Battlestar Galactica's End Officially After Season 4 356
Ant writes "First it was off, and then it was back on. Yahoo is now reporting on a release put out by David Eick and Ronald Moore stating that they will conclude Battlestar Galactica at the end of Season 4. They said it was a creative decision, and that they wanted to end the show on their own terms. The show was always planned with a definite beginning, middle and end, unlike many other sci-fi shows and dramas. Sci Fi Channel has accepted the decision. The news had been foreshadowed this spring through statements from stars Edward James Olmos and Katee Sackhoff. Ronald Moore himself had said that the show was heading into its final act, although he said the final act could be one or two more seasons. Now we know that the final act will last for one season. The special 2-hr. episode 'Razor' starts off the season in November. The first regular episodes of Season 4 will air in early 2008."
Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
I understand that after you blow away half a season's effects budget of something as incredible as "Exodus", a handful of bottle shows are inevitable. That's not what I minded. But FFS....even in a bottle show, you ought to be able to find some way to advance the bloody plot! And I'm sorry, but Starbuck and Apollo being all emo over each other over and over and over and over again ain't what I mean by advancing the plot.
And recycling the godawful old "doctor gone evil and killing patients he does
This whole season sucked IMO. (Score:5, Insightful)
Frankly for me the show has never lived up to what Season One produced. The show had direction then, to me it lacks it now.
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Bang Versus Whimper (Score:2)
STE ended on a whimper. By contrast, Battlestar Galactica ends with a bang.
"Right, you are! That Star Wars I & II sucked, also forget not!" exclaims Yoda.
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More like it started weak and stayed that way until early in season 4 when Manny Coto took over. But I guess Berman couldn't stand to put him in charge of the series finale, so it was as mediocre as the previous three seasons.
But yes, I am glad BSG is going to go out with a bang ins
You give them more credit than I do (Score:5, Interesting)
Old enough to remember watching the original series on TV, I was thrilled with the mini-series, and Season 1 was solid drama with fantastic characterization. Season 2 started strong, but aside from the odd bit of goodness appearing at random, I'd say the show got pretty sketchy after the whole Pegasus thing.
Making it worse, the entire New Caprica plot line which ended the second season went absolutely nowhere, and the spent the rest of the third season hitting a big red reset button which pretty much rewound us to the point right after the mid-season 2 Pegasus arc. Yippe, I love watching a season and a half of TV where the producers produce random plotlines, and Adama and Rosyln, who had previously been inspired characters, were written as "stupid" and thus even the character drama was removed as well.
A real shame in my opinion; however, I'm happy to hear the fourth season will be their last. Perhaps that will inspire them to tell an actual story and we'll end up with a decent finish (and I can just go on ignoring all content between mid-season 2 and the final season =).
--
~AC
MOD PARENT UP. (Score:2)
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Leave the poor guy alone, he's married. BSG is as close as he's gonna get...
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Tigh: I'm telling you, there's Cylon sabotage aboard this ship!
Adama: You're telling me there's sabotage? With music?
No, Colonel Tigh.
That sound you're hearing?
That's the sound of the writers pissing away three years of hard-won credibility in the space of seven minutes.
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll gladly recant if I'm wrong, but it seemed pretty obvious to me that Starbuck is the 5th of the final five, so we've seen them all.
And I think that sucks. Having 4 to 5 major characters (Okay, so Tory is not a major character and Anders is debatable) suddenly turn out to be cylons smacks of retcon to me, and it renders all their previous development with these characters flat and uninteresting. I'm mostly referring to Tigh's callous and unflinching bigotry towards the "Toasters," and the relationship between Tyrell and Sharon (Boomer/Valeri, not Athena/Agathon).
If I were to go back and watch season one and two again, this lame Shyamalanesque twist will have already polluted my perception, and those stories will seem meaningless, overpowered by the blunt graceless irony of "but HE'S A CYLON!"
I thought the end of season two was bad, but this is worse. It retroactively ruins parts of the series that were previously good.
Re:Good (Score:5, Informative)
The entire premise for the show is that this museum piece, Galactica, was built in an age when humans were extremely paranoid about infected networks, as they nearly lost the previous war due to their computers being too powerful and thus, vulnerable to intelligent machines. Galactica is the only ship that survives the Cylon attack precisely because of its low-tech configuration, and it is their major playing card in strategic engagements. In their rebuilding efforts after taking damage, they struggle with this rule to keep it dumbed-down and non-networked. I take it you've missed some key episodes, like the pilot.
