The Zone

by **Chairman Kaga** on Sun Mar 22, 2009 12:07 am

Glad to see the level douchebag doesn't change around here.

by **DennisMM** on Sun Mar 22, 2009 12:11 am

A thought struck me while writing an email to a friend. How many humanoid Cylons were supposed to have been on the base ship? They transferred down to "Earth" along with the humans of the fleet and joined the diaspora, right? It's one thing for the humans, who have spent years pressed into metal ships among the stars, stressed and strained and on edge, to walk away from what they've been doing. The Cylons have spent their entire lives in mechanical cities, communicating with machines on an instinctual level with the understanding that they are, regardless of form, still machines. How likely is it they would make the same choice as the humans?

by **MonkeyM666** on Sun Mar 22, 2009 12:14 am

John-Locke wrote:
MonkeyM666 wrote:BSG is the best television show ever made.

Wrong, not even close.

The Finale had a few good moments in the first half but overall it was completely Meh.

Good riddance I say.

poo poo to you sir. It's a class act all round.

by **Retardo_Montalban** on Sun Mar 22, 2009 12:59 am

Dance Dance Robot, Dance!

Dance your little heart out. Dance for the world!

You can't look sinister when you dance so good.

I thought the ending was aces, but I could have done without all the exposition with angel Baltar and Six. All i need is a montage of the future downfall of humanity dancing, dancing, dancing.

by **papalazeru** on Sun Mar 22, 2009 7:12 am

DennisMM wrote:A thought struck me while writing an email to a friend. How many humanoid Cylons were supposed to have been on the base ship? They transferred down to "Earth" along with the humans of the fleet and joined the diaspora, right? It's one thing for the humans, who have spent years pressed into metal ships among the stars, stressed and strained and on edge, to walk away from what they've been doing. The Cylons have spent their entire lives in mechanical cities, communicating with machines on an instinctual level with the understanding that they are, regardless of form, still machines. How likely is it they would make the same choice as the humans?

I think if the humans were wiling to reject everything, cast of their shackles of technology and go back to basics, the cylons were willing to try something new as well so it didn't 'happen again'. The idea was a completely new start as one, and it was something that both were not used to. Also, remember that the skinjobs had been on Caprica learning human ways so it would be unavoidable that agriculture would have been something they had picked up.

The biggest downfall for me about the show is that Gaius didn't turn out leading the Cyclons like the original series. There was a moment in the 1st and 2nd series where I thought we had sympathy for the cylons from Gaius but not enough for him to join them

by **John-Locke** on Sun Mar 22, 2009 7:35 am

The Vicar on Fri Feb 17, 2006 wrote:Or the fleet pulls up to "Earth" and finds a burnt out cinder. Might be too reality based for most fans taste.

Shan on Mon Feb 27, 2006 wrote:Some of us have this theory that the Six Baltar sees in his head (and now the Baltar in Six's head) are being caused by Count Iblis and the Ship of Lights brigade.

By that, we mean ... in the original series Count Iblis especially was a supernatural being manipulating the Colonials and the Cylons.

What might be happening this time around is that there is some higher power manipulating both sides for some reason and creating the visions in Baltar and Caprica Six's heads, feeding them information and pushing their actions in a particular direction that suits them.

What is suspicious is that initially, Baltar's Six in his head was only telling him things he could work out himself but then started to reveal things he couldn't have known, like about Sharon's pregnancy. So possibly, the Kobol Gods, the Cylon God, or some sort of third party is causing all this.

RogueScribner on Mon Feb 27, 2006 wrote:I'm thinking that the fleet will find Earth and become the dominant population. In the far past. I don't think we have a Battlestar Galactica 2010 in our future at any rate.

MasterWhedon on Mon Feb 27, 2006 wrote:My best guess is that the show is leaning toward a union between Man and Cylon, what with the new child, and Six and Sharon deciding on peace. I don't think the Cylons will disappear when they reach Earth. I think they'll move in with them.

John-Locke on Thu Mar 02, 2006 wrote:To the end of the human race

Doesn't say anything about the Cylons doing it, I think the ultimate goal of the Baltar/Six Phantoms is to create a new race that combines both Human and Cylon so Boomer & Halo's baby would be the first of the new species.

I'm pretty sure thats their goal, being manipulated by some gods is quite likely, I mean they are following the Scriptures so far, or is that just coincidence?

Eric G on Tue Apr 04, 2006 wrote:Has anybody entertained the notion that that manipulative bitch, Ellen Tigh (The XO's wife) is a Cylon model

See how predictable all this shit was, they might have thrown us a curveball but at the end of the day this shit was flag polled a mile off.

