OMG! No More BSG!

Alright,, I can't take it anymore. So what if you are the best-executed, brightest star of all of televised sci-fi, and smarter than practically every show on TV.
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Alright, Battlestar Galactica, I can't take it anymore. So what if you are the best-executed, brightest star of all of televised sci-fi, and smarter than practically every show on television including Heroes, Lost, and 24. I can't deal with another sleepless "OMG, Adama's dead!" night, nor an "is Starbuck a cylon?" thought popping up in the middle of a job interview. And why I would feel compelled to share this particular obsession/neurosis with all my new Facebook friends in my latest "...is preparing himself for yet another traumatizing episode of BSG" message to the masses is all your fault, you frakkin', addictive space opera you! Still, I really am going to miss you after your last episodes air. I'm not alone in already experiencing that low hum of anxiety due to your scheduled suicide--your choice, not ours. Your departure will leave a huge frakkin' void since no current sci-fi series, nor one on the horizon, seems like it will compare with your quality and engage an adult audience on the same respectful, intelligent level that you did.

Your advertisers saw your terrific ratings that spanned across the board--your demo being virtually every demo--so they hawked everything from Viagra to gaming and condoms to candy bars during your time slot; those ratings were due partly to the Sci-Fi Channel's smartly treating you like its golden child, not emaciating your following by constantly changing your air time (did someone say, "Fascape"?). Your ratings, word-of-mouth and water-cooler credibility, plus commitment to seamless continuity all will ensure that--unless you really screw up the last episodes--in the "timeless" category, you eventually might outshine Star Trek, Star Wars, Stargate this and that, and whatever other star comes along.

There are very few series' in the age of Tivos and DVRs that make people race home to catch a show's original broadcast episodes, and you were one of them. One owns a BSG DVD season set more for a further scouring of your minutiae than to catch missed episodes--the reason why many buy TV DVD sets. With only a few episodes left (anyone seen my razor blades?), if one is gifted with a Battlestar Galactica season set right now, after viewing the miniseries/pilot plus an episode or four more, he or she probably will become addicted, simultaneously hating and loving the gifter for hooking them up while wishing that he or she had been into the series from the beginning. (Been there, still not hearing the end of that.) Then again, there is a bit more Galactica one could pass his or her way, such as the unforgettable original series and the regrettable Galactica 80, whose late-seventies kitsch was updated by tons of cool.

But wait a sec...what if you, oh current incarnation of Battlestar Galactica, were SO brilliant that you found a way to connect your ultimate fate and storyline directly to Glen Larson's old be-caped bunch? Could there be clues that possibly support this far-fetched theory??

(Warning: Massive spoilers are ahead if not caught up with the February 13 episode.) No, seriously, stop reading if you're not caught up. Are you not reading yet? Okay...

In last Friday the 13th's episode, both the unlucky and resurrected Ellen (recently revealed as the fifth cylon and creator of the human-looking variety), plus the always unfortunate Sam gave up tons of time-bending info as well as the potential reveal of yet another cylon, a number seven model, the artistic "Daniel," who was modified by the sadistic John (remember that name, we're coming back to it in a bit). Starbuck was artistic, no? Remember those nebulae drawings?? Now, what about that quick recap clip in the beginning of the episode that showed some old cylon base and fighter ships that looked more relevant to the seventies series than anything revealed in the telemovie Razor. If old-version cylons from the original series caught up with that fleet, the one that made it to and was circling Earth (as revealed in Galactica 80), that might have resulted in a nuclear war. Is it possible the first Starbuck, from the old series, joined the fray, and was killed--remember, he "mated" with an angel and was stranded on a planet in Galactica 80, so his arrival could have been delayed. Maybe the crashed ship and carcass the female Starbuck found actually was part of the old Starbuck's fate. Here's a good one...could the female Starbuck be the child of the original Starbuck and the angel? Oh yeah, speaking of Galactica 80 (most prefer not to), wasn't there a human-looking model introduced in that series? Might he have been one of Ellen's early experiments??

Then there was the "angels" plot line from the old series that still needs resolution. Is it possible that when Ellen created "John," her first successful, human-looking cylon, that she named him in tribute to "John," the angel from the first series? Wait, there's more evidence to support that the angel plot line is being revisited: Remember when Apollo was resurrected in the first series, or when he and that period's Starbuck and their ships glowed a pure white a couple of times, such as whenever they were on the angel ship or when they were sent by that race on a mission to prevent nuclear war on Terra? In the current series, when the female Starbuck came back from the "dead" (the explosion Apollo saw), didn't she and her ship return to the Galactica in perfect condition, more perfect than before, perhaps with help from said angles? In the old show, weren't Apollo, Starbuck and Sheeba given the coordinates to earth by the angels? In the current one, didn't Starbuck's ship reveal the coordinates??

Every time the angel ship appeared, there was a "sound" that knocked the viper pilots unconscious, can that be matched-up with the "song" the final four of five on the Galactica heard when they were activated? Did the angels activate them? Finally, if it took the final five cylons thousands of years to get back to the original colonies, and if events supposedly keep repeating (as cylons often remind some poor, ignorant human), is that even more evidence that we might be seeing two distinct but similar histories being connected? Wouldn't it be brilliant, beyond Bob Newhart waking up with Emily from his first television show brilliance, to link the two series together this way, resulting in the best and coolest continuity ever (all apologies Dr. Who and Star Trek fans)? Hey, just for the record, I'm not buying any of this "everyone's a cylon" crap that would reduce the series to nothing more than a really good Twilight Zone episode. "To Serve Man is a cookbook"! Yikes!!

With only five episodes left (plus a telemovie) and a new "fifty years earlier" series in the works (Caprica), this is one of the last times one can conjecture geekishly on what series overseers Ron Moore & Co. have in mind for BSG's sendoff. But it was a fantastic run, squeezing out every last ounce of quality that one could from the scripts, actors and everything that made it to the screen. I only know of two people who have jumped ship on BSG--my fifteen-year-old nephew and one of my closest friends who champions intelligent sci-fi shows. My nephew ditched it because he didn't have cable, and too much time lapsed between the seasons of purchasable DVDs that I would send him (I think that was a major marketing mistake by the powers that be). But my buddy's loyalty to the show faded after its complex "one year later" plot line; he felt like it jumped the shark. He's got a point because, for some, the non-linear approach pissed-off quite a few fans though a majority called it genius. One Tree Hill and Lost both employed the concept flawlessly, but BSG used it to screw with our minds first, and it was as disorienting as it was clever. And now that BSG has to cram eons of history into this last handful of remaining episodes, if the creative team does it right, then the Galactica will go out in a blaze of glory which, in this case, might be literal. And with a series this phenomenal ending, what in or out of this world does the Sci-Fi Channel do to replace it?

I've got one last, nagging question that I promise my Facebook friends I won't torture them with: What the heck ever happened to Boxey from the show's miniseries/pilot? Hold on. "Boxey"..."boxed"...hmm...maybe this has more to do with St. Elsewhere's ending than Bob Newhart's...

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