Love List #3: President Mary McDonnell

Well, nurses, it was a wild weekend as usual, but even wilder - and that's saying a lot as those who know me will certainly attest - was the finale of Battlestar Galactica.

Oh, yes, you bitches! Stop your screaming and moaning! I know Science Fiction doesn't exactly get the best rap, what with the preponderance of ridiculous costumes and plots that manage to be both outlandishly unbelievable and vaguely familiar (but then again, doesn't that describe most drag performances, as well?)

But Battlestar Galactica is none of those things. It's streamlined storytelling - in the best episodes, you can barely catch your breath as an audience member - that always finds interesting skewed angles to comment on oh-so-topical issues as oft-visited as opposing religious viewpoints, the legality of abortion and tampered elections. There's also a heck of a lot of rock 'em sock 'em action, and performances that are consistently impressive from almost the entire cast.

And there is no better example of that than our love list lady of the day, Mary McDonnell, who plays President Roslyn - elevated to the presidency from the lowly rank of secretary of education after Humanity's 12 colonies are nearly annihalated when their intelligent robots turn on them. Her craft is superb - her choices: appropriate, evocative, unexpected. Her range? Unbelievable. I love her grimly determined, sneakily plotting, smiling at fond memories, even wigging out with the giggles before her presidential debate. It's a tribute to her character that when they "miraculously" cured her cancer, I cheered because I had lived in such fear that her character would die. (Normally, I throw rotten fruit at such "miracles.")

So, now, as we bid goodbye to another truly spectacular season of Battlestar (with a season finale that took us an entire year into the future into the beginning of the Nazi-est occupation EVER!), we tip our stylish but weather-appropriate hats to the great Mary McDonnell. You, Madame President, are certainly worth fixing any election.