Daybreak (Battlestar Galactica)
Encyclopedia
"Daybreak" is the two-part series finale of the reimagined science fiction
television series Battlestar Galactica
, and are the 74th and 75th episodes overall. The episodes aired on the U.S. Sci Fi Channel
and SPACE in Canada respectively on March 13 and March 20, 2009. The second part is double-length. The episodes were written by Ronald D. Moore
, and directed by Michael Rymer
. The Season 4.5 DVD and Blu-ray releases for Region 1 feature an extended version of the finale, which not only combines both parts as a single episode, but also integrates it with new scenes not seen in the aired version of either part. The survivor count shown in the title sequence for Part 1 is 39,516. The survivor count shown in the title sequence for Part 2 is 39,406. At the end of Part 2, Admiral Adama announces the survivor population at approximately 38,000.
The episodes portray the Galactica launching a rescue mission to retrieve Hera Agathon from the "colony", a heavily armed and defended Cylon base located near a black hole
. They manage to rescue Hera, and in the end, the fleet finds a new planet to settle on, which they come to call Earth
(revealed to be our Earth). The final episodes gave Battlestar Galactica the strongest ratings since its second season, though they received mixed reviews.
(Edward James Olmos
) is reluctant to undergo a lie detector test in preparation for a civilian desk job. Elsewhere, Gaius Baltar
(James Callis
) is getting tired of his father, Julian, who is abusive to his nurse. However, Caprica Six
(Tricia Helfer
) soon informs Baltar that she took his father into a care home, where he will be happier. Roslin
is living happily with her two sisters, one of whom is pregnant. But later, Roslin receives distressing news that both her sisters and father were killed in a car accident. Three months after, she is set up for a blind date and is encouraged to join Mayor Adar's
presidential campaign. Lee Adama
(Jamie Bamber
) meets Kara Thrace
(Katee Sackhoff
) for the first time while she is seeing his brother, Zak
(Tobias Mehler
). When Lee arrives home drunk, he notices a pigeon in his house, and he chases it away. Lastly, the flashbacks focus on Anders
(Michael Trucco
), who is interviewed during his sporting career, where he admits to playing for the joy of the pursuit of perfection rather than the winning.
Back in the present, Galactica is being stripped for parts to be used on other ships, while the military will be transferred to control the Rebel Basestar. The pictures of the fallen in the memorial hallway are also taken down. Baltar decides for he and his people to have a seat on the quorum, but Lee refuses. Admiral Adama later decides to give amnesty
to those who took part in the attempted coup d'état
, including Tyrol
(Aaron Douglas
), who is in the brig for helping Boomer (Grace Park
) escape, to take part in a mission to retrieve Hera (Iliana Gomez-Martinez), who is being studied by the Cylons
to determine how Cylons can reproduce. However, Adama doesn't allow Cottle (Donnelly Rhodes
) to join in, as he says that the fleet cannot afford to lose a doctor. Several others join in the operation, including the original Cylon models, and a weakened Roslin. A Raptor is dispatched to the possible location of the "Colony", only to find it located very close to a black hole
, but despite the circumstance, Adama orders an attack to begin.
(Michael Hogan) celebrate their upcoming retirement, where Tigh convinces Adama to take his new job. Later, as Adama is questioned in an interview, he complains that no job is worth questioning his loyalty and decides to rejoin the military. Lee has dinner with Zak and Starbuck
again. When Zak passes out, drunk, the sexual tension between Kara and Lee nearly erupts before they are interrupted by a stirring Zak. Back home, Lee again encounters the pigeon, but this time he does not chase it. Roslin meets her blind date, who happens to be a former student of hers. After they go back to her apartment, she has second thoughts and ends the date; she then calls Adar's campaign, informing them of her intention to join it. Boomer meets Adama and Tigh for the first time, where she is warned that she is on the verge of ending her career due to her inability to land a Raptor. Given one last chance, Boomer gratefully tells the two that unlike other pilots, she will repay Adama one day. Meanwhile, Baltar, believing that Caprica Six is a corporate spy, allows her access to the military defense mainframe. He says that he is not doing this for her employers, but for her.
