TV Review: Battlestar Galactica – Daybreak: Part 2

A great send off to the old girl, riding off into the sun(rise)! I have no real problems with the finale, the final season, or the entire series. Just like Galatica in the end the series was stripped down of all the camp and capes and just a lean fighting machine was left. My wife was in tears almost throughout the second half: when Laura silently passed, Kara & Sam's final moments, and Kara's & Lee's final moments. Wow, from the first action packed part to the final resolution it was all throughly enjoyed. Man it has risen to the top of my favorite endings now, will Lost's ending right around the corner live up to it? Guess we'll see soon.
''This is the Admiral. Just so there'll be no misunderstandings later. Galactica's seen a lot of history, gone through a lot of battles. This will be her last. She will not fail us, if we do not fail her. If we succeed in our mission, Galactica will bring us home. If we don't, it doesn't matter anyway. Action stations!''

I thought the ending was solid/good but it would be a stretch for me to call it great or or even 90% satisfying.

- 1st half -

I agree that the 1st half was really good sci-fi action and in that arena i was completely satisfied. Great action, GREAT CGI (given their budget although the older model Cylons were noticeably chromey), great conception for the idea behind the battle although i still agree with Kevin (previous ep. recap) that the reason for a whole bunch of volunteers who couldn't really know the importance of Hera to decide to go on the mission, is pretty weak and not particularly believable. I was looking forward to seeing the Cylon colony get smushed into the singularity but i suppose it leaves the door open for possible future retribution if they managed to survive somehow. (Think reboot of Galactica 1980).

The dialog between Boomer and Athena though was weak and the Boomer "owing Adama" flashback seemed like a last minute addition that would have been more convincing if they writers had planted that scene a lot earlier in the series to give it a true sense of long standing "owing-ness" but that's just a triviality.

The "Baltar speech to Cavil" seemed like i was being crammed with religion. The ending-the-cycle-of-violence argument made perfect sense but the whole seeing-angels thing was ridiculous to me (i never cared for that recent angels development in the storyline - it feels like BSG is proselytizing). Also, Cavil suddenly capitulating to the alternative of Resurrection Tech was unsatisfactory. The idea wasn't just the perpetuation of the Cylon race; it was also the destruction of mankind. That's why they attacked Caprica and the other 11 colonies from the start as opposed to continuing to live in seclusion. I know it was part of the bargain with the Five, but Cavil seemed to give up desire of Cylon retribution a little too quickly as well as diminishing the mystical quality of Hera being the key to the future of Cylon reproduction. Cavil hated having a weak & flawed human form; I would have expected him to look for the key to "evolve" into something more by using knowledge he was trying to gain from Hera. I gotta say though, i liked Galen crushing Tory despite knowing it would screw up the deal, and I LOVED when Cavil screams "FRAK" right before he kills himself. I still don't understand why he committed suicide but it was FUNNY and convincing whatever his motivations.It's the realism of flawed humanity that make(s/d) BSG great.

Starbuck's father hallucinations and music from Hera were nicely wrapped up with the Jump although i was hoping for an explanation that held a deeper significance.

- 2nd half -

I really liked that they ended up on "our" Earth. I may be the only stupid person out here in internet-land but i'll admit without shame that they fooled me - i thought the devastated Earth (13th colony) was our Earth and that the devastation and their finding our Earth was in our future.

I agree with Kevin that the 2nd half was slow... almost too slow, but i can't come up with my own version of what would have been better so i just accept it as is. As Ron Moore has said, personal relationships is what BSG was about, so it was nice to see everybody wrapping up their relationships by saying "goodbye" to each other but i wish that they hadn't made it feel so obvious that they were waving goodbye to the viewers.

The idea that humans evolved coincidentally on our earth independent of the colonies was too much for me. The writer's seemed self aware of that too which is probably why Baltar offers up a religious/mystical explanation in an effort to "hang a lantern on it". (For those who may not know - "hanging a lantern on it" is an industry term for trying to make something completely implausible realistic by acknowledging the sheer implausibility of it themselves).

The idea of not rebuilding in cities but seeking a simpler existence made perfect sense in the context of the series although again, the writers seemed to hang a lantern on the idea that 100% everybody concurred as evidenced by Lampkin dialogue about how surprising it was everybody seemed amenable to the idea. As i was watching, i suspected that it would either go in the direction of technology-abandonment or a direction where the the Fleet population became the Atlantians of our mythology. I would have been satisfied with either direction.

I didn't particularly care for the Baltar / Baltar's father / Caprica 6 flashback and poignant moment on Earth about farming. It was nice to see where he started and where he ended but like the Boomer flashback, it would have had a lot more impact if they had seeded the idea a lot earlier in the series rather then suddenly introducing the idea as a last minute afterthought.

Galen becoming a hermit sick of humanity had an understated logic that made perfect sense when you look over the course of his life through the series. The writer's really did justice in his goodbye.

