Bye, Bye "Battlestar," Finale Thoughts (Spoiler Alert!)
Last Friday night, "Battlestar Galactica" ended its run on the SciFi
channel. It went out in a hail of laser fire and mystical prophecies,
and I for one will miss it.
Though the two hour finish focused on the rescue of the Cylon/human child Hera, it also gave us a glimpse of where our favorite "BSG" characters would end up.
We lost Laura Roslin (Mary McDonnell), Kara "Starbuck" Thrace (Katee Sackhoff), Tory Foster (Rekha Sharma), Boomer (Grace Park) and almost lost Helo (Tahmoh Penikett).
The humans and Cylons came to an agreement to live in peace, the survivors of the Cylon holocaust found a planet to call home and settled there, and those same survivors decided to leave their technology behind and make a fresh start building a new civilization.
Though I enjoyed it, the episode wasn't perfect. Here are some finale thoughts:
The Good:
- Discovering that the final planet the humans settled on was our own planet Earth. Adama named it after the original Earth of the thirteen colonies, the one that turned out to be a toxic, uninhabitable rock.
- President Laura Roslin thanking the crusty, cigarette smoking Doc Cottle (Donnelly Rhodes) for keeping her alive so long. When he kissed her hand, it was a wonderful moment.
- Kara saying goodbye to her Cylon husband Sam, before he along with Galactica and the rest of the ships in the fleet were flown directly into the sun.
- Kara telling Lee (Jamie Bamber) her job was done and then disappearing into the ether.
- Adama (Edward James Olmos) taking Roslin flying so she could get a glimpse of the wildlife on their new planet.
- Roslin's quiet death as she enjoyed the sites of the new home she worked so hard to find for her people. What a great character! RIP Laura.
- Tory finally having to pay for killing Cally when the Chief discovers what she did and kills her.
- Boomer finally having to pay for kidnapping Hera when Sharon kills her.
- Discovering that the opera house in Roslin's, Sharon's and Caprica's visions was the control center of Galactica.
- Ronald Moore having an Alfred Hitchcock-like cameo on modern day Earth.
The Bad:
- One too many endings. Of course we wanted to see how all our favorite characters ended up, but too many of the last scenes in the episode felt like the final scene.
- Not totally understanding why Adama left Lee and went off on his own, knowing that Roslin only had hours to live. His comment, "I don't have much time," was vague. Obviously Roslin didn't have much time and she and Adama didn't have much time together, but I still didn't understand why he would want to say goodbye to Lee permanently.
- Not knowing what Kara really was. I suspect the writers left that an open question because her status is going to be addressed in the prequel "Caprica" to air on SciFi...oh excuse me, SyFy, this fall. By the way, SciFi channel? That name change...really dumb.
- How did the fleet find the Galactica again? So Kara jumps the Galactica into the orbit of the new Earth, but the fleet wasn't at those coordinates. Adama's appointed leader of the fleet said something about a raptor that alerted him to where the Galactica was but it was a plot point that should have been clarified.
Overall the two part finale wasn't the best episode in the series, but it didn't let the series or it's values down either. As I've said before, a frakking good TV show.
Photo Courtesy SciFi Channel
