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I'm sad it's over. Except for The Plan, I suppose, but that's a ways off anyway.
'ware lengthiness.
I kind of think of it in two pieces: Daybreak 1 and the first hour of Daybreak 2 (the first two hours, in other words), are the season finale. The final hour was the series finale, for me. And they both did what they needed to do, IMO. The first part rescued Hera, and the second part was the epilogue to tell us what happened after.
It was a bit tidy, but you know what? I'd rather that, than say.... "JUMP to mysterious coordinates. Cut to black." (and with Ron's reputed admiration for the Sopranos ending, you can't tell me it didn't cross his mind).
Did I get everything I wanted? No. Did it happen how I would've done it? No. But on balance, I think most of the characters got an ending that was appropriate. Helo surviving bought a lot of my good will, I will admit, since I thought he was dead. And Roslin and Adama had to die; that was a given. Adama sitting alone at her cairn was gorgeous, and fitting. He was done, and both Kara and Lee recognized that (well, Kara certainly did, but Lee did too, I think) and let him go. I'm sad for Lee, but you can't tell me he's going to be alone for long (Sekrit Ship of Lee/Ishay! y/y? well, that's what's in my head anyway, ymmv...) Agathons and Caprica/Gaius live happily ever after! *cries* And I firmly believe Sam and Kara have now shed all their human baggage and are together in the afterlife.
Things what some people found problematic, and I did not (mostly):
I burst out laughing when I saw Ron. Which at first was just wrong, but in retrospect, I like the moment. It changed BSG back into a story. I can see how some people don't like it- don't like being reminded that's it's only a story. But it is, and I don't think there's anything wrong in saying, "This has all happened before. It hasn't happened here. Yet." A lot of science fiction is, at heart, a cautionary tale, answering the question of where we might end up if things go on as they are. Which given that the show opened with robots obliterating all but 50,000 people out of several billion... I can't say that's not what I was watching. It wasn't ALL I was watching, but I don't think that's all the final scenes were trying to say either.
Let me get into the Hera as mitochondrial Eve thing. First of all, to my mind, that doesn't mean that no one else in the settlements had children (whether human, cylon, or a mix of both). All it means is that Hera's descendants eventually become us, and all those other lines either died out or interbred with hers over time (everyone in close proximity to her almost certainly joined in the line at some point). 150,000 years is a very long time and a whole lot of generations in between, it's inevitable that some lines died out (heck, I have branches on my family tree that died out, and that's only over a few hundred years).
Also, and interestingly to me -- mitochondria is passed through the mother. Therefore we know what they really found was SHARON'S. And where did Sharon's come from? We don't know -- the Five could've created it whole cloth, but it's likely based on their own. And theirs came from Kobol, and thus, in a curious way, all goes back to probably some common ancestor of both Cylons and Humans on Kobol ...
Anyway, going back, the problem of survival also explains to my satisfaction why they divided up the colonists in different places. If they'd grouped them all together, what would happen with an outbreak of Earth disease? Or a volcano they didn't realize was active and destroyed their landing site? No, to maximize the chances of the population as a whole, you spread people out on an unfamiliar planet (anyone smart stayed near Hera, though). Same with dumping technology - they were going to lose it eventually anyway, and they'd already tried the experiment of bringing the ships down on New Caprica with indifferent success. So why not just cut the cord and start learning from the natives.
Was it going to be fun? Hell no. Was life about to become nasty, brutal and short for everyone? Yes. And for a very, very long time. But they also didn't do what the Thirteenth Tribe did -- bring their technology to Earth and promptly blow themselves to hell less than two thousand years later, either. So there's that. Besides, think about what message keeping the tech while there are all these primitive natives around, and ... yeah, I'm just as glad the show didn't go there. (now whether everyone actually AGREED with it, or not, I doubt, but I can see everyone was just so frakking glad to find a planet that wasn't a nuclear wasteland they accepted the condition of settlement. Besides, you know all the mutineers went off to places far from any Cylon settlements, which means all the complainers' genetics eventually DIED. oops. that'll teach them to be closed-minded, huh?)
