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| CD Details | Released
01 June 2009 | | Certificate
15 | | Distributor
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Battlestar Galactica: The Final Season (15)
 Review
Paradoxically, television is packed with reeking piles of rubbish but we are still in a golden age of US drama. And, amazingly, nothing has been more gripping, grown up, superbly scripted or supremely acted than the searing “reimagining” (by Ronald D. Moore and David Eick) of a cheesy ’70s sci-fi adventure. The core premise remained: desperate remnants of humankind cross the universe in a ragtag fleet of ships, fleeing the man-made AI machines that evolved, rebelled and eradicated their creators. Clustered around the last battleship, under the command of William Adama, the survivors have one hope: to find the legendary Earth colonised long ago by a lost tribe of humans.
Gone were the Egyptian headdress helmets (although we kind of liked those). Gone (thank the gods) was the cutesy kid with the robotic dog. Gone the visits to the planets of the Viking people, the Wild West people, and the scantily-clad bar babes. No ‘aliens’. No techno-babble, time travel (except the illuminating flashbacks and the must-see backstory webisodes) or futuristic gadgetry. No flouting the known laws of physics. Robot warriors on the Colonials’ asses still have one scanning, humming red eye and the Fleet’s top guns still fly Vipers into combat. What’s different is, well, just everything else.
From the outset, this darkly dramatic odyssey with its gut-punching twists was engrossingly a post-9/11 parable for the 21st century. It was about war, love, hate, ethics, freedom, oppression and, increasingly towards the end, religion, faith, free will, destiny and the choices made in every society. Fantasy and special effects (fab though they are) took a back seat to the characters, whose psychology was explored to a depth beyond anything else on TV. This series was about what it is to be human — good, bad or ugly.
Time magazine called it “the best show on television, not just the best science-fiction show”. It pulled in more adults (and more women) than any more typical space opera. And yet there remain people who have never seen an episode because they find the name off-putting. This is their loss, because the 2003-2009 Battlestar Galactica in every way transcends not just its juvenile 1978 source but the sci-fi genre itself. Fans include telly addicts Joss Whedon, himself a genre-buster of distinction, who said, “It’s so passionate, textured, complex, subversive and challenging that it dwarfs everything on TV” and Stephen King, who called it “Beautifully written … and [there’s] not a better acting troupe at work on television.”
Said troupe evolved around Edward James Olmos as the indomitable Adama and Mary McDonnell as Laura Roslin, the former teacher shaken to find herself President — while battling cancer! — whose incredible emotional range gave the show a powerful heart. But the junior members of the ensemble were revelations. Unlikely to find themselves in magnificently realised roles like these again in their careers, James Callis (mad scientist in need of redemption), Michael Hogan (alcoholic executive officer), Jamie Bamber (angry ‘Apollo’), Katee Sackoff (rebellious, tortured, kick-ass Kara ‘Starbuck’ Thrace), Grace Park (the Cylon model designated Number Eight), Aaron Douglas (beleaguered engineer), Canadian supermodel Tricia Helfer (conflicted Cylon Number Six) and Alessandro Juliani (Lt. Felix Gaeta) all did astonishing work. Even Richard Hatch, the source series’ himbo hero Apollo, made a cameo and remained, a rivetingly duplicitous recurring figure.
Season Four, broadcast in two chunks with a climbing-the-wall break due to the writers’ strike, proved the most challenging, soul-searching and devastatingly turbulent yet. Some of the series’ most burning issues — who is the final Cylon? What’s the deal with Earth? What is a man? Is there a God? — found resolution sooner than expected. Gob-smacking and heartrending revelations opened new cans of worms, more questions, mind-bending philosophising and a slew of tragedies. Since the extended-length finale finally aired, fan forums have raged with delirium and disappointment. All questions raised were answered, some of them beautifully; we just didn’t like all the answers — particularly the solution to the ongoing mystery of Starbuck and the “150,000 Years Later” postscript. But on repeat viewing it makes more and more sense. For some the ending of something so awesome, ambitious, compelling and human was always going to be a let-down, because it had to be AN end. And it was never going to be “and they all lived happily ever after”.
