Bald is Beautiful

The following article may contain MAJOR SPOILERS for all episodes of Battlestar Galactica, up to and including the most recently broadcast episode: "Faith"

Yes, bald is definitely beautiful. I just wish it was Bald For Real and not the Shower Cap of Doom -- Laura Roslin looks like George Francisco... in a good way though, I think.

Maybe?

Yeah, I'd still do her.

Mary McDonnell's scenes with guest star Nana Visitor were very good. Yet again I'm amazed at how far Ron Moore and his gang are willing to go for the sake of character. Half of the major players don't even make an appearance this week, and the plot is advanced only by a few micrometers. Feels like ecstasy to me. It's hard to admit how smart a move it was for the producers to end this show on their own terms, but episodes like this make the case too strongly to ignore. I'm reading the best science fiction novel ever written, only it's on television. This is significant. This is The Sopranos of basic cable.

No Tyrol, Baltar, Tigh, or Lee, and minimal Adama -- but the Six on Six makeout session was a reasonable substitute. Well, I mean, it was just a little kiss... but it went on much longer in my imagination afterward. The Lee storyline doesn't excite me very much anyway. Fictional politics are rarely interesting, so I don't miss him, and we've had an overdose of Tyrol and Baltar lately. Besides, all the action is elsewhere. Plenty of explosions and gunshots for those of you who abhor all the talking, and a couple minor losses on both sides.

I'm puzzled by the way Cylon death seems so much more devastating than Human; perhaps it's the contrast between its previous casualness and current irrevokability. It may also be a consequence of the way the Cylons are behaving -- more human than human? Indeed.

Death is given the short shrift in movies and television, its consequences and collateral damage rarely examined very closely. Here we are given multi-episode arcs of people dealing with the loss of friends and family, or coming to terms with their own mortality. Are the gods real? Our souls? How do we go on when we suspect that this is all there is? Laura relates the fear in her mother's eyes as she lay dying -- the terrifying darkness that awaited her.

Visitor's Emily takes the President's hand and strips away the misdirection. "You were terrified," she says, "you saw only darkness." And with those words we see Laura beginning to admit that maybe it isn't so silly, hoping to continue -- these are human fears and doubts, dreams and wishes... concepts as old as fingers and toes, and only by acknowledging them can we begin to make sense of the gods-awful shitty mess of life. And in true Galactica fashion we're offered no real answers, only the genuine responses of the individuals who are asking the questions.

Battlestar Galactica airs Friday nights on SciFi.

PS: I wanted Anders to put his hand in the Cylon computer goo so bad. Waiting for the secrets of the Final Four to break open is killing me!