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.

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..

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.

wow, God does sure upset you people.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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 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.

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.

Excuse me, but why does Gog need a space ship?

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.

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 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.

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...

My THEORY on the whole God and angels issue is somewhat simple. Also, if my theories are true, then if they creators would have made it clear, it would have been a fairly original and interesting move by the creators of a science fiction television series. (sorry this is longish)

1- angels are the future/timeless selves of the actual person. 2- gog is the head writer. (One somewhat leads into the other.)

First: the angels- I think that the angel versions of Gaius and Six are simply the future angel versions of Gaius and Six. They died in the future on earth after the series was done. They have already lived the future. They KNOW what will happen. They know there is a God because they spoke to his angels (themselves) and were resurrected by him. They lived with each other for a long time, so they know each other and what the other needs, they love each other. Thus, they are the perfect people for god to send back and craft their past counterparts into the people they will need to be. I mean Kara was resurrected as an angel and god gave her a spaceship, its not too far fetched to believe god could send Gaius and Six as his angel representatives back in time to affect their past selves. Thus, the reason why Six makes love to Gaius all the time in his head, is not JUST because she is a whorish angel, but also because she actually loves him. Also, she/he knows when and what their past selves will need to do, because she/he saw it happen before and saw who they will become. (Example: this is kind of like in Bill and Ted's excellent adventure when the future Bill & Ted help their past selves get out of jail by leaving a stereo of themselves singing. They knew what would happen if they did it, because they lived it.) Also, this would explain why 150,000 years in the future the two angels are still in Gaius and Six's bodies, even though there is noone around who would recognize them. They are in those bodies because they are their bodies.

Second: Who is Gog?- Gog is Moore. The ending of the series gives us a series of the most blatant clues as to who gog is.

-First, when angel Gaius tells Six that gog doesnt like to be called "god", then he says "oh silly of me" (or whatever he says exactly). Basically, this is a THICKLY veiled attempt by the actual head writer of Battlestar Galactica to insert himself personally into the series. He is the god of the Battlestar Galactica series. He has a real name (Moore), and most likely doesn't like to be called god by his creations (namely Six and Gaius (and maybe Moore's real friends)). But Gaius realizes in his head, after telling Six not to call Moore god, that the writer of Battlestar Galactica also wrote the line where Six called him god. So it is silly of Gaius to try and correct her, when technically the god himself made her say it.
-Second, in 150,000 years the Angels still look exactly like Gaius and Six. There is no-one left alive who would recognize them in that form, so why do they still look like that? What purpose would it serve?(regardless of whether they are simply angels and not future versions of their past selves. Wouldnt they switch forms somewhat in 150,000 years? Get a little tired of the same suit? All the other times angels appeared they did so in order for a particular person to recognize them)Like the story keeps saying, angels appear all the time as people close to us. We the viewers have grown close to Baltar and Six.They look like they do 150,000 years in the future simply because WE the Audience would recognize them. It is not some god acting within the realms of the universe using his angels, it is the writer self-imposing himself into the story, so that we the viewers might recognize him as the god. Basically, in the end, the show breached the 4th wall without saying it out-loud, and tried to give us other more alluring "outs" which we could try to figure out (like aliens and super AI).
-(Other Examples where this was done, except THINLY veiled: in the graphic novel "Animal Man" when Grant Morrison literally wrote himself into the book and had a conversation with his novel's hero Animal Man. Or how Deadpole in Marvel comics knows that he is a comic book character. Or that Adventures of Spiderman episode where Spiderman meets Stan Lee).

