Friday 3 April 2009

Oh no, not another Battlestar Galactica Finale Post

I should have numbered these, Made it a series, curse my lack of foresight

Teh internets have literally been split in half by the finale of Battlestar Galactica, For the record, I fall into the "Loved it" camp.

I was initially going to hold off on a review of this and instead lump it in with a review of the years TV once all the seasons have wrapped up, but word came in from the blogsphere that everyone had to blog about this so here I go.

This had a bit of everything, some brilliant action sequences, the battle at the colony had both great shots of Galactica fighting and some great scenes with the Human/Cylon alliance battling their way through the colony. The plot threads were suitably wrapped up and, ok, the ending owed a bit more to the hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Yes suddenly I was thinking "So, Baltar is actually a telephone sanitiser?"

Overall the ending was upbeat, and the body count was surprisingly low. Both unexpected. As always, the acting was superb, in fact a moment I loved was the scene between Caprica 6 and Baltar, when they both realise they have versions of each other talking in their heads.

Galactica had its share of padding and iffy episodes, but overall it really showed what you could do with Sci-Fi. This was not "Normal Person" friendly, yes it was dark, gritty and mostly low tech. But it wasn't like Lost or The X-Files, where it was set in the here and now with odd goings on. This was space opera, with spaceships, killer robots and all, but well written enough that people who can't get past "Its childish, they're in space ships, its not real" for Star Trek or Babylon 5, seemed to be able to put their prejudices aside and enjoy a stunning piece of television.

Goodbye Galactica, We'll miss you.

2 comments:

  1. Very well said. And very good point about the spaceships and killer robots, yet the show still being accepted by the general audience. Hadn't thought of it that way.

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  2. Its a point I've heard made before, in general the rule is, for mass market acceptability, set things in the real world and the present, then you're making "Grown up" SF. For the prosecution, I would like to point out that Galactica 1980 was set in the real world and the present.

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