Not sure if anyone else watches it, but I do. Just wanted to rant off and say that this is the most confusing and dumbest episode ever. The fact that it's the last ever episode doesn't help it any.
Starbuck is an angel in the entire series? What were they thinking?
Discuss if you guys watch it. So not worth the torrent.

Surely you mean so not worth patiently waiting for a year or 2 for it to appear on local TV like a law abiding citizen?
I really tried to like the new BSG, a mate and I sat down with pen & paper and made a note of all the inconsistencies from the original series (Starbuck & boomer are WOMEN?? WHAAA???) but by halfway through the pilot movie we stopped and were just enjoying it.
As the series went on it just kept getting crappier and crappier though, I haven't watched an episode since they found the Pegasus, it just lost me. The fact that the finale was of questionable quality doesn't really come as a shock

well i admit the ending was too overdrawn like the end of lord of the rings but the battle over the coleny was really well done beats anything i've seen in stargate thou they did skimp on their dog fights

I enjoyed it...UNTIL the last 5 minutes. Seriously, ending things off with that redundant cliche of 'Let's peek in to the future'??? Ugh.
Also, I don't see how Starbuck was an angel the entire series...she was an angel for the last season, yes...before that, no, because she hadn't died.

I don't get the ending bit... so 150,000 years ago, there were battleships in space and cylon robots, and then now we've got "primitive" cities?

Yep, it was pretty lame in my honest opinion. Then again, I really think everything after they landed on New Caprica was pretty lame. Amusingly, that is the point where they stopped paralleling the plot from the original 1980 series. The way they updated/redid the battle with the Pegasus and the Cylons really rocked, but after that... meh.
It wasn't really a surprise, this is just the way Ron D. Moore does things. He pretty much ruined Star Trek: Deep Space 9 for me as well. He was the genius behind the aliens in the wormhole and "The Cisco". He is just into the whole New Age and supernatural thing.
In other words, the fact that Starbuck turned out to be an angel is totally lame, but I kind of expected it. Same goes for all the other hokey lameness of the last two seasons as well.

Don't even get me started about the terror that is Season Three.

I was very displeased with all the references to God.
Having a Gaius Boltar who's schizophrenic is much more colourful than just having him see angels (even though someone in real life who did see angels would be considered mentally unstable).
I loved Battlestar Galactica because of the interesting moral and ethical dilemmas it took its character cast down - I normally despise sci-fi shows because they're quite plain and boring but this was different. Polytheism vs Monotheism vs cynical atheism was delightful to watch unfold but then they just wrapped everything up with "Oh, God did it".
Which apart from being an incredibly weak conclusion just begs more questions "God was responsible for the nuclear genocide of the 12 colonies?" and so on. In retrospect, the plot seems to be an allegory for the Bible or something in that vein which just comes off as weak.
Other than that, I loved the show and to be honest, I still thought the first half of the finale was quite well accomplished, up to and including the point where Cavil goes nuts. Past that, there are few redeeming features.
A Gaia-theory "let's abandon technology" and embrace lifestyles of 20 year lifespans and sizeable tooth related mortality? Please.

I would agree with this. Actually, I liked the way they wrapped up a good number of the characters at the end, as well...though, what the Hell did Lee Adama DO to bring this last season down on himself? Dee kills herself, his dad ditches him, Kara vanishes...he kinda got screwed.

Yeah, I pretty much agree with everything there. As for the references to God and trying to link Gaius into the whole religiousness, it is just par for Ron Moore. Like I mentioned earlier, it is kind of his thing. I would have preferred that Gaius end up as the #7 Cylon, and have his and Caprica Six's delusions be from some sort of resurrection malfunction during the nuking of Caprica. Then make Starbuck the 5th original Cylon instead of Kate Vernon's character (forget her name in the show). Or, heck, reverse it. Make Starbuck the #7 and Gaius the 5th. That way fits in less with what Kate Vernon's character said right after the resurrection about #7 being male when talking to Cavil, however.
The moral and ethical dilemmas WERE the show; that and the occasional nifty space battle. It kind of got lost and confused with all the psuedo-religious mumbo jumbo towards the end however. I can't help thinking there were so many other avenues that the story could have progressed down that would have been more satisfying tot he majority of fans. That is probably just my bias, but I know from other forums that I am not alone in that bias.
The conclusion, as you said, was just plain weak (at least the second half of it). It was quite literally Deus Ex Machina. Ron Moore just dropped God from a crane and called everything solved. Just like a Greek play where Hera or Zeus or Athena or whoever waved their hands at the end and solved everything.
Why DID Cavil just up and shoot himself, anyway? I had to watch that part a second time to make sure I really saw it. It just made no sense in terms of the situation or his personality. It only made sense to close off a loose end. Just really bad writing there. Just as bad as when the fleet up and decides to 'go native' on Earth. After all the bickering and backstabbing and selfishness of the fleet, I find it difficult to believe that they would all of a sudden decide to do that. Now, I would have believed it more had they come to Earth 8,000 years ago (give or take) and become the Babylonians or something of that sort. They becoming the Babylonians would have actually had far greater Biblical connotations. But, Ron wanted Hera to be our common ancestor, so it had to be 150,000 years ago (probably more, to be honest)
I think it was better than most of the junk on TV now, but I just can't stop thinking that it could have been much better, much more satisfying. Oh well, at least Babylon 5 is still safe at the top of my list as my favorite sci-fi series of all time.
Edit: when I say that Starbuck or Giaus should be the #7 Cylon, I mean it in the numbering scheme that they used, not the total number of Cylons. Since there are 7 second generation Cylon known, and Grace Park is a #8, there must be a missing one out there. Not sure if this is redundant, but just wanted to add this for clarity.

