Daybreak

[prog]

At first I was rolling my eyes in disappointment; it's one thing to go with a "Chariots of the Gods?" ending, but I couldn't rationally buy all the survivors unanimously deciding to go devo rather than found a city - it strikes me as fundamentally against human nature. As the episode continued, though, I made my peace with it; it certainly wasn't the first time BSG took a WTF turn like this (honestly, they tend to do it at least once an episode - see also Cavil's random suicide), and it was making the most of the direction that it headed in.

I wept quietly as things wrapped up, as I knew I would. But after the final shot of Hera in the wilderness, when the camera moved off her to pan through space and time and up onto a modern city, I totally lost my shit, sobbing loudly like a baby, straight through to the closing credits. I don't think I've really cried at the end of anything since The Empire Strikes Back, when I was seven years old. Then, I cried simply because the magic wonderful thing, like nothing I'd ever seen before, had suddenly stopped. This time, I thought I was prepared for it to happen again, but something about the exact note (ahem) that it ended on just floored me. I'm not sure I can express it yet; maybe I'll come back to it alter after I've had time to think about it.

I do like the nature of the thread they explicitly left without a clear resolution ("You know he doesn't like to be called that"), and state now that anyone who disagrees is a weenie. OK! Manly veneer re-applied. I'm ready for the commentary track now.

Comments

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Maybe it was because I found NewBSG frustrating enough that I never got that emotionally sucked into the show, but the finale mostly annoyed me. Choosing to go devo, yeah, that's part of it--I didn't really believe any of these people would survive the week, let alone give rise to modern humanity.

And even if you grant the notion of Earth-primate-compatible ancient astronauts (which I guess we can handwave away with "God did it", since it's such a venerable if crackbrained tradition in SF and was part of the premise of BSG classic), there's a lot more to swallow. There's the presence of anatomically modern humans who completely lack language, and the weird and kind of patronizing idea that space people similar to 21st century Americans who deliberately ditched all their tech would have more effect on Earth natives than a fart in a windstorm, and the stupidity about "Mitochondrial Eve" (there's nothing special about Mitochondrial Eve except that she was the last one of our ancestors who happened to be in everyone's direct all-female line; other people living at the same time would have similar mitochondria, so how would you identify her skeleton?)

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

would have more effect on Earth natives than a fart in a windstorm

...apart from giving them exotic diseases, of course.

(Maybe it's just that Sam and I recently read Sarah Vowell's The Wordy Shipmates, about the Puritan settlers of New England. I'm reminded of the first seal of Massachusetts Bay Colony, with an Indian emitting a cartoon talk balloon that says "Come over and help us").

Seal

[prog.livejournal.com]

That is literally what it is, too. That's fantastic - I did not know this!

Thank you for the indirect book rec, too...

Re: Seal

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

I'm no expert on the subject but it was an engaging popular treatment. I don't suppose it's much of a spoiler to say that parts of it are very sad/disturbing, in ways that NewBSG fans would probably find relevant.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

other people living at the same time would have similar mitochondria

Hmm, I guess maybe they wouldn't if she was really a space person, but how would anyone today know that?

[radtea.livejournal.com]

I was so frustrated by the first season that I didn't get any further into it. I didn't buy into most of the characters and didn't much like the ones (like Adama) who were remotely believable, and found the plot generally implausible and the pacing frustrating, with the whole thing clearly constructed for emotional effect rather than what for want of a better term I'll call narrative proficiency.

I started it expecting a grand portrait, and what it delivered was a series of miniatures, each quite cleverly crafted, but too much at odds with what I was expecting for me to get over the disconnect.