AirLockAlpha.com

The moment I’ve been dreading has finally come. “Battlestar Galactica” is no more.

Having been an avid fan of the show since TiVOing the miniseries on a whim all those years ago, I’ve been waiting patiently for the resolution of this amazing story for quite some time. But in the end, was it worth it?

Yes and no. Part One of “Daybreak” was promising (click here for my review), but the conclusion to the finale was a mixed bag and for many passionate fans, it was a huge blow. There’s no denying the greatness of “Battlestar Galactica” as a series -- each season has brought new and interesting concepts to the table, plenty of amazing action and superb character development. But for some reason much of what made “Galactica” such a one-of-a-kind show was thrown to the wayside with “Daybreak,” the three=plus hour conclusion to the epic tale.

After the rescue mission mounted by a bare-bones Galactica crew yields the return of Hera, a moment of truth leads Starbuck to enter the numeric notes of “All Along the Watchtower” into the ship’s computer as jump coordinates. This risky move ends up leading the fleet directly to Earth, but not the Earth we’ve seen already where the Cylons made their home after leaving Kobol. This is a different Earth. Our Earth, 150,000 years in the past.

Sound weird? Yeah, it was. And it created a few plot holes in the process.

Remember when they got to Earth the first time and Gaeta shouted out that “all visible constellations are a match”? Well apparently Ron Moore doesn’t because now we are supposed to simply swallow the fact that the constellations visible from our Earth, the ones you can look out your window right now and see, are also visible from this other Earth, which is logically impossible unless the Cylon Earth is in our Earth’s solar system.

Now, if that were the only hole left by this ending, I could accept it as an inevitability of concluding a story, but far from it. We’re also supposed to believe that the religion of the Twelve Colonies, which is an amalgam of Greek and Roman mythology, disappeared for 145,000 years and then was later independently reinvented in part by the ancient Greeks and then later filled in, also independently, by the ancient Romans. Pretty hard to swallow if you think about it for more than a minute, but that’s not all.

Upon reaching our Earth, the people of the fleet begin setting up buildings, scouting land and making plans for a city until Lee Adama decides that they should abandon their technology and the concept of city-dwelling in favor of roughing it with the local indigenous population and spreading out in small numbers across the whole planet. He believes that somehow this will break the cycle of playing god via scientific exploration and give humanity the time to get right with their souls before they go off and start building stuff again.

I guess I could buy that, had they come to this realization over the course of an episode or two, but the way it played out was hard to believe. After all they've lost, all they’ve been through together, when they finally get to the place they've been looking for all this time they just part ways like all they did was share a bus ride together?

Lee just lets his dad leave him forever? Why would that be necessary? Maybe if we'd spent more time on Earth they could have made it flow a little better so it wasn't just like "OK, we're here ... oh wow, look at the time, it's been fun guys, but I've got someplace to be."

I would rather have spent the last few episodes on Earth and just had an anticlimactic ending without any space battle. At least that might have resolved a few things and given them the chance to play out naturally in a way that made some kind of sense. I also can’t help but wonder why we spent all that time with Lee trying to create a new government that would represent the people of the fleet if it was just going to be abandoned at the first sight of a flock of flamingos.

That would bring the total of pointless plot elements this season to a staggeringly high number: first Tyrol’s kid, then Tigh/Caprica’s child, now all this … too many time-wasting sidetracks that ended up having no bearing on anything. And yet, given three-plus hours, the finale still felt rushed. Does not compute.

The “truth of the Opera House” ended up being a bust as well – there was no “truth” to know, the scene was simply played out in a different setting (Galactica’s CIC) and Roslin, the supposed “dying leader” had no more inclination of what it meant than anyone else. That’s because there was no meaning, it was just a series of events that was being foreshadowed. But if that was always the case, why tell us on several different occasions that “the dying leader will know the truth of the Opera House”?

I also can’t help but notice that Roslin made it to the “promised land” in one piece, contradicting the writings of Pythia that up until this point have had a pretty sturdy prophetic track record. To me, this is either another plot hole or it leaves only one possible answer – Roslin wasn’t really the dying leader, Starbuck was. If the “truth” of the Opera House was that “All Along the Watchtower” would lead them to Earth and Starbuck’s father played that song at the Helice Opera House and she really did die in that Viper long before they actually got to Earth that would be the only logical conclusion.