Well, I'm going to break with everyone here and say I abso-frakkin-lutely loved the finale and I think this last season has been the best season yet (other than the original miniseries). Complain all you want about Ron Moore's penchant for new agey religiousness, unlike DS9, this time it worked and worked really well. The ending was epic, heartwarming, deep, meaningful and most importantly, final. This is how a TV series should be completed, on its own terms.
There was a model 7 humanoid Cylon named Daniel, as Ellen Tigh and Cavil talked about. Cavil had his entire line destroyed, essentially out of jealousy over how close Ellen and Daniel were. According to Ellen, Daniel was very artistic and emotionally sensitive, which led my friends and I come up with an interesting theory: Daniel was actually Starbuck's father, which explained how he knew and taught her "All Along the Watchtower", the song that "woke up" the Final Five. Obviously, that was not proven to be true, but a lot of questions over Starbuck were kind of left (appropriately) hanging.

Couldn't agree more! The ending wrapped up virtually everything and those who think it was about "God's plan" kinda missed the point, the point was that Hera was supposed to survive, nothing more. There was nothing religious, nothing about Baltar being a God.
You could never explain the two aparaitions Gaius and Caprica but it was kinda neat that they were painted as immortal beings or some such.
People think that space travel and technology was in the future, here it was in the past and was the precursor to some life on earth.
Those who missed the reasoning behind why abandon ships and space travel; it was to try and avoid a repetition of the technological adavances that destroyed the colonies, original Earth and Kobol.
But at the end of the day, if they did find Earth it would have been several scenarios.
1. They find Earth and settle in nicely. (Could not happen - it was a nuked dustball (Technology again proving to be bad))
2. They find another planet and fight it, dying in the process. (Make 'em look like martyrs)
3. They find another planet and fight it, winning in the process. (Make 'em look like murderers)
4. They don't find Earth and die looking. (make 'em look like martyrs)
5. They don't find Earth but make another one. (Give them a chance to live happily ever after and the only nice ending)
6. Cylons and Humans fight till they all die (Could not happen a too many questions left unanswered.) = = Now THAT would have been the easy way out !
I for one loved it.

Krypsyn : Why is it surprising Cavil shot himself? As soon as Tory died, all hope of the return of Cylon resurrection died with her. That was it. Unless that last ditch attempt to shoot their way off the bridge with Hera had worked, the Cylon race on it's own was doomed.
Anyway, having had a few days to reflect, I did enjoy the finale...aside from that last 5 minutes. I'm simply never going to like that.

Ahh, Crass, putting in that perspective makes Cavil's actions make a little more sense. I had just figured he shot himself so that he wouldn't be taken captive or some such nonsense. I still think it was unnecessary, but at least it isn't a total break of character.
Also, I will reiterate that I DID like the series as a whole. I just didn't like the direction it took in the last two seasons, moving away from more traditional sci-fi and more towards a fantasy/sci-fi hybrid, if that makes any sense. It was still good, and I never missed an episode, which says a lot, but something just didn't sit right with me after New Caprica. Maybe it was something as simple as it not having enough space battles or something, as well as the plot turning more fantasy oriented. I am not sure exactly what it was, but I felt less satisfied with it more and more towards the end.
It is hard for me to put a finger on, which is probably why I keep posting in this thread. Everything I wrote is part of it, but it isn't the whole reason for me. I am not even sure I can express it totally without doing an episode by episode play by play (which I am certain nobody, including me, has the time nor inclination to sit read). Oh well, no sense beating a dead horse... ;)

BSG was never something that I would call "traditional" sci-fi or fantasy. As series, it used science fiction as not much more than a setting, rather than a plot device that they kept hammering us over the head with (I'm talking to you Star Trek, Babylon 5, Stargate, etc.). The show was actually no more than a character-driven drama, that just happened to be considered sci-fi because it took place on a giant space battleship. It could have just as easily been a good drama if it was placed on a sea-bound aircraft carrier instead, the setting was not really the important part of the show (the new series, Caprica, seems like it is going to be similar, in that it will be a family drama... that happens to take place on an alien world). I believe this is why BSG was both a success and a source of frustration. Sci-fi fans were frustrated because they wanted it to be closer to pure sci-fi, while the "norms" who don't usually like sci-fi, enjoyed the show immensely because it was just a good drama. Personally, I don't think the two had to be mutually exclusive and BSG was the best blending of sci-fi elements with good drama and writing that anyone could have asked for.