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Note: We discuss details that will spoil the story for those not caught up to the most recent episode of season 4, so if you don’t want to know, don’t listen.

This week we went down a Futurama rat hole, but don’t worry. It’s not very deep. Ep. III clocks in at 23 minutes.

Much thanks to Jen and Ged for staying up late for a geek-out.

You’ll find all (three!) episodes of the show by browsing my Podast cagetory.

If you’ve been watching SciFi Network’s Battlestar Galactica, you know that it’s a terrific military drama, political drama, social commentary and science fiction show. It’s also one hell of a good mystery.

Season three started off a bit wobbly (that boxing episode was unwatchably dumb) but ended in spectacular fashion. We know there are 12 cylon models. By episode 19 of season three, we had met seven of the twelve. In episode 20 — the season finale — we met four of the remaining five: Tigh (Oh, God, that one hit me in the gut. I hope it’s not true but I know that it is.), Cheif, Sam and what’s-her-name. So that’s eleven. There’s one cylon left. Ged makes a good argument for Baltar, but he’s a red herring.

The fifth cylon is Starbuck.

The first cylons were compliant slaves of humankind. They evolved into the models we know as centurions. Further evolution produced the more human-like models like Number 6, Sharon, Lucy Lawless and the dude from Quantum Leap. I’m sure this was a long process for them, wrought with trial-and-error.

Their minds and self-awareness evolved along with their physical designs. The first models were thoughtless slaves. The centurions are killing machines, but just as intellectually bankrupt as their immediate predecessors.

Later models, like Quantum Leap (I don’t remember his cylon name/designation) were self-aware on a deeper level, but conquest is still their primary function. It’s when they developed model numbers five and six — the blonde and Lucy Lawless — that their minds evolved beyond blind vengeance. Number five was deactivated by Quantum Leap — an earlier model — for continually asking why they exist, what their purpose is and what more life has to offer.

Number six’s reason for existing is to preserve the life of Sharon’s baby, and ensure its well being. They’re moving towards a harmonious convergence of cylon and human into a single race.

Starbuck represents the final step in the evolution of this new life form (akin to Arthur C. Clarke’s Star Child). Her mother knew she was “special,” that her “destiny was already written.” She spent idle time in her youth absent-mindedly sketching the Eye of Jupiter. She has survived a hell of a lot of physical trauma (like her ship literally exploding in the vacuum of space!), flown a biological cylon ship and … well, look at that … she was married to a frackin cylon and didn’t even know it.

I believe that the other models who were “switched on” at the end of season three are at a point in cylon evolution between the gang we know and Starbuck. You’ll note they didn’t immediately go on a killing spree; they resumed their duties on board the Galactica.

What’s going to happen is a final battle between the two factions of cylon – the inquisitive and the single-minded. The secular and the religious. The centurions and Kara, Tigh and the chief. The result will be a harmonious new human/cylon race that will reach and eventually colonize earth. Of course, all of this culminates in ….

Us.