I am amused by the thought that it might be Hera's very special nature and connection with the force of the universe that also allowed Colonial influence to be pulled out of the ether and give us things like democracy and paperwork (Thanks for that, Colonials!).
ok, onto Kara and her Very Special Destiny, and the role of God as I see it:
Because "God" comes fraught with a lot of baggage, let's pretend we're Minbari of B5 and call this force: "the sentient universe". The universe didn't make Laura pick up that phone and call Adar's office to join his campaign, putting her in position to become the Dying Leader. She chose it. The universe isn't what made Bill leave that skeevy job interview to stay in the service long enough to see his ship turned into a museum, which saved the Galactica and the people she shepherded. The universe didn't force Sharon to change her mind and love Helo on Caprica all those years ago. They all made choices. Even Gaius Baltar, the person MOST influenced by this force in the person of Head!six, STILL made his own choices, some of them quite awful. The universe could push, could suggest a path, but not until Kara was brought back was there that much direct hand. And even Kara had to make her own choice and figure it all out - she didn't have all the answers, even for herself. The hybrids could connect to this force, read it on some level but they found words inadequate to talk about it -- and we've known that since Season 3. So while the resolution isn't the way I would've put the pieces together, I don't find it illegitimate either.
I figured Kara was some sort of supernatural/mystical entity. I read a lot of theories, and none of them explained everything (and some were extremely convoluted while not explaining everything). So yes, deus ex machina. But not unearned, I think, since we've had hints since at least Flesh and Bone, right? And I cannot tell a lie -- I was GLAD when Kara disappeared when her task was done. I didn't want her to stay there, and pretend to be mortal and whatever. I wanted her to leave and make Sam's words true (because otherwise I was prepared to be extremely upset that he'd just been shoved into the frakking SUN to get him out of the way). Very reminiscent of Shelly Godfrey in a way -- "we followed her around the corner and she was gone."
Things what I loved!
- BIG BATTLE! space porn! Centurions smacking Centurions! (At the moment Lee gave the signal for the Centurions to go ahead, MrLiz said, "Hey, why do I have to go first?" And I answered, "Because you're the nine-foot killing machine?" And he answered back, "You mean Expendable. This was why we rebelled in the first place!" LOL! This is why we get along. plus, he wasn't wrong.)
- Sam pwning the Colony hybrids. HA! As much as I hate the whole Hybrid!Sam thing, at least it was well used, between that and finding Hera and the attempted transfer of resurrection tech. None of that would've been possible without Sam. Still hate it. And I still think his speech was overwritten, and hearing it a second time didn't convince me otherwise. But "See you on the other side" redeemed the hybrid arc a little, although I wish Kara had heard him.
- Centurions getting their own ship to find their own destinies. They didn't come back to nuke us in the last 150,000 years, yay! So it appears they learned too. Yknow, maybe they evolved into the "angels" who could travel in space and time....
- Gaius' knowing about farming. How could such a small thing make me choke up so much? Gaius/Caprica!
- HELO BEING ALIVE! Sharon and Helo and Hera skipping through the meadow! (shut up, they were so)
- Tyrol killing Tory, and that toppling the domino that led to the Cavilry getting dead and the jump out of there, with Kara trusting herself (and I like to think Sam helping her as well with the jump since I'm sure he knew by that point where the song led and who she was and all that). I'm glad Tory's murdering Cally wasn't forgotten, and I'm glad Tyrol was that angry about it (and how hilarious was Tory, "we'll just all agree that we all did bad things, right?) I wish SHE had been the hybrid, but, oh well.
- Boomer's death was sad, but hardly unexpected. Nice that she finally did something right, before dying though. (I'm glad "my" Boomer has a happier story)
- Oh, and I have to agree with Mo Ryan: if they do a spin off with Admiral Hoshi and President Lampkin? I'd watch it. COMEDY GOLD.
And man, this is already long enough, and I've had a really long weekend, so I can't even remember any more.
So, in sum, I got enough of what I wanted. It made me feel for these characters as if they were real people, and that's the important part. I can fanwank and write fic for the rest.
I am well into a finale fic, by the way, thanks to an inopportune plot bunny that bit me last week. *sigh* because, yeah, I needed another project to work on.
'ware lengthiness.