Back in the present of the series, Baltar decides to join the mission with Caprica Six at the last minute; she later admits to being proud of him for the first time. It is later revealed that Baltar's Inner Six, and Six's Inner Baltar are aware of each other, and the two real-life counterparts can see both of them. Romo Lampkin
(Mark Sheppard
) becomes the new president, and Hoshi (Brad Dryborough) is given command of the fleet while Adama and Galactica set off to rescue Hera. Galactica jumps right next to the colony, where they are immediately fired upon. Some of the Raptors, which are armed with nuclear weapon
s, make a short jump into the debris field and fly toward the back of the colony; in the process, Racetrack
(Leah Cairns
) and Skulls (Collin Lawrence) are killed by an asteroid. Anders has been installed into the CIC computers, and disables the Hybrids (Tiffany Lyndall-Knight). Galactica rams straight into the colony, where a strike team led by Starbuck searches for Hera. Hera is rescued by Boomer, who kills Simon
(Rick Worthy
) and finds Starbuck's team. Boomer hands Hera over to Athena (Grace Park
) and tells her to, "tell the Admiral I owed him one." After her daughter is returned, Athena kills Boomer.
However, after Hera is returned, Galactica must also contend with numerous Cylon boarding parties. Hera is split off from her parents. She is spotted by Roslin, who takes a break from assisting with a triage
, and is able to hide her from the Cylons, until she disappears again. While Roslin gives chase, Baltar and Caprica also spot Hera and give chase as well. The chase parallels the Opera House vision shared between Athena, Roslin and Caprica. The chase ends in the CIC, where Cavil (Dean Stockwell
) holds her hostage. Inner Six and Inner Baltar again appear jointly to Baltar, inspiring him to make a speech saying, among other things, that he sees angels and convincing Cavil to end the war. The Cylon representatives agree that Cavil will give Hera back and let them leave if the Final Five give Cavil the technology for resurrection.
The Final Five begin the download of the technology for resurrection, with Saul and Ellen Tigh
(Kate Vernon
), Tory Foster
(Rekha Sharma
) and Galen Tyrol
(Aaron Douglas
) dipping their hands into Samuel Anders
' (Michael Trucco
) amniotic fluid to transfer the data to the Colony. But as they download the info, they can see each other's memories. Tyrol is made aware that Tory murdered his wife, Cally, and kills her in revenge before the downloading is complete. Feeling betrayed, the Cylons resume fighting; after the other Cylons in CIC are killed, Cavil commits suicide
. In the debris field, a chance rock strike causes Racetrack's hand to fall on the launch button for her Raptor's nuclear weapons; the missiles strike directly into the colony, knocking it out of orbit. With Galactica being dragged toward the singularity along with the colony, Adama orders Starbuck to jump the ship away, anywhere. Starbuck finds herself entering coordinates into the computer as if she were playing a song, using the notes which Hera had written. Galactica jumps away and out of danger, leaving the colony to inevitably fall to its destruction within the black hole.
Galactica arrives at Kara's mysterious coordinates, its final destination as the damage caused in the battle has rendered the ship incapable of surviving any further jumps. Miraculously, the Galactica finds itself in orbit around a habitable world... our own Earth
.
Hours later, the rest of the fleet has been summoned. Lee makes the unorthodox suggestion that they abandon their technology and start afresh, while Adama and others discover primitive humans already occupying the planet. Since finding Earth was always the goal of the Colonial Fleet, Adama suggests they call this planet Earth. The survivors - Galactica's crew, the remaining inhabitants of the fleet, and the Cylon Twos, Sixes and Eights - take basic supplies and spread out across the planet to colonize it, leaving Anders to fly the fleet into the Sun. The Rebel Cylons decide that their Centurions have earned their freedom, and give them control of the Basestar, which jumps away to parts unknown. Starbuck, her destiny completed, literally vanishes without a trace after saying goodbye to Lee.
Baltar and Caprica Six are visited by their Inner messengers, who inform them that their destinies - to save Hera - have been fulfilled, and the two decide to live out the rest of their lives together. Lee expresses his desire to venture off and explore the planet. Tyrol decides to settle by himself on a remote northern island (implied to be the Scottish highlands). Helo
(Tahmoh Penikett
), Athena and Hera are reunited as a family. Tigh and Ellen stay with the rest of the survivors. Adama leaves with Roslin, but while admiring the wildlife and looking for a place to build a cabin for them, Roslin dies peacefully. Adama finds the place where he will build the cabin, and buries Laura on a nearby hillside.
, 150,000 years later: humanity has reached the early 21st century, and the development of robotics and computerization continues unabated. Inner Baltar and Inner Six (no longer tied to the long-deceased Gaius Baltar and Caprica Six) comment on the recent discovery of what is believed to be "mitochondrial Eve
" in Tanzania
... the remains of Hera Agathon, progenitor of modern day humanity. Inner Six disagrees with her counterpart about humanity's next future: when a complex system repeats, something new is bound to happen, and this Earth - descendant of devastated planets Kobol
, Caprica and the original Earth - may escape the vicious circle of technology, all part of God's plan. "You know it doesn't like that name," Inner Baltar replies, as the two stroll away.
