The Trouble With Roy

My Dad Can Beat Up Your Dad , where this article appeared first, answers the question: who would win in a fight. And, today, it answers “Who’s the 12th Cylon.”

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“Nothing gold can stay.” Words spoken by Ponyboy, I think, but written by one of the greatest philosophers of our time, S.E. Hinton, who wrote that phrase in The Outsiders, a gritty, driven look into gang culture that pulls no punches as it contrasts the fictional Civil War of Gone With The Wind with the fictional gang war of the Socs’ and the other gang that Ponyboy and Sodapop and Dally and Darryl and their other cousin, Larry, were all a part of.

That phrase has been looming large in my life not just because I keep thinking What was golden about hiding in a church and eating bologna? but also because the new Battlestar Galactica is coming to an end soon, going off to the elephant’s graveyard of shows that I, and pretty much I alone, judging by the ratings, have loved. Arrested Development, Andy Richter Controls The Universe, Herman’s Head… great quality TV doomed to appeal only to me and die an early death.

But it might be better that way, I tell myself. It might be better if these shows are not popular, because too often, popular = stupid. “Yes, Dear,” “According to Jim”, “Wings” “WKRP In Cincinnati,” “Law and Order”… I could go on, but you get the point. These are shows that stick around even though they are … not good. So maybe it’s better that my shows are not popular because that means they are good, since I like good stuff and nobody else does (or so the Nielsens tell me.)

It might be better, too, that the shows end early on before they can begin to suck. Carry on too long and you outlive your welcome. Homicide: Life On The Streets eventually ran out of good characters to shoot and good storylines to have those shootings symbolize, and just focused on that one annoying cop who’s whole goal in life was to get Mikey. So if my shows end early, at least they end on top, and don’t mess with my memories of them.

And it might be better, too, if they end before they become cemented in my memories as something good when really, they were… not good. Like old Battlestar Galactica, which I loved as a kid, loved so much that I drew Vipers in my notebooks and played Battlestar Galactica and read the spinoff books and had a Cylon action figure, loved so much that originally when I heard they were going to remake it, I reacted as though a “Soc” had asked out my sister… violently rejecting the very premise.

Then I watched new Battlestar, and rewatched an episode of old Battlestar, and decided that maybe memories, like gold, should not stay. Because old Battlestar was not very good, and new Battlestar is very good.

Despite that gap in good-ness, both old and new Battlestar share one thing: the compelling character of “Starbuck.”

Old Starbuck was named “Starbuck,” as I recall. I haven’t done any real research for this article, because what’s the point? It’s not like this is for college credit, you know. So here’s what I recall: Old Starbuck was “Starbuck,” a hotshot viper pilot who liked cigars and drinking and playing that weird card game they had with the oddly-shaped cards, and was a womanizer who nevertheless was always ready to bring his A-game against the Cylons. Old Starbuck wore a cape, too, despite being a guy.

New Starbuck is named “Kara Thrace” and has “Starbuck” as her code name for piloting a Viper. She likes cigars and drinking and playing that weird card game they had with the oddly-shaped cards, and is whatever the opposite of a “womanizer” is– a manizer. New Starbuck doesn’t wear a cape and is not a guy. She is, though, [SPOILER ALERT INVOLVING A WORD THAT IS ALSO AN OBSCURE DC COMICS CHARACTER] a harbinger of death.

** Note: “Harbinger” is the character in that phrase. Harbinger.

And while this fight is fictional, the tensions between old and new Starbuck are quite real, as new Starbuck is openly critical of old Starbuck’s open criticism of her, criticism old Starbuck levels at new Starbuck for the sin of being more brash than he was.

Obviously, this needs to be settled mano a womano.

How the fight would go: New Starbuck [SPOILER ALERT INVOLVING AMNESIA, AN ALL-TOO-CONVENIENT PLOT POINT] just recently got back from being missing for a long time, a time that she thinks is only a couple of hours but which was like a month or something. (Again, I don’t research these and I don’t watch the show with an eye for details; I watch the show for the stories. I’m not taking notes.) She came back with a memory lapse but feelings and visions of having been to Earth, the long-sought after 13th colony, and recently learned that the mysterious missing five cylons, one of whom has yet to be revealed, can help her re-find the Earth she found but which she now can’t really remember finding.

Fans of the first show will remember that the Colonials in that show [SPOILER ALERT BUT, COME ON, IT'S LIKE 30 FRAKKIN' YEARS OLD] found Earth in the last episode.

It’s obvious what happened: New Starbuck found Earth, and while there, she found Old Starbuck, who didn’t like her brashness and beat her up badly and sent her back to the new Battlestar Galactica licking her too-brash wounds and longing for a rematch she doesn’t even know will be a re-match.

So when the new show ends, and they rediscover Earth, new Starbuck will find it all rushing back to her as old Starbuck greets the new Colonials and welcomes them to Earth. She’ll become enraged with brashness as she stands in her dress blues and it all comes flooding back to her, and she realizes that had old Starbuck not done what he did — had he not beaten her up and sent her back to the fleet suffering from amnesia, then she could have ended the mission already and led the fleet to Earth and they wouldn’t have had to suffer through all those months when she had to be on the garbage ship and always bloody and sweaty and crying and getting kidnapped and being doubted.

She’ll become so brashly enraged that she’ll charge Old Starbuck and knock him down, plowing right into him and they’ll roll over and over, trading punches while gripping their cigars rakishly in the corners of their mouths, knocking over the diplomats and soldiers and rebel Cylons that have attended the welcome ceremony, too, resisting all efforts to separate them, until finally, Old Starbuck finds himself pinned to the ground underneath new Starbuck, both of them panting and accusing each other of being too brash and also of being the still-unrevealed 12th Cylon, and as they look into each other’s eyes, they will realize that they don’t hate each other, they love each other, and they will begin to kiss, passionately, as waves of love roll out from them and overwhelm all the watchers.

Admiral Adama and Laura Rosslin will finally give in to their passion, overcome by the brash emotion of the moment. Baltar and all the women he’s done it with including Imaginary 6 will begin embracing. Sol Tigh and Real 6/Imaginary Wife will admit their love for each other.

Amidst it all, as the Colonials and earthlings and old Battlestarrers and new Battlestarrers look on, one little boy — the original Boxey — will ask But who is the 12th Cylon? And Lucy Lawless will look away from where she’s making out with Lee Adama, and say “Isn’t it obvious? The 12th Cylon is … Love.”

Verdict: Love conquers all.

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