Battlestar Galactica - Season 4.0
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Edward James Olmos, Katee Sackhoff, Mary McDonnell, Tricia HelferBrand: Universal Studios
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language)
Format: AC-3, Box set, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.78:1
Running Time: 320 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2011-06-19
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Universal Studios
Movie Reviews of Battlestar Galactica - Season 4.0
Movie Review: More brilliant episodes of one of television's landmark series
Summary: 5 Stars
Warning! Many, many, many spoilers below. Do NOT read if you want to stay spoiler free.
In watching Season 4.0 of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA (when Universal released the first ten episodes of Season Two of BSG at the end of a near six month hiatus they dubbed the first half of the season 2.0 and the second half 2.5; that has been continued with 4.0 and 4.5), I kept thinking of soemthing one of the world's best known self-proclaimed BSG fiends, Joss Whedon, once said. Sometimes you have to give fans what they need rather than what they want. Not everything that happened in Season 4.0 was what any of us wanted, but in the end, I think we'll find that we got what we needed. (BTW, Ron Moore asked Joss to direct an episode of BSG and was more than willing to do so, but preparation for his new series DOLLHOUSE, which will pair BUFFY and ANGEL alumna Eliza Dushku with BSG alumnus Tahmoh Penikett, placed demands on him that prevented him from being able to do so. Part of me deeply regrets this, because my two favorite shows of all time are BATTLESTAR GALACTICA and BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER. As Jack White says, "Oh well, oh well, oh well.")
No show in the history of TV has had more truly great and shocking endings than BSG. BUFFY had two season finales that were as good as any I've seen (Seasons Two and Five -- the climatic scene from the Season Five finale, "The Gift," was recently voted in landslide fashion on the official Emmy 2008 website as the Most Memorable Moment in TV history), but because Joss Whedon was always and wisely terrified of the cancellation of his shows, he would not end any season on a cliffhanger. Ron Moore and David Eick have bravely ended each season with some of the greatest cliffhangers in TV history. My favorite may have been the end of Season Three: the Cylon fleet bearing down on the Colonials, who will not be able to engage their FTL (faster-than-light) engines for several minutes, the sitar-drive version of Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower" playing in the background. Apollo goes to investigate a mysterious bogey only to discover the deceased Starbuck flying a Viper as shiney and clean as the day it came off the assembly line. She comforts him with the words, "It's going to be alright. I've been to earth. And I'm going to take us there." Then the breathtaking CGI shot of a "camera" pulling back over the two Vipers, through the Colonial fleet, through the Cylon fleet, through the nebula, then across the universe until it comes to rest on a beautiful blue planet showing the continent of North America basking in the sun. It was a jaw dropping moment and the question was whether Season Four could pick up successfully at that moment.
Well, of course it could. And did. After learning the identity of four members of the Final Five we knew that the final season would primarily deal with two major questions: 1) Who is the final Cylon? and 2) Will they reach earth and what will they find there if they do? I think everyone would have put money on the first question being answered first and the second one in the final episode of the series. But shockingly the second question was answered first, and in the finale seconds of the final episode before the hiatus.
Much of 4.0 focused on Starbuck striving to convince Adama and everyone else that whe was not a Cylon and that she really did know the way to earth. Though many harbor deep suspicions, in the end Starbuck is able to persuade the fleet to go where she believes earth can be found. In an absolutely brilliant moment, she succeeds. I had managed to avoid spoilers (in fact, though I was a pretty well known poster on the official BSG board on Scifi.com, I stopped visiting there in order to avoid spoilers) so I had absolutely no idea that they were going to reach earth so much earlier than anyone had assumed. Indeed, even in interviews leading up to the episode, Ron Moore indicated that they would get to earth before the end of the series, not giving any clues that in fact it would be in the very next episode. So a viewer's first shock is that they found earth at all. Even as the Raptors and other atmospheric spacecraft descend to the earth's surface, another shock takes over. In one of the great one shots I've ever seen on TV, a camera focuses in close on the bandaged hand of Adama, scooping up liveless soil, a Geiger counter registering high levels of radioactivity. The camera raises up slowly to register the blank expressions of Adama and, standing beside him, Roslin, who utters the shot's lone word, "Earth." The model 3 Cylon known as D'Anna walks up beside them, horror on her face, as Sharon and Helo walk behind them. The camera then loosely follows the two of them as they walk all the way to the far right, stopping along the way to register the reactions of the other major surviving characters on the show. First Cylons Anders and Tory, the same expression of despair on their faces. Then cutting in front of them Apollo, who walks further to reveal Caprica Six in the background, Baltar sitting in the foreground, and Tyrol behind her. Six walks past Dee in the foreground over to Colonel Tigh, lightly touching his arm. Past Apollo, who has stopped walking, past Leoben, briefly back to Sharon and Helo who continue walking, to Starbuck, who turns and walks over to where they have stopped. The camera continues on its own to reveal a body of water and a destroyed bridge, ruins everywhere. It is a scene that will remind any viewer strongly of the end of PLANET OF THE APES. I have to add that there is no hint that this was New York or any other city. Though one ruin clearly features a large carved cross, apparently denoting a Christian building of some sort, there are no other signs of what they have found. Many assume that the bridge is the Brooklyn Bridge, but anyone even minimally familiar with that bridge's design knows that it is not. Some argue that it isn't really earth, but I just don't think that argument holds water.
