Battlestar Galactica: “Daybreak”
22 March 2009
by R.A. Porter

Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence.
God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways.
So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.”
Genesis 6:11-13
Frak. Frak, frak, frak!
Now, that was something.
But before we get into the discussion, let’s get this out of the way first: I’m not surprised by the polarizing nature of this finale, but I am a bit shocked by the number of people with tin ears and tunnel vision who object to the presence of God and angels. I’m not sure what show those people have been watching for four seasons, but it wasn’t Battlestar Galactica.
Let me clarify that:
Nerds? Shut the fuck up.
The socially inept Asperger’s sufferers who are more concerned with bagging and boarding their variant covers and arguing the relative firepower of the Enterprise and an Imperial Star Destroyer (non-ironically) for hours on end watched BSG with one hand down their pants and one finger on the fast forward button. Hot chicks and space battles are their masturbatorial material, so philosophical fine points such as the existence of the divine, the role of free will, or the guiding hand of fate were largely lost on them. They might have pressed play for a few moments during Baltar’s trial when they saw Mark Sheppard, but realizing he wasn’t playing Badger, quickly flipped by and twisted off the top of another Mt. Dew.1
How much better the world would be if the wounded thinkers like Tyrol stayed and the nerds went off to the Highlands to slice their own hands off with cheap, mall katanas.
Now that we’re alone, let’s look at the three hours of “Daybreak” and see what we’ve got and how it fits into the larger tale Ron Moore wanted to tell.
Who Are These People?
Last week felt weak to many people, but if watched with the knowledge that it was the opening act in the final chapter of the story, it just felt incomplete, more like the opening movement in a piece of music, cut off just when it was starting to get interesting. Viewed as a whole, the flashbacks to Caprica before the fall make far more sense as they comment on these characters we’ve followed for six years. Why is Laura Roslin still pushing? Who is Gaius Baltar? What is Starbuck?
It’s simple, really. Roslin pushes because that is what she must do: see things through to the end, no matter how hard or long the road. She still carries the democratic hopes of the survivors, even if Lee is taking the baton from her. Her hand has been on the tiller right alongside Adama’s, guiding them to their new life. Guiding them to Earth. Until then, she must carry on.
Baltar “knows about farming.” I’ve read many, many complaints2 about the writers not knowing what to do with Baltar. Like Lee, he’s never stayed in one role for too long, bouncing about trying to find his place (and trying to stay out of the line of fire) between the scientific, spiritual, and political worlds. In the end, while it was partially about getting Baltar to finally believe God was all around them, I think it was more. I think it was about stripping the false facades, the layers of callous and camouflage he’d built over the years, until the man inside was finally free and exposed to the air.
Brave enough finally to commit a selfless act. Brave enough finally to have the love of the woman he loved. Brave enough finally to embrace his father’s legacy.
This all shades his relationship with Gina in interesting ways, as well. Whereas Head-Six was cold and demanding – as an emissary from God she was something very alien and other – Gina was flesh, blood, and a true sister to Caprica. Baltar’s unrequited love for Caprica was temporarily transferred to Gina, to the point where he acted out his betrayal of humanity in miniature by giving her the nuke as a misguided offering of love.
Finally, Starbuck. Ah Kara, how I love thee. Just as the Cylons used sleepers who were unaware of their true nature to carry out their plan3 God used Kara without revealing her nature. God works in mysterious ways, you know? Mysterious and unfathomable. Not much fun if he rides in on a Ship of Lights and tells Adama the coordinates to Earth.
Not only not much fun, but not earned. If the fleet was handed Earth, they’d have no compelling reason to take the bold and dangerous step they did – sending their ships into the sun and spreading out across the continents. Only through suffering could they achieve salvation.
Kara Thrace’s journey parallels the fleet’s. Only through torment and suffering can she become complete. In completing her task, she completes herself and can return home to the other side. She will be remembered, at least for a time, but that doesn’t matter anymore. Even when her name is scattered by the wind, and the last storyteller has forgotten the story of Kara Thrace, she lives on in our dreams and in us. We are because she was.
The Ark
I lead with Genesis because it’s become so clearly appropriate. It’s not just the superficial similarites of God tasking Noah to build an ark and save the animals and his small family from the deluge. It is more that the God of BSG is so like the God of the Old Testament. More accurately: the God of the Yahwist.4 He was content either to take an active role in the destruction of the colonies and death of billions, or to stand back and watch his children kill each other. With the slate wiped clean, the “ragtag fleet” could begin its journey.
