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Guest Blogger – Battlestar Galactica: A Better Ending

by Ian Lurie

After 4+ years of barely surviving, brilliant tactics and existential wanderings, the main characters in BSG ended up abandoning all their technology and going native on a primitive earth. The only indication they didn’t all get eaten by sabertooth tigers? Hera’s fossilized or mummified remains.

Are you kidding me?

They deserved better. Some deserved worse. Here’s my version of how the Battlestar Galactica crew should’ve reached their rewards or punishments:

The Galactica

Face it: She’s a character. And I didn’t mind her flying into the sunset, literally. But some bit of her should live on.

My ending: They save the jump drives and computer core. At worst, the human race gets to play some epic games of Quake while watching the gazelles leap by.

Lee Adama

Here’s a guy who spent the entire series putting himself on the line for everyone else. First as CAG a board the Galactica, then as the commander of the Pegasus (remember his dramatic rescue of the Galactica in season 3?), then as President. He stopped a lynch mob in Baltar’s trial, stopped a Cylon suicide team from venting the Galactica to space, and stopped the new President from getting nuked (twice) in the mini-series.

Conservatively, he kicked ass.

So, instead of leaving him abandoned, alone, with no internet access and no flush toilets, can we at least let him finally get together with Starbuck for real? And maybe give him a tent, for christ’s sake?

My ending: Lee and Starbuck marry and live in a prefabbed structure on a beautiful stretch of African Veldt. They raise a herd of tough, smart kids of mixed sexual preference who head back to space.

Starbuck

After all she’s been through, she just goes poof. POOF. The greatest Viper pilot, Oracle and who-knows-what-else. She Took On All Eight, for heaven’s sake.

Dumb.

Starbuck should be at peace, in the real world, with Lee. They were meant for each other. Then, when she gets old, she can vanish to her eternal reward.

Admiral Adama

No one, except perhaps the President, gave more to keep humanity alive. The Adama maneuver (jumping into the atmosphere of New Caprica to break the Cylon blockade in Season 3) is one of the coolest geekgasmic moments in science fiction history.

So he ends up alone on a pile of rocks, weeping for his dead love.

That. Sucks. Ass.

Can he at least get to grow old with his little Starbuck/Apollo grandkids running around him, telling them stories of the great exodus? And maybe having an occasional drink with Tigh?

My ending: He buries Laura Roslin, grieves as you’d expect, then sees his family name live on. At a minimum, he doesn’t die alone on what looks like the British Isles, surrounded by nothing but half-evolved monkey men.

Laura Roslin

Actually, I’m not sure what else could’ve happened. Roslin was the series’ Christ figure, doomed to give her life to save humanity.

It was sad, but no ending can be perfectly happy.

Chief Tyrol

Not even sure what to say to this one. Just something better, OK? Make him a Boomer clone that doesn’t screw him, or let him see that, in the end, Boomer did the right thing and at least made up for her ill deed a little bit.

Caprica Six

I know I’m supposed to be sympathetic to Caprica Six. But guess what? She helped wipe out billions of people. Then, just to round things out nicely, she helps betray the Cylon race, too.

My ending: She gives her life bravely to give humanity another chance. She certainly doesn’t get to live out her days with them.

Baltar

He’s insane. Brilliant, but insane.

My ending: He shacks up with a primitive Australopithecus chick and they make missing links together.

Helo, Athena and Hera

Of all of the fleshy folk, I think these three did OK. But Hera could use some playmates. They should live near Starbuck and Apollo. See above.

Everyone else

Are you really telling me that every single survivor from the fleet went happily to Earth, where most of them would starve or die of disease? I would’ve been raising my hand: “Excuse me – can we at least bring some shelter and stuff?”

I understand the philosophy behind the ending. But this is about survival, and maybe a little bit of a warm feeling after ‘SyFy’ cancels the best series they’ve ever had, thereby dooming us to years of ‘Megashark versus Giant Octopus’ before Apple buys them for pennies on the dollar to use the channel as a huge App Store.

In the end, the Centurions got the best deal. They got to head out to the stars to rebuild their race. Don’t come whining to me when they return and make us their squishy human servants.

About the author: Ian Lurie writes the marketing blog Conversation Marketing, and continually dreams up better endings for suddenly-cancelled series. Coming soon: Why the end of ‘Angel’ was written by morons. You can also find Ian on Twitter at @portentint

3 Comments

  1. I was fine with how the series ended except for Bill Adama. There was no reason for him to completely abandon the humanity he helped save just because Laura died. His “closure” was to abandon his family, and that is the only part of the entire finale that didn’t set well with me. Even Starbuck’s rapture–or whatever in the world it was–made more sense than a man fighting for his family for 4+ years to abandon them.

    I still get all nerdragey when I think about it.

  2. Anonymous Anonymous

    Awesome. I definately laughed at you ending for Baltar, but I think he deserves something much more complex. Like heading out with the cylons with a bevy of sixes.

  3. Anonymous Anonymous

    You have a lot of time on your hands.

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