In the episode's podcast, Moore and his wife Terri commented that they had trouble scouring for robot footage and clearing rights issues. They also described one of the robots as the "most disturbing" of the robots. "She's freaky. She's a Six in the making".
Several chords of Stu Phillips' original Battlestar Galactica theme are heard at several junctions in the show, including when Adama flies the last Viper off the Galactica and when Anders flies the fleet into the sun. The final shot of the fleet leaving Earth's orbit is an exact recreation of the fleet stock shot from the original series. D'Anna Biers (played by Lucy Lawless
) is the only Cylon not to appear in this episode, as her character had stayed on the original 'Cylon' Earth at the end of "Sometimes a Great Notion
."
Before entering coordinates on the FTL-drive control console, Starbuck says 'there must be some kind of way out of here' which is the opening lyric of Bob Dylan
's song "All Along the Watchtower
". The coordinates she enters are revealed through flashbacks to be the numerical representation of the opening notes of that same tune. The song is a recurring theme throughout the fourth season and the version sung by Jimi Hendrix
is played at the end of the episode.
The episode was partially shot in the area of Kamloops, British Columbia.
s, which typically adds another 700,000 Battlestar Galactica viewers per episode.
Critical reception of the finale varied. Mark Perigard of the Boston Herald concluded that "The desire to wrap everything up in a neat package–which is so contrary to the spirit of this show–hobbled the series creators." while Alan Sepinwall of The Star Ledger opined that "so the amazing four-year journey of Battlestar Galactica comes to an end, and I feel very, very good about it–even as I suspect others may not." Mother Jones magazine noted that the finale did little to genuinely resolve many plotlines and subplots, and pondered the implications for the industry. Time Magazine noted that it seemed hard to believe that an advanced culture would discard all of its technology.
Salon Magazine contrasted the finale with the rest of the series noting that the episode finished with "40 minutes of speeches about lessons learned and the need to "break the cycle", the naiveté of which did indeed feel like a break–from the knowing, worldly stoicism that made "Battlestar Galactica" so refreshing to begin with." A reviewer at Blend Magazine wrote an article entitled "Why The Battlestar Galactica Finale Is A Huge Cop Out And It Doesn't Matter;" noting that the final resolution lacked credibility, but that the simple drama of the episode was one reason to view it positively.
Renowned fantasy author George R.R. Martin expressed his extreme disgust with the series' writers for producing this ending, saying on his livejournal: "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...Yeah, yeah, sometimes the journey is its own reward. I certainly enjoyed much of the journey with BSG...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."
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
television series Battlestar Galactica
Battlestar Galactica (2004 TV series)
Battlestar Galactica is an American military science fiction television series, and part of the Battlestar Galactica franchise. The show was developed by Ronald D. Moore as a re-imagining of the 1978 Battlestar Galactica television series created by Glen A. Larson...
, and are the 74th and 75th episodes overall. The episodes aired on the U.S. Sci Fi Channel
Syfy
Syfy , formerly known as the Sci-Fi Channel and SCI FI, is an American cable television channel featuring science fiction, supernatural, fantasy, reality, paranormal, wrestling, and horror programming. Launched on September 24, 1992, it is part of the entertainment conglomerate NBCUniversal, a...
and SPACE in Canada respectively on March 13 and March 20, 2009. The second part is double-length. The episodes were written by Ronald D. Moore
Ronald D. Moore
Ronald Dowl Moore is an American screenwriter and television producer best known for his work on Star Trek and the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica miniseries and television series, for which he won a Peabody Award for creative excellence in 2005 and an Emmy Award in 2008.-Early life and...
, and directed by Michael Rymer
Michael Rymer
Michael Rymer is a television and film director, best known for his work on the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica TV series, for which he directed the pilot miniseries and several episodes of the series...
. The Season 4.5 DVD and Blu-ray releases for Region 1 feature an extended version of the finale, which not only combines both parts as a single episode, but also integrates it with new scenes not seen in the aired version of either part. The survivor count shown in the title sequence for Part 1 is 39,516. The survivor count shown in the title sequence for Part 2 is 39,406. At the end of Part 2, Admiral Adama announces the survivor population at approximately 38,000.