Admiral Adama leaving Lee was an unexpected by so-so ending. I would have like to have seen more resolution between father and son given they re-enforced the initial estrangement with the Lee-Zak dialogue but on the other hand, maybe their was nothing left ot resolve. I'm on the fence about that.

Speaking of Lee-Zak, introducing that whole Lee-Kara-Zak infidelity flashback thing was unnecessary to the point of making me hate them a little right when i'm supposed to be having warm fuzzies while saying goodbye to them. The idea of Starbuck being insinuated as a corporeal "angel" was a "wtf" moment for me. I'm not fond of the recent "angels walk among us" aspect but despite that, there was a certain beauty to it. HOWEVER that small beauty was far outweighed by the "so if Starbuck died in an exploding viper, how did she crash & burn on the 13th colony Earth" problem. Not to mention that one of the hallmarks that made BSG great was the adherence to realism and suddenly now it's turned mystical. Basically i hate that BSG was great science FICTION and then in the last episode they suddenly turned it into science-FANTASY. This really P.O.'d me.

The whole Hera as "Mitochondrial Eve" thing was logically just ridiculous. I'm all for us (you and i) being the fictional descendants of a human-cylon hybrid - in fact i even suspected this would be the case all the way back shortly after Hera was born, but the idea that out of 38,000 people, Hera is the only one that passed on her genes seems too forced as a concept.

And finally, the little epilogue in present day earth with the Gaius / Caprica 6 angels was superflous and inelegant to me. As the writer-creator, i wouldn't begrudge Ron Moore making his cameo (I would of if i were him) but that Robot montage was amateurish and stupid. For the love of everything creative, couldn't they have found better clips showing an "evolution" of robotics in our society instead of those stupid break dancing, monoclops, toy robots? The only redeeming Cylon-esque example was the latest japanese version in humaniform robotics. Blech.

Lol - i just realized i wrote a comment that's actually longer then Kevin's recap. Lol. Sorry about that - i hope i didn't break any unwritten commenting rules here. BSG is great television and as a fan i suppose i had a lot to say now that it's finally over.

wow, i am glad for the galactica's fate, the ship managed to fought one last epic battle, even rammed cylon's homeworld and keeping fought with raiders, it's most unique battle sequence even rebel cylon centurions fought against other include retro cylon centurions!. galactica's final trip to sun, (sniff) i will miss galactica and other civvies. i am glad how ron moore managed to put everything on right track like the opera house, final five, kara "starbuck" thrace's destiny (angel?), and found a new promised home, Earth. one scene i am very sad to see are lee and kara's last talk, same as laura's final breath with adama. i will miss you! Battlestar Galactica! SO SAY WE ALL!

A few notes:

What was the point of the Roslin flashback? Just to show her motivation for getting into politics? A little weak. The Boomer flashback was too conveniently placed. They should have shown it a few episodes ago. It felt like an afterthought.

Here's how I feel it should have ended:

Adama is shot by Cavill, before he commits suicide. Tigh kills Tyrrol after he learns the truth about Callie and strangles Tori.

The Galactica survives its battle and makes the blind jump using Starbuck's coordinates. They are too far away to properly rendezvous with the rest of the fleet, and we never see them again. We presume Admiral Hoshi and President Lampkin lead long and fulfilling lives. Sam then sends the Galactica ONLY on its final voyage into the Sun.

On New Earth, the survivors hold a funeral for Adama. The crew build Roslin her cabin, with his gravesite in her backyard. She dies one day while sitting by his grave reading the end of their favorite book aloud to him.

Ellen makes a comment to Starbuck that "The Daniels were always my favorite model," implying that the last Daniel model after he was boxed was really her father, making her a half-Cylon like Hera. Starbuck takes this information and leaves, never to be seen again.

Saul and Ellen; Gaius and Caprica 6; Helo, Athena, and Hera; and Lee all go their separate ways.

Cut to 150,000 years later, etc. etc.

I still hope I dreamed what I actually saw on the screen, and what I just wrote was the real ending. I'm going to keep telling myself that...

Meh.

This is why have professionals writing our tv series and not the fanboys themselves.

Hmm. So the finale was awesome and the writers are infallible? I don't know about you, but THAT sounds like a fanboy's type of comment to me.

No I didn't say that I just said most of the ideas of so called fans are catastrophic.
It's like football.. where overweight unfit beer gushlers scream at a quarterback that surley they could have made that throw better than the highly trained athlete that does this for a living.

Eh I just kind of felt that the whole "angels" and "divine intervention" stuff was really hokey. I'm not saying my ideas are the best there are, just that I would have rather seen an ending closer to what I had written. Notice how I was OK with most of it, I just changed a few crucial details, like who lives and who dies, the fate of Kara, and the fact that Galactica should be on its own to make its demise more poignant.

Guess I'll stay out of the writing game and just stick to cinematography and editing...