BSG: A Lamentation for a Television Show
Caution: spoilers for “Islanded in a Stream of Stars” (4.18)
As I read through the Battlestar Galactica related writings online, I find it interesting that so many people refer to what’s left in terms of hours.
We’re using phrases like “the last three hours” or “only three hours to go.” It’s as if we’re preparing for a death on the most personal of levels.
We’re not marking what’s left in terms as crass as “Fridays” or “episodes” or “air dates.” We’re marking what’s left in terms of the short time we have left with this show. After that, there’s no more shared experiences. No more stories. The characters go into the black.
This episode, I think, was set up to reflect those feelings. Islanded preps us for a whole series of goodbyes—to people, to ships, to how things were.
We see the new Quorum with Lee at its head, and the fading of the exodus government (Roslin and Galactica).
Near her story’s end, Roslin’s thinking about her old trajectory—one that ended at her cabin by the river. Likewise, Boomer’s also thinking seriously about the life and home that should have been hers.
But whereas Roslin accepts her future, Boomer hasn’t yet. For Laura, this new path led her to Bill, the only true home she has ever known. She knows this and is trying to help him know it too. She wishes for him to find the same acceptance of this future that she has.
Baltar had a fantasy dream house once. He doesn’t go there anymore. But when he saw Caprica, I think he saw his past as well as the future that he once had. Perhaps when it comes to Caprica, he’s learning a little too late that home is not a place but the people around you.
With every episode, every jump, every day, and every white board total, the world of the miniseries is farther and farther away.
The characters are saying goodbye to that existence and life.
So are we.
The ones who get it, who have accepted and moved ahead, are doing better than the rest.
Kara’s let her old self go. Thanks to Lee, another who is moving ahead, she’s realized that her new self has a life and a purpose to pursue. Lee’s let her know that he loves and cares for the Kara of today, just as he loved and cared for the one of yesterday.
Helo’s always been ahead of the game. He made Athena his new home a long time ago. But he’s finding out that new isn’t the same as unbroken.
So the fleet is moving, away from the tethers of the Twelve Colonies. After years of running, fighting, mourning, and dying, acceptance is the reward.
For those who can, they accept that the old ways are not coming back. They accept that they are no longer who they were. And they accept that they have to live and make choices in this future and not in some future never to be.
Acceptance doesn’t preclude sorrow tough. As the old story ends, I suspect I’m going to be crying like a baby.
(Especially if the powers that be decide to blow everybody up. Don’t do it, Ron! Don’t do it!)