"150,000 Years Later"

Has there ever been a show that misunderstood itself as badly as Battlestar Galactica? As regrettable as the last few seasons have been, I confess I was completely unprepared for the sheer awfulness of this finale. I think I pissed off a few people on Twitter with my up-to-the-minute spoiler-laden despair, so I don't want to repeat that mistake here—but suffice it to say I can't think of a television finale less successful than this one.

I wrote not that long ago that

All that said, I think it's too early to turn Battlestar into Star Wars; the reputation of the series will live or die in what happens in these next few episodes and it could still go either way. Melodrama aside—and yes there was a lot of it last night—I think there are reasons to believe.

Well, now we know. Frak it all.

Put its utter randomness, offensively easy a-wizard-did-it mysticism, and excess sentimentality aside. Battlestar Galactica in its final moments actually seems to view itself as some sort of prophetic warning about the dangers of artificial intelligence. Delivered by angels. It's actually that bad.

What a colossal disappointment. Bad, bad, bad.