When Daybreak begins, it's the end of the Battlestar Galactica. Despite trying to extend the life of the mighty battlestar by using Cylon technology, the Galactica is still on her last legs, rattling her death throes, and Adama is forced to make the painful decision to abandon ship and transfer his command over to the rebel Cylon base ship. It's during the process of clearing the old girl of essential equipment that Adama comes across a photo of little Hera on the wall of the remembered dead. Having been previously abducted from Galactica by Boomer in Someone To Watch Over Me, the fact that Hera's picture is on the wall is an indication of the dire fact that the crew of the ship have given up on her. And, after a thoughtful hesitation, Adama takes the picture down from the wall and walks away with it with a distinct determined stride.

He goes to speak with Sam Anders, one of the final five Cylons who has become a metaphysics-sprouting hybrid, thanks to the bullet in his skull that he received in Blood on the Scales. With Starbuck present, Adama asks Anders a very specific question--one that we don't hear, and nor do we hear the answer. But the result of this scene has Adama and Starbuck laying a red line of tape on the flight deck, as Adama announces to the crew his intention to lead a rescue mission to get Hera back, and all volunteers who wish to join him can step over to the starboard side of the line. Once he receives enough people to effectively run Galactica, Adama convenes a war council with Lee, Starbuck and the rebel Cylons as they figure out how they're going to assault the Colony. A sanctuary where Cavil and his supporters have fled to after losing their resurrection technology, the Colony is a well-armed stronghold where the Cylons are keeping Hera so they can experiment on her.

With Daybreak, writer Ronald D. Moore and director Michael Rymer bring the Battlestar Galactica saga to a satisfying close. In addition to the tense build up towards the epic final battle with the Cylons, the episode is sprinkled with flashback sequences that show Lee, Kara, Baltar and others in pre-attack scenes that wind up adding a great deal of resonance to the present day moments, such as when Kara admits to Lee that she's not afraid of dying, but of being forgotten. The battle to rescue Hera from the Cylons at the Colony is spectacular, both visually and viscerally. But while most SF series would end the final show just after the last ka-boom of their epic saga, Moore continues his story far beyond the final battle, as Starbuck's frantic typing in of the FTL coordinates--a numerical translation based on the musical notes of the song, All Along The Watchtower, which has haunted both her and the Final Five Cylons--delivers the battered Galactica right on the doorstep of a world which can support life.

It's a world that already has human-like Stone Age people living on it, and when we see the familiar continental shape of Africa looming below, we know they've finally found earth--our earth. Just as the final scene in Revelations elevated that episode from superb to classic, so does this final sequence elevates Daybreak to classic status, as the people of the fleet shed their technology and settle down as hunter-gatherers on this brave new world. And as if this wasn't mind-blowing enough, Moore takes us one hundred fifty thousand years in the future--to our present day, where the angelic versions of Caprica Six and Baltar casually stroll around the streets of New York City, wondering if the people of this new earth will avoid the same mistakes of their forbearers. The montage of cute and adorable robots--which are all real-world electronic critters--that close the episode is chilling. It's the perfect example of what a marvelous allegory BSG has been in reflecting the dark and turbulent first decade of the 21st century.

It's ironic that Daybreak celebrates a new beginning for the human race--thanks to the blended human/Cylon genes offered by Hera--while at the same time it effectively brings the series to an absolute end. And that's perhaps what's most satisfying about it. Unlike certain SF series, whose final episodes deliberately leave everything hanging for the inevitable DVD movies to come, Daybreak brings it all to a fulfilling close. Are all of the questions answered? No. We still don't know for sure who or what Starbuck truly was, but her final, poignant scene with Lee still leaves us with a clue. This brings me to another great facet of Daybreak--as well as the series as a whole--is that it worked at being good, mind-blowing science fiction that was still character-driven and wasn't afraid to leave things up to the interpretation of the viewer. If only all SF series were this good.