-Third, If that is not evidence enough, (that Moore made himself literally the God of the universe, and NOT in some "all writers are gods of their stories" way), Moore put HIMSELF IN THE LAST SCENE OF THE SERIES. He is literally there, in person, in the background, in NY. Right there, watching over his angels and giving them things to talk about. Its not just a joke or tribute to him for creating BSG, its a hint. Also, in Baltar's speech to Cavil, Baltar says that god is not in on anyone's side, "there is no right or wrong", "he is a force of nature." Moore is a Buddhist, one of the beliefs of many Buddhists is that there is no right or wrong, there are only actions. Thus, Moore would not believe that his actions were right or wrong, they simply happened. So when his ultimately enlightened disciple describes God, Moore would like Gaius to describe God using Moore's own views of himself. So, if you look at it in this view, Giaus Baltar basically states that Moore is God, and what Moore likes. Also, this explains why there are so many superfluous magical things that happen in BSG. They are there simply because Moore likes them.
- (examples in the show. why do Lara or Athena need to see visions of the opera house all the time in the series? Its not an opera house! The 5 cylons never glow and dress all in white! And Hera does not ever get hurt! Six and Baltar dont even take Hera for long, they dont raise Hera! They just hold on to her for a minute and give a speech. There is no reason for the god to reveal those images to the characters in that constantly traumatic way except to torture them, and to make the viewers wonder why its happening. Really, Lara and Boomer have very little to do once that moment in the series actually comes up. (yet the whole series references it constantly) Also, why does the god make a supernova go off and also allow Xena Warrior Princess to view the five's Cylon's faces in the opera house, at the temple? Sure, it kind of moves the story along, but not really, it was magic for magic's sake. Which viewers get intrigued by. How the hell did the 13th colony of Cylons leave a beacon in space with a disease that kills cylons. Wouldn't it of killed them? Why did they leave any signs behind? Why make such a huge temple on some algea world when its only going to be used once and it will blow up? Couldn't they of made it easier? Where the hell did Starbuck get a spaceship from? Is it a holy spaceship? Why did Starbuck need to die at all, couldn't they of gotten this whole, way to 13th colony thing in another way? How the hell did the spaceship go from a exploding in some atmosphere of a world to landing on earth? Wouldn't an angel be more self confident she is? (she was like a hidden angel, like Boomer was a hidden Cylon, with images and such, constantly questioning if she was going to do something in the future, but she didn't know what, and she was uncertain of WHAT she really was. Then just like Boomer, Gaius determined what she was through a blood sample.)
The answer to why all this happened? It was because Moore thought it would look pretty. It was interesting, it was a great show, but he had all these questions and mysteries dangled in front of us for 4 seasons, and in the end Moore popped out behind the curtain and said "ha, just kidding. But look at how happy they all are now." (Except he didn't pop out.Like the rest of the show's revealed mysteries he didn't come out and say it, he made it mysterious. And he has kept us guessing down other paths.) (Heck, the reason angel Six is probably so pissed when Gaius doesn't believe in God, is because she is scared Moore will write her out of the series if she doesn't convince Gaius to believe.) Most people don't realize that Moore has done this, because he did it in a tricky manner, people might be pissed if they found out, and writers just don't normally do it.)
(one interesting thought, is that if Moore is the gog, and these angels of Gaius and Six are from the future where they already know what will happen, then technically in the begining of the show they know alot more than the actual god (Moore), who has yet to write alot of the ending, they just know it will work out, and gog knows he will write it so it looks like it made sense to them all along).

Overall, gog is Moore, so you as the character are not merely influenced by gog, he writes exactly what you do. However, in that world, you might think you did have free will. Thus, Gog may or may not know what you are going to end up doing later, but when it comes, he will write it so that it looks like he knew all along. Thus, Moore secretly broke the 4th wall of stories, and he made himself literally the god of Battlestar Galactica. And this explains why everything is why it is. (The real 5th cylon is YOU!) (Just a theory)

I don't know if you still check these, but I and others noted something interesting on this subject in an episode of Caprica before it was yanked.

I agree with you that there really is no way to add up Battlestar without coming to the conclusion that Gog, far from gently nudging, is simply driving the whole show. But Caprica seemed to actually confirm that. Specifically, we saw what can only be characterized as a Head Zoe in flashback and present day. It saves the actual child Zoe from a fire, gives her the idea that will become Cylons, and drives a wedge between her and her father. Then we see the same entity giving career advice to the Avatar Zoe in the V-world, advice that will not end well. The upshot seems to be, exactly as one would conclude from your article, that GOG is simply making all this happen. Actively driving the Cycles for reasons that, based on the last thirty minutes of Battlestar, seem self-evidently stupid. So God is not only an idiot--he/she/it is "The Big Bad" as well.