And I was also right, half this episode was filler.

by **papalazeru** on Sun Mar 22, 2009 7:53 am

I think if you throw 50 bajillion theories in the air at once, the chances are one or two are going to be right.

by **John-Locke** on Sun Mar 22, 2009 8:05 am

This was 3 years ago and pretty much everyone was on the right track back then, Moore probably thought he was sooo clever but when he realised everyone had this shit figured out he dragged it out with filler episode after filler episode and threw us a curveball (Earth being toast) to get us off the scent.

The first two seasons were aces, the rest has been inconsistent to say the least, when I said good riddance above it's because it's finally over and I don't have to torture myself with any more pointless boring filler episodes. I'm glad that it's over, would have liked something a little less obvious though. This thing had more endings than Return of the King, literally half the episode.

Cavil killing himself was excellent though.

Anyone else think the CGI was really bad in places?

by **papalazeru** on Sun Mar 22, 2009 8:14 am

John-Locke wrote:Anyone else think the CGI was really bad in places?

Yeah, they never really got good with showing humans and robotic cylons at the same time, even though it was cool to see Apollo head down a corridor standing next to a Cylon.

by **John-Locke** on Sun Mar 22, 2009 8:20 am

papalazeru wrote:
John-Locke wrote:Anyone else think the CGI was really bad in places?

Yeah, they never really got good with showing humans and robotic cylons at the same time, even though it was cool to see Apollo head down a corridor standing next to a Cylon.

I didn't have a problem with them so much, it was the old model boxy toasters that looked poorly rendered and composited into the picture.

And the final assault stuff looked almost as bad, like they gave it all a weird overly saturated colour to hide the low frame rate and lack of detail, something seemed off anyway.

by **TonyWilson** on Sun Mar 22, 2009 11:22 am

I'm really ambivalent about the ending. I watched last weeks episode for the first time just before I watched the final ep and pretty much everything up to Starbuck jumping to earth I really loved, the character moments, the wall of left behind photos, the flashbacks, Tyrol killing Tory, all of it excpet the crappy CGI Centurions and the goofy as fuck moment when Caprica and Baltar see the "Angels". But then, well Starbuck gets totally shafted, Anders "perfect moment of creation" is to die in the sun, Adama just fucks off to be alone when he has his son and his best friend there, the opera house visions come to nothing.... and oh good lord the dancing robot montage.
JL, to be fair the posters may have called those ideas theories but the show has been way more than upfront about the fact God or whoever is controlling things and the idea of the Humans and Cylons becoming one race has been obvious since Athena concieved. Not many people called the idea of the Humand and Cylons intermixing with indigenous humans though.

by **LegoKenobi** on Sun Mar 22, 2009 11:52 am

TonyWilson wrote:the opera house visions come to nothing....

whoa whoa whoa -- are you SERIOUS? the opera house sequence was *awesome*! i frackin' LOVED how it turns out that the CIC was the room where the "opera" plays out, because through the whole show, it HAS been central to so much of the drama. all the main characters played a part in getting to that point. i thought it was epic and inspired.

by **John-Locke** on Sun Mar 22, 2009 2:01 pm

I think the use of Prophecy (whether through visions or not) is simply lazy writing myself.

by **RogueScribner** on Sun Mar 22, 2009 3:14 pm

Wow. I think I have to watch the finale again just to process it. But wow.

Few series ever get a proper ending these days and fewer still actually seem fated to end the way they did, though you couldn't possibly have predicted all the details beforehand.

Yeah, the humans and Cylons colonized Earth. I called that way back when. Yeah, the Six and Baltar visions are angels. Hera is "us." We've had years to speculate on everything and some of us were bound to be right some of the time. That's not the point really. BSG wasn't a mystery meant to be unraveled (like Lost). It was a journey of the soul, exploring ideas of creation, survival, purpose, co-existence, pride, fate, and spirituality. BSG was about us as a civilization in no uncertain terms. The show wasn't perfect, but I think it was pretty deftly concluded. The show was never about space battles so I didn't mind that the last half of the finale had nothing to do with that. It was always about these people and their struggles. It was nice to see (most of) them get some peace. After years of struggle and war and death, they finally had peace. I can't think of a more satisfying ending than that.

by **Retardo_Montalban** on Sun Mar 22, 2009 3:20 pm

RogueScribner wrote:Wow. I think I have to watch the finale again just to process it. But wow.

Few series ever get a proper ending these days and fewer still actually seem fated to end the way they did, though you couldn't possibly have predicted all the details beforehand.

