SPOILERS AHEAD – PLEASE READ AFTER WATCHING THE LATEST BSG EPISODE

After watching the episode with the reveal of Battlestar Galactica’s final cylon, I have mixed feelings.  While as a whole, I thought the episode was great, the final cylon and Duilla storylines were a bit disappointing. 

They begin the episode with a lot of Duilla, leading you to believe that she’s the final cylon.  Her finding the children jacks on Earth, and humming a song.  She begins to mumble strange stuff on the ship back to Galactica.  Also, they were featuring a character that usually remained in the background.  I think this was intentionally done to mislead the audience, which I didn’t really like.  If you want to suprise someone, you should build suspense and mystery throughout.  Also, I don’t buy her suicide either, given her newkindled romance with Apollo.  You can say the depression from the discovery of a nuked Earth was too much for her to handle, but she was the one who liked what Apollo said about moving forward.  Just doesn’t work for me.

The fifth cylon reveal was anti-climatic.  It happens at the end of the episode and I don’t really like that they chose Ellen.  So the whore of the fleet is the final cylon?  If you read Ron Moore’s interview, they didn’t decide on the whole final five storyline until Season 3, and then didn’t decide on the final one choice until beginning of Season 4, so obviously there wasn’t too much build up with hints and reasons.  They just kind of dropped it on us.  Also the other final four were not connected in their current life in any significant way, but Tigh and Ellen were, so that was odd as well. I’d be much happier if it had been Dualla or someone else.

Now the things that I liked.

I liked the revelation that the bodies found on Earth were Cylons and not humans.  I think that made sense and fit into the fact that, the terms “human” and “cylon” can be different to another culture that is set thousands of years in the future.  Also the fact that the cylons are a monotheasitic, like a lot of religions in present day.

I really liked the fact that Starbuck finds her crashed ship and dead body on Earth.  It gives a semi-explanation to the destruction and ressurection of her body and Viper ship.

Let me know what you thought of the latest episode and the final cylon.

- Dennis

Here is the article with interview with BSG executive producer, Ron Moore.
http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_tv/2009/01/final-fifth-cylon-ellen-tigh-battlestar-galactica-dualla-dee-.html#more