Highlights

1. The battle scene in the first half. Great action, a real sense of urgency and uncertainty of how things would unfold.  The battlestar acting as a battering ram and boarding the Colony was pretty awesome.
2. Getting to Earth. The real Earth that is.  I guess I took for granted that the first earth was the real thing…even though we never did get a good look the continents, moon, etc.
3. Rosslyn death scene. Very touching.  I wish they had built their cabin first.  It was kind of odd that Adama wanted to go live by himself, but after all he’d been through, quiet contemplation and solitude might not be so bad.
4. Tigh at the strip club. You got to love a couple that can enjoy themselves together at a nudie bar.  His post-shot, oogling-the-stripper yells were awesome.  And their flashbacks throughout the episode actually had the most resonance, both in context of the final episodes and the whole series.  It showed how much they loved each other, despite all the bad things they’ve done over the years (cheating, neglect, drinking, etc) and when they got their happy ending on earth, it felt very well deserved.
5. Cavil/Boomer Deaths. It was sad to see Boomer go after redeeming herself (partially), but it was worth it seeing Athena get her revenge (never fuck my man while I’m bleeding and tied up on the bathroom floor!). And Cavil, realizing the gig was up, deciding to blow his brains out was fitting.  I’m sure he computed the odds and realized it was the most logical thing to do.

Lowlights

1. Kara just disappears. OK…I get it.  She is an angel or a messenger or a Moses-guide type figure.  But after 4 seasons of getting to know this character (and one of the best characters on the show), to simply have her disappear is very disappointing.  Surely she deserved some happiness and peace on new Earth.  Having her disappear after guiding everyone to Earth reduces her to just a plot device, rather than a three-dimensional character.
2. Hera has midochlorians! Or we have her mitochondria DNA.  I tend to get confused when “sci-fi” gets to close to the “sci” half of the genre and falls on its face.  Having Hera be the missing-link “Eve” skeleton seems like a weak excuse to try to justify why she was important.  Yes, showing that humans and cylons can frak and reproduce was important, both for the plot and for the themes of the show (shared humanity of humans and cylons, etc).  Why all the fighting about Hera?  She too was reduced to a plot device and it was never clear what her real importance was.  During the final battle, if Racetrack had nuked the cylon ship when Hera was still on it and she was killed, would anything be different?  Starbuck still could have jumped the ship to new Earth and everyone lives happily ever after.  Oh, and did I mention the opera house splicing was very forced…
3. Tyrol goes to Scotland. Or the rocky highlands somewhere, just to go live by himself.  I know he’s had a rough time of it, but come on.  Surely having some company and eating gazelle burgers on with other survivors wouldn’t be that bad.
4. Ditching the technology. Surely it wouldn’t have hurt to keep a mining/refining operation going and maintain the ability to fly around the planet.  Maybe there could be conflict with the freed centurions or others, but surely maintaining some technological capabilities would have been worth it.  I liked the idea of the clean break but cold turkey seems a bit rash.

Admittedly, I generally don’t watch shows on TV, since I prefer to binge on entire seasons all at once on DVD or BitTorrent, but I was thinking which I liked better:  Lost or Battlestar Galactica.  And the winner for me would have to be BSG.

Lost is a very good show, but so far I’ve been disappointed in the fifth season, and am losing some confidence that the ending will be satisfying after season 6.  What I liked most about lost in seasons 1 through 3, was the sheer confusion and multiple potential explanations.  Using your imagination, you could try to fit things together, but the changing alliances and bits of information kept you on your toes.  Now that they’ve started explaining more secrets of the show, it brings up more questions, but not good ones… These questions are more about the authenticity of the revelations, than curiosity about what will happen next (How does Ms. Hawkins know so much about how to get back to the island?  So why does Jack need his fathers shoes? )  There needs to be some good pay-off in the next few episodes to get the show back on track.

Right now I’ve watched through the middle of the fourth and final season of BSG.  The characters are much better developed than on Lost.  There is intrigue throughout the show (who is a Ceylon, who isn’t, what about Earth, etc) but even when things are unclear, the show fits them together nicely, all while hitting on the shows main themes:  family vs. obligations, faith vs. rationality, freedom vs. security, and what it means to be human.  Some of the second season got bogged down with the religious stuff, but overall the show has been consistently awesome.

Lost also focuses on faith vs. rationality (primarily through Locke and Jack) but sometimes the conflict gets lost (no pun intended) in the convoluted story, shifting or unclear motivations, and over-the-top nature of the show.

So watch tonight I’m on TV here again in Kofu for getting free potatoes. I love this country.