Yeah, the humans and Cylons colonized Earth. I called that way back when. Yeah, the Six and Baltar visions are angels. Hera is "us." We've had years to speculate on everything and some of us were bound to be right some of the time. That's not the point really. BSG wasn't a mystery meant to be unraveled (like Lost). It was a journey of the soul, exploring ideas of creation, survival, purpose, co-existence, pride, fate, and spirituality. BSG was about us as a civilization in no uncertain terms. The show wasn't perfect, but I think it was pretty deftly concluded. The show was never about space battles so I didn't mind that the last half of the finale had nothing to do with that. It was always about these people and their struggles. It was nice to see (most of) them get some peace. After years of struggle and war and death, they finally had peace. I can't think of a more satisfying ending than that.

Except for Adama laying on a pool table in an Irish bar as all his friends eulogize the end of his spotty, yet illustrious career.

by **DennisMM** on Sun Mar 22, 2009 4:18 pm

John-Locke wrote:I think the use of Prophecy (whether through visions or not) is simply lazy writing myself.

Thank you.

by **Fievel** on Sun Mar 22, 2009 4:53 pm

John-Locke wrote:I think the use of Prophecy (whether through visions or not) is simply lazy writing myself.

If it had just shown up near the end of the series, I'd agree with you.
But this was a central part of the series' mythology.

Where the hell is Vicar with his thoughts on the shows' end??

by **John-Locke** on Sun Mar 22, 2009 5:16 pm

I suppose I'm just disappointed that the Opera House Visions turned out to be prophetic and based on Galactica instead of an actual Opera House or symbolic of something far more mind blowing. Seems like a silly thing to build up for it to just be about 4 people trying to find a silly little girl who runs off when she's told to stay put. Plus it all amounted to nothing other than the Final 5 sharing memories for a while which really amounted to nothing important as simply killing Cavil would have had the same outcome for mankind.

by **PRbuick** on Sun Mar 22, 2009 8:03 pm

Was that the first time they used the music theme from the original series in an episode? (When the fleet rode off into the sunset.)

by **DennisMM** on Sun Mar 22, 2009 8:06 pm

It's played briefly at the Galactica's decommissioning in the first episode of the miniseries, as well.

by **papalazeru** on Sun Mar 22, 2009 9:18 pm

DennisMM wrote:It's played briefly at the Galactica's decommissioning in the first episode of the miniseries, as well.

Also over the doco that made on Galactica in series 2 (I think). I also found it the most prominent time the original tune has played - it brought a tear to my eye; apart from the ending now.

by **burlivesleftnut** on Sun Mar 22, 2009 9:40 pm

I thought it was an awesome finally, but I didn't get that emotionally caught up in it. Like Roslin's death should have hit me harder, but fuck. Her death was going on for the entire show.

Also, weirdly ironic? Did that newspaper say at the end that they found the skeleton of a girl? As in she didn't live very long? it would be kind of funny if all the spacefarers landed on earth and tried to integrate with the natives, but were just butchered by them instead.

And Locke, I never really liked the prophecies and such much, but it was integral to the show. Whether we liked them or not, doesn't mean they didn't make sense.

I give the show 10/10 since Cottle survived. I will daydream about him aborting aboriginal babies for the rest of my life.

by **Fried Gold** on Sun Mar 22, 2009 10:32 pm

Hmm....undecided if it was a good, fitting end.

Quite a few strengths....a few things which I wasn't satisfied with.

My initial thought is that they left themselves a few too many elements to round off for one, albeit longer, final episode....however this shouldn't be too surprising considering the entire past season has been a gigantic denouement.

by **TonyWilson** on Mon Mar 23, 2009 8:21 am

Ok I rewatched the the finale last night...and it is fucking beautiful. Really! Starbuck still ends up being forgotten which I think was an unintentional outcome the writers didn't think about it, but everything else was epic and pretty moving too.

by **TheBaxter** on Mon Mar 23, 2009 9:57 am

overall i really liked the finale, but the deus ex machina ending rubbed me wrong. yeah, it's been telegraphed for a while, but i was really hoping it was a red herring, or that they'd go another way. at some point i'll rewatch the series from the beginning, but when i do, i think i'm going to have a big problem with all the prophecy stuff, because in the end half of it is either irrelevant or wrong. which makes it all kind of pointless. i think the resort to "god's plan" as the guiding force of the finale just revealed the lack of planning and the "make-it-up-as-we-go" approach they took, and that they ultimately painted themselves into a corner where the only way to end it without contradicting something that happened earlier in the series was to resort to the god explanation. i also have a problem with the fact that baltar is the one human who has been in contact with and been manipulated by "god" or one of his agents since the beginning, and yet in the end his role is very minor. he certainly had a lot less to do with the ultimate fate of humanity and cylonity than roslin, adama, or any number of others. so why didn't those more important characters have angels talking to them instead? i think baltar needed to play a much bigger, more important role in the end than just helping save some little girl from the big bad cylons. he needed to make a decision, or moreso some actual sacrifice, that justified all that manipulation by a higher power.

