One of the best parts of this job is the advance copies we get of television DVD sets. In short: Holy frak! The final set of Battlestar Galactica episodes is awesome.

Minor spoilers follow...

There are those who liked the ending and those that didn't. I didn't like the lack of explanation of Kara's return from the dead and found the finale generally anti-climactic. But the series set a high standard and, overall, it's a minor complaint. In most ways, the series is perfect and far better than most of us deserve.

I'll give them this: the people who make the show know their audience ... that audience being nerds. Nerds like information. Hence, the DVD set is full of extras and special features. These include deleted scenes, behind-the-scenes featurettes, and extended versions of episodes, including the three-part finale, "Daybreak." And every episode (let me repeat that:: every episode) has podcast commentary by Ronald Moore.

(S04E20) "Frakkity, frak. Don't talk back." (Apologies to Lieber and Stoller)

After four years of some of the best and most adult sci-fi in the history of television, Battlestar Galactica draws to a close with a bang and then a whimper, with an overall satisfying ending that was as morally complex as any episode in the series.

(S04E19) You can tell that this show is approaching the end. Tonight's episode had the credits and chanting immediately after the "previously" montage and didn't even show scenes from tonight's episode during the final part of the opening. Plus, it was written by the same guy who wrote the original mini-series way back when. That's a telling sign.

Caprica City looks like a high-tech New York City. That was probably intentional.

(S04E18) I know it's a little late in the game to make this sort of observation, what with the show having only two episodes left, but if I were to compare characters in this show to characters in Gilligan's Island, I would say that Six is Ginger, Eight is Mary Ann and President Roslin is Mrs. Howell. Adama would naturally be the Skipper and Tigh would be Gilligan. I'm still working on Mr. Howell and the Professor.

In the beginning of the episode, either in someone's fantasy or projection or reality, Hera is moving the Galactica in a position next to the enemy Cylon fleet. Foreshadowing?

(S04E17) Before I go all spoilery on tonight's episode, what was the tattoo on Starbuck's back? It looked like a temple of some sort. Was it the Temple of Five?

Tonight's episode had its share of "what the frak" moments. It had some revelations, but it created more mystery than it solved. I was a little annoyed at the tease of learning the secret behind Starbuck's resurrection that ultimately didn't happen.

(S04E16) We've reached "The Final Five" on a few levels. Ellen Tigh is back, and it's good to know that despite being part of a species with a potentially infinite lifespan, she still gets jealous when her husband has a baby with someone else.

The minute Ellen came back, I knew the baby would miscarry. I believe it was Tigh, as one of the Cylon progenitors, that was keeping the unborn Liam alive (if the Cylons do in fact need love to survive). Once Ellen came back, it caused conflicting feelings and the baby was done for. I wonder if Caprica Six will try to exact revenge as a result and we'll see a Cylon catfight.

(S04E05) Like so many TV shows before it (such as 24), Battlestar Galactica is built on those "what the frak" moments in which the revelations continue to astound us. Between those WTF moments, there has to be some sort of explanation as to why the moment happened and the events leading to those moments. They're not as much fun, and rabid fanboys have a tendency to nitpick the frak out of them, but they're necessary to the narrative. Tonight's episode was heavy on exposition and light on WTF.

Obviously, we learned that Ellen Tigh resurrected (no surprise there) and she was apparently in charge of the project from 2000 years ago which created the human-style Cylon race. I didn't even catch all of the explanation. The following is what I did understand:

(S04E14) It is impossible to have a bad episode of Battlestar Galactica. Even a bad episode is better than most of the other crap on TV. Fortunately, this was the opposite of a bad episode.

Obviously, there was no question about how this entire coup was going to end. Our heroes have way too much spunk to let little worms like Gaeta and Zarek control their ship for long. This is actually a rare case on the show of a neat wrap-up of a plot-line (and since we only have six episodes left, we'll probably see more wrap-ups, some of which might be neat).

(S04E13) Galactica, Frak yeah!
Coming again to save the mother-frakkin' day, yeah!
Galactica, Frak yeah!
Frakkin' is 'bout all we say, yeah!*

*With apologies to Trey Parker and Matt Stone

This was an excellent episode. While the whole "coup d'état" storyline has been done before (if memory serves, the last one was lead by Bill Adama himself), this was done in with more grace and subtlety. The experience was very much like an Alfred Hitchcock movie. The audience knew exactly what was happening while the characters didn't. I was practically yelling at the screen "Gaeta is committing treason! Why haven't you figured it out?"

(S04E12) "There are days when I really hate this job." - Admiral Adama

Ron Moore's directorial debut! It was a good one (although not as good as last week). It probably helped that he also wrote the episode.

A long-nagging question of mine was answered in tonight's episode: if Cylons can't procreate and Tyrol was a Cylon, then how could he have a kid with Cally? The answer was that the kid wasn't his. It does leave the question of Tigh and Six's baby. Can the Final Five procreate with other Cylons? And who is that guy that is the father of Cally's son? I didn't recognize him. Has he appeared previously? This plot point seemed out of the blue. Also, they seem certain that Tigh is the father, but could it possibly be Baltar instead?

(S04E11) Note: technically the Razor television movie counts as the first two episodes of the season, so this is actually episode 13. And what an episode it was! It answered the biggest question from the viewers and in the process created a few more.

FYI, the episode title is taken from the folk song "Goodnight, Irene", which pretty much fits the theme of the episode.

I really liked Mary McDonnell's acting in this episode. I felt heartbroken at her breakdown upon discovering the remains of Earth and her inability to share the information with the fleet. Whenever things get bad, at least we're not on the run from homicidal machines with our last great hope for sanctuary a radioactive wasteland.

On to the spoilery bits!

(S04E08) After two weeks of waiting, and through several other shows having their season finales, we're back for more frakking BSG, baby. And speaking of season finales, after watching Lost last night with all of its flashbacks and flash-forwards, it almost seemed as though we may be seeing a bit of flashbackery next week to explain what happened to Roslin and the others aboard the hijacked Base Star.

In case you're wondering what the title means, it's a latin legal term, of course.

(S04E01) Starbuck is dead. At least the Starbuck as we knew her before the events of 'Maelstrom'.

Now don't go thinking I've revealed some sort of spoiler pre-jump here. What I said is merely an observation of how Starbuck appears in this episode and how others perceive her now. It's also from something Katee Sackhoff was told by Ron Moore (as she mentioned in an interview). And can you really blame all parties involved for behaving quite a bit differently now, since then?

For some time now, at least some members of the press and other media outlets have had an early copy of the fourth season premiere of Battlestar Galactica. This season, however, Sci Fi has made everyone sign and adhere to an embargo agreement, making us keep our traps shut about anything at all to do with the screener until today.

I'm not going to reveal what I consider spoilers here, though I will warn you that I will discuss some key plot points below. Consider yourself warned.

Sci Fi Channel has corrected an error that die hard fans of Battlestar Galactica pointed out in the DVD art for the upcoming movie. Here's the deal: the TV movie is a stand-alone episode that documents what happened to the Battlestar Pegasus after the Cylon war broke out. Sci Fi held a contest for fans to choose the DVD art for the upcoming movie, called Razor. But the seal on the front of the winning DVD art has an error. It had the number "75," which is Galactica's number, rather than Pegasus' number "62." Fans pressed to have the seal changed and it will be correct when the DVD comes out on December 4th.