla/Lee scenes that got cut from previous episodes that would have made that aspect of things make more sense.

 

As for what Jamie Bamber had to say about it, it was kind of a long time ago, so I apologize for not remembering everything. But he definitely said that he had been excited to get a Lee-centric episode finally, but that it all got squeezed because of the rest of the season. Story lines that were supposed to maybe be developed a little more ended up just crammed into that single episode to make room for other things in the rest of the season. So he was kind of as surprised as everyone else to acquire three angsty relationships in one episode. He was glad that Lee was given something to do that didn't involve essentially being a boy scout, but it's true that it came out of left field from the rest of the episodes. It tried to contain all the setup and fallout into one episode. And that it didn't seem like a disaster on the page, or a disaster when they were filming really, but it did end up being one when you see it finally.

 

So basically, it really comes down to what everyone suspected - no one knew what to do with Lee, and when they finally figured out something to do with him, his story was sacrificed for other ones. I also agree that Anders and Helo fulfilled a lot of plot lines that Lee could have been the vehicle for. I'm anxious to keep watching because I know I started out very anti-Anders but came around to him toward the end of the series. Maybe because by then I'd given up on Lee really getting anything to do.

[supposebly]

I haven't watched BSG in years and I am still working my way veeeery slowly through season 1. So, I just watched Bastille Day and I had forgotten the scene between Lee, Adama, and Roslin and I remembered the moment when Lee became awesome.

 

Lee: I swore an oath to defend the articles. The articles say there is an election in 7 months. Now if you're telling me we're throwing out the law then I'm not a captain, you are not commander, you are not the president, and I don't owe either of you a damned explanation for anything.

Roslin: He's your son.

Adama: He's your adviser.

[VCRTracking]

Watching the episode where Starbuck "dies" I realized her mom is Naomi from "Mama's Family".

[VCRTracking]

 

 

He also lost his nerve on other issues, like how to deal with the problem of Nicky, the Chief and Callie's son.  By the way, Cally suffered from being a character who developed at the whim of the plot, so mainly it was that she was disjointed to the point of being maddening.  Case in point? RDM became wedded, just intractably wedded, to the desire to have the story end on our Earth in the far, far distant past and he felt the point he had been trying to make throughout the series was tied to Hera being the ancestor of all of us.   So that meant that Hera had to be the only Human-Cylon Kiddie and RDM didn't want to kill Nicky to get there. 

So one last time he yanked the plot rug out from underneath Callie's character.

 

I hated the character assassination on Cally just because RM wanted to make Hera the only Cylon/human hybrid. 

Edited October 11, 2014 by VCRTracking

[supposebly]

I just finished Home and saw probably one of my favorite Kara/Lee scenes of the show ever. When she comes into the room, he hugs her and kisses her and how surprised they both are by that. It's perfectly played.

 

Chief: "Topography is for pansies anyways."

Lee after Sharon didn't shoot him: "You've got to be frakking kidding me."

Billie in the Raptor. All of it.

 

Coming back after such a long time and now sort-of binge watching it, it's such an odd mixture of a show with all the religious stuff in it. At this point it still works for me but I remember getting really annoyed once we get to all those scenes on the cylon ship. I think that's season 3 though.

 

I would have started clapping too at the end. I dare anyone not to when glared at like that.

[catrox14]

Six by far. Caprica and Natalie FTW

[Arynm]

I am on a rewatch and it is as tight on the storytelling as I remember. Love the Mini. 33 might be the best episode TV has ever produced.

[Dr Epi]

Six and Head Six.  FTW.

[Sesquipedalia]

Season 1 is the only one I bought on DVD, so obviously it's my favorite. But since I'm too lazy to watch DVDs anymore, I hadn't seen this show since the final season aired, until last night when I discovered it online and watched the miniseries and 33. What I still love about it is the way it explores the questions John Potts poses above about a society trying to maintain its values in the face of near annihilation. If Roslin hadn't been a strong leader, it would have immediately devolved into a military dictatorship. (And given Adama's original impulse to go down fighting, the human race probably wouldn't have survived at all if governed from a purely military mindset.)  My biggest frustration with the show was how Roslin evolved into more of a mystical/religious leader and the questions of the military/civilian balance were basically abandoned

when she and Adama got all smoochy.

[millennium]

I'm at Season 4 in my latest rewatch (I rewatch once a year or so) and I have the same realization every time: "All Along the Watchtower" ruined the series for me.

 

It makes no sense in the Galactica universe.   No amount of Moore-wanking can make it fit.

 

It reeks of "I'm the showrunner and I like this song, so we're using it.  To hell with what anybody else thinks." 

 

It jars me out of the story every time.   Way too meta.   The whole "they put the music in the ship" premise is stupid in itself, but it would have been less disagreeable if the song had been something unique to the series.