ultimately to me, BSG works best on the dramatic and character level, and the finale was a good example of that. as an allegory for political and social realities of our own world, it's been mostly hit and a little miss over the years, but as a spiritual or symbolic or mythological piece, they dropped the ball. they aimed high, and i can't fail them for that, and hit most of their targets, but didn't quite reach the ultimate height they were aiming for. but a good try.

by **instant_karma** on Mon Mar 23, 2009 1:01 pm

Just got done watching this. Found it all a bit underwhelmng. For a while now, I'd been hoping that the show wouldn't end with them ending up on prehistoric Earth by some means (time travel, wormhole, whatever), as it seemed a little too Stargate. Oh well...

LegoKenobi wrote:
TonyWilson wrote:the opera house visions come to nothing....

whoa whoa whoa -- are you SERIOUS? the opera house sequence was *awesome*! i frackin' LOVED how it turns out that the CIC was the room where the "opera" plays out, because through the whole show, it HAS been central to so much of the drama. all the main characters played a part in getting to that point. i thought it was epic and inspired.

I don't think the opera house was written to foreshadow the CIC scene, so much as the CIC scene was written make the opera house scene retroactively important, in an attempt to try and brush over the fact that the opera house stuff was written when they were still just making things up as they went along and whatever intentions they might've had for that part of the 'mythology' had long since been abandoned.

by **VegasRon** on Mon Mar 23, 2009 9:23 pm

John-Locke wrote:This was 3 years ago and pretty much everyone was on the right track back then, Moore probably thought he was sooo clever but when he realised everyone had this shit figured out he dragged it out with filler episode after filler episode and threw us a curveball (Earth being toast) to get us off the scent.

The first two seasons were aces, the rest has been inconsistent to say the least, when I said good riddance above it's because it's finally over and I don't have to torture myself with any more pointless boring filler episodes. I'm glad that it's over, would have liked something a little less obvious though. This thing had more endings than Return of the King, literally half the episode.

Cavil killing himself was excellent though.

Anyone else think the CGI was really bad in places?

I agree with this almost completely.

First two seasons were absolutely amazing(with occasional bad filler). I didn't care for the Iraqprica storyline and analogies, and everything after that was spotty for me, at best. Though the best scene in the entire series, and the best ep since Lay Your Burdens Down, pt. 1, was the Lee Adama speech during Baltar's trial in the S3 finale.

With that said, I did actually enjoy the series ender. Sure, some of the F/X were spotty and some of the plot developments were a bit hackneyed(Cavil overpowering his 2 guards and grabbing Hera as a hostage was the low point in the series for me as far as bad cliches go). Also, what was the point of Roslyn's flashback? I may have missed it. I also wanted more about what the skinjobs were up to in the coda.

Speaking of flashbacks, Baltar's payoff actually got me choked up. Lee and Kara's worked for me in the end cuz I had always suspected they actually got together while Lee's brother was still alive. This showed that they didn't and just drove home the point that they were destined to never be together. I liked her disappearing act and that the in-heads are some version of angels, and I pretty much hated all the theological tie-ins throughout the series, but this all worked for me. Probably cuz it wasn't rammed down my throat.

And finally, a minor bitch. Did we really need a 30+ sec montage of robots at the end? I got the point. I think we all got the point in the pilot, actually. A nice pull-out with a robot up on that big screen in Times Square would have been the nice subtle touch to make the point, I didn't need to be clubbed like a harp seal with a fucking dancing robots aerobic video.

Overall, I give the series a B+ and the finale an A-

My geek/nerd gene is compelling me to throw a So Say We All in right about now but I'm resisting.

by **VegasRon** on Mon Mar 23, 2009 9:33 pm

TonyWilson wrote:But then, well Starbuck gets totally shafted, Anders "perfect moment of creation" is to die in the sun.

Anders' line of "Meet you on the other side" really hits home in retrospect.

At first I wanted it explicitly spelled out what the deal with Starbuck was. Now I'm satisfied with the open non-explanation.

by **VegasRon** on Mon Mar 23, 2009 9:36 pm

Retardo_Montalban wrote:
Except for Adama laying on a pool table in an Irish bar as all his friends eulogize the end of his spotty, yet illustrious career.

