Before I get into the meat of the matter, I have to ask this of the folks out there who didn’t like the finale of Lost last night:

You didn’t like the Battlestar Galactica ending either, did you?

I ask that not to accuse you of just not liking finales to shows you’ve loved. I ask that because in both cases, I believe the ending was absolutely the culmination of everything that came before.

The endings MADE SENSE. Yes, you can nitpick and complain about little things here or there that didn’t make sense. When you’ve unraveled as much string as both of these shows did, it’s hard to get it all back into a neat little ball of yarn.

Not all questions were answered, and in some cases that was infuriating (from both shows).

But, in the end, the show was what it was always about: The people. Love. Fate. Free will. The afterlife.

The only way to tackle last night’s action-packed ending is by bullet points. I’m emotionally exhausted and I still have two hours of 24 to watch tonight, and that promises to be as equally emotionally wrenching.

The afterlife

Let’s get one thing straight: The island wasn’t purgatory. Not for our Losties, at least. Sure, there are some people who are stuck there forever, running around whispering stuff, like Michael. But our Losties’ Purgatory or waiting room or whatever you wanna call it was the alternate universe. The flash-sideways.

The island was real. The Losties were absolutely alive.

The flash-sideways was a place where these people who had become a family could come together and finally find peace. And once they finally all came together, it was time to go into the light.

OK, that moment was totally hokey. But did you notice the statues of Vishnu and the Buddha in the rectory? Did you notice the stained glass window that had symbols from Judaism, Islam, Jainism, every religion, practically?

This wasn’t about a Judeo-Christian afterlife. This was a recognition that every religious or spiritual practice in the world has some sort of belief system about what happens after life on this world is over. If you were Buddhist, you could believe that the island and their tests there were their final tests before enlightenment. Or maybe the flash sideways was, and now they don’t have to be reborn again.

Love

Omg, when Juliet and Sawyer met again and recognized one another and kissed, I was bawling like a baby. (KNEW that the baby doctor was gonna be Juliet and that she was going to be Jack’s ex-wife.) And Jin & Sun, too. Like. A. Baby.

This show has always been about love and loss. From Day One.

And you know what? Team Darlton made us love these characters. Even the ones who annoyed you, you had moments of loving. Don’t deny it. Denial is ugly.

Jack/Jacob/Hurley/Ben

It made so much sense to have Hurley be the new Jacob. He was always the one who took care of people, made them feel better.

Jack’s job was always to fix things. In the end, he fixed the island. He sent Desmond down there to break it – but that was only, really, so he could kill Flocke. Flocke couldn’t be killed until the island was broken. When Des pulled the cork out of the island, Jack and Flocke became mortal.

By the way, how freakin’ awesome was that flying punch-down that Jack did to Flocke on the cliff? Cut to commercial. WOW.

So, anyway, Flocke could be killed. He couldn’t leave the island and bring his evil with him. He couldn’t end life, the universe and everything by leaving.

That was Jack’s job. He was always the fixer. Only when he gave up the idea of having to fix everything was he actually able to fix the thing he’d been working toward his entire life.

Once that was done, he wasn’t the person to keep the island safe. It made so much sense for it to be Hurley. The second Hurley went back with Jack to save Des and the Island, it became exceedingly obvious that was what was going to happen.

And bravo to Ben, in the end, doing what was right. Even telling Hurley that he could send Des back to Penny and his son, Charlie. Indeed, if Hurley was the new Jacob, couldn’t he make his own rules? Why couldn’t people leave the island?

Fine job, Ben. I liked that they invited Ben inside the church to come with them, but that Ben chose more time in purgatory, to atone for what he’d done, to make things right with Alex and Danielle. He’d redeemed himself and was “eligible” to move on, but he chose not to. Which redeemed him even more.

Desmond/Penny

Thank you.

De plane! De plane!

Who else let out a yelp and applauded when Miles and Richard found Lapidus bobbing in the ocean! That. Was. So. Awesome. I don’t know, I had a feeling he was still alive.

