The re-imagined Battlestar Galactica has been nothing if not a hell of a ride.

Veteran writer Ron Moore went about creating a fully-realised universe, one that ? surprisingly ? dragged viewers in through its realism and character development as much as its thought-provoking stories.

Alert: Spoilers ahead, stop reading now if you care about that sort of thing. The finale created its fair share of debate as fans debated the merits of exactly how the plots were resolved in the last three hours and thirty-some minutes. The final battle was great. The final episode?

Well, it certainly has some points against it. It's not that the episode was complete shit. In fact, it was pretty damn good. There was a great battle, old-school against new-school Cylon action, and a couple of horrible characters getting their comeuppance. And Baltar?s character development turned out to be incredibly satisfying.

There were, however, a few WTF moments. Things that make you think the writers handed their computers over to their 12-year-old children while they went to the pub for a pint. In no particular order, our Battlestar Galatica WTFs:

1. Starbuck.

The show spent half a season convincing us Starbuck?s return from the dead was real and legitimate. An entire first-season subplot had Starbuck as a victim of DNA-harvesting by the Cylons, who can grow flesh bodies. When she found her burned corpse, none of us were surprised. When she disappeared into thin air, it was a kick in the face.

2. Cavil?s Suicide. Dean Stockwell?s explanation ? that Cavil would realise the jig was up and he was doomed to mortality after the Chief kills Tori ? still doesn't explain his sudden decision to completely quit his crusade against the Colonies. Perhaps the most unsatisfying demise of a villain since Darth Maul.

3. Going Native. With a fleet of starving and sick people you're going to send your only working hospital into the sun? If they thought Zarek and Gaeta were mutinous, we can only imagine what the other Colonials thought of this braindead decision.

4. Deus Ex Machina. Since the show heavily features both God and machines, maybe this one was just too tempting for the writers to pass up, but it still comes across as incredibly lazy. We can buy the musical notes being jump coordinates. But saving the day through a random asteroid hitting a ship that just happens to be pointing its nukes conveniently at the Colony, causing said nukes to fire and knock the Colony into a black hole? Come on.

5. We Can Breed With Them. We know this is supposed to be a nod to a divine plan, but since the show focused so heavily on plausible, scientific explanations for the mundane ? even if fate has played a role ? it does itself a disservice by explaining away that the human fleet can simply interbreed with the native Earth population.

6. All You Need Is Love. Hey, remember back when Cylons could only have human-Cylon babies if they Loved Each Other? What happened to that little plot point?

7. 150,000 Years Later. This entire sequence was superfluous. It was a coda for people too dense to get the rather obvious points made earlier in the episode. In fact, if the episode ended with Adama sitting on the hill where he buried Laura Roslyn, that would have been fine ? all the other things could have been overlooked.

8. Late-Story Character Development. Imagine what a different play Hamlet would be if Shakespeare waited until the final duel with Laertes to flesh out Hamlet's daddy issues. You?d spend the first four acts wondering why he was such a whiny child. You know, kind of like we spent the first four seasons wondering why Baltar was such a whiny child.

9. Not With A Bang. Laura Roslyn deserved a better death than keeling over in the cockpit of a raptor while on a wildlife safari with the Admiral. At least some last words or something.

10. They Have A Plan. The Cylons may have had a plan, but it was clear from a lot of the loose plot ends that the writers didn't. It's totally OK that they didn't know where they were going to end up when they started, and the writers did what any good writer would do ? gave themselves enough hooks to do what they wanted. The Temple of Athena and the constellations as they appear from our Earth. The DNA harvesting. Starbuck?s painting. The list of unresolved plots goes on. And it's fair that they weren't all resolved. But when taken as a whole, the lack of resolution of so many makes the writing look sloppy.

BSG isn't over. There's still The Plan miniseries, which will explain exactly what the Cylon plan was. And its spin-off, Caprica, is starting to leak scenes all over the Internet, promising a thought-provoking look at artificial intelligence and playing God.

Any who knows, there's always a DVD release where they can post the alternative ending: that the cast of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles show up, explain that Caprica Six will evolve into Skynet and get to kicking some more ass.

It couldn't be a worse ending anyway.

[story by Jason Mical]

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