Well played, sir, well played.

by **burlivesleftnut** on Mon Mar 23, 2009 10:43 pm

TheBaxter wrote:i think baltar needed to play a much bigger, more important role in the end than just helping save some little girl from the big bad cylons. he needed to make a decision, or moreso some actual sacrifice, that justified all that manipulation by a higher power.

Well I think letting go of the comforts of his harem and finally deciding he was willing to lay down his life for SOMETHING was a pretty big sacrifice.

by **TheBaxter** on Mon Mar 23, 2009 11:01 pm

burlivesleftnut wrote:
TheBaxter wrote:i think baltar needed to play a much bigger, more important role in the end than just helping save some little girl from the big bad cylons. he needed to make a decision, or moreso some actual sacrifice, that justified all that manipulation by a higher power.

Well I think letting go of the comforts of his harem and finally deciding he was willing to lay down his life for SOMETHING was a pretty big sacrifice.

but he didn't actually lay down his life. at most he did what virtually every other character on the show has done, put himself at risk, and barely that. if he'd actually died, and his death was somehow instrumental in getting the fleet to where they were destined to end up, then it would have justified all the attention from angel six.
and letting go of his harem was hardly a sacrifice, he hated and detested them by the end and was glad to be rid of them.
not to mention, caprica six is a pretty nice consolation prize. i'd give up technology and go live in the woods with her.
i did like his final bit, breaking down and saying how he'll go back to farming. that was a really nice moment, but my main point is, if he's going to get that much attention from one of the two mystical beings who was guiding things according to god's plan, then he'd better be important enough in shaping the final outcome of those events to warrant that level of attention. and in the end, he wasn't.

by **Chairman Kaga** on Mon Mar 23, 2009 11:21 pm

Can't disagree more.

Baltar's contribution is throughout the series not simply his speech in CiC (of course without his speech in the CiC Hera would be dead or stolen and the human race would not have continued). The events of the series his guilt, failed presidency, love affair with Six, opening Deanna's mind, his faux messianic cult all lead to changing him from the self centered atheist he started out as to the man with faith that could convince Cavil in that one moment.

by **Retardo_Montalban** on Tue Mar 24, 2009 12:53 am

Chairman Kaga wrote:Can't disagree more.

Baltar's contribution is throughout the series not simply his speech in CiC (of course without his speech in the CiC Hera would be dead or stolen and the human race would not have continued). The events of the series his guilt, failed presidency, love affair with Six, opening Deanna's mind, his faux messianic cult all lead to changing him from the self centered atheist he started out as to the man with faith that could convince Cavil in that one moment.

Hey man, the human race would have been fine without Hera. Sure, we'd be caked in mud and communicating through a series of grunts, but we'd be happy. I would have been happy spearing gazelles if it wasn't for them toasters.

by **TheBaxter** on Tue Mar 24, 2009 1:43 am

Chairman Kaga wrote:Can't disagree more.

Baltar's contribution is throughout the series not simply his speech in CiC (of course without his speech in the CiC Hera would be dead or stolen and the human race would not have continued). The events of the series his guilt, failed presidency, love affair with Six, opening Deanna's mind, his faux messianic cult all lead to changing him from the self centered atheist he started out as to the man with faith that could convince Cavil in that one moment.

i could buy that, if the speech led to a truce that lasted more than 5 seconds. maybe angel-six and angel-baltar should've been talking to tyrol instead, and then he wouldn't have fuxxored it all up and made baltar's speech irrelevant.

by **Lord Voldemoo** on Tue Mar 24, 2009 2:10 am

TheBaxter wrote:
Chairman Kaga wrote:Can't disagree more.

Baltar's contribution is throughout the series not simply his speech in CiC (of course without his speech in the CiC Hera would be dead or stolen and the human race would not have continued). The events of the series his guilt, failed presidency, love affair with Six, opening Deanna's mind, his faux messianic cult all lead to changing him from the self centered atheist he started out as to the man with faith that could convince Cavil in that one moment.

i could buy that, if the speech led to a truce that lasted more than 5 seconds. maybe angel-six and angel-baltar should've been talking to tyrol instead, and then he wouldn't have fuxxored it all up and made baltar's speech irrelevant.

Baltar IS the show. It's not the destination, it's the journey. I 10000% agree with Kaga and Burl on this one. Apollo (right?) asked the question in the first part of the finale, when had Baltar ever done anything that was not about Baltar? In the end, he did just that, he chose to go after Hera with the group. He didn't jump in front of a bullet to save her or anything else quite so hackneyed. He made a choice that he hadn't made since he told Six to leave back on Caprica because he had to stay with his father: he did something that was not in his best interests. All of the things that Kaga noted above fed directly and, I think, most satisfyingly into that decision. The CIC speech wasn't the "turning point", there was no real turning point, it was cumulative, but if there was one to point to it was when Baltar decided to stay on Galactica and put on a helmet.

