back to article Battlestar Galactica eyes 'technology run amok'

Near the end of last Friday's finale of Battlestar Galactica, two of the characters most responsible for touching off the genocidal campaign that nearly wiped out civilization - or their "angels," if you believe in that kind of thing - reflect on the events taking hold on Earth, the planet called home since taking refuge there …

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  1. Colonel Panic
    Happy

    Battlestar Galactica's real message...

    If the Cylons could hear "All Along the Watchtower" in their heads (150,000 years ago), then there is only one way that everything makes sense:

    Jimi Hendrix is God

    But then we already knew that...

  2. Alex
    Boffin

    A Nitpick

    Cavil blew his brains out because his chance at getting his hands on Cylon resurrection technology went out the window when Tyrol snapped Tory's neck before the download could finish.

  3. MacRat

    Did the author watch it?

    If the author had watched BSG he would have know that the characters at the end of the finale were "angels." They were NOT Caprica Six or Baltar.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Well Let me be the first to...

    Raise a glass to the finest ship in the fleet...

    It's been a good run!

    "So say we all!"

  5. Joshua Goodall

    DNA

    And yet they just turned out to be a load of Golgafrinchans.

  6. Neoc

    Wrong characters

    "...a particularly diabolical version of the Number Six Cylon model observes to Gaius Baltar".

    I *know* I'm going to sound like a fanboi (I enjoyed the show, BTW, but did not obsess about it), but I'd like to point out those two characters were *not* Caprica and Baltar, but were the "angels" (to use Baltar's name for them) which plagued the two during the entire show.

    Overall, a very "Gallforce"-like ending - I'm betting a lot of people won't like it.

  7. Ron Christian
    Thumb Down

    Re: BG's real message...

    Or... Maybe the writers had no frakking idea where they were going the last two seasons. I'm glad it's over. Let's let Caprica sink without a trace, and we can put this whole mess behind us.

  8. Winston Smith
    Thumb Up

    Re: Battlestar Galactica's real message...

    No disrespect intended to the inestimable Mr. Hendrix, but I think the divinity here belongs to Bob Dylan, who wrote the song. As usual.

    I have heard, though, that Dylan now prefers to perform "Watchtower" in the Hendrix style. And who wouldn't?

    As for the ending, I found it oddly satisfying. We didn't get all the answers that the promos on the SciFi (er, "SyFy") Channel promised, but it still just worked so nicely...

  9. Tawakalna
    Thumb Up

    milions of light years?

    "in galaxies separated by millions of light years"

    the comment that Adama makes about "a million light years" wasn't meant to be taken literally, he was just using the number as a hyperbolic metaphor. On the few occasions that we've been given some idea of either the location of the Fleet or of Earth, they've shown the journey as taking place in one galaxy, presumably since they got here, the Milky Way. We also know that Colonial FTL isn't supposed to be even remotely capable of intergalactic travel and that even the vastly more efficient Cylon FTL system controlled by the Hybrids isn't able to make those kind of jumps either, and that long distances such as that to get to the Resurrection Hub had to be undertaken in stages.

    Shame no-one bothered to go back to the other Earth for Number 3.

    I'm still not getting how, if the Earth in Daybreak 2 is our Earth 150,000 years ago, why did the other "Earth" show North America in Crossroads 2 and the star patterns be those of the Zodiac as confirmed by Felix Gaeta's navigational check?

    Still it wasn't a bad ending and at least it didn't do a Galactica '80!

    wot, no Colonial Fleet icon?

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Dan Goodin

    "Sometimes the dystopian story was almost too dark to take."

    Yep - more than almost for me and my wife; we stopped watching after season two. The show was fantastically well-done, but so damned stressful and dark that it stopped being -fun-. By that point, pretty much everyone in the show was scarred, wretched, and hopeless - and then they decided all that wasn't enough and threw in some torture and rape to spice things up.

    I run my own business, and decided that I had enough stress during the day without coming home and stressing out watching a TV show, no matter how good it was...

    For me, the show that best straddled the line between dark and hopeful was Star Trek: DS9, particularly in its later seasons. Things were hard, people made tough (and often bad) decisions, but you got the feeling that they were living for more than just not being dead.

  11. Cheeky Chappie
    Alien

    And so say we all

    'Nuff said

  12. Dave Silver badge

    to Winston Smith

    Agreed, Dylan said of Hendrix's Watchtower "It's his song, all my songs are his".

    It was a fun T.V show, enjoyed it immensly, glad it that summer is on the way, roll on the beer and the beer gardens, girls and dancefloors, frisbees and parks.

  13. John Savard

    Oh, dear...

    I am not a number, I am Henri Poincaré!

  14. AndrewG
    IT Angle

    Huh?

    So apart from the fanboy lament that after 2 seasons of action and two seasons of navel-gazing and plot ret-cons it's finally over...was there any point to this?

  15. baswell
    Joke

    Hitchhiker ending

    The "B" ship finally made it to earth, including the bathtub in CIC!

    I was half expecting someone to clobber a rabbit to turn it into a bag.

    Still, good fun while it lasted. Now I have to find something else to watch...

  16. Craig Foster
    Flame

    Ahem!

    You could have at least mentioned the words

    *** SPOILER ALERT!! ***

    For those that haven't yet seen it... (not me though)

    plonkers....

