Battlestar Galactica finale
This will be full of spoilers.
I didn't find the end of this season quite as viscerally shocking as the end of season 1. Despite having an extra 30 minutes to work with, I thought that this episode felt very rushed, a feeling that I have had a few times in the latter half of this season. It was especially pronounced in last third, when we went from tightly plotted election and rescue mission and Chief Tyrell is crazy to... well, I don't really understand why the #6 who had been brutalized aboard the Pegasus had sex with Baltar and then committed suicide with the nuke. Did she not hear about the new Cylon plan? The new decision that war with humanity was a mistake? and why did she fuck Baltar at all? Did she love him? We have seen almost nothing of them together, so was this based on their relationship, or on their lack of a relationship, or on something else entirely? Oh, and how many people were killed by the explosion?
And, then, suddenly it's one year later. I thought that this was pretty well done, and worked well for the most part, but holy shit are there open questions, now. Cool stuff: the characters have believably changed (Kara has grown her hair and married Sam, Cali is pregnant, Adama grew a mustache), and what they showed us gave us enough to follow what was going on, and fill in enough blanks for now. HOWEVER: it still felt dizzingly fast. I mean, Kara HUGGED Col. Tigh. And HE hugged her BACK (and boy does he look Canadian in that hat.) And...more questions: where is Tom Zarek? Has Lucy Lawless in the fleet managed to avoid Sam Anders all this time, or has he stumbled across her and exposed her as a Cylon? and what about the Sharon who had a child with Helo? Helo's up on Galactica, but where is she? And, for that matter, it seems that the #6 who appeared to demand surrender was Caprica 6, but where is Boomer (the 'war hero' Sharon, the only Cylon I'd trust.)
AND: given that the Cylons have withdrawn from Caprica and the other colonies, and that Dean Stockwell's message basically said what I have been saying and wondering about all along: 'hey, we're robots, and the universe is fucking huge. We'll go off and do our thing, and you stay and do yours, and let's never bother each other again', did anyone in the fleet propose anything like: hey, screw settling on some miserable new Caprica--let's go back to the old one? I know that I would have.
Strangely, the sudden change in the show's parameters brought on by settling "new Caprica" mean that, for the first time, the new theme music actually felt appropriate. I still hope they change it for third season.
This episode, heck maybe this whole season, is definitely a must get on DVD, rather like the LOTR extended editions, though it's possible that the limited budget of Battlestar means that they just didn't film all the scenes they wanted, in which case I shall just have to be sad.
And now, we wait for October.....
I didn't find the end of this season quite as viscerally shocking as the end of season 1. Despite having an extra 30 minutes to work with, I thought that this episode felt very rushed, a feeling that I have had a few times in the latter half of this season. It was especially pronounced in last third, when we went from tightly plotted election and rescue mission and Chief Tyrell is crazy to... well, I don't really understand why the #6 who had been brutalized aboard the Pegasus had sex with Baltar and then committed suicide with the nuke. Did she not hear about the new Cylon plan? The new decision that war with humanity was a mistake? and why did she fuck Baltar at all? Did she love him? We have seen almost nothing of them together, so was this based on their relationship, or on their lack of a relationship, or on something else entirely? Oh, and how many people were killed by the explosion?
And, then, suddenly it's one year later. I thought that this was pretty well done, and worked well for the most part, but holy shit are there open questions, now. Cool stuff: the characters have believably changed (Kara has grown her hair and married Sam, Cali is pregnant, Adama grew a mustache), and what they showed us gave us enough to follow what was going on, and fill in enough blanks for now. HOWEVER: it still felt dizzingly fast. I mean, Kara HUGGED Col. Tigh. And HE hugged her BACK (and boy does he look Canadian in that hat.) And...more questions: where is Tom Zarek? Has Lucy Lawless in the fleet managed to avoid Sam Anders all this time, or has he stumbled across her and exposed her as a Cylon? and what about the Sharon who had a child with Helo? Helo's up on Galactica, but where is she? And, for that matter, it seems that the #6 who appeared to demand surrender was Caprica 6, but where is Boomer (the 'war hero' Sharon, the only Cylon I'd trust.)
AND: given that the Cylons have withdrawn from Caprica and the other colonies, and that Dean Stockwell's message basically said what I have been saying and wondering about all along: 'hey, we're robots, and the universe is fucking huge. We'll go off and do our thing, and you stay and do yours, and let's never bother each other again', did anyone in the fleet propose anything like: hey, screw settling on some miserable new Caprica--let's go back to the old one? I know that I would have.
Strangely, the sudden change in the show's parameters brought on by settling "new Caprica" mean that, for the first time, the new theme music actually felt appropriate. I still hope they change it for third season.
This episode, heck maybe this whole season, is definitely a must get on DVD, rather like the LOTR extended editions, though it's possible that the limited budget of Battlestar means that they just didn't film all the scenes they wanted, in which case I shall just have to be sad.
And now, we wait for October.....