Welcome to the cult. It's honestly the greatest show I have ever seen, and that's not just exclusive to scifi or drama, just in general.

It's really unfortunate that there's such a stigma people possess towards it that keeps more from seeing it. Battlestar Galactica just sorta rings in most people's ears as 'that nerd show' or another cheap Scifi production, but hell, you could show this show to your sweet 80 year old grandma and get her absolutely hooked it's so fundamentally well produced and wrote.

Some things that detract from it here and there sure, namely one biggy that anyone who's seen it knows about, but really just dust on a diamond.

Fuck, OP here. I was just looking up info on the series via Wikipedia and I found out who the last Cylon was. Sadface.

>>139
What's the big thing you're talking about? If it's something that happens in season 4 just throw some spoiler tags on it for me if ya don't mind kind sure, and then I'll talk about it once I'm finished with the season.

>>140

The ending

>>141
Oh, I liked the ending. Loved it even.

I have mixed feelings about BSG.
***MAJOR BSG SPOILERS***
(I don't know how to do the blackout text thing so bear with me)

There was way too much pretentiousness, especially anything involving Gaius Baltar and his imaginary girlfriend, or any scene set onboard a Cylon ship. The religious shit bugged the crap outta me. Also way too many flashbacks, most of which seemed to go nowhere and just eat up time.

Lee and Baltar are similar to me in that the writers didn't seem to know what to do with them. "Oh, he's a fighter pilot! Now he's fat! Now he's a lawyer! Now he's a Senator! Now he's, um... President!" What? Same with Baltar... what the fuck was with that cult shit for the entire last season? So much wasted potential for one of the best actors on the show.

On the plus side, the space battles were fantastic, and the acting, characterization, and dialogue were all top-notch, something that seems to elude most sci-fi shows. There were some great characters that actually evolved. Felix's mutiny is probably my favorite storyline of the whole series. Watching that guy go from loyal officer to an angry, bitter shell of a man was one of the most haunting things I've ever seen in sci-fi.

The other thing I really liked was the attention to detail... the sets were amazing, and the ship felt real. And having totally different sets for the Pegasus, even though it was only used for a handful of scenes, was awesome. Plus, they really nailed the military hierarchy and command structure... Having served on an aircraft carrier for four years, it was refreshing to hear some real military terminology on a sci-fi show. Come on, Star Trek, "First Officer"? The dude's an XO and that's that.

But then there's the ending... that fucking ending. The first part of the finale was OFF THE FUCKING CHAIN. The Centurions fighting alongside humans, the space battles, Chief Tyrol strangling Tory, and Cavil shooting himself in the head were all sick as fuck. Then we get a candy-ass poetry reading for the last 45 minutes. Not cool. Like a group of 40,000 people who've grown up with X-Rays, cell phones, and refrigerated food would voluntarily - and unanimously! - vote to abandon all the advances they'd made in the last thousand years. Fuck. That. Makes me wonder how many colonists survived the first winter on Earth.

I would've preferred the fleet find a habitable planet, call it "New Kobol" or some shit, and set up shop. Cut to 3,000 years later, and there's gleaming cities with statues of Adama and Roslyn and Tigh, and the fleet makes contact with a ship from Earth, our Earth, that's finally venturing out into the universe for the first time. Is it predictable? Sure, a bit, but twist endings aren't necessarily better endings (see: most of M. Night Shyamalan's work). At least there would've been some closure, and a sense of the whole journey not being for nothing. Or, pull a Dune and set the whole thing in the far future.

Overall, it was a good series, but it could've been a great series.

>>155

spoiler]text[/spoiler] for the next time you need it. Just throw in the first bracket

And yeah, I hear that the original plan was to have them settle in as the Greeks, which were the spark of western civilization and all. This would have made quite a bit of sense considering the colonists have fucking Greek Gods in the first place, and there's legends of technologically advanced proto-Greek cultures and such to draw off; a proper colonist origin of Earth civilization story could have been made out of it I think. Apparently it was changed rather late in the drafting though due to concerns of excluding non-western peoples and cultures, so we instead got the awkward Africa proto-human story with a misunderstood mitochondrial eve and logically fallacious destruction of technology.

How it stands now, I prefer the episodes between leaving the false earth and finding the new one to be a better and more impactual ending. That whole span where moral was shot through the floor and everyone was depressed and the Galactica was dying. Just sorta have an anti-climax following the slow and depressing last wanderings of the human species, until the ship eventual fails and everyone dies. It would be anti-climatic as fuck, but it would at least give a workable conclusion that keeps inline with the dramatic themes of the series and invokes a lasting emotional impact on the viewer. The Luddite proto-human Africa ending was just like.. the fuck is going on?

>>139
>another cheap Scifi production
Well, it did pretty much start as a Star Wars clone cash-in attempt.

>>155
Normally, I don't like asshole characters, but Tigh was always one of my favorites on BSG. Especially after he started looking like your card-thing there. Saul Tigh? More like motherfucking BADASS TIGH! And that's in a pretty good cast of characters to begin with.

>>164
Agreed. Both endings could have been awesome, but for me the first sounds better. But I know that if they did the second right, that shit would stay with you one way or another.

  I also think the show has the best version of "All Along the Watchtower". It felt so well when they revealed the first four of the final five cylons. That was my favorite episode of them all, I think.

>>166

Favorite ep? Pic oh so related.

I really really liked some of the stuff from the Pegasus arch too though, it's all so well spread out amongst the various episodes of it though that you can't really mark one over any of the others.

Ep 10 did have my favorite song of the whole series though, Prelude to War. Here's the show's musical director Bear McCreary solo playing it on an accordion: http://youtu.be/oPu3XBSlJyk

>>167
That video was awesome. And yeah, the Pegasus arch was amazing. Those were some of my favorite episodes as well.

As I mentioned in >>155 , I've gotta go with Felix's mutiny as my favorite eps.

Watching Tom Zarek and his homeboys gun down that faggot-ass Quorum was oh so satisfying.

Absolutely one of my favorite TV, maybe even entertainment-general, experiences. I agree with 155 about the cylon ships, and I was also dissatisfied with the ending though it's been some years and I can't quite recall my specific issues with it. I think I wanted more symmetry between cylons and humans, like an eternal back-and-forth.

But overall, it was all very fulfilling and reminiscent of my first and strongest sci-fi love, PKD. To me, that's what sci-fi should be... not focused on the PEW PEW SPACE BATTLE (but that can be part of it).. but more how the human mind that I can relate to deals with those speculative situations.

I also enjoyed Firefly (TV), Sunshine, and Moon (Movies), mentioned just because I'm often looking for new things to see.

>>190
I loved Firefly and Moon as well. Haven't seen Sunshine, though. Recommended?

>>198
Sunshine is the SHIT. Definitely one of the best sci-fi movies I've ever seen.

>>199
I'm watching as we speak, and I'm enjoying it. Thanks for the recommendation.

I think instead of the failure that Caprica was (though I did like some of it), they should have redone the series from the cylon standpoint

>>218

Well that was kinda what The Plan did, a little.

SAGE has been used.

>>219
I tried watching The Plan the other day, but god it was just really boring for some reason. I only watch like 30 minutes or something, though.

I also wouldn't mind a 1-2 hour mini-series about life on new caprica.

Haven't seen The Plan yet. Only started rewatching the series because I said I'd dvd it for a friend, then got sucked in again.

>>220

Yeah, it's more or less BSG: The Clip Show - The Movie.

SAGE has been used.

>>199
its good until about 2/3rds in when it tries to become a slasher.