I’ll extend to everyone the courtesy that the EW.com article did not extend to me – namely, I’ll tell you that if you click on ‘read more’ there’s going to be spoilers, so if you haven’t seen the whole series, but plan to, don’t keep reading. I’ll also offer up the sound advice that if you are in the middle or planning to start watching the series on DVD, don’t dally. Helpful friends will accidentally blurt things out that ruin the suspense, and mean-spirited individuals won’t blurt so much as Nazi-speed-talk spoilers at you. And, because many of the actors have since gone on to perform in other shows, half-witted writers will label said actors with descriptors that, also, ruin the suspense. Take the DVDs, crawl into the nearest cave, and don’t come out until you hit “Daybreak, parts 2 & 3.” (And, by all means, stop right here, unless you’ve already seen the whole thing, or don’t care.)
A lot of elements don’t really need my commentary – the music is unparalled, the acting/casting exceeded expectations, the set design was fantastic. Really, when it comes right down to it, a fan review of this show will probably always focus on the ending which viewers seemed to either love, or hate. For anyone who didn’t care, but kept reading, I’ll spell it out for you: the show follows the tragedies of space-refugees (pursued by artificial life-forms called Cylons), in search of a viable home world following a devastating nuclear attack, throughout their journey certain characters experience visions while others offer up prophecies about key elements leading up to their eventual discovery of a habitable world.
The fans who disliked the ending protest along the same lines (I paraphrase): “so, god was running the whole thing all along, that’s just a dumb cop-out way to end the show.” In particular, one character seemingly came back from the dead to help her erstwhile comrades, only to vanish into thin air at the ending. A couple of other characters proclaimed the hand of a god in their good fortune, but no literal manifestation of a diety graced the show’s conclusion.
I realize that many sci-fi fans favor a little more science, and a little less of the supernatural in their programs. (And, unfortunately for those fans, Gaius Baltar wouldn’t stop persistently drawing attention to “god this” and “god that” – not to say that I care one way or the other what Baltar’s interpretation was, but it did nothing to soothe the tempers of fans who saw the ending as a blatant deus ex machina.) For my own part, I was happy to conclude that the visions and prophecies were coincidence, or the result of intuition. And, characters seemingly coming back from the dead? I’m willing to interpret that as some kind of time-travel.
Yes, I’ve seen to much Star Trek. And, yes, I’m cutting the ending slack because I really enjoyed the series. But I see something valuable in the ending that I think a lot of other fans are missing. A lot of fans just plain dislike the religious implications – and they have every right. In a polarized and over-opinionated society, plenty of individuals have been treated poorly because of religious differences (for many fans, that’s the appeal of science fiction, of worlds where progress and intellectuality replace oppressive social systems). And, let’s not forget, we live in a world where a lot of bad storytelling is running around out there being all preachy. So, fans often have a valid gripe.
But, I want to point out a couple of things, a couple of reasons why I thought the ending was all right. First, while a handful of characters did attribute their happy ending to a diety and, yes, one actually vanished into thin air, the bulk of the characters did not link arms and start singing hymns or falling to their knees in grateful obeisance. Most of them said “phew, we made it” and started unpacking. Second, from my own perspective, I cared a lot less about the religious implications, and more about the fact that the show’s ending (which, incidentally, was not entirely all that cheery) reinforced the idea that lies at the heart of almost all good science fiction: that our lives and our choices have some inherent value. That whether we believe in diety or destiny doesn’t matter nearly so much as in believing in humanity, and letting that belief translate into acting as though we have a contribution worth making, and into taking risks on each others’ behalf.
Were there religious overtones that could put off an unreligious viewer? Absolutely. Was the fear-the-robot scmaltz in the closing scene ridiculous? Entirely. But there’s still baby in that bathwater, and I feel kind of bad that some fans jumped at the chance to be offended instead of saying “hey, this show said something great about what it means to be human.” I will, however, confess that I’ve had the good fortune of a relatively secular life, so perhaps it’s easier for me to not see a religious connection that appears more balant to others. But I’m still going to stick by what I said – the show had a point worth making, and it made it rather well.
Tags: Battlestar Galactica, Cylons, destiny, humanity, religion, robot schmaltz