Bye-Bye BSG

Just a quick note on the grand finale of Battlestar Galactica since there's other stuff written that goes into detail here and here, and a fabulous interview with chief creative officer Ron Moore here. And lots more out there if you've got the Google. I'll try to avoid SPOILERS but probably won't.

So there's a lot of fan comments against the ending, as if one could expect anything else, and I think they're all wrong. While I was watching the finale and the huge battle, the biggest since the rescue on New Caprica several seasons ago, I realized they were going for the title of "Best Science Fiction Television Show Ever" in a big balls-out way. Not only were the climactic battles huge and reminiscent of the best science fiction book covers from the 1970's, with scale like Larry Niven's Ringworld, but thematically the capper took in maybe 155,000 years of history, give or take a few, and successfully consummated the marriage of docudrama science fiction (think Outland) with the mindbending sci-fi tradition, the kind that keeps you thinking and discussing and even arguing long after the show or book or movie is over.

The character closures were tremendously satisfying -- Baltar becoming a pivotal agent of good, the end of Roslyn's journey and Adama's grief so realistically and bravely captured by Edward James Olmos, Tory's evil act suddenly returning like the repressed always does and with such disastrous consequences, Athena thanking Boomer for delivering Hera with a round of bullets, Lee staking claim as the nearly mythological adventurer and Starbuck realizing her true nature with tremendous peace.

If there's a character who could carry on it would be Starbuck, but while it might be spectacular to follow her travels (the Route 66 of science fiction shows?) there'd have to be some invented drama to make her character interesting now that she's so clear.

And I loved the cameo by Ron Moore, perhaps aluding to the moment where he gets the idea for the series?

The previous Best Science Fiction Television Show of All Time was the first two seasons of the original Star Trek series. No other show had so consistently delivered on the promise of sci-fi literature, even as it had been building for decades. The Twilight Zone was the previous master, and The Outer Limits had its moments, but the combination of heady concepts and pulse-racing moments has never been bested until now, and what makes it so interesting is that BSG is so very different -- more sociological, with the biggest "supernatural" elements being saved for the resolution, focused more singularly yet more grandly in the overall arc, as ultimately revealed.

The conceit that this show happens not in the present nor the future is the biggest part of the reveal. The godlike force is the one that plays in the imagination -- is it science, perhaps, by another name?

A finale like this means the series will have a huge life post-initial broadcast. Not only will audiences pore over it for clues to the ending, but the reputation it'll develop for having ended so well (despite the more hardcore fans who might try a little fanfic if they can't handle the creator's own vision) will drive interest.

As for me, I missed the second half of the first season and all of the second, including the Pegasus arc featuring the always excellent Michelle Forbes.

So I've got something to live for.

So say we all.