  17. Long Fei
    Thumb Down

    Yeah

    I agree with the above comment, the writers of the show didn't know where it was going early on. They were just making things up as they went.

    The ending was... meh. I kinda expected it.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    A small mercy.

    That the worst SF show ever made is finally finished.

    What atotal and utter piece of rubbish this show was.

    Hopefully they will use the money to make a decent show!

  19. Nick Ryan Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    Re: A small mercy. / By Dav

    Great! I'm glad that I'm not the only one to notice that the show was extremely boring, poor, annoying and in the end, just plain rubbish.

    Watched the entire of the first couple of series, but just started to miss the odd episode and ceased to care about missing them. From vacuous idiotic characters, inept "command structures", dumb situations, ridiculous plots and sub-plots, the overriding "war on terror" theme that was coming through and multiple episodes that all had the feel of "filler" about them it just became a chore. In most episodes nothing much happened and the continual flicking from one location to another as if we've got no attention span was very tiresome.

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Cheap soap schlock

    Dreary, sh^H^Hgritty, and above all cheap religious and social metaphor. An absolute disgrace to it's fun and cheesy namesake. Thank fsck it's over, the only pity now is the original will be tainted by this pile of garbage for future generations.

  21. graeme leggett Silver badge
    Coat

    All over?

    In the orginal Cylons own words "Exxcitting newzzz"

  22. Mark York
    Thumb Up

    Gods Plan

    But even that is too much certainty. So the Number Six adds: "That, too, is in God's plan."

    You know it hates that name.

    Throughly enjoyed every frackkin minute of the whole damn thing, especially true of the end episode(s).

    Those that haven't seen it yet have a real treat in store.

  23. Steven

    The ending..

    ...should have had more flyng bikes.

  24. Seán

    BSG

    BSG was a very entertaining TV show and served to divide people into two groups, those who liked or disliked it and the inbred scum who couldn't understand it. That's the american educational system for you.

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    @Craig Foster

    You mean this wasent enough of a warning:

    Battlestar Galactica eyes 'technology run amok'

    Spoiler Alert Remind you of anything?

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Also...

    Did anyone see Eastenders last night?

  27. Andy
    Thumb Up

    Great show, but it wasn't The Shield.

    BSG will go on to be the argument point for many people for decades, but I'd like to say I enjoyed it.

    Great writing, good looking cast and a genuine tingle down the spine on the last episode.

    *The Wire starts on BBC 2 next week

  28. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    BSG

    Might have been quite a good show if it wasn't so comically and laughably American.

    I guess it just doesn't cross the Atlantic very well.

    Me? I gave up halfway through the first series.

  29. Shaun
    Unhappy

    Lay-in on Saturday mornings!

    Well now that it's over I no longer feel the need to get up at stupid-o-clock on a saturday morning to download the latest episode so I can get my "battlestar fix" as early as possible...........

    I loved/love the show - The darkness made it so much more refreshing than anything I've seen before - DS9 series 5, 6 and 7 nearly took us there, but never quite had the balls to go the whole way. Battlestar was about Genocide, and the fight for survival against an unrelenting and unbeatable enemy - If it wasn't dark and downright depressing at times (especially the secong half of series four - poor Dee :( ) it just would not have been the experience it was.

    I am glad it had an ending - A lot of finale's leave enough scope for a sequel or direct spinoff - This didn't. The second half could have been a little shorter, with a lot less flashbacks, but the show has always put one thing ahead of the technology or even the plot - the charecters. We got to see them say their goodbyes, knowing that most of them would be ok.

    Glad "The Plan" has been scheduled for the Autumn - gives me something to look forward to.

  30. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So... where are the fossilised ships?

    And the little artifacts like binoculars, and ammo crates, and stuff like that? Surely we'd have found some trace by now. And why did Adama feel like he had to go and live the life of a hermit for some reason? (When he was talking to Laura, I half expected it to pan out with her propped up, several months dead, with him going slightly mad pretending she just doesn't talk much these days...)

    Yeah, I did get the feeling they were making it up as they went along a bit, and got near the end and went "oh shit, how do we end this?". Didn't make it much less fun though.

  31. Pete Silver badge

    Bad ending to a crummy series

    Go with your first impressions.

    That was the lesson I learned from watching BSG from the beginning. It started with a civilisation that had faster-than-light spacecraft, massively powerful AIs, what seemed to be a mature and stable society (although based on the subjugation and exploitation of intelligent machines). Yet, the people still wore spectacles, depended on field-telephones on their versions of Enterprise and required 1980's (there's the clue) style video cameras to film their political system, that hadn't evolved from the 19th-century. Now I realise that all this was merely a framework to hang a story on, but it grated. If the writers can't even get the basic science to be consistent, what hope is there for the story they wish to tell? The answer, as we find out 4 years later is none, at all.

    Add into the mix a load of mystic nonsense about "arrows", that "point" the way to earth. A robotic adversary that turns out to be human - right down to the genetic level and you can see the basic premise falling apart right on the screen, every yawn-worthy time it's on. I gave up on watching this junk years ago - although I admit to watching an episode here-or-there, just to see if it got any better - it didn't.