The episodes portray the Galactica launching a rescue mission to retrieve Hera Agathon from the "colony", a heavily armed and defended Cylon base located near a black hole
Black hole
A black hole is a region of spacetime from which nothing, not even light, can escape. The theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass will deform spacetime to form a black hole. Around a black hole there is a mathematically defined surface called an event horizon that...
. They manage to rescue Hera, and in the end, the fleet finds a new planet to settle on, which they come to call Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
(revealed to be our Earth). The final episodes gave Battlestar Galactica the strongest ratings since its second season, though they received mixed reviews.
Part 1
The flashback sequences during the course of the first part take place a few years before the Cylon attack on Caprica. William AdamaWilliam Adama
William "Bill" Adama is a fictional character portrayed by Edward James Olmos in the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica television series...
(Edward James Olmos
Edward James Olmos
Edward James Olmos is an American actor and director. Among his most memorable roles are William Adama in the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica, Lt...
) is reluctant to undergo a lie detector test in preparation for a civilian desk job. Elsewhere, Gaius Baltar
Gaius Baltar
Gaius Baltar is a fictional character in the TV series Battlestar Galactica played by James Callis, a reimagining of Count Baltar from the 1978 Battlestar Galactica series...
(James Callis
James Callis
James Callis is a British actor. He is best known for playing Dr. Gaius Baltar in the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica miniseries and television series, and Bridget Jones' best friend in Bridget Jones's Diary and Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason...
) is getting tired of his father, Julian, who is abusive to his nurse. However, Caprica Six
Number Six (Battlestar Galactica)
Number Six is a family of fictional characters from the reimagined science fiction television series, Battlestar Galactica. She is portrayed by Canadian actress and model Tricia Helfer. Of the twelve known Cylon models, she is the sixth of the "Significant Seven"...
(Tricia Helfer
Tricia Helfer
Tricia Janine Helfer is a Canadian actress and former model, best known for her roles as Number Six in the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica miniseries and television series, "Carla" on Burn Notice, and FBI Special Agent Alex Rice on Dark Blue, as well as for hosting the first season of Canada's...
) soon informs Baltar that she took his father into a care home, where he will be happier. Roslin
Laura Roslin
Her first actions include organizing all FTL-capable ships together and convincing Commander William Adama to abandon a retaliatory attack on the Cylons. President Roslin and Billy Keikeya, her aide/press secretary/chief of staff, establish a working office space aboard her transport, renamed...
is living happily with her two sisters, one of whom is pregnant. But later, Roslin receives distressing news that both her sisters and father were killed in a car accident. Three months after, she is set up for a blind date and is encouraged to join Mayor Adar's
Richard Adar
President Richard Adar is a fictional character in the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica, portrayed by Colm Feore. He was President of the Twelve Colonies before the Destruction of the Twelve Colonies by the Cylons...
presidential campaign. Lee Adama
Lee Adama
Leland Joseph "Lee" Adama is a fictional character in the television series Battlestar Galactica. He is portrayed by actor Jamie Bamber. He is one of the main characters in the series.-Early life:...
(Jamie Bamber
Jamie Bamber
Jamie Bamber is the stage name of Jamie St. John Bamber Griffith , a British actor known most widely for his roles as Lee Adama on Battlestar Galactica and Detective Sergeant Matt Devlin on the ITV series Law & Order: UK...
) meets Kara Thrace
Kara Thrace
Kara Thrace is a fictional character in the reimagined Battlestar Galactica franchise. Played by Katee Sackhoff, she is a revised version of Lieutenant Starbuck from the 1978 Battlestar Galactica series...
(Katee Sackhoff
Katee Sackhoff
Kathryn Ann "Katee" Sackhoff is an American actress known mainly for playing Captain Kara "Starbuck" Thrace on the Sci Fi Channel's television program Battlestar Galactica. In 2004 she was nominated for a Saturn Award in the "Best Supporting Actress in a Television Series" category for her work in...
) for the first time while she is seeing his brother, Zak
Zak Adama
Zak Adama is a fictional character on the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica science fiction series.-Biography:As the younger son of the celebrated Commander William Adama and Caroline, Zak felt pressured to join the Colonial Fleet and prove himself to his father...
(Tobias Mehler
Tobias Mehler
Tobias Mehler is a Canadian actor who has appeared in film and television productions. Some notable roles include d'Artagnan on Young Blades, Zak Adama on Battlestar Galactica and Lieutenant Graham Simmons in Stargate SG-1...
). When Lee arrives home drunk, he notices a pigeon in his house, and he chases it away. Lastly, the flashbacks focus on Anders
Samuel Anders
Samuel T. Anders is a fictional character from the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica television series, played by Michael Trucco...
