Not Awesome

**SPOILER ALERT**

Babies always ruin good TV shows. I know there are more, but Tabitha on “Bewitched” and Elizabeth on “V” (loved this series) are the only ones I can think of right now. I’m sure VH1 has probably done a special on this specific subject.

Anyway, I worry about “Battlestar Galactica”. Season 3 has already displayed some disappointing lack of imagination with the hetero-normative behavior its characters default to after settling on New Caprica.

Ah, back to normal, let’s get married! Starbuck and Anders, Apollo and Dualla, Tyrol and Cally, Helo and Sharon. I mean, give me a fucking break. (Let us not speak of the corpulent horrors visited on a married Apollo. Thank the gods its fake.)

Yes, Roslin’s advice in the pilot is the smartest, most practical course of action for the story the writers are creating: if the human race is to survive they need to start making babies. I get it. Though it’s only dawning on me now that my strong reaction might be rooted in this being the fictional equivalent of the galling rationale the Washington State Supreme Court employed in its denial of marriage equality this year: marriage is meant for procreation.

Leoben trying to play house with Starbuck is dumb enough without the creepy undercurrents of domestic violence. Shove a baby in her face, tell Starbuck it’s hers and watch her fulfill the ultimate role women can ever hope to attain: wife and mother. This was the stupidest subplot EVER in a show that vaunts itself on creating powerful roles for women.

Slutty Six and the manner in which the camera lingers lasciviously on her, the groan-inducing quest for true love. Men’s fear of female entrapment–Fatal Attraction scenarios, extortion by pregnancy, economic exploitation, the vagina dentata–is at the heart of so much in the series. At least Seven of Nine turned out to be more than a pair of tits in a tight uniform. Her character had conflict of a different order, was imperfect and central to the episodes and stories that made “Star Trek: Voyager” so good leading up to its end.

Who the hell is this person trying to pass herself off as Starbuck? The writers just chose to ignore the elaborate character and backstory that they created to rest on some tired ass patriarchal convention. I almost vomited when she clutched Leoben’s hand in the hospital after the baby recovered from falling down the stairs. You could hear me yelling “Dumbass!” around the block when she insisted on going back for Kacey in the middle of her rescue. And when Kacey’s real mom plucked her from Starbucks’ embrace back on Galactica? I say again, DUMB-fuckin-ASS.

And then there’s Hera.

The opening theme states ominously every week that the Cylons have a plan. Six/Caprica assures Gaius again and again that God has a plan, and that Hera is key. I really truly hope that the writers have a plan for the damn baby that does not involve freaky powers, encourage more heinous domestic situations with badass characters, or that devolve further into “what about the children” scenes that consign the cast to the most inane of gender roles. Because if this goes the way of hybridity being the salvation for both races, I will FLIP OUT. If story-lines continue to devolve by centering more and more on the baby, for no discernible reason other than to prop up regressive notions of family, marriage and hetero-normativity, this will be the biggest squandering of the best sci fi TV series that almost was.

Local freak-drag treasure Ursula Android sums up my sentiments best. Listen to the MP3 for “Babies!”

For more on marriage equality in Washington State, see the NW Women’s Law Center and Equal Rights Washington.