As is obvious to any reader here, I was quite disappointed with the god-did-it ending of BSG. However, we’ll need to examine this god a bit more because in some way, it’s the only other character, besides Young Bill Adama, who we will see in the upcoming Caprica series.
The god appears to some extent, as an underground monotheist cult exists and 2 of the 3 initial Cylons are patterned after its members. It has to be assumed it is from here the Cylons got their own monotheist religion.
The first question concerns whether the monotheist religion is indeed related to the Gog (God of Galactica). Did Gog appear to its founders, or is this simply a human-invented religion that hits upon something true by accident.
The second question is just who is Gog, and how does it relate to the Lords of Kobol? Moore’s podcast comments say that on Kobol, man lived with the gods, and then became like gods when they created their own artificial life (the 13th tribe Cylons.) So the Lords of Kobol were real, and lived with humans. How does this make sense in the context of Gog? Is Gog one of the Lords of Kobol, or does it predate them? If so, why did it tolerate them and who were they?
Gog has at least two angels who are independent beings, who I will call H6 and HB. Possibly more than 2. We don’t know if Kara’s Leoben and her father were manifestions of those two. Likewise Roslin’s Elosha, of the Final Five’s messengers. If the messengers were independent, it seems there are at least 5 of them. These angels appear to be mostly incorporeal and immortal. They talk about Gog as a distinct being, but also as a force of nature. However, Gog has likes and dislikes, and a plan for both humanity and individual humans.
For a long time I was supposing that Gog was a very advanced A.I., as were the Lords of Kobol. However, it’s meant to be supernatural. It is a big strange to have a story where there are both false gods, who exist (the Lords of Kobol) and a real god as well.
Gog is described as beyond good and evil, a force of nature. It certainly moves in strange and mysterious ways. For most of Kobol, colonial and 13th colony history, Gog allowed the polytheist worship of the Lords of Kobol to thrive. We are told that in “Caprica” the story involves a banned monotheist cult, from which the first Cylons arise, thus giving them their religion. But prior to this, if there has been monotheism, it is not very common. The Final Five were polytheists. Kobol was openly polytheist, and the gods lived with the humans. Baltar was rather taken aback by H6’s preaching about Gog.
H6 is not a cylon of course, but appears to Baltar as one. The god she preaches about appears to be the Cylon god but we can’t be completely sure of that. She is in touch with the real thing. Yet the Cylons who speak of god believe that it was god’s will that they destroy their “creators.” Did that come to them from Gog, or is it a result of the way Cavil reprogrammed them to forget about their actual creators and upbringing. The Cylons see the Final Five in the space between life and death — is this a repressed memory, or is this something Gog sends them? We presume that Gog is the master of the space between life and death, and Gog is the one who called Starbuck into it.
Gog is highly interventionist when it suits it. It may have triggered the Cylon destruction of the colonies. It certainly allowed it to happen. Gog speaks directly to various characters to make them do things. When a being of this level whispers in your brain, it does so knowing exactly how you will react and what you will do, and says the right things to attain the desired results. A god whispering in your brain is like the control a computer programmer has over a program, or the ability of an owner to trick a pet.
Gog may or may not know the future. The angels H6 and HB don’t appear to know it, other than what they are told by Gog. Gog sends a vision of the Opera House chase to various characters. Is this knowledge of the future, or a vision that Gog plans to bring about? Is Gog outside of time and watching its plan unfold, or is Gog making its plan unfold? If so, it’s making rather fine-tuned control, orchestrating the final confrontation, making sure the F5 will be up on the balcony and so on.
Let’s look at some of the things in Gog’s plan
- Billions of years earlier, breeding two planetfuls of life with genetically identical humans.
- It probably inspired the sacred scrolls.
- It knew of the war on Earth-1 and sent the angels to the final five. It must have put the song into Anders’ head, including an opening line which, when translated to numbers, will be jump coordinates for use 2,000 years in the future from the singularity to the Moon.
- It modified the Temple of Hopes to be the Temple of Five, a chamber where the Final Five could be seen when the star explodes.
- It presumably timed the arrival of the Final Five to the first Cylon war.
- If behind the monotheism, it’s also behind the rise of the Cylons on Caprica and what personalities were uploaded into them.
- The placing of Tigh and Tyrol on Galactica, and of Foster and Roslin there at the start of the war.
