I.                               Introduction

A.               The best you can say about the finale is, boy did we overthink this series

What started my reading and writing about the series was an e-mail which requested some opinions after the Season 4.0 final episode, and speculation about what’s next?

I was just watching the show without any outside opinions affecting my speculations about the show. I had many ideas that were not written down, simply because of time constraints. It becomes clear, as will be developed, that all the show’s fanbase was definitely overthinking this series.

B.                E-mail that started me writing and reading about the series

1.                  Here’s most of the nonsense I wrote, dated Sunday, June 22, 2008 12:56 AM:

>> "All this has happened before and will happen again."

>>

>> I thought the beginning of season 4 was weak but it got a lot better. I

>> have all the series so far on DVD, except 4, of course.

>>

>> 12 cylon models

>> 12 Lords of Kobol

>>

>> One of my theories is that humans are not humans, but like cylons, created

>> by real humans (?), playing out a recuring drama. Starbuck will lead

>> humanity to its end.... humanity ended on "earth" (the ruins didn't look

>> like they were from "our earth") which she discovered. If that is the

>> meaning, then the colonists are not human, by implication.

>>

>> My other theory is that the need to finish the series has resulted in some

>> loose ends, and some weak plot points, perhaps a reflection of the

>> writers' constraints, e.g., the making of Starbuck's boyfriend one of the

>> final 5. If the series had more time.... but there are movies and video

>> games perhaps.

>>

>> Who is the final cylon? One top contender I think is the Doc, since he's

>> like the character that is briefly introduced at the beginning, only later

>> to provide a pivotal plot twist. In his case, he has no "back story." The

>> creators of the show have stated that none of the current main characters

>> will turn out to be a cylon (they could be lying); no other minor

>> character is as central to the overall story, without playing an actual

>> central role.

2.                  For the record, the reply, dated Sun 6/22/2008 3:16 PM, was favorable

> John

> Do you think instead of the thirteenth tribe leaving Kobol and going to

> earth, it could be the other way around? Their [sic] was a Cylon attack on earth

> that caused everyone to go to Kobol and then everybody left Kobel and formed

> the twelve colonies? I do know that they are screwing us as late as March of

> next year for a new episode.  Could Dee be the final one? Or could they

> already be dead perhaps?

> Great thinking.

II.                            Comments on the e-mail exchange

A.               Wrong choice for the final Cylon

Well, not Dee, but it was a character who died, namely Ellen.

B.                Were the colonials artificial like the Cylons?

You can see that the theory that humans are artificial is still an open question, though not likely. However, you will see that I envisioned the “higher power” that is later affirmed as “god,” was a human power, though more advanced, not the implied artificial intelligence (more later).

C.               I predicted the 13^th Tribe were not human, but for the wrong reasons

Apparently, I thought the 13^th colonists were not “human,” that panned out, but certainly not in the way I envisioned it. I was theorizing that humans were also artificial, all humans. So not realizing that Kara had a further destiny to get the fleet to earth 2, I assumed that earth 1 was the end of the first true humans who evolved on Kobol. The 12 planet colonists were, in my view then, artificially created to play out the biological vs. mechanical drama, the real humans withdrawing to earth to sit out the action.

D.               Anders retcon

1.                  The choice of Anders turned out to be fortuitous

Finally, I think the choice of Anders as one of the Final Five was one of those retcon choices necessitated by having to end the series. However, it is a systemic perception that the final story arc was distilled loosely from the actual series threads and artificially hammered into a new, alternate story arc designed to lead to the end. The Anders choice was part of this, but ended up one of the more interesting ending threads.

2.                  You can’t always control how someone repays a favor

Recently two commentators on the series via podcast noticed that Anders fulfilled the role of protector on many occasions. He especially became the protector of Starbuck, a debt she could not easily forget when she finally learned he was one of the Final Five Cylons. Yet when he asked Kara for a favor, not to allow him to undergo brain surgery, and reminded her that she owned him her a few times over, she refused to risk his life as a return favor. She wanted to save his life and not jeopardise it just to recover his Cylon memories.

