Battlestar Galactica: Finale
I usually leave the BSG recaps to Boztopia and I guess I still will, but I will give my impressions of the finale, behind a cut of course as even without a recap there obviously will be spoilers...
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Take the Bab 5 comparison: Bab 5's story was well thought out and planned, but as a show I'd say it's inferior to BSG. Why? Because BSG much more closely adapted to the circumstances of it's telling. It adapted to it's actors, and to it's fans, and was therefore more organic and visceral for it. It's dramatic punches hit harder because the writers wrote them to the talents of their actors, with influence from what was going on in the world at the time. That the writing was adaptive to my mind makes it superior, because it means that the writing wasn't so overbearing that overpowered everything else in the story-telling medium of television.
More, the BSG writers did the thing that's absolutely crucial to such adaptive writing-- for most of the series they left themselves sufficient ambiguity to continue to adapt to circumstances 'on the ground,' as it were, they closed out loopholes where they popped up, and they resolved the major outstanding questions, and better yet did so with an answer that can be used to wrap up any outstanding minor questions that still might be out there.
Which is why I think BSG talks to audiences that are larger than Bab 5's audience. Bab 5 in my opinion didn't adapt to circumstances on the ground well. Their actors didn't always deliver on what the writing called for, and that impacted Bab 5's storytelling. Their special effects and cinematography fell down on the job a lot too. And no, I really don't think that's about a technology difference, I think that's about editing and storytelling in a visual media. I'm sure that BSG had plenty of special effects that never saw the air because they didn't deliver on what was called for. I think BSG was just probably more hardcore about rejecting things that didn't hit the dramatic note the story called for at any given point. And that's the difference between adaptive storytelling and planned out, hardcore storytelling.
Further, I'd disagree that the lack of a etched-in-stone fully planned story lacks deeper textual meaning. In fact, I'd rather strongly disagree with that. BSG clearly had an idea of where it was going from the start. Specifics? Probably not, but I'm pretty sure that the writers knew that the series would end with Galactica finding Earth. I think they had certain roles in mind for different characters, but those roles weren't tied to characters until they were certain the writing for different characters was in place. They always intended for there to be 12 models, but it wasn't until they'd revealed 7 of those models that they figured out that the final five should probably be special. Divinity and faith were always large parts of the show, but they didn't decide on how far to take it until they had a better sense of where the story was going themselves.
I guess it depends on whether you are a person who can wrap their mind around adding textual meaning to something in retrospect. As someone who writes casually... to me that's when you know you're doing something right, when your writing makes your earlier writing better. A better way to sum this up: do you prefer Dickens, or Joyce?
I think that might also be where we part ways on the divinity answer too. I've noted in reading other reviews that personal approach to personal faith makes a lot of difference here. I identify as a person of faith, though not a person of strong religious affiliation. So, as a person of faith, the story as it ended really struck some chords with me. I'm not really certain how I would approach the story if I were an atheist. I've read a couple reviews by aethiests who are rather put out by the concept of a sci-fi show giving 'the truth' as divinity. But I really think that's a question of personal belief-- really, was Dante any less of a quality writer because he was a person of faith? Does the Illiad have less meaning because it was a story kept as part of a faith-based cultural parable? I don't think so, but it's fair enough for others to think so.
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However, BSG is a story for many audiences, it just happens to be primarily a Sci-Fi theme, but it isn't limited to science fiction tropes or fans. They made a very conscious decision - no aliens, etc. which are things that helped BSG much more with 'mainstream' audiences.
But, to take your example of the 12 Cylon models, consider the changes. Originally, that idea was floated as this: There are 12 Cylon Models because to the Cylons, who viewed the world from their machine perspective, all of humanity could essentially be boiled down to 12 archetypes. So the Cylons could in effect "recreate" humanity much more efficiently. They only needed 12 types of individuals.
That was essentially thrown out when they decided to make "the Final Five" a special case, and utterly removed when they finalized the details. The "Final Five" were as individual as any human, and created the other 7, not with any kind of plan other than apparently modeled after people they knew. Ellen Tigh revealed that she based John/Cavil on her own father.
And because of this significant see-change, they inadvertantly created a continuity problem. They had 7 "new" Cylons, but they were numbers 1-6, 8. So they threw in the throwaway explanation of the 7 model, Daniel, killed by John/Cavil in a Caine and Abel act of jealousy.
I mean, I agree I am splitting hairs here, perhaps part of the issue is that the design process is too open. Specials, behind-the-scenes shows, numerous interviews, podcasts -- maybe they reveal too much :-p
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