Question: if God is omnipotent, why did the flood waters take so long to recede? Why did Noah and his family remain ark-bound for so many months? Why not wipe clean the slate and set Noah and the animals on their merry way quicker? Answer: because. His ways are mysterious. Though I can guess a good reason: only by pushing Noah and his family to the brink, challenging their faith and taking away hope, only by doing these things could the survivors truly appreciate the gift they’d been given.
Only by losing a fifth of their number and suffering the privations of space travel, occupation on New Caprica, constant war, and the threat of the end of humanity could the fleet realize the gift they had been given in Earth. To end the cycle – at least to try to end it – the ways of the past needed to be abandoned. Given the verdant Earth, teeming with life, I would argue it was easy for Lee to convince the fleet to throw away all ties to their former civilization.
Who wouldn’t want to pull a Thoreau when presented with our beautiful planet after years of grime and muck and recycled air and recycled water? Hell, I get on a plane for two hours and I’m almost ready to become an organic farmer and goatherd. I can’t imagine doing that for years on end with sentient killing machines trying to kill me at every turn.
The Nitpicks. #1 Mitochondrial Eve
Was this right or wrong? Would it have been better had the fleet reached Earth 10-30,000 years ago and in integrating with the human population brought agriculture, writing, and the basis for our myths and religions? I’m not sure. I think if I had been in the writers’ room I would have pushed for this route, even though it would diminish the importance of Hera. It’s hard for me to imagine the humans and Cylons leaving no writing, no implements, no artifacts behind. It’s especially hard since “locations will be documented; given to everyone.”
I know survival was going to be the first order of business for the scattered remnants of the fleet, but didn’t anyone ever want a reunion? Obviously crossing the oceans would be difficult if not impossible, but Europe, Asia, and Africa? The Americas? Did no one ever whip out a map and try to set up trade with someone in a different climate with different crops? I guess they really did just go back to the land.
Still, in order for the story to be truly cyclical, I understand the decision.
The Nitpicks. #2 Nobody Dies
Well, Roslin died (more on that shortly.) And in the end, everyone dies, even if it takes decades. But nobody died.
Patrick at Thoughts on Stuff hit it on the head when he said
I have a lot of issues with the Buffy finale, but a single shot made the stakes work for me there, and that was Anya being casually cut through by a Ubervamp scythe. To see a character who’d been on the show for years cut down with such a lack of buildup made it clear that no one was safe, that this is a war and it doesn’t matter who’s a main character, anyone can die. We never got that here, after all the gunshots fired, everyone walks out fine.
After mulling over that for a little while, I know how I would have resolved it. Leave Helo bleeding out on the deck. Get everyone to CiC. Before hostilities end, have Cavil kill Athena, saying how much he hates the 8s. We now believe Hera is orphaned, as we believe Helo is also dead.
On Earth, the reveal is no longer of the happy nuclear family, but of Hera and her widower father.5 He tells her how good a hunter he is, then tells her how mommy would have told her about the buck on Caprica.
Searider Falcon
The Old Man and Laura take one last trip together, to see the wonder of creation and finally find a place for that cabin. Unable to walk, unable to breathe, Laura is reduced to a shell. Where she was iron and stone and mortar, holding herself and the remnants of humanity together by force of will, all that is gone. Her mission accomplished, the dying leader lets go and is suffused with love for Adama.
And that’s the harshest cut of all, isn’t it? She soldiered on because of innate strength, her love helping her to keep going over the last few months, but without the struggle, without the rigid structure of the journey, all the love in the world can’t even grant her enough time to see the easterly view one time with Adama.
Instead, his ship dead and his lover gone, he becomes Searider Falcon, adrift in the world with his memories of Laura all he has to succor him.
The Coda
I know a lot of people, even those who liked the episode, felt the coda was heavy handed, preachy, and too on the nose. There are a lot of fans who think the final shot should have been Adama sitting next to Roslin’s grave. But I liked the coda. There was more there than people realize. I left a lengthy comment at Alan Sepinwall’s blog on the coda; I’ll repeat myself here.
