At the beginning of every episode (mostly) we were told the following:
“The cylons were created by man. They evolved. They rebelled. There are many copies. And they have a plan.”
For five years it was reinforced and reiterated. For five years we waited to find out what the plan was. Some of us crossed our fingers and looked to the series finale to bring some closure to this elusive plan. We hoped for the big “Aha!” moment where suddenly the stars would align and everything for a moment made sense. This was not meant to be. However word got out that a made for TV movie called, “The Plan” was in production. We the loyal Battlestar audience presumed that we would now finally know what the plan was.
We clearly have not learned anything.
Seriously, how dense are we? If watching the show Battlestar taught us nothing we also had the weekly podcast from the writer/creator/mouseketeer/producer/ who over the course of 100 hours basically gave us one fundamental insight: They had no frakking idea what was going on.
Don’t get me wrong here, I love the show. High points and low points it was the best thing on television. I accept it for what the show is and rebel when people try to assign false facades to it…even when those people are the writer/creater/mouseketeer/producers. Jane Espenson said herself in one of her podcasts, “Part of the fun was painting ourselves into a corner and trying to figure out how to get out of it” or listening to RDM discuss the elaborate brainstorming sessions where the writers were literally making it up as they went along.
To say there is a plan creates a pact, a promise with the viewer. There didn’t have to be, “a plan.” They could have stated there was a plan but it no longer was appropriate or simply removed “and they have a plan” from the intro credits. They could have gone with:
They didn’t tho. They decided to take on the final challenge of explaining what the plan was. I for one expected a thoughtful Rosencrantz and Guildernsten approach of showing what was going on in the background. What we received was a caricature of the show we loved that managed to be derivitve of itself.
The Plan reinforces in the first twenty minutes the very thing we as loyal viewers wanted to know were the details, the philosophy and the execution of this plan we have heard so much about. What do we find out? The plan was to eradicate all of humanity in one dramatic fell swoop. The events of Battlestar post nuking of the colonies was NOT PART OF THE PLAN. The Plan was, “Nuke ‘em till they glow, then nuke ‘em again.” Cavil says himself in the first twenty minutes, “The plan is that everything dies last week and the universe basks in justice."
That’s it. In the end it isn’t about a little boy who somehow finds an apple and gets knifed, it isn’t about the discovery about how Shelly Godgrey got off the ship…it is that they promised to reveal a plan the entire series and when that plan didn’t materialize they decided to make a movie dedicated to the subject…only to say, “Well no, actually no plan, sorry…but here are some boobie shots instead. Look at the pretty boobies! Are you distracted yet? Oh! Here is a dong! That’s high art right there!”
