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I just watched the final two hours of Battlestar Galactica. Thank you, everybody. What more can I say? Thank you. Also: all my predictions were awful.

So, I happened to catch Battlestar Galactica: The Last Frakkin’ Special. You gotta love the name. Shows self-awareness — a sense of doing good work, but also a healthy sense of self-deprecation.

It’s one of those behind-the-scenes shows. This is good homework for the actor in me, but here are a few notes:

• It’s good to hear them talk about the influence on the show of 9/11 — not that you need to hear them say it — and grey hats versus black and white hats. (Will that reference to old westerns ever stop making sense, I can’t help but wonder.)
• Note to writers everywhere: They sold the show with making the president and also Starbuck women.
• Kudos to the SFX peeps. Those long decks … turns out they’re fake.
• Music: Bear McCreary is named Bear. That’s all you really need to know. There’s the long hair and the goatee. And all the synths. Note: Orchestral elements were forbidden initially.
• “That Saul Tigh would be one of the final five, I did not see coming. That was a total surprise,” says Michael Hogan, portrayer of Saul Tigh. “This is not a wise decision.”
• Nice to hear their cluelessness about the Fifth Cylon, how it morphed into what it became.
• “All this has happened before, and all this will happen again.” This is a line from Disney’s Peter Pan. Ha!
• Lucy Lawless doesn’t get BSG. She gets herself, however.
• Jamie Bamber should consider speaking in an American accent all the time. Really.

Oh. Yeah. I understand the finale has aired. I’ll get to that soon … including a summary of how wrong my predictions were.

Right off the bat, a difference: we go from “previously on Battlestar Galactica” straight to the opening credits. I don’t recall this ever before. There’s always a cold open, usually with an intense moment leading into the opening titles. Then, the opening music normally transitions from choral to exciting percussion with flashing previews. That too is missing in “Daybreak, Part 1.” Eerie. (Eerie is a funny-looking word when it’s capitalized, ain’t it?)

We are then endowed, as it were, with knowledge of what came before. Not just going back to Caprica City before the atomic horror, but a glimpse of creation. All very religious. Then the dialog begins, and we see a very Earth-like existence. We see our life before the bomb that will come, is what the writers are saying. Business, limos, kissing, drinking, celebrating, families, cooking, swearing, dying, yelling, normal “Earth” stuff (with all the actors playing themselves five years ago) — except Laura Roslin walking into a city fountain as part of a reaction to horrible news. That’s not every-day. That’s symbolism. So back we go to the Battlestar, and its and Laura’s dismantling.

Not much else causes me to comment throughout the episode. Except when Admiral Adama says to Cara Thrace: “I know what you are. You’re my daughter, and don’t you forget it.” Wha?!?! So I looked it up: he considers her a type of surrogate daughter. Oh. Okay.

Next week, in our final episode, we plunge pell-mell into a black hole and all die. Great.

Only one episode remains in Battlestar Galactica! Okay, two episodes, but they’re going to be Part I and Part II of a big final episode.

In “Islanded in a Stream of Stars” we get a strong sense of Hey I’ve seen this before when we see Anders babbling in a tub of goo. This is a hopeful event for the Cylons’ future.

Then we have a non-hopeful thing for humans, what with giving up on the title ship. I don’t believe it. The ship is falling apart, yes. The writers are certainly not afraid to go there, sure. Destiny of a species is much bigger than one machine, true. But I just don’t believe what Adama and Tighe say in the quiet ending to this awkwardly named episode (directed by its star, Edward James Olmos):

“So we’re gonna send her off in style. To Galactica, best ship in the fleet.”

“To Galactica.”

Look, listen: lotsa piano! I vaguely think there was some piano playing on a previous episode of BSG, but it seems pretty fresh to have a pianist in the bar in this episode. A pianist for Cara Thrace to flirt with and to take out her frustrations on. Frustrations that her destiny still isn’t resolved and there are only 3 episodes remaining! Time for three more instruments — a violin, recorder and accordion? — but surely not enough time to figure out what’s what with Starbuck! And Hera! And the whole shebang!

But seriously. The piano player remains nameless, and they name a composer we don’t know here in our world (Nomien?) — and discuss the pronunciation of his name. Lovely touches in writing, both those things.

But. However. Come on. Wowsa. Okay. Here’s the thing: about 15 or 20 minutes into “Someone to Watch Over Me” — a title of a great George & Ira tune from the days when piano was still king — there’s a close-up of the piano being played. I’m pretty sure the actor playing the piano is an actual piano player. (Wish I knew the actor’s name.) But something goes wrong when, after seeing a very strong connection between the action of his playing and the notes I was hearing, suddenly the last note of an arpeggiated run was sounded up an octave or two, and yet we saw him play the note down a half-step. Whoops! Or is that how pianos work in that world, man? Now that’s some mind-blowing philosophy.