    The newsgroups were all a-flurry when the "heroes" (whoops, here comes another turkey) landed on what they thought was earth. I duly gave it another chance to be good - FAIL. It turned out to be the Planet of the Apes set. Boy, did I laugh!

    But worse was to come. The finale (here comes the spoiler, unless you're reading this on Wednesday) was a collection of messianic nonsense in the first half and (as others have pointed out) a complete rip of HHGTTG in the second half - even to the point of closing on an iconic piece of music: I was half expecting Louis Armstrong, I must admit. We now hear that the writers are saying that it wasn't about science fiction, it was about the people. Well, fine: it goes from being a space opera to a soap opera. This sounds so much like a back-pedalling rationaliastion, that I can't help thinking they didn't really have much of a clue where they were going - other than the basic idea of ripping the original 1970's series.

    So, my first impressions were that it was bad. It didn't reconcile the science (oh, here's another one: why do their manned (gimme a break, 1940's/WW2 much?) fighters suffer from multipath distortion on their radio transmissions - they couldn't possibly be using A.M.) with the concept. The story meandered for years and eventually went out with a bang, then a whimper. Nothing I saw during it's entire run changed my mind from the first impressions. The only real contribution it made was to give us all FRAK.

  32. Stef
    Coat

    Angels?

    "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

    Just saying.

  33. Tom

    Hmm...

    I tried very hard to watch the new BSG but it lost me somewhere near the end of series 3 when it had 12 episodes about nothing and it turned out that EVERYONE were Cylons!

  34. Joe K

    ""That, too, is in God's plan."

    "Please, you know he hates that name."

  35. Edward Miles
    Happy

    All I'm doing...

    is sitting here humming "all along the watchtower" have been for the last three days...

    Dumdumdumdum. dum dum de dahdahdah dahdahdah...

  36. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Puerile cliched rubbish

    Maybe mankind will do something different and lose all the religious crap that ruined this already lame series in the second season.

  37. Jay
    Alien

    Cylons should be big, clunky and metal

    @Colonel Panic Agreed! Must start reading that Hendrix biography I picked up the other day.

    I gave up watching at the end of series three when half the cast turned out to be Cylons. Though before that I was starting to lose interest anyway. I guess I should dig out the original series box set!

  38. Charles King
    Thumb Down

    Full of sound and fury; signifying nothing

    @Ron Christian:

    Couldn't agree more. Seasons 4&5 have been a confused, but well-executed, mess. It became increasingly clear that Ronald D. Moore really had no idea where it was all going. As a writer, Moore is an excellent technician, but he lacks the fundamental vision needed to make things work on this scale. All his obscure hints and allusions turned out to be either empty or trite. The final episode was, "full of sound and fury; signifying nothing," to quote the Bard.

  39. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Personally

    I welcome our Cylon overlords.

  40. Tom Paine
    Flame

    I, for one

    ..am glad my decision not to waste my life watching that tosh has been justified. So the plot makes no sense until it's revealed that it's all part of god's great plan? Good grief, what a crock. I had to endure the shite original 80s version because it was that or the test card, but now it's the future and we can has Internet.

  41. Yorkshirepudding
    Coat

    spoilers

    damn you damn you all i clicked and have spoiled it now! blasted DVD pre order now rendered null

    ah well

    /hits turbo on his MK2 viper and heads for the nearest imploding sun

  42. Steve

    Pigs in space

    Maybe the BSG producers thought they were being deep and meaningful, but by the end of series one it was clearly a becoming an Eastenders-style soap on a Star Trek set. Jim Henson did it better.

    Sounds like it didn't improve through the other series.

  43. Adrian Waterworth
    Coat

    Was this thing still on?

    I assumed it would have been canned by the networks years ago? I watched the first few episodes of the first season and spent the whole time alternating between being almost terminally bored and splitting my sides at just how far up its own bottom the whole thing seemed to be trying to get. Comparisons with DS9 are appropriate - it was a right load of old tosh too, although it did at least manage a decent season or two before it also descended into hideous auto-proctology.

    Even the execrable Babble-on Five managed almost an entire season before becoming as tedious as this latest Battlestar tripe. If the writers have at least tried to end the story without leaving gaping avenues open for an even more dreadful sequel, then I approve. Good riddance.

    And as far as examining the human condition goes, mine's the one with the copy of Russell's History of Western Philosophy in the pocket.

  44. Sarah Bee (Written by Reg staff)

    gosh

    You lot don't half get shouty about small stuff.

  45. Alexander

    piss poor finally for middle america.

    I wonder what happened to ron moore balls, he must have lost them the same time he lost the plot for his show.

    what a dreay ending to a great show.

    1. Galaticas send off..ta out of money a cheap shot of the fleet heading to the sun ..low key is being polite.

    2. angels ...enough said.

    3. starbuck..what was that about what an easy get out, maybe she'll quantum leap and find sam.

    4.cavil's death anti climax indeed.

    5. back to the stoneage utter nonsense, living off the land is a hard life and pre historic man's life expectancy was 20-30 for a reason.., here mr sabertooth tiger let me defend myself with my scrolls of pifhia.(it is like the story of the 2 cameramen when they see a lion begin to charge them the 1st one starts putting on running shoes and taking his boots off, the 2nd guy says you will never out run a lion, the first guys replies ,yes thats true but i only have to out run you)they think they where at each other throats before.