(Michael Trucco
Michael Trucco
Edward Michael Trucco is an American actor with Italian roots. He is best known for his role as Samuel T. Anders on the reimagined Battlestar Galactica and currently appears as a series regular on the USA Network television series Fairly Legal.-Biography:A native of San Mateo, California, he...
), who is interviewed during his sporting career, where he admits to playing for the joy of the pursuit of perfection rather than the winning.
Back in the present, Galactica is being stripped for parts to be used on other ships, while the military will be transferred to control the Rebel Basestar. The pictures of the fallen in the memorial hallway are also taken down. Baltar decides for he and his people to have a seat on the quorum, but Lee refuses. Admiral Adama later decides to give amnesty
Amnesty
Amnesty is a legislative or executive act by which a state restores those who may have been guilty of an offense against it to the positions of innocent people, without changing the laws defining the offense. It includes more than pardon, in as much as it obliterates all legal remembrance of the...
to those who took part in the attempted coup d'état
Coup d'état
A coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...
, including Tyrol
Galen Tyrol
Galen Tyrol is a character on the television series Battlestar Galactica. Tyrol is responsible for the maintenance of the Vipers and Raptors aboard Battlestar Galactica...
(Aaron Douglas
Aaron Douglas
Aaron Douglas was an African American painter and a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance.-Early life:...
), who is in the brig for helping Boomer (Grace Park
Grace Park (actress)
Grace Park is an American-born Canadian actress. She gained recognition as Sharon Valerii on Battlestar Galactica, as well as Shannon Ng in the Canadian television series teen soap Edgemont...
) escape, to take part in a mission to retrieve Hera (Iliana Gomez-Martinez), who is being studied by the Cylons
Cylon (reimagining)
Cylons are a race which appear in the reimagined Battlestar Galactica television series and its prequel Caprica. They have several forms, some of which resemble and even mimic the behavior of humans, while others are mechanical in appearance and function.In the first DVD, one of the show's creators...
to determine how Cylons can reproduce. However, Adama doesn't allow Cottle (Donnelly Rhodes
Donnelly Rhodes
Donnelly Rhodes is a Canadian actor. He recently starred as Doctor Cottle on the Sci Fi Channel television program Battlestar Galactica. Before Battlestar Galactica he was probably best known to American audiences as the lovestruck, hapless escaped convict "Dutch Leitner" on the 1970s soap-opera...
) to join in, as he says that the fleet cannot afford to lose a doctor. Several others join in the operation, including the original Cylon models, and a weakened Roslin. A Raptor is dispatched to the possible location of the "Colony", only to find it located very close to a black hole
Black hole
A black hole is a region of spacetime from which nothing, not even light, can escape. The theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass will deform spacetime to form a black hole. Around a black hole there is a mathematically defined surface called an event horizon that...
, but despite the circumstance, Adama orders an attack to begin.
Part 2
In flashback sequences, William Adama and Saul TighSaul Tigh
Saul Tigh is a fictional character on Battlestar Galactica played by Michael Hogan. The character was named Paul Tigh in early scripts, and was renamed due to legal issues, according to producer Ronald D. Moore. He is one of the main characters of the show.-Overview and personality:Saul Tigh is a...
(Michael Hogan) celebrate their upcoming retirement, where Tigh convinces Adama to take his new job. Later, as Adama is questioned in an interview, he complains that no job is worth questioning his loyalty and decides to rejoin the military. Lee has dinner with Zak and Starbuck
Kara Thrace
Kara Thrace is a fictional character in the reimagined Battlestar Galactica franchise. Played by Katee Sackhoff, she is a revised version of Lieutenant Starbuck from the 1978 Battlestar Galactica series...
again. When Zak passes out, drunk, the sexual tension between Kara and Lee nearly erupts before they are interrupted by a stirring Zak. Back home, Lee again encounters the pigeon, but this time he does not chase it. Roslin meets her blind date, who happens to be a former student of hers. After they go back to her apartment, she has second thoughts and ends the date; she then calls Adar's campaign, informing them of her intention to join it. Boomer meets Adama and Tigh for the first time, where she is warned that she is on the verge of ending her career due to her inability to land a Raptor. Given one last chance, Boomer gratefully tells the two that unlike other pilots, she will repay Adama one day. Meanwhile, Baltar, believing that Caprica Six is a corporate spy, allows her access to the military defense mainframe. He says that he is not doing this for her employers, but for her.
