I thought the finale of BSG was terrific. Then again, I’m usually forgiving of logical gaps when I get emotional closure of plots and character arcs, like I did here. (One of those logical gaps: weren’t the 12 constellations that form the signs of our Zodiac already visible from the radioactive Earth where the cast landed at the beginning of this season? Isn’t that why they knew it was Earth?)
I think it’s rare that writers know how a TV series is going to wrap up when they begin it — or even when they’re halfway through it. It’s just part of the nature of an open-ended TV show, unlike a book or movie that is planned out from the start. Given that the writers surely pulled stuff out of their asses after writing themselves into several corners, I thought they wrapped things up in a remarkably satisfying way. Even though the answers didn’t all make perfect sense, we did get answers, and darn fulfilling ones, in my opinion. (Not to mention a big, crazy-ass battle, which is always fun.)
And those final couple of minutes, with our species’ present-day development of better and better robots as an omen for the future — that creeped me the hell out. Is that where we’re headed?
We always wondered whether BSG took place in our future or in our past. We now realize that it was both, in a way. There is no future or past — everything recurs. Kobol, Caprica, the old Earth… the cycle repeats itself.
There must be some way out of here.
I don’t think Ron Moore really had any idea where he was going long-term–season by season, maybe, but he certainly made most of it up as he went along. That’s part of what makes the achievement so impressive.
Babylon 5 was, at least in theory, planned well in advance, and it worked out considerably less well. Lots of dropped threads and missed payoffs. I don’t know that I can even think of anything about BSG (in terms of long-term plotting and characterization) that doesn’t feel like part of a seamless whole.
(Also, I don’t remember them seeing the constellations this season–I remember seeing them in season 2 on Kobol. Is that what you’re thinking of?)
First a note: the constellations of our Zodiac were in the Tomb of Athena on Kobol and they, together with the M8 nebula, were what guided the Fleet to “Earth.”
When they arrived at the Cinder Planet in “Revelations,” Gaeta said “visible constellations are a match.” A deleted scene, however, indicates that only some of the constellations actually matched the tomb. It’s interesting that no one noticed the sky when arriving at real Earth.
From a dramatic standpoint, the finale was satisfying. The show told a very good story about people whose character arcs were wrapped up nicely. The problem is that I think we were promised more than just a story. For months we’ve been promised “the truth,” and since Season 3 (at which time they really began to plan the show in earnest) it became a mystery and they really built up the suspense and the desire to find out all the answers about the stories past and future. And the answer, the truth, apparently is “God did it.”
Every unexplained detail — not in the least why Homo sapiens evolved parralel on Kobol and Real Earth — is explained away by the “God of the gaps.” That’s not what I think of when I think of science fiction.
I’m happy Helo, Athena, and Hera lived happily ever after (and that apparently we’re all descended from them; that explains why Agent Paul Ballard in Dollhouse is a spitting image for Captain Karl Agathon). I’m happy Laura got to see the promised land before she died. I’m happy Hoshi got something to do besides being shat upon by everyone. And yes, the battle of The Colony was pretty awesome.
But I’m sad to say the robots at the end left me cold. I’m much more creeped out by ATMs referring to themselves as “I” and “me” than a marching band of Disney audio-animatronics. And yes, that is where we’re headed. As BSG, The Matrix, the Terminator series, the Dune series and others I’m probably forgetting teach us, machines will eventually rise and either exterminate or enslave humanity. Even at the end of Asimov’s I, Robot there’s the potential for enslavement brewing out of robotic “service” of humanity.
I way I understand things is that when they arrived at the nuked out planet, that was Earth. That was the original Earth, home of the 13th tribe of Cylons. The new planet that Kara jumped them to became Earth, as Adama said, “it’s Earth, we’ve earned it”, or something to that affect.
You’re correct, Ronda.
