BSG--2009, really? Random thoughts and exclamations on the half-season finale.

I finally got around to watching the half-season finale of Battlestar Galactica on Monday night. I put it off because I knew it would be the last new one for a LONG time. It just about killed me, though, because that meant I had to skip all the online reviews and discussions (of which there were many) of said episode until I could watch it. I knew, though, from the sheer number of discussions that it was either really good or really bad.

 

Okay, so here's your warning...stop reading now if you don't want to know what happens. Also, this entry is really long. : )

|

|

|

So...wow. Holy crap. They made it to Earth. And we still have TEN episodes (in 2009--thanks a lot, Sci Fi Channel) left. I'm so glad the writers/producers did not do the thing where it's the last two minutes of the final, final episode and we see Earth gleaming in the distance. Ugh. That would have been sucky. Instead, the last, what, ten minutes of this episode blew my mind. 

 

The end.

When the entire fleet jumped into orbit around Earth, I got chills. Though, a little voice in the back of my head whispered, "If we were there, we'd be firing on them already." I mean, seriously, thirty or forty alien ships suddenly appear in orbit? Um, yeah, talk about reaching for the panic button.

 

It was not, then, such a great shock that Earth, or what might be Earth or what might be Earth but not our Earth, was destroyed and seemingly abandoned. Have I mentioned that the scene at the end of Planet of the Apes with the Statue of Liberty is one of my favorites? This scene in BSG did not just ring a familiar bell, it shook the entire freaking bell tower. I LOVED that. Of course, as you know, I do enjoy the post-apocolyptic stuff. I also think it was interesting in that it drew us, the viewers in deeper. We are now part of the mystery. What happened to "us"? Assuming that is our Earth.

 

Some people had a beef with them going to the planet's surface when they clearly could have seen the devastation (and taken readings of the radiation) from their ships.

But here's the thing:

 

You've been on the run for three long years, on the trail of the perhaps mythical thirteenth colony and their planet Earth, and, more importantly, being manipulated into reaching said destination by some unknown Force(s)...hell, yes, I'm going down there and getting out of my Raptor to find out what HAPPENED. Some clue as to why this empty and now lifeless planet is so important. Some reason why we've been so horribly mislead and deceived by a thousand different clues and a few prophetic leaders. And...maybe a giant sign with an arrow pointing toward Mars and the Earth colony there? Just kidding...I think.

 

I would imagine they would begin to wonder if they were following old clues. Things put in place thousands of years before when people still lived there. There are some who believe Starbuck is somehow responsible for the destruction of Earth given that she saw it as it was supposed to be back when she disappeared for, oh, four months. She even claimed to have been on the planet's surface, I believe. 

 

But she wouldn't have destroyed Earth intentionally--at least not the Starbuck we know. Which means either an accident or some other party involved. Or, as some people have mentioned, time travel. 

 

I don't actually care to speculate. I know it will be explained. That is one thing that BSG does fairly well is answer the questions they bring up or at least acknowledge that they haven't answered them. Which brings me to another favorite moment in this episode...

 

Tigh "comes out" as a Cylon to Adama.

The whole time this was happening, I was on the edge of my seat, waiting for them to pull back, to fake us out, but nope. I loved it. It was as perfect for the situation (the plot) as it was for the character. Tigh is okay with being killed for being a Cylon. He probably thinks he deserves it even though he's never done anything (as far as I can remember) to ally himself with that side of things. Other than sleeping with Caprica-6, obviously.

 

The best part, though, was Adama asking the questions we've been asking ourselves. Tigh has aged. Cylons don't age. Adama remembers him from years before skinjobs even existed. How is that even possible?

 

I'd like to know these things too. Did they make a copy of the real Tigh and replace him? That's the only logical explanation I can think of. (Which surely means that is not the right answer). They've persisted in the theme of the final five Cylons being special, revered. That, plus the numbering system they have going on implies that the five were created at the same time as the other seven. Or at least, not much earlier. So, Tigh the Cylon couldn't have existed forty some years ago during the original Cylon war...right?

 

The writers/producers brought up the right questions, which I think help renews faith and the willingness to follow them just a bit further, even if they didn't answer the questions. This technique, I learned, is called hanging a lantern on it. "You address the plausibility problem by highlighting it" is how John August explains it in his blog.

In this case, though, I'm assuming, they're actually going to come through with an answer at some point rather than just shrug it off to "Who knows? You never know how those crazy Cylons work."

 

Making it worse.

There's an axiom about writing as it pertains to story--"Always make it worse." Back the character into a corner, take away all of his options, and then make it even worse. The BSG writers/producers do that, but they've refined the concept.

 

Because it's not always JUST about making it worse. It's a fine and delicate art of give and take. You can't keep taking and taking and taking or else people stop caring. They know it's never going to get better. They give up. Readers and viewers alike, in real life and fiction. But this...this is exquisite torture. Hope makes you vulnerable, makes you care what's going to happen. And they give you hope for a solution on one problem (Earth dangling out there like the proverbial oasis in the desert and the tentative Cylon/human truce) right before they yank it away on another front (the prize you've all been killing for is one big burned out wasteland, ha, ha, still want to fight over it?).

 

That balance between hope and despair, that's what I want to study and learn from.

 

Random Stuff.

Much has been made about Chief Tyrol not having a lot to do after going crazy with finding out he's a Cylon and Callie dying. And he didn't even have many lines in this episode, but you know what, the expressions on his face when they came to get him and Sam and on the planet's surface...they said it all. The man, Aaron Douglas, can communicate more with a look than others could with ten pages of dialogue. In particular, his face while they're on the planet...that sort of "of course, it's a dead planet, a dead end, after all of this" grim amusement, gallows humor. I think he actually laughs, though you don't hear it. Fan-freaking-tastic.

 

Actually, for that matter, all of them on the planet's surface deserve Emmys for those ten minutes, if nothing else. You could watch just that part of this episode and be impressed and moved, for that matter.

 

And finally...much as I hate myself for it and know that I'll regret it, I'm starting to believe in Baltar's transformation. I know he'll revert. I know it. And yet, I can't help but think he's sincere on some of this even if he doesn't completely understand it.

 

Anyway...anybody else have any thoughts on this?