Back in the present of the series, Baltar decides to join the mission with Caprica Six at the last minute; she later admits to being proud of him for the first time. It is later revealed that Baltar's Inner Six, and Six's Inner Baltar are aware of each other, and the two real-life counterparts can see both of them. Romo Lampkin
Romo Lampkin
Romo Lampkin is a fictional character in the television remake of Battlestar Galactica. He is portrayed by Mark Sheppard. He first appeared in the third season episode, "The Son Also Rises"....
(Mark Sheppard
Mark Sheppard
Mark Andreas Sheppard is an English actor and musician, born in London of an Irish-German background. He is often credited as "Mark A. Sheppard".-Personal life:Mark Sheppard is the son of actor W. Morgan Sheppard...
) becomes the new president, and Hoshi (Brad Dryborough) is given command of the fleet while Adama and Galactica set off to rescue Hera. Galactica jumps right next to the colony, where they are immediately fired upon. Some of the Raptors, which are armed with nuclear weapon
Nuclear weapon
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. Both reactions release vast quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. The first fission bomb test released the same amount...
s, make a short jump into the debris field and fly toward the back of the colony; in the process, Racetrack
Margaret Edmondson
Margaret Edmondson is a fictional character in the television series Battlestar Galactica, portrayed by actress Leah Cairns.- Character biography :...
(Leah Cairns
Leah Cairns
Leah Cairns is a Canadian actress. She is best known for her role as one of the Raptor pilots, Lieutenant Margaret "Racetrack" Edmondson, on the Sci Fi Channel television program Battlestar Galactica.-Biography:...
) and Skulls (Collin Lawrence) are killed by an asteroid. Anders has been installed into the CIC computers, and disables the Hybrids (Tiffany Lyndall-Knight). Galactica rams straight into the colony, where a strike team led by Starbuck searches for Hera. Hera is rescued by Boomer, who kills Simon
Number Four (Battlestar Galactica)
Simon , is a fictional character, a Cylon from the reimagined Battlestar Galactica series. He first appears in The Farm , an episode written by Carla Robinson and directed by Rod Hardy...
(Rick Worthy
Rick Worthy
Richard Worthy is an American actor and Star Trek veteran, having played several alien and one human role in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Enterprise....
) and finds Starbuck's team. Boomer hands Hera over to Athena (Grace Park
Grace Park (actress)
Grace Park is an American-born Canadian actress. She gained recognition as Sharon Valerii on Battlestar Galactica, as well as Shannon Ng in the Canadian television series teen soap Edgemont...
) and tells her to, "tell the Admiral I owed him one." After her daughter is returned, Athena kills Boomer.
However, after Hera is returned, Galactica must also contend with numerous Cylon boarding parties. Hera is split off from her parents. She is spotted by Roslin, who takes a break from assisting with a triage
Triage
Triage or ) is the process of determining the priority of patients' treatments based on the severity of their condition. This rations patient treatment efficiently when resources are insufficient for all to be treated immediately. The term comes from the French verb trier, meaning to separate,...
, and is able to hide her from the Cylons, until she disappears again. While Roslin gives chase, Baltar and Caprica also spot Hera and give chase as well. The chase parallels the Opera House vision shared between Athena, Roslin and Caprica. The chase ends in the CIC, where Cavil (Dean Stockwell
Dean Stockwell
Dean Stockwell is an American actor of film and television, with a career spanning over 65 years. As a child actor under contract to MGM he first came to the public's attention in films such as Anchors Aweigh and The Green Years; as a young adult he played a lead role in the 1957 Broadway and...
) holds her hostage. Inner Six and Inner Baltar again appear jointly to Baltar, inspiring him to make a speech saying, among other things, that he sees angels and convincing Cavil to end the war. The Cylon representatives agree that Cavil will give Hera back and let them leave if the Final Five give Cavil the technology for resurrection.
The Final Five begin the download of the technology for resurrection, with Saul and Ellen Tigh
Ellen Tigh
After she is killed for treason against the resistance on New Caprica, Ellen resurrects aboard a Cylon ship, where John Cavil holds her prisoner. However, by downloading into a new body, she regains the memories that Cavil had blocked decades earlier...
(Kate Vernon
Kate Vernon
Kate Vernon is a Canadian-born film and television actress. She is best known for her roles as Lorraine Prescott on the CBS soap opera Falcon Crest from , the stuck-up and popular Benny Hanson in the comedy film Pretty in Pink , Mary-John Lovejoy in The Lost Colony Feature of Lovejoy and...
), Tory Foster
Tory Foster
Tory Foster is a fictional character from the 2004 TV series Battlestar Galactica, portrayed by Rekha Sharma.-Character biography:Tory, like the other members of the Final Five, was originally from a planet called Earth...