As our angels finish their conversation, the camera sweeps to some homeless people, invisible to everyone going about their business and Hendrix’s “All Along the Watchtower” begins diagetically from a radio in one of their carts. The camera pans, and right before coming to the television showing the “Advances in Robotics” story, it slides past an old Ferrari F1 (I think it’s a Tipo 500, but could be mistaken.)
The juxtaposition of our invisible humans, with one of the pinnacles of mid-20th century design and engineering – a far more organic and craftsman type of engineering – and finally with our possible inorganic future, struck me strongly. The point I see here isn’t “technology bad” or “robots bad”, rather that in our headlong rush forward, we pay little attention to those left behind. And further that we’re abandoning the art and humanity of our earlier technology for something far more sterile. In the words of Lee Adama:
If there’s one thing that we should have learned, it’s that, you know, our brains have always outraced our hearts. Our science charges ahead. Our souls lag behind.
And lest we forget Dylan, in his live performances of Watchtower he repeats the first verse after the ominous ending, indicating a cycle of destruction and ending on these lines:
Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth,
None of them along the line know what any of it is worth.We reach for the stars and often stand on the backs of our brothers and sisters to get there. We explore and build and study the mysteries of the universe without first studying the mysteries in our own hearts.
Finally, Moore makes it clear that we *are* all brothers and sisters; Hera is our mother and the Colonists and Cylons our aunts and uncles. We must learn from their mistakes and come together as a family.
What BSG Means
Nah. I can’t answer that for anyone but me, and what it means to me has nothing to do with any moral lessons about ethics, technology, religion, science, or politics. Those are all important topics, and BSG makes an intriguing starting point for discussions of them, as the special panel on human rights at the UN earlier this week demonstrates.
But for me what BSG meant is something different. I felt when watching, particularly when watching the long goodbyes, absorbed in a sweeping epic. Characters I cared about and had traveled with for half a decade fought, drank, screwed, cursed, fraked up, lived, and died. As the final hour was unwinding, especially the last 30 minutes, I wanted it to last longer.
Against all rules of narrative, I wanted to know I could come back next week and watch BSG: Little House on the Prairie, where Baltar and Caprica build themselves a log cabin. I wanted to know I could watch BSG: The Highlander, where Galen Tyrol started speaking with a French accent, wearing a kilt, and running around saying, “there can be only one.” I wanted to watch Hera grow up, learning to hunt and farm and build a house from her human daddy and Cylon mommy. I wanted to watch Michael Hogan and his amazing acting eye as Saul Tigh taught the protohumans all about fermentation and distillation. Each week a new delicious alcoholic beverage could be discovered.
Damn it, I wanted Kara and Lee to have a happy ending.
Few works of fiction have that effect. Few are important enough and touching enough that as they come to a close we anxiously check how many pages are left or how many minutes remain, willing there to be more, just a little bit more. BSG was one of those few and I’ll cherish all it meant to me these past few years.
I’ll also walk away with newfound inspiration for what television can do. Who knew we could be brought to tears by Gaius Baltar’s simple acceptance of his heritage? Who knew a network renowned for its missteps and short-sightedness could love something so complex and messy and difficult as much as we do? This is what happens when everyone cares about what they’re producing, from the network brass down to craft services, and pours their hearts into it. This is what television can do.
So say we all!
Please come in and share your thoughts.
R.A. Porter is an aspiring television writer who currently toils away in the software mines. He can be found at Sketch War, his personal blog, Tumblr, and stalked on Twitter.- Because they’re Extreme, you see. [↩]
- Probably written one or two myself. [↩]
- Did they have a plan? Yes. Did they carry it out successfully? Hell no. Was their plan a sensible one? I dunno. Maybe we’ll find out this fall. [↩]
- I am aware that the Documentary hypothesis is not set in stone and there is much competing scholarship; however, it is difficult to argue that the mercurial, playful, impish God who told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac only to send an angel and a ram at the last moment does not differ from later, more…sterile representations of God. [↩]
- And his awesome walking stick. [↩]
Tags: battlestar galactica, bsg, ron moore, scifi channel
posted by R.A. Porter in → Reviews
March 22nd, 2009 at 2:59 am
[...] See the original post: Battlestar Galactica: “Daybreak” [...]
March 22nd, 2009 at 12:40 pm
Richard, thanks for bringing the emotion back to the surface after it kind of died out a little Saturday…now I'm missing the show all over again.
