Battlestar Galactica

Finally wrapped up Battlestar Galactica this evening. It's been a long while coming, and while the series hasn't been all sweetness and light, overall I think that we both enjoyed it. Which comes as a little bit of a surprise given: (a) science fiction is basically pulp to C; and (b) how religious the series has gotten as time has passed - by the end it's all but introduced The Supreme Being as an on-screen character.

But any uneasiness with this latter aspect of the show is at least partially offset, for me at any rate, by the presentation of said heavenly presence in strictly deist terms. While the humans have an arcane, polytheist religion prescribed in a hokey book, the real deal is revealed in very non-specific terms. In fact via little more than various vague, but fulfilled, prophetic dreams and a handful of quasi-angelic characters. And - in an enjoyable twist - this religion is much more in line with the beliefs of the Cylons than those of their human oppressors-turned-oppressed. A nice touch indeed.

In terms of how the series was finally wound up, I thought there were a few other nice touches. Per my earlier missive concerning favoured themes, I was particularly pleased by how, in the end, the robotic Centurian Cylons, a group looked down upon by both humans and humanoid Cylons alike, finally won their freedom. And we both really liked the closing, far future coda that returns to the inevitability, or perhaps otherwise, of historical cycles.

I still wonder what happened to the Cylon "plan", however. Even mention of this was quietly dropped from the opening credits sequence. But the piling on of spooky coincidences and (semi-) satisfyingly-resolved prophecies made up for this - or at least distracted me from it. I know there's some TV movie that picks up on this, and we will get around to watching it, but I still reckon that the writers never really had an idea for this at all.

Overall, a recommendable series. It gets lost in the doldrums from time to time, and does wind up being pretty overtly religious in its resolution, but in a surprisingly non-offensive manner. I hope I'm not going soft!