And Richard was still alive, too – was it his brush with death with Smokey what made him mortal again, or was it the cork being pulled out of the island? Probably the latter.

So Lost to have him find a reason to live again, once he knew he could die.

Duct tape fixes everything.

When Kate, Sawyer and Claire come upon the Ajira plane just about to taxi and Frank gets ‘em on, total sigh of relief, but also an intake of breath. Would they still escape the island? Nothing was ever certain on Lost, and they’d killed almost everyone else by this point, so it could have happened.

Questions:

Why wasn’t Miles in the church? And Richard, too? What about Frank?

Dharma initiative? Um, totally confused about that. How did they ever get to the island? Obviously, they were trying to find Elvar Hanso’s ship and did, but how did they even find it? Did Jacob allow them to come? Or did the MiB allow them to come, knowing the destruction they’d reign down on the Others.

WTF were the Others? Just people gathered by Jacob over the years to protect the island? Were they candidates? Were some candidates?

Why couldn’t babies be born on the island? Was it the nuclear bomb? I assume that, but it was never made clear.

Why did the Others have that superhuman strength? Did the exposure to the radiation make them all Hulk-like, except not green and huge?

What was Widmore’s backstory? We never really got that. We never learned how he got to the island, why he was there (Eloise, too). And who was Penny’s mother? How did that all transpire that he met some woman off-island whom he loved and had a child with? And how did Eloise and Faraday end up off-island? Did she leave when she found out she was pregnant so her child would live? (They hadn’t had Faraday yet when Widmore was forced to leave, right?)

Who in the hell was Matthew Abbadon? I know he worked for Widmore, but wtf? Ilana, too.

I’m sure I’ll come up with more questions and more thoughts.

_____

But I do want to say this:

Thank you to the entire cast and crew of Lost – you provided excellent entertainment and diversion for six years. The acting, the writing, the music, the editing, the cinematography – it was all better than we’ve seen on television in, maybe, ever. OK, a close tie with The Wire and Battlestar Galactica, but in a totally different way.

Thanks for being my Constant.

Bookmark It

The news just got posted on 24′s Facebook page. Here’s the press release, in its entirety:

Sigh. I can’t say I’m surprised or utterly disappointed, but a part of me is still sad.

Bookmark It

I rarely root for a series I once loved to end, but an exception could certainly be made for Heroes.

Looks like I could easily get my wish, as Airlock Alpha (once syfy.com, before the SciFi Channel became SyFy) reports that NBC sources say Heroes is being asked to wrap up its entire story by season’s end.

An unidentified source was quoted as saying:

There isn’t much happening with this show in terms of audience, and giving it a ‘final chapter’ feel is something the network is considering to help allow the show to go out with a bang.

As I wrote earlier this season, even the most die-hard fans have been having a hard time staying interested. It’s all unfocused – the storyline’s all over the place, the characters are no longer interesting and they don’t seem to be working toward anything.

Even the disjointed, strike-impaired second season seemed to be working toward something. And last season had a good start before trailing off into “who the hell cares” anymore land.

I would love for Heroes to wrap up at the end of this season and answer these questions/resolve these plotlines:

• Who’s the third Nikki/Tracy triplet and what’s her power. And what’s the story behind their creation?
• Adam Monroe – what time is he REALLY from and how long has he actually lived?
• How far back to the heroes go? How many generations? Why do some of their children have powers and some don’t?
• Why has Peter’s ability to keep previous powers he absorbs gone away? (Or was that just a side effect of his father’s “hug”?)
• What happened to Peter’s Irish girlfriend in the plague-inflicted future that was prevented?
• When is Sylar going to actually figure out who he is, already, and is Matt just crazy and imagining Sylar in his head or did Sylar actually manage to crawl up in there?
• Where is Micah?
• Seriously, where is Micah? And what about his cousin? And the Haitian?
• What about future Hiro with the goatee. If you can’t change the future, as Hiro is finding out, where is Goatee Hiro?
• What is WITH this carnival? They obviously are aware of HRG and Primatech. How many generations do these carnies go back? Actually, you know what? I don’t even care that much about the carnie folk. I kind of wish they hadn’t been introduced, though there were a couple of cool scenes with them, because that just adds a whole new thing they need to answer and I find that to be obnoxious.