I wrote on my blog Friday night much of the same things you did. Especially the stuff you say about the "nerds" and God and angels. How anyone could be let down that God was in control of things is beyond me. Wasn't that the point all along? Wasn't that one of the biggest storylines, the biggest motivation for even headed to earth?
If it turned out to be aliens or just dumb luck, wouldn't it diminish everything Roslin felt was calling her forward?
That shocks the crap out of me…that people are so shortsighted. Like you said, they just care about the "sci-fi" side of things and want their technical "sci-fi" explanation.
People are still wondering what Kara was and are somehow annoyed that it wasn't answered directly. That kind of baffles me too. I thought it was obvious…and it didn't need an explanation.
The Coda was perfect as well, and I like your deeper look at it.
Also, the idea of Noah's Ark is intriguing. Never really looked at it that way, and it makes a lot of sense to me. God kept them on the ark for 40 days and 40 nights…probably to teach them something about themselves and HIMself along the way.
If it happened too quickly, they wouldn't learn anything.
Which is why they had to be brought together at the end, which I feel was the true importance of Hera. They all thought this girl was important and meaningful, but she was just the key to bringing them all together for one final attempt at breaking the cycle, which didn't happen because of Tori's simple act of murder.
I don't think most people are talking much about how Tori's "sin" prevented the peace from happening. Or maybe that wasn't in God's plan afterall. But who knows…
Anyways, what a fantastic show and I really get bummed when I know people wont watch it because the title sounds "star trekkie" and that if it's out in space, it much suck.
March 22nd, 2009 at 5:08 pm
Ah. Beautiful. You've capped it all for me. Checking the various boards and comment threads, I'm ever amused by the righteous outrage of viewers who didn't get the ending they wanted and feel they deserved — as if they had somehow earned something other than the story the writers wanted to tell. (Isn't that why fan fiction exists? Btw, I'll let you know when my "Roslin and Adama: The Wilderness Family" opus is ready for a beta read.) And for me, angels are totally sci fi anyway, and religion has always guided these characters — Laura, Starbuck, Leoben, Caprica Six, Tyrol; they found answers in scriptures and scrolls and prophecies from day one. So how can this be a surprise now? How can it be a cop out? I'm baffled by that.
And with Baltar, you're right that I haven't liked his Season 4 arc up until now — because we only got Baltar's side of the story, from Baltar's perspective, which was too cynical (naive?) to actually believe he'd been touched by God. I never believed it because he never believed it himself. But that's why his speech to Cavil in CIC (and his outing of Kara as an angel in "Islanded") now makes so much sense — God was speaking through him all along, even if he didn't know why or how.
And as for Kara — the perfect ending, I thought. Something outside, something free, something beyond. (LOVED your comparison of her to Sleeper Cylons — that puts a pin right in it, and it's the best description I've read anywhere.) I could never see her and Lee living happily ever after together. Separately, yes, but their relationship would always have been marked and tainted by its beginning, which as we saw here was even worse than I imagined, with both of them drunk and stupid and lust-blind enough to fuck on the dining room table while her boyfriend / his brother lies passed out on the sofa five feet away. Not to mention cheating on their spouses with each other, which I don't think either of them ever forgave themselves (or each other) for. They were children together, always butting heads, never satisfied, always playing that game of one-upmanship; apart, they're adults.
I've also read a lot of muttering about how Adama shouldn't have left Lee behind, but we got that answer, too, back in "Revelations" (I think) — when Kara told him children can't grow up until their parents have died. It's time for Lee to be on his own, and become fully the man he's supposed to be, and he could never have done that with Adama watching over his shoulder. And I have no doubt at all that he'll find some pretty, sweet young thing to wander the world with him. He has to; he's Captain Apollo!
And Adama has to end alone, doesn't he? The Old Man setting himself out to pasture, watching the sun rise in the form of his one true love? As he still talks to her, reads to her, as if she's right there beside him. As much as we had to see Laura actually die (sigh after sigh after sigh), we had to see this. He's at peace with himself, home at last, and she's his angel now.
I've also read a lot of complaints about how a happy ending is somehow false to the tone of show, but I disagree there, too; this show has always been about hope, hasn't it? And having faith? And they all got the ending they earned — Tory and Boomer paid the price for some horrifying actions, Tigh and Ellen get to enjoy a life together finally — after thousands of years of waiting, and without Bill Adama standing on the sidelines — and Tyrol gets to let of it all. Laura gets to die knowing she fulfilled her own destiny, and next to the man she loves (and knowing she died happier than she ever could have on Caprica). They're all at peace.