I kind of think of it in two pieces: Daybreak 1 and the first hour of Daybreak 2 (the first two hours, in other words), are the season finale. The final hour was the series finale, for me. And they both did what they needed to do, IMO. The first part rescued Hera, and the second part was the epilogue to tell us what happened after.
It was a bit tidy, but you know what? I'd rather that, than say.... "JUMP to mysterious coordinates. Cut to black." (and with Ron's reputed admiration for the Sopranos ending, you can't tell me it didn't cross his mind).
Did I get everything I wanted? No. Did it happen how I would've done it? No. But on balance, I think most of the characters got an ending that was appropriate. Helo surviving bought a lot of my good will, I will admit, since I thought he was dead. And Roslin and Adama had to die; that was a given. Adama sitting alone at her cairn was gorgeous, and fitting. He was done, and both Kara and Lee recognized that (well, Kara certainly did, but Lee did too, I think) and let him go. I'm sad for Lee, but you can't tell me he's going to be alone for long (Sekrit Ship of Lee/Ishay! y/y? well, that's what's in my head anyway, ymmv...) Agathons and Caprica/Gaius live happily ever after! *cries* And I firmly believe Sam and Kara have now shed all their human baggage and are together in the afterlife.
Things what some people found problematic, and I did not (mostly):
I burst out laughing when I saw Ron. Which at first was just wrong, but in retrospect, I like the moment. It changed BSG back into a story. I can see how some people don't like it- don't like being reminded that's it's only a story. But it is, and I don't think there's anything wrong in saying, "This has all happened before. It hasn't happened here. Yet." A lot of science fiction is, at heart, a cautionary tale, answering the question of where we might end up if things go on as they are. Which given that the show opened with robots obliterating all but 50,000 people out of several billion... I can't say that's not what I was watching. It wasn't ALL I was watching, but I don't think that's all the final scenes were trying to say either.
Let me get into the Hera as mitochondrial Eve thing. First of all, to my mind, that doesn't mean that no one else in the settlements had children (whether human, cylon, or a mix of both). All it means is that Hera's descendants eventually become us, and all those other lines either died out or interbred with hers over time (everyone in close proximity to her almost certainly joined in the line at some point). 150,000 years is a very long time and a whole lot of generations in between, it's inevitable that some lines died out (heck, I have branches on my family tree that died out, and that's only over a few hundred years).
Also, and interestingly to me -- mitochondria is passed through the mother. Therefore we know what they really found was SHARON'S. And where did Sharon's come from? We don't know -- the Five could've created it whole cloth, but it's likely based on their own. And theirs came from Kobol, and thus, in a curious way, all goes back to probably some common ancestor of both Cylons and Humans on Kobol ...
Anyway, going back, the problem of survival also explains to my satisfaction why they divided up the colonists in different places. If they'd grouped them all together, what would happen with an outbreak of Earth disease? Or a volcano they didn't realize was active and destroyed their landing site? No, to maximize the chances of the population as a whole, you spread people out on an unfamiliar planet (anyone smart stayed near Hera, though). Same with dumping technology - they were going to lose it eventually anyway, and they'd already tried the experiment of bringing the ships down on New Caprica with indifferent success. So why not just cut the cord and start learning from the natives.
Was it going to be fun? Hell no. Was life about to become nasty, brutal and short for everyone? Yes. And for a very, very long time. But they also didn't do what the Thirteenth Tribe did -- bring their technology to Earth and promptly blow themselves to hell less than two thousand years later, either. So there's that. Besides, think about what message keeping the tech while there are all these primitive natives around, and ... yeah, I'm just as glad the show didn't go there. (now whether everyone actually AGREED with it, or not, I doubt, but I can see everyone was just so frakking glad to find a planet that wasn't a nuclear wasteland they accepted the condition of settlement. Besides, you know all the mutineers went off to places far from any Cylon settlements, which means all the complainers' genetics eventually DIED. oops. that'll teach them to be closed-minded, huh?)
