Battlestar Galactica Season 4

[tuckeratlarge]

PERFECTION in television.

It was worth the episodes that were a drudge to get through. That was magnificent writing, production, acting, editing and foley.

It didn't go out with a whimper like the Stargate/Trek series do.

[The_Observer]

Just watch the FRAKKIN AWESOME FINALE of Battlestar Galactica! my god what a great to end to one of the best shows in my time!

[+longgonebn Subscriber²]

Just watch the FRAKKIN AWESOME FINALE of Battlestar Galactica! my god what a great to end to one of the best shows in my time!

I have it ready to watch. It's my favorite show of all time, nothing will ever be better or even equal. And that is why I am having trouble getting myself to watch the finale. :(

[The Walker]

PERFECTION in television.

It was worth the episodes that were a drudge to get through. That was magnificent writing, production, acting, editing and foley.

It didn't go out with a whimper like the Stargate/Trek series do.

This is EXACTLY the reason we don't get intelligent, thought provoking science fiction any more... because they don't have to put the thought into writing it, not when they can just dress up generic soap and call it science fiction and get pludits like this.

What's that about polishing a turd?

Is there a good explanation for why there were two "earths"?

No, apart from lazy writing and no firm sense of direction.

[Mathachew Veteran]

I think she answered the question herself in a previous episode. The old Kara Thrace was dead and she accepted who she was. I think she was real, all human, and just a screwed up girl altogether. I think she really died, then was reintroduced ambiguously as something supernatural, like a soul that had been resurrected. Something that the hybrids were plugged into as they always knew her role, and Anders last words were "See you on the other side" as if he knew she would be there waiting for him. Kara was Kara, and Kara died in Season 3.

So like I said before, she died and was brought back without any explanation. It was a big mystery that still has no explanation.

Starbuck's story ties into the original series though, which was the point I think. In the original series, Starbuck wound up on a planet alone with a woman, and a Cylon. He eventually repaired the Cylon (and they became friends) and fathered a child with the woman, who he then sent to the Colonial fleet with the woman and he stayed on the planet. But what wasn't told, was in an unproduced episode of the series, where the Ship of Lights beings (angels) had tested Starbuck to see if he was worthy of joining them and becoming an angel. The original series had the Ship of Lights, and the angelic beings on it, and interjected the religious, or supreme beingness just like our reimagined series has done here.

So in essence, RDM paid homage to that storyline by more or less making Starbuck here an angel, literally. Kara Thrace died at the end of season 3, and was resurrected by whatever force you want to call it, to lead Humanity to it's end (or the Cylons take your pick). Then when he journey was over and she finished what she had to do, she returned to wherever, to be with Anders.

Now I see people complaining online about how RDM just added his anti-technology, pro-religion etc agenda into the show and ruined it for some people. I think they look to much into the show as it is, but he was trying to make a statement. Maybe that's why he and a few others from BSG were at the UN the other day....

I'm not saying what you described is wrong or not what Moore inferred, but the problem I have with this is that most of it is guess work, assumptions and something you have to come up with on your own. There were a few hints that give any possible insight to all of that and the show did not do even a decent job of explaining it. Instead of really getting to the meat of within the show itself, Moore had to explain it in an interview, and did so without any definite clarity. For me that was cheap, bad writing and mismanagement over one of the biggest mysteries the show had left. There was an obvious connection between Kara and Cylons, but it was never explored nor explained, and none of what I saw seemed to make her the harbinger of death, but instead it seemed like she was the harbinger of life, complete opposite of what was always said about her.

I don't like to work with assumptions, and if a show is going to open up a can of worms, I expect it to at least try to explain itself; imho, BSG barely did that because we're still left guessing.

[Ash]

PERFECTION in television.

It was worth the episodes that were a drudge to get through. That was magnificent writing, production, acting, editing and foley.

It didn't go out with a whimper like the Stargate/Trek series do.

Yeah, was even better then Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel's finales.

