Having studied and written about Ron Moore’s Battlestar Galactica as I have does not make me any less emotionally-connected to this amazing television series.  I never have been able to approach Battlestar Galactica dispassionately.  I don’t see how anyone could.  When I watched the first of the final ten episodes the night of January 16, 2009, I was stunned at how much emotion the writers and producers and actors packed into only one hour on television.  I was especially impressed by the performances of Edward James Olmos and Mary McDonnell, who propelled their characters into new levels of raw feelings.

But, this first of the final ten episodes was almost too sad to bear.  On one level, I felt a strong sadness that soon this series will no longer be.  But, as I was pulled into the story being told by this episode entitled “Sometimes a Great Notion”, I was overwhelmed with the sadness that the characters were experiencing.  For this is a story about the loss of a dream.  It is the end of a journey.  Any hope of an upbeat resolution to the various plotlines of Battlestar Galactica dating back to the first hours aired on Sci-Fi in 2003 seem dashed to bits, completely and utterly.

Simply put, the intense struggles to find the legendary lost planet of Earth have paid off.  But, while the crew of the Galactica has finally found Earth, they also have found a horrible mess.  The planet is lifeless after nuclear weapons devastated Earth two thousand years before the Galactica arrived.  As viewers, we all felt hope that Earth would be a welcoming place for the exhausted people from the Galactica fleet who so long have searched for a home.  Now it is clear that this journey to find a home is not quite done.

Part of the fun of watching Battlestar Galactica since 2003 has been trying to figure out whether the writers and producers intended for the civilization represented by our real-life Earth to have some connection to the fictional stories and characters on the series.  We wondered whether the Galactica would ultimately arrive at planet Earth at a time many centuries in our own past.  As I watched this series, I often felt that the plot would resolve in its final episodes one way or another such that the humans from the Galactica fleet would land on prehistoric Earth and then seed the development of the societies like ancient Greece and Rome.  The polytheist religion that the Galactica fleet brought with it seemed to call for some final plot development in which Earth’s religions would be directly affected by the arrival of these human colonists from distant places in the stars. [On Friday, March 20, 2009, the final episode of Battlestar Galactica revealed this very connection just as I had speculated in the original version of this blog post on January 19, 2009.]

Perhaps this particular plot resolutions will turn out to be what happens as we watch the final ten episodes.  Perhaps not.  After seeing “Sometimes a Great Notion”, I believe that we are in for a very rough ride to the end of Battlestar Galactica.  We know about a two-hour television movie entitled The Plan directed by Edward James Olmos, which will air in late Spring or early Summer 2009 shortly after the last episode of Season Four.  We also know about how the sets and props from the production of Battlestar Galactica episodes and television movies (such as Razor) have been auctioned off or destroyed.  We know about how Ron Moore has said clearly that this is really going to be the end.

So, here we are.  All of us who have followed Ron Moore and this unique and compelling series are heading decidedly into a clear finality of Battlestar Galactica with eyes open.  I suggest that none of us should hope for Battlestar Galactica to provide us with a Hollywood ending where there is a sudden turn towards the light just when the darkness seems so pervasive.  More appropriately, we really need to prepare ourselves for a shock of an ending like The Sopranos on HBO handed us in 2007.  For me at least, I feel that no matter how dark of an ending this turns out to be, the Battlestar Galactica ride has definitely been worth the years and the tears.