There are at least 7-8 more shocking endings, not least of which is the jump-a-year-ahead at the end of Season 2.

The problem with this season, fine acting aside, is how damned easy everything is. Hey, here's a baseship. Hey, let's rescue Lucy Lawless. Hey, let's kill a Centurion with a couple of bullets (where it took no less than a rocket launcher in the first couple of seasons).

Genuine danger and a sense of society have been replaced with the "Who's the last CYlon" macguffin and other cheap trickery (apologies to Cheap Trick), like the "we have no intercoms on the ship so Starbuck has to run in at the last second to save Tigh from the big shiny airlock button."

Isn't it be pretty to think so?

Wouldn't it be pretty to think so? Isn't it pretty to think so? One or the other, please!

cliche.

I was fortunate to only catch the last three minutes of the show.

SUCKERS!

No, I really do have sympathy for all those who watched it from beginning to end. I hope they have flying motorcycles next season to make amends.

Note that no true continents were shown and that the ruins were just random piles of rock along a sea shore. There was no big rusting sign saying “Welcome to New York” nor was the ruined bridge close enough in appearance to the Brooklyn Bridge to be unmistakable. In fact, if we hadn’t been told that they were on “Earth” we’d have no reason to think it was our Earth, let alone a known landmark.

Maybe it is our Earth after all, but so far they haven’t given us any real confirmation. Until then, we have no basis for assuming that it is Earth.

For a season that has taken its time, I felt the end of this last episode was rushed. I would have loved to see the show savor the moments leading up to their finding earth. I felt it should have had more of an impact than it did -- but I still enjoyed it.

A lot of people seem to be riled up by the ending -- comparing it to Planet of the Apes. An apt comparison, for sure, but it's not just a "twist;" it makes perfect sense within the mythology of the show. After all, if the descendants of New Capricans came from Earth, there has to have been a reason why they left. War makes a lot of sense.

Especially since the Cylons have been saying, all along, that everything has happened before and will happen again -- so the entire destruction of New Caprica by Cylons, the escape in search of a new planet -- perhaps this is all a repeat of what happened with Earth.

With Apes, the fact that it turns out to be Earth is a cheap plot device. With Galactica -- we've know they were heading to our home the entire time...how could we NOT expect to see some remnants of our past? That is part of the magic of the show's mythology -- that they are striving so hard for an iconic, religious place that we already know to be real.

Per Havrilesky's article -- I have to say, I didn't get "Manhattan" or any other recognizable landmark from the wreckage that was shown. It looked to me like they were on a beach. Did I miss something?

I was completely shocked that they actually found Earth, since I expected it to be the happy ending at the end of the series. And then I was shocked that it was a post-apocalyptic wasteland. The soil was radioactive, the planet devastated, it was a thousand times worse than New Caprica. What on earth can they do now, pun intended? Certainly a lot more interesting than a pat happy ending, this dramatic complexity is what I should have expected from this superlative show that never does what the audience expects them to do.

Tigh, Anders, and Tyrol gave Starbuck the answer: the location of Earth. But we didn't find out who the Final Cylon was. D'Anna hinted that number five was already on the base ship, meaning it had to be either Roslin or Gaius. Or possibly Hot Dog. But if they just found Earth, why would the fifth Cylon even be important any more?

If they really make us wait until next January to find out, I'm going to throw an electronic tantrum.

You seem to be misunderstanding a couple of things...

It IS definitely Earth. Establishing that was the purpose of the short scene where they matched up the stars.

Which were found in...season 2 or late in season 1? Where several of them got to see what the constellations look like from Earth. So it's not just some planet. It's Earth.

Also, they are all originally from a planet called Kobol, not from Earth. 12 colonies went and did their thing, and the 13th tribe went elsewhere and found Earth.

Thus in the mythology of the show, Earth has either destroyed itself (big stretch there) or been destroyed by another enemy, possibly even the other Cylon faction who found it first. Maybe the 5th is with them, and led them there. Who knows?

New Caprica was not destroyed by the Cylons. New Caprica was the random planet they decided to have a go at colonizing, then escaped from after the Cylon occupation. The original Caprica was the planet they basically nuked into being uninhabitable, along with the other eleven colonies.

I am so glad I quit watching this ridiculous show.

We did, of course.

Unfortunately, this series has started sucking buckets. This season, I have actually forgotten to watch it. Ron Moore's fascination with Starbuck, Baltar's endless preaching (couldn't one full sermon give us the idea about monotheism?), the sidelining of characters--just caused they divorced, couldn't they give Dualla SOME airtime?--the endless fascination with Starbuck...oops, am I repeating myself? Well so is the show.

What a disappointing mid-season finale and over all fail for what used to be a great show.