The Battlestar Galactica series finale aired Friday night, and while it might not meet the level of The Sopranos, is was certainly a very different and finite way to end the series. The only question is: did Battlestar Galactica fans love it or hate it?
It might seem odd to make sweeping generalizations as the finale was really split into two halves. The first part dealt with the Galactica’s final mission to rescue Hera and featured amazing actions sequences that are almost sure to win the show another Visual Effects Emmy.
Read BuddyTV’s BSG Series Finale Recap>>
It’s hard to imagine any die-hard Battlestar Galactica fan not loving the intense action, satisfying deaths, and brilliant payoff to Roslin, Athena and Caprica Six’s opera house dreams. But the second half is what may have lost some people.
After jumping away from the fight, the Galactica found Earth. The real Earth. Our Earth. While the planet the ship landed on at the end of “Revelations” was the mythic Earth that the 13th tribe landed on in the Battlestar Galactica mythology, this new planet was the Earth as we know it.
The citizens landed on the planet and spread themselves out across it, each finding their own place to call home. In a stunning flash forward 150,000 years, fans discovered that it really was our planet and Hera was the archaeological progenitor of our modern human species.
So was that a satisfying way to end, learning that Hera is actually your great-great-great-great-etc. grandmother? Did you like seeing all those who survived find a final resting place? And how about the 150,000 year time jump to present day New York City, suggesting that modern robotics may one day lead to Cylons of our very own, or that “All Along the Watchtower” is a song that’s been around for millennia?
Similar to The Sopranos, I expect three kinds of reactions. The first absolutely loved it and think it was the perfect way to end the series. The second group hated it and will forever think it’s stupid and they got cheated out of a real ending.
Then there’s the third group, who didn’t quite get it the first time and were kind of upset, but who will slowly grow to appreciate it the more they think about it. That’s exactly what happened with most of The Sopranos viewers.
At the moment, shortly after watching it without time to digest, I think I hated it. While fans (including myself) often joked about the humans on the show coming to Earth and maybe having Gaius Baltar turn out to be Jesus, actually seeing something fairly similar was off-putting. Combine that with the sudden disappearance of Kara Thrace and the total lack of an explanation for her dead body on the old Earth and I was left a little empty inside.
Perhaps that might have to do with the amazing first half and my brain couldn’t immediately make the transition to the more contemplative second half. I truly want to be one of those people who slowly grows to appreciate it over time, like what happened with so many Sopranos fans.
The only problem is that I was one of the Sopranos fans who hated the ending right away and still hate it to this day. However, this entire season up until they landed on the new Earth was great, and both The Plan TV movie and the new Caprica series look great, so I’m still not done with Battlestar Galactica, and that’s a very frakking good thing.
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-John Kubicek, BuddyTV Senior Writer
(Image courtesy of the Sci Fi Channel)
Senior Writer, BuddyTV
John watches nearly every show on TV, but he specializes in sci-fi/fantasy like The Vampire Diaries, Supernatural and True Blood. However, he can also be found writing about everything from Survivor and Glee to One Tree Hill and Smallville.