E.                Key final elements introduced at the eleventh hour

What reallystruck me was so much of what the characters did in the end of the finale was only set up in the last three episodes! Baltar becomes a farmer, after existing exclusively as the official colonial techno-geek (although cum messiah-figure). Why? Because his father was a farmer, which we only learn about shortly before the end!

F.                I found no one who was close to being right about the ending

I have yet to hear anyone come very close to predicting the actual series end. But for posterity, I’ve decided to type up what I wrote, pre- and post-finale. I am doing it in outline form, because the writing is all over the place in my handwritten notebooks, with no possibility of reconstructing it chronologically, except where it is clearly pre- or post-finale.

III.                          Kara’s resurrection

A.               Is Kara a “clone”?

The writers/producers have confirmed through various channels: no aliens, no time travel, etc. So, you cannot explain Kara’s body on Cylon earth in either of those terms. Besides, the wreck was obvious co-temporal with the current story timeline, e.g., the still-functioning colonial transponder that led her to find the crash, and her body was also only partially decayed. The only other theory is she is a clone, just like her new viper was a “clone.”

1.                  Kara’s viper may be a “clone”

Just like her “clone” viper, which was pre-programmed to interact with the Four of the Final Five, she has been programmed to fulfill her special purpose, or destiny, whatever that may be.

2.      You forget Kara found both earth 1 and earth 2

They’re written themselves into the darkness so deep that they could no longer see the irrelevant for what it was. Kara was anti-climactic. So, who she was had to remain an enigma to rescue the relevance of her character after finding Cylon earth 2. It is now in the history books. Just ignore the negative.

B.                Kara as a human resurrection via Cylon technology

I had another theory, that Kara’s consciousness was organically transferred to a new body on Cylon earth 1. Some surviving force on Cylon earth performed this operation, and installed new programming to ensure Kara would force the fleet to follow her back to Cylon earth. So, her death was literally a resurrection, though she was a human, and the viper was also recreated by the same surviving unknown Cylon force, another resurrection symbol. I think that, in light of the finale, she was resurrected by some agency, although that agency and the techniques used remain a series mystery.

C.               Misinterpretations of the Kara prophecy

I also might argue that the hybrid prophecies about Kara were pretty much fulfilled, in that the meaning of “harbinger” (herald/forerunner) and the subtle use of “apocalypse” (revelation) are generally misunderstood.

D.               Kara’s purpose and human-cylon cooperation

Her purpose was not left a total mystery, as it became clear her purpose was to get them to our earth, via the Cylon earth, which was used by “god” to reinforce the central message of the show: Cylons and humans must work and live together if both are to survive. In 4.5, Tigh reinforces the message: Cylon alone doesn’t work, human alone doesn’t work, only a combined destiny has any viability, as was proved out in the finale.

IV.                        Best case scenario

A.               All this has happened before and will happen again

1.                  Starbuck has acted weird ever since she’s returned from the dead

a)                Why would anyone care about Baltar “outing” Kara?

2.                  Galactica is dying

3.                  Boomer and the evil Cylons have Hera

4.                  The cycle is again repeating

Note: this “divine solution” of creating us as a human-cylon hybrid race is in danger of not stopping the cycle as we, 21^st Century humans, are treading the exact same road as our ancestors of 150,000 year ago: all this has happened before, and will happen again.” As endings go, this is relatively weak, in my opinion, though acceptible it seems to most.

B.               Irrelevancies

1.                  Viewed as a whole, BSG will remain one of the best series ever, despite the lack-luster ending

Really the entire series was in a class by itself. The bar seemed to be set too high, though. The ambiguities, the mystery puzzle, the plot that seemed to be crafted so much like a riddle to be solved, the predictions made based on the Last Supper photo, all these things seemed in the end irrelevant.