As for the coda, I thought it was executed a little clumsily, and the cameo sort of pulled me outside the story, but if Ronald D. Moore wants to give himself three seconds on camera as a little pat on the back for the EIGHT YEARS of his life that he's shared with us, I say AMEN. He's earned that, and much more. And he got to tell it the way he wanted to. And one poster on TwoP said something about the ending not being about answering, but asking — it's not a warning, it's a question. Which is true, and another thing this show has always been about: how do you treat the things you create? (As well as your lovely question of How do you treat the things that created you?) How do you earn the right to keep going? BSG doesn't have the answers for that, we do.
Anyway, it's been fun, my friend, a treat and a gift and a privilege, and thanks for letting me share it with you here. It's part and parcel of the experience of BSG for me, and I'll always be grateful.
March 23rd, 2009 at 2:57 pm
[...] R.A. Porter at DreamLoom: Only by losing a fifth of their number and suffering the privations of space travel, occupation on New Caprica, constant war, and the threat of the end of humanity could the fleet realize the gift they had been given in Earth. To end the cycle – at least to try to end it – the ways of the past needed to be abandoned. Given the verdant Earth, teeming with life, I would argue it was easy for Lee to convince the fleet to throw away all ties to their former civilization. [...]
March 24th, 2009 at 6:00 pm
I'm adapting a post I left elsewhere: I'm still reflecting. I definitely loved the finale, but I have mixed thoughts on the different resolutions for each character. Roslin's death was very well-done. Nothing I can say that would add to the current discussion on that score. I loved the successful pairing of Caprica and Baltar – and got the definite vibe that they might find themselves able to have a baby of their own soon, now that they could both love and respect each other. That moment where Baltar broke up saying "I know about farming" was really the first moment in the whole series that he was allowing himself to be an authentic person, stripped down and offering his true self to the woman that he loved, reeling from the impact of those words and what they meant. I thought that was perfect, and the insight from the flashbacks really made that moment powerful.
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When I saw Helo and Athena and Hera walking hand in hand together, I was up from my chair and cheering that Helo was OK. I had no idea how attached I was to Helo until I thought he was dead. That family deserved a break, so more power to them. Beautiful. I could see Tyrol going into self-imposed isolation (love the idea of him being a highlander). I cheered when he killed Tory, she has had that coming for a long time and I would have been really disappointed if there was never a reckoning for what happened to Cally – even though I never liked Cally in the first frakking place. . .
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The scenes with Lee really made me reflect back on how much I've never been able to stand him. And I have put way too much effort into trying to figure out why, only to come to the conclusion that Lee was horribly miscast and I think I would have been able to relate to him if anyone else had been playing him. I'm an idealist by nature, a believer in civic duty and doing right and playing fair. I should have been able to identify with him, or at least listen to him without rolling my eyes. But the character has always been layered with a self-indulgent arrogance that really turned me off. Actually, in hindsight, that's the one big complaint about the show, that Lee the voicebox of the liberals and philosophers and idealists always came off as such a clueless douchebag. I think that a better/different actor could have brought some layers of depth and accessibility to this character, who could have been a lot more interesting and charismatic than he actually was. His final moments at the end, when he was yelling his dreams of exploring and searching (which, btw, put me very much in mind of his liberated, joyful 'I love Kara Thrace' moment from earlier in the series) just came off pretty flat and lame to me. I get what he represented and how I was supposed to feel at that moment, but I just rolled my eyes (again) and wished he would shut the heck up (again). But then…
March 24th, 2009 at 6:00 pm
Starbuck just disappeared! The only thing I wanted out of the finale was knowing what the deal is with Kara. And I didn't really get that. And I'm OK with that, because it was an answer of sorts, just different than I was expecting. So she died finding the original earth, but her journey wasn't over (the island wasn't finished with her!) so she really was an angel of sorts, who came back to fulfill her purpose and is finally content and able to ascend, or be at rest, with some peacefulness of spirit and sense of closure that had always eluded her throughout her whole life. I can deal with that. Leading me to the bit of closure I liked least – Adama going off to live in self-imposed isolation in the wilderness. I just didn't get it. I just didn't like it. After all that struggle and long journey, him not settling with his family and friends just didn't ring true for me (for practical reasons as well as emotional ones), and left me seriously unsatisfied. Plus, no good-bye scene with Tigh – wtf?!?!
