What was left open-ended?

>>So where is this a deus ex machina?<<

I think a morally ambiguous ending would have fit better with the tone/premise of the first two seasons, and I don't buy that Lee's incoherent idea really amounts to any sort of recognizable moral progress.

Alurin, did you really find this finale hopeful?

Please continue.

a final note from me
I'll say my biggest problem with the finale is that the mystical pap overrode the emotional heart of the show: a troubled family brought together in crisis who learn to rely on one another. In the end, the notion of the Battlestar crew being a family was pretty much just abandoned. They were all…

I lost it at Baltar's speech to Cavil, and by "lost it," I mean I actually laughed because it was so forced and cheesy.

Hmmm, AVClub ate my response to your first point and inserted my response to your second point instead. To briefly restate my response to your first point:

Yes, it was that bad. On to your points:

Wait, that was a good explanation?

As I said, the problem isn't the message or the concepts, it was the writing and execution. One of my big problems was how Moore tried to spell out, very slowly and explicitly, his moralistic message. It completely lacked any subtlety or nuance, and it's insertion as plot device (via Baltar's little speech), basically…

Ahhhhh, delicious nerd rage. Yum yum. Something tells me that Ron Moore could have filmed himself taking a shit and Skipskattle would be telling us it's "SOME PROFOUND SHIT, YOU FUCKHOLES!!!1!"

misanthrope, your own thesis demonstrates why a disappointing Lost ending is not inevitable as other overly defensive commenters are saying. It is all dependent on the quality of the writing and execution. This lackluster finale is no surprise in the sense that BSG has basically been on autopilot for at least a…

And believe it or not, there are plenty of movies that do deal with such heady issues in a compelling and original manner. The flipside of the "you guys are being too hard on BSG" argument is your implication that this lackluster episode of television somehow represents the human limit of artistic expression in cinema.

>>I mean these are only, like, issues that philosophers and religious prophets and scholars have been wrestling throughout the ages of humanity, so, yeah, why can't a TV show just wrap it all up in a nice neat two hour package?<<

I agree. I loved the Twin Peaks ending. It may have been disconcerting, but damn, Lynch took his concept and made it compelling.

PG, again, it's not the concept, it's how it was handled/written. When your blood pressure drops, maybe you should ruminate on that for a while.

Yes, there are plenty of examples of good finales to beloved series… which just goes to show that the "you're just impossible to please" brigade are really grasping at straws in defending what just amounts to a poorly written episode of an otherwise good television program.

I mean, seriously, a literal deus ex machina? Tons of nerd forums full of good ideas and they pull out the most classic of classic cop-outs?

I like how edked, clearly overreacting as a result of an apparent inability to suffer any criticism of BSG, is telling others to stop overreacting. The episode fucking sucked and it was a disappointment. Sorry if that hurts your feelings. Get over it and shut the fuck up.