No throwing the Emperor down the elevator shaft for Baltar, he's more interesting than that. And it worked for me.

by **LegoKenobi** on Tue Mar 24, 2009 11:07 am

voldemoo summed it up very nicely for me, too -- for ALL the characters, it has been the journey. underscored by showing what rather sad lives they had on caprica. in some ways, the cylon attack on the colonies was the best thing that happened to some of them.

by **The Vicar** on Tue Mar 24, 2009 11:16 am

For all the short comings in plot ( unsatisfying resolutions or that we-made-this-up-as-we-went taste in our mouths) they were more than compensated for by the characters.
I'm really going to miss Saul Tigh and Bill Adama and Laura Roslin and Kara Thrace and Duella and Billie and that gods damned ship. Watching her back break was heart rending. No over played Kirkian speech ( I give, she takes....) for Galactica - in the lead up episodes we saw how Bill Adama felt about her. To the point where some complained. Tough. It needed to be clearly understood that, in the end, BIll Adama loses the two people he loved most - Laura Roslin and Galactica. Of course he can't just turn around and go on like nothing happened. He was going to spend at least a good portion of his remaining days doing exactly what he was doing when we see him for the last time - mourning Laura Roslin. "...it's almost heavenly...reminds me of you..." .
I'm going to miss these characters. I cried in a lot of places when I reran the tape. Saying goodbye to them as they said goodbye to each other was tough. By that measure Battlestar Galactica was "almost heavenly". The aftermath of Galactica's last jump, watching her convulse and shudder, broke my heart ( and, as Bill Adama had said, she did not fail them; whether having raptors jump on her flight deck or ramming the colony or one last desperate jump, she did not fail them ). Watching the fleet turn into the sun, another heartbreaking moment, was sweetened by a brief musical cue. Bill Adama saying goodbye to Lee and Kara. Roslin's death. Bill Adama sitting by Roslin's grave in what would have been a perfect final shot of the whole series for me.
Not that it was all about sorrow and loss. Roslin and Cottle's scene was small and perfect and correct. "Can we NOT tell her what the plan is?" "Frak!!" Bang. I loved that Racetrack ( I think it was her) blows the shit out of the Cylon colony from beyond the frakking grave!!! Godsdamned hardcore. The pre-Cylon attack scenes with Saul Tigh and Adama grilling Boomer ( "The doctor's in! Leave your neurosis at the door!") and the scenes payoff. Saul's snickering at Adama's "and you have no sense of humor, doctor..." was classic Tigh/Adama banter, as witnessed in the Boomer flashback.
I won't delve into the fact that Baltar's great scene, where he finally becomes someone useful, goes for naught after Chief throttles Tory. Except personally, it becomes a totally meaningless gesture.
So it goes.
Don't care. I am going to blithely ignore the things that didn't work or didn't unfold quite as some of us would have liked. So many of us thought Tigh and Adama would die in a blaze of glory, burning like a Norse funeral ship and killing as many Cylons as she could going down. Or that Thrace and Adama Jr would become "Adama and Eve".
Don't care. This series didn't pull us in because they consistently made safe or overtly predictable choices. It stayed true to that, at least. The investment was in the characters. If only Wall Street had invested so wisely....
Greatest series of all time? That's a wild boast. Does BSG deserve to be in the conversation? Frak yes. Exodus Part II, alone, deserves consideration as the finest hour of Sci-Fi ever broadcast. And I would remove the qualifier "Sci-Fi".
Everyone who contributed to BSG deserves and has my unending thanks. You created something rare and special and beautiful. Its a treasure. I will think about the people you created, the world they struggled in and the story of their lives. I will miss seeing them every week. And when I roll the tape again, many times, I'll be so damned glad to see them. Because you made me care.
And that makes BSG better than a great television series.
Have to dash. Bill Adama's last scene is coming up again, and I'll be losing the ability to type.

So say we all. Yeah, I'll frakking go there.

And the music was great. Perfect.

by **Fievel** on Tue Mar 24, 2009 11:36 am

Thanks Vicar!

The Vicar wrote:Saul's snickering at Adama's "and you have no sense of humor, doctor..." was classic Tigh/Adama banter, as witnessed in the Boomer flashback.