- It put the song with Earth’s coordinates into the head of Starbuck’s father, and various compulsions into her brain, such as the mandala.
- It was probably behind the destruction of the colonies. And the survival of the Pegasus, and of course the Galactica.
- It manipulated Baltar in all sorts of strange ways, causing him to act strangely, sometimes helping the Cylon cause, sometimes the human. A rewatch is necessary to get a list of all the things H6 manipulated Baltar to do.
- It probably put in Shelley Godfrey to cause Baltar to be suspected and then cleared.
- It made sure Baltar would keep his Cylon detector results secret. (When Boomer is figured, H6 scares him into keeping it quiet.)
- It arranged for a nuke for Gina, and for Baltar’s election, and thus for the halting of the tribes on New Caprica
- It probably arranged the jump glitch which found New Caprica, and the Cylon detection of Gina’s nuke.
- It arranged for the Cylons to recapture Hera, sending a message to an Oracle.
- It probably arranged the circumstances where Ellen would die and be recreated.
- It talks regularly to the Cylon ship hybrids and the first hybrid to manipulate their activities.
- Likewise it appears to talk to oracles from time to time.
- It contaminated the food to force the fleet to the Algae planet.
- It arranged the meeting of the forces at the Algae Planet. Did Three’s activation go with Gog’s plan or against it?
- It exploded the star at the Algae planet, or timed the meeting perfectly to match it. Now that’s interventionist!
- It gave compulsions to Starbuck to kill herself, which she did.
- It then planted Starbuck’s dead body and Viper on Earth
- It then created a brand new Viper and put Starbuck in it, over Earth
- It probably directed the Cylons to the Ionian Nebula, as it planted clues to send the fleet there.
- It probably disabled the fleet at the Ionian Nebula, to force the battle, recognition of Anders and Cylon civil war.
- It gave various visions to Roslin and Sharon and Hera, as well as the regular ones to Baltar and Six.
- It put the music into the heads of the final five at the Ionian Nebula, and then let them remember they were Cylons.
- It teleported angel-Starbuck to the Ionian Nebula, with compulsions in her head about finding Earth.
- It probably lead Leoben to Starbuck, and Starbuck to the region of space with Leoben.
- During the standoff, it compelled the Final Five to check out the Viper. It made the Viper show a tracking signal for the crashed original Viper on Earth
- On Earth, it made the Final Five regain a few more memories.
- From there, a long series of events were necessary to create the Opera House scene including:
- Sam getting shot, regaining memories and then becoming like a Hybrid who can be hooked into Galactica on the balcony.
- Boomer’s return of Ellen and capture of Hera
- Raid on the Colony
- Various tactical elements of raid on colony leading to standoff in the CIC.
- Circumstances where Starbuck has to program an escape jump
- The abandonment of technology, and interbreeding
- The complete loss of Colonial culture and knowledge.
- All of modern Earth history.
- Further repeats of the cycle, until one day some civilization breaks it after enough repetitions. That too is part of god’s plan.
- Once our Earth arises with dominant monotheism, it no longer likes to be called god.
That’s a lot of intervention and complexity if you consider the result: All colonial civilization and knowledge is lost, and all that remains is a bit of synthetic DNA from Hera/Athena present in the gene pool on our Earth. The same could happen just by teleporting Hera and some others directly here.
Gog certainly does work in strange and mysterious ways.
Or rather, the writers do. For they did not have most of this plan laid out in advance. Yet everything on the list, and in some way everything that happens because of it, is a result of the intervention of Gog and its angels. And this lays out another reason why you don’t want real gods in your fiction. It’s too much. In some sense it’s everything in the show. No longer a result of our characters and their natures and motivations, but the result of divine intervention. But if I wanted to see “Touched by an Angel” I would watch that. I prefer a drama where the characters have some control over their destiny, if they have a destiny at all.
From the Battlestar Galactica Analysis Blog
Unreal
You broke down all the events that happened... You Da Man!
It's make believe, your rationale and the real world do not apply... Your arguments fail because of this one undeniable fact. 2 paragraphs in you start using that word... Assume. How can you assume something that isn't real? It exists in the imagination of another person. You assumed that the show took place in our future... That worked out great for ya.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth... And then checked with Brad to see if that worked.
make-believe
It's true (though trivial) that all fiction is 'make-believe'. The problem with the way the BSG plot was wrapped up wasn't that it didn't correspond to what would happen in the 'real world', it was that it didn't correspond to what would happen in the BSG world that was fashioned over 3.9 seasons.