“Earth” was the Cinder Planet, the colony of the 13th tribe which somehow made it into the mythology of the other 12. Our planet was called by the same name not without a touch of irony.
Among the many gaping holes unexplained is the presence of the constellations as viewed from our Earth in the Tomb of Athena and the star patterns of those constellations being on the flags of the 12 Colonies. These are supposed to have been the stars as viewed from the home of the 13th tribe, because “the 13th tribe looked up into the heavens and saw their 12 brothers.” Our solar system is the only place in the universe where those star patterns would be visible, yet the 13th tribe went to the Cinder Planet, not our Earth.
Interesting point about the constellations, but let’s examine the “universe” and compare it with other “systems.” One thing touch upon was two Earths. I personally think there are infinite Earths, out there. I also think that a given star pattern can be reproduced, somewhere else. Think of a lattice. The pattern is repeatable, so why not star patterns? Now, that said, one has to go A LONG WAY to find that, so within a galaxy, I suspect that star patterns will be unique. Many Earths? Probably…at least very close copies!
Ok, the part that made me interested was “1 million light years away!” That would put the Colonials in intergalactic space….EXTREMELY empty. The nearest major galaxy is 2.5 million light years away! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-year)
Give these issues, I think the story still turned out quite well!
Ok how about this the first earth they landed on was their present time-line or our future the earth they jumped to at the end was in the the past. The primative people are the pure humans the cylons were the more advanced species. When Starbuck entered the jump coordinates they were based on the music notes from the past. The cylon colony was at the mouth of a stable wormhole so they jumped thru time. Kara did in fact crash & burn on the first earth however a 2nd Kara survived since she was the harbinger of death she had to lead them to their end and when she fulfilled her destiny she ceased to exist in that time line Remember “all this has happened before and will happen again” Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it.
Moore promised us that he would strive for “naturalistic science fiction,” so there would specifically be no aliens and no time travel.
Of course, I’m not sure how “God did it” is more “naturalistic” than aliens or time travel, so take that with a grain of salt.
Absent any canonical evidence to the contrary, we cannot conclude that time travel is an option. It’s a pity, because your explanation would make a hell of a lot more sense than what Moore gave us.
There does not appear to by any rhyme or reason why the Fleet had to go to Cylon Earth, or why Kara found her body there. Leading the Fleet to Cylon Earth didn’t seem to accomplish anything but kill their hope for the future — which is kind of dickish thing for God to do, given that Galactica having something positive to live for is precisely what made them different from Pegasus who had nothing to live for but existing and maybe revenge.
So many elements just don’t add up. I’ve been trying for two weeks now, composing a post on my blog, of how BSG should have unfolded and I’m having a hell of time to trying make all of the pieces fit.
They don’t have to fit. It’s a TV show.
It would be nice if they could fit. If they didn’t intend for them to fit, then they shouldn’t have made the whole thing like a mystery and get us all excited about trying to solve it. Moore did say he was primarily interested in a character-driven drama in space, so I think in hindsight he should have stuck with that. In Season 3 the mytharc became more and more pronounced, and with each revelation and clue the suspense increased. A good storyteller — and Moore is a good storyteller — shouldn’t have done that if he didn’t have a proportional payoff.
Wow, Cliff, I like your story way better than the actual plot. It ties things up much cleaner without the annoying (to me) Deus ex machina device.
It’s worth giving the final Official BSG commentary podcast a listen, if you haven’t already. As you hear him talk about it (which is very interesting, BTW), it becomes clear that, beyond having some rough ideas, Moore hadn’t really figured out the big series plot arc and ending until distressingly late in the series. (Or, rather, they had figured out several different arcs over the last couple of seasons and then abandoned parts of them when they became inconvenient) I had always assumed (hoped?) that, even if every step wasn’t plotted out LOST-style, they had had the endgame for the show in mind from the very beginning.
Not that I didn’t enjoy it, but it wasn’t the resolution I had been led to expect and it feels a little… forced?