    6.six and baltar(angles..yuck)at the end supreme chesse, it would have fit right in the original series or maybe the a-team or heaven can wait,

    7. the opera house..what piffal the image of the five standing in CnC ws so bad it was creepy.

    8. where did leoban go or boxey or the 300 other loose ends the writers forgot about, and there is no way i will watch any spin off's like caprica , once bitten....

    the whole thing just got rushed -10 for a finally more the panto than opera.

  46. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I liked it

    Watched in HD on Sunday

    Spent all day Monday annoying a work mate about it who won't see it to Tuesday.

  47. Mark Wills
    Stop

    Is that the show...

    ... that was some thinly veiled left-wing anti Iraq war diatribe, using men in space suits instead of men in soldiers uniforms, 'cos we're too thick to understand anything else?

    I stopped watching after the first episode on UK telly. Jeesh, what a load of cack.

    As for those of you who can site every twist in the sorry story; e.g:

    "Cavil blew his brains out because his chance at getting his hands on Cylon resurrection technology went out the window when Tyrol snapped Tory's neck before the download could finish."

    I'm working my way through recently purchased box sets:

    The Sweeny (shut it you slaaaag)

    The Professionals (just ever so slightly camp, in a good way, not a 'Carry On' way)

    Minder (Oh my good gawd Terence)

    Bottom (should be compulsory viewing for all school kids)

    The Young Ones (WAS compulsory viewing when I was at school)

    The old stuff *is* better. Sorry, but it was. And you get reminded of just how shit those cars your Dad had to drive really were.

    And everyone smoked tabs.

    And no-one wore seat-belts.

    That's how fricken hard they were ;-)

    Ahhh... I feel much better now - back to work!

    Can I say, with the utmost respect, please, do get out more and meet people. Most of them are very nice and won't stab you.

    In fairness, to Alex who made the above quoted posting, you did use the geek icon, so I forgive you ;-)

  48. Juillen
    Thumb Up

    Personally

    I found the show intriguing. So what if all the 'little details' don't work out? Look back at life, and all the things you used to think made sense, until it later turned out that it was essentially randomness, and just reading many things into small signals (that were purely coincidental).

    The characters were great. The subplots were subtle. The subterfuge realistic..

    Not seen the end yet, but looking forward to it. It's one of those shows that's had its highs and lows, the odd episode that was put in purely for characterisation, which is fine in any story..

    More please.

  49. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Final Episode

    It was like reading a Stephen King book. Fantastic story until the ending, which was rushed and not thought out. Damn stupid ending. Characters behaving completely out of character. Cavil was so interesting and hellbent... only to blow his brains out???

    The ending also suffered the 'deathstar' ending. Something that big would have had thousands of raiders (a fully armed deathstar would have had more than a dozen ties) and huge guns of death. Hardly any centurions roaming said facility (should have been an anthill of them). Maybe the guns were to disable the ship to take the final five alive, but the fire power wasn't concentrated on anything in particular. The fact that Cavil was risking death by entering the Galactica didn't make a whole lot of sense either.

    The 'angel' thing wasn't really thought out either. I can accept something ending without all the answers nice and available, but it smelled like 'Final Fantasy: Advent Children"... interesting story, then towards the end, a bunch of random people show up (never discussed or shown throughout the beginning of the movie but described as 'oh, these are our friends'). The point of leaving a story hanging is to force the watcher to think for an answer. This angel thing was pretty convoluted.

    Thought I'd better post anon... I'm geeky enough without advertising it.

  50. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    I liked it.

    Well I enjoyed it - OK I thought the ending (the last 20 minutes anyway) was just a little contrived. But whatever, best thing on telly for the last 5 or so years...

    @Sarah Bee - "You lot don't half get shouty about small stuff." - Small stuff?! SMALL stuff?!!!

  51. Nic Brough

    Humph

    No Starbuck.

    They could have at least got one little cameo in, I was very intrigued about the suggestion of using him as "new" Starbuck's dad in a flashback or something.

    I loved the use of Richard Hatch though - old Apollo runs straight into a fight with the new one in the episode they introduce him

  52. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    BSG will go on to be the argument point for many people for decades,????

    No it won't.

    Give it a few months and most will have rightly forgotten about it.

    It was a mediocre series at best, written by people who were so unsure of its success that they had to rip off the name of a previous film in order to try to get it even made in the first place. Which kinda tells you all you need to know - even the writers were not convinced it was any good.

    Oh, and add to that their own admission that they didn't actually know how they were going to finish it which is pretty poor standard for any writer.

    All in all, thank goodness it is finished, the over-hyped mediocre pile of wank that it was.

  53. David Webb

    @AC - FF Advent Children

    FF Advent Children was wrote for fans of FF7, so we know all the people who showed up, Cid, Red XIII, Cait Sith etc. because of the game, it wasn't really wrote for anyone who hasn't played the game so wouldn't really understand who Cloud is.

    I thought the final episode of BSG was pants, total rubbish. Sure it gave it an ending, but not the ending that was any good. Sam going off into the sun with the fleet, giving up all their technology, living 150,000 years ago. Adama still had his raptor, they had technology and Cylons! Maybe there will be a BSG2 where the ancestors who set up on an island called "Atlantis" set off to find "Earth" - some believe life out here began out there, a shining blue planet called Caprica....

