Though fans still have The Plan and Caprica to look forward to, Battlestar Galactica came to an end on Friday, marking the end of a great four-season run on the Sci Fi Channel. After one last shootout in the stars the crew of the Galactica found the real Earth, pioneered the land and had children who would grow up to be us. Earth’s timeline as we know it got twisted in a far-reaching, ironic questioning of our core assumptions. A kind of, “Whoa, man! That’s deep!” cosmic exclamation point.
After four years of investing their time and emotional energy fans wanted a significant return. The producers had to know when they were planning the final minutes that it was not a safe choice, that some fans would say “Bad deal.” BuddyTV’s John Kubicek commented that much like The Sopranos’ finale, he wasn’t sure what to think and his gut reaction was to hate it. But he wondered whether he would appreciate it more with a little distance. Three days later he still doesn’t like it much better.
Over 1,100 fans voted in the BuddyTV Love it or Hate It poll, and most disagreed with John. Fifty-five percent declared that they loved the ending. 25 percent said that they were growing to appreciate it. But a still significant 20 percent simply hated it.
BuddyTV user Dust420 was one of those fans.
“The 150,000 year jump was sickening. [The episode] should have ended with Bill sitting there. Destroying the technology was absurd.”
HowManiod added, “I’ve been a huge fan of the new BSG, literally not missing an episode. I wish I’d never watched the finale last night as now I’m stuck with my final memory of the series being a negative one.”
SamTa59 was much more positive.
“The final 45 minutes [are] an acquired taste… but so is the best wine. It was an unexpected slow-burn of an epilogue, both tragic and joyous. I actually loved the 150,000-year leap. It cemented the theme of destiny versus will and left the final words to Battlestar’s ironic ‘Greek chorus,’ the two, twisted angels of ‘God.’ Of course, you need to put ‘God’ in quotes. Did anyone catch the nihilistic final words spoken by the angelic Six and Baltar? [They] amounted to a cold, cosmic penis joke. How Rosencrantz and Guildenstern of the writers. Delicious.”
CandyRose was of two minds about the episode. She had a lot that was positive to say.
“Overall, I loved the finale. I thought it was both suspenseful and full of raw emotion. I especially liked how they didn’t opt for a completely happy ending, where everyone survives and rides off into the sunset, ready for a new beginning. It was a perfect blend between loss and hope.” But, she added, “With that being said, I would have liked if there had been more. For one, I wasn’t entirely satisfied with the way they concluded Kara’s story. I wanted to know more about her origins and how she was connected, if she ever was, to the
cyclons’ past. And I really wanted to learn a little more about Daniel, not that I really expected anything to come of it.”
While some fans struggled to put their finger on what exactly bothered them so much SteveSeason2 knew very specifically.
“Its human nature to throw God into equation whenever we can’t explain something, ‘God did it’, ‘Its God’s plant’, etc. The same happened here. The storyline got so complicated that the writers couldn’t come
up with explanations for their own ideas, so they went with the ‘God did it’ explanation. This will probably satisfy all the religions people out there, but for the rest of us it’s a bit disappointing, really.”
DMA1969 summed it all up, though, by calling the episode “A final farewell to the frakkin’ best series ever!”
-Henry Jenkins, BuddyTV Staff Writer
(Image courtesy of the Sci Fi Channel)
Guest Columnist, BuddyTV
