Farewell BSG

One of the best shows ever had its final bow on Friday night, the “re-imagined” Battlestar Galactica or Ronald D. Moore’s* Battlestar Galactica* (BSG) came to a wonderful end tying up almost all the dangling plot points and answering almost all questions that needed to be answered.

In the aftermath of Friday night I’ve reflected on it some and in many ways I feel like I’ve lost an old friend. In this case, a friend that was along with me through the journey.

When BSG had its mini-series premier in 2004, before it even became a regular weekly series, my life was much different than it is today. In December of 2004 I was a few months past my separation, having my first Christmas alone and the myriad of feelings and emotions that went into that. I was a broken man then but I didn’t know it at the time, I did a good job of keeping up appearances.

When I saw the ads for the new BSG I knew I would like to see it and while I blanched at some of the changes (i.e Starbuck as a woman) I was looking forward to see what a new series would be like. I was totally captivated by it, the mini was outstanding and for a few hours I forgot about my troubles after all, what were they compared to almost the entire race being wiped out!

Over the past five years I have had this friend by my side in BSG. I hate to make myself sound like one of those people who gets so caught up in a television series that they lose all perspective on reality and immerse themselves in the program but this is truly the way I feel about the end of the show.

When I started watching BSG I was a very broken person inside and aside from the escape the show gave me it did something rarely done in science fiction — deviated from perfection. Sci-fi is almost always about perfect pristine ships with perfect technology and our perfect political systems and the perfect captains leading the way. Every character on BSG was far from perfect, they were human just like you and I are. The effort put into creating these characters is above and beyond any other show on television and that’s saying a lot for me. I was a huge fan of Six Feet Under but I’m sorry, BSG was just a better show and character study.

BSG was born in a post 9/11 world where things are much different than they were before. You could never tell the political persuasion of the creative team because in one instant they might be focusing on the brutality of torture and then the next instant the female president is flushing a Cylon out an airlock. BSG was like the best comedian — no one is safe from scrutiny.

So if you have never given the show a chance or don’t care for sci-fi I encourage you to hop on to Netflix or head over to iTunes and start with the Battlestar Galactica mini-series. If you can’t watch an hour or two of that without being drawn to the immersive story and characters there’s no hope for you. Give it a try, I think you’ll be surprised.

To Ronald D. Moore, the cast and crew of BSG and the folks at Sci-Fi I want to say thank you for bringing me the best television show I have ever seen. I’m sad that it had to end but all things must end as they say. I’m glad that BSG went out at the top of its game and as intended, it’s a rare feat for a television show these days. But I’m afraid just like all the great ones, we will never see its like again.