(no subject)
I thought I was going to bed, but apparently I'm not quite ready for sleep yet.
BSG 4.20 - "Daybreak Part 2"
I find that I don't have as much to say about the episode as I do about where I am with the show now that it's over. I'm done with BSG now, and in a lot of ways I'm done with thinking about it. The finale was equal parts glorious thematic convergence and shiny space battles and glowing little glimpses of character and sprawling, ugly mess. Pretty much like the rest of the show. I liked all of the echoes back to the past: the almost full circle for Six and Baltar, and the idea that some representation of them is still traveling on that arc, waiting to see if it will meet the beginning again; the old-school Centurions; the visions of the opera house, and the fact that those visions were both true and not at all what anyone thought they were seeing; the way they ended up installing Sam in the CIC, the ultimate Cylon device, and what a long, strange journey it's been since they were looking for Cylon devices in the CIC in the miniseries.
And I especially liked the emphasis on choice. God might be a force of nature, but they all have choices; they all have to make leaps of faith. So Cavill decides to make a trade, and Adama decided to trust him. And in the end, after letting the prophecy guide them for so long, the remnants of the fleet made the prophecy: the dying leader led them to an Earth. Kara Thrace brought them to an end. It was all about breaking the cycle.
That said, the finale made me realize that I have not trusted Ron Moore's storytelling for a very long time. I was impressed he managed to pull as much coherence as he did out of that tangle of dangling loose ends. I was not that happy with the backstory about Kara and Lee when she was with Zak; I don't think it made a lot of sense for what we knew of her when the series started. But that was a relatively small quibble. I hadn't been that emotionally engaged with the show since, well, "Maelstrom." There was a part of me that felt like whatever happened with Kara was going to have a degree of fantastical unreality to it that I was not comfortable with; I never did like it when the show veered that far into mysticism. Her being an angel at least made sense, had an internal coherence, and it felt neat and clean; she said she'd fulfilled her purpose, and then she was gone, just like that. If her end had to be a big sacrificial gesture, at least it was a gesture that happened a long time ago. It was, at least, a better deal than Sam Anders got, and quite frankly, I had been nervous enough about where the show was going with Kara's special destiny for long enough that I'll take an end that gave her grace and a sense of wholeness. That's probably as happy as it's going to get for her. And it certainly answers the question of why her picture was still hanging in the memorial hallway.
So Laura got to see the remnants of the fleet settled on Earth, an Earth of abundant life; Bill Adama got to live out the rest of his days feeling sorry for himself and talking to a dead body, which are two of his favorite things ever; Athena and Helo got to raise their daughter in peace at last; Lee got to figure out the best way for all of them to take this new chance, and he got his own clean slate; Baltar and Caprica finally really found each other; and the Tighs, bless them, got that retirement, that togetherness, at last. I would not have pegged them for the happy ending, but I did like that. All of that pain and hardship wasn't for nothing.
But there was a lot of narrative mess to wind up; and a lot of self-indulgence; and a fair amount of handwaving. I had a suspicion that if they did find Earth (and then another Earth), it would be in the past; once they did find Earth, I had a suspicion that we'd end the episode in the present, and half expected to see Cylon basestars in orbit. Not yet, anyway, and maybe not ever. But I really could have done without Ron Moore's gratuitous and masturbatory cameo, which broke the fourth wall for me, and I felt like the very end dragged on far too long to hammer the point home. Ron, if we've come along with you this far, WE GET IT.
So I'm finished, and mostly at least satisfied; but I have absolutely no interest in revisiting this universe in Moore's hands. The previews of Caprica looked kind of dreadful, which could be the promo monkeys' fault, but between Moore's problems with storytelling and not wanting massive retcons to ruin my current view of BSG canon, I don't have much interest in checking it out. (Beyond that, watching some It's Not Really Sci Fi It's A Family Drama With Robots on the New SyFy Channel does not hold much appeal right now.) I still haven't decided how much knowing what happened to Kara will color my ability to watch any part of the show again. That will probably determine how I feel about this episode in the long run.
ETA: Oooh! Jacob gave it an F. I can't argue with his reasoning, but I haven't held the show in as high a regard since the second half of Season 2, so it never had as far to fall for me.