2.                  What seemed central to the puzzle turned out not to be

Many people were surprised that there seemed to be so many unanswered questions, or really, to my mind, unresolved plot threads that seemed to be central but which were left somewhat dangling. The central themes constructed to specifically end the series, however, were resolved more or less, the producers not wanting to blow up the world like Beneath the Planet of the Apes, but not necessarily answered in the finale exclusively.

V.                           The ending plot threads

A.               Purposes

1.                  To show that Cylons were just as faulty as their human counterparts.

B.                Machine resurrection and spirituality

Deanna has these spiritual experiences during the resurrection process, which shows that the machines have this correlation, perhaps because they are machines. Humans don’t resurrect in the Cylon way, so can’t come back to life with memories of life, death, the space in between and life again. In general the humans are more secular, dismissive of the gods.

C.               The “Temple of the Five”

The knowledge, meant only for the chosen one, was not meant for Deanna, but in the most ironic sense, the knowledge imparted in the temple was not really meant for anyone, since the temple supposedly had nothing whatsoever to do with the Final Five, according to Ellen after her resurrection. She described it, and the supernova explosion, as having nothing to do with the Final Five’s migration first to the Cylons and then, unwillingly, to the fleet of fleeing colonists. However, she states it had something to do with the Cylon migration from Kobol to earth 1.

D.               The Final Five Cylons

1.                  The Final Five are located in the colonial fleet

The Cylons are programmed never to think about the Final Five because they don’t know where they are, if anywhere, and Cavil has unbeknownst to them, secretly erased the memories of the Final Five and dumped them into the colonies to take their chances with a full-scale Cylon genocidal attack. Anders becomes the first of the Final Five to make scan-contact with a Cylon raider and now the machines know that at least one of them is in the colonial fleet. This realization triggers a civil war between the 6 Cylon model factions.

2.                  Knowing you’re a Cylon

It is the classic Greek tragic dilemma. How free can a programmed, artificial being really be? Anders seems the most human of the Cylons, and has the least trouble adjusting because knowing you are a Cylon is not the same, in practice, as acting like one.

3.                  The Final Five and their retcon component

a)                The idea of what the Final Five were did change

Though the idea of the final five Cylons was an early idea, I don’t believe their nature was the same at the beginning of the series, from what they later were revealed to be. Everyone thought the six Cylon models, 1-6 and 8, were the second group of models, and that for reasons unknown to anyone, the first 5 models, though somehow different, shared in their same genesis.

b)                The true nature of the Final Five

As it turns out the 7 models were created by the Five, who were biological Cylons that reproduced, who had developed organic memory transfer to save themselves from the rebellion on Cylon earth 1, apparently guided by their own "head" entities, and who bequeathed this resurrection ability to the 7 Cylon models in exchange for stopping the First Cylon War.

4.                  The missing Cylon 7

a)                Planting real false threads

Here it is one of those deliberately planted threads that seem significant – I am not saying this cannot be done -- but turn out not to be significant at all. There is a difference, it should be noted, between threads that are abandoned, and those constructed to deliberately mislead, fulfilling the red herring role. This usage, as I said, is perfectly legitimate.

b)                Inadvertantly creating false threads

There are cases, to be argued later, when the necessity to end the show, coupled with limits imposed on their creativity, caused practical decisions to be made within a time frame the producers did not have control over. The plot thread is, of course the missing Cylon #7.

c)                 Kara learned she was not the missing Cylon model

You don’t know, but can speculate, that the identity of the number could have been made significant, had the creative show element wanted to pursue it, but it was worth it just to keep the speculation going. Even Kara speculates that perhaps she is the missing # 7, but wounded Anders tells her the Cylon model would have been a male, but it was supposedly terminated, apparently fingering Cavil as the terminator. (There is some speculation that the Daniel 7 may have actually survived as Kara's father, or as a virtual piano player, but I don't subscribe to this interpretation.)

Copyright © 2009 by John F. Felix. All rights reserved.