Now, mind you, I'm not particularly interested in watching years of a show dedicated to the simple proposition that God is a dick. But that would at least be conceptually coherent. Unfortunately, I got the impression from that Caprica episode, just like the last year and finale of Battlestar, that they really don't understand the "story-with-a-beginning-middle-and-end" implications of what they're writing. Or maybe they just don't care. Maybe it was always pure smoke and mirrors, and they think the left over BSG viewers (a small group, apparently) are so mindless we'll just say "A head person. Cool!"

Would be interested in your opinion if you have the time.

I don't agree with everything Brad says, but his arguments are thoughtful and detail oriented. It's kind of funny to see someone sighing at him who came here because they googled "How many humans did the Cylons kill?"

Set aside all the God, deus ex machina and free will stuff. You're still left with a big matzah ball staring at you. And it's not hard to understand. All this carrying on, all this advertising about how "you will know the truth," and all this preening about great drama boils down to one of the oldest, most routinely mocked cliches in the science fiction handbook: Adam and Eve. What's even worse, it's a botched Adam and Eve. the desire to appear cutting edge leads to an incorrect use of Mitochondrial Eve that undermines the whole point. Not to mention that future archaeological discoveries will inevitably make it look even more wrong and lame.

That's the kind of thing that if it happened in an episode of, say, Star Trek, you'd just think "well that was kind of dumb" and move on. But you'd think that because you only invested an hour in it and there's always next week's episode, which very well might not be dumb. But here you have four years of carrying on and pretension that boils down to cliched hack work that can't even execute the cliche properly.

The technology part is simply the cherry on top. In order to hammer this square peg into a round hole, everyone decides to live and die (soon) as cave men, which would be a horrific experience, especially for modern women, thus condemning their children to a practical eternity of primitive savagery. That's mind-bogglingly stupid. No amount of carrying on about "technology tried to kill you" can make sense of that. After all, being able to farm won't kill you. There's lots of basic stuff from the Fleet that would allow stable, sizable agrarian communities that could defend themselves. But, hey, it's a brutal fang-and-claw hunter gatherer life for our stalwart crew simply because they've ceased to be characters. They are the writer's objects who have to do something obviously stupid to support a tired Adam and Eve ending that doesn't work anyway.

God and his mysterious ways are simply the only means left to try and tie up that package. But since what's in the package stinks, God inevitably stinks, too.

I just finished BSG after a friend refereed me to it. I would say I agree a bit on the author here. Before I knew what the ending was , I expected it to be either:

1.) They show up on our Earth a few thousand years prior to the present.

2.) They show up to a future version of our Earth with equal or similar technology.

With the author of this thoughtful and articulate posting, I would agree that the ending should have only taken place a few thousand years before our current time. Ending around the suggested time of the "Great Leap Forward" would have explained how otherwise primitive humans could have began civilization. This could have also explained the polytheism of the Greeks and Monotheism of the Jews and Persians. They could have worked it in so much better. Instead they went the way of the Mitochondrial Eve which, as Brad pointed out, wasn't even accurate let alone coherent.

I would have preferred option 2, with a thriving future Earth where the colonists were the descendants of humans who left thousands of years earlier only to finally find their way back. This would have closed the loop and made the relationship fit perfectly.

My problem here with Brad comes from the line, "...creationist concept of intelligent design is one of the most pernicious types of anti-science out there." I found this highly pretentious and somewhat close-minded. I am one of those people who believes in anything science can prove. I also put some measure of faith into what science cannot yet prove, but can at least theorize with some measure of veracity. I find it very unscientific to say that intelligent design is an absolute fallacy. I think some of the author's problems with this show stem from this preconception. BSG was always heavily based on God or gods from its very first episode. If not God, some supernatural force was at work. It should have come at no surprise it would end this way.

