Madeleine Albright was Bill Maher’s first guest on Real Time Friday night (I’m watching it right now to try and get my blood pressure down after the Battlestar finale. And so I can stop crying) and as usual, she was incredible. This lady, she is an ass-kicker and a hero and a living legend. My favorite part of this segment is when Bill Maher asks her to describe various world leaders in one word (it’s near the end).

This is it, guys.  We’ve gone from Cylon attacks every 33 minutes to New Caprica to Starbuck fake-dying to a devastated Earth. And now it all comes to an end.

I’m going to make three predictions for tonight’s series finale of Battlestar Galactica. Surely, I’ll be proven as a fool on Monday morning, but it’s always fun to engage in idle speculation right?

Here we go.

1. The admiral will go down with his ship. I don’t know how Adama can make it out of this alive. Roslin is going to kick soon and it would be too sad to watch him carry on without her and without his ship. I see one of the final images of the series being Roslin and Adama dying aboard an exploding Galactica. I realize the plot doesn’t appear to be going in that direction, but there will clearly be something about transferring power to the younger generation, new beginnings, blah, blah, blah.

2. Apollo and Starbuck will not live happily ever after. They’re going to screw it up somehow — they’re just not the marrying types, no matter how hard they want to be.

3. Hera will still have great hair. This is pretty much guaranteed.

TiFaux boyfriend Joel McHale was on Keith Olbermann’s show Tuesday night to weigh in on the Meghan McCain–Laura Ingraham–Ann Coulter brouhaha that’s been stultifying the country for a few days. Please to enjoy as Joel compares the conservative ladies involved to several models of Cylon.

Umm… anybody know of any good blogging gigs?

• The Simpsons wants Barack Obama to guest star. Not so sure this would be a step in the right direction.
• The O.C. + Gossip Girl = another show I probably won’t watch
• Bones + Family Guy = An episode of Bones with baby Stewie?
• Networks: Listen Obama, we’ve had enough of you and your ‘addressing the public’ stunts.
• A Wire alum talks about life on The Office.
• Lost is going to give it a rest with the ping-ponging back and forth in time.
• NBC has cancelled pretty much every reality show it has ever aired, including Last Comic Standing (again) and Nashville Star.
• No shit! Kenley from Project Runway was arrested for throwing a cat at her boyfriend.

Yeah, I’m not going to have anything for you today.

But you should watch this.

One of the biggest hoo-has going on right now in the world of television is the sly rebranding of The Sci Fi Channel into SyFy — another made-up word like Hulu or Zune or Wiki that sounds a little bit futuristic and a little bit, well, Hawaiian.  Or maybe Welsh.

In the case of Sci Fi, it’s understandable that the network would want to get away from its image as a refuge for socially maladjusted mother’s basement dwellers. SyFy, as the suits would have you believe, is a hip place for imaginative television. Furthermore, its viewers are a mystical breed of plugged-in folk who believe that watching television shows about spaceships and having a sex life aren’t mutually exclusive.

It’s easy to make fun of the new Apple-inspired rebranding (this lame and needlessly negative New York Post article) and I’m pretty sure they could have come up with something a little less ridiculous, but rebranding is exactly what the station needs.  If they’re going to keep coming up with quality material like Battlestar Galactica, they need to broaden their audience beyond a niche that is notoriously unhip.

On that note, here are two channels that could deserve a makeover themselves.

Oxygen

Back when I used to watch Oxygen it had a lovable mix of class and trash. It had Oprah’s After the Show, reruns of Roseanne, some forgettable original programming and an early incarnation of the Isaac Mizrahi Show. Now, the station’s flagship programs are The Bad Girls Club (I’ve been watching it — post TK), Pretty Wicked (another show about pretty evil girls) and Snapped (the true life show about women who lose it and kill everyone). While the station’s current tagline is Live Out Loud –that doesn’t quite cut it.  I think a more appropriate tagline would be “Can You Believe These Crazy Bitches?” Or “Don’t Make Me Take Off My Earrings So I Can Beat Your Ass!”

FX

FX doesn’t need a rebranding as much as it needs a branding. It’s basically FOX on basic cable, but it’s home to some great shows — namely Damages (which gets better and better every damn week) and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (which I never watch with any regularity, but always enjoy when I do). FOX would do well to raise the network’s profile, considering no one every has any idea what’s going on with that station.

I’m watching Carol Burnett on Law & Order (on mute) and she looks like a monster.

• Conspiracy theory alert! Have the American