Battlestar Galactica: What it Now Means to Me

I watched the finale last night. I’m still processing. I think I’m going to have to rewatch all four seasons before I can fully appreciate the scope of this beautifully executed wonder of a TV show. As it is, I’m not even sure how much I even retained of the finale, given that I watched it in the middle of the night, with my sister falling asleep on the other end of a Skype conversation since she’d already watched it hours earlier.

It’s weird to think about it being over. It’s been a long time since I’ve watched the series finale of a show… actually, now that I’m thinking about it, I’m not even sure I remember the last time that happened, or if it even has at all for me. I’ve seen the ends of shows that got canceled before their time, but those never have the closure they should have gotten. This kind of ending to a show is infinitely unsatisfying because you know you aren’t going to get the rest of the story the way it was meant to be told. You’re fully aware that the show was never allowed to reach its potential. And there are shows I’ve seen that ended long before I even started watching them, so I saw all the episodes mostly in one big chunk. That’s an entirely different experience as well – there’s never the agonizing waiting between episodes and suffering a cliffhanger lasts as long as it takes to get the next DVD out. Now, having finally been able to experience a show that lasted, reached its potential, fulfilled its goals, ended where it wanted to when it wanted to… well, let’s just say that this is what I prefer.

I went through phases where I adored this show, and truthfully there were also stretches where I wasn’t as interested as I wanted to be. I can’t tell you why, but I have to say that now, knowing the ending and where it happened on “reality’s” timeline, I can say that I think it was, overall, a brilliant accomplishment. And obviously it always was – the writing, directing, acting, all of it has always been outstanding. But the ending is perfect, and it brings it full circle, which is all I really wanted out of the ending. This ending makes it relevant. And it’s genius.

I don’t want to go into specifics of what happened in the finale in terms of characters and so on, because this isn’t that kind of post. I’m not thinking about those at the moment. Some of their endings were sad, some of them weren’t, some were strange or ambiguous or open-ended, but frankly, after sleeping on it, I think all of them were perfect. (Side note: Who knew Gaius Baltar would come out as one of my favorite characters of the series? That was utterly unexpected. That topic deserves its own post. For now I’ll just say… I love you James Callis.)

I don’t want to talk about any of that right now. At the moment, I’m more interested (probably unshockingly) in the behind the scenes process.

I went to look up the trailer for “The Plan,” the prequel movie airing this fall (probably) (…hopefully), and before I was redirected to Galactica’s main page on SCIFI.com, there was a page with some video blogs. Specifically, David Eick’s video blogs about the last days of production. These interviews and tours of the set and raw, inside looks at the people who worked on this show are really what have stuck with me the day after the finale. All of these people truly love this show. They loved making it and they didn’t want it to be over. They all said it’s one of, if not the best jobs they’ve ever had, and you can tell. Not just from how they talk about it but from the performances. These people loved going to work everyday. I was particularly moved by the video about the final read-through, with the last script. Everyone was crying. They didn’t show everyone, but I think it’s safe to say that everyone was tearing up. And I think that was when I really remembered what I want to do with my life. Lately I’ve been frustrated – I’m not really enjoying my one film class, I’m not getting to make anything I really love, and I keep hearing stories about how hard it is to break into the industry. I needed to see something like this. I needed to be reminded. Yes, it’ll be hard. Yes, it will be a challenge. I know all of that. But that is what will make it worth it. I want to be part of something that means as much to me as Battlestar Galactica has meant to all of them.

It’s the flip side to the Doctor Who coin. That show means so much to me, and it made me want to make something that means as much to people who watch it as Doctor Who means to me. These behind the scenes videos have made me realize that it can and will mean something huge to me too, when I get there. It’ll be hard and grueling and there will probably be a lot of frustration but in the end, it will be so much more rewarding than I can probably imagine.

I’m not saying that I’m going to be a writer on the next Battlestar Galactica – there’ll obviously never be another BSG. This show is eternally incomparable, a show that revolutionized science fiction as a genre and effectively illustrated how much can be done with the medium. But if I can be on a creative team that loves their job as much and is even half as fantastic as the one behind Battlestar Galactica, this film degree will have been beyond worth it.