THE SERIES FINALE of Syfy’s Battlestar Galactica (2003–2009) still generates controversy among the show’s activist, networked fans. For good or ill, the epic four-season melodrama, laced with visionary robots, planetary vistas, and spectacular battle scenes, wrapped itself up well enough to earn a disturbingly large slice of the unfolding currency of our hive mind. As television viewers, as fans, as immersion addicts leaning on the Epicurean side of the unconscious, we were vindicated by the ending. The way the plotline dovetailed with our own present and then revealed it in a new light when we emerged back into it was, we had to admit, entirely satisfying.
Had we lost the ability to think critically? We noted the show was proud of its science fiction identity. As science fiction it even performed critical self-reflection. That’s what was so particularly humiliating for us. Most
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