Loved the Centurion action.

Also anyone else notice that asides from the old model Centurions, they also payed homage to the original series when anders is flying the fleet into the sun, it plays theme music from the original show.

My only real disappointment from something unexplained is where is D'Anna? Like they unboxed her to identify the final 5, and she was on the nuked earth, but then she disappeared.

[OPaul]

My only real disappointment from something unexplained is where is D'Anna? Like they unboxed her to identify the final 5, and she was on the nuked earth, but then she disappeared.

She stayed on the planet.

[Hupp]

i loved it, almost every character had an ending that seemed to fit; i could of done without the current day robots at the end but the rest was just great television.

[Ash]

She stayed on the planet.

Ahh, ok hehe I don't remember that. Will have to wait for the last DVD set to come out, so I can watch all the seasons again for little things here and there that I either missed or forgot about.

[DrCheese]

yes, you really will want to watch the DVD's, not just to pick up the bits you missed, but because they putting extended versions of the last few shows on as well

http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/en...nell-olmos.html

* The DVD version of "A Disquiet Follows My Soul" will be about 10 minutes longer.

* The DVD version of "Islanded in a Stream of Stars" will be about 15-20 minutes longer.

* The DVD version of "Daybreak," the series finale, will be about 15-20 minutes longer.

Also that website has a great interview with Moore and the cast about the finale.

Me? I'm waiting for the big blu-ray boxset they are supposed to be putting out in July with all the seasons and then rewatching them all.

[+longgonebn Subscriber²]

I just finished it, I cried a bit lol I am ****ed as well. I don't like how they all broke up at the end, I wanted them to all stay together.

I am so flushed about the show, that I know there are about 20 questions I have about un-answered things but I can't even think of them.

Also I have each box set, waiting on the last one now. Might also pick up the full collection on bly-ray as well.

[ThePitt]

was a great finale. This was the BEST show in our times and probably would be in a long, long time. Like blade runner, never was and never would be superseded

[cbosdell]

Is there a good explanation for why there were two "earths"? The first one they discovered (the radiation planet) had to be ours because they followed the star charts, which were the same constellations as ours, to get there. Plus did they not also show the North American continent. Then the second planet was also clearly ours, with the African continent and the flash-forward.

Yeah it was explained. As they are fond of saying "all of this has happened before and will happen again." They found Earth from the last time which is where the final five came from. This time they found a new planet they chose to call Earth also. Makes sense to me.

[kaffra]

what a journey!

now i dont know where to go for my sci fi fix :cry:

[+longgonebn Subscriber²]

what a journey!

now i dont know where to go for my sci fi fix :cry:

It's how I feel, I need BSG, I need those characters. Stargate is fine, but even with Universe, those are characters I don't know.

[OPaul]

Yeah it was explained. As they are fond of saying "all of this has happened before and will happen again." They found Earth from the last time which is where the final five came from. This time they found a new planet they chose to call Earth also. Makes sense to me.

But both planets were our Earth, i.e. the same planet not just by name.

[Crimson Behelit]

But both planets were our Earth, i.e. the same planet not just by name.

Incorrect, there are two Earths in the series. The first Earth is where Starbuck's corpse was found. The second Earth is the planet Starbuck jumped the ship to in the finale.

Two totally different planets.

[kaffra]

It's how I feel, I need BSG, I need those characters. Stargate is fine, but even with Universe, those are characters I don't know.

same here, the first trailer for sg:u doenst seem interesting

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcQeNKVkHKM

[OPaul]

Incorrect, there are two Earths in the series. The first Earth is where Starbuck's corpse was found. The second Earth is the planet Starbuck jumped the ship to in the finale.

Two totally different planets.

Right, but they are both "our" Earth. The first, had the same constellations as ours (and if I'm remembering correctly, North America), and of course the similarities between where they landed and our New York City. The second had our African continent and our present (their future).