(Rekha Sharma
Rekha Sharma
Rekha Shanti Sharma is a Canadian actress best known for her portrayal of Tory Foster on Battlestar Galactica.Her ancestors are from the state of Uttar Pradesh in India, which they left during the British period. Her family resettled in the Fiji Islands and her parents moved to Canada...
) and Galen Tyrol
Galen Tyrol
Galen Tyrol is a character on the television series Battlestar Galactica. Tyrol is responsible for the maintenance of the Vipers and Raptors aboard Battlestar Galactica...
(Aaron Douglas
Aaron Douglas (actor)
Aaron Douglas is a Canadian actor. He is best known for his role as Galen Tyrol on the Sci Fi Channel's television program Battlestar Galactica....
) dipping their hands into Samuel Anders
Samuel Anders
Samuel T. Anders is a fictional character from the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica television series, played by Michael Trucco...
' (Michael Trucco
Michael Trucco
Edward Michael Trucco is an American actor with Italian roots. He is best known for his role as Samuel T. Anders on the reimagined Battlestar Galactica and currently appears as a series regular on the USA Network television series Fairly Legal.-Biography:A native of San Mateo, California, he...
) amniotic fluid to transfer the data to the Colony. But as they download the info, they can see each other's memories. Tyrol is made aware that Tory murdered his wife, Cally, and kills her in revenge before the downloading is complete. Feeling betrayed, the Cylons resume fighting; after the other Cylons in CIC are killed, Cavil commits suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
. In the debris field, a chance rock strike causes Racetrack's hand to fall on the launch button for her Raptor's nuclear weapons; the missiles strike directly into the colony, knocking it out of orbit. With Galactica being dragged toward the singularity along with the colony, Adama orders Starbuck to jump the ship away, anywhere. Starbuck finds herself entering coordinates into the computer as if she were playing a song, using the notes which Hera had written. Galactica jumps away and out of danger, leaving the colony to inevitably fall to its destruction within the black hole.
Galactica arrives at Kara's mysterious coordinates, its final destination as the damage caused in the battle has rendered the ship incapable of surviving any further jumps. Miraculously, the Galactica finds itself in orbit around a habitable world... our own Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
.
Hours later, the rest of the fleet has been summoned. Lee makes the unorthodox suggestion that they abandon their technology and start afresh, while Adama and others discover primitive humans already occupying the planet. Since finding Earth was always the goal of the Colonial Fleet, Adama suggests they call this planet Earth. The survivors - Galactica's crew, the remaining inhabitants of the fleet, and the Cylon Twos, Sixes and Eights - take basic supplies and spread out across the planet to colonize it, leaving Anders to fly the fleet into the Sun. The Rebel Cylons decide that their Centurions have earned their freedom, and give them control of the Basestar, which jumps away to parts unknown. Starbuck, her destiny completed, literally vanishes without a trace after saying goodbye to Lee.
Baltar and Caprica Six are visited by their Inner messengers, who inform them that their destinies - to save Hera - have been fulfilled, and the two decide to live out the rest of their lives together. Lee expresses his desire to venture off and explore the planet. Tyrol decides to settle by himself on a remote northern island (implied to be the Scottish highlands). Helo
Karl Agathon
Karl C. Agathon is a fictional character on the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica TV series, portrayed by Tahmoh Penikett.-Background:...
(Tahmoh Penikett
Tahmoh Penikett
Tahmoh Penikett is a Canadian actor. He is best known for his roles as Karl "Helo" Agathon on the Sci Fi Channel's television series Battlestar Galactica and as Paul Ballard in Joss Whedon's Dollhouse'.-Early life:...
), Athena and Hera are reunited as a family. Tigh and Ellen stay with the rest of the survivors. Adama leaves with Roslin, but while admiring the wildlife and looking for a place to build a cabin for them, Roslin dies peacefully. Adama finds the place where he will build the cabin, and buries Laura on a nearby hillside.
Epilogue
New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, 150,000 years later: humanity has reached the early 21st century, and the development of robotics and computerization continues unabated. Inner Baltar and Inner Six (no longer tied to the long-deceased Gaius Baltar and Caprica Six) comment on the recent discovery of what is believed to be "mitochondrial Eve
Mitochondrial Eve
In the field of human genetics, Mitochondrial Eve refers to the matrilineal "MRCA" . In other words, she was the woman from whom all living humans today descend, on their mother's side, and through the mothers of those mothers and so on, back until all lines converge on one person...
