Battlestar Galactica, Finis

Visions are a central trope of BSG. In the middle of the first season, I had a vision of what the show was really about and how the entire BSG universe worked and the broad strokes of its whole history. Every season has only confirmed my concept of the BSG universe. So I began to build up a weird resistance to the show. I'd ignore it, then months after the season DVDs would come out, I'd suddenly have to see it, and then devour it in a weekend, looking for signs. Was I right about everything? Would the show go downhill as the seasons passed? The only person I told my theory to, as far as I can remember, was my dad.

Since I started this blog, I realized that I would have to write about BSG in somewhat of a timely manner. But I don't like consuming BSG in tidbits. I like waiting for the DVDs and immersing myself in it and then coming out the other side of the season finale, hungover, slightly depressed and needing to get out in the sunshine, but, at the same time, usually I'm awed by its sheer intelligence and gripping tension.

Over the last two weeks I started frantically trying to catch up on the current season of BSG, while trying to keep up with all the new shows and trying to finish my first (probably crappy) genre novel. Finishing watching the series was like pushing out that novel — I just had to do it, without time to think or analyze, just let it happen.

OK, I'm getting way too flowery here, but the point is, is that for almost five years I had a theory that I thought was kind of, well (blush) epic, and I felt that right out of the gate I had totally second-guessed where the writers were going. I was quite pleased with myself. And, AND, this was the month I was going to finally find out if my view of the entire Battlestar Galactica universe was correct.

What was so spooky about the series finale was it was virtually scene for scene the exact match to my initial vision of the show's universe, right down to the fact that the whole thing took place in the past, and the people we were watching were our ancestors. I mean, by the last season or so, they were hinting pretty hard, but I'm very happy that I guessed it early in the first season when it was still pretty vague.

Well, I was right, so of course I'm happy about the series finale and felt it was about as good as could be. I wasn't sure about the quality of the colony centurions' CGI in the battle scenes, and I wanted more of the humanoid cylons in the battle. But overall, the battle scenes were still really intense and I thought in all other respects the episode was well acted, shot, written, etc. The magazine that Caprica and Gaius look at in the final scene was a magazine I actually bought and read a couple of years ago. I totally remember reading that exact article.

I just hope that we get more intelligent TV like BSG. TV execs! Shows can be tough and intelligent without losing viewers. Hello!