 

In retrospect, I find it interesting that the final five Cylons all turned out to be characters I don't care for, Saul Tigh at the top of the list.  I really hate Saul Tigh.   I never cottoned to drunken, abusive assholes.   Which reminds me, him having relations with Caprica Six was just gross.   In my eyes, it laid waste to the aura of mystery and sexuality Caprica had up to that point.  

Edited February 13, 2016 by millennium

[Etta Place]

I'm currently rewatching the series too. It's interesting, because Season 4 is the only one I only saw once. I have barely remembered some of the plot twists, which makes it a different experience from watching the other seasons. We just watched the one where Nicky's parentage is revealed. My husband said, "Wow, it is just really too much how they completely assassinated Cally's character even when she's dead." And for me, this is the problem with season 4 - the way they didn't know what to do with some of the characters. I mean, Lee's problems started before this season but he's really completely rudderless now, Cally gets smeared, Anders is whatever .... Caprica Six is grossly underused (in an acting capacity) and poorly used (in a story capacity).

[cleo]

I'm also rewatching s.4. Thd last few eps are a slog to get through.

I hate almost all the flashbacks to caprica. It seems pointless, just a backdoor pilot for his new show. I find all the vignettes boring except for Baltar, with his father and Caprica which was really interesting. Interesting to see the kind of person he was, his relationship with his father. Caprica's motivation to help....I would have watched more of that.

[stillshimpy]

Oh this poor show.  Yeah, I've said in a great many places, and it still remains true, that I loved this show and continue to love it.  I don't actually love it because of the show, but because of a bunch of external factors and then also because for the first two seasons, it's a really good show.  

 

But by the time we roll into season four one of the things that really, really hurt the series has started to take a terrible toll on it:  I truly believe that RDM needed David Eick around to help him rein in his wilder, more senseless impulses.  I don't think they liked each other a great deal, but they made a good team.  Eick is effectively gone by the start of season three and it shows.  That's when the show begins to slide into soap opera tactics and not asking the question, "Okay, sure, but does this make any kind of sense?  Is it informed by what has happened and what will happen? Is this serving the larger story?" 

 

Eick kept Moore from having Adama and Roslin hook up in the first season, he was able to impose dramatic restraint, whereas Moore -- for whatever reason -- was hugely indulgent of grand (often weird) gestures within the story.  So there are boxing matches, and cover version of Dylan and Dean Stockwell eating entire sets and then moving on to the cameras.  Ellen the flake comes back as Ellen, the mother of it all and a gifted scientist.  

 

Let's not even discuss the character trajectory of Callie.   Or Tigh and ....Caprica (oh sweet lords of mercy, make it stop) .... 

 

But for two seasons it was a really good show and I've found if I end a rewatch at the Galactica from the sky, it's a good series.   Anything past that and it's an exercise in ....well, watching home movies from the eighties, you know?  Bunch of questionable choices encompassing comportment, fashion and a rather blunt message.  

 

I sometimes wonder what the show would have been like if Eick never got the Bionic Woman.  It's not like he was great without Moore, it's just together they really made a good storytelling team.   

 

But I still love the series.  I wish every person involved with it luck, but I will never make it all the way through a season four rewatch.  I just can't do it.   

[Lobsel Vith]

I really think it made no sense to have Boomer kidnap Hera so that an all-male faction of Cylons could figure out how female Cylons reproduce.

Boomer's 180 turn into an antagonist didn't make any sense, either; it's like the writers forgot "Downloaded" and how Boomer continually disagreed with what the Cylons were doing on New Caprica (from citing human casualties to trying to save Cally).

Changes in Season 4? No need to kill Cally, no need to arbitrarily change her son's paternity in a move that didn't make sense for the character, they could have fleshed out Tory's character. Have Kara's destiny as the "harbinger of death" actually mean something instead of highlighting that RDM never planned ahead (as anyone who listened to his podcasts can easily tell).

[Lobsel Vith]

The Eights are very interesting to me.

Boomer was my favorite Cylon, having to grapple with her entire identity and life being a lie she has no control over ( as per "Downloaded"); she had so much potential after "Downloaded". I still cringe at how the developers treated her as nothing more than a plot device in Season Three instead of carrying through on her story arc.

[Lobsel Vith]

It's a shame what happened to Cally, Tory, and Boomer in Seaspn 4 - they deserved better.

So much was wrong with Season 4. The lack of a coherent identity for the Cylons (which explains the inconsistencies with their depiction), the asinine mutiny that glossed over the dictatorship aspect of the Adama/Roslin, having Boomer kidnap Hera so that Cavil, Simon, and Aaron could figure out procreation (even though it wouldn't do an all-male faction of Cylons any good) - so much simply didn't make any sense.