And was that, or was that not, a visual reference to Chico Marx and his piano-shooting style? Little known fact: Chico pronounced his name with an “ih” sound in the middle, not as in the Spanish.

I am late in watching the latest episode of Battlestar Galactica and writing about it. But I never watch in real time, anyway. Thanks, “TiVo”!

Okay, in “Deadlock,” we see lots of Number Six (played by Tricia Helfer) and Ellen Tigh (played by Kate Vernon). It’s directed by Jane Esperson (most episodes are directed by men). I liked this episode. It was different from others episodes recently, except maybe for the part involving Gaia¹. No subtitles of where/when. “Human” experiences within relationships were its focus. And I got what the history of humans and Cylons were … after absorbing all the info last time and then seeing them talking about it this time. I get it.

BSG is almost over! I don’t know how they’re going to wrap things up in just four more episodes, but I was taken in by the strong shift in the story line. Such a different feel, and yet it seemed rite. Wurd.

Another episode of Battlestar Galactica. Such a turn from the previous episodes of fighting, tension, action, killing, plotting, etc. In “No Exit,” several main characters do not appear at all, but we instead see a lot of talk amongst the Cylons. The 12th one and some of those we haven’t seen in a while, the ones aboard Galactica herself. Talk, talk, talk. Geek talk. Lots of numbers: 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 13, 3000, etc. Lots of discussion about how this is part of history repeating itself, including the time frame on Earth currently (or at least in a period near the Holocaust). If you don’t know the show, there’s nothing to say about it. Even if you watch, what is there to say? (My friend Neil said this about the episode: “John Hodgeman? Hahahahaha.”) The first minutes with the 12th Cylon are the most important, it gets a little wordy. But, along the lines of where our present history and BSG intersect, go back and read James Parker’s article in The Atlantic from a couple of months ago. I think he nailed it, with his comparison to the views of L. Ron Hubbard.

One somewhat tangential thing I was thinking of: If I suddenly found out that reincarnation is how things work and that I had a past life wherein I did bad things, would I feel weighed down by that? Would I suddenly feel responsibility for that other person’s decisions?

Starting to watch the 4th episode of BSG‘s final half-season. More Felix Gaeta. More blah blah blah. Where’s Starbuck, the 12th Cylon, the stuff we’ve been waiting for?! In the words of a friend of mine, sent via SMS before I could even watch this episode:

Doood! Is it just me of has BSG been sorta off with the new episodes? I mean, who gives a frak about Gaeta? And a coup killing off the quorum?? I dunno. It’s feeling weird.

I concur.

But the good of this episode: the talented Mark Sheppard is brought back to play Romo Lampkin, the tough lawyer who cares so much about animals. He gets hired on a “field trip for justice” — to defend Admiral Adama on charges of treason. Good actor, good character, good plot point for our times. Nice!

Okay, the episode’s over now. So much death on this episode. Useless killing. Just like our planet here. Damn. But maybe the good guys prevail in the end?

Quick summary of “The Oath,” the latest episode of Battlestar Galactica: Revolution! Dead and wounded! A big percussion-filled finish with a shout of “Fire in the hole!” followed by the thrilling but dreaded “to be continued” across the bottom of a black screen!

So — watching this episode late at night, just before hoping to fall asleep was a bad idea, is that what you’re saying? Ay, ay, ay! Stay tuned.

Just watched the 2nd episode of Battlestar Galactica season 4.5, which from Wikipedia I see is titled “A Disquiet Follows My Soul.” This episode seemed to skip over obvious plot points I wanted them to get to — but that’s nothing new to BSG — and mostly raised questions: What’s the timing of this in relation to The Face of the Enemy (the webisode thing)? Important because of the growing role that Felix Gaeta is playing. Sure, the overarching theme after discovering Earth is that things are falling apart, but what’s up with Cara Thrace and that argument with Felix Gaeta? When the episode doesn’t focus on Starbuck, she usually baffles me. What did they say about a Cylon getting killed? At the top, we kind of received confirmation about the gender of, and therefore we got confirmation about the actual identity of, the 12th Cylon, didn’t we? Finally, did I miss a step in the relationship between the President and the Admiral, or is this the episode where they finally let us know what’s been going on? Or is this the first time it’s happened between them?!

As a side note, I’ve discovered quizzes on SciFi.com that actually help explain things.

In all, this episode took some weird turns and might even be dissatisfying. Guess the episode is well titled. I hope that in a week or two it will make more sense, and my soul will settle down.