Daybreak Part 2

Battlestar Galactica is dead. Long live Battlestar.

MASSIVE spoliers follow.

The last episode of BSG came with trepidation. I hate to see it go. BSG has been and will always be one of the great television shows. We live in the golden age of television - the best writing in the English language occurs on TV right now - and BSG is one of the crown jewels of this era. Great writing, great drama, demands an ending and in so many cases TV denies that. Pushing Daisies is a recent example of promise denied. BSG deserved an ending and though I'm sad to see it go, I don't begrudge it at all. The great thing about BSG is that for all its drama and moral and philosophical complexity, you have these geek moments where you're shouting "Yeah!" at the screen. My all time favorite was when Galactica jumped into the atmosphere of New Caprica; I was out of my seat. The finale provided a couple of those same moments - the Galactica ramming into the colony, and the hair-raising discovery of Earth. Our earth. More on that in a sec. The effects on BSG have been cinema worthy since the start and tonight cemented that. The raid on the colony was outstanding, groundbreaking work for TV. It had to have cost a fortune.

The ending has perfect moments. Perfect endings, for some. Baltar has a perfect ending. I almost lost it when he did, as he said, "I know something about being a farmer." Perfect. To that end, Six has a good ending as well. Laura's end has been forecast for so long that it was slightly anti-climactic, but the last moment with her and Adama was beauftiul. The going off into the sunset end of Galactica, and the entire fleet was beautiful - and the call back to the original series music was a nice touch - but a part of me did want to see the Galactica go down fighting. A lot of times through out the show we got to moments that seemed like the end of the line, and then the ship and crew survived. This really did seem like the end, and but for the need to have the ship ferry the crew at last to Earth, itself a poetic ending, I wouldn't have minded to see her go down with the colony.

Earth.

I suspected something along these lines with Earth a couple episodes after the discovery of 'Earth' at the beginning of this season. We never saw the continents, after all, and never went back. Tonight, we saw Earth in all her familiar glory, Africa in full view at the outset. I loved the idea of the song that the Final Five and Kara heard being cooridinates. I thought maybe that was the case after last week's episode, when she began assigning them numbers, but to be honest as Friday got closer, I started to fear Ron Moore would not go back to Earth at all. Is Lucy Lawless still sitting there, waiting for Cavil? Does anyone care?

Ok. Now for the 'but.'

150,000 years later - COMPLETELY demystifies the entire series. I'm sorry. The entire series was of gods and men; the ending brings it down to street level, literally. The ominous shots of robots here in the present day was so blatant (as was the Ron Moore cameo) it was unbecoming of a show that has prided itself on subtlety and complexity of thought. It threw me. Did we need to see this? We know - now - that we, us, are the children of Hera. The question of whether or not the cycle is being repeated would have immediately come to mind anyhow and would have been some mind candy to chew on as we settle in with our DVD's and memories.

Kara is a ghost. A ghost that has DNA and blood to establish she wasn't a Cylon at least. An angel? An avenging angel certainly. It seems the writers simply didn't know what to do with her. That's borne out, I think, by this honest answer from Ron Moore himself:

We debated back and forth in the writers room for a while about giving more definition, giving her more clarity and saying “This is definitively what she is.” And we started to say, the more you try to sort of outline and give voice to and put a name on it, the less interesting it became, and we just decided this was the most interesting way to go out, with her just disappearing and [you’re] wondering just exactly what she was.

It's not that I needed to know what she was - the suggestion that she is other than Cylon or human is mystical and poetic and almost enough, but Kara represents an agency even beyond the music and the Head Six or Head Baltar. She and the Viper she came back in are - were - physical, tangential representations of living things now dead. Kara's resurrection mirrors, obviously, Christ's, and I like Maureen Ryan's thoughts about her being the Holy Ghost of the Trinity. It makes sense, if this were a show steeped in Catholic mythology. It's not, and there should have been more - not more explanation, but a more definitive representation of her otherness. Rather than just simply vanish, I think it would have been more interesting to see Kara either evolve, or revert back - perhaps to the moment she perished - ala 2001.

All in all, it was an excellent ending to an excellent series and I am sure I will be wrapping my head around it for a long time to come.

Natasha Richardson 1963-2009

Besides knowing she was Liam Neeson's wife, I knew Natasha Richardson from The Handmaiden's Tale. I saw it when it first came out, so I must have been 14 or so. What drew me to it was the poster - more her than the poster warning me to see it while I could - and for the 15 minutes or so that was my attention span at that time, I was very fond of her. It is very sad and shocking to hear of her passing at such a young age.

Meghan McCain Is Not Fat

The Republicans have officially nothing to talk about.

FYI: Also not fat: Jennifer Love Hewitt and Kelly Clarkson.

