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Hey, So, Six shows Baltar a vision of an infant girl that she claims is the next generation of cylon. Now, is that vision one of the Helo/Boomer baby? Or is it of a Baltar/6 baby? There could be a physical 6 out there somewhere that was having sex with Baltar before the planet was destroyed. So, if it's been months since the attack now, there could possibly be a Baltar/6 baby in the near future. And one wonders if the baby is not a reality yet, then the Baltar/6 baby might be the bribe to Baltar to sweeten the offer to stay in the Cylon camp. It would appeal to his ego to be the Father of the next evolution of the humanity/cylon races. To someone of his ego, that might just be irresistable. He probably figures that all of the true humans are as good as dead anyway, so why not get to be the next Adam. And the Cylons do seem to be a bit worried that Baltar may refuse to work with them. Any thoughts?

Hey, Don't you think it's a bit odd that Starbuck shouts, "She's a Cylon!" and tries to kill Boomer2, but accepts Helo as her old buddy without question? Helo has been running around on this planet with Boomer2 for months now (his speech in Scattered). Months. How is that possible when Starbuck is taking anti-radiation drugs every few hours while on the planet? And Helo shows up with a known Cylon (Boomer2) when he finds Starbuck. That "guilt by association" would surface for any normal person. Just find it kind of odd.

33. Definitely 33. I like the 2-part finale also, but I almost think that they've made it to Kobol too quickly. Should have stumbled around a bit more before getting there. Makes you think the Universe has planets "right around the corner" from each other.

To the Heinlein transplant fragment above - Hmm. I thought at first it might be "Friday", but that's a genetically engineered courier. I *think* it may be "I Will Fear No Evil", but I'm not absolutely sure. Here are my summer read series votes: Charles Sheffield - The McAndrew series and The Jupiter Series David Brin - the first Uplift series (just stop there and go no further, though): "Sundiver" "Startide Rising" and "The Uplift War" Nancy Kress - the Sleepless series: "Beggars in Spain" "Beggars Ride" and "Beggars and Choosers" And here's a little known author because she wrote these ages ago then stopped writing sf altogether. But these were quite good: M. K. Wren - the Phoenix Legacy series: "Sword of the Lamb", "Shadow of the Swan", and "House of the Wolf" One other series I will mention but it's fantasy, not sf. That's the Laurell K Hamilton vampire hunter series. "Guilty Pleasures" "The Laughing Corpse" and "Circus of the Damned" There are 10 more, but those were the best and shine. The rest are kind of uneven, I think.

Asimov, Heinlein, Ben Bova, Andre Norton, Jack Vance, Roger Zelazny, Ursula K. LeGuin --all of my high school favorites. I tend to like very hard sf, not fantasy. Here's one I don't see yet: Gene Wolfe. The New Sun series "The Shadow of the Torturer" was a really great book with imagery that's stuck with me for 20 years. It's definitely sf, but has some medieval themes and fantastic settings that almost push it into a different genre. Charles Sheffield - anything he writes. I think he may be among my top 5 favorites. The "McAndrew" and "Jupiter" series are two of my favorites. Nancy Kress - "Beggars in Spain" Nancy specializes in really chilling depictions of what humankind can do with gene alterations. This one is about children engineered so they don't sleep. (Very chilling thought for a parent of a toddler...) I'm also hip-deep into her "Probability Moon" "Probability Sun" and "Probability Space" series. Connie Willis - She's known for "The Doomsday Book", "To Say Nothing of the Dog", and "Passages" (Passages has the world's longest death scene in it. Goes on for half the book) Here's one of her short stories: http://www.asimovs.com/_issue_0406/liketheonesweusedtono.shtml Joan Vinge - "Catspaw" One of my absolute favorite novels. Middle of a series, can be read alone without reading the others. Also, "Snow Queen" and "Summer Queen" Octavia Butler - Xenogenesis series: "Dawn" "Adulthood Rites" and "Imago" Humanity wipes itself out in war and the aliens come to save us...sort of. Really unusually done, though.

I'll add two bits to this that are part of this. The eighth doctor in the Fox TV movie mentions that he's half human. It looks like Russell T picked that movie up as Canon. So, if the Doctor is half-human, one wonders what type of human and where in the evolutionary scale. The second bit has to do with the first Doctor. He was running around the universe with Susan, his granddaughter, and the two schoolteachers. Granted, the first doctor was more like a living history lesson than the sci-fi show we know today. But still, has that lineage ever been traced out? Who was Susan's mother? And, even more interesting, who was her grandmother? Is Susan more than half-human? I'd expect that the Doctor would have more flexible views about interspecies relations, but it still is hard to balance this against the notion that's been reinforced for years that we are pretty far down on the food chain compared to him.