[spike232]

I loved the episode, and apart from some script elements, namely finding a way to conclude the Opera House drama which seemed trivial in the least when revealed, these 3 things really stood out to me. I'll nitpick these cause they don't really take away from the quality of the finale but just seemed out of place and continuity.

1. Starboard launch tube still has a "Cylon War" museum banner and artifacts of the first war. Despite four years of being on the run, did they never refit the starboard launch bay to be operational... I never noticed but ever shot was from the port side in the series of craft launches. You would think that with a mutiny and genocide, that there would have been at least one person who flushed that banner out the airlock.

2. Raptor strike team FTL jumps out of the Starboard launch bay... Boomer's raptor FTL jump was bad enough and she had left the bay, you would think 5 or 6 doing it would rip it off the side of the ship.

3. Lee's strike team gets through the opening that Galactica rams into the Cylon colony, disgard their helmets after finding atmosphere, then backtrack their way back to Galactica later? Hope they found those helmets where they left them.

1. it was surprising they never restored it, they probably dident have enough resources to do it, they had no replacement ships and half of there vipers already came from the museum. After the damage done to the museum in valley of darkness (season 1) you would have thought it would be in more dissarray.

2. It did show the side of the flight pod being blown out, but the damage did seem very minimal compared to when boomer done it. I was more disapointed with when galactica jumped while being in contact with the cylon colony as there was no visible damage at all.

3. When they first took off there helmets i wonderd how they planend to get back, at first when they arrived on galactica i thought wtf, but when you think about it, they had expected to get boarded by the cylons (hence the fireteams like baltar and caprica) and Lee's team did come up behind the cylon so they probally got in to the ship in the same way as the cylons were which was not the same way as they got out. The cylons must have used an airlock as there were skin jobs with them.

It reminded me of the ending to Babaylon 5, slowed everything down and tied up loose ends in a more character driven manner. but it did feel like they left too many loose ends things they said they would explain then never,

I was disapointed that the only time we got the original series theme in the episode was when the ships were going in to the sun and it was somewhat cut short.

I did not like how hoshe and lampkin were used. hoshe has always been a forgetable background character until season 4 where they tried to show his relationship with felix and suddenly hes the highest up character that aint going so he gets to lead the fleet. The same as lampkin as great a character as he was he dosent seem like he should have been handed the presidency.

[ATGC]

What exactly was Kara, and were people chasing down a rabbit hole when they assumed her father was Daniel, the missing 8th model cylon?

Ron Moore: Daniel is definitely a rabbit hole. It was an unintentional rabbit hole, to be honest. I was kind of surprised when I started picking up [that] speculation online.

For those of you who don?t know, there was a deep part of the cylon backstory that had to do with one of the cylons that was created by the final five [called Daniel. Daniel] was later sort of aborted by Cavill? it was always intended just to be sort of an interesting bit of backstory about Cavill and his jealously. A Cain and Abel sort of allegory. Then people really started grabbing on to it and seizing on it as some major part of the mythology. In couple of interviews and in the last podcast I tried to go out of my way to say ?look, don?t spend too much time and energy on this particular theory,? because it was never intended to be that major a piece of the m

David Eick: Eick: It?s like Boxey in thaMoore:b>Moore: Kara is what you want her to be. It?s easy to put the label on her of ?angel? or ?messenger of God? or something like that. Kara Thrace died and was resurrected and came back and took the people to their final end. That was her role, her destiny in the show? We debated back and forth in the writers? room about giving it more clarity and saying definitively what she is. We decided that the more you try to put a name on it, the less interesting it became, and we just decided this was the most interesting way for her to go out, with her just disappearing and [leave people wondering

We see Galactica jump away from the Colony. Are we to assume there are a lot of ****ed off Cavills out there still, or were they destroyed?r wereMoore:ed?

