Best Show on Earth


I'm still trying to get over Revelations, the midseason finale in (the final) Season 4 of Battlestar Galactica. Perhaps because Admiral Adama and President Roslin were the adopted father and mother of the Fleet, the touching turn of their relationship in the final episodes of this almost-last season really stuck with me as the grand allegory for the series. They didn't fall in love so much as come up for breath and realize they had been loving each other all along, fathering and mothering, fighting for control, ceding and bargaining. As the humans and the fracking toasters had been, as the fleet itself had been, and yet in the end, the only way to get to Earth was to go hand in hand.

And Earth!
In an homage to Planet of the Apes, we alight at home in Brooklyn, gazing through the Temple of Aurora at the ruined Manhattan Bridge (rebar sticking out, here. no rebar in the brooklyn bridge.) The entire front line of the show, including the outed Cyclops Cylon, Saul Tigh, and his new (pregnant?) lover, Caprica Six, my beloved 'Starbuck,' Kara Thrace, Sam, Leoben (HOT), Momma Roslin and Daddy Adama with his banged-up hands cupping a handful of lifeless Earth, Apollo, now all grown up and rather presidential himself, DeAnna, Tory, Tyrol, they're all faced with this unsavory anticlimactic, radioactive end. Somehow, the Thirteenth Tribe of humanity has arrived at the same fate as the Twelve Colonies: they're slagged, and both humans and toasters are going to have to fight to survive. Well, way to take us back to the end, writers.

I can't WAIT until "early 2009" when the rumored ten final episodes comprising season 4.5 finally air. In the meantime, some interesting questions have been raised by fellow blogger Alan Seppinwall:

• The identity of the final Cylon
  
• The origin and nature of the entire Final Five
• The origin of the rest of the skinjobs
• The fate of the 13th colony, and what role (if any) they played in the destruction of Earth
  
• The identity of the person/persons/entities that have been orchestrating all this, and what it means that "All of this has happened before and all of it will happen again"
• The opera house vision and the fate of Hera
• What exactly happened to Kara when she went into the maelstrom, and what she's really the harbinger of (sic)
  
• Roslin's health
• The true nature of Head Six, Head Baltar, Head Leoben, and all the other "angels"
• Tigh and Caprica Six's baby
• The whereabouts of Boomer and whether any of the 1, 4, or 5 models are still out there

For me, the identity, or at least the direction, of the Prime Mover is the central mystery that remains. If all this was fated, I want to know why!Or, as my girl Heather Havrilesky over at Salon.com said: "How did this happen? Where is the final member of the final five, and was he or she somehow involved in the destruction of Earth? Could there still be a happy ending for the colonists, somewhere down the line? Isn't it pretty to think so?"


Here is what the series' writer, Jane Espenson, my idol from the happy days of Buffy The Vampire Slayer had to say about the fate of her creations, on TV Squad: "I think the real reactions are yet to come, just like in life. The beauty of this episode is in its urgency, in the tumbling breathless slide that lands us on that grim gray ...beach... And -- oh -- that haunting devastated city there, with the massive ruined temple and our people trying to find their footing. That image just kills me. Every time I watch this episode, I well up with hope, and it lasts right up through that handful of soil, and then the radiation counter breaks my heart all over again. I do not easily tear up, but the race to the planet -- don't the ships look like they're running?"



But in the meantime I am leaving myself to enjoy a few sublime images, so I will share and share alike. If you haven't watched this show, please don't deny yourself the pleasure/pain any longer. You've got until January - I'm looking at you.