I liked nuBSG, but I have to admit that they lost me with the revelation of the Final Five. It made no sense, and totally stripped away the back stories of some of our favorite characters. Damn, by the end of the show everyone was a freaking Cylon. And the ending, while okay, was not nearly as satisfying as it could have been. I think BSG might fare better as a series of films. That way the film makers won't feel forced to inject unnecessary sub-plots and stick to the main story of humanity's struggle to survive and escape. A series to 3 - 4 two-hour movies could tell the story much more tightly than a five season series with 24 episodes per season. Hell, even the FX or AMC model of only 12 episodes per season would have worked better. But leave it to SyFy to fuck it up.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure the final five were selected by assigning a number to all the named characters and throwing a few dice. Also, I was disappointed that we didn't get a final scene between Starbuck and Leoben. He maintained all along that she was "an angel blazing with the light of god" and then we got no payoff from that. Her interaction with Leoben were far more interesting than 4 seasons of will they/won't they fuck interaction with Apollo.
When it was good, BSG was brilliant. When it was bad, it was really bad. The Apollo/Starbuck romance angst, the final five (it made Saul's choice meaningless in my eyes), and the whole Starbuck mystery really hurt the show IMHO.
Well, look at real life; for some reason, when psychopaths infiltrate into power in liberal societies, they become as invincible as herpes. There's a psychological block for some reason toward giving them the same punishment the plebes gets for lesser crimes.
I can't think of another fictional character who annoyed me as much as Baltar, and certainly the "Yeah, but he's an elite and a genius" factor played into his survival to the end, but I wonder if the message wasn't also "Humanity needs his selfish and mendacious traits in order to survive"?
