Well, that's the problem. You say it yourself. It's a completely disastrous misjudgement, and pretty much the first mistake we've seen so far.

@Hob: Fair enough re: the male Cylons. I'm a straight guy so I'm not a particularly good judge of such things, though I still think a male Cylon who looked like Helo or (slight spoilers) Anders would be a closer XY equivalent of Six than "cute but creepy" Leoben.

I understand that, but slinky dresses aside, Six's "basic" form is that of a six-foot stunner. Pretty great if you need to seduce someone, but less than terrific for passing unnoticed.

Hell, they wouldn't even need photos.

That's the lot of chief engineers in most science fiction, it seems.

He's all the easier to hate because, on the surface at least, he's got everything going for him.

Yeah, that was me. There are obviously a lot of differences between the characters—they inhabit pretty different universes—but a surprising number of similarities too, many of which go beyond the superficial.

Neil McDonough … gaunt?

Well, that little factoid about NFL quarterbacks is fun and terrifying. It puts me in mind of all those suburban kids in the 50s running behind the trucks that were vomiting clouds of DDT.

That would explain a lot about Hornblower, that miserable son of a bitch.

How is it misogynistic? Apart from the stuff with the Chinese prostitute, Dowd doesn't really mention anything like that in the review.

Man, balling one's own eyes out sounds like a pretty hard left turn into body horror for a movie like this. I kind of want to see it now.

I'd like to think that the whole show was Rangers propaganda.

I never, ever found the Rangers interesting despite JMS's best efforts. So the idea of watching a series about six young, callow Rangers sounds like a slow boat to hell.

The Chief is, on every level, the O'Brien of Galactica.

I understand, but I can't agree.

Helo had the problem of being basically flawless, didn't he?

Agreed, particularly for Anders. Dude was a handsome slice of whitebread smothered in margarine, and I can't recall him saying or doing anything interesting at any point.

Presumably she's deliberately avoiding doing that since Caprica Eight being given the name Athena is a whole 'thing'.

Thanks. One of those thousands read in high school and half-remembered.