I would say I like the idea of mixing theology into science fiction a little bit. As stated in another post, it seems some people had a problem putting God into their otherwise atheistic science fiction. On an about-face, I think trying to use the science cop-out of midi-chlorians to explain the otherwise supernatural "Force" in Star Wars ruined it for me.

At the end of the day, each of us is allotted his or her own opinion. No opinion on whether the ending was good, bad, or somewhere in between is more correct than any other. Lets just say we all had our own inclination on how we wanted it to end, and when we compared that to the true ending we were left with what we felt was a satisfactory or disappointing feeling.

I think a lot of people are actually content with the idea that many dissatified are simply unhappy with the ending of the damn good series. I on the other hand I'm happy it ended when it did before the show went the way of too many other promising shows that evolved into stupidity. My dissatisfaction began around season 3 (as did many others), when I saw characters acting totally out of character, and plot direction that made no sense. Had I watched the show as it was broadcasting I would have merely scratched my head and waited until next eps to see if I got answers or not, but I watched the entire 4 season run on dvd each eps twice the second time with commentary. I knew pretty quickly that I was watching a show that hadn't been planned out, and these guys were making it up as they went along. My fascination came with seeing if they could satisfactorily write themselves out of the mess they had written themselves into. I became increasing aware that they couldn't, and eventually it seemed that they stopped trying altogether. In my mind Gog is just the fictional representation of R.Moore and Co.

Why has this prophecy not been explained? How did Kara Thrace lead the Human race to its end? The original Kara did no such thing, and the "dead\angel" Kara provided the jump coordinates to our earth. Its not clear whether the colonies population died out before integrating with earth tribes, but surely the "human" race continued to exist. So what's the deal with the prophecy that "Kara Thrace will lead the human race to its end"?

Regarding your gripe about God and a "higher power" being involved in the final destiny of the humans from Kobol, the Thirteenth Tribe and the humanoid Cylons they created, I think you may have overlooked something.

What I think you may have overlooked is that the "God" in BSG might be an illusion. The characters in the show may believe that because there are events they can't "fathom or explain away by rational means" (in Baltar's words) that there must be some God involved, but that doesn't mean that there really is a "One True God" that according to the Abrahamic definition (Jewish, Christian, Islamic) was uncreated and absolute. Baltar himself says it doesn't matter. He sees angels that nobody else sees. Is he mad? Is he crazy, or is he just projecting (like a Cylon)? Did Starbuck really disappear in the end, or was Lee Adama just "projecting?" I mean, who knows? Maybe she crashed her Viper again on New Earth and died (and maybe underwent resurrection again) and what Lee saw was just a "video" of her in his head.

D'Anna repeats a number of times, the mantra "this has happened before, and it will happen again." She was talking not just about the cycle of war between human and Cylon/machine, but the cycle of re-inventing Cylon technology. As Anders puts it after the mutiny, "we didn't invent resurrection, we re-invented it." We do not know how many times this cycle has repeated itself, how many times "humans" or "humanoid beings" have created Cylons and Cylon technology like resurrection and projection and the technology that allowed them to reproduce. Hera Agathon may not be the first human-Cylon child born.

If humanoid beings (whether they are naturally evolved humans or humanoid Cylons) have been creating and re-inventing Cylon technology over and over again and possibly cross-breeding and conceiving human-Cylon children, then the possibility of human-Cylon beings being present in the population explains why some characters have visions like Baltar and Laura Roslin (and maybe even Lee Adama). It explains why Starbuck comes back from the dead. She was either a Cylon or a human-Cylon being capable of undergoing resurrection. It explains why Lee apparently has a "vision" of her in the finale: he was projecting.

We know that Starbuck, Baltar, Lee Adama and Laura Roslin aren't members of the Thirteenth Tribe or Cylons created by the Final Five, but that doesn't mean they can't be Cylons or human-Cylon beings descended from a previous form of Cylon in the cycle of war and peace between human and Cylon spanning millenia.

