***POTENTIAL SPOILERS**********
I love how even in "victory", the show is bitter sweet. It is usually so dark, even a few rays of light seem like water in a desert, and then, the sadness sets in.
I really fear for Mr Gaeta.
And how powerful was Tigh's line: "....Not everyone."
I felt a certain sadness seeing the *mumble* gone from the series, but the show is BSG not BSG&P. Remember Lorne Greene's voiceover "fleeing cylon tyranny, the **** ********** leads a ragtag fleet..."
Adama seemed at peace with himself when it was clear that the Galactica was going to be destroyed. I suspect he knew that it was a suicide mission and at best, he hoped the buy time for the civilians to escape and jump out, sacrificing himself to save the rest of humanity, but probably didn't think the chances of the Galactica escaping as well were all that high. In the previous week, he pretty much acknowledged the mission was one-way.
This show has more heart than pretty much every SF show every made (yes, even favorites like Firefly, B5, et al), because the characters are strongly drawn and strongly acted. I'll confess, I didn't like Lee Adama when the miniseries started, I though he was too vanilla, too forgetable, too much of a boyscout character. (StarBuck seemed a caricature/cliche in those days too), but now, one or two spoken sentences between Apollo and Admr Adama has my heart sinking. And Gaius Baltar, man, from an effeminate gay sideshow character in Bridget Jones diary to this deeply tragic character?
I loved B5, and it did have it's moments, like the tragedy of G'Kar and Londo, both acted very well over the five year story arc. But not all B5's characters were as strongly drawn and acted. Garibaldi was the Colonel Tigh of B5, but he's just not on the same level. Ivanova was well, bleh. Most of BSG's characters by comparison are richly drawn and tragic.
StarBuck I think will no longer be the cocky young spirit she once was. Seems she got too used to the idea of being a mommy. And ole Tigh is likely to be psychologically fucked up for good now, being tortured for months, losing his eye (like G'Kar), finding out his wife is a traitor and even had an affair with Cylons, then killing her. Looks like next week, he's going to mete out vigilante justice to any and all collaborators, and Mr Gaeta seems first on the list.