Reviewer: Angie Errigo
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Average user rating for Battlestar Galactica: The Final Season
| Great series, but it's unavoidable: the ending was messed up | | | L: Bizz90
they all wander off into the wilderness to die, which would be okay if it wasn't for the fact that Lee Adama (AKA Jamie Bamber, AKA the best character is left with nothing....nada.....zilch)
That's not actually true though is it? Apollo is fine, but it's a mark of the originality of the show - and its difference to the older version - that the handsome Viper pilot is actually one of the least interesting of the main characters. He doesn't have the complexity of Starbuck, or La... Read More
| | | Davechoc About me | | 13:29, 14 September 2009 | Report This Post | |
| | | | Pure class | | | I'm neither Dickens, nor Shakespear nor Mr. Moore, so everything else I say wil be a diservice to how supreme this series was.
I won't bother. ... Read More
| | | everton About me | | 20:45, 25 June 2009 | Report This Post | |
| | | | Pure class | | | I'm neither Dickens, nor Shakespear nor Mr. Moore, so everything else I say wil be a diservice to how supreme this series was.
I won't bother. ... Read More
| | | everton About me | | 19:34, 25 June 2009 | Report This Post | |
| | | | those advertised, (and promoted) extras - to clarify | | | loved the show including the ending - thought the send off was perfect. Didn't want everything tied up neatly - that would have been ultimately less ambitous and in a way less effective - our imagination re starbuck etc is much more interesting than a clinical, scientific explanation. particularly considering the spiritual path the show took and it's respect for viewers to make their own minds up.
However: I know it's been mentioned by another poster, but to clarify:
1. the webisodes are n... Read More
| | | softersoftest About me | | 19:11, 20 June 2009 | Report This Post | |
| | | | | | The final series of this amazing show, cranks everything up another notch. I don't think I've ever been more engrossed or attached to a show than this one. The only thing that lets this season (and the whole series) down is the fact that after it finishes there will not be another one. I can understand some people not liking the ending, but I did. All the plot threads are dealt with, well almost all, and it has a proper ending unlike other shows.
Lets hope Caprica is half as good as this. ... Read More
| | | shushhh About me | | 23:00, 19 June 2009 | Report This Post | |
| | | | the series = yes, the ending = no | | | they all wander off into the wilderness to die, which would be okay if it wasn't for the fact that Lee Adama (AKA Jamie Bamber, AKA the best character is left with nothing....nada.....zilch) there, i just saved you the biggest letdown in TV history.....DAMN IT I LOVED THIS SHOW ... Read More
| | | Bizz90 About me | | 19:22, 14 June 2009 | Report This Post | |
| | | | It was AMAZING! | | | I came to BSG late... I blasted through all four series since April on my Apple TV and y'know what... I LOVED IT... It was seriously amazing... the best TV for decades. I'm going to go back & watch all four series again. I loved it that much. ... Read More
| | | mancalledpete About me | | 12:52, 13 June 2009 | Report This Post | |
| | | | So Say We All | | | A brilliant series and the only dissapointment was that it had to end. Great charactars played by great actors in some of the best storytelling the small screen has ever seen, Olmos' William Adama is possibly the greatest TV performance I have ever seen. I recently watched the pilot episode of the BSG prequel Caprica and this too looks every bit as gripping. There is a scene at the end where an 11 year old Adama is told by his father that the family name is Adama and not Adams which had me welli... Read More
| | | Dave25 About me | | 18:53, 11 June 2009 | Report This Post | |
| | | | RE: RE: | | Still undecided about the last 5 minutes of the finale. But otherwise, my favourite show of the past 5 years. ... Read More
| | | jcthefirst About me | | 16:22, 09 June 2009 | Report This Post | |
| | | | RE: | | | Yes he is right, no Webisodes and one 1 episode is extended (Disquiet Follows my Soul), how did they manage to advertise the 4hrs of bonus? or even 6?
Delete scenes yes, but again, piss poor dvd but a great SEASON! ... Read More
| | | indysid About me | | 23:13, 04 June 2009 | Report This Post | |
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| DVD Extras |
Battlestar Galactica: The Final Season
Released: 01 June 2009
Four hours’ worth, featuring unrated versions of A Disquiet Follows My Soul and Islanded In A Stream Of Stars, a raft of deleted scenes, podcast commentaries, numerous sci-fi.com-sponsored featurettes and The Face Of The Enemy, a ten-part online webisode series that actually enhances the show. Perhaps most mouthwatering is a sneak peak at Caprica, the prequel to Galactica about the origins of Cybernetic Lifeform Nodes. Or Cylons to you and me.
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