The trouble with MacGuffins – BSG, Earth, and Cylons run amok

The impetus behind this whole summer series for me was the final season of Battlestar Galactica. Now cut me some slack here. This article is going to make me come off as a hater, but I really did love the series. I enjoyed the final season, even though I thought the show really lost its way. The MacGuffin management, which the show excelled at early in its run, became clumsy, and (in the ultimate sin of a MacGuffin) took over the show.

The MacGuffins that I specifically want to discuss are the search for Earth and the Cylons.

Let’s start with the Cylons, because I see them as the most egregious sin. In general I liked the Cylons. I thought they were a great villain early in the series, and they became complex and even more interesting during the civil war plot line. The problem for me, however, came with the “final five.”

The reveal at the end of season three made for a great moment, but the execution and completion of the “final five” story line left me really disappointed. Over the course of the final season, the series seemed to be overtaken with the “final five” and their history. This wouldn’t have been such a problem, but their story was complicated, and frankly, I didn’t find it interesting at all. I thought it was bizarre and didn’t make a whole lot of sense that the skin jobs were created thousands of years ago, and somehow humans developed the same exact Cylons independently on another planet.

It seemed to me that so much of the final episodes were about the final five, trying to adequately explain their existence. Why did it have to be so boring? Was the best that the writers could come up with really just having Anders spout exposition for ten minutes? This was the most exciting way that the viewers could be informed about the Cylons’ history? Suffice it to say, I was disappointed. I won’t even go into the missing number seven that was practically dismissed in passing or the changing rules about resurrection.

I suppose the point that I’m trying to make is that the Cylons began as a villain, a driving force for the action of the show; a MacGuffin. By the end of the series, the show had degraded into “Days of our Cylons,” and while some may have enjoyed it, it didn’t work for me.

Then there is the whole Earth business. For the most part it was relegated to the background of the show, where I thought it belonged. I know it was supposed to be the one goal for the fleet, a symbol of hope for all the survivors. Frankly, though, I never thought the show needed Earth to succeed. In the end, I thought the reveal of Earth in the finale was more cheesy than it was effective. As soon as they landed and spotted cavemen walking around I giggled. Personally, I would have preferred something a little more open ended.

With Scott giving the final episodes of the series the Virgin Diary treatment, I’m really interested to see what he has to say about the finale. Looking back at the series as a whole, I still think it far exceeded so many shows on television and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to friends, but I did feel a little let down. I wish that Ron Moore had taken his own advice and remembered that it was “about the characters,” and not focused so much on the things that I considered to be MacGuffins.

Clacked by Bob Degon
on Jul 20, 2009 @ 12:00 EST5EDT