Battlestar Galactica: Season Four

[Solver]

I am assuming that some of the conversations in the episode took place after they had teams observe the locals for a day or so. They sounded pretty confident when saying that the tribals don't have any language.

[Imran Siddiqui]

What happened to Starbuck leading humanity to its destruction?

She leads them to their END, not their destruction... and she does.

[Imran Siddiqui]

It's not really a deus ex machina. God, his plan and all that has been in the show since the beginning. So it's not really like they pulled something new to explain the mysteries... but it just wasn't that satisfying.

Yes, its not really a deus ex. They had the God threads in the show for a loooong time, so it wasn't like it was pulled out of the blue. Though I disagree with Solver in that I found it very satisfying.

Then again, this does divide the people who hated the mystical and religious stuff and those who liked it. I really liked that stuff and thought it gave the show some meaning beyond just killin' stuff.

[Solver]

I'm still torn. I liked the religious and mystical stuff while the show was going on. But I guess I expected an explanation for it on some level, beyond just accepting that higher power. Maybe the dissatisfying part is because no new info on that was even given in the finale, we were left with just observing manifestations of that higher power, same as in previous episodes. But again, I actually don't know what would have made for a satisfying ending.

Oh, and something great that I hadn't mentioned - how they did that opera house/CIC scene. Beautiful montage and extremely well done overall.

[Gibsie]

Very good final ep, although the ideas of "hey it wasn't really earth" and "let's abandon all our tech!" did grate a little. Poor Cavil, general protection error...

[Solver]

While they did pull a bit of a fake with Earth, it actually works if you think about it. They went to a planet called Earth and found it ruined. Then, when they found a new world to live on, they chose to name it Earth in memory of the original one. It never actually said that the ruined Earth was "our" planet.

[Gibsie]

They did show the north american continent onscreen, however

[Solver]

In the season 3 finale. Not in "Revelations", when they landed on Earth and found it ruined. In that episode, only a blue planet was shown with no recognizable continents or other such properties.

[Dinner]

Homo sapiens sapiens isn't an ape, dumbass.

They just might be neanderthals especially since in the end they said the cylon human was the mother of all humans on Earth.

[flash9286]

Yes, its not really a deus ex. They had the God threads in the show for a loooong time, so it wasn't like it was pulled out of the blue. Though I disagree with Solver in that I found it very satisfying.

Then again, this does divide the people who hated the mystical and religious stuff and those who liked it. I really liked that stuff and thought it gave the show some meaning beyond just killin' stuff.

Yea, wrong word. Up to a point I think you could see the show as either mystical or scientific. Like the head six could have been an angel or a cylon chip or some type of projection. But as the show went on the scientific explanations for the mysteries became less likely. Which is fine, but we never got why god wanted certain things and why he didn't or why he picked the people he did.

[Dinner]

They did show the north american continent onscreen, however

Not on the old Earth. On the new Earth they should Africa, Europe, Asia, and Australia quite clearly. One of the big complaints about the original "Earth" is they never showed a picture of anything from space nor any map.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

I agree that the mystical aspects could have been more satisfying. The problem, and the reason it feels like a deus ex even though that aspect had been there since the beginning, is that we have so little information on !God that we don't know what to assign to !God and what to assign to the humans/cylons. We don't know the motivations, and we can only extrapolate the goals of the actions we can identify...the head characters never give us any indication that they're trying to get x effect by taking y action. There are too many questions left over about what parts were fate, what parts were the result of actions by the !God, and what parts were the result of decisions by humans. Yes, I know it's intentional, but it's not entirely satisfying for people who actually want answers instead of questions.

[Solver]

Of course, you could say that's the only way to interpret God and all that - a divine plan is just that, a divine plan, not something that people can reasonably understand. So you wouldn't know why he leads them to new Earth by resurrecting Starbuck and playing that music instead of just making the FTL drives "misfire" so they arrive at those coordinates. That's divine plan for you.

And the hybrids / Starbuck thing still doesn't make sense to me. The Razor hybrid:

Kara Thrace will lead the human race to its end. She is the herald of the apocalypse, the harbinger of death. They must not follow her.

Starbuck didn't even lead the human race to its end. They didn't "end", they actually live on, having found a new home. No apocalypse, no death - no reason why the Hybrids would treat her like that.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

And then suddenly we're in Good Omens ineffable territory, only it was done a bit better there. Which is all well and good and a legitimate answer, just not necessarily satisfying.

On Kara: I'd say that the human race as they knew it effectively ended. We don't have any evidence of their culture, etc...a few random pieces seem to have survived, but other than that and some genetics they're gone.

[Imran Siddiqui]

we never got why god wanted certain things and why he didn't or why he picked the people he did.

God works in mysterious ways .