Setting a story in a world that has never existed--a make-believe world--forces MORE, not less obligations upon a writer than does a realist story. A mystery writer doesn't need to imagine what happens when a victim ingests poison, or what police will do if they believe someone guilty of murder. A dead body or an arrest are simply what occurs--the writer doesn't have a choice in the matter. If a writer builds a universe from the ground up though, they have an enormous amount of responsibility, because it's they and only they who make the rules for what can and cannot be. And in a long story, be it a novel or a multi-season tv series, architecture is an apt metaphor because one must keep in mind the events of chapters 1-17 when writing chapter 18 as closely as an architect must heed the size and shape of all the previous floors when designing the 18th.
The BSG writers took their own story, the fruit of 4 seasons of labor, and decided to shoot it in the head. I have no idea why. This guy does though.
Good Essay
Good essay. I can agree with the reasoning and the quote of someone saying "Ron D. Moore is dead to them". The story didn't deliver on where it was heading and the producers mislead the audience in serious ways. How much that was down to professional or personal reasons, I guess, we'll never know.
I've watched the DVD pilot to The Show That Cannot Be Named and it was so bad it was embarassing. Why BSG was abandoned like that and, as you say, shot in the head I can't imagine. It's like Sci-Fi (or whatever they're called this week) got scared that their best show was becoming bigger than them, or they developed some twisted sense of spite.
oh my god
that was FUNNY!!!!!!!!!
The One True God doesn't like to be called cylon, not God..
I think that it's the term 'cylon' that the OTG doesn't like.. Brings a new perspective on things.. Just a proposal from a loyal reader..
Not Unreal Just ILLogical
It doesn't matter if it's make believe or not it still should make sense. Great works of fiction have a logic to their plot and characters.
Brad just illustrated very well why having a god in the picture and pulling strings makes what happened in the show moot. Many of the pivotal scenes are now delivered by a supernatural force which removes the tension and cohesion of the story.
No, it just makes God one of
No, it just makes God one of the characters in the fiction. And, lets be honest, the problem isn't about logic or tension in the story. Its that a large portion of SF fans like their SciFi to be atheistic and get very uncomfortable when God or religion are portrayed but not debunked or ridiculed. Grow up. The show is over. If you didn't like it, tough. No amount of blathering about it and trying to rationalize your dislike is going to change it or is likely to change anybody's mind about it.. "Oh, I loved BSG's finale... oh wait, Brad said it sucked.. so I guess I didn't enjoy it after all..."
Post-show opinion
Criticism, after the fact, of a dramatic work can indeed help shape your opinion. It is more common to talk about this in terms of recognizing greatness. If a critic shows you positive qualities about something you didn’t notice on first blush, this can help you appreciate why the work has greatness. Or why it doesn’t.
I’ve put this effort into BSG because, unlike the vast majority of dramatic SF, it came close to greatness, and then squandered it. Yes, I mean greatness by my own standards, but I am not the only one to hold those standards. While it is certainly true that my tastes run to not having supernatural explanations for things in my SF, it is still entirely reasonable to consider whether the supernatural elements were done well, and whether they enhance or hurt the story.
When I read fantasy, I have no problem with it having supernatural elements. You will not find me saying Lord of the Rings was ruined by the presence of Illuvitar, or that Brust’s “To Reign in Hell” sucks because it has god in it as a character.
Many feel, as I do, that divinity in fiction should not be used to resolve the story’s problems. Indeed, if anything, the role of divinity is to create the problems which the characters must resolve. I also wish to understand why things happened in the story, why the characters did what they did. We will never understand Gog’s motivations, that’s inherent in it being a god. And so we will never understand why so much of the story happened, and it suffers for that.
Gog
Brad's take on this is accurate and extremely well thought out. I am with you in your keen analysis of the show and i also hold most of your views about the show squandering it's possible greatness.
If you analyse the show from a hard sf point of view it fails. If you want reasons read the blogs here.
Brad has tried to analyse the show from a religious perspective and also found it fails just as spectacularly if not more so. its nothing to do with whether you are an atheist or not, it boils down to poor planning or architecture and reactionary writing.
