Holy Frak! What's Going on With Battlestar?

I am not a geek but I did marry a man who likes shows that take place in outer space.

This union means that for months I was stuck watching recorded episodes of Voyager, a show rivaled only by Three's Company for bad acting.

In a desperate move to save myself from yet another episode where Captain Janeway goes Renaissance, I bought the first season of Battlestar Gallactica,a show most nerds I know claim is the greatest series ever made.

We've now watched all 4 seasons on dvd, the webisodes where Gaeta turns out to be...gay, and we're now watching Season 4.5.

There have been some ups and downs to the show's arc (the downs being the webisodes and Season 2, Episode 14) but so far this season has been pretty...ney.

As the final season, expectations are high. I wanted Adama growling hard decisions at his crew, the President disregarding ethics, Starbuck having sex. Instead we get Colonel Saulty Dog doing his best Captain Highliner impression at an ultrasound image of his baby with Number Six? Ahoy matey--when the hell did that copulation take place?

And my eyes are still burning from the image of the President naked in bed with Adama. Between her smooth bald scalp and his crater face, there was just way too much scary skin being exposed. It was like a ProActive ad, with old people.

As James Parker points out in this month's The Atlantic, Battlestar is "presenting all the symptoms of an extended-run high-concept TV series in its decadent phase." This doesn't bode well for viewers like myself, who appreciated the earlier fusing of good special effects, scary alien robots and relevant philosophical discourse (the parallels to 9/11 have been noted duly by all for years).

The most pressing question entering the final season of Battlestar was set up to be: who is the twelfth Cylon? But so many strings have been unravelled and left unaddressed that the plot is becoming tangled in the small annoyances. Like, what does Gaeta's sexuality have to do with anything? Why make Cally an unfaithful wife? And who the frak makes all the plastic replicas the Captain uses to plot out attack strategies?

Ultimately, Battlestar may turn out to be as whimsical and flip-floppy as Gaius Baltar's morals. Let's hope the end of Earth's promise doesn't signal the end of good television.