" in Tanzania
Tanzania
The United Republic of Tanzania is a country in East Africa bordered by Kenya and Uganda to the north, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west, and Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique to the south. The country's eastern borders lie on the Indian Ocean.Tanzania is a state...
... the remains of Hera Agathon, progenitor of modern day humanity. Inner Six disagrees with her counterpart about humanity's next future: when a complex system repeats, something new is bound to happen, and this Earth - descendant of devastated planets Kobol
Kobol
Kobol is the name of a planet in the fictional Battlestar Galactica universe.Within the context of both Battlestar Galactica stories, Kobol is the birthplace and original home of humanity, from which the civilization departed and formed the Twelve Colonies on other worlds...
, Caprica and the original Earth - may escape the vicious circle of technology, all part of God's plan. "You know it doesn't like that name," Inner Baltar replies, as the two stroll away.
Production
Several chords of Stu Phillips' original Battlestar Galactica theme are heard at several junctions in the show, including when Adama flies the last Viper off the Galactica and when Anders flies the fleet into the sun. The final shot of the fleet leaving Earth's orbit is an exact recreation of the fleet stock shot from the original series. D'Anna Biers (played by Lucy Lawless
Lucy Lawless
Lucy Lawless, MNZM is a New Zealander actress and singer best known for playing the title character of the internationally successful television series Xena: Warrior Princess....
) is the only Cylon not to appear in this episode, as her character had stayed on the original 'Cylon' Earth at the end of "Sometimes a Great Notion
Sometimes a Great Notion (Battlestar Galactica)
"Sometimes a Great Notion" is the thirteenth episode in the fourth season of the reimagined Battlestar Galactica. It aired on television on SCI FI and Space in the United States and Canada respectively on January 16, 2009 and on Sky One in the United Kingdom on January 20, 2009...
."
Before entering coordinates on the FTL-drive control console, Starbuck says 'there must be some kind of way out of here' which is the opening lyric of Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
's song "All Along the Watchtower
All Along the Watchtower
"All Along the Watchtower" is a song written and recorded by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. The song, which has been included on most of Dylan's greatest hits compilations, initially appeared on his 1967 album John Wesley Harding. Over the past 35 years, he has performed it in concert more...
". The coordinates she enters are revealed through flashbacks to be the numerical representation of the opening notes of that same tune. The song is a recurring theme throughout the fourth season and the version sung by Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter...
is played at the end of the episode.
The episode was partially shot in the area of Kamloops, British Columbia.
Reception
"Daybreak (Part 2)" was watched by 2.4 million total viewers, a 56% surge from the season three finale and the series' best numbers since the season 2.5 premiere, "Resurrection Ship, Part 1." This led to a 1.7 household rating. The series finale also drew 1.5 million viewers in the key 18-to-49-year-old demographic, and 1.6 million viewers aged 25-to-54, the best in each demographic since "Resurrection Ship, Part 2." The numbers do not take into account timeshifting via digital video recorderDigital video recorder
A digital video recorder , sometimes referred to by the merchandising term personal video recorder , is a consumer electronics device or application software that records video in a digital format to a disk drive, USB flash drive, SD memory card or other local or networked mass storage device...
s, which typically adds another 700,000 Battlestar Galactica viewers per episode.
Critical reception of the finale varied. Mark Perigard of the Boston Herald concluded that "The desire to wrap everything up in a neat package–which is so contrary to the spirit of this show–hobbled the series creators." while Alan Sepinwall of The Star Ledger opined that "so the amazing four-year journey of Battlestar Galactica comes to an end, and I feel very, very good about it–even as I suspect others may not." Mother Jones magazine noted that the finale did little to genuinely resolve many plotlines and subplots, and pondered the implications for the industry. Time Magazine noted that it seemed hard to believe that an advanced culture would discard all of its technology.
Salon Magazine contrasted the finale with the rest of the series noting that the episode finished with "40 minutes of speeches about lessons learned and the need to "break the cycle", the naiveté of which did indeed feel like a break–from the knowing, worldly stoicism that made "Battlestar Galactica" so refreshing to begin with." A reviewer at Blend Magazine wrote an article entitled "Why The Battlestar Galactica Finale Is A Huge Cop Out And It Doesn't Matter;" noting that the final resolution lacked credibility, but that the simple drama of the episode was one reason to view it positively.
Renowned fantasy author George R.R. Martin expressed his extreme disgust with the series' writers for producing this ending, saying on his livejournal: "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...Yeah, yeah, sometimes the journey is its own reward. I certainly enjoyed much of the journey with BSG...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."