Moore: The final [cut] came out a little less clear on that than I intended?. It was scripted and the idea was that when Racetrack hits the nukes?the nukes come in and smack into the colony?it takes the colony out of the stream that was swirling around the singularity and [the colony] fell in and was destroyed. I think as we went through the [editing process], when we kept cutting frames and doing this and that, one of the things that became less apparent was that the colony was doomed. The intention was that everyone who was aboaAt what point did you decide to make it Earth-of-the-past that we were going to wind up on, and what was your reason for that?at wasMoore:for that?

Moore: We decided that a couple of years ago. I don?t think we ever really had a version of the show where we [were] in the future or in the present, those didn?t seem as interesting. In the early [development of the show], we would talk about the fact that we would see a lot of contemporary things in the show from language to wardrobe to all kinds of production design details. That only made sense to us in terms of a lot of things that we see in the show and we feel are taken from our contemporary world are actually theirs to begin with. [They] somehow spread down through eons and came to us through the collective unconsciousness. Or, more directly, [as when] Lee said we would give Eick:ter part of ourselves.

Eick: There was a time when we were talking about ?they land, and its Pterodactyls and Tyrannosaurus Rex.? But the idea that they were part of the genus of humankind seemed like the right?Moore:rdable!?way to do that.

Moore: We also had this image of Six walking through T<Moore:d the original Earth?><Moore:d the original Earth?

Moore: The backstory of the original Earth was supposed to be that the 13th tribe of cylons came to that world, started over and essentially destroyed themselves. There was some internecine warfare that occurred among the cylons themselves, which was another repetition in the cycle of ?all of this has happened before and all will happen again.? Even they, who were the rebels that split off, [had] enough of humanity in them as cylWhy did Cavill decide to kill himself?b>Why did Cavill decide to kill himself?

Moore: Cavill killing himself actually came from Dean Stockwell [the actor who played Cavill]. As scripted in that final climatic CIC battle, Tigh was going to grab Cavill and fling him over the edge of the upper level and he was going to fall to his death. Dean called me and said ?y?know, I just really think that, in that moment, Cavill would realize the jig is up and it?s all hopeless, and he should just put a gun in his mFor the actors, what was the last scene that you filmed and what was the mood like on the set?ene that you fMary McDonnell: mood like on the set?

Mary McDonnell: My last scene was Laura Roslin?s last moment in the Raptor. That was about 3:45 am on a very small set. I think I was one of the first people to wrap?she died and we all hugged, and my son and I went to the airport and went back to LA? It happened quickly, it was set to happen a week later and the schedule was changed, so suddenly it was over, Edward James Olmos: very much like the show for me.

Edward James Olmos: My last day was when I was on the mountainside and it was the last moment that I was on camera. It was quite an experience all the way around, that moment in time. I think everybody had a real easy time [acting] with the emotions that we had at the very end, it?s pretty honest all the way around. The last time that I saw Starbuck and Lee was thMcDonnell:e I saw them [in the show]. Pretty intense.

McDonnell: But we?re here, and we?reWith the use of ?All Along The Watchtower,? are you trying to get at some notion that there is some universal consciousness that goes back as far as the human/cylon races? arrival?ciouMoore:es back as far as the human/cylon races? arrival?

Moore: The notion is sort of how you posited it. The music, the lyrics, the composition, is divine, eternal, it?s something that lives in the collective unconsciousness of everyone in the show and all of us today. It?s a musical theme that repeats itself and crops up in unexpected places. Different people hear it and pluck it out of the ether and write songs. It?s a connection of the divine and the mortal. Music is something that people literally catch out of the air and can?t really define exactly how they composed it. [so] here is a song that transcends many eons and many different people and cultures Eick:s, and was ultimately reinvented by one Mr. Bob Dylan here on Earth.

Eick: It was a simple way, I thought, to communicate clearly the idea [the show is not set in the future.] That this is a story about a culture that gave birth to ours. There was an episode in season one in which Helo and Sharon are running for their lives. They hole up in a diner and there?s a cylon centurion cornering them. For the longest time we planned to have an Moore:n the diner that woEick:Yesterday?, or whatever we could afford?