The biggest shame and loss to the series was the pointlessness of using all those wonderful characters and actors for them to be given what would be such drivel to work with in season 4. In retrospect as well now i'm afraid.
If you want life to be a complete mystery and not look for explanations of cause and effect then you will be happy with the ending, but then you would be the kind of person who gets hustled easily or conned - with a large slab of gullibility thrown in like a lemon.
Battlescam Galactica
Yeah, that's why I started calling it "B A T T L E S C A M -- G A L A C T I C A".
right on - the old saying "dog did it" is a cop out.
I totally agree and appreciate the effort you made to point it all out. This show had great characters in an interesting situation but couldn't rescue themselves.
Perhaps you should grow up?
There are a number of vocal fans of BSG who seem to feel that the show is perfect in every way and it is absolutely forbidden to make even the slightest criticism. Grow up. If it's so disturbing to you to hear a different view (which is neither blathering nor rationalization), you're free not to come to blogs which criticize the show. The point is presenting ideas, it doesn't matter much whether people get "converted".
wow, God does sure upset you
wow, God does sure upset you people.
God does not upset "us people", but bad writing does
"God" as a concept and character in the BSG story is not upsetting in and of itself, but, when used in the way in the series, and especially in finale to conveniently resolve hanging plotlines to make up for a very weak writing , is.
And this is exactly what Brad has been trying to illustrate to everyone here.
Having a "divine power" to come down to intervene and manipulate charcters in a story for the sake of fixing a problematic plotline ( ie. "Deus Ex Machina " ) has been criticized for *centuries*, most notably starting with the Greek philosopher Aristotle who criticised this literary device in his famous analysis of poetry called "Poetics", where he argued that "the resolution of a plot must arise internally, following from previous action of the play".
To help illustrate this fact, I will use one of his quotes:
"In the characters too, exactly as in the structure of the incidents, [the poet] ought always to seek what is either necessary or probable, so that it is either necessary or probable that a person of such-and-such a sort say or do things of the same sort, and it is either necessary or probable that this [incident] happen after that one.
It is obvious that the solutions of plots too should come about as a result of the plot itself, and not from a contrivance, as in the Medea and in the passage about sailing home in the Iliad. A contrivance must be used for matters outside the drama—either previous events which are beyond human knowledge, or later ones that need to be foretold or announced. For we grant that the gods can see everything. There should be nothing improbable in the incidents; otherwise, it should be outside the tragedy, e.g. that in Sophocles’ Oedipus."
—Aristotle, Poetics
Speaking of which, not to specifically criticize you hypercube, but I do have the distinct feeling that if Aristotle were alive today, he would most certainly be classified amongst those that you deem to call " You People.." And If that is the case, then Brad, I the others who simply believe that the ending of the new Battlestar Galactica series was dissapointing are sure to be in good company.
More than that
To be fair, I will admit to not liking the divine intervention ending on many levels, including the one you describe. I think there are many flaws in having divine characters, especially divine characters who are revealed at the end to wrap up various plot questions. And yes, I also am not fond of it because I don’t believe in the supernatural and thus prefer my fiction to focus on natural rather than supernatural forces (and of course human characters) in driving the plot. However, I understand that this argument is of sway mostly with others who also want to avoid the supernatural, and I don’t make it to those who like that sort of thing.
I do sense many viewers responding with “Ah, you don’t like gods, so you don’t like this ending” and thinking this is a sufficient dismissal of the various criticisms of this ending. But in fact it is, if you like, a counter to only one aspect.
The choice of a supernatural ending fails on a number of levels, and in addition, at a meta-level it is a bad choice because it is so hard to make it work. Even if you love supernatural endings, they are difficult to make consistent. So difficult that writers are usually tempted to just letting many inconsistencies go under the philosophy that “god works in mysterious ways.”
So I would challenge those who feel the ending went well to outline why this was a good supernatural ending. Why this particular god, as written by the writers, resonated with you and made the story satisfying. Why the actions of this god meshed well with the stories of the characters, and gave meaning to their lives rather than subtracted meaning.
I can understand how one might like supernatural endings. With the right setup (for example, in many fantasy stories) I also have enjoyed them. So instead of putting the focus on “the critics just don’t like god” I would be interested in seeing arguments that this is a good supernatural ending, that it contained the sort of things you want to see in a supernatural ending.
