All Good Things…
Apparently my blog lately has somewhat revolving around the plot of the SciFi (or SyFy, but that’s an angry rant for another day) series Battlestar Galactica which ended on a mixed note last Friday. Most of the general consensus I’ve been hearing in my group of friends and the Internet in general is that with the exception of the mutiny episodes (which could be two of the best episodes of the series) season 4 has been average compared to the rest of the series.
With the series being so good when it came out and the buildup in the fist part of the final episode I had high expectations for the finale and even though they weren’t met the episode was still good, but it just didn’t cut it. Looking back at it now on paper (by the way obvious huge spoiler alert here) the episode had everything I wanted and hoped for in the finale: An epic battle, character resolution and very uncommonly for this series a happy ending for the good guys and some justice for the bad guys.
I think in the end they tried to do too much for whatever reason which is disappointing because despite my lukewarm reception there were moments that reminded me of why I loved the series. The most of the first half is great and gives us some foreshadowing of the scale of the battle to come and gives you the most defining moment in Baltar’s life as a character to finally do something not selfish, and the battle itself while not extremely epic does do justice for it being the final battle for the show. The Tyrol killing Tory and completely screwing over what seemed to be the happy ending and dooming the cylon’s to extinction was totally unexpected as well as the president dying while Adama is talking and not paying attention to her.
I found two things very annoying about the finale: first were all the flashback sequences, they seemed tacked on and it didn’t feel natural to be trying to tell back story this late in the game; and my second problem is the epilogue. The problem is in the length and how direct the epilogue is. They spell out in big capital letters most of the mystery of the series and then don’t explain at all one of the biggest questions of what Kara was and how she was the harbinger of death when she didn’t destroy anything more so than she has in any other episode. I did enjoy the Ron Moore cameo and the inclusion of the Jimi Hendrix All Along the Watchtower but the overbearing nature of how the anti technology message is given is somewhat insulting given the tone of the rest of the series, the original shot of the dancing robot was funny but the montage that followed seemed very preachy.
What I enjoyed about the messages in Battlestar were the fact they were asked, given context but were never overtly answered and it was always up to the viewer to make their own opinion on what they thought of the topic and the messages inside the show. I should be listening to the commentary for the episode tomorrow as I normally do which will give me some more insight into the context of why the decision were made and will probably temper my feeling at little, suffice to say I’m glad I had the series to enjoy for the past 5 years but I’m also glad its over.
Also seeing as I didn’t have time to read this before going to the concert, it was great more thoughts on it tomorrow (I’m going to try to blog more often, we’ll see if it actually happens).