Moore: Not ?Yesterday.?

Eick: ?Probably not ?Yesterday.? Something from The Guess Who perhaps. I think we felt it was too soon. It would confuse things and?people would just be thrown by it, but we were thinking about it that far back, that music would be a great way to say to the audience that it follows [a] cyclical theme of ?this has all happened before and will happen again.? This culture is the one that gave birth to ours, so that all the colloquialisms and all the slang that you hear and the behaviThere?s been a lot of talk about how setting an end date for a scripted serial helps to recharge it. Did you find that true? of talk aMoore:ing an end date for a scripted serial helps to recharge it. Did you find that true?

Moore: In terms of the writers? room it certainly focused us. We made the decision that fourth season was going to be the last season once we got to the end of the third season. We had writers? retreats, and we had dedicated sessions to say ?this is the end, what?s the last story, what?s the final arc?? It really made everybody very focused and very specific about exactly how this was going to line up. Part of the motivation to make it the final season was that we didn?t want to get to the place where we felt like the ship was keeling over and we were having a problem. We all inEick:felt that the show had the reached the third act by the time the show got to the end of that third season.

Eick: Going back a year before that, Ron and I sat down for our biannual ?what the hell do we do this year meeting?? Heading into season three there was a real sense of creative frustration. We wanted to expand the show and ? find a new ways [of] story telling. [so season three] became what we call the cylon-centric season. It?s when we introduced the base ship, it?s when we introduced some new cylons. It gave the show life, but after a year of that, when we sat down heading into season four, it was a much shorter conversation. It was basically ?okay, what if we end it? What if we just decide it?s over?? Let?s call this?the dovetailing season. If we know that going in, how would that inform story telling decisions?? So it was a very early decision. I remember from my perspective going into that

McDonnell:as a different energy on the set. There was tremendous focus and concentration that I was getting from the entire ensemble.

McDonnell: Part of what was extraordinary about that is as you are able to view [the end approaching] you can then kick into gear and plot your finish. What that ends up doing is simplifying things for you. You know where your head is and you can let go in many moments were you probably would have worked very hard [before, but] you didn?t need to. So a lot of us felt a kind of simplification. A kind of humility that came over us and that gives you a lot of eOlmos:st know where you are going and you are proud to be a part of it. And you let go. That was the expeMcDonnell:ny of us had.

Olmos: WOmos:ing at the very beginning of the show and we all, 13 of us, sat down in my trailer?

McDonnell: He had the biggest trailer.

Omos: ?it was beautiful! And we sat down as we discussed the possibilities. I talked to them about making sure we understood that if, by chance, this situation was to move forward and we were to do this as a series, and this was to go on to for one year, four years, ten years, who knows, that we had to understand what that meant? I just knew that?the story would have a beginning, a middle and an end, and that we had to pace ourselves.

So at the end of the third season, beginning of fourth season, we had a meeting, and we were told then that this was going to be the final season. Everybody got very depressed?I don?t think any of the actors wanted to stop the show? But we had hit the end, we were going into the fourth and final act. And we knew it. So we talked about the very first time we ever got together, and we said it?s like a marathon. In marathon you have to start off fast, really really intensely strong, your first mile has to extraordinary. Then the next 24 miles have to be consistent?. And then the last mile has to be the strongest mile that you?ve run the whole 26 miles?To win it, your final mile has to be your stronIn the last scene, are ?Six? and ?Baltar? angels or demons?b]Moore:ow we knew where were going? I think that led to some of our strongest performances.

In the last scene, are ?Six? and ?Baltar? angels or demons?

Moore: I think they?re both. We never try to name exactly what the ?Head? characters are?we called them ?Head Baltar? and ?Head Six? all throughout the show, internally. We never really looked at them as angels or demons because they seemed to periodically say evil things and good things, they tended to save people and they tended to damn people. There was this sense that they worked in service of something else. You could say ?a higher power? or you could say ?another power,? [but] they were in service to something else that was guiding and helping, sometimes obstructing, and sometimes tempting the people on the show. The idea at the very end was that whatever they are in service to continues and is eternal and is always around. And they too are still around?and with all of us who are the children of Hera. They continue to walk among us and watch, and at some point they may or may not intercede at a key moment.