[benteen]

I think the lack of any kind of long-term storyline hurt this show.  The most damning thing I heard was on the BSG DVD movie, The Plan, where one of the commentators admitted that the Cylons didn't have a plan and they just included that line because it sounded cool.  Ron Moore want to do issues episode set into space but had no long-term plan whatsoever.  Cally's son is pretty proof positive of that.  He's the Chief's son, then the Chief is inexplicably revealed to be a Cylon, which makes Nicky half-Cylon.  Nope, they want Helo and Athena's kid to be the only half-Cylon hybrid so all of a sudden the kid is Hot Dog's son from a one-night stand.  We never saw Cally and Hot Dog ever together on the show.  It was just a small example of how the long-term storylines were never thought out.

The four reveals for Cylons didn't make any sense, particularly Anders.  Anders was a famous athlete.  People know about athletes out of high school now.  How the hell was a phony past created for him?

Don't even get me started about how a group of nearly 40,000 grizzled survivors decided they wanted to live on the dirt flaw surrounded by wild animals because Lee want to climb mountains like some stupid hippee and someone convinced all of them to live like they were in the Stone Age.

[benteen]

On ‎5‎/‎6‎/‎2014 at 10:08 AM, Joe said:

They could have kept the technology if only they'd landed on a large island in the middle of the Atlantic ocean, and then maybe a flashfoward of them fleeing the destruction of Atlantis, taking their knowledge, but not their gadgets, to other lands.

Yes!  I've thought of the Atlantis theory for years and I would have liked this a lot better.  You could still have a small group of the survivors who decided to live without technology.  Or, like you suggested, the survivors flee without their technology to other lands.

[Emily Thrace]

I still think one of the biggest issues with season 4 was pacing and the fact that they tried to cram 2 seasons into one. Excise the mutiny plot and use those episodes to make more of the character stuff in the finale work and you could have had a much better ending. Or at the very least less Adama eating the set. Moore should have remembered what worked about DS9's finale and given each character a closing up storyline and a episode to lead.  He could have made the no-tech idea an ongoing plot or an out growth of Baltar's cult  rather than something Lee threw out at the last minute. The sad part is the "it about the characters stupid" revelation is that it came too late.  

[AndySmith]

I guess I'm in the minority, because I liked season 4. The ending wasn't perfect for me, but overall I still enjoyed it. I wasn't satisfied with what little answers they gave us regarding Kara's resurrection, and I can do without the coda, but otherwise I liked it. I've re-watched the show a couple of times since it ended, and it still holds up for me. Yes, by the final season, it wasn't the same show as it was during the first 2 seasons, but it was still crazy and entertaining. I didn't really mind what happened with Callie because, well, she just bugged the crap out of me, I wish they got rid of her sooner, to be honest.

Granted, I may have been ok with the show and how it progressed because I did have a feeling there was no plan, and they were making it up as they went along. Once I was in that frame of mind, I guess it was just easier to watch it to the end and enjoy the ride. It isn't something I can explain - knowing there was no plan didn't allow me to enjoy the ride for Lost, for some reason - but I liked the final season and still do.

I'll still take it over Angel, both as a series and as a finale, because Angel, well, blerch.

[benteen]

I think they lost control of story details when they expanded from 13 episodes to 20 episodes a season.  The episodes felt more or less connected to each other but that kind of detail felt lost when they expanded in Season 2.

[Macbeth]

"All Along the Watchtower" was when the show completely lost  me.  To the point where I never consider rewatching and I have S1 on dvd.

This was such a good series.  And then the writers had some pot, so the cylons started hearing hippie music that made them self aware, and then it was all downhill from there.

How did that show come up with this complete piece of crap.

[millennium]

28 minutes ago, Macbeth said:

"All Along the Watchtower" was when the show completely lost  me.  To the point where I never consider rewatching and I have S1 on dvd.

This was such a good series.  And then the writers had some pot, so the cylons started hearing hippie music that made them self aware, and then it was all downhill from there.

How did that show come up with this complete piece of crap.

And why did nobody stop them?   Wasn't there even one person in a position of power to say, hey, are you kidding?  this sucks.

[Macbeth]

You would think someone at the network would.  This was an extremely costly show at the time.  Sometimes you need the higher ups to come in and do their jobs, and they are not all jerks.

[AndySmith]

I guess I'm the only one here who liked and enjoyed season 4?

[stillshimpy]

Season four is pretty universally panned from a critical perspective, Andy but that is mostly from a critical and writing standpoint. The other day I was looking up an episode title and encountered a particularly scathing blurb by George R R Martin on BSG's wiki page about the resolution and the blistering criticism a first year writing student would encounter if they turned in a "God did it" story resolution. Martin had good, kind things to say about BSG as a whole , but he isn't wrong: from a structural viewpoint it's not well done and contains very cliched structural mistakes. 

