Since it's been so long since I've posted anything, I thought I'd finally jot down my thoughts on the recently wrapped "Battlestar Galactica" series finale.

For me, the show really ended with Gaeta and Tom Zarek meeting their demise after their failed coup. Those few episodes really took the show to new heights and showed me things that are rarely seen in popular fiction. Those episodes were so intense and believable that, for a brief moment or two, I actually started wondering whether the show was actually going to go down a dark route as it wrapped things up. Was there a possibility that they'd actually end the show with humanity wiping itself out, piece by frail piece? It sure seemed like it.

In some ways, it would have been a more realistic ending than the one that they came up with. I know that's kind of cynical of me to say, but after an entire series showing what humans and cylons could do to one another, it'd make sense that the traumas that these people had faced would have been too much to overcome. I mean, here was a small band of people who not only saw every person they knew and loved blown to smithereens in the attack on Caprica, not only saw themselves become traumatized by the events on New Caprica, but also had their final destination of Earth turn out to be a nuked out wasteland. Finding Earth as they found it, I think, would have been the straw that broke the camel's back.

So from that episode until the end, I felt the episode kind of dragged a bit. For me, those episodes were everything I loved about the show. And then everything that happened since that time period has been a mix of everything that I love about the show and everything I find completely tedious about the show.

Part of the issue is that I've never really jived with the show's spirituality. Well, change that, I actually like the religious and spiritual undertones of the show, but it got heavy handed at times.

It's okay to have angels walking amongst us and its okay to show that the divine hand of God has an influence on events, but its another to use both devices as a crutch. It seems like every time the writers got into a tricky spot, they'd fall back on one of those two devices to get them out of it. It had a very deus ex machina feel to it. Deus Ex Machinas are fine...I am a fan of LOST after all, but you have to set them up. They can't just come from nowhere.

And your Deus ex Machina moments can't be too complicated. For example, I think making Starbuck an angel of the divine was taking it way too far. So basically, she was just a figment of the entire fleet's imagination? She was an angel walking amongst us? If she is, then who was the person who was teaching her piano? Angel visions can also have visions of angels?

I also didn't really care too much for the weird scene in which the ghost Viper nuked the Cylon ship. Here was a ship on which all the pilots died in combat yet it somehow shot a nuke at the Cylon baseship? I mean, for episodes they had mentioned (numerous times) that the Cylon baseship was positioned within striking distance to a BLACK HOLE!!!! How about using that as the way in which they met their demise? Or how about the Cylon ship just ripping apart due to the BSG jumping away from it?

I'm also not entirely sold on the idea that Hera is the mother of humanity. For one, there were already humanlike creatures on the planet when they got here. Do the rules of evolution not apply in the world of BSG? Did Hera's offspring mate with a bunch of hairy, big foreheaded neanderthals? I'm not sure I get this.

I'm only piling on because it's easier to write the negative shit...Overall, I liked the finale. I thought they did a good of wrapping everything up. I liked the flashbacks (a lot), but they only made me wish that they had done more of this stuff throughout the series.

I loved how they concluded Laura Roslin's storyline. Edward James Olmos and Mary McDonnel each deserve a lot of credit for their acting throughout the series. Their relationship never really felt forced to me, which can be a common trap for network television.

I also liked the way they concluded Apollo and Starbuck's storyline. The easy route would have been to hook them up at the end, but I'm glad they didn't go there. Felt more real.

I kind of miss the series. It was some of the smartest and sharpest writing that I've ever seen and it sucks that it'll no longer be on the air. But then again, Caprica will be on soon and that should be pretty cool.

Until then, long live Battlestar Galactica. So say we all...

Matt