The XX Factor: What women really think.

Lost in Space

Juliet, I loved your take on Battlestar Galactica. I'm in deep denial that we're in the show's End Days. For one thing, I love the way the Friday-night schedule looks right now. Traditionally, Friday night is where TV programmers shove their underperforming shows, but it's also women's night. Back in 2006, Friday night was God night (just another way of saying women's night; shows like Joan of Arcadia, Ghost Whisperer, and The Book of Daniel were not aimed at Y-chromosome-bearing viewers); now it's all about butt-kicking women: BSG, Dollhouse, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and, of course, Gwen Ifill on Washington Week.

I have but one cavil (geddit!). You're right that Cally was a terrible character—"detrimental to progress" as we used to say back in the day—but because of what she says about humankind. Let's say there are about 40,000 humans left in the BSG universe (it always kills me that they pay so little attention to that statistic). Maybe 25 are characters whose names we know. Cally was supposed to represent the other 39,975 people who aren't charismatic or brave or smart or pretty. But like the air-brained women who dote on Baltar, she was unlikable—unstable, jealous, generally mediocre. If that's humanity, let's just put the sexy characters we know and love on a Raptor and let the rest rot in space. (One other minor disagreement: I don't think Cally's attempt to kill her baby along with herself was a sign of postpartum depression but rather a sign of how much she hated Cylons. In the last few weeks, we learned Tyrol* wasn't the father of her child, but that was a completely unconvincing plot twist.)

*This blog post originally misspelled Tyrol's name.