Successful science fiction invariably falls victim to a simple conflict: The mechanism that allows it to fuel imagination and break convention is also irrevocably tied to empiricism.  Using science to generate fantasy is akin to using a metronome to generate music, where expanding creativity grates against the formality of the propagating structure.

This conflict might not be such a problem except that the people who tend to like science fiction also tend to demand consistency and transparency from things that don’t exist.  Bonanza was a much more popular show than Star Trek in the late 1960’s, and both have generated their fair share of fan fiction and conventions … the hallmarks of any good franchise obsession.  But it’s one thing to draft blueprints for the Ponderosa based on historical experience with similar structures, and quite another to dissect the validity of a future universe made up by a World War II pilot.

The latest spin on the sci-fi angst comes as the re-envisioned Battlestar Galactica winds down with the series finale.  BSG has used the common trappings of spaceships and “bad robots” to provide uncommon insight into terrorism, spiritual awakening, social order, and human compassion.  Yet while the show has gained enough credibility to win a Peabody Award and an audience with the United Nations, it still can’t avoid the inevitable scrutiny that has more to do with an OCD episode than critical thinking.

I’ve just finished watching the final two hours of BSG (not including the profit-reeking postscript coming in June) and there are plot elements that felt rushed, sloppy, or unsatisfying, at least partly due to the slow episodes that have been criticised for wasting time down the home stretch.  I can understand how a passionate follower of the show would find fault with certain resolutions, or the lack thereof.  Even now I’m slightly irritated that (spoiler #1) a driven sociopath like Cavil would spontaneously give up without a Khan-like gesture of destruction.  And I expect further viewing will reveal Kara Thrace to be (spoiler #2) an incoherent deus ex machina who inexplicably finds the wrong Earth before she finds the right one and disappears in a cloud of revisionist flashbacking.

But really, so what?  Fraying threads may ruin a potholder, but they go unnoticed at the edge of an exquisite tapestry.  After following BSG for 5 years, I care far less about the hanging chads than I do the conflict and compassion that was earned through ambitious story arcs and character evolution.  To some, the series is a fraud for not following a predestined path from start to finish, as if any story about Big Ideas should always know The Answer in advance.  To those who require cozy symmetry from storytelling, I recommend the collected works of Chris Columbus, or multitudinous other films and TV shows through which the journey is predetermined or irrelevant.  Ron Moore ultimately took us exactly where the BSG premise told us it would go, but by improvising so expertly along the way, the ending felt fresh and satisfying to a degree that I never could have expected.

After the original series ended in 1979 (we shall not speak of Galactica 1980), all I wanted was to fly a Viper like Starbuck and Apollo.  Granted, I was in 4th grade, but the series didn’t offer much beyond that level of attention.

After Ron Moore’s BSG, I want so much more – to feel Apollo’s ambition, to have Baltar’s redemption, to share Adama’s grief, or even to walk with Tyrol in isolation.  While the ending makes it an explicit part of the “canon,” this series has always revealed us in its characters.  Now that those characters are gone I am left with a greater sense of my own being, and it didn’t require an inverse tachyon beam to find it.  That’s great science fiction.

PS  … but the (spoiler #3) “angels” pontificating in New York City?  That was still pretty lame.