The Journey Is Over, but the Cycle Begins Again

Tonight's series finale of Battlestar Galactica was a fantastic ending to a fantastic series. I loved the fact that it brought real closure to the show. There are too many shows where the creators just don't bother to tie up all the loose ends. They demand that we invest time and emotion into the show, but then cop out on the payoff. BSG did not succumb to that temptation.

The finale, by the way, was loaded with spiritual themes. Here are just a few:

1) Prophecy is fulfilled in sometimes unexpected ways. It was only after everyone's expectations had been dashed and all hope of the fulfillment of Pythia's prophecy was lost that the prophecy could finally be fulfilled. Even then, most did not recognize its fulfillment for what it was. It's almost as though prophecy is God's private joke; his way of saying that he has a plan, but it's beyond our comprehension and in any case he doesn't have to explain or prove anything to the likes of us.

2) The wheel of history turns in cycles with frustrating inevitability. Humans always make the same mistakes. We die and are reborn. And yet even the inevitable may not really be inevitable. Maybe, just maybe, in one of these cycles something unexpected will happen and the pattern will be broken. (Escape from the endless futility of death and rebirth, by the way, is the Buddhist model of salvation.)

3) When the brain outpaces the soul, the consequences are destructive on a massive scale. Sometimes we need to just set our technology aside and start over with a clean slate. Unfortunately, nothing could motivate us to actually do this-- nothing, that is, short of the near-complete extermination of the human race by its technology.

4) "God" and "gods" are just two different ways of naming the same reality. We learn near the end of the episode, in fact, that "God" doesn't really like that name.

5) "Miracles" and "angels" really do exist. I suppose that some will feel that making Starbuck's resurrection an act of God is a cop-out, but I frankly think it made the ending more powerful and meaningful. It means that even amidst the inevitability of the cycles of history, events and actions have meaning and purpose, and are orchestrated by a higher power. It gave the narrative a cosmic scope and a mystical aura that it would have lacked if the creators had explained everything scientifically.

I have to say, I loved this series. It was one of the best TV offerings in a long time. Maybe ever.