  54. Peter Gathercole Silver badge

    @Adrian Waterworth re B5

    Where B5 actually was better was that the story ARC was fairly well populated for all 5 series (OK, it got a bit messy when Time/Warner canned it at the end of Series 4, and the order of the stories was ripped apart).

    This meant that meaningful hints could be seeded throughout the series, which when spotted led to a big Ahhhhhh moment that spanned the seasons. This is what made B5 seasons 2-4 compulsive viewing for those of us who actually followed the storyline. But each episode stood-alone enough to be watched in isolation. I admit B5 was a mixture of absolute brilliance (like the episode that was filmed from start to finish in one scene - "Insurrections in real time"), and complete pap (I tend to forget these!). But you must remember when calling it cheesy, that for the first series at least, the video effects were produced on "the video toaster", which was a network of Amiga PC's.

    I lost track of BSG when Sky 1 dropped off of Virgin's cable service, and found that whenever I did get to see an episode, that what I was watching made very little sense. Partly my fault, I know, but it did not make it easy to watch. But it seams to me that each series had it's own ARC, and not a lot was carried across from one series to the next.

    Now, from B5, all I have to say is... "Get the hell out of my Galaxy!"

  55. Sean Baggaley
    Flame

    Yes, "Small stuff".

    BSG had one major flaw: handheld camerawork. There was absolutely no justification for this. It's not like the characters ever demanded to know why there was a documentary film crew following them around. (A film crew which clearly couldn't afford a Steadicam rig.)

    The second flaw -- one common to most 'remake' attempts -- is the notion that it's okay to take a cheesy, kids TV series and dress it up in adult clothing in an attempt to make it feel more grown-up. (Presumably so the fans of the original show, who are now adults, will watch it.)

    Contrast with Blakes 7 -- which *was* a (low-budget) kid's TV SF show, but one set in a dark, dystopian future where the lead characters were regularly killed-off -- did not. Sure, the latter had to resort to painted footballs for planets, but the writing never dropped below "good". It was often excellent.

    Blakes 7 was dark, scary, believable (for the day) and, most importantly, genuinely *entertaining*. It was never a chore to watch. Even at its worst, it was still fun, even if only to watch the actors trying their hardest to be scared of blatantly cardboard aliens. Yet this was a series about a dysfunctional group of terrorists / freedom fighters trying to overthrow a corrupt government. (And they actually *lose*! No cheesy "winning against all the odds" bullshit here.)

    (Blakes 7 -- the lack of a possessive apostrophe still irritates me -- was the inspiration for Babylon 5, by JM Straczyinski's own admission. B5, unfortunately, suffered from the same problem the current Doctor Who had: "Writer / Producer Syndrome". It's clear that the production workload often resulted in sub-par writing when the same person was responsible for both.)

    The Science Fiction and Fantasy genres are the *oldest* in modern literature. ("Gulliver's Travels" is considered the first proper novel.) SF which "asks hard questions" is a tiresome cliché, but BSG didn't even go that far. It was stuffed full of Deus Ex Machina elements. The only thing it says to the viewer is "Meh! Shit happens! Deal with it."

    Very deep.

  56. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @ Jay

    'Cylons should be big, clunky and metal '

    Including the one in the little red dress?

    Me? It grew on me for the first season, I loved season 2, after that it was clear they'd blown the budget on the first couple of episodes of season 3 and it became LA Law in Spaaaace.

    Got bored. Which was a shame as it did appear to be willing to flirt with much darker SF than is normal for TV. Fortunately, it looks like 'Dollhouse' is starting to get in its stride and that seems to be going into very dark places indeed.

  57. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Biddy Biddy Biddy

    Buck, oh those were classic.

    Haven't seen the new ones, but hear Bucks a girl, I hope they kept an Erin Gray lookalike as Wilma.

    Biddy Biddy Biddy, amazing story.

  58. P
    Stop

    You want something to think about

    Galactica, jumped from a singularity to earth. Assume for just an instance 150K years ago there was a singularity that close to the solar system. The range of the Jump would have to be at least 5-100 light years and assuming that, wouldnt we KNOW there is a singlaurty out that... even now... we'd see it ALSO! Wouldnt "earth" have been scoped by the BAD cylons. I mean really especially if the cylons were as smart as they say, would they not have sensors in every solar system within 1 jumps distance of their main colony! Frack! I'll take that they had a great castle wall to hide behind, but you still keep skirmishers and scouts out there to know where your fronts are starting.

    I am shooting holes in a show that I love, Frack you I am a fanboy! ESAD

  59. IR

    @AC - FF Advent Children

    It would have been nice if they'd put that on the DVD case, rather than giving the impression it was a standalone film with the same characters. Oh, and added some plot that made sense. And some half decent dialogue. Looks good though!

    I never got into BSG. I started watching the first season and it wasn't really going anywhere so I gave up. Then I discovered that there was a mini-series before the first season that sets it all up so it is more enjoyable, except that it wasn't broadcast on normal tv. By the time I had got enough time to start again from the beginning, everyone was saying how rubbish it had become, so I didn't bother. Maybe I'll sit down with all the DVDs and get through them, but maybe I won't.