The problem with BSG's
The problem with BSG's ending is it's similar to a lot of theological discourse which falls down the rabbit hole and ends in handwaving and a shrug. That's not an answer it's a ramble. So, yes. I'm in lockstep with Brad on this. The problem isn't "God" the problem is delivery. Maybe I'm missing something here but I can't see what BSG's ending delivered, and no, backwards rationalising or enthusiasm aren't enough.
God is a plot killer
There's a reason deus ex machina is considered a bad thing, and it's not from any opposition to God. Invoking divine activity to resolve the story tends to render the actions of the human characters pointless. It renders the story "there exists a problem... blah, blah, blah... God fixes it", with the "blah, blah, blah" being all the human actions in the story.
Even in the 10 Commandments divine intervention is limited, allowing the actions of the human characters to do most of the driving of the story.
time to hand over the 'best show on television' label
I agree that the "God did it" approach to explaining a long list of plot lines and other events is ultimately dissatisfying.
Far more interesting and impressive would have been a handful of scenes over the final 10 episodes that addressed the major questions (and made it possible to figure out the minor ones). As an outsider, I'm wondering what it is I don't know that kept the writers from doing this. I know it's hard to do this -- probably very hard, when you consider that in addition to answering key questions, they also have to keep the show interesting and dramatic and etc.
For instance, as I continue to think about the show, two gaping questions that come to mind are WHO were the Lords of Kobol and WHAT happened to them? (And, if they had 'organic memory transfer' on Kobol, did Athena really die? Or was this just a cylon technology?)
But maybe the writers felt they couldn't get into all of this without turning the show into a documentary film on ancient cultures. I'm not a TV writer, and so maybe there's something I don't know that justifies this.
At the same time, it is disappointing to think that, at some point, Ron Moore must have just said -- 'Team, we're going to say that God did it so we can squeeze in a few more scenes where Adama flips out in his quarters.'
It may be the case that there's a fine line between what keeps a show on the air and what results in its cancellation. It may be the case that a rich, textured plot and story need to be nipped and tucked into to keep the drama fresh and fast-paced. It may be that most TV writers, let alone actors and directors, don't like the sci-fi and technical crap and struggle when they have to do scenes that explain stuff instead of simply being real frakked up about something or other.
But then again... Have you seen some of the other programming on the SciFi Channel? I am a huge fan of SciFi, and yet I find about 90% of their programming utterly unwatchable. Bad writing, bad acting, really stupid plots, and terrible special effects and production. Most of the rest of television isn't too far behind. And if you take the "good" shows on mainstream TV, is it really true that any good show must in general form resemble the cliche-ridden cop/crime drama model -- i.e., fairly good acting, sometimes decent writing, mildly interesting plots, and lots of suspension of disbelief, especially when they break out the karate.
I'm not saying BSG went for the emotional gut punches and keep-em-coming-back-for-more head scratching that accompanies Law and Order and all those CSI shows, with some kind of pulling-back-the-curtain at the end. But the "God did it" approach comes awfully close.
What does this leave us? In the end, this is still a very good show. Whatever its problems, it might be enough to say this was the one show I actually got excited about week-to-week and went to great pains to watch no matter my schedule. I think the acting/writing, most of the drama, and the production/effects were terrific. Many of the characters were wonderfully drawn and played, and some will become icons in ScFi, like Edward James Olmos' Bill Adama. (And as the show progressed, I developed a serious TV crush on Katee Sackhoff -- just check out photos of her off the TV set; the most beautiful/sexy actress out there right now, if you ask me.) And in the post-9/11 world, BSG had some genuine moments that were brilliantly executed and helped interpret what the country was going through in the wake of the attacks and the subsequent 'war on terror'. Overall, I really enjoyed watching the show and maybe someday will give it another whirl on DVD.
But I think the 'God did it' cop out means they do need to turn over their 'best show on television' seal of approval back to the TV Guide editors, or whoever first gave this one out (might have been the SciFI marketing department...).
Unless of course, we consider the phrase "on television" to be laden with irony, ala the best French cuisine in "Cheyenne, Wyoming."
No offense, good people of Cheyenne.