The only problem is that in Pythia, the dying leader was dying because of a “wasting disease,” not an explode-y disease. Either way, another long standing plot element pretty much contradicted by the ending.

I won’t go so far as to say that the finale ruined the series because it absolutely didn’t. But it did cast many of the past events in a completely new light – one that may not be so flattering. Many of the story’s main arcs that have been building over the course of several seasons were rendered meaningless in one fell swoop. All in all, I didn't hate the episode, but I definitely think it could have been a stronger piece.

I'm going to give it awhile and then go back to watch all the episodes together and see if I still feel the same way because my expectations were definitely not what I ended up getting. A lot of what I thought would happen did happen, but it was glossed over and didn't quite resonate the way it could have.

I'm fine with ambiguity, but there has to be some logical basis to suppose what happened on your own and in this instance there really isn't. The only way to rationalize it is by saying "God did it" and that is a total cop out and doesn't really jive with what the rest of the series was saying. As a true believer in this show from the start, this is really troubling to me.

Of course, so far I’ve only been talking about the bad aspects of which there were few in comparison to the good, but I just have to say that my high mark for television is still "Exodus, Part 2" and “Daybreak,” while it certainly had its high moments, definitely wasn't better than that. Maybe they should have brought Felix Alcala on to do the finale instead of Michael "Queen of the Damned" Rymer. I never really liked his episodes very much anyway.

What worked for me? Pretty much everything up until the point where they brought Hera back aboard Galactica. While the logic of their rescue plan was a bit flawed in my eyes (why not have Anders already hooked up when they jumped in instead of sitting there just taking damage for a full minute before doing anything to react?), the action was great and the visuals were beautiful. Seeing the Skinjobs, the Centurions and the Colonials all fighting side-by-side was a great moment.

The flashbacks continued to add depth and nuance to the piece as a whole, not only showing us glimpses into the characters’ past lives, but also symbolizing portions of their current struggles as metaphors. This was probably my favorite aspect of the finale and one of the better creative choices Ronald D. Moore and crew made when constructing the show’s grand sendoff.

The performances were all great, even if the dialog was a bit dry and forced at points (a little too much exposition and impassioned speeches to remain natural).

If Mary McDonnell, Edward James Olmos, Michael Hogan, Tricia Helfer and James Callis don’t sweep the Emmys this year, then it would be a real travesty. Each of them carried their roles through the series, allowing them to grow, mature and change along with their circumstances in ways that always felt genuine to the characters. If there are actors doing better work than this on television, I’d really like to see it.

The effects and CGI work, as usual, were nothing short of astounding. Most big-budget movies don’t even look this good. The shots of the fleet in orbit around Earth were gorgeous and the Colony exploding in front of the singularity … my Gods, man! It was awesome!

The resolutions were surprising. Usually they are my least favorite parts of any movie, show or book, but seeing the resolutions between some of the characters worked pretty damn well in “Daybreak.”

Baltar and Caprica Six finally reunited was a great moment. Starbuck’s final scene with Hybrid-Anders was well done and surprisingly moving. Adama and Roslin’s departure was the tear-jerker we all knew was coming and they pulled it off flawlessly. The only resolution that felt off to me was between Lee and his father.

Playing the Hendrix version of “Watchtower” was a great touch. The robot montage at the end seemed a little “wtf?” when you compare it to the style of the rest of the show, but setting it to the song helped to bring the story full circle and give some closure to the use of the Bob Dylan song that had so many fans scratching their heads for so long.

"Battlestar Galactica" starred Edward James Olmos, Mary McDonnell, Katee Sackhoff, Jamie Bamber, Tricia Helfer, James Callis and Michael Hogan. "Daybreak" was written by Ronald D. Moore and directed by Michael “Queen of the Damned” Rymer. "Battlestar Galactica" airs Fridays at 10 p.m….wait, OMG, NOOOOOO, it’s really over!

Now what am I going to do with my Friday nights? I might have to actually *GASP* make friends!

☹ Farewell, my lovely!