 

But here's the thing, if it has emotional resonance for you, that is what matters. Like what you like, you know? We don't have to have company in an opinion to validate it. I won't even go into the list of "okay, technically bad, but I liked it" things, but suffice it to say, mine is lengthy . Also, you almost certainly do have company. However, there is a reason that this show isn't often discussed years later. As one reviewer put it "it is a once great show that crawled up its own ass and died" argh.

I still love it for the first two seasons but season four reflects a lot a behind the scenes stuff. The writer's strike was a huge and upsetting factor that really threw Moore way off of his game. 

 

It's just things like flying the tech into the sun not because it actually made sense (they had no shelter or skills), but because Moore wanted their Earth to be our Earth so he could deliver his message -- his preachy, scolding, too blunt and lacking nuance message -- even more directly...so he tried to head off the fan question of "but why was the tech never found?"  That's an example of the reason it was critically disdained. That is a giant narrative mistake, particularly because it was informed by trying to anticipate fan debates rather than internal story logic. That is the reason it is criticized , it lacks any kind of logic.

 

So truthfully, it's structure is just kind of a senseless and chaotic mess. Doesn't change the fact that I cried and cried because I cared so much about the characters. I loved them. I genuinely like and admire RDM too. He is a good person, and that carries a ton of weight with me and always will. 

 

But I can't re-watch the show because -- for a bunch of reasons -- the writing struggled mightily in the last two seasons.  I am glad you like it and can understand why.

[Macbeth]

Sorry Andy I don't mean to rain on anyone's parade.  There were so many great things about this show.  But there were 2 moments that made this show a no go for me.  1.  Cylons awakening to "All Along the Watchtower" and 2. Saying goodbye to technology.  One child was on dialysis, and I thought to myself - I guess she dies then.

[slf]

On 4/2/2014 at 5:12 PM, millahnna said:

Six and Eight are my favorites (I lean a bit towards Six because of what an epic badass Tricia is), and I agree that Simon (what was his number anyway) was underused. 

Number Four.

The Cylon Models: Number One (Cavill), Number Two (Leoben) Number Three (D'Anna), Number Four (Simon), Number Five (Aaron), Number Six (Head Six, Caprica), Number Seven (defunct), Number Eight (Sharon, Athena).

My favorite is definitely the Eights. Boomer got a raw deal, writing-wise, and some of the things they did with Athena in season three left a bad taste in my mouth but they both had the most fascinating character development and arcs. Grace Park never got enough credit for her performances. 

Six is a close second. Tricia Helfer knocked it out of the park, especially as Head Six and Gina (her arc was physically painful Helfer was so good). 

The other Cylons weren't as interesting. Leoben had his moments, so did Simon. But Cavill and D'Anna were mistakes, and the less said about the Final Five the better. The one I always wanted to know more about was Seven and while I enjoyed learning he was artistic and "sensitive" (and a little sad because it sounds like that model could've been good friends/allies to the Eights) the rest was bunk.

[SparedTurkey]

I thought all the original Cylon models were amazing.

I thought Six was great, in all her many forms. I loved Head!Six, Gina, Caprica (but she got a raw deal) From watching all the different versions - I would watch Tricia Helfer in anything (and yes, I liked her in Burn Notice even though few did)

I liked the Eights, especially because they weren't doing a repeat of the Sixes, or Three. I never personally got the immense citicism for Grace Park that happened when the show was airing because I think she was a great Boomer and Athena and brought what was needed.

I liked Three. I think her overall arch suffered for whatever reasons but she was good. I bought her being a sleeper and needing to find out the Final Five.

Cavil, Simon and Leoben - all good. Individual personalities weren't developed but that was okay. It didn't harm anything.

I think the only way the cylon aspect failed was with the Final Five. It wasn't planned from the get and it showed. The actors were all good, but it felt like it was shock value. Tigh? Sure, it was shocking. Make sense? No. Anders? Again - nonsensical. I think they wrote themselves into a corner but didn't pull it off - which is a shame because it's the only real criticism I've got)

[ToxicUnicorn]

Quote

As a model? Six. Tricia Helfer was so good in this role (or these roles, I guess), playing several distinct versions of Six, including Gina, Chip Six and original Six. She showed empathy and pathos right from the start, and she could also turn on the scary, at the drop of a hat.

Quote

 

I thought Six was great, in all her many forms. I loved Head!Six, Gina, Caprica (but she got a raw deal) From watching all the different versions - I would watch Tricia Helfer in anything (and yes, I liked her in Burn Notice even though few did)

 

Another enthusiastic vote for Tricia Helfer, especially as Head!Six.  Makes me wonder if Orphan Black/Tatiana Maslany was ever inspired by all the incarnations of Six.