A common response from an atheist when asked why he doesn't believe in God is, "there just isn't evidence for one." An atheist doesn't believe in God because he/she believes that it is possible to find a better explanation than "it's God." The show itself offers a better explanation than "it's God." That explanation is that it's not God, it's Cylon technology. Cylon technology creates the illusion experienced by some characters that they are having visions or that someone has come back from the dead. It may not be the technology created by the Final Five, but it doesn't mean there wasn't something created by an earlier form of Cylon in a previous cycle.

Just because the characters think "it's God," doesn't mean it really is God. The "higher power" may be remnants of a previous cycle with advanced technology that allows them to remain hidden (stealth), a means to create visions in people with Cylon hardware in them (Baltar, Roslin, Lee Adama) when necessary (a bit like hacking a computer) and a means to bring back, through resurrection, people who have apparently died (Starbuck). It doesn't need to be God or a supernatural explanation because the show offers a technological one.

This is a little late but I just started watching the new BSG this year. I am really surprised at how much I enjoyed watching. So with that being said, thanks Brad for the summary and I do agree with your complaint. Not having done research on the writers of the show, etc. it seems like there is a very surface treatment of comparative mythology. The recurring themes that stood out are what you mentioned and for me were, cycles (deja vu), destiny, consequence (cause and effect),ambiguous realities, questions of consciousness, and super reality guidance. Not sure if it were intentional or not but we could entertain that these themes could also point to a simulated universe theory. The BSG universe could be a simulated one and almost like a divine comedy. You can easily go back through the show and make a case for it episode by episode. Ok That's my over-thinking stretch right there. Back down to Earth; in all likelihood it is what you say concerning the what? and why?. When you mix technology stories with divine intervention, it is a difficult task and I am not saying that it cannot be done or even that it should not be done but I agree that it was not done very well. You are pointing out something that mirrors reality for the moral majority in that the answer to any mystery is usually another mystery hence the ending. Another reason could be that writing for an ongoing series allows the writers to be more creative but also forces them to be less creative in that they have an indefinite open timeline to work with at the start. They can do whatever they want for a certain amount of time but then they run out of ideas and they have to resolve parallels that they did not realize they created. So when the show comes to an end, that pattern of thinking would have to be changed further and hence they needed to compress any additional concepts into the remaining episodes for a resolution. So could it have been rushed? So planning for an on-going plot and making it quality takes a certain talent. Maybe this is not their strong point. With all that said, again, I still really enjoyed the show overall and would have liked a better treatment of the conclusion as well but it does not take away from my overall feelings about the show. So yeah, it would have been really great.

From google translator, sorry for any errors.

Very interesting Brad's questions and comments, but despite the problems with the god of BSG and the end, I understand that it is still the best series of science fiction ever made, because it is precisely the issues addressed that do not involve the divine figure, who Give weight to the show.
Starbuck is a pawn for the salvation of mankind, does not invalidate his entire journey of suffering from birth, his pain is real, his mistakes are real ... his courage is real.
The political, philosophical discussions about humanity, about artificial intelligence, the battles and the charisma and depth of the characters do not depend on the divine figure ... what makes the series brilliant is not the divine manipulation but the characters and their journey .

Ref. Divinity, something to ponder is that Star Trek Next Generation uses a divine being at times, but it is presented as alien, Q could do many of the things that are claimed to the god of BSG, so a powerful being does not always have to be faced As a divine being in the religious sense, including, the series has similarities with 2001 an odyssey in space as it relates to life in space and 2001 presents the idea of a race that accompanies the human journey for millions of years.

After almost 10 years of its end, BSG is still much superior to the other series of the genre and much of it is due to its realistic look, the level of the discussions and its characters ...