  60. Anonymous Coward
    Go

    By Your Command

    I have queued up Dylan's Watchtower. Never liked the Hendrix version. Sorry for you.

  61. John Owens

    All along the Watchtower

    This is the hint that they jumped back in time.

    This song is written in a way that the last verse is really the first and it therefore it can constantly repeat (like the show). As Bob sometimes does in concerts (play the first verse last, either with or without playing it at the start).

    You could even argue that Six and Baltar are the "Joker and the Thief". She stole the codes and he well is a bit of Joke and seemed like comic relief in the kings court (the C&C/airforce one).

    Jumping back in time also explains the phrase "All this has happened and will happen again", plus our religions and those of the show, it also explains why all the dead on Earth that they found where Cylons (descended from Hera). It even hinted that Anders is the God(except he doesn't like the name) who became after flying into the sun and who constantly forces humanity to repeat and repeat etc to find perfection. For him perfection was the most important thing, not winning or losing. It also explains why the Cylon Hybrids can "network" into these thoughts/desires.

    It actually makes me think that the Centurions set "free" may end up being the God's of Kobol that in turn go on a create the "new" humans that eventually leave to go to the colonies.

    Personally I loved the finale, after watching interviews etc it did seem that they decided on a lot while making the show and not before. I think anyone of the cast "could" have taken Anders' role of God/hybrid and they probably would have flashbacked to something that explains their motivation or even any of the final five but I think the basic idea must have been decided at the start.

  62. John Owens

    Brother Cavil

    I also don't think it's a coincidence that Brother Cavil first appeared wearing Priest's clothes as he definitely represents all that is anti-god, i.e. a need for pure science.

    They might be making a point that the church is really evil.

  63. Ron Christian

    re: Bad ending to a crummy series

    You nailed it, even to the writers now saying it wasn't about what it was originally about. I fully expect the argument to be made that we didn't like it because we didn't "get it".

    I'd like to make one correction on an excellent article:

    > The only real contribution it made was to give us all FRAK.

    It didn't even give us that. We already had Frak, from the original series.

  64. Jon Pick

    Wanted to like it. Didn't.

    Except the miniseries and the episode "33".

    @Sarah Bee. We're shouty about big stuff too. i'd've thought YOU'D have noticed!

    Blakes 7 a kid's show? Surely not.

  65. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Mark Wills

    BSG did have it's problems but I struggle to see how Bottom and The Young Ones toilet humour is any better.

  66. David Cantrell

    Moby Dick

    In looking at the parallels with Moby Dick, you forget one very important reason for Melville's writing - he was deeply concerned with showing off how clever and well-educated he was. That's why he describes an inn thus:

    " It was a queer sort of place--a gable-ended old house, one side palsied as it were, and leaning over sadly. It stood on a sharp bleak corner, where that tempestuous wind Euroclydon kept up a worse howling than ever it did about poor Paul's tossed craft. Euroclydon, nevertheless, is a mighty pleasant zephyr to any one in-doors, with his feet on the hob quietly toasting for bed. "In judging of that tempestuous wind called Euroclydon," says an old writer--of whose works I possess the only copy extant--"it maketh a marvellous difference, whether thou lookest out at it from a glass window where the frost is all on the outside, or whether thou observest it from that sashless window, where the frost is on both sides, and of which the wight Death is the only glazier." True enough, thought I, as this passage occurred to my mind--old black-letter, thou reasonest well. Yes, these eyes are windows, and this body of mine is the house. What a pity they didn't stop up the chinks and the crannies though, and thrust in a little lint here and there. But it's too late to make any improvements now. The universe is finished; the copestone is on, and the chips were carted off a million years ago. Poor Lazarus there, chattering his teeth against the curbstone for his pillow, and shaking off his tatters with his shiverings, he might plug up both ears with rags, and put a corn-cob into his mouth, and yet that would not keep out the tempestuous Euroclydon. Euroclydon! says old Dives, in his red silken wrapper--(he had a redder one afterwards) pooh, pooh! What a fine frosty night; how Orion glitters; what northern lights! Let them talk of their oriental summer climes of everlasting conservatories; give me the privilege of making my own summer with my own coals.

    " But what thinks Lazarus? Can he warm his blue hands by holding them up to the grand northern lights? Would not Lazarus rather be in Sumatra than here? Would he not far rather lay him down lengthwise along the line of the equator; yea, ye gods! go down to the fiery pit itself, in order to keep out this frost?

    " Now, that Lazarus should lie stranded there on the curbstone before the door of Dives, this is more wonderful than that an iceberg should be moored to one of the Moluccas. Yet Dives himself, he too lives like a Czar in an ice palace made of frozen sighs, and being a president of a temperance society, he only drinks the tepid tears of orphans. "

    This sort of tediously obscure waffling, done solely to show off what a wonderfully well-educated man the writer is, is why I avoid most Victorian writing like the plague.

  67. storng.bare.durid
    Thumb Down

    YOU BASTARDS!!!!

    You should have warned people this article was a spoiler of sorts...

    BASTARDS!!!!!

    BASTARDS!!!!

