BSG lands east of Eden

Spoiler alert.

We finished Battlestar Galactica last night. Not everybody was happy with the finale (HT). They didn't find plausible the idea that 38,000 star-traveling humans would give up their technology to inter-marry with hunter-gatherers.

Yeah, like an aircraft carrier in space is plausible. Dude, it's a TV show. It's a science fiction TV show. Isn't a willing suspension of disbelief something like mandatory? At any rate, it's no less plausible than positing a glorious Gondor some time prior to the wretchedness of Neolithic western Europe.

I thought the ending was wonderful. Have you ever toured one of those World War II era battleships or aircraft carriers that are tied up in various ports? Can you smell the strong odor of metal and oil, activated by summer heat? I thought it fitting that Laura Roslin didn't have to die with that smell in her nose. Ahh, green grass after five years of blue-gray steel illumined by fluorescent bulbs. I was happy and greatly relieved for all of them who made it.

Mainly I was happy for myself. After the mutiny, after listening to Galactica's hull groaning, after Cavil capturing Hera, the only way I was able to watch the next DVD was when Laura pointed out that it was the last one. I'm not sure I could have taken much more betrayal, loss and the attendant despair--even though it was just a TV show.

So, Baltar and Six are Adam and Eve, right? She tempted him; he yielded out of love; their conspiracy destroys a world, but they are the god-parents of a new civilization, wandering off into the Veldt to cultivate a plot of land. That's how I took it. And thinking of it in this way added a certain power to the Christian teaching on original sin that I had not felt before. Caprica wasn't paradise by any means, but as an icon of what might have been, it helped me feel a sense of "paradise lost" that the doctrine has always failed to communicate to me. Plus, Baltar and Six, unlike Adam and Eve, experience a kind of redemption in their own lives, rather than being relegated to anti-types of Jesus and Mary, who come along much later to fix it all.

What'd you think?

Comments

[Jennifer]

First, congrats on making it through. I know exactly how you feel - it's emotionally exhausting to watch. So, regarding the finale, this is is what I wrote in an email to a friend when the finale aired:

1. The Opera House vision. Unsatisfying. All the vision meant was Baltar and Caprica physically bring Hera into the CIC and Athena and Laura catch up later cause they couldn't get through the airlock door? The vision seemed so important, I'm not satisfied with that.

2. I didn't need Angel Baltar and Angel Six explaining The Moral of The Story in modern Manhattan. I know the moral of the story, and so does everyone else who stuck with the series all the way through. It should've ended on Bill sitting by Laura's grave.

I don't mind not knowing exactly what Kara was, but I would have liked to know if the Cylons will be able to have children with each other now or just with humans.

Damn frakkin Baltar made me cry - "I know about farming."

"So much life." Good last words from Laura.

Do you feel cheated that they found our Earth which really wasn't the other Earth after all (though I swore that was the ruins of the Brooklyn Bridge they were standing on in that other episode)? That it somehow lessens the impact of finding the original Earth in ruins?

[Marvin]

There's a lot of reasons to hate Baltar, not the least of which was his penchant for lying even when it served no apparent good, like when he lied to the Cylons about not finding anything interesting on that decimated base ship, but I grew to root for for him in spite of myself. The dead cat lawyer guy who got him acquitted for collaborating with the enemy and then dropped him like a hot potato told him, "Don't worry. You're like a cat. You'll land on your feet," and I had to smile. When he finally choked up in the last episode, I forgave him for everything.

I love Gaius Baltar, even more than the ladies do.

[Lee]

I liked the finale a lot more than the internet fanboys, though I agree with Jennifer that the last couple of minutes almost spoiled it for me. I think it was a necessary payoff after four bleak, claustrophobic seasons in space (well, with one-half season on the nearly-as-bleak New Caprica). I think the relationships between Adama and Laura and Adama and Tigh became the best part of the show, and it was nice to see those characters get some peace. (Unlike Moses, Laura at least got to spend a little time in the Promised Land!)