And that was the end of the story. For five years, I’ve been following Battlestar Galactica, sometimes breathlessly, sometimes annoyed, but always interested and during some extraordinary episodes regarding it even as a possible worthy successor to the Babylon 5 way of story telling.

With the last couple of episodes my expectations for the finale were running high. You have to understand: normally I avoid show finals. Why? Because once watched, the show really is over. There’s nothing left for the imagination (how might the arc of the story come to a close; how might a specific character overcome the obstacles piled up in his or her way; will this and that character finally get together…). After a finale, it is over. Simple as that.

I have made progress in regard to that phobia: I have faithfully watched season 5 of Stargate Atlantis through, including the finale, and I was terribly disappointed. Nothing made sense and it turned into the worst kitsch I have seen on TV for quite some time.

The “Last Frakking Special” made me sceptic in regard to BSG. Ronald D. Moore, producer and writer of the show, mentioned casually how he had difficulties tying ends together. In the end, he said, he just chucked his plot out of the window and went with character stories. I cringed at that. Understand: I am a huge Babylon 5 fan and the arc of the show had been established before it even went into production. I am spoiled when it comes to tying loose ends together and stuff that has been established in season one working out three or four seasons later. I knew that BSG was more of a conglomerate of ideas which somehow seemed to work out anyway, but I expected that the proverbial gun, which had been places on the mantle in act two, would be used in the final act.

And it didn’t happen. Aw, shit.

From here on, there are SPOILERS. And I mean it.

I’ll vent my anger with the final episodes first and close with the good stuff. It’s a psychological trick to make stuff not appear as bad as it might be. (Look for it during your next talk with your boss; if he knows what he’s doing, he will proceed this way.) Understand also that I am talking as someone who has watched the BSG finale once and not repeatedly; so these are the impressions I got away with.

1. Flashbacks. Hmm. WHY? I mean, they would have made a lot of sense either in the pilot or sometime in season 2 or 3. By then, we would have already gotten to know the characters and the flashbacks would have helped to understand their motivations. But now, in the final episode – what was the point? It didn’t made me understand the characters any better and honestly, I found some of the flashbacks quite confusing. What was that with Adama and Tigh about? How did it fit in? And why was Adama asked if he was a Cylon when he doing the lie detector test. Back then, they didn’t know that skinjobs existed. The only thing that somehow made sense was the Kara/Lee part and the information that Gaius came from a farming background (it helped with the emotions in one of the last scenes). Other than that the flashbacks were waste of time.
2. Holes in the story. Yep, there were quite a few. Taken together, you could loose the entire fleet in them.

