I have a confession to make: I'm a scifi fan. I have my favorite authors and favorite movies and favorite tv shows. And I feel almost spoiled by the fare on SciFi Channel on Friday nights. Stargate SG-1 has been fun, if silly. Stargate Atlantis is limping, but still shows promise.

And then there's Battlestar Galactica: the best show on television. (Not that I'm an expert -- I can't stand watching most of it, so I don't rightly know all that's out there.) The directing is excellent. Sets and effects are solid, without that usual cheesy look you see in tv scifi. The writing is good, but I really watch it for the actors, and the fact that the most interesting characters are women.

(First season spoilers, maybe.)

• President Laura Roslin -- In the pilot miniseries, we first meet her when she finds out she has terminal cancer. I can still remember that scene. The doctor starts talking, and she looks out the window, not hearing. We're with her then. After the holocaust, she finds herself to be the highest ranking government official and assumes the presidency. How she does it, and how she rules, are full of subtlety, yet strength. Now she's seeing visions -- maybe from her cancer drugs, maybe religious visions. She prefers to believe the latter, and the ancient scriptures seem to her to point her into making fateful decisions that defy reason. I think the way Mary McDonnell has played her is wonderful. This is possibly the best role she's had. In the "behind the scenes" promo SciFi has been playing all week, she relished playing a woman in power dealing with such personal challenges. She points out that female actresses never get roles like this. I agree. (Sidenote: I just discovered a bunch of behind-the-scenes features that cover, among other things, changing the genders of major characters during development. Might be worth watching some of these.)
• Number Six -- First, what is it with tall, sexy blondes with mechanical parts and numbers for names in Ron Moore series, anyway? (I'm thinking of Seven of Nine in Voyager.) Six is an interesting villain. On the one hand, she's a cold killer. But on the other hand, she has a real yearning to experience life, which plays out in her love affair with Gaius. In the pilot, she snaps the neck of a baby, and then fights tears as she walks away. (She knew that the Cylon attack was about to happen; a mercy killing, I assume.) When she tells Gaius that she's a Cylon, right when she's building up to it, we can see that she's upset -- she's losing her taste of real life. Other Six avatars seem very angry, and resentful of the experiences other models have. It's like there's a human heart inside, wrapped up in a passionate rage. Tricia Helfer has an interesting coolness. Her voice has a Lauren Bacall quality, though higher. If it weren't for the writing, I'd think that's all there is. But it seems there are deeper depths to Number Six we've yet to see.
• Starbuck -- In the pilot, I liked her enough. But as the first season played out, she became my favorite character. She puts on a tough front, and won't be intimidated by anyone. But we see what it costs her to play the boys' game (and she does play the boys' game -- the toughness in the other female characters is totally different). She also goes from a hands-on fighter pilot to a junior command officer, due to a leg injury that's slow to heal; tortures a Cylon prisoner to the point where she sees him as human; carries around guilt over the death of her lover; and in a crisis of faith disobeys orders on a desperate mission to find meaning in life. Where has Katee Sackhoff been before this? I think she has a big acting career ahead of her.
• Boomer -- Here's someone with toughness that's not the chip-on-the-shoulder brand Starbuck has. On Galactica, she suspects she's a Cylon, but doesn't know until the last episode of Season One. It's tearing her apart. Imagine to learn that you are not human, but rather a drone of the enemy. When she put her gun in her mouth, I started to cry. The cold turn she makes in the last episode is a shocker, but when I saw it the second time it all made sense -- Adama had ordered her to go destroy a Cylon ship, but on the mission she confirms that she is a Cylon. She carries the mission out anyway, but then shoots Adama for sending her. The Boomer on the planet Galactica (under Cylon occupation) is different. This Boomer knows she's a Cylon, but she's fallen in love with Helo, and she turns on the other Cylons and helps him survive. When he finds out she's a Cylon, she shoots her, wounding her. But she's pregnant with his child. What does that mean? I guess we'll find out. Here we have a sort of Romeo and Juliet, bonded together and caught between warring parties. Grace Park is just wonderful in this role.
• Dualla -- Think Lt. Uhura. Yes, that's right, the only major African character in this scifi show is the communications officer, who is in the middle of everything and gets to react to what's happening. They haven't done much with her since the pilot, when they established a romance between her and Billy, who works for the president. At one point, she gets caught in a conflict when pillow talk becomes an information pipeline between political factions -- but they then don't go anywhere with it in terms of her character. But otherwise she's been there, a part of everything but not. With all the great characters and storylines going on, I assume that her scenes often get cut for time. I hope they use her more in season two. Kandye McClure is very good at making a role with few lines of consequence into a sort of conscience on the command deck.

Overall, it's very interesting how the greater gender equality than we see in America plays out. Women are soldiers and leaders. Starbuck and Apollo exchange blows and somehow it's not abuse, just soldiers disagreeing. The holdouts seem to be the old guard, Adama and Tigh. Adama is a controlling personality and does not like to cede power. Only his decency and honor lead him to acknowledge President Roslin's authority. Tigh, on the other hand, has little decency, and the mixture of humility and arrogance that comes from his being a drunk.

The music in the show is haunting. Not since the original Star Trek has a score worked so well with television scifi. Listen to the theme in the opening credits, and hear "amen" over and over.

And considering that the Cylons believe in "God" and the humans believe in "the gods," there's an interesting added level of intrigue and ... religion? ... to what's already a very well-made show. I can't wait to see the new season kick off tomorrow night.

Anyone else love/hate BG?

[Update: I just discovered this Booman thread on women in Star Trek etc.]