I know I’m forgetting some. Please leave your questions you want resolved in the comments. We should send them a letter or something and say, “THESE ARE THE THINGS YOU MUST RESOLVE BEFORE GOING OFF THE AIR. kthanxbai”

Bookmark It

I’ve had a very hard time blogging about the incredible finale of Battlestar Galactica, as most of you have likely noticed. (Not that Adam and Rickey have been harassing me about it. Not at all, not one little bit.)

But I truly think the finale ranks up there with the great series finales of all time, exemplified best in recent television history by The Wire and Six Feet Under.

I still hardly know how to approach looking at the finale, so I thought I’d actually start with what I thought were the problems with it:

• Daniel was a red herring. No answer as to whether Daniel truly was Starbuck’s father and WHY she came back as an “angel” and why she was connected to “All Along the Watchtower.” (An interesting thought, though – the song was among the things that have happened before and will happen again, as Anders composed it way back on Earth, Starbuck’s father played it for her and it became popular on “our” Earth many thousands of years later.

• Who inspired the design/personality of the other Cylons? I’d have loved to have known more about Leoben and Sharon and Six and D’Anna and Simon and Aaron. We know Cavil was made in Ellen’s father’s image. And I’m fascinated that Six was one of the “angels” and so how did the Cylon model Six come to be made in that image?

• Why was Gaius an “angel”? How did he come to be born in that body? Was he truly a full human?

Those are all relatively minor issues, however.

So let’s look at how it all came to an end:

Kara/Starbuck

Turns out she was dead, after all.

But she had a mission to finish and had to help lead everyone to Earth, so they could see how it all fell apart once before, hopefully helping them avoid the same fate again.

It’s probably best that she didn’t know she was actually dead; she would have had a harder time taking herself seriously, I think. By believing she was fulfilling a destiny and was an actual person, she forced others to take her seriously. I don’t think Starbuck could have taken herself seriously enough knowing she was dead to convince anyone else of that.

Lee/Apollo

Lee learned he was a soldier. Didn’t matter what he did to help bring along democracy, didn’t matter how idealistic (and cynical) he was; he was a soldier first, last and always.

And he’s also a loner.

So much the better given that he’s alone now; utterly and completely.

Dad flew off somewhere to live out his last days alone. Zac’s dead. Kara’s dead. Dee’s dead.

That loner part of his personality is what led him to push Romo to take over the presidency (brilliant move, IMHO; Romo is the consummate politician who, deep down, actually believes in democracy and wants to do the right thing) and then suggest that the new settlements on the New Earth (our Earth) not be made as a modern city, but rather small settlements scattered around the planet.

Adama/Roslin

True love prevails.

Bizarre that the most enduring love story of the series started out as a Cold War of sorts and involved two of the oldest characters on the series.

But even the hardest of hearts had to have shed a tear as Adama kissed Roslin’s hand after she died and put his ring on her finger. If you didn’t, you have no soul. Really. No. Soul.

And both of them did everything they ever promised anyone – they found the fleet a new home on a planet free of strife and safe from the Cylons. (The ‘bad’ Cylons were blown up with the Colony and the ‘good’ ones decided to settle on New Earth with them.)

Baltar and Caprica Six

Another true love story, oddly enough.

It seemed destined after that season 2 episode where Caprica Six starts seeing Head Baltar. But after the fiasco of New Caprica and post-New Caprica, Caprica Six and Baltar seemed destined to be apart forevermore.

But when it absolutely, finally came down to it, Baltar did the right thing. For perhaps the first and only time in his life. But the most important time in his life.

