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March 27, 2009
TV : The end of BSG 2.0
Last Friday, the final episode of the new "re-imagined" Battlestar Galactica aired; and so what has been one of the greatest series on TV has come to and end (although at least one made-for-DVD movie and a prequel spin-off series is on the way). It has been interesting to see how many professional television critics have been willing to call this a "great TV series" and not just a "great Science Fiction TV series". Certainly I think that BSG 2.0 compares favorably in terms of writing, acting, and significance with series like "The West Wing".
An interesting indication of the significance of this series is that last week, the Deputy Director of the United Nations Human Rights Commission invited the cast and writers of the series to come to the UN and serve as the panel for a discussion of the human rights issues raised by the series. I can't think of another TV show that has been asked to present their views to the United Nations.
This is however quite fitting for BSG 2.0 – a series that dealt with both sides of issues like torture, terrorism, racism and many others. At its most basic level, it is a series that asks: at what point do the actions of the human race render us no longer worth saving; or as Commander Adama says in the pilot-miniseries:
You know, when we fought the Cylons, we did it to save ourselves from extinction. But we never answered the question "Why?" Why are we as a people worth saving? We still commit murder because of greed and spite, jealousy, and we still visit all of our sins upon our children. We refuse to accept the responsibility for anything that we've done, like we did with the Cylons. … Sooner or later, the day comes when you can't hide from the things that you've done anymore.
That's what the series was all about – answering Adama's question "Why are we as a people worth saving?"
Of course what everyone has been talking about this past week is if the final episode was a worthy conclusion to such a great series. On that topic, I can say, for me, it worked; although I do understand why some people were disappointed.
Heading into this last half season, a few things were clear to me. The first was that that there was some third party at work (in addition to the Humans and Cylons). Particularly with the re-appearance of Starbuck and some of the benevolent coincidences which occurred, it was clear that events were being manipulated by some unseen party or parties who's agenda was different from either the Cylons or the Humans. In the original 1978 BSG series there were the episodes "War of the Gods" parts 1 & 2, and "Mission to Terra" in which the existence of the "ship of light" was established (with its crew of highly evolved beings). I kept expecting for some re-imagined version of the "ship of light" to appear and to be shown to be behind some of these events (in the 1978 series, they were even responsible for bringing Apollo back to life, so it would fit for them to be behind the return of Starbuck).
The other thing that was clear to me was that the gods/god that the Humans/Cylons worshiped were real beings. The stories the Humans/Cylons told indicated that they weren't talking about some ancient mythological abstraction; but rather beings who were quite evident to a technological culture. As an example the "god" named Hera committed suicide by jumping off a cliff after the Humans started to leave Kobol in spaceships and was buried in a very real tomb that had technology beyond that available to humans. That's doesn't sound like myth; but rather something that was actually observed (ignoring for a moment whether the term "god" can reasonably be applied to a creature that can commit suicide that way).
So in the end, my sense was right; but the writers chose to keep things vague. The bottom line is that there was a third party at work behind the scenes – "god" (although we are told he doesn't like to be called that). However, details on who and what "god" is (or even if there are more than one) was left unanswered. Now there seem to be many who object to this as "Deus Ex Machina". I think that is an unfair characterization – that term is generally used where something that does not flow from the rest of the story is added at the end to wrap up the loose ends. Yet as I have argued above, I think saying "god did it" is in fact one logical conclusion from what has been presented in the rest of the series. All that is missing is an explanation of what god is, and I can appreciate the writer's decision to leave that question unanswered.
I may not agree with the theology of the series; but as a presentation of what humanity is, it has few equals.
Posted by Steven at March 27, 2009 05:00 AM