4.0 was not very happy. These were sad, upsetting, bleak, despairing episodes. But I truly believe that they were what we needed and not what we wanted. Most of us would have had more fighting, more combat, more huge space battles. But we wouldn't have broken new ground or challenged its viewers. The mark of a great show is that it takes you to places that you couldn't expect existed. Most of us have impoverished imaginations and as a result think in small, hackneyed ways. I wasn't always happy with Season Four. My favorite character is Sharon Agathon and on various boards I speculated that her story had largely ended in Season Three, after the last major question (What would she do when she found out that Hera was alive and that Roslin had stolen her from Sharon?) was answered (Answer: She would do whatever she needed to get back Hera, but nothing to harm Roslin.). Season Four showed her as an anti-Cylon zealot, even assassinating a Six who was striving to create some sort of working arrangement with the humans. We got fewer humorous encounters between Six and Baltar. We didn't get to visit interesting planets. Happy times were not had. But as I've reflected back over the show as a whole, I have been amazed at the astonishing journey that it has taken us on. In fact, the show in 4.0 even departed from so much of the political allegory that dominated the first two and a half seasons.
We are now set up for the final ten episodes of a show that has completely redescribed what it is possible to do within the confines of a science fiction show. In part it did this by refusing to succumb to a single one of the tried and true conventions of the genre. And it did this by never repeating itself. Along with another show that was launched in 2004, LOST, it has helped create a new kind of television narrative: the very long story. Other shows had attempted this to some degree. Each season of BUFFY told a self-contained story, with some elements that carried over from one season to the next. THE X-FILES spent several seasons on the alien colonization story (though more than half of each season's episodes were standalone episodes). BABYLON 5 had elements that took the first four seasons to resolve (though there were a number of reasons the narrative wasn't as successful as it should have been). But LOST and BSG will be the first two that will have told a single story through the course of the show with a beginning, middle, and an end. Other shows are following in this path. I think it makes for tremendous television, even if it doesn't always pull in a lot of viewers.
Finally, I'd like to engage in a little speculation. I've made a couple of predictions before. Both of them turned out correct, even if one of them was only partially correct. I think I was the first person on the Internet to predict how Sharon would get Hera; because I knew they had only 42 minutes for Sharon to somehow get to the Cylon basestar and back with Hera, I predicted that someone would kill her (with the Cylon prohibition of suicide, I knew she would kill herself) and that she would grab Hera and return to the Colonial fleet, possibly on a heavy raider. Well, I didn't know they had a Raptor on board, but I got close. (I know I was the first to post this theory on the official board and it only appeared elsewhere after that). The second prediction was that Tyrol was one of the Final Five. What I got wrong was that three others would also be revealed. My third prediction has been a short list of the final Cylon. I don't have room to give all of my reasons for my theory, but it hinges on a passage in a book that Roslin reads aloud to Adama on the Temple of the Five in "The Eye of Jupiter." She reads, "The five pillars represent the five priests who are devoted to the one whose name cannot be na--" and she is cut off by Adama, who says, "Laura." I argue that this is a literary convention in which the one whose name cannot be named is indirectly revealed. Basically, I believe the key to the Final Five is that they are crucial to helping Roslin lead the survivors to earth. Tigh, Tyrol, Tory, and Anders all beautiful fit this. My other argument is that the final cylon could not have been in a position to respond to the song that the other four heard at the end of Season Four. Using these two, I came up with the short list of Billy, Kat, and Elosha. Of the three, Billy was closest to Roslin and he remains my first choice. Elosha was not, I thought, a sufficiently important character to satisfy the requirements of the final cylon. Kat slightly fits the bill, and Starbuck's talking to her photo just before they get to earth strengthens her case. I still think the final Cylon is most likely Billy. But unless Ron Moore has flat out been lying, neither Adama (especially not Zak) nor Starbuck is the final Cylon. We'll see if my third and final prediction is correct or not.
But there is no question that BSG has helped redefine what it is possible to do on a television series. It has taken narrative to new levels, has introduced a moral and spiritual darkness that surpasses even THE SOPRANOS, and has shown that you can completely redefine an other moribund genre, making Science Fiction that speaks more to adults than the teenagers. I can't wait for the final ten episodes.
Edit -- 1/18/09 -- Well, I was wrong on the final Cylon (if, that is, Tigh is correct). I was half right in my reasoning. I was convinced that it couldn't be someone who was with the fleet and that they were most likely dead. But I was equally confident that they were supporters of Laura Roslin. To that degree the person currently revealed as the final Cylon doesn't make a lot of sense. But one of the things about being the executive producers is that things in the end don't have to make a lot of sense. That said, the Season 4.5 opener was a stunning episode in many, many ways, and further proof of just how great this show is.
Summary of Battlestar Galactica - Season 4.0
They?ve traveled millions of miles and defied relentless attackers, but nothing will prepare the human race for what lies ahead as Battlestar Galactica 4.0 arrives on DVD! In ten gripping episodes, relive each pivotal moment as the civil war amongst the Cylons escalates and the quest for Earth continues.Similar DVD Movies
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