I am amused by the thought that it might be Hera's very special nature and connection with the force of the universe that also allowed Colonial influence to be pulled out of the ether and give us things like democracy and paperwork (Thanks for that, Colonials!).
ok, onto Kara and her Very Special Destiny, and the role of God as I see it:
Because "God" comes fraught with a lot of baggage, let's pretend we're Minbari of B5 and call this force: "the sentient universe". The universe didn't make Laura pick up that phone and call Adar's office to join his campaign, putting her in position to become the Dying Leader. She chose it. The universe isn't what made Bill leave that skeevy job interview to stay in the service long enough to see his ship turned into a museum, which saved the Galactica and the people she shepherded. The universe didn't force Sharon to change her mind and love Helo on Caprica all those years ago. They all made choices. Even Gaius Baltar, the person MOST influenced by this force in the person of Head!six, STILL made his own choices, some of them quite awful. The universe could push, could suggest a path, but not until Kara was brought back was there that much direct hand. And even Kara had to make her own choice and figure it all out - she didn't have all the answers, even for herself. The hybrids could connect to this force, read it on some level but they found words inadequate to talk about it -- and we've known that since Season 3. So while the resolution isn't the way I would've put the pieces together, I don't find it illegitimate either.
I figured Kara was some sort of supernatural/mystical entity. I read a lot of theories, and none of them explained everything (and some were extremely convoluted while not explaining everything). So yes, deus ex machina. But not unearned, I think, since we've had hints since at least Flesh and Bone, right? And I cannot tell a lie -- I was GLAD when Kara disappeared when her task was done. I didn't want her to stay there, and pretend to be mortal and whatever. I wanted her to leave and make Sam's words true (because otherwise I was prepared to be extremely upset that he'd just been shoved into the frakking SUN to get him out of the way). Very reminiscent of Shelly Godfrey in a way -- "we followed her around the corner and she was gone."
Things what I loved!
- BIG BATTLE! space porn! Centurions smacking Centurions! (At the moment Lee gave the signal for the Centurions to go ahead, MrLiz said, "Hey, why do I have to go first?" And I answered, "Because you're the nine-foot killing machine?" And he answered back, "You mean Expendable. This was why we rebelled in the first place!" LOL! This is why we get along. plus, he wasn't wrong.)
- Sam pwning the Colony hybrids. HA! As much as I hate the whole Hybrid!Sam thing, at least it was well used, between that and finding Hera and the attempted transfer of resurrection tech. None of that would've been possible without Sam. Still hate it. And I still think his speech was overwritten, and hearing it a second time didn't convince me otherwise. But "See you on the other side" redeemed the hybrid arc a little, although I wish Kara had heard him.
- Centurions getting their own ship to find their own destinies. They didn't come back to nuke us in the last 150,000 years, yay! So it appears they learned too. Yknow, maybe they evolved into the "angels" who could travel in space and time....
- Gaius' knowing about farming. How could such a small thing make me choke up so much? Gaius/Caprica!
- HELO BEING ALIVE! Sharon and Helo and Hera skipping through the meadow! (shut up, they were so)
- Tyrol killing Tory, and that toppling the domino that led to the Cavilry getting dead and the jump out of there, with Kara trusting herself (and I like to think Sam helping her as well with the jump since I'm sure he knew by that point where the song led and who she was and all that). I'm glad Tory's murdering Cally wasn't forgotten, and I'm glad Tyrol was that angry about it (and how hilarious was Tory, "we'll just all agree that we all did bad things, right?) I wish SHE had been the hybrid, but, oh well.
- Boomer's death was sad, but hardly unexpected. Nice that she finally did something right, before dying though. (I'm glad "my" Boomer has a happier story)
- Oh, and I have to agree with Mo Ryan: if they do a spin off with Admiral Hoshi and President Lampkin? I'd watch it. COMEDY GOLD.
And man, this is already long enough, and I've had a really long weekend, so I can't even remember any more.
So, in sum, I got enough of what I wanted. It made me feel for these characters as if they were real people, and that's the important part. I can fanwank and write fic for the rest.
I am well into a finale fic, by the way, thanks to an inopportune plot bunny that bit me last week. *sigh* because, yeah, I needed another project to work on.
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Oh, I hope we get a longer trailer. We already knew it featured Sam Anders, the Chief, and Cavil. The trailer also shows Simon (with a young woman), Shelly Godfrey, and Barbarella!Six.