BSG S4E20
It was cathartic. I feel very mellow now. It's like i know there are things i shouldn't be happy about but i'm just not feeling them. It wasn't perfect but i am not angry about it.
Spoilers under the cut. Warning for random disconnected thoughts.
What worked for me
Adama and Roslin. In many ways this story came full circle. It was beautiful, it was touching, it was inevitable. I cried and cried and cried. And then i cried more. It is the most refreshing love story ever, told subtly and beautifully over four seasons.
What didn't work
I didn't like the final goodbye for the Admiral. Why would they never see him again? I would think he would go off, maybe mourn for a while alone. But why wouldn't you go back to the rest of the people you love? Why lose everyone else as well?
I was fine with the chief going off by himself. I think as a character, he's just received a huge dump of information. Not just with Cally, but also (i assume) memories of the thousands of years he's lived. As an extremely old, old person - he decides to play the hermit and get some alone time. It makes sense to me.
Roslin in the sick bay didn't cut it for me either. They were trying to get somewhere with that, i think it got shortchanged due to time issues. A deeper look into the horrors of a wartime triage would have added to the drama of the final battle.
What worked
Final goodbye for the Battlestar. It felt right, poignant. It was like the coup all over again. I loved the moment where you see all the people you care about checking back in with the bridge. To me that was like the final walk through the school halls in Buffy. It's a reminder of where we came from, why we love the show so much. It's a final battle for the galactica.
What didn't
Kara Thrace. Seriously? From the beginning of that scene I kept saying to myself, she's going to disappear, look at her she's glowing, she's going to disappear, she's going to disappear. And she did. What a complete anticlimax. And the i see angels talk from Baltar. I wanted them to be something else. Something different. Anders said Kara Thrace was the 'end of the line' something like that, made me think of production lines, machines. And the harbinger of death stuff. If the damn waterbath toasters keep talking about her why isn't she somehow related to them??? Something not religious claptrap. I am sad. The Kara/Lee storyline peaked, ran its course ages ago. (I also kept seeing Dee at the bridge)
What worked
I liked the scene with Roslin and Athena chasing Hera. Cutting the dream sequence with reality was trippy and great. We normally see the dream from Roslin's point of view, repeating it and cutting it with reality reinforces the fact that she's totally high on drugs. Artistically = yay. BUT my impression from the dream sequence has always been that the Six is purposefully taking Hera from them, shutting that out - I wish that were still there. Not this wishy washy didn't see them nonsense, whoopsy daisy door closed and won't open again. I almost expected Baltar and Six and their new baby to go off and populate a new world in their happy projection matrix universe. The dream sequence leads to the Six taking Hera away - they fail to catch her, fail to protect her. It would have been better if it led straight into Six taking Hera and falling into Cavil's hands without the Opera House bits in between, I thought that muddied things up too much.
What didn't
Why wasn't the prophecy fulfilled? One of the saddest things to me is the idea that Roslin never sees the new world, Moses in the desert for forty days and nights and never seeing the promised land. If you're going to do the religious thing anyway why ignore that? I honestly thought that as Adama flew the final raptor from galactica she had died on the ship already. And that we wouldn't know it for certain for a good ten minutes or so, almost like that moment in Garp when you realise HE'S DEAD? I wanted him to bring her body down and bury her in the Earth she so fervently believed in, and lost hope in. I like that, the retelling of an old story. Not using religion to explain things as an easy way out.
We never really get a real sense of how old the final five are. There's so much history and backstory there and I don't really expect all of it to come tumbling out, but I wanted more from the five of them. More than standing in the light like statues. Sorry, not good enough. I think what might have worked is giving them a moment when they see into each other - seeing them in the past creating their children together, flashing back to the relationship between them all - and then follow that with the betrayal. The moment where the chief realises was amazing though. Again, flashbacks used beautifully. Loved that.
I thought the end that Anders got was a bit rushed. As a character, I don't really know anything about him. He's a love interest, period. He's the third wheel to create tension between Kara and Lee. I wish something had happened when Kara leaves her dogtags with him. I wish the mystery of Kara Thrace had something to do with the hybrids. And talking about Lee, what was that final scene with the pigeon supposed to be about anyway? I read an interview with Moore and he basically says 'we couldn't figure it out, i imagined someone in a room with a pigeon flying away and that sparked everything else coming together.' i say, what?
And the final epilogue. Mmmm. It was kind of... too obvious. A slap in the face. Why state it so explicitly? Why not hint and leave it to the watcher instead? Again Moore indulges himself, says he had another 'vision' of Six in her red dress in Times Square.
There's never a finale that everyone loves. In a way, the finale of a show is as much for the writers and creators as it is for the fans... As much as I wish I had more from the last two hours, I still loved it. I bet it's all those hormones from the damn crying.