• Hera. So she is important for the survival of the human race? In any other way but the fact that she has miraculously drawn the coordinates for the way to an Earth-like planet? Because, and forgive me for being cold blooded about it, if that is all she did, why the heck did they risk going after her? Heroism and all is nice, but if you only got 30,000 people left, you don’t waste them on a mission you know almost for sure is suicide! Above all, the people who volunteered were some of the most valueable people in the fleet. No military commander, no politician would approve such a mission given the circumstances.
  Of course, you could argue that they wanted to make sure that the Cylons would not get the means of resurrection from her or the coordinates (but at the time of the decision to go after her, they didn’t know yet that the points she had drawn were coordinates). So, unless I missed something, the whole mission thing was frakking stupid. For four years, they tried to save what was left of the human race and then this.
  As an afterthought: she might be the mitochondrial Eve that was mentioned in the ‘150,00 years later’ part, but that might have been a child between any human and any cylon as well. After all, there were quite a few of the skinjobs that settled with the humans.
• Contingency Plan. Have you wondered how the rescue party got back from the Cylon colony? No? But I have. That thing is about a gazillion miles wide and long (look how long the ships need to fly over it) and when they prepped for the mission, the Galactica crew assumed that Hera would be held close to the center, for protection. Even given the fact that Boomer went to find the rescue party, they certainly didn’t meet only a couple hundred yards into the colony but a lot further in. So, they tell Boomer that they had intended not to use the Raptors to get back. But how DID they get back? And in the timeframe of only 5 minutes? Maybe we could have skipped a flashback or two and shown that?
• Who the f*ck is Hoshi? Admiral? Him? He was in like one episode! I know, I am exaggerating, but this dude never really had anything important to do and then he’s promoted to admiral all of the sudden? Really, the only thing that came to my mind was ‘WTF is Hoshi’? And let’s not forget: Romo Lampkin was promoted to president! I mean, I love the character, he’s such a cool guy (not to mention sexy), but is it just me or does this promotion not really seem in tune with his portrayal up to this point?
• The Opera House. Ok, I have mixed feeling about this part. First of all, I was wondering how they would make this work as there is no opera house in space. In the end, the way they tied the vision together with the characters running around the ship was really, really neat. But the culmination was – well, disappointing. So, Gaius and Six are in CIC with Hera, they look up and see the final five standing up there (ok, four of them because Sam is in the goo bath). Let’s ignore the fact that Tigh is standing up there, seemingly frozen to the spot, while all around him the battle wages. Yeah, that’s where an XO should be. Leaving that tiny details aside – there’s nothing more to it! Six and Balthar see them there and nothing of extraordinary significance happens. I have been looking forward to this part since it was first introduced and then the plot just goes *puff*.
• Love triangle. Strike that. Love quadruple? Help me out here. Ellen is Tighs wife. Gaius and Six have an affair. Ellen is killed by Tigh. Gaius is not with the Six anymore. Tigh hooks up with the Six and they almost have a baby. Tigh tells Ellen he really is in love with the Six. And once on New Earth, Tigh and Ellen seem to have their happily ever after and Gaius and the Six are together again. Where did the in-between go? Where’s the part were the Six and Tigh have the fallout and decide to go their separate ways? And is the fighting-together enough to bring Balthar and the Six together again? Did I miss anything? I guess that just worked better with the flashbacks, but it frakking sucked.
• Angels. God. Seriously? So the invisible Balthar and Six were angels. And God (=RDM) has a plan. Who knew. Ok, I had no idea how this was going to work out, but to say it came all down to god was pretty much the lamest explanation ever. That’s a cheat card. Like: if you don’t know what to do, if you don’t know how to tie up your plots, just say “God” and everything is nice.
• Starbuck *puff*. Ok, that was one of the worst bits. What WAS Kara? An angel? A divine being? Was she from the start (the beginning of the show) or only after she died on Earth? Did she know in the end what she was? If she knew she would go/vanish into thin air, why didn’t she go with Sam? Did she still have feelings for Lee? If yes, why did she leave? If ever questions remained unanswered…
• Adama wants to live on a mountain. Leaving aside the romance part (that was one of the good things), why in the world did Adama part from his family? When he left, he could not know that Kara was to disappear. He loved his son and why would he not want to see him again? And really, how long could he survive alone, on the top of a mountain, with no food or water, at his age … did I mention he’d also need to do away with the Raptor (not tampering with history and stuff).
• No one died. Roslin doesn’t count, we knew she was dying. Starbuck doesn’t count either, she was dead already. Moore seemed to love his characters just too much and couldn’t let go of them. Truly, they didn’t smack the viewers as badly as SGA with Ronan dying and then coming back to life, but I seriously thought that Helo had died until the last scene. I mean, the show was so dark throughout its run and suddenly, in the final episode, all the main characters get through the worst battle ever alive? Yeah, sure.

I’ll just stop here. I guess it become pretty clear that many things in the final episode raised more eyebrows questions than they answered. To keep to the metaphor: either you place gun on the mantle in act two or you don’t. If you do (and wave it in your audience’s faces), use it! If you don’t, don’t suddenly pull it out!

But, as I promised, there were good parts as well. I liked the action sequences very much. The special effects were great and the directing was awesome as well. Seeing the good toasters fight the bad toasters was a blast. Tory paying for her killing Cally felt so good. And there were a few scenes that made me laugh out loud – for example Cavil shouting at the final five not to keep ‘two civilizations waiting’. It eased the tension.

And the incredibly endearing scenes between the dying Roslin and Adama were heart breaking. Seeing them together sitting in the grass, just savoring the last moments,  dissolved me into tears. By the time Adama picked Roslin up and carried her to the Raptor I was completely gone.

And even though I disliked the 150,000-years-later part (if the show would have ended on Hera playing it would have been completely fine), I loved the news clippings showing advances in robot technology. Kind of scary, seeing as those reports are (or at least some of them) taken from our real life.

So, what’s the verdict? After five years, I still love the show. In itself, it is a great piece of sci-fi and story telling. Compelling, great characters, funny at times, always controversial. It picks up topics of relevance to our every day life and managed to show both sides of a story, not condemning either one. The viewer was never told anything, but rather encouraged to think and evaluate his or her own believes. The finale sucked. It’s as easy as this. The inconsistencies in the story bothered me so much that I noticed them and I felt cheated because the story just seemed to leave out the parts that were difficult to tell or show. Many questions remain unanswered which can be attributed to the fact that there never was an arc planned for the complete series.

Before you bash me in your comments (please, be constructive, I’d love to hear from you), let me tell you that I ordered the complete series from Amazon UK (it’s really cheap right now). So, I AM a fan :)

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