And everything Caprica Six had ever done paid off in the end. She and Baltar were the worst thing that could happen to the human race, yet, in the end, they perhaps were the best thing ever to happen to it.

The jury’s still out on that, though, given that the cycle may be starting again, with smart robots. Took longer to get there this time, though, because of Lee’s smart idea of spreading out in small settlements and farms around the globe.

I do, however, want to know why the two “angels” of Head Six and Head Baltar are in those forms. (By the by, who caught that it was Ron Moore reading the magazine when the pair were reading about Hera’s fossilized remains found?)

And one other thing – how bizarre, really, that Baltar really was preaching the gospel of the One God and was being guided by an actual angel? Who saw that one coming? Not me.

Helo/Athena/Hera

How did Helo survive?

Good he did. And now, Hera becomes Eve, of sorts.

Athena was pretty hardcore, though, killing Boomer after she brought Hera back to her. Gotta admit that Boomer deserved it; and she knew it was coming, too. Which made her bringing Hera back to her mommy all the more poignant.

Nice bookending, too. In the miniseries, who thought that Helo would actually be an important character? We all assumed he was done for when he stayed on Caprica.

The Final Five

Is it just me, or were other people glad to see Tyrol strangle Tori? She embraced being a Cylon for all the utterly wrong reasons. She saw it as an opportunity to exert control, to kick ass for no apparent reason.

That the person who killed her was the man (Cylon) she once loved so much so many eons ago on Earth was poetic justice. Tyrol was still the man/Cylon he always was. Tori was not, and didn’t care that she wasn’t.

Saul & Ellen? How can you not root for them? The couple we all loved to hate but who always loved each other for no apparent reason whatsoever. The best kind of love, actually.

Anders? Tell me you didn’t feel sad he was going to the great beyond. Tell me that and I tell you, again, that you have no soul. Maybe you didn’t cry, but you felt SOMEthing.

The Cylons

We find out more about them and what, really, led to the civil war and more in “The Plan,” the telemovie coming this fall. I’m torn between being intrigued by it and wishing it weren’t happening because I’m emotionally spent from the finale.

But why Cavil killed himself? I have to admit I was a bit surprised by that. Not unhappy, but surprised.

The last blog carnival

We had lots of submissions for our final blog carnival, and I wanted to give them all their due:

James Newberry presents And Just Like That, She Walked Out of Our Lives Forever posted at NewbSpeak, saying, “There’s so much life…”

Kenneth Hynek presents “You know, I know about farming.” (BSG) posted at Kenneth Hynek. Kenneth also submitted a post ahead of time, How I’d like to see it end (BSG) posted at Kenneth Hynek, saying, “This is probably as far from how it will play out as can be…but I still think it’d be cool if Sam used the Galactica’s jump wake to take out the colony. I hope that’s why they introduced that late-in-the-game contrivance.”

Jayson Peters presents ‘Frell,’ ‘Frak’ and beyond – the dirty words of other worlds posted at Nerdvana: Sci-fi, comics, games & more, saying, “Frak! The show that gave us everybody’s favorite faux profanity comes to an epic conclusion tonight. To mark this bittersweet occasion, here are 10 fake swear words that have each, to some extent, bled into the fan vernacular from science fiction”

Erika presents Nothing But the Rain – “Daybreak” (all 3 parts) posted at Seriality.

A flashback: Tanveer Naseer presents BSG “Blood on the Scales” – Off Bloody Spot, Off posted at So, what were we talking about again?.

Ms. SP presents Battlestar Galactica, Daybreak Part 2 (1 of 2) posted at Ms. Smarty Pants Know It All.

That concludes this final edition. Past posts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Thank you all for joining me on this ride. Shows like (the re-imagined) Battlestar Galactica don’t come along that often and we’re fortunate when we’re able to share it.

And, don’t worry, I WILL blog on “The Plan,” the Cylon telemovie in the fall.

Bookmark It