- source

[tuckeratlarge]

This is EXACTLY the reason we don't get intelligent, thought provoking science fiction any more... because they don't have to put the thought into writing it, not when they can just dress up generic soap and call it science fiction and get plaudits like this.

Each to their own I suppose. When have we ever had thought provoking Sci-Fi? They are television programmes, for entertainment. Yes they are like soaps, after all it's a story, but a story set in space.

It actually made a change there was none of that heavy moral crap and prime directives and pseudo utopian futures al la Star Trek.

Also it was a long story, not an episodic formulaic farce like Stargate Atlantis. "All is well, advert break, Problem, advert break, much gnashing of teeth, advert break, problem solved, credits"

And do you know what? even with their flaws I loved Star Trek, Stargate, Atlantis, Babylon 5 and Battlestar.

Simply because they were Science Fiction. Entertainment with Space Ships = happy me.

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

Wow! What a finale. The idea that we're all descendants of Hera, a half-human/half-cylon, is quite daunting. Of course, it isn't real. But it's interesting nonetheless. The part that surprised me the most was when they landed on Earth and looked at an early hominid species. The doctor said that their DNA is compatible so breeding with them was possible. However, the chance of human life evolving on another planet is, as Baltar said, "Astronomical." Nevertheless, it was an interesting episode. I'm glad they found a lush and diverse planet to live on. To be honest, I was quite disappointed when they supposedly found Earth in ruins. Thankfully, that wasn't the only Earth.

Kudos to Ron D. Moore and everyone that was involved with Battlestar Galactica. It has been, and always will be, one of my favourite sci-fi shows of all time.

[Budious]

So like I said before, she died and was brought back without any explanation. It was a big mystery that still has no explanation.

I'm not saying what you described is wrong or not what Moore inferred, but the problem I have with this is that most of it is guess work, assumptions and something you have to come up with on your own. There were a few hints that give any possible insight to all of that and the show did not do even a decent job of explaining it. Instead of really getting to the meat of within the show itself, Moore had to explain it in an interview, and did so without any definite clarity. For me that was cheap, bad writing and mismanagement over one of the biggest mysteries the show had left. There was an obvious connection between Kara and Cylons, but it was never explored nor explained, and none of what I saw seemed to make her the harbinger of death, but instead it seemed like she was the harbinger of life, complete opposite of what was always said about her.

I don't like to work with assumptions, and if a show is going to open up a can of worms, I expect it to at least try to explain itself; imho, BSG barely did that because we're still left guessing.

I felt like there were a lot of things wrong with the finale, but the deal with Kara's being wasn't one of them. The last segment of the show tried to directly relate the characters to our existence and our Earth. By doing that, much as mankind has debated through the millenniums, is that there is no definitive proof of God. Angels, prophets, and messiahs performing miracles is the nearest connection mankind will ever have to God, so you can't have Ron Moore say this is the same Earth you live on but oh, by the way, here is God and explanation for Kara.

[BigGiantHead]

I liked it as a whole, and I loved some parts of it, but the finale was by no means perfect.

I thought Kara's story was wrapped up pretty well, and didn't need further explanation. 'She' was brought back for a purpose, and when that purpose was reached, she disappeared.

I found it a bit hard to believe that all the survivors would just agree to give up technology and revert to a primitive lifestyle. Then again, maybe they were so fed up with everything, they just wanted to put everything behind them and probably forget it.

It's strange though, I didn't feel quite as sad as I thought I'd feel for the end of the show. No "Damn, there's no more of it", which usually happens after the finales of shows I've really invested time in. Angel, Now & Again, TNG, Andromeda (pure crap as it was in its final years), The Pretender, etc.