  68. Alexander

    moby dick had a plot and direction? BSG is more like a disney channel special

    In the end it felt like scientology meets creationism, I was expecting them to reveal god to be a pogo stick jumping lollipop munching tom cruise in a tin fiol hat, Ron Moore says they made things up as they went …never, you could have fooled me(sarcasm) .

    I sorry but PLOT is the story, Ron seems to think it’s not. Mind you seems to be an American trait having no”Exit Strategy”, also seem to be a common theme in Hollywood is the back to basics rubbish like the horrible remake of “the day the earth stood still”.

    And in the oldies they knew who the real villains where, not technology or machines or pollution..Our nemesis will always be ourselves, but the ending was pure mcguyver ala a-team cheap, chessey and paper thin plot wise.

    "there are 12 models and they have a plan" pity they did not tell Ron about it.( and no mr moore i will not watch anymore so can the plan and caprica..don't you know it is all about the timing)

    @Jon Pick

    total agreement it all went slowly downhill from 33.

  69. Tawakalna
    Thumb Up

    @John Owens..

    "Jumping back in time also explains the phrase "All this has happened and will happen again", plus our religions and those of the show, it also explains why all the dead on Earth that they found where Cylons (descended from Hera). It even hinted that Anders is the God(except he doesn't like the name) who became after flying into the sun and who constantly forces humanity to repeat and repeat etc to find perfection. For him perfection was the most important thing, not winning or losing. It also explains why the Cylon Hybrids can "network" into these thoughts/desires."

    that hadn't occurred to me but I think that's very plausible in terms of the story.

  70. tardigrade
    Dead Vulture

    Bloody Trekkies.

    I was a little disappointed in that I believe that everyone should have been killed in the ending alla Blakes 7, but other than that nuBSG is one of the best conceived and most thoughtful sci-fi dramas of the past 20 years. To read comments here decrying it as being the worst series ever is frankly stupid. OK we get that you don't like it, but mediocre, crummy? Oh drear.

    I wonder how many of these comments come from die-hard trekkies? It always seems that anything that approaches Star Trek, Next Gen, DS9 etc automatically goes on the trekkie irrational hate list.

    There is no need to feel threatened. Plus you need to save your energy for the inevitable bilious hating that will get directed at J.J Abrahms reboot of Trek, regardless of whether it's any good or not. After all it's not cannon, kill it!

  71. Andrew Moore
    Thumb Up

    Thumbs up here...

    I enjoyed the entire series (baring the odd clunker episode- Black Market and Scar I'm looking at you). I think it's been the best SF since Farscape and I'll miss it. The finale may not have been A+ material but I think I'll give it a B+.

    Anyway- Primeval's back on Saturday and I think I heard someone say that The Wire starts on BBC2 next week.

  72. Pete
    Alien

    I cheered

    I have to admit I cheered when Laura Roslin died, I despised that character. Other than a lot of gaping plot holes the general series has been a lot of fun, sometimes though provoking.

    But that still does not change that the best Sci-Fi has to offer is still Babylon

  73. Law
    Paris Hilton

    RE: Bloody Trekkies.

    I would class myself as a trekkie... but I love bsg... infact, anybody I know who likes BSG likes ST too... except the die hard BSG fans, who claim BSG was more "real" and not classic "crappy" scifi like ST.... so I think the opposite is mainly true, it tends to be the die hard bsg fans that have an inferiority complex against ST's popularity or something....

    Personally, I liked the rawness and depression of bsg, same as DS9 was my fave ST... bsg ending confused the hell out of me, but the person who suggested anders to be God, and the time travelling twist has my thanks, because now in my mind at least the ending makes alot more sense... I've suggested the time-travel twist to repeating and endless looping to bsg die hards, and they essentially spat in my face because "BSG isn't ST, they don't do silly scifi - it's a cop out" etc etc... personally... it tidies almost all of it up... it explains why constellations for Earth 1 are exactly the same as ours, why there was a north american continent on Earth 1 too, and goes a bit to explaining why we have the mythology of "All this has happenned and will happen again" blurb.

    What is doesn't explain though, is why a star pilot like Kara didn't check to see if the number's she took from the music weren't jump coordinates straight away... it would be the first thing to check... what the hell was she trying to do with the numbers in the first place?!?! My only theory is possibly something that comes from a stargate/startrek way of thinking - that the numbers wouldn't lock/engage/gotoearth until the singularity somehow lensed the jump.... but as my friend pointed out, it's bsg, not startrek... they don't like too much science... I mean, c'mon, they had FTL drives and colonised several star systems... but couldn't cure cancer, and everybody was addicted to smoking.... wtf???

  74. Graham Marsden
    Flame

    Frakkin' incredible...

    ... the way that some people who admit that they didn't even *watch* the whole show the way through find it necessary to come on here and slag it off just so they can say "hey, I didn't watch it all and you lot are all lus3rs for doing so!"

    No, it wasn't perfect, yes, it had flaws, yes, it was dark to the extent that I've only just watched the final episodes because the series was emotionally draining, but if you didn't like it, why not just go and find something you *do* like instead?

  75. Ron Christian

    re: Trekkies

    > I wonder how many of these comments come from die-hard trekkies? It always seems that anything that approaches Star Trek, Next Gen, DS9 etc automatically goes on the trekkie irrational hate list.

