Exactly. Your review is spot on. The story is what they write and produce. They could have dealt with any number of issues in more detail - the conflict amongst the cyclons, the mindset of a suicide bomber, the obstacles in establishing a new colony, the list is endless. Yet instead they took the easy way out and gave us bits and peices of a timeline without giving us any emotional involvement with the characters. I really feel like the writers gave up. They had numerous issues to deal with (religon, self determination, terrorism, power, etc) and either they didn't have the intellegence or creativity to deal with them further or they simply ran out of time and said Frack it, lets start over. In the end it was a betrayal to their viewers.

I think the ending was very risky and compelling. While I have heard that the idea did come to Moore on a whim, I think it is in perfect step with the plot twists we have seen before. It is hard to recall a show that has completely flipped its assumptions, situation, characters, and possible directions so completely in just 90 minutes. There is no way I can wait until October!

I think the whole ending is a dream of Baltar's.If I am not mistaken (and I may be) after Baltar presents Adama with the executive order, he falls asleep, only to be awoken by Gaeta, a year later.

Ideas anyone?

I think that Ron Moore has consistently said that he like's to upset people's expectations. He made a huge risk doing what he did at the end. Now some people complained that they were upset that by doing this they do not knwo what caused it. I am sure that it will be explained but I think that you can also infer from previous occurances why things are the way they are a year later. To be honest it is not that hard to figure out or infer if you really paid attention to the things in this episode.

Well, with so called "liberal media bias", it was about time for some right wing propaganda, but I never expected it on SciFi channel. And it was quite good and nicely hidden. Let's see, what was the main message of the last episode? Pretty much what they suggest is : "Democracy is a wonderful thing as long as you elect the right/good people(Rosalin)." See what happens if you go with the liberal traitor (Baltar), you'll just end up with an corupt government and not only that, you'll find yourself in mortal danger? Wouldn't had been better if we just ignored the election results and did what we KNEW for a fact was RIGHT? The good leaders, that are not only good, but also rightious, guide themselves by truth from the holy book (Rosalind) and she we'll deliver us from the dangerous world around us, we just have to trust her. Military is always right, they are the fellas that protect us and we are so ungrateful, shame on us. They only mean good after all, we have to completly trust their judgment because they are the only ones that REALLY know what's going on, the rest of us are just cattle that will get swayed by manipulators a la Baltar.
What a load of garbage this last episode was. Sorry for bad english.

don't know if I can accurately tell whether this episode was good or not. I guess I should list some things I liked and disliked.

Things I liked:

-The acting in this episode was ace. Olmos, McDonnell, Callis and Helfer all had lots of moments to shine with their performances.
-I also found that the special effects in this episode were some of the best in the entire series.
-Ha! Adama's lighter! Continuity! Hooray!
-That's one hell of an arc for Baltar. He goes from shrewd politician to resentful loser to a snarky President-elect, and finally, becomes a pill-popping President with a harem of women. Wow.

Things I disliked:

-It seems like the whole subplot of Chief Tyrol trying to find redemption (because he thinks he was a Cylon) has just been cast aside.
-Where did the other copy of Brother Cavil come from? It certainly didn't look like he was with the soldiers stranded on Caprica. Did they meet him along the way back to the Raptors? And (this is more of a nitpick) did Roslin throw both Cavil models out of an airlock?
-When the series finale of "Enterprise" aired, I complained about how the show didn't need to jump forward a large amount of time because nothing happened. On this show, it's jumped forward a year, and the whole premise is different. Are we going to see any flashbacks about how the colonists settled here? Jumping forward has basically invalidated most of the character development we've seen throughout the series.
-So, Lee is now hating on Starbuck because she insulted him once when she was drunk? Christ, what a prick. And why did he gain 30 pounds and don a mullet? Are there no exercise machines on the Pegasus?
-And what was with Gina? She blew up the Cloud Nine because...she wouldn't get to see Baltar that much anymore? Maybe she thought that he was using her? Does anyone even care?
-The explosion of the Cloud Nine and the other few ships is treated as an afterthought. What, they thought it would be wise not to show us the devastating aftereffects of a NUCLEAR EXPLOSION? No mention is made to the people who died? That was 1/5 of the fleet that JUST DIED RIGHT THERE!!!
-This is more of a personal opinion, but why the hell did the fleet settle in the coldest part of the planet? It looks like it's freezing there. I thought they were going to settle near the equator.
-This is also an opinion, but if Laura Roslin (the President) told me she had seen Baltar with a Cylon agent (and we know Shelly Godfrey might still be in the fleet, given that she was never found), I'd rather keep Roslin in power than allow Baltar to take over. I don't give a crap about whether it's ethical or not. It was the right thing to do.
-So, how do you man a Battlestar if you have two people in CIC? Don't you need more than two people to plot the jump coordinates and direct the ship?