I also loved Saul's early line suggesting they throw 'em all out of the airlock.... followed by another long, wheezy, drawn-out snicker.
Whether it was his hatred of Cylons or just who he was, I love that Tigh never changed even after he found out he was a Cylon... unlike the rest of the Final 5 (although Anders didn't change much).

by **LegoKenobi** on Tue Mar 24, 2009 11:38 am

The Vicar wrote:
So say we all. Yeah, I'll frakking go there.

so say we all.

by **Chairman Kaga** on Tue Mar 24, 2009 5:32 pm

I was wondering anyone's opinion on Starbuck and Apollo's final scene.

She told Anders she loved him, she said she had to leave but when she asked Lee what his plans were it almost seemed like she was fishing. When Lee describes exploring the world, coupled with the pre-attack flashback, it almost seems like Lee just saw Starbuck over the course of the show as a goal. Their relationship was always fraked up but that seemed to make it as if Lee didn't change much in the end.

by **Lord Voldemoo** on Tue Mar 24, 2009 5:47 pm

Chairman Kaga wrote:I was wondering anyone's opinion on Starbuck and Apollo's final scene.

She told Anders she loved him, she said she had to leave but when she asked Lee what his plans were it almost seemed like she was fishing. When Lee describes exploring the world, coupled with the pre-attack flashback, it almost seems like Lee just saw Starbuck over the course of the show as a goal. Their relationship was always fraked up but that seemed to make it as if Lee didn't change much in the end.

I'm not sure I agree. Before the war, Lee was clamoring for an identity other than as Adama's son. He seemed like he was desperately trying to escape his father's shadow. He was througout much of the show too...

Over the course of the show, Lee was (stop me if I forget anything)
a Viper pilot and CAG
Captain of a Battlestar
Assistant counsel in a court case
Envoy to the president
a politician
VP
Pretty much acting president
5 or 6 other things. He was always all over the place, seemingly trying to find his niche in the shadow of his father, now inescapable because of close proximity. Now, his father is gone and he's free. He seemed like he was truly enjoying that freedom. He's still gonna explore and try to figure out where he fits in in the world, but his motivation is completely different. That was just my take.

by **Chairman Kaga** on Tue Mar 24, 2009 5:49 pm

Lord Voldemoo wrote:
Chairman Kaga wrote:I was wondering anyone's opinion on Starbuck and Apollo's final scene.

She told Anders she loved him, she said she had to leave but when she asked Lee what his plans were it almost seemed like she was fishing. When Lee describes exploring the world, coupled with the pre-attack flashback, it almost seems like Lee just saw Starbuck over the course of the show as a goal. Their relationship was always fraked up but that seemed to make it as if Lee didn't change much in the end.

I'm not sure I agree. Before the war, Lee was clamoring for an identity other than as Adama's son. He seemed like he was desperately trying to escape his father's shadow. He was througout much of the show too...

Over the course of the show, Lee was (stop me if I forget anything)
a Viper pilot and CAG
Captain of a Battlestar
Assistant counsel in a court case
Envoy to the president
a politician
VP
Pretty much acting president
5 or 6 other things. He was always all over the place, seemingly trying to find his niche in the shadow of his father, now inescapable because of close proximity. Now, his father is gone and he's free. He seemed like he was truly enjoying that freedom. He's still gonna explore and try to figure out where he fits in in the world, but his motivation is completely different. That was just my take.

That's all true. I think I meant change with respect to his relationship with Kara rather than he didn't change at all.

by **LegoKenobi** on Tue Mar 24, 2009 5:54 pm

Lord Voldemoo wrote:He was always all over the place, seemingly trying to find his niche in the shadow of his father, now inescapable because of close proximity. Now, his father is gone and he's free. He seemed like he was truly enjoying that freedom. He's still gonna explore and try to figure out where he fits in in the world, but his motivation is completely different. That was just my take.

i hadn't thought of it that way, but i like this take. i was kind of feeling bad for him because it seemed to me that, of all the characters, his ending seemed the saddest -- he was alone, not even his dad or kara around, let alone dee. but this angle is something i could see: he's finally free to do whatever he wants, with no reason to prove himself to anyone or answer to anyone's expectation of what they think he should be.

i was just sitting here suddenly thinking that i'd love to see a panel interview with all the actors, giving their feelings about how their characters wound up.

by **Lord Voldemoo** on Tue Mar 24, 2009 5:56 pm

Chairman Kaga wrote:
Lord Voldemoo wrote:
Chairman Kaga wrote:I was wondering anyone's opinion on Starbuck and Apollo's final scene.

She told Anders she loved him, she said she had to leave but when she asked Lee what his plans were it almost seemed like she was fishing. When Lee describes exploring the world, coupled with the pre-attack flashback, it almost seems like Lee just saw Starbuck over the course of the show as a goal. Their relationship was always fraked up but that seemed to make it as if Lee didn't change much in the end.