Spoilers under the cut. Warning for random disconnected thoughts.
What worked for me
Adama and Roslin. In many ways this story came full circle. It was beautiful, it was touching, it was inevitable. I cried and cried and cried. And then i cried more. It is the most refreshing love story ever, told subtly and beautifully over four seasons.
What didn't work
I didn't like the final goodbye for the Admiral. Why would they never see him again? I would think he would go off, maybe mourn for a while alone. But why wouldn't you go back to the rest of the people you love? Why lose everyone else as well?
I was fine with the chief going off by himself. I think as a character, he's just received a huge dump of information. Not just with Cally, but also (i assume) memories of the thousands of years he's lived. As an extremely old, old person - he decides to play the hermit and get some alone time. It makes sense to me.
Roslin in the sick bay didn't cut it for me either. They were trying to get somewhere with that, i think it got shortchanged due to time issues. A deeper look into the horrors of a wartime triage would have added to the drama of the final battle.
What worked
Final goodbye for the Battlestar. It felt right, poignant. It was like the coup all over again. I loved the moment where you see all the people you care about checking back in with the bridge. To me that was like the final walk through the school halls in Buffy. It's a reminder of where we came from, why we love the show so much. It's a final battle for the galactica.
What didn't
Kara Thrace. Seriously? From the beginning of that scene I kept saying to myself, she's going to disappear, look at her she's glowing, she's going to disappear, she's going to disappear. And she did. What a complete anticlimax. And the i see angels talk from Baltar. I wanted them to be something else. Something different. Anders said Kara Thrace was the 'end of the line' something like that, made me think of production lines, machines. And the harbinger of death stuff. If the damn waterbath toasters keep talking about her why isn't she somehow related to them??? Something not religious claptrap. I am sad. The Kara/Lee storyline peaked, ran its course ages ago. (I also kept seeing Dee at the bridge)
What worked
I liked the scene with Roslin and Athena chasing Hera. Cutting the dream sequence with reality was trippy and great. We normally see the dream from Roslin's point of view, repeating it and cutting it with reality reinforces the fact that she's totally high on drugs. Artistically = yay. BUT my impression from the dream sequence has always been that the Six is purposefully taking Hera from them, shutting that out - I wish that were still there. Not this wishy washy didn't see them nonsense, whoopsy daisy door closed and won't open again. I almost expected Baltar and Six and their new baby to go off and populate a new world in their happy projection matrix universe. The dream sequence leads to the Six taking Hera away - they fail to catch her, fail to protect her. It would have been better if it led straight into Six taking Hera and falling into Cavil's hands without the Opera House bits in between, I thought that muddied things up too much.
What didn't
Why wasn't the prophecy fulfilled? One of the saddest things to me is the idea that Roslin never sees the new world, Moses in the desert for forty days and nights and never seeing the promised land. If you're going to do the religious thing anyway why ignore that? I honestly thought that as Adama flew the final raptor from galactica she had died on the ship already. And that we wouldn't know it for certain for a good ten minutes or so, almost like that moment in Garp when you realise HE'S DEAD? I wanted him to bring her body down and bury her in the Earth she so fervently believed in, and lost hope in. I like that, the retelling of an old story. Not using religion to explain things as an easy way out.
We never really get a real sense of how old the final five are. There's so much history and backstory there and I don't really expect all of it to come tumbling out, but I wanted more from the five of them. More than standing in the light like statues. Sorry, not good enough. I think what might have worked is giving them a moment when they see into each other - seeing them in the past creating their children together, flashing back to the relationship between them all - and then follow that with the betrayal. The moment where the chief realises was amazing though. Again, flashbacks used beautifully. Loved that.
I thought the end that Anders got was a bit rushed. As a character, I don't really know anything about him. He's a love interest, period. He's the third wheel to create tension between Kara and Lee. I wish something had happened when Kara leaves her dogtags with him. I wish the mystery of Kara Thrace had something to do with the hybrids. And talking about Lee, what was that final scene with the pigeon supposed to be about anyway? I read an interview with Moore and he basically says 'we couldn't figure it out, i imagined someone in a room with a pigeon flying away and that sparked everything else coming together.' i say, what?
And the final epilogue. Mmmm. It was kind of... too obvious. A slap in the face. Why state it so explicitly? Why not hint and leave it to the watcher instead? Again Moore indulges himself, says he had another 'vision' of Six in her red dress in Times Square.
There's never a finale that everyone loves. In a way, the finale of a show is as much for the writers and creators as it is for the fans... As much as I wish I had more from the last two hours, I still loved it. I bet it's all those hormones from the damn crying.