Daybreak Part 1

It seems fitting, in an odd way, that Battlestar Galactica is ending at about the same time as the Bush administration. The show - one of my personal favorites, most certainly one of the best ever produced for television - is the most successful commentary on the last 8 years in modern American art. From its uncertain beginnings in 2003 as a reboot of a television show from the 70's, BSG has been a running, real time reflection of the moral and philosophical complexities of our time. Our time goes on, but BSG's time has come. I can't help but wonder if it's too soon.

I've always felt that the show rushed through its stories. The Pegasus arc, specifically with Admiral Cain, felt truncated, as did the New Caprica arc. The occupation could have been an entire season - the writers blitzed through it so quickly they jumped an entire year forward in time at the end of season 2. And tonight's episode, the first part of the two part finale, felt very trucated; no doubt it will all feel more whole once viewed together, but the extended flashblack to Caprica - that gorgeous blue, that perfect white made think for a moment, Earth? - seems a bookend to something we will see next Friday, and sort of hangs there right now. Lee and the pigeon, for example, seemed completely random (unless he was the drunk that killed Laura's entire family...) as did Anders hot tub scene. I'm dying to know what Adama's one hour tour is, though. And Laura. The woman swims in tragedy. As if her cancer wasn't enough, the destruction of the colonies, her entire family is killed before the attack. Why show us this now? It seems all of the characters - Lee, Laura, Baltar (in a wonderful scene with his father, we see the essence of the man - a shit who hits his own father for fucking up his date), Kara - endure personal armageddon before the real one.

Next week promises more apocalypse. The Galactica, falling apart and on her last leg, is going to rescue Hera from the Cylon colony which just happens to orbit a black hole. No doubt the Galactica will not survive. Laura, either. Is the colony going down the hole? Are all of them, the way Kara dived into the swirl in season 3, and died? But came back as something other, after finding Earth?

In a show of so many amazing moments, there are still so many questions:

Will we find out who or what Kara is?

Will we find out who or what Hera is, and the meaning of the Opera House?

Is humanity doomed to endless wander, slowly dying off into oblivion, or is there a home for them, somewhere? Is there an earth yet out there? Why did we never see the continents of 'Earth' in the season opener? Was that Jupiter we saw last week?

Is head Six real or is she Memorex?

I can't wait, and yet, I'd be happy if it took just a little longer to get here.

Seek Immediate Medical Attention

If you are still watching "The Clone Wars," the most schizo show on TV. As a lifelong Star Wars fan, I was in no matter what, but it's like riding in a small boat in high seas; up, down and all around. Some weeks you're treated to glimpses of the Star Wars that could have been; episodes that have scope and depth and heart the prequels simply never found. Some weeks you're treated to more of the same blah the prequels offered up. And some weeks, like this week's penultimate episode, you get a little of both. As the last part of the recent 'Ryloth' trilogy where the Jedi and clones are liberating an entire planet ala WWII Europe, this week should have pulled out all the stops. It features great direction, lots of action - most of it cinema worthy - and EPICALLY stupid storytelling.

The bad guys are holding the capitol city, Minas Tirith - I mean, the capitol city - and Mace Windu and crew have to get it. Except the only way to get into it is over a bridge that's kind of like a force field. But they came in a space ship. And spent the entire first part of the trilogy establishing air superiority. And you have lots of ships. Because you landed in them. So... what does it matter if they have a bridge they can turn on and off? Ok. So they're guarding the city with bombers. So shoot them down. And you do - but still, that bridge. Hmm.

Friday night is the most schizo night on TV. You have Clone Wars, which is a crap shoot. Then you have Battlestar - see my post on that later - which is Battlestar, and casts a shadow over everything on TV. You have Dollhouse, also a crapshoot. And if you're up late and a geek, you probably see that BSG is followed by Stargate SG-1, the anti-BSG. And you wonder - do I look at the sci-fi glass as half full? Or half empty? Oh, wait. There's an ad on right for Seabeast. "That weren't no shark!" Yeah. Half empty.

Plot For New Star Trek Movie Revealed

Bay Area activist has returned from the 24th century to prevent big buildings:



He forgets they are that high because by then, the ice caps have metled and the water level is so much higher.

Down With The Sickness

At home with the flu and nothing to do, and also this had to happen. The other blog got away from me. Between work and writing and life I never had the energy to keep it up - which doesn't bode well for this one - but here's to something new. I will keep the other one going for now, or until I figure what this one is. So, anyways. I'm stuck at home with no voice. I am not without diversions: U2's new album, which is magnificent. I am going to see them on tour this year, in September in Chicago. I've never seen them live in all my years of fandom (since "The Unforgettable Fire") and I am dedicated to resolving that unresolved corner of my life.

I'm also working, with stone mason like speed, on the next novel. One great idea that caught my idea is the concept of a personal worldbuilding wiki. I don't have my own server, but if I did, I imagine I would be all over this. I develop things pretty organically. That tends to mean lots of revision, lots of "oh, that should have been in the first book" but it's the only way I know to work.

I have plans for a site built around "The Book of Elizabeth", when it debuts later this year. I have some pretty neat ideas, and I'm looking forward to it.