I never became invested in the stories of Boomer or Athena (or Helo or their daughter, for that matter).  For me, all the drama came to a screeching halt when they came on screen.  The only time I was slightly intrigued was when any one of them was jailed and maybe on the verge of being executed.

I much preferred the (crazy) surprise of Ellen, although her interactions with Cavil were pretty gross.  I agree Cavil had potential and it was a real shame that it was squandered in that way.

Good times, thinking about this show again.  

[whiporee]

NM

Edited September 8, 2016 by whiporee

[SmithW6079]

How would I explain the ending? The writers worked themselves into a corner, decided, "Fuck it, let's get high" and wrote whatever shit popped into their drugged brains.

[slf]

I didn't enjoy Ellen being a Cylon at all because they drastically changed her personality. She lost all of her humor, fun, sensuality and gave way too many speeches. The writing felt a little fanfic-y for her once the reveal happened. I much preferred the Ellen that threw her legs up over her husband's shoulders as she dangled from a scaffold by one hand, the other clutching a liquor bottle, and sang "Bill Adama doesn't know where Earth is" over and over while Saul giggled happily between her thighs.

[green]

On 5/5/2014 at 2:19 AM, green said:

I loved the first two seasons.  Kept hope alive through the final five reveal in season 3 thinking it might actually go somewhere that made sense which it never did.  Tried to believe this was still a great series in season 4.  But I just think the more Ronald Moore caught flak for all the "dark" the more he stubbornly dug his heels in and decided to show even more "dark" as a somewhat childish reaction and not part of any rational story arc.  He seemed determine to kill off as many characters in dark ways that made no sense and leave others living in deep despair.  Why?  The darkness hit first.  The world(s) ended.  This should be a story about rediscovering hope.  Not in a simplistic way.  But a hard fought grayish way instead of a pitch black lack thereof.  Dude must have a few personal demons going on.

My list of totally gratuitous deaths and/or destructions of character arcs:

1.  Gaeta and Tom Zarek (two silly deaths for the price of one):  No logic to their rebellion or them suddenly becoming allies.  The character of Tom had so many possibilities since he seemed half idealist / half demagogue but even when looking after number one he was still speaking many times for all the unseen thousands who had no control over their lives the whole time stuck in dark, dank space-hopping tin cans with no voice at the table.  There was an oligarchy in charge and the Colonial military and Roslin's group had the say in everything.  Zarek was the only character in the whole show who spoke up for the concerns of the majority who had to wait in a passive state hoping the next attack didn't get their ship blown up.  Hated they just put in a filler rebellion to off these two.

2.  Dualla - yeah commit suicide for no real reason because you are too tired to go on and the actor didn't even have contractual obligations elsewhere like Cylon Xena 2.0.  No plausible story arc leading up to this stupid act.

3.  D'Anna - see above.  If you didn't have access to the services of Lucy Lawless post-writers' strike then at least give her a good write out.  She is at the height of her powers as cylon leader and she is just too tired to go on?  And she just kind of added that in passing to Tigh was it?  Couldn't have a dramatic scene with Adama/Roslin at least?

4.  Chief and Calley - long story arc of Calley going from our favorite knuckle dragger to being a drag on Chief cause he can't deal with being a dad maybe?  I don't even know why she was seen as negative.  Chief goes from "let's kick some Cylon ass" to I'm going off totally alone on this here non earth new earth and not having anything to do with you guys forever.  I will go off to future Scotland and teach the local cavemen engineering and getting drunk a lot and die all alone of depression.

5.  Apollo - added him cause his character never made any sense the whole series.  They never seemed to know what to do with him.  Honestly they should have gone with original series Apollo as the loyal, worshipful son of Adama who then maybe starts to question things and evolves into his own man as the series goes on. 

My main complaint here at the end of the show about him was for the ludicrous idea to fly the Galactica into the sun and get rid of all the other ships and technology over night.  Dude, you crossed half a galaxy to survive as a species.  So now you want to set things up so that you all die off in the first year?  You don't know it the locals will turn on you.  You don't know how to hunt and fish and gather especially on an alien planet that might have some nasty critters and germs on it.  You don't know the weather patterns and the ability to grow crops from the get go.

It is a BIG learning curve.  You need to naturally "devolve" from the technology over a couple of generations as you "evolve" into suvivorlists.  At least save the ships to fashion some metal weapons and tools from.  Cause metals make the age.  Without the ability to work metals you don't move from copper to iron etc that creates the societies that can support the growing population that gives rise to laws and art and philosophy and religion and civilization.  Having metal to start with allows you to mine metal more easily from the get go.  Helps you farm.  Helps you hunt.  You need all the tools you can get to survive and slowly learn the ways of the new world and how to operate without that technology.  Let nature take it's course, dude.