BSG 4.20 - "Daybreak Part 2"
I find that I don't have as much to say about the episode as I do about where I am with the show now that it's over. I'm done with BSG now, and in a lot of ways I'm done with thinking about it. The finale was equal parts glorious thematic convergence and shiny space battles and glowing little glimpses of character and sprawling, ugly mess. Pretty much like the rest of the show. I liked all of the echoes back to the past: the almost full circle for Six and Baltar, and the idea that some representation of them is still traveling on that arc, waiting to see if it will meet the beginning again; the old-school Centurions; the visions of the opera house, and the fact that those visions were both true and not at all what anyone thought they were seeing; the way they ended up installing Sam in the CIC, the ultimate Cylon device, and what a long, strange journey it's been since they were looking for Cylon devices in the CIC in the miniseries.
And I especially liked the emphasis on choice. God might be a force of nature, but they all have choices; they all have to make leaps of faith. So Cavill decides to make a trade, and Adama decided to trust him. And in the end, after letting the prophecy guide them for so long, the remnants of the fleet made the prophecy: the dying leader led them to an Earth. Kara Thrace brought them to an end. It was all about breaking the cycle.
That said, the finale made me realize that I have not trusted Ron Moore's storytelling for a very long time. I was impressed he managed to pull as much coherence as he did out of that tangle of dangling loose ends. I was not that happy with the backstory about Kara and Lee when she was with Zak; I don't think it made a lot of sense for what we knew of her when the series started. But that was a relatively small quibble. I hadn't been that emotionally engaged with the show since, well, "Maelstrom." There was a part of me that felt like whatever happened with Kara was going to have a degree of fantastical unreality to it that I was not comfortable with; I never did like it when the show veered that far into mysticism. Her being an angel at least made sense, had an internal coherence, and it felt neat and clean; she said she'd fulfilled her purpose, and then she was gone, just like that. If her end had to be a big sacrificial gesture, at least it was a gesture that happened a long time ago. It was, at least, a better deal than Sam Anders got, and quite frankly, I had been nervous enough about where the show was going with Kara's special destiny for long enough that I'll take an end that gave her grace and a sense of wholeness. That's probably as happy as it's going to get for her. And it certainly answers the question of why her picture was still hanging in the memorial hallway.
So Laura got to see the remnants of the fleet settled on Earth, an Earth of abundant life; Bill Adama got to live out the rest of his days feeling sorry for himself and talking to a dead body, which are two of his favorite things ever; Athena and Helo got to raise their daughter in peace at last; Lee got to figure out the best way for all of them to take this new chance, and he got his own clean slate; Baltar and Caprica finally really found each other; and the Tighs, bless them, got that retirement, that togetherness, at last. I would not have pegged them for the happy ending, but I did like that. All of that pain and hardship wasn't for nothing.
But there was a lot of narrative mess to wind up; and a lot of self-indulgence; and a fair amount of handwaving. I had a suspicion that if they did find Earth (and then another Earth), it would be in the past; once they did find Earth, I had a suspicion that we'd end the episode in the present, and half expected to see Cylon basestars in orbit. Not yet, anyway, and maybe not ever. But I really could have done without Ron Moore's gratuitous and masturbatory cameo, which broke the fourth wall for me, and I felt like the very end dragged on far too long to hammer the point home. Ron, if we've come along with you this far, WE GET IT.
So I'm finished, and mostly at least satisfied; but I have absolutely no interest in revisiting this universe in Moore's hands. The previews of Caprica looked kind of dreadful, which could be the promo monkeys' fault, but between Moore's problems with storytelling and not wanting massive retcons to ruin my current view of BSG canon, I don't have much interest in checking it out. (Beyond that, watching some It's Not Really Sci Fi It's A Family Drama With Robots on the New SyFy Channel does not hold much appeal right now.) I still haven't decided how much knowing what happened to Kara will color my ability to watch any part of the show again. That will probably determine how I feel about this episode in the long run.
ETA: Oooh! Jacob gave it an F. I can't argue with his reasoning, but I haven't held the show in as high a regard since the second half of Season 2, so it never had as far to fall for me.