Re:Ok but... (Score:5, Informative)
They survived because they made a random FTL jump to the middle of nowhere and had time to figure out what went wrong (i.e. Six's virus in Baltar's program). They had also already been tipped off to the fact that something was wrong with their computers by the fact that the rest of the fleet had been slaughtered.
As implausible events go in BSG, the explanation here is one of the most sensible.
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Why not watch the show? They explain all of this.
Gaius Baltar devised a brilliant new command and navigation program that was installed on all computers in the fleet. Six put in a backdoor in this program that allowed Cylons to r00t the new system and disable them. That's why the entire Colo
Re:future tech (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:future tech (Score:4, Funny)
I bet if they used SFTP engines instead the cylons would have a harder time hacking into their computers.
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Fascinating (Score:5, Insightful)
My money is on "Earth is the Cylon home world" or something similarly devious.
Re:Fascinating (Score:5, Interesting)
Now wouldn't that be funny? (Score:3, Funny)
Now that would be a way to end it with a bang!
Re:Fascinating (Score:5, Funny)
Humans: NOOOOOO0000ES!
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So Tricia Helfer would then be my mother? Damn you! I'll never be able to fantasize about her again!
Now, what did I do with my analyst's phone number?
Close... (Score:2)
Re:Fascinating (Score:5, Interesting)
The Cylons were using the fleet to find it (Kara's destiny is to find earth, that's why Leoben was so obsessed with getting her trust). And the Cylons were created by the colonies who have no idea where Earth is. There is no chance at all that it's their homeworld.
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Contains S03 ending spoilers (Score:2)
HELLO, Kara's destiny is to find Earth. The Cylons have her AND superior FTL technology. They made it to the musical nebulae before the others and used Kara and whatever clue is to be found there to get to the end of the trail.
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How about this (admittedly remote) idea. First, background:
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STEP AWAY FROM THE COMPUTER!!!!
Now, turn OFF the computer and all electronic equipment in your house.
Go outside. Wait for a group of nice young men in white coats stop by.
Do not go back into the house until after the men in the white coats give you permission to.
Re:Fascinating (Score:5, Insightful)
For a show like this you can leave certain character reactions up in the air. Maybe a character will hold up through the events, maybe that character will crack. That's just like real life, you either make it or you don't. But by God, in real life your backstory is fixed. You don't find out you've got an unknown twin brother with an evil goatee, you don't find out your father is actually your arch enemy when it's already been established your mother and he weren't even on the same continent when you were conceived, etc. If there's some huge chain of events going on in the story like some massively complicated Illuminati plot, your understanding of it may change over the course of the story but the original motivation of the conspirators would not. Ok, you've got the cabal and they decide to do w, x, and y to bring about the fruition of z. That's all established. Now maybe some of the cabal decide that z ain't such a hot idea but that doesn't change what w and x were.
When you get right down to it, here are the facts about Galactica:
1. RDM assembled a great cast and crew who know how to put together a great-looking show.
2. His original idea extended no further than the miniseries
3. When the show was picked up for a full season, he set his horizon no further than the next episode
4. The only far-future plot element he had in mind for sure is that the Peggy would make an appearance.
5. Everything else is spitballing.
In other words, there is currently no explanation in mind for why:
1. The Cylons got religion in the first place.
2. What made them think attacking the Colonies would satisfy that religion.
3. What their motive is for pursuing the fleet
4. Why they want to breed when they are already capable of making clones.
5. Why the Cylons now want to find Earth
6. Why Cylons want to look human in the first place when they were fine as machines
7. How characters like Tigh, who was alive before the beginning of the first Cylon War and decades before skinjobs were invented, could in fact be a skinjob, especially when RDM already stated that skinjobs are not based on any preexisting colonial humans.
I'm absolutely convinced that when the final scene of the series finale is done, the Robot Chicken version of M. Night Sharmahoweverthefuckyouspellit will prance onto the screen and say "What a twist!" Either that or we'll get the singing/dancing alien from Space Balls.
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How did Seven, after returning from the Delta Quadrant, get all the way to Carpica?
What caused her to forget about her Delta Quadrant adventures?
Why did she increment her name by 1?
Re:Fascinating (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Fascinating (Score:5, Interesting)
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So that's where all those old programmers went after Y2K!
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Four of them are on Galactica.
Earth has already wiped itself out... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Earth has already wiped itself out... (Score:5, Funny)
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It seems logical due the deal with the Cylon internal struggles that have been made obvious they are not single-minded with a bent towards killing all the humans. Some are seeking purpose just like
Wild Speculation (Score:3, Interesting)
Wild Guess #1
The 4 cylons who were "activated" in the season 3 finale try to kill Hera, while continuing to enable Galactica to locate Earth (ultimately with the goal to obliterate it). The reasoning could be that the 4 were activated to "correct" the pro-human behavior that the cylons have been exhibiting, and keep the cylon goal of human extermination on track. Each of the 4 has risen to a unique position of power that allows them to ena
Drag? (Score:5, Insightful)
Unlike some people, I remember when sci-fi on TV was truly awful, for example, 1979.
