Battlestar Galactica: The End

First thing's first, if you haven't finished watching the series, don't read on. Some of you I've tagged here because you're done now, others because you'll be done soon. But if you aren't done, haven't even started, and / or ever intend to watch this show, go now and don't let the spoilers in. They are many and they are large.

Battlestar Galactica is a show that turns a lot of people off just by its title. Despite the wisdom overhanging that one best examine contents and not packaging, I can still sort of get it. It's a dorky name, really. When you say it to people they give you that look. You know the one, if you're into nerdy things you get it a lot. It's the same look you might get when you tell people that you spend your evenings reading comic books or if you're overheard arguing about which Star Trek captain is best. It's hard to characterize the look, because the people giving it range in their judgments from merely perplexed to utterly put off. Nerdy things aren't for everyone. But the packaging is key. Battlestar is packaged in an epic, space-faring, guns blazing, aircraft carrier dramatic vessel. That's what the vessel is, in fact. They're space planes, but it's all a moot point. The contents of that package, though obscured by the busy scenery, are totally and essentially human. Ron Moore and company didn't seem to lose sight of that, either, because as the show wrapped up Friday night, the tech and the toys and the tinsel were stripped away in great thick layers to reveal the last verse in a long poem about people.

It's a good thing the showrunners got themselves clear about how to wrap it up, too, because there were not many places left to go after 4 years of humanity with its back firmly pressed to the wall.

Billions dead, survivors numbered in the tens of thousands? Check.

A faster, smarter enemy hunting down those few left running with ruthless efficiency? Check.

Everyone's compromised, placed in impossible situations? Check.

Morality's gone out the window? Check.

Nukes, angels, murder, visions, internment camps, a black market, pregnancy (interspecies, no less), religion, about 1000 bullets fired for every human left alive, Gaeta lost a leg, Tigh lost an eye, Helo accidentally cheated on his wife, and President School Teacher had cancer since day one. Oh and five of the crew were cylons all along, but they found out because of 'All Along the Watchtower'. I'm sure that's every nerd's favourite song, now.

Yeah. I wasn't sure how they could really push that envelope any further. But I underestimated the folks behind the curtain. The finale saw the breaking of Galactica's back, but by god, did she earn it. The central plot point of assaulting the cylon colony was taking, by my watch, less time out of the episode that I had thought. So with a substantial chunk of episode left, the ships were safely orbiting earth, and all of a sudden it's clear that the only place left for this show to go is back. Way back. Not shockingly, the circular story catches up to eat its own tail, and we get (mostly) the closure that we need. Ships flown into the sun, and a blank slate for civilization, and it's over. Assuming it doesn't happen again in 150,000 years or so.

I'm proud to be a fan of the show after all is said and done. It's certainly one of the best finales I've ever seen, but not everyone is going to agree with me on that one, I just know it. The biggest reason will be that while the show certainly ended, it didn't really tie up every nagging question with a lovely red bow. I wasn't expecting as much, but some were, and I'm sad for them. It occurred to me as the last minutes rolled by that Galactica was telling a fable and not a strictly literal story. Those loose ends belong, therefore to the departments of faith and plot contrivance, both of which, as fans of this show, you should be completely aware by now.

I'm proud, indeed, to be able to stand by my usual synopsis of the show, its ending not contradicting me. Yes, I would tell those who might ask, yes it's a show about people in space and there are robots chasing them, but they look like people too, and there's FTL jumping and fun with guns and cylons IS kind of a dorky word, I know. Yes to all that. But beneath all that packaging, it's a show about people. We are boiled down here and stripped of our compass and our comforts and brought to the absolute essential. When all the chips are on the table, your plays are big and risky and sometime awful and unforgivable, but it's either that or you're bust.

I think congratulations are in order for the people who made this show possible. They started out with a deeply disturbing scenario and brought it full circle. From death to birth.