[Flipside]

As long as the solution doesn't involve flying motorbikes designed by the Milky-Bar kid, I'm happy.

[IceFire]

Wow...everyone...and I mean everyone looks so displeased in that last scene.  Wow.

[General Battuta]

Spoiler:

We should've all seen this coming. Galactica is all about the dark side of human nature. They wouldn't pass up the chance to show us -- real, Earthborn us -- destroying ourselves. It's a powerful and grim warning, so of course the writing team jumped all over it.

[jdjtcagle]

Spoiler:

I'd say they hit Earth either in an alternate timeline from our own (possible) or sometime in the future after a natural disaster or apocalyptic war.

Looking at the wreckage, I'm kind of wondering if its the future result of global weather gone awry.

Spoiler:

Wasn't that a radiation device?  Apocalyptic war kinda fits the theme it's happened before and it will all happen again.

[Polpolion]

Spoiler:

I hope this is another "fake Earth" like TOS had. Seriously, is it that hard for a show to have a quality happy ending? I mean sure, we've got a half season left over, but come on.

Regardless, I predict that the rest of the series will go downhill. And honestly, that symbol of "omg earth people kill themselves becausee of nuclear war!!" is so ****ing old it's not even funny. Not only is it not that neat of a device to begin with, but it's a massive cliche in series like these. All in all, this episode was awesome up until they got to Earth. Then it sucked.

What makes me even angrier is that I pretty much excpected something like this to happen.

Seems like every single absolutely amazing episode they make they have to add something in with about 2 minutes left of the episode to make it suck.

EDIT: Upon further reflection, I guess I overreacted to the ending. It didn't suck, par-se, but it certainly did piss me off. Was it in a good sort of way? I'll have to wait 6 months to know, so no, it's in the worst way possible.

[Flipside]

Spoiler:

I'd say they hit Earth either in an alternate timeline from our own (possible) or sometime in the future after a natural disaster or apocalyptic war.

Looking at the wreckage, I'm kind of wondering if its the future result of global weather gone awry.

Spoiler:

Apparently there are very high levels of radiation as well, so it looks like war. That said, I think the 'full circle' idea is probably closest, from Earth we came, to Earth we return, we repeat the cycle of humanity until someone (presumably the final five) break that cycle. There's still the mystery of the source of the Cylon plague thing that originated with the 13th Tribe though, was that accidental or some kind of weapon? If it was a weapon, it was designed to hit Cylons, which raises a hundred more questions.

Spoiler:

I hope this is another "fake Earth" like TOS had. Seriously, is it that hard for a show to have a quality happy ending? I mean sure, we've got a half season left over, but come on.

Regardless, I predict that the rest of the series will go downhill. And honestly, that symbol of "omg earth people kill themselves becausee of nuclear war!!" is so ****ing old it's not even funny. Not only is it not that neat of a device to begin with, but it's a massive cliche in series like these. All in all, this episode was awesome up until they got to Earth. Then it sucked.

What makes me even angrier is that I pretty much excpected something like this to happen.

Seems like every single absolutely amazing episode they make they have to add something in with about 2 minutes left of the episode to make it suck.

Spoiler:

Personally, I'm wondering if there is not a more Asimovian answer to the problem, i.e. Just because humans aren't on Earth any more (at least this part), that doesn't mean they aren't somewhere in the Solar neighbourhood

[WMCoolmon]

Wow...everyone...and I mean everyone looks so displeased in that last scene.  Wow.

Spoiler:

It's like going to your best friend's birthday party after a long day at work, only to find that everybody killed each other over the Pinata.

And yes, there was a Pinata.

Spoiler:

Personally, I'm wondering if there is not a more Asimovian answer to the problem, i.e. Just because humans aren't on Earth any more (at least this part), that doesn't mean they aren't somewhere in the Solar neighbourhood

Spoiler:

That's what I'm thinking. Also, they didn't find the source of the transponder beacon in this episode. Also, the Final Five can't be from earth if it's a radioactive wasteland. Also, if Kara Thrace has been to earth, how did she not notice it's a radioactive wasteland?

[Blue Lion]

I think this is fairly spoiler free:

Tigh should be given the biggest medal they have.

[NGTM-1R]

Sidenote of personal interest: so they really are running EVE Online commericals.

[WMCoolmon]

Sidenote of personal interest: so they really are running EVE Online commericals.

 

I think this is fairly spoiler free:

Tigh should be given the biggest medal they have.

Yeah.

[Mars]

 

Spoiler:

Aren't the rest of the Cylons still out for blood?

[Polpolion]

Spoiler:

What gets me is how colorful and nice the planet looks from space. You'd think that the landscape would be a bit grayer with less colour, the clouds would all be darker because of pollution, and the water would be less of a bright blue. And then there was the sky during the ships' desencion from space. It was all nice and blue with puffy clouds, yet when they land, it's overcast and a lot greyer.

[Eishtmo]

Winter does that sizzler.  It gets all gray and cold and such.

[Herra Tohtori]

Spoiler:

That's what I'm thinking. Also, they didn't find the source of the transponder beacon in this episode. Also, the Final Five can't be from earth if it's a radioactive wasteland. Also, if Kara Thrace has been to earth, how did she not notice it's a radioactive wasteland?

Spoiler:

Actually they could have left Earth because it became radioactive wasteland. The ruins didn't look older than some decades... well, the stone structures could have been of any age from 5000 to 50 years, but the bent steel structures and the ruins of the city in horizon definitely looked rather recent, relatively speaking, so it isn't inconceivable... Same with radioactivity - the most active stuff would have decayed in few decades, leaving the materials with lower activity and thus longer half-times, thus enabling the Colonials to walk around without any specific radiation protection gear, but most likely trying to cultivate the land would lead to serious internal exposure to alpha- and beta-active materials.

That's just speculation obviously.

[NGTM-1R]

We're all assuming nuclear apocalypse here, too, but it doesn't need to have been nuclear. Berlin looked like that after WWII. So did a lot of other European cities.

[IceFire]

Spoiler:

Adama did pick up the soil and the geiger counter was going pretty steadily there.  There was high levels of radiation in the topsoil.  That means nuclear badness of some kind.  Accidental or otherwise.

[NGTM-1R]

A conventional war and Three Mile Island.

[Mefustae]

Title changed, **** spoiler tags. Let's get some clean, open discussion going here without having to highlight every second post.

Great episode. Great. Fantastic, even. Of all the ways they could have gone, Earth having been devastated by nuclear war is definitely solid. It may have been an unbelievably dark ending, but after all the Fleet has been through, after all the characters have been through over the past three years, that little moment of happiness right after they jumped into Earth orbit made up for it all. It was just really nice to see everyone, everyone, happy.

Yeah, for some reason I was getting a San Francisco vibe, too. Not entirely sure why.

[Flipside]

As long as the ending doesn't end up too 'Foundation and Earth', where the 5th is some kind of Daneel Olivaw character who has manipulated everyone back to Earth to save the galaxy or the like...

[Kosh]

Wow...everyone...and I mean everyone looks so displeased in that last scene.  Wow.

Why shouldn't they be displeased, they just ended up trading one nuked out hell hole for another. It's a big question what they are going to do now, either settle on Earth in places were the radiation isn't dangerous or find somewhere else.

As long as the solution doesn't involve flying motorbikes designed by the Milky-Bar kid, I'm happy

Indeed, even by the standards of the original, BSG 1980 was unbelievable cheesy and campy/bad. I think arriving at Earth after World War 3 was probably the best choice for the writers.

Nuclear Winter does that sizzler.  It gets all gray and cold and such.

Fixed