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Apparently it got good again at the end of season 3, I'll probably watch season 4 to see if it truly stopped sucking. Especially knowing it's the end.
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No, it got unbelievably stupid. Some people loved it, but it was a twist, for the sake of throwing in a twist. You didn't miss anything.
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THANK YOU! I thought I was the only one getting sick and tired of anticipating science fiction and instead, week after week, finding myself tuned in to All My Cylons.
As much as I love good portions of the show, it's fairly obvious (he says so right in the commentaries) that Ronald Moore is pulling the story out of his ass week after week, and that if the Cylons really do have a plan, they never shared it with him. With this ann
Um... no. (Score:2)
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Good... (Score:5, Insightful)
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I miss B5 but there's always the DVDs, and it just shows that doing a show right in the first place leads to more enjoyment in the long run.
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Not to mention Battlestar Galactica 7: The Search for More Money. Now, where is my box of "Battlestar Galactica: The Cereal"? I'm hungry.
It was inevitable (Score:5, Insightful)
They have a chance to go out on a high note and I am glad to see they are taking it. Sad, but I was p.o.ed that Deadwood and Rome ended too. There is precious little quality TV out there and the best series are winding down. I will be sad to see the Wire go too. Hopefully all these guys will give us some new quality series.
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Regardless, if they didn't even spend much time on the goldmine of low-special-effects/high content New Caprica storyline, dragging out an Earth v Cylon war isn't likely.
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The Colonial ships arrive at Earth, who tell them 'Piss off, and take your war with you. We don't want anything to do with it.'
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You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means.
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That's fine (Score:2)
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There has been a lot of whining about BSG. It seems that if there is anything like oh, character development a lot of sci-fi fans lack of social skills really jumps out. You get people calling an episode the 'soap opera' episode and I swear they watched the bad preview of 'Unfinished Business' instead of actually watching the show. The 'drama' in the preview
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Will the snake bite its tail or crawl away? (Score:2)
Either- inexorably the loop closes and the snake bites its tail again or this is the loop where they break the cycle. Perhaps the merged cyclon/human race is how they break the cycle.
Hopefully it will not have a pathetic ending like Bab5 (Ohhh. we are a big nasty race that's afraid to grow up-- god I felt like that ending invalidated the entire 4 years I watched the series up to there).
We always planned it this way! (Score:5, Insightful)
The best recent example of this is Lost. That is another show that supposedly had the entire plot (beginning, middle, end) mapped out from the beginning. However, the show became a huge hit, and everything got stretched out to where a large chunk of the episodes are basically filler that doesn't actually move the story forward at all. Now that ratings are declining, they've put an end date on it. However, had the ratings not slipped, I guarantee they would not be talking about end dates now. In my opinion, the show has dragged on at least a season and a half longer than it should have, and it still have 3 more years to go.
Re:We always planned it this way! (Score:4, Informative)
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The Brits have it right--limited and focused (Score:3, Insightful)
Set out from the get-go to make the show X seasons (preferably 2-5) and end it, especially if the show involves a quest or mystery. American network TV needs to get out of that "milk it for as much money as possible, then cancel it with no resolution as soon as the ratings drop" mentality and realize that they can make a lot more money in the long run if the quality of their shows remains CONSISTENTLY
"it was a creative decision" (Score:2, Insightful)
Sorry, I call shenanigan on the "it was a creative decision" bullshit. It's a business.
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You're right, it is a buisiness and in SciFi (and most TV for that matter) the single most important factor is finishing a third season. Once you have finished the third season your show is cleared to go into Syndication for the next 20, 30, 100 years. And that's where you get your life long pension of royalty checks rolling into you. No matter what happens from this point on nobody who worked on BSG will have
Good (Score:2)
I'd be sad when they're over, but happier overall because it was done right.
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Saving it from itself (Score:2, Troll)
Prediction (Score:2)
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No, Kara Thrace is the 5th cylon.
How do you think she came back from the dead?
I don't think she did [slashdot.org].
I also don't think that the victims of cylon brainwashing (some of whom were alive during the first cylon war, before the cylons evolved into replicants) are cylons themselves.
I'll change my mind when they show me multiple copies (and not in a dream sequence).
