Don't read this if you haven't yet watched the season finales of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA and/ or LIFE ON MARS. I've finally seen both (we are TIVO junkies, so we don't always watch shows the night they air), and... well...
BATTLESTAR GALACTICA ends with "God Did It." Looks like somebody skipped Writing 101, when you learn that a deus ex machina is a crappy way to end a story.
And now LIFE ON MARS ends with "It Was All a Dream." Curiously, I actually found that a bit more satisfying than the end of BSG. But still... really??? C'mon. Writing 101.
Oh, and while I'm at it, let me spoil the new Nicholas Cage movie, KNOWING. I actually enjoyed that one, mostly, although everyone else I know who has seen it hated it. But the ending... this time it was space angels who did it. And when the little kids starting running through the alien grass toward the glowing alien tree, I almost thought the boy was going to say, "My dad used to call me Caleb, but my real name is Adam," and then the little girl would say... oh, wait, you've seen it?
Yeah, yeah, sometimes the journey is its own reward. I certainly enjoyed much of the journey with BSG, parts of LIFE ON MARS, and even some stuff in KNOWING. But damn it, doesn't anybody know how to write an ending any more?
Writing 101, kids. Adam and Eve, God Did It, It Was All a Dream? I've seen Clarion students left stunned and bleeding for turning in stories with those endings.
Pfui.
(I sure hope those guys doing LOST have something better up planned for us. Though if it turns out to be They Were All Dead All Along I'm really going to be pissed).
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Comments
I think you’re piling presure on yourself just now :¬)
*Grumble.
... okay so I haven't seen a RELIGIOUS person go through an athiest revelation, but Rorschach and his psychologist do
The writers of LOST have said that the people on the island aren't dead, but they also said that they wouldn't kill Charlie and they did that, so I don't trust them. But, considering they've given themselves an end date I hope they're working towards something massive and awesome.
I haven't seen the end of BSG yet (I'm about a month behind) but I have no expectations about the ending.
I thought the US version ended it with the only 1/2 plausible way they could to tie it up. Still disappointing...
I haven't seen all of the BBC Life on Mars, yet, and because of that, I refuse to watch American version and because it'll probably be second rate like most overseas TV shows that get americanized.
BSG was a good journey, despite the ending
Okay, as a
obsesseddedicated LOST fan, I love that you watch it, too xDif LOST ends with the dead all along routine, i'll be pissed right there with you!
OMG JOHN LOCKE!
So angry that yesterday I chased some pigeons.
That way people have to click directly on your entry to see what you said on the episodes, so it's easier to avoid spoilers by not clicking instead of averting your eyes in times. Much more safe for spoilerphobic people ^_^
It could have been space angels.
Heh.
But your point is well taken. And man, I hope the Lost kids have something better planned.
I had no problems with that aspect of the story, actually. My deux ex machina moment - and the *biggest* problem I had with the ending - is the "deux ex dead-chick" moment.
I mean...ok. If you put a gun on a nightstand, you have to use it. So as soon as she said she wanted to go in hot with the nukes, they had to use them. That's basic writing. It's just that...dammit...they didn't HAVE to use that whole bit at all. They could have gotten the same result in any number of equally relevant ways. Grrr.
Thankfully, I think the show's past the They Were All Dead All Along point. But if it's not, and if they pull something like that, I'll friggin stop watching TV.
No, seriously, like life, it's a journey that's important.
On Life on Mars: Maybe watch the brit show, that one didn't end with just "It was all a dream", also it had far better actors and writers. Seriously who cast that fridge as Sam Tyler?
Edited at 2009-04-06 06:04 pm (UTC)
BSG's ending was not quite what it could have been. The writers lost their way towards the end and seemed to have difficulty satisfactorily addressing all the mysteries they'd set up. That said, there was at least one vague hint that it wasn't God but some kind of space alien. Still weak though, and the "Robots are bad OMG!" ending was over-egging the pudding.
LOST, on the other hand, has been on fire this last season. Its use of time travel has been really fascinating to watch and implemented intelligently (unlike, say, HEROES). I suspect the writers have also got a better idea for the finale in mind than either BSG or LoM had, simply because they've set up all their mysteries ahead of time instead of just making them up as they went along, like BSG.
I take it we shouldn't be expecting R'hllor to turn up, resurrect Ned and then save the day at the end of A DREAM OF SPRING then? :-)
Are you talking about the "it doesn't like being called that [god]" comment?
It makes me think of Asimov's "The Last Question", for some reason. So ... god out of the machine? God _is_ a machine (maybe).
On the whole, I thought the finale ended well. More importantly, it was told well, because it brought the focus onto the characters and their journey, temporal and spiritual. To me, this was always the central aspect of the show. The "mysteries" were something a lot of people were into, and to some degree the writers kind of fed that mentality, but it was really the story of the characters for me.
I know a lot of people wanted a lot more action, a lot more explicit closure, or what have you, but for me this felt like a fairly bold tack to take against prevailing opinion.
I'm told the LOST writers have said that it's not purgatory and they're not all dead and just don't know it.
As to LIFE ON MARS, as I recall, in the original British series, it was "all just a dream", but they were, I guess, "true" dreams. The character really did live back then, somehow, and then did wake up again in the present. IIRC, the follow-up British series references what happens to him after that point (in short: nothing good.)
The whole thing gets thrown into severe doubt because in the final episode of the first season, Gene Hunt is revealed as having played a role in investigating the murder of Drake's parents as a child, so he really existed. Apparently the second season of ASHES TO ASHES is supposed to dive into this mystery in more detail.
:P
I can also recommend the sequel, Ashes to Ashes (which of course takes place in the Eigthies and is only slightly connected with Life on Mars, I was pretty surprised that they found a way to take the same premise and create another worth-watching story.
bitch about it w/ eisenstein, if I was still in her class she'd prob freak out.
I'd link to TVTropes' entries on both, but then I'd be assuring ADWD never gets finished. Or any other book. Or LJ entry. Or possibly even post-it note. It's that addicting.