Battlestar Galactica: Did they frack up?

I've just watched the final episode of the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica, well the last two episodes since I watched the extended edited together version. I don't really watch that much TV so until I recently picked up a bargain  DVD box set of the entire run, I'd only ever seen the first season. I've watched all four seasons in as many weeks and, by avoiding all online forums and articles relating to the show, it was mostly new to me. So if you've yet to see the series then don't read on because there are major spoilers in this post.

Overall I think BG was a stunning series - the space battles looked superb, the characters were incredibly well written with even the lesser characters being fully fleshed out, and the suspense level was often turned up to eleven. I did think that the final two seasons became somewhat bogged down in its own mystic elements and the final denouncement, although not as bad as some online articles seemed to suggest, was something of a let down - particularly with Starbuck. What was she? An angel? A God? If so then this seems to have been something of a cop out, particularly as we had heard so much about her being this great harbinger of death in the final few episodes. And how did she resurrect from the dead? She wasn't a cylon and this wasn't at all explained. There was one line where Appolo said, 'you won't be forgotten', which ties in to something Starbuck said earlier, about not fearing death but being terrified of being forgotten, but it still feels like a cop out. I don't think the ending solidified things as a cohesive whole, which left the viewer ultimately unrewarded.

I had no problems with the survivors finally settling on a primitive planet and turning their back on all technology to start over again, eventually forming the human race we see today. You see it turned out that the planet the survivors settled on was our Earth and the show suggest that these human/cylon hybrids were our ancestors.But the fact that they kept no ships, no weapons, in case the cylons returned seems a but stupid and the show was anything but stupid. After four seasons of what may be the best TV scifi show ever the climax leaves a lot of open ends.


That said  this was still an amazing show, and perhaps the end was always going to disappoint but Starbuck was such a central part of the show that she should have had her arc better explained - saying that God did it all just seems a little lame.