To the shock of both myself and Ori – my dear BSG pal – I discovered that —

I didn’t think much of the finale one little bit.

The first 50 minutes are great.  I love space battles and gory shoot ’em up scenes, and the first 50 minutes ticked those boxes.  Really gritty and dark and at times very in your face.

However, the moment were Starbuck plots their destination to Earth 2, the whole show falls apart.  But before I go through my issues one by one, I do want to mention the things that were brilliant and made me cry (because although I thought the finale was a failure, I thought it was a failure with some superb bits of writing and some shining moments that make you realise how good a show BSG was).

So, the good (and you’ll note that many of these good moments come in the last 40 minutes…):

— The refrain of the original theme music when the fleet is sent into the sun.  Definitely got a tear from me.

— Every scene with Adama and Roslyn

— The bit where Baltar cries about being a farmer (one of the best character moments in the whole series and one that completely changes your perspective on who Baltar is)

— Baltar being the eventual hero (of sorts)

— The bit where Kara punches in the co-ordinates.  Some great directing and really pulse pounding stuff.

— The battle scenes.

— The whole chasing after Hera bit, which was nice and subtle and a bit spine tingly.

So, consdering I liked so much of it, what did I think was wrong… well —

— No clear answer as to who Starbuck was.  Is she an angel?  Is she God?  It’d be OK if the show had been more ambigous about other stuff, but considering we’re told pretty clearly that God is behind the whole thing, then why not be brave and actually reveal in words (and not a disappearing act) that Kara Thrace was an angel.  It just seemed a bit of a cop out.

— It was God all along.  OK, I know the show has always being very open about is spirituality and mysticism.  And that fits with the psudeo Mormonism of the original series.  However, when God is revealed to be the string puller, it all feels a bit… I don’t know… rubbish.  It probably doesn’t help that God’s agents are the smug Baltar and the sexy 6, who seem to have walked out of another TV show.  Too me it all felt ill-fitting.  And I also thought it was the least surprising of answers.  I just hope that Lost – my other fave – show – doesn’t do the same thing.

— It was Earth all along.  That really shit me the most.  I mean…. it was so cool when they revealed Earth at the end of season 4.5.  It was a great reveal.  But I thought it was a bit cheap and again taking the most simple path to make Earth 2 our Earth.  Douglas Adams did it far better 29 years ago, and I couldn’t help feeling that the Lee, in his explorations, would bump into the Golgafrinchams or Arthur Dent at some point.

— And wouldn’t the Raptor and Vipors leave behind some evidence, even if they did rust away…

— The final scene… which was just a terrible piece of writing.

I don’t know.  I’m probably missing the point here.  And if I was less cynical… maybe I’d have enjoyed the finale more.  And there was some enormously good bits.  But for me, this felt like a Rusty finale.  Some great bits mixed with some really shit bits resulting in a disappointing whole.