Also getting rid of the entire past means that you disrespect all your loved ones from the 12 Colonies and all the history of their struggles and the whole painful journey you made.  Pissing on their nuked graves and the suffering and deaths of your comrades that died along the way.  Destroying the memory of a great civilization and culture that once lived and grew and hoped and dreamed somewhere far away.  I love and respect history far too much to swallow Apollo's insane path. 

I think Moore just gave up on Apollo at the end and said screw it lets make him into a total joke and have him destroy everything we ever saw or experienced in some childish hissy fit then send him off to "explore" all alone and get eaten by saber tooth tigers within a week or two.

Semi on the plus side.  I did like that Baltar lived.  Usually the guy that makes the "big mistake" has to die to find redemption so glad he and Six lived.  Don't like it that they seem to be able to live forever though.  That last scene was totally dumb.

Don't even know what to say about Starbuck.  If she came back from the dead you could get into a cool storyline maybe about multi-universes and/or mystical stuff that made some sense.  But did she or was she replaced by someone else?  I don't know.   But after all the "special destiny" what was so special that she did that others didn't other then she was one great kickass warrior.  I wanted a better payoff for Starbuck.  She deserved it.

Hell I wanted a better payoff for the whole series.  There really wasn't any.  At least any that made sense.  I too have a hard time re-watching anything other then the mini-series.  The mini-series left me with hope that we were going to begin a painful but amazing journey.  The end of the worlds and yet it left me with more hope then the rest of the series combined, heh.  But thought of viewing anything after it makes me feel "tired" too.  Interesting that it is this feeling of "tiredness" that seems to be the main one to crop up with others as well.  I thought I was the only one.

Well since I get a feeling of tiredness from it now I guess I'll go sit with D'Anna on the scrapheap of real earth but not our earth earth and think of where we could have gone instead.

PS:  Wow, sorry.  I didn't know this would turn into such a negative rant.  I guess it is because I invested into this series heavily at the time.  I don't watch that much TV and those things I do watch I watch cause I think they are worth watching.  I was loving this show early on and kept trying to rationalize the irrational as it moved on.  I guess I just hate how something I loved so much at first just played out into nothing great at the end.  The potential was awesome.  They dropped the ball half way through because, unlike the cylons, they had no plan.  Of course it turns out the cylons had none either.  Oh well.

Edited January 2, 2017 by green

[Chinspinner]

I would have worked out the story arc a lot earlier; rather than setting up a lot of sub-plots and mysterious occurrences that I then had to try to tie into a contrived conclusion. This show reached a crescendo at the end of Season 3, then (for me) it just fell off a cliff. 

Edited February 16, 2017 by Chinspinner

[TVSpectator]

58 minutes ago, Chinspinner said:

I would have worked out the story arc a lot earlier; rather than setting up a lot of sub-plots and mysterious occurrences that I then had to try to tie into a contrived conclusion. This show reached a crescendo at the end of Season 3, then (for me) it just fell off a cliff. 

 

Yeah, this is what I think should've happened. Hell, they could've just thrown out all of those flashbacks and then just added scenes that would at least try to explain some of the ending, other than, "this version of Starbucks was probably an angel, modern day tiny robots are the new Cylons, everyone is ready to throw their live saving tech into the sun and live off the land on an alien planet, etc....).

[scarynikki12]

If they wanted to do the thing of "All of this has happened before but maybe it doesn't have to happen again" that ended the series, then keeping the tech, and learning from their mistakes could have worked.  The only reason they mentioned that it didn't have to happen again is because they were on our planet, in our time, and we're still here.  It was message for the viewers, which I get, but we don't need to see our characters fixing the mistakes of the past on our planet to get that.  We saw that the Cylons who inhabited Earth1 had made world ending mistakes that made it unfit for human/Cylon life.  If the ultimate point of the series was for both species to stop seeing the other as enemy and come together to form a new community that can break the cycle, then give them their own planet.  Also, show us that they really were learning.  We don't have to see them create new cities, states or countries, but we could see the beginnings of these changes and then, if they still wanted to do a flash forward we could see the results of these changes and agree that the cycle doesn't have to continue. 

And there's no way that the fleet would willingly give up all that tech.  I say, re-purpose it.  The Galactica began the series set for decommission so that it could become a museum.  So end the series with it finding their new home as its last great military act but then gets to survive as a hospital, an education center or museum like at the start.  Same with the other ships.  Those that can't survive any more adventures become other things that benefit the community.  I would send the ones that can continue on adventures to explore their new galaxy, find the resources that can make new ships and maintain the existing ones, and/or act as ambassadors to the Centurions once they found their new home.

[DesertCyclist]

I didn't hate the ending; the only ending I've ever actually hated was that of Lost.  To this day I've never rewatched a single episode, I was so angry.