Honestly when I first watched this series at a younger age I was very dissatisfied with the ending. It seemed too convenient, and tacky or something. And of course, the show isn't perfectly executed. There is a huge cheese factor and some of the writing is forced into unlikely corners, but all things considered, I really appreciate the message of this show, even if it is based on what most, including myself would call fiction - it's still thought provoking and in a way sort of poetic. It has a certain charm.. upon rewatching it, despite the subpar acting and lazy plot twists and such, I'm still really pleased with the deeper message each episode conveys. Many shows just want mass appeal, and have no problem with moral-hazard to society and ethics and just want to turn a profit - the writing has a good message and actually demonstrates qualities in many of the characters, particularly Adama and Roslin, and various interactions between hierarchies such as military, political, familial etc and presents real psychological dilemmas that are heuristic and meaningful to the viewer. Many outcomes model a sort of society that is admirable and these are important lessons that represent repeating themes in life and throughout history. At the end of the day, it's not perfect -- what is, but I truly have nothing to complain about here. I think this show is phenomenal and not simply because I'm simple minded. Psh..

Just rewatched the series and really enjoyed it, I think it's dated very well. The characters are fantastic and still relevant today, and the ending is quite moving especially Baltar going full circle and rediscovering his origins as a low-status farmer, and Adama taking Roslin on one last trip to observe the paradise they had found. There are some inconsistencies and loose ends but on the whole it's still my favourite sci-fi.

Personally I think God is an AI, or a higher life form, which emerges in the future perhaps when the cycle is finally broken. But it evolved from us, the cylons and the humans (including Baltar!) so it is also imperfect, and goes back along its timeline to selfishly preserve its own existence by using angels and miracles to influence the outcome.

The Seraphs in TOS said what happens to humans also affects what happens to them, so it's consistent with that.

I think Starbuck (and her Viper) was just another angel sent by the AI God, but unlike the others she was visible to everyone. The final five were drawn to the signal in her ship, and they said they had seen angels on old Earth. But I can't make sense of why she died in the first place, or how she crashed on old Earth.

Baltar said on the bridge in the final battle it doesn't matter what it is, the fact is (for them) it's real and controlling their destiny. One can interpret that as Arthur C. Clarke's "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" i.e. it doesn't matter whether it's an AI God or a real one; we couldn't comprehend the difference but its actions are real.

Things become very desperate in season 4, just imagine how devastating it would be finding old Earth as a radioative wasteland and they were facing oblivion, so I can see why half the crew would go on a suicide mission. I think a more fitting ending would have been for everyone to perish apart from a handful of survivors who crashed on new Earth and had no choice but to survive without technology.

When you think about the outcome it's extremely bleak, they found paradise but at the cost of free will due to an AI God intervening with fate to protect its own existence, they were beaten into submission until they just accepted it.

I think the Gods on Cobol were a similar group of refugees from a previous cycle, they discovered a habitable planet and the natives lived amongst the Gods until they evolved and the cycle repeated. Actually I really liked how the 13th tribe were cylons, which explains why they went in the opposite direction during the exodus.

Head-6 said if the cycle repeats enough times something interesing will happen, perhaps that will be when our own AI destroys us and we get our own opportunity to break the cycle. I'd humbly suggest if those angels do appear to anyone, don't do what they say unless you want a God-like AI ruling the galaxy!

One thing I did like, if you ignore a couple of mistakes made by Adama and Felix, you can roughly trace their voyage and it appears they only traversed about 3-4% of the galaxy with each jump being about 5 ly. So quite realistic, and lots of space for other loops.

One final thought - worth reflecting on the plot of Ronald Moore's first ever Star Trek episode The Bonding - "Marla explains that she is one of two races that once lived on the planet; her species, made from energy, watched the other physical species wipe themselves out from wars and her people want to prevent more suffering caused by the remnants of the war, thus providing Jeremy with the illusion of his mother still being alive"... sound familiar?

Just finished watching Caprica and now I think the entire BSG series 1-4 is set in a vast VR universe created by the Zoe Graystone AI and avatars not angels keeping the story on plot. It's using the same one-death rule as New Cap City, Starbuck's avatar could be Tamara, and the entire story is orchestrated by Zoe (or Daniel) as "God".

RDM basically could have done anything with the plot, because Zoe/Daniel could perform "miracles" and reconfigure anything or bring anyone back, and orchestrate chance events such as a supernova. He must have been laughing his face off when everyone made a fuss about Gods and angels.