Monday, October 5, 2009

End of Battlestar

*Lots of spoilers beyond this point. All who haven't seen Battlestar Galactica and still wish to, don't read.

As always, I'm a bit behind the general population when it comes to watching TV shows. Specifically, I just finished watching the last episode of Battlestar Galactica. And I have one huge question: Did anyone else feel a little cheated by the "angel" answer to pretty much everything?

I was really hoping that something would be revealed about Baltar and why he always had visions of Six, something scientific and explainable (at least in that world), like maybe he was also a Cylon and was sharing/living in some sort of Cylon vision. Nope. She's an angel. And what about the fact that it's not until the final episode that it's revealed that Caprica Six has the same visions? That felt cheap and confusing.

On top of that, Cara was an angel? I wanted a better answer.

Other things (which made me unhappy) left unanswered :
  • Why did Lee know he wasn't going to see his father again, when his dad was simply planning to build the cabin he and Roslin always wanted after he buried her?
  • Why, in the future, did they find only the remains of Athena and Karl's child, Hera, but not Athena or Karl, or for that matter, the remains of anyone else that landed on the planet or any of the natives already inhabiting the island?
  • Why did everyone have visions of little Hera leading them to their salvation, when in fact it was Kara?
  • Why was Kara called the Harbinger of Death by the Cylons? Because she was dead?
  • Can an angel see a vision of another angel as seemed to implied by the piano scenes with her "dad"? (That leads to a whole bunch of other possibilities, like maybe the reason no one found the rest of the human and Cylon population's bones was because the were all unaware that they were angels and only Hera was real.)

I'm still not sure if I'm pleased with that final episode or not. It felt like a finale, if not one that answered all my questions. Was that an intellectual choice on the writers' part to leave the audience with the same questions that the people on the ship had? To draw analogies between questions we ask ourselves about God and the unanswered pieces of the show? Was this whole show supposed to demonstrate how Christianity and science can coexist? Was it all Christian propaganda, that God exists, angels exist, and there is A Plan? Am I trying to make this deeper than it is?

I do know that I have no desire to see the special Battlestar Galactica: The Plan, so at least I have one answered question.

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