That being said, I'd have taken BSG down a different path.  The notion of children hating and overthrowing their parents is very mythological, and I'd have milked "All of this has happened before" for all it's worth.  The opening line of the miniseries is "Are you alive?"  In the end, I'd have the humans learn that at one time they, too, overthrew their creators, and perhaps they're nowhere near as human (alive) as they think, illustrating a neverending cycle of creation/rebellion.
 

[JakersWild]

The disappearance of Kara is probably the most infuriating thing to me about the ending. Her vanishing from a field while Lee was feet away from her seems to require divine powers. She was clearly really there at some point past her death because she did things, so she wasn't just an imagining all along. So we're left with a god who is apparently all powerful, that Kara was an angel? I could be okay with that being the answer; that in the BSG universe the one true god could do such things. However, then that seems to mean god is a major ass! Let billions be killed by the cylons in a pre-emptive genocide just to start the cycle all over again? When such a powerful god could tip its hand on the scales here and there and prevent the whole mess? Feh. The story would be better in my view if Kara had just gotten to continue on with her life, or just died since her task was complete, but leaving a body. If not for the Kara issue I've also toyed with a scenario for how god could have fit into the story without being supernatural, and perhaps it still could. There would just need to be tech to disintegrate Kara's body silently in a matter of moments and let the atomized remnants blow away / fall to the ground. Or perhaps the most plausible way I've thought of so far: Her body remained on the ship headed for the sun, and from that point on she was only appearing to be there in others' minds.

As the story says this has all happened before and will happen again. So what if god were really an ancient cylon, along the lines of a hybrid, with a ship or ships and knowledge and powers amassed over countless lifetimes that we can barely begin to imagine? One episode showed us a cylon elder from the current generation. If the technological children of humanity improve themselves to where they are virtually the same as humans, then interbreed with a human, and that baby becomes a new Eve who seeds the genetic pool for an entire new civilization of humans... Then humans are cylons and cylons are humans, and the interbreeding is really more like a repeated evolution of the species through sexual reproduction, albeit a bit incestuous. So the idea that god could project Six into the mind of Baltar and ultimately let others share visions could be a remnant of biological tech that is part of all humans, whose species has already been through this human/cylon cycle before. It could also explain Kara essentially being downloaded when she died in order to bring her back, and the tech to create bodies is well established. If you can download people, why couldn't you also read their thoughts, which would explain how a hybrid watched Kendra Shaw's life. It could mean hybrids get their oracle like capabilities by a fragmented interface with god, who through peoples' minds could see all. So the only thing god would have to do that's a little different is have a replacement Viper built for Kara. Yet if you can create bodies virtually indistinguishable from naturally born humans, is it going to be that hard to use tech to build a Viper if you've been watching humanity since before it achieved flight?

Regardless of the origin of the one true god in the story, what is the deal with it? Why make or let this happen over and over again? Is it the way of forcing the species to grow and improve, through struggle and conflict? Do things improve much if it completely reboots and starts over each time? Is it something that god does try to prevent but it happens anyway, the way none of us can prevent our children from making their own mistakes no matter how we try? Is god just an ass? Or is god waiting for a version of humans that is compassionate enough toward its own sentient creations that the cycle is broken? Any version of humanity that fails the test dies out and the loop repeats. That seems the most likely, and such a god could be obsessed with finally getting things right. All the suffering endured could get rationalized away as people only having the blessings of the lives they got in the first place due to god's efforts to keep the cycle repeating.

This is how I explain the ending for myself, and it manages to merge the technological with the god and angels explanation that otherwise doesn't fit great into my general idea of science fiction. I find it satisfying. Could Moore and company have been going for this? Perhaps, but it feels like that would give them too much credit, considering it has been admitted they made things up as they went along. Also, omitting the planned lines "It would require mankind in all its flaws to have learned from its mistakes" and "I think I'll take that bet. What are the stakes?" that were to have been said before "Silly me. Silly silly me" makes the final scene of the show incomprehensible. Why do that? So either they didn't know what they were doing, or they just wanted us utterly confused.

[ParadoxLost]

On 3/12/2017 at 5:46 PM, JakersWild said:

The disappearance of Kara is probably the most infuriating thing to me about the ending. Her vanishing from a field while Lee was feet away from her seems to require divine powers. 

There are way too many similarities for Kara's resurrection and disappearance to be anything but a take on the Ship of Lights episodes in the original Battlestar Galactica and Galactica 1980.

I recall thinking that was exactly what they were doing when Kara came back from the dead, but then they never really touched on it in a tangible way.  Until the finale when it was seemingly out of nowhere... Kara vanished and was never really alive/real or whatever...Head Six and Head Baltar are running around this Earth (which I still don't understand how its this Earth).