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I thought it was very interesting at the end, with head 6 and head baltar and the robots and the RM cameo. I'm still coming to terms with the spiritual implications of everything. I wasn't too crazy -initially- that the whole answer to everything was simply 'god did it, god wanted you to suffer so that the universe could learn a valuable lesson about technology and cycles of violence, god sent angel messengers to manipulate various folks to position them for a particular moment, god restored Starbuck in a brand new viper so she could plug in coordinants to two different earths, just 'cause, etc'. But they weren't really focusing on what 'god' is, they weren't defining it in a particular way, and after reflecting I did think that it was appropriate, and in line with the rest of the series. So I was on board with the vague hand of fate taking an active role in things, but then I thought that it really detracted from that by having head 6 and head baltar actually be walking the streets of NY at the end – I thought that cheapened the whole thing, because prior to that moment I had seen head 6 and head baltar the same way as resurrected Starbuck, as "they needed to exist for that purpose so therefore they exist and can then pass on", I could have accepted that easier. So I wasn't crazy about that final moment, but if that's the end of the story that RM wanted to tell, then I certainly respect it, and I'm just glad I was along for this wild ride.
March 25th, 2009 at 9:56 am
Battlestar Galactica is a show about parents and children. The cycles we keep repeating a child of a drunk parent becomes a drunk, the dead beat father has a son that will become a dead beat. Humans that build a slave race of cylons rebel . Ironically, these monotheistic robots make "skin jobs" in the image of the parents they hate because they keep repeating the mistakes the parents have made. One can change when one has a moment of self realization, seeing who one is and choosing between crossing the redline or repeating the cycle. The son becomes the father and the father become the son. I love you Battlestar so farewell "So say we all!!!"
March 25th, 2009 at 9:15 pm
Part 1
"We must learn from their mistakes and come together as a family." – Nobody learned anything from any mistakes nor from the past in the story the past because all history as well as technology and medical advance etc was thrown into the sun. This is not much of a lesson to learn.
So everything the Colonials learned, fought for and accomplished was sent to oblivion. Furthermore, the entire history of the human race including to present day has been predominated by torture, mass murder, mass atrocities and barbaric violence repression on both the individual and societal levels. Maybe we can even attribute all of human suffering and stupidity on the presence of colonial DNA.
March 25th, 2009 at 9:15 pm
Part 2
So the authors solved everything by "blowing everything up real good" so there was nothing left. They also taught us the important politically left lesson that we are all to blame for everything bad that happens to us and we should obliterate ourselves because of how evil we are
The story ended like it did just because the authors just wanted to end it, there was no logical development or cohesion with the restof the story. The only thread that made much sense was "Angel Thrace" but that was wasted condsidering that having made it to Earth the colononials simply obliterated themsleves.
March 25th, 2009 at 9:28 pm
Part 3.
"Furthermore, the entire history of the human race including to present day has been predominated by torture, mass murder, mass atrocities and barbaric violence repression on both the individual and societal levels."
- which could have been avoided or ameliorated had the Colonials kept their heritage of their culture and technology.
The fantasy that this is a "happy ending" is maintained by the deep ignorance of the viewing public as to the sufferings of humanity both historical and present day.
And lets look as Roslin. So she had no friends who wanted to remember her mourn for her or even maintain a historical record? Just toss her away under some stones in a forgotten field, everything she worked for forgotten with her.
Same for Adama, "Sorry, I don't care about no grandkids just forget i ever existed." Not rational!
March 26th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
A wonderful review, I congratulate you. And I greatly appreciate you beginning with a spot-on, honest dismissal of all the techno-geek nit-pricks who’ve flooded so many comment sections this last week. As William Blake once wrote, “What is grand is necessarily obscure to weak men. That which can be made explicit to the idiot is not worth my care.”
I agree with you that a later arrival on Earth would’ve offered a more satisfying tie-in with the series’ Greek mythos. But then 150,000 years certainly guarantee the near total destruction of the colonists’ physical presence. That certainly guarantees the “new slate” idea as well as highlighting the essential continuity of the human spirit.
February 8th, 2010 at 6:38 pm
There is clearly a ton to know concerning this. I think you created some good points in Features also.