Two of the better responses I've read to the mid-season finale or whatever the hell they want us to call it of Battlestar Galactica this past Friday are Todd VanDerWeff's and Alan Sepinwall's (the latter via Whitney Matheson). The title of Sepinwall's review is really sheer genius, by the way.

As I think I've said around here before, while I'm not of the opinion that the show j***ed the s***k this season (or at any time in the past), I haven't been thrilled with the way its emphasis has shifted from examining the human conscience through the prism of war and atrocity to an ourobouros-like fixation on its own mythology. (It's kinda cute how, in keeping with the final episode's title "Revelations," Comix Experience honco Brian Hibbs is recounting his realization of this fact like it's a genuine revelation; be warned that he doesn't bleep out the Dreaded Phrase like I just did.) So in keeping with that, I was at first disappointed with the way that the ep had to rush through, gloss over, or ignore entirely the major character beats that one would think should accompany the astonishing events that transpired. Some great reaction shots from Michael Hogan and Katee Sackhoff and a mourning montage from Edward James Olmos doesn't really cut it, given the enormity of what they're all learning and doing.

But then it occurred to me that perhaps I'm simply being less charitable toward the show than I used to be. Back in the day I used to praise the show for the liberties it took with conventional episodic drama pacing, how it would change the emotional status quo for individual characters at a breakneck rate and have confidence in the audience to follow along and construct the through-line on our own. The example that comes to mind, and I know it's not the best one, is the rapidity of Lee and Dualla's relationship from first flirtation to full-on thing goin' on, but hopefully you get the drift. I think getting grumpy with the show becoming a show about itself--coupled, not incidentally, with my first-ever viewings of Deadwood, a show that is about nothing but the characters' reactions to adversity and tragedy--has made me look askance at this particular episode in ways it might not deserve.

At any rate, the penultimate, celebratory montage and the final, grim tracking shot were quite magnificent, among the strongest visuals in the show's history and on a par with the best visual moments from rival genre exemplar Lost (a show that pays a lot more attention to the memorable image than BSG, historically). I rewatched them with my wife, who doesn't watch the show at all, and with minimal set-up from me even she was able to appreciate their impact. If push had come to shove during the strike, it'd have made a wonderful series finale too.

But in taking us to Earth in all its burned-out glory, the final minutes of the episode enable us to make sense of the preceding demi-season in ways that were impossible to do before. I said last week that I was no longer sure what the show was "about," but that was because I was seeing the sudden monomania about Finding Earth through the prism of the belief that we wouldn't actually reach it until we only had a couple-three episodes left in the entire series. If that were the case, I figured we were in for an ever more regressive examination of continuity minutiae, the onset of which felt completely arbitrary. But by taking us to Earth now--a move probably necessitated, as an astute friend of mine pointed out, by the possibility that the show wouldn't make it through the strike, and Ron Moore's desire to see his promise to the fans fulfilled come what may--that makes this half-season "about" the desperation of these characters to find their new home, and the crazy, erratic, illogical, life-upending moves they're willing to make to get there. It makes sense as a whole. And of course it will be exciting as hell to see what happens now that these two formerly warring societies, still pursued by the more extreme Cylon faction, have had all their dreams turn to shit.

Posted by Sean T. Collins at 12:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)