The references to the Ship of Lights were there but a little too vague, usually Easter eggs at best, for them to slap us in the face with it in the finale.

Kara's disappearance is not much more than a nod to the unfinished Galactica 1980 episode where Starbuck joins the crew of the Ship of Light.  Or another way to think about that is its like when Daniel Jackson ascends to become an Ancient on SG-1.   In the original, the crew of the Ship of Light were an alien race that could take corporeal / humanoid form when they wanted to and they were the basis of the Colonial Gods and Devils.  So like B5 and the Vorlons.

Frankly, the finale really fell apart for me simply because they decided to make it this Earth.  And it felt like a vanity play by Ron D Moore to get his Hitchcock moment where he gets to appear in his own production.

[TigerLynx]

On 9/25/2016 at 6:52 AM, SmithW6079 said:

How would I explain the ending? The writers worked themselves into a corner, decided, "Fuck it, let's get high" and wrote whatever shit popped into their drugged brains.

 

On 2/15/2017 at 6:26 PM, Chinspinner said:

I would have worked out the story arc a lot earlier; rather than setting up a lot of sub-plots and mysterious occurrences that I then had to try to tie into a contrived conclusion. This show reached a crescendo at the end of Season 3, then (for me) it just fell off a cliff. 

 

On 3/12/2017 at 4:46 PM, JakersWild said:

The disappearance of Kara is probably the most infuriating thing to me about the ending. Her vanishing from a field while Lee was feet away from her seems to require divine powers. 

I agree with all of these.

When it comes to BG, Lost, How I Met Your Mother, Sons of Anarchy, etc., the first thing I would tell writers is if you have a premise in mind, and are going to be saying things like, "This has all happened before, and it will happen again," have some kind of idea where you are going with it.  Don't meander all over the place, never answer any questions, leave loose ends everywhere, or retcon everything in your finale.

[catrox14]

Just decided to do a rewatch since I have Hulu for a week trial.  Man, I still love this show so much.  It still holds up so much IMO.  Sigh. It's funny, I find other shows that I love and adore, but as soon as I watch the mini-series and 33, I just squee allover again and I'm reminded that this is still in my top 3 fav shows of all time.

 Man, this show deserved ALL the awards. 

[Joe]

There's a new game coming. Space combat, real time with pause. It looks interesting, though way out of my genre. Maybe I'll watch the LPs.

[supposebly]

There is way too much good TV around for me to not get distracted from my rewatches. So, I'm still on season 1 and it just keeps making me laugh while also breaking my heart. 

Hand of God has one of those scenes. Adama and Lee the night before the op. 

Lee: Sometimes it feels like the whole ship thinks Starbuck could do better.

Adama: I don't.

Lee: How can you be so sure?

Adama: Because you're my son. The long pause says so much between them. Get some rest. You're gonna need it.

Lee: Dad. I'll bring it back (Grandpa Adama's ligher).

Adama: You better. It's a good lighter. (that one is all in the delivery)

 

Baltar: So the fate of the entire human race hangs on my wild guess.

Me: Don't worry, you got them into this mess in the first place, so it's just mopping up the rest, isn't it?

On 5/1/2017 at 0:35 PM, catrox14 said:

Man, this show deserved ALL the awards. 

And more.

[VCRTracking]

Battlestar Galactica's Ronald D. Moore Admits the Cylons Never Had a Plan at All

[Joe]

That kind of thing really shits me off. You're being paid to come up with a serialised story, you should put some work in at the start. Not every twist and turn, sure. But a rough guide to where it's going and what it all means.

[supposebly]

6 hours ago, VCRTracking said:

Battlestar Galactica's Ronald D. Moore Admits the Cylons Never Had a Plan at All

Shocker. :-) 

It's ok. It's still one of the best SciFi I've ever watched. Even without a Cylon plan and a nonsense ending.

Edited June 13, 2017 by supposebly

[benteen]

On ‎6‎/‎12‎/‎2017 at 3:58 PM, VCRTracking said:

Battlestar Galactica's Ronald D. Moore Admits the Cylons Never Had a Plan at All

And this is why I no longer consider the show to be great.  To me, it's become a lot like Lost.  A show I loved that I have no desire to rewatch.  I wouldn't recommend either of those shows to anyone because they were a collective circle jerk.

They had revealed this in the commentary of BSG The Plan, so this isn't a surprise.  But Moore wanted to write about issues and had absolutely no clue what he wanted to do for a story and it really shows, particularly in regards to the Cylon motivations.  Reveals became about shock value and then he had to explain the plot holes that if left behind (Tyrol and Cally's kid for one).    Moore and his writers apparently weren't interesting in crafting a story, only writing about topical issues.  Promoting the Cylons as having "a plan" solely because it sounded cool shows you how little his commitment was to the story he was telling...

Edited June 14, 2017 by benteen