I'm not sure I agree. Before the war, Lee was clamoring for an identity other than as Adama's son. He seemed like he was desperately trying to escape his father's shadow. He was througout much of the show too...

Over the course of the show, Lee was (stop me if I forget anything)
a Viper pilot and CAG
Captain of a Battlestar
Assistant counsel in a court case
Envoy to the president
a politician
VP
Pretty much acting president
5 or 6 other things. He was always all over the place, seemingly trying to find his niche in the shadow of his father, now inescapable because of close proximity. Now, his father is gone and he's free. He seemed like he was truly enjoying that freedom. He's still gonna explore and try to figure out where he fits in in the world, but his motivation is completely different. That was just my take.

That's all true. I think I meant change with respect to his relationship with Kara rather than he didn't change at all.

Ahhh, now I follow. I think that's probably true. With Dee and Anders now gone, there may have been an opportunity there for Lee to finally take the next step and actually really go after Kara, but he didn't, in fact he did the opposite. Of course, Anders had been gone for like 5 minutes, and it would have been interesting to see if anything would have happened had Kara not pulled her disappearing act, but based on the info we have, I don't see how Lee has changed much at all in his relationship with Kara except to the extent that he seemed more comfortable with her at the end (finally).

by **so sorry** on Tue Mar 24, 2009 6:04 pm

I wonder if he had the same sense of freedom and excitement two weeks later when he couldn't light a fucking fire or find anything to eat. Idiots.

by **Lord Voldemoo** on Tue Mar 24, 2009 6:14 pm

so sorry wrote:I wonder if he had the same sense of freedom and excitement two weeks later when he couldn't light a fucking fire or find anything to eat. Idiots.

hahahahaha

by **LegoKenobi** on Tue Mar 24, 2009 6:20 pm

so sorry wrote:I wonder if he had the same sense of freedom and excitement two weeks later when he couldn't light a fucking fire or find anything to eat. Idiots.

they didn't abandon ALL tech -- just MOST of it. hell, adama even kept the raptor! i'm sure they were fine for awhile as they got their feel for things.

by **Evil Hobbit** on Tue Mar 24, 2009 6:30 pm

I thought they pushed their message a bit to hard with the entire fleet going tribal. And the 150.000 years later bit rubbed it even more in your face, as if it wasn't clear enough. Only parts on earth I liked was Adama flying his raptor with a dying Roslin, and Lee and Starbuck. But what was Starbuck? An angel? What? Was she like angel Baltar and angel Caprica? And all the happy pappy, yeah let the centurions go their own way, they've earned it bit was bit strange, all of a sudden all cylon scepticism was flushed down the toilet. A risk worth taking??? I dunno. The way it was all wrapped up took so much for granted.

by **LegoKenobi** on Tue Mar 24, 2009 7:06 pm

Evil Hobbit wrote:I thought they pushed their message a bit to hard with the entire fleet going tribal. And the 150.000 years later bit rubbed it even more in your face, as if it wasn't clear enough. Only parts on earth I liked was Adama flying his raptor with a dying Roslin, and Lee and Starbuck. But what was Starbuck? An angel? What? Was she like angel Baltar and angel Caprica? And all the happy pappy, yeah let the centurions go their own way, they've earned it bit was bit strange, all of a sudden all cylon scepticism was flushed down the toilet. A risk worth taking??? I dunno. The way it was all wrapped up took so much for granted.

yeah, maybe they kinda got a carried away with their cleverness at the end with the scenes in times square and all, but i can live with it. it IS a nice tie-in, as far as science fiction goes. i read elsewhere that someone took baltar & caprica 6 standing behind ron moore in that one scene as them whispering to him, urging him to write this story -- circles within circles sort of thing.

as for starbuck, i took it that maybe she was an angel-like being (at least since she returned from the dead, anyway), but maybe she something MORE than that. the universe is immense, and we may never know or understand what she was. sure, it can be considered a cop-out, but it doesn't make it any less possible.

also, ron moore's final podcast is up... maybe there's some clues in there. i haven't listened to it yet. it's a 2-hour sucka.

by **Leckomaniac** on Wed Mar 25, 2009 12:54 am

I haven't had a chance to read all of the conversation because I didn't want to be spoiled.

Well, I just finished watching the finale and I am head over heels in love with it. I was never quite sure what I expected from the final episode, but watching it I was overcome with such sadness that it was all coming to an end. I loved that they showed that the rosy past they all clung too was not so rosy after all. They were uprooted from the hell of mundane life and thrown across the stars in this epic journey.

What a series.