The Cylons Have A Plan (Score:5, Funny)
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Hey! You said that last time. What has been posted will be posted and has been posted before... or something...
My previous response to your comment on the previous thread [slashdot.org]. I'm lazy.
I post a variant of that (Score:2)
Good News (Score:5, Interesting)
This show had some great moments. Even season 3 had some good ones. Exodus Pt. II was one of the finest hours in TV history. But RDM clearly had no idea of where he wanted to go with this show. Making those people (in the finale) into Cylons, based on a decision made halfway through season 3, just kind invalidated everything that came before to me. And the idea of pulling the lyrics for "All Along the Watchtower" out of the "ethereal mix" that we're all tapped into was just too stupid for me to ever look at this as a good show again (I read that one in an interview). Some people are just blown away by any manufactured twist. I prefer a degree of coherence to my storylines.
slashdotter smarter than the father of numbers? (Score:3, Insightful)
Making those people (in the finale) into Cylons, based on a decision made halfway through season 3, just kind invalidated everything that came before to me. And the idea of pulling the lyrics for "All Along the Watchtower" out of the "ethereal mix" that we're all tapped into was just too stupid for me
1- Just because they think they're cylons doesn't mean they're cylons.
2- You just called Pythagoras [wikipedia.org] "too stupid for you".
SPOILER - they reach earth, but... (Score:5, Funny)
BSG Ending (Score:3, Interesting)
Zap, theres season 5 6 7. Humans fighting future cylons. Thats the only way the series could possibly continue. New cast and all. With cameos of every character to ever be on bsg.
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Wouldnt that require a lot more resources than just sending out space probes until one of them hits paydirt?
and they have a plan (Score:2)
I really liked the show, but this last season wrapped around Kara was too predictable, it more Saturday morning show than anything else.
Good News, Everyone! (Score:2)
2) The success of BSG has taught the Sci-Fi Channel some good lessons, and we can hope such lessons are applied as they develop new properties, thereby giving them an edge in the race to suck less.
3) I'm arran
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A big whole what?
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As long as that successor doesn't use stupid, invented words like "FRACK" to mimic vulgar language, I'm hope so, too.
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I'm going to have to ask you to kindly shut the frell up.
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How about wrestling?
Not necessarily (Score:5, Insightful)
SciFi has really shot themselves in the foot by letting this series go.
Keeping a good series on too long can turn it to crap. I like Galactica, but I'm not as excited about it as I was in seasons 1 and 2. As an example, the long, overdone Starbuck/Apollo melodrama has worn thin for me. With a finite time span, the series will likely tighten up and regain some of the focus I feel it lost in season 3.
Also, hanging on to an idea after it has outlived its usefulness is what makes so many viewers disgusted with the studios in the first place. Instead of churning out more of the same thing ("Hey, the Die Hard movies raked in dough, so let's make another one!"), studios need to keep experimenting. If SciFi takes the HBO approach, and isn't afraid to kill off shows *before* they get crappy, they'll be doing the smart thing, rather than shooting themselves in the foot.
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The season finale was brilliant. Perhaps you would be happier watching Star Trek.
Don't feed the... (Score:2)
all the cast members could listen to some Jimi Hendrix music and decide that they're [SPOILER IN CAPS]
Hendrix didn't write "All Along the Watchtower".
Troll [slashdot.org] -- A Troll is similar to Flamebait, but slightly more refined. This is a prank comment intended to provoke indignant (or just confused) responses. A Troll might mix up vital facts or otherwise distort reality, to make other readers react with helpful "corrections."
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To be honest with you, I was pretty happy watching BSG, until they decided midway through this season that they were willing to sacrifice consistency of the characters and sensible plotting in service of the mythology.
The season 2 finale shook everything up in a way that was dramatic, but completely organic. It made sense that things happened the way they did, and so it was genuinely suspenseful. The season 3 finale, on th
The Cylon God (Score:2)
parent is a [show x sucks] troll, but still... (Score:3, Insightful)
it was just some kind of CRAZY hallucination, like Starbuck really being dead!
We see her hand on the ejector seat lever.
There's a Cylon troop transport luring her there.
She's been declared dead and was saved by a Cylon ship before.
One of the Leobens is obsessed with getting Starbuck to fall in love with him.
Her henpit pressure had equalized to the atmospheric level due to the hole in her windshield.
She holds on to the very last second, and only when her ship breaks apart do we see her throw her brace for it.
Due to the documentary-style special effects, the shaking camera put her vip
Re:Crappy ending redux (Score:5, Funny)
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I don't think all the prostitutes in Nevada can suck that many balls. It can only get better from here (says desperately to myself).
Re:BS (Score:4, Informative)