So...I don't know, it wasn't bad, but it certainly wasn't that great either. I'll keep watching, though. It sure hasn't "jumped the shark", but if the occupation/resistance plot keeps going, it might just lose some of it's core audience.

I knew Dean Stockwell was a Cylon from the get-go.

I did not like the Cally-Chief fast-forwarded romance; I think the Chief still has a lot of feelings for his Sharon (the one that "woke up" a couple episodes ago). But I don't like Cally, so maybe I'm biased. :)

I did not like that Adama was so high-and-mighty with Roslin's "votes" because she had been the one to convince him that Admiral Kane needed to be eliminated, and he agreed. Why so moralistic all of a sudden?

I pray it is all a dream. I think they made a mistake fast-forwarding the plot so much.

As for the people: anyone who would have moved down to a planet where there are no resources and where everything will have to be done by hand--despite the fact that the people were used to living in fairly luxurious surroundings on the ships--HAS GOT TO BE NUTS. No wonder they were still living in tents.

I read that Edward James Olmos isn't coming back for Season 3. How is that going to work???

I think Chuck is dead on. Too many questions to be answered and too may holes in the story if they do leave as is.

It is also insight on how the Cylons view us.

First of all the inability to take the action you know is right even if what you do or how you do it is wrong is a weakness only a machine can see.

As for the #7 model blowing up the nuke, she did it knowing that the Cylons would detect the radiation signature. She has alot of reason to kill humanity. The war hero #7 may be in love with Baltar and believes the Cylons are wrong for what they have done but she is a different machine than the one that blew up Cloud 9.

With Apollo and Starbuck, Apollo obviously has deep feelings for Starbuck. She is his first choice but she has insulted and been unkind to him for the last time.

I do hope that it is a dream because I really dont see where the plot can go after this.

I'm on the same page as the reviewer. I do applaud the willingness of thew writers allow upheaval in the overall status quo. But... why they cram all that interesting stuff into one episode? I felt the show really faltered in mid-season with a series of character focus episodes that were just not that interesting and didn't advance the overal arc. If anything, I became less interested in these characters after the episodes. If we were going to have these huge changes, why not spend a few episodes on it?

Also, the whole nuclear bomb thing was just too much. If the Colonials have sensors that can detect when a Raider thousands of km away has a nuclear bomb on it or, they don't know when a bomb leaves their own ship? And don't they know about INVENTORY? With cylon agents running around they don't count their nuclear bombs from time to time? I'm willing to overlook some things for the sake of the dramatic moment, but ....

I think it will be interesting to see what they do next season. I personally don't think its a dream. There are too many scenes that don't involve Baltar at all for it to be a dream in my mind.

As for the rift between Apollo and Starbuck... I think its because of something that happened during the year we didn't see, based on comments by the XO. I'm really wondering if they're using this to set up "flashback episodes" as a way to do storytelling for the next season.

Only time will tell.

It's not the story that I object to, it's the way they did it. I'm sure things will get explained next season, but that doesn't change the fact that they produced a week season finale that jumped all over the place. They didn't need to do it that way and by doing it that way they took advantage of their viewers. And I agree with Eric, the character focused episodes were the worst ones. When they stick to global issues we can identify and sympathize with the characters more as the topics are relevant, intriguing and important.

Yeah it's DEFINITELY a DREAM. Everything was so FRACKED UP at the Finale that it reminded me of a Star Trek Voyager Episode. I was thinking to myself 'how are they gonna get out of this one?' Then the writers just use the old TIME TRAVEL trick to put everything back to where it was before things got messed up. Baltar is just going to wake up and they'll have a fresh new season. IF It's not a dream then the writers may do what the writers of LOST have done which is to fill in the gaps. So you'll have a season back story and flashbacks BUT I HIGHLY DOUBT IT.

I thought it was great. They took a real risk - which was bound to upset and confound some fans and viewers - but after two years of "the fleets on the run" I think they reached the end of what they could do with that storyline and decided to change course.

The "fast forward" (which Moore says is not a dream) was just so totally unexpected and totally BSG. As I said, its going to irk some but for me "Burdens" was just a classic.

Bring on Season 3!