The 2000s version of “Battlestar Galactica” held nothing back in its finale, “Daybreak,” where the titular starship and its fleet finally got to their new home, Earth. The feature-length finale employed a flashback structure, showing what the main characters’ lives were like before their world was destroyed in the pilot miniseries. By going back to before the beginning, the show made us appreciate the journey we spent years on with these people. (Full disclosure, I once spoke with several of the “Battlestar Galactica” cast and crew about their experience making that final season.)
In a 2009 interview with TV critic Alan Sepinwall, “Galactica” co-creator Ronald D. Moore revealed what TV series finale was most on his mind when wrapping up his show with “Daybreak”: “The Larry Sanders Show,” the HBO sitcom starring Garry Shandling as the titular talk show host. Often ranked as one of the best sitcoms ever made, “The Larry Sanders Show” ran six seasons from 1992 to 1998.
But what overlap does a talk show sitcom have with a space opera? According to Moore, he wanted to capture the sense of finality that “Larry Sanders” finale “Flip” had. “Flip” took a meta-turn depicting the final episode of the in-universe “Larry Sanders Show.” As Moore put it, the characters of the show knew they were in a series finale, so they said their farewells like they really meant it.
“The character [of Larry Sanders] was leaving [his show], the characters were aware of the ending being upon them, and there was a lot of heart to it, and it felt right, and they were talking about all the things they should have been. It was really a reward for your dedicated viewership. That spirit is something I definitely approached it with.”
The Battlestar Galactica finale needed to be an emotional goodbye
“Battlestar Galactica” was, as Ronald D. Moore put it in his series’ bible, a show all about the chase. In the opening miniseries, humanity’s robotic creations the Cylons annihilated human civilization (spread across 12 colony planets). The Galactica led a starship fleet of the only survivors in search of the mythical thirteenth colony, Earth, while dodging the Cylons.
In “Daybreak,” they find a new planet to call Earth — our Earth (this whole time, the show was secretly set in the distant past). To give themselves a clean break, the colonial humans cast off their advanced technology and settle on their new home. In hindsight, Moore has said he almost regrets giving “Battlestar Galactica” such a definitive ending, because there’s no opening for a reunion show.
In the last third of “Daybreak,” the Galactica itself is sent flying into the sun, as its crew all go their separate ways on Earth. The most poignant goodbye is between Admiral William Adama (Edward James Olmos), his son Lee (Jamie Bamber), and their family friend Kara Thrace/Starbuck (Katee Sackhoff).
“My very earliest memory of my father was him flying away on a big plane and wondering when he was coming back,” Lee muses to Kara. “He’s not coming back this time.” Before long, Kara herself has vanished into thin air.
The supernatural parts of the Battlestar Galactica finale overshadow its character drama
Early on in “Battlestar Galactica,” Cylon Number Six (Tricia Helfer) mused about God having a plan. That notion grew more and more until “Daybreak” confirmed that, yes, there is a literal omnipotent god and everything in the show had happened according to its design. When Starbuck died and returned back in “Battlestar” season 3, that’s because God needed her to lead her people to Earth. With that mission complete, Starbuck leaves to have her rest. The illusory Number Six who Gaius Baltar (James Callis) has been seeing the whole series? Not a hallucination, a literal angel set by the God she talked about so much.
Now, this ending didn’t come out of nowhere. “Battlestar Galactica” had been a spiritual show since season 1, but making that spiritualism so literal wasn’t the most popular choice. The harshest criticism of “Daybreak” has tended to hone in on the “all part of God’s plan” storytelling. “A Song of Ice and Fire” author George R. R. Martin was annoyed by the ending of “Battlestar,” so much that he wrote a whole blog post criticizing the ending for boiling down to “God did it.”
Whatever you think of the religiosity, “Daybreak” still succeeded in the areas where “Battlestar Galactica” always had — high-suspense action and emotional drama. Ronald D. Moore and his cast delivered heartstring-tugging goodbyes to their characters. I’d say that’s a finale worthy of “The Larry Sanders Show.”