BSG cycle
if everything is a cycle then couldnt the Lords of Kobol actually be the technologically advanced humans that landed on Kobol (after they survived some major war) and brought technology with them instead of flying it into the sun. They mingled with the humanoid folks on Kobol and created cylons. Maybe the Lords of Kobol liked being worshiped and instead of sharing a monotheistic religion with the inhabitants of Kobol, they decided to be gods and were probably treated as gods. so there could be a pre-prequal about what went down with the Lords of Kobol before they got to Kobol.
Good God ending
OK, here's my take. I actually enjoyed the act of watching the ending--seeing Hera get saved and seeing the happy ending for Helo, Athena, Caprica and Gaius, and the unhappy ending for Adama and Roslin (not that I wanted them unhappy, I just found it really moving) really worked for me in a way that TV usually doesn't. At all.
But the plot sort of sucked. I think you could've had a good God ending... as long as it was 'Oh, God was making us do all this stuff for such and such reason and if we hadn't done that, we never would've reached this point.'
I mean, even something like not being able to reach Earth except through the black hole (as cheesy as that would have been) would have worked. Then there would have been some reason for the whole thing. Instead, it's just 'Why didn't God have one of the Heads tell someone the coordinations way back in season one?' 'Er... God's mysterious. You know.'
I'm a Christian and I don't have a 'god problem'. But though I sort of liked that God existed in the BSG universe, I found it hard to follow at all. It really lacked that 'aha' moment where you go 'OHHH. Now it all makes sense!'
To use a ham-handed example, in the movie Signs it turns out the kid has athsma because he's destined to be attacked with an airborne toxin, among other things. Basically all of the character's weird quirks are actually setting them up to survive an alien invasion. OK, fine. But what the hell did so many of the shenanigans listed in this post have to do with anything??
And the theology is especially confusing. We still have no good connection to the Lords of Kobol, and I really disliked the 'doesn't like to be called God' thing. I mean, I guess it was some too cool for school disclaimer of modern religion or whatever... but seriously. 'God' is the only name we know the character by! And why don't Gog's angels know what Gog likes to be called? They've been on the job for more than 150,000 years! I've had my current boss for only one year and I know he prefers to be called Moe. I mean, seriously. What was that?
followup
To followup a little, what I'm saying is that it's fine to have a divine hand (Divine Hand?) guiding everything. But until I get some idea of the motives involved in the whole thing, I don't think that really explains anything. We know the character (Gog) and the method (vaguely-defined divine powers), but we don't know who Gog is or have any idea of the motives involved. So it's an explanation that isn't one, basically.
Divine guidance
I feel that in proper religious fiction, satisfying fiction, the god is, like the writer, setting the stage, but the story told should be the characters’ story. The struggle is theirs and the achievements and failures should be as a result of the characters’ strengths and failings. Not simply because it was god’s plan.
Almost everything our characters did amounted to nothing. Helo and Athena had a kid, and various forces worked to save the kid so she could make the jump to Earth. Apollo made sure that the colonials would wipe out any trace of their society and culture. Everything else they did amounted to little.
Hi. I've just discovered
Hi. I've just discovered your excellent blog. My reaction to the BSG finale was similar to yours. Not so much about the hard science, but the fact that "God did it for inscrutable reasons" fails to explain anything. For something to be a genuine explanation there must be alternative possibilities that would not have been consistent with it. But any event the writers could have included would be consistent with this non-explanation.
One thing which you don't appear to have noticed is that Ron Moore and Jane Espensen have said in interviews that H6 and HB are not just angels. They are angels and demons, so sometimes they help the characters and sometimes they hinder them! This is just an excuse for inconsistent storytelling.
Despite my disappointment, there's enough that's very good in the series that I've started watching it again from the start. (I'm currently part way through season 2.) But the only way I can enjoy it is to avoid trying to make any sense of those story elements which I know will not make sense, such as the behaviour of H6. I just treat her like a spectacular "force of nature" with no rhyme or reason to her behaviour.
When I listened to the podcast for "Downloaded" a couple of years ago, I understood Ron Moore to say (or strongly imply) that the head beings were just manifestations of the characters' subconscious mind. I subsequently rewatched the miniseries and S1 with this explanation in mind, and I found it a satisfying explanation of H6's behaviour. It's a shame to have had that interpretation taken away.
By the way, while rewatching
By the way, while rewatching S1 I noticed something I'd forgotten. When Starbuck is stranded on a planet with a Cylon raider and the fleet is searching for her, H6 manipulates Baltar into trying to have the fleet abandon the search and leave Starbuck behind. That's quite inconsistent with any idea that H6 is doing God's work, given that Starbuck seems to be so important to God's plan that He resurrected her.
Rewatch
I think this shows how had it is to rewatch and not have at the back of your mind that she’s now an official agent of Gog. I have not done a rewatch, but I have to presume that things like this will be common, and hard for my brain to turn off. If you can do it more power to you.
"Lost" episode analyses?
This is off-topic, I'm afraid, but I couldn't think of a better place to post it.
I've really enjoyed reading Brad's analyses of BSG. So, now that I've just started watching "Lost", season 5, I'm hoping to find a blog that does for Lost what Brad did for BSG. Does anyone have any suggestions? I'm looking for intelligent analyses, not discussion forums, synopses, trivia, etc. It doesn't matter if the whole season has been written up already, so long as I can avoid spoilers by reading them in sequence.
learned Lost analyses
I've found that Entertainment Weekly's Lost columnist, Jeff Jensen aka Doc Jensen, writes extensive, funny, and very aware analyses of Lost. He's really good at catching (and maybe even inventing) the dense layers of allusions that Lost is covered in. His grasp of the pseudosciency/mystical edge of pop culture (i.e., Castaneda, egyptology, magical quantum physics) that Lost hints at often, is really spectacular.
Now, I really dig Brad's BSG blog, but it's definitely the voice of a classicist who uses well-thought out ideas about genre form and content to deploy a serious critique. I thought BSG was totally amenable to that approach because it consisted of, by now classic s-f elements--the space-borne quest, the conflict between sentient human and machine intelligence for example. Lost is a bit more of a mutt, and if someone is using (wisely) Brad-esque analyses of it, I don't know of it.
But Jensen has an awesome, very free-associating style that usually spins revelations about Lost-iana that didn't come to my mind at all during the episode, but seem absolutely justified in retrospect. EW doesn't have a feed for him though, so you either have to check back regularly, or subscribe for updates.
Re: learned Lost analyses
Thanks for that, Aaron. I've started reading them.
Excuse me, but why does Gog
Excuse me, but why does Gog need a space ship?
"Excuse me, but why does Gog
"Excuse me, but why does Gog need a space ship?"
See... I think that right there is why a lot of people are having trouble with this. So many of us were raised on Star Trek - where anything supernatural is always explained away as an energy being or a being that exists on another dimensional plane etc... There is NO hocus-pocus in Star Trek. And in a lot of ways, Star Trek is the Brady Bunch of science fiction. Everything is always neatly fixed and tied up in the end. There is no mystery that we can't unravel with technology, human know-how, and cooperation.
But in reality, there are mysteries we cannot unravel. BSG showed that. We don't entirely know what GOB was trying to do, so we can't question any of his unusual twists and turns along the way. And having it all end up being GOB's big stage play was not at all disappointing for me. I had accepted LONG AGO that in the BSG world people have shared visions, prophesies come true, and angels live among us. Honestly, it makes perfect sense. The show was based on the premise that technology ruined us... but GOB saved us (for a while perhaps?). We can't really question his motivations and decisions along the way. Who knows what he was really up to.
And honestly, I didn't want our people to just suddenly find a planet and build a New New Caprica and all live happily ever after. They couldn't. Their lives were changed. Yes, they needed a break - and they got one. They were able to live out the rest of their lives in the wide open spaces of Earth (our Earth).
I think it was all quite fitting - and in fact, it has made me look at life in a totally different way. Perhaps there is a GOB with his hand in the mix. Who knows? All I know is this crazy blond lady will not stop talking to me about it! Why won't she shut up and get out of my head!?
Here we are
BSG screams so much Zen in people's faces it's a bit boring talking about it now.
The problem with technology and other people isn't really technology or other people. It's ourselves. The basic premise of BSG is that people built up some whacky ideas and hostilities then went bang. I'm probably driving a truck over RDM's lawn and parking it on his front porch by saying this but understanding was always possible but they threw even that away in the end.
Some people have identified the insanely irritating Starbuck as being a Buddha like figure of the "Pure Land Buddhism" variety but there's also precedent in the Old Testement scriptures in the character of Elijah. I have no idea if such a thing is possible in reality as I've never seen it or experienced it but it's a nice idea that distracts from our experience of the mundane and sometimes unpleasant flailing of death.
So, here we are...
That's what you think the premise was?
"The show was based on the premise that technology ruined us... but GOB saved us."
Seriously?
If so, then the show spent the first 3-1/2 seasons deceiving us about what its premise was... because while there may be an audience for an SF show that's about Luddism and mysticism, I wouldn't have been among it. Are you suggesting the writers set up all those intriguing mysteries and interconnections, all those political allegories and moral conflicts, just to distract viewers from the fact that the show's real message was something as blunt as "technology=bad, God=good"?
BSG: Utlimate Letdown
Hi, I`m an SF writer from Glasgow, Scotland, and me and my girl have just finished watching BSG on dvd, and I must declare myself four-square and solidly behind Brad on the monstrous suckiness of the finale, especially the last half-hour. The whole God-did-it is a stinging slap in the face of the fans who thought for all these years that they were watching a SCIENCE FICTION series, when in fact it turned out to be a fable. That's right - when God comes in the door, SF goes out the window. SF is about rational cause-and-effect, not just in the concepts and milieu in which its set but also in the narrative by which it is depicted. Others elsewhere have mentioned how this sense of being cheated closely matches the general reaction to the 3rd Matrix movie, which amply demonstrated that the Wachowskis didnt really know what they were doing. And now we can say the same about Ron Moore. Shame - Battlestar Galactica deserved a much better ending, a truly science fictional ending.
Jumping the Shark
My husband and I watched the last of the series in utter disbelief. The number of plot elements that didn't match up, the utter failure of closure for characters who were together then NOT, the all-of-a-sudden completely reliable cylon identifier (they're all cylons on earth, oh yes, we checked), AND IT WAS ALL GOD'S WILL - I felt exactly as I felt when X-Files was ending. Here we had a well-written show with compelling characters, and with a promise that there was an end-point that the writers had already figured out, so we waited to find out the mystery(ies) and they had no damn clue where they were going so handed it all off to a neat little religious conclusion. I don't think I've ever been so disappointed, nor amazed at the lack of character explanation.e.g., just because Galen isn't the biological father, he completely writes off the care of the son he's been father to that boy's entire life? Once Caprica's child is lost, she has no more scenes with Sol and somehow just transfers all love and affection back to Baltar? Starbuck's a frikkin' angel? And why for the love of whatever drive all the technology into the sun??????
Watched the DVDs and just
Watched the DVDs and just stumbled across this. Obviously long past the party, but I think the reviews by Mr. Templeton are spot on. What seems like a great show does simply degenerate into nonsense with gaping plot holes that ends with a pitiful lunge at God as an excuse. And "Jumping the Shark" is spot on about the characters as well. They are simply rewritten and manipulated at whim in the fourth season for whatever illogical sequence comes next. There isn't any actual drama when you reduce characters to such obvious puppet's on the writer's chain, which make the whole "God did it" even more ruinous. Their actions don't make sense because they were never making meaningful choices in the first place--they were just doing what Gog needed them to do.
Thank you, Brad
Just finished watching all the seasons and found this blog. I know this comment is a bit late, but I wanted to say a big "Thank you, Brad" for this in-depth analysis... Reading these posts regarding the ending of the show was a cathartic experience for me after the let-down of the overall "Gog" ending.
However, I did want to point out that we all really already knew that Gog was behind everything - the events that we've been privy too in seasons 3 and 4 (and a bit in season 2) were WAY too far-fetched and supernatural to have any other reasonable explanation... we all knew what was coming, and it was quite painful to watch the last season in expectation of the inevitable "God's will" explanation...
Overall - if we forget about Gog and just concentrate on the "human condition" events - the Pegasus stand-off, the father/son roller-coaster, the Sol and Adama friendship, the mutiny - it is undeniable that those events and those characters are what made the show truly great...
Only some events were truly extreme
The one most extreme event was the supernova at the Temple of Five. Making that happen required true godlike powers. There was a lesser explanation, that the string puller was just manipulating events (and there seemed to be good evidence of that) to bring everybody to that location on that day. But even that was extreme.
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