2009-03-23 08:44:00

BATTLESTAR GOD-TASTICA

Filed under: Battlestar Galactica, Television
Posted by: John

I came late to the show, urged on by that indefatigable finder and lover of great television, Jim Hynes, but I watched the final two-hour episode of the series and wept as if I’d been a fanatical follower from the first. I think I’ll miss Kara Thrace most of all, the emotional heart of the show, its starfighting Buffy.

Every viewer has his or her own trajectory with a show. Having dismissed the original series as a Star Wars rip-off, I had no hope that the new show would improve on the material. Having tried and failed to start watching the new show in the middle of season two, I felt vindicated in my original bias. Only when I decided to go full bore and impulse-buy the DVD of the pilot and first season did I finally catch the bug.

Battlestar Galactica worked best when it stayed close to the spirit and urgency of that original pilot, which depicted the annihilation of the human race by robots known as Cyclons. As the show’s opening prevoew reminded us every week, the Cylons “had a plan”. The claustrophobia in the colony of survivors always made me think of a petient trapped in some interstellar ICU, trying to survive a sudden and aggressive bout of pancreatic cancer. The Cylons started out as the disease and then became the cure.

Cylons, rather than people, brought the question of god into the heart of the drama. What is religious belief? Is it the default mode of desperate humans or ambitious machines? By the end of the show’s run, the notion of divine intervention wasn’t academic. In some ways, it defined the difference between this series and everything else on TV. Not only did it take religion seriously. It made it sexy. Just ask Six.

I don’t want to give away too much, but the creators of the show digressed too much for my taste in the middle two seasons, but brought the show right back home in the last one. The episodes about the attempted coup highlighted the depth and passion of the political themes in the show. The abandonment of Galacatica itself was a superb metaphor for a kind of collective death, the surrender of one identity in order to find a new one. But the final hour of the last show crystallized everything and gave each of the major characters a last chance to shine. For my money, the last hour has to be one of the great hours in televised drama.

Comments (4)

4 Comments »

1. So say we all!

   Comment by Jim — March 23, 2009 @ 2:06 pm

2. John,
   You must be joking.Better than the Buffy finale? Nunh unh.
   (for those who havent watched the final unsatisfying episode, this post is all SPOILERS, so watch out.)

   Anyway John, how you, an unbeliever, can buy into an ending based on frakkin angels, who can do kind of anything, without logical explanation, is beyond me.
   Of course, maybe its me. I mean,except for Wings Of Desire, I hate angel movies. It’s A Wonderful Life? Not my cup of sentimental treacle!
   So maybe that’s my prejudice.

   But still…okay so there were good moments in the first 90 minutes of the finale.
   Athena shoots Boomer even tho she redeems herself-that was good.
   Sam pilots Galactica into the sun-perfect.
   Galen breaks Tory’s neck, and the truce-terrific
   And the Gaius Baltar/Tricia Hefler arc works out pretty well (the momentary truce-inducing speech is nice, “I want to be proud of you” & “I know how to farm” even better-but the rest goes on abt 2 beats too many-esp that Planet of The Apesy wrap-up-ugh!).

   But who the hell was Starbuck? A guardian angel? That’s It!?
   And baby Hera was important why?
   WTF was the Opera House?!

   And Admiral Adama leaves
   his son alone forever to go all Out Of Africa with Laura Roslyn who has 2 minutes left to live?
   And …..oh frak.
   I am let down.
   I miss Felix Gaeta so much.
   My stump itches.

   Comment by richard — March 24, 2009 @ 10:50 pm

3. Like Gaius Baltar picking up signals from Six, I do hear you Richard, and I even feel some of your pain. So let me count the ways that I didn’t love the entire two hours.

   I didn’t much care for the Hera story-line per se, but I liked where it led. I also didn’t get the Opera House, and even if I did, I thought it was kindsa goofy and overwrought.

   I am also not a big fan of angels, with the exception of Hot Wings of Desire, but I didn’t see Kara Thrace as a conventional angel, and the actress carried that stuff for me. I thought Admiral Adama’s decision was in keeping with his character. The guy’s a prick! Also, the last bit there definitely evoked John Wayne sitting by the grave of his wife in She Wore A Yellow Ribbon, and I’m a sucker for that.

   As for Buffy, it’s a much greater TV series than Battlestar, but the end of Season Seven was a weak end to a bad year and made me wish they’d stopped the train the season before. All those little Bufflets played by Hollywood’s cocktail waitresses? The Hellmouth a quarry in southern California? I don’t think so.

   Sorry about your stump. I, too, miss Felix Gaeta.

   Comment by John — March 25, 2009 @ 6:52 am

4. John,
   Yeah, I think yr probably right abt the Buffy finale being weaker than I remember it, but I actually liked all those random Slayers awakened in montage on the swingsets, schoolyards, and co-ed softball fields of southern California.Somehow it reminded me of the Marseille sing-a-long in Casablanca, stirring in a chill up the spine way.
   However,I’m not talking abt the actressy Charmed extras youre dissing who actually had speaking parts-I agree that they were WB-Lite.
   Anyway, lets continue this next week-email me yr available dates. I’ll do lunch with the gang, but I also want to do a Fette Sau or Hill Country dinner, if we can squeeze it in. Plus I might be crashing for the April 5 show, so I have to plan.
   -Richard

   Comment by richard — March 25, 2009 @ 8:15 am

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