Going into this finale without the expectation of a "satisfying" wrap-up in terms of plot was the smartest TV decision I ever made, because I really enjoyed it.
Galactica's final battle was awesome. That colony ship looked like a giant B5 Shadow ship. The whole sequence of Sam shutting down the hybrids, Galactica crashing in, the centurions marching in with Lee Adama, Athena killing Boomer, etc... all wonderful. Loved it.
I'm sure I'm not the only who cheered when Chief killed Tory. "We've all made mistakes." Heh.
The resolution of the opera house and piano dots mysteries was profoundly lame, IMO. Plot-wise that is- visually the rescue of Hera, cut back with the opera house dream, was wonderful, but when it was over, I got hit with the same reaction as Baltar and Caprica 6 when they realized that's all the dream was about.
I suppose this would be as good a time as any to eat my hat- yes, the earth they found was not our earth. Those of you who called it were right, and I disagreed. Instead, Starbuck knew the coordinates in piano music disguised as secret numerical system form. Or something. Then she disappears. Ok.
Which brings us to ghost Six and Baltar. Good lord... wtf.
Ok, here's the thing- Baltar has been talking about angels this whole season. Ghost Six, Baltar and Starbuck since her death are... angels. That's, um, it.
Pardon me for getting a bit pretentious here but I'm gonna quote wikipedia's intro paragraph on its entry for Deus Ex Machina:
A deus ex machina (IPA: [ˈdeɪʌs ɛks ˈmakʰɪna], literally "god from the machine") is a plot device in which a surprising or unexpected event occurs in a story's plot, often to resolve flaws or tie up loose ends in the narrative.[1] Neoclassical literary criticism, from Corneille and John Dennis on, took it as a given that one mark of a bad play was the sudden invocation of extraordinary circumstance. Thus, the term "deus ex machina" has come to mean any inferior plot device that expeditiously solves the conflict of a narrative.
You tell 'em Cornelle and John Dennis! I know that if any of my stoner college English major friends pulled this kind of shit in creative writing class they'd fail. Do you hear me Ron Moore et al- YOU FAILED FRESHMAN COLLEGE ENGLISH!
See folks, it really was God all along ("don't call it that"- because IS IT GOD? Dun- DUN). And apparently two of his angels decided to hang around Earth forever so they could read over Ron Moore's shoulder. Ok.
Adama had to leave everybody else to live alone for the rest of his life. WHY? I mean I get why Galen did it and hates people.
Galahad, you got your human origin point. We started on our own, but space people (who are biologically exactly like our native ancestors) came in and gave us civilization. But of course since Hera is "mitochondrial Eve," we're all 1 / one-quazillionth Cylon.
Which reminds me, black people- all proud of your TV hero figures of recent years, like President Palmer from 24? Well you can just forget all that, because BSG just told us that while Africa is indeed the birthplace of humanity, our black African ancestors couldn't have done it without technologically advanced white colonizers with a violent history. Hah-hah!