    Sorry, I don't think so. There's usually not enough SF to go around. By picking artificial sides, what does that leave you? Trek is dead and gone -- does that mean I can't rent Farscape? Or watch Dollhouse? I'm imagining someone in a ratty too-small redshirt watching the original 79 episodes over and over. People like that do exist, but they usually reveal themselves quickly in conversation.

    Personally I thought Trek skidded downhill in the final seasons of TNG, with a brief respite during the more clever DS9 episodes. I couldn't make myself watch the rest of Voyager, and lost patience with Enterprise after the first three or four episodes. Trek had become dishwater dull, and despite my own appetite for SF, I couldn't be bothered to watch it anymore.

    The reasons I stopped watching Trek were similar to the reasons I started to actively dislike BG in the third season -- it had descended into formula, lost track of plot threads, and was just wandering around acting sanctimonious (trek) or terminally depressed (BG) mouthing the same catchwords over and over until you wanted to pitch the remote at the screen. As time went on there was less and less reason to watch either because (a) I didn't care about any of the characters, and (b) what the episode was trying to make me feel this week was precisely the same as last week and last month and six months ago. In the case of Trek, complicated is not the same as interesting. In the case of BG, tense is not the same as compelling. Fortunately, they're both over and done with.

    When I heard that Abrams was going to make another Trek film, I immediately decided to rush right out and not see it. It was only later, when rumors started coming out that it was a true reboot -- a reimagining -- that I started to become somewhat interested. I mean, like BG, there's nothing wrong with the concept -- it was the writers that destroyed the franchise. In both cases.

    That said, the new Trek film could suck, or it could be like "33" -- a great beginning to what eventually (again) dies out with a pathetic whimper. Or something else. We shall see.

    So, in summary, it's not the color of the uniform, or the shape of the spaceships, or how many space battles there are, or the number of females in spandex, or even the existence of an interesting and varied backstory. It's the quality of the writing. Not the writing last season when it was still good, but the writing in the episode you're watching right now. Too many crap scripts in a row, and the most compelling premise can't make the show interesting anymore.

    While we're on the subject of wondering about things, I have to wonder how much fanboi praise is the result of sci-fi starvation. When there's so little new stuff of any quality, do we tend to overlook the maggots on the few crusts the networks do throw our way?

  76. Big Bear
    Boffin

    The time travel theory

    Damn! That makes a lot more sense than the bloody finale... in the past the singularity doesn't exist so isn't a threat to the planet that it is in the future, as it must be relatively nearby. The planet develops robots as shown with dancing Sony-bot which ends up being Cylons and boooooom, nuclear war!!

    So the cycle is repeating really - it happens once but the time paradox is the repetition bit...

  77. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Some good points, some bad

    A few things I don't quite understand:

    Why does Heckler & Koch arm all American SF TV shows?

    Why do so many alien civilisations use Fluke Scopemeters?

    The last remnants of a civilisation, while fleeing for their lives across the galaxy, still find enough time to cut the corners off of every scrap of paper -- presumably a genetic mental condition?

    On the other hand, the "space battle" physics weren't too bad and many of the episodes were quite entertaining.

    People will whine about anything these days.

  78. Doug Glass
    Go

    @Ron Christian

    Exactly. And took without permission the overall idea from Jack L. Chalker's "The Wonderland Gambit".

    BSG was not good Science Fiction, it was plagiarism that took advantage of a dying author and his family.

  79. Doug Glass
    Go

    Pure Misdirection

    Mr. Author. why did you leave out the single most telling line of the entire series?

    "So the Number Six adds: "That, too, is in God's plan." "

    After that, the Baltar "Angel" says, "You know he doesn't like that name".

    A little mind bending of your own there to suit your purposes? Or are you the "he" and of course you're in control and know best.

  80. adifferentbob
    Coat

    hmm

    liked it but thought they got the jump co-ords wrong - shouldn't they have been 4 8 15 16 23 42

    Mine's the Dharma jumpsuit. Thanks

  81. Rick Giles
    Flame

    In chorus with Graham Marsden

    Here! Here!

    You have hit the nail right on the head! The ONLY people that have any right to voice an opinion on this subject (and Lost for that matter) are the ones the watched every frakkin' episode. They're the same ones that walk in to a movie, wait for the opeing credits to stop rolling, walk out to get pop corn and talk on the phone, then come back in to the theater 5 minutes before the end credits roll and then bitch that they didn't understand it.

    I for one watched every episode and I will say that the final epsiode was not quite what I was expecting. BUT, it wasn't my story to tell now was it? Yes, they could have done some things differently and maybe not have dragged it out (were they trying to be artistic?) or could have made a couple of more episodeswith a tad more explanation of Kara, Gaius and Caprica 'angel' angle.

    I await your flames. Please post them to /dev/null

  82. Big Bear

    That time travel theory revisited

    ..and found lacking, of course.

    Namely.. how did they send a Raptor to go get the rest of the fleet to join them?

    Of course, a sensible ending would've been if only Galactica had made it to the past and with the ship falling to pieces only a very small amount of people survived (Hera, Athena and Helo?) and so there begins the interbreeding with the early humans on the earth leading to mitochondrial Eve?

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