Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Was the ending of Battlestar Galacta the worst Sci-Fi ending ever?

Howard points to Brad's argument - Battlestar's "Daybreak:" The worst ending in the history of on-screen science fiction. It is full of spoilers for the entire series so read it only if you have watched all of the Battlestar Galacta you want to before having the surprises taken away. Howard think the ending wasn't that great and we should just get over it, and my long comment on his post is worth repeating here as the commentary on the last episode of BSG that I never got around to writing. At least now I will have closure.

I think that the plot got ahead of the creators of BSG. These guys write a show and they don't know when it will end. It was almost killed by the writer's strike and then that ended and it survived and then they had to write some more. So I suspect that they didn't know how to end it when they had to end it, they attempted to sew up all of the loose ends and did a hack job of it. I think they got wrapped up in their own mystique, the fanboy adulation, and the absurdity of their own oracular pronouncements of where the show was going next and how it might end. That being said they are probably crying all the way to the bank.

Starbuck was a cop out, angels was a cop out. Giving up technology is a cop out. Finding a new Earth is a cop out, but we saw that the music and the notes had to mean something and there it was.

I was always aggravated with the show especially in the last season, because the characters seemed stupid or mentally ill. I chalk it up to post traumatic stress disorder for everyone, both fleeing humans, and attacking cylons (and possibly the writers). If instead of emoting and acting generally crazy, the characters had compared notes of their various experiences, they might have figured things out sooner. They would have come to the realization that they were in the grip of an extremely powerful being or set of circumstances, natural or supernatural, and that might have made them change some of their decisions. It would make me paranoid. As Brad points out, once God and fate or destiny are involved it hardly matters what the characters do, there is no mystery, just chugging along to the final conclusion.

I wasn't so worried about the subtle mistake of mitochondrial eve vs. the last common ancestor and trying to fit BSG into our history. My biggest issue with the ending (which is still one of many) was the realization that if all of humanity was descended from Hera, then that meant that every other woman that settled on "Earth" didn't produce descendants to this day, and I just assumed that the first generation all died without having children, which has been pointed out is very depressing.

RIP BSG. (except for Caprica and every other spinoff that they will have).

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