Somehow, the attraction between the Doctor and Jade (aka, "Tree Woman" in episode #2) didn't bother me very much. I'm not sure if the writers are trying to put in a romance or if the Doctor is just teasing his Companions with all of these one-liners zinging around. But aren't we supposed to be really far down on the evolutionary scale to the Doctor? I haven't seen all of the older episodes, but the ninth Doctor even referred to Rose as "another *stupid* ape" in episode #8. He sees us as apes. Now, the 51st century guy is 3000 years in our future, but in evolutionary terms, he's still an ape too. So, these double entendres whizzing about strike me about the same way as if I'd seen a printed story about Michael Jackson "dancing" with his chimp. Oh wait, maybe I did see that in our press. We've seen everything else.

Personally, the best use of the sonic screwdriver that I've seen is in the "Curse of Fatal Death", the spoof. The last doctor gets all excited --"It's got **THREE** settings!!"

Yeah, I've been pleasantly surprised and pleased with how well she's doing. She's far better at acting than Madonna ever was. Ugh. Just had a sudden mental image of "Dick Tracy" and "Evita". Need a scrub brush to get that out of my brain. Madonna was the worst actress ever. The music videos are interesting. The 1998 videos are much more lively teen bubble gum pop. All boys and crushes and young girl anthem music. I actually prefer them to her later stuff in 2000 where she's now trying to be Britney Spears with the same dismal ending to her career. Those later videos showed that whoever was choreographing really needed to learn how to dance first. And there's a heavy reliance on voice synthesizer tricks in her later music that isn't in her earlier stuff. I actually like bubble gum pop on occasion. (Hey, I'm female, so it's allowed.) It lightens up the steady diet of angry screaming rock like Ministry (Chris Connelly years) and Nine Inch Nails. Billie's stuff wasn't horrendous, just not really memorable. She's a Tiffany for the 'Ought years.

Heavy Metal is a favorite from High School days. There weren't many Sat morning cartoons that I liked that were SF. Maybe Superfriends could be considered SF, and Batman. Spiderman. Definitely liked the Spiderman cartoon. Akira left an impression. I saw the English dubbed version in the theater first. The scene of Tetsuo stumbling through hospital halls and exploding people into dripping gore is rather vivid. "Milk! Milk! Milk!" And the bike gang scenes racing through the streets of Neo-Tokyo are pretty breathtaking on a big movie screen. Well done piece. It opened up the US to Anime. Vampire Hunter D was another favorite.

OK, I just can't resist this. Do ya think that Billie was picked for the Companion part because in her 1998 video, "Because We Want To" she pops out of a spaceship and then starts tossing 'nanogenes' around? Then she dances with the Silver Surfer. And Harry Potter.

OK, I now understand the "Mr Bean for New Doctor" thread in another discussion. This spoof film was really funny. "wait for me...wait for me.." and "My body has been augmented with Superior Dalek technology." "So what can you do with that then? You don't know, do you?" Thank you so much for uploading this. I'm going to be giggling all night. Never knew Dalek tech could be this much fun.

Janus Thorn. Leela carried a Janus thorn. That was the other thing.

OK, the sheilas aren't quite the thing for me. But, of all the Companions, Leela really made an impression. Takes a hell of an attitude to go against some alien with only a fur bikini and a knife (and what was that other thing she carried...can't quite remember these days). Her knife throwing had me practicing mine for years. Got rather good at it after a while. Big sister hero, I guess. And she was one of the non-screamer types. Billie Piper is sort of a nice blend of a screamer and a jump-in-and-save-the-day.

Hey Fenris, If you've seen the episode prior to watching the Confidential episode of the same number, then you won't get hit with a spoiler. Mostly the Confidentials are interviews with Russell, interviews with the older Dr Who characters, and bits and pieces of how they film things and why they made certain creative decisions. No spoilers. They're worth watching now. Definitely worth snagging now since it's unclear how long we are going to have the gift of bit torrent freedom. I just started snagging MixxMasters DVDs of the episodes because I'd like to sit on the couch and watch these episodes with my sweetie, and the computer avi versions are just too small. My favorite DWC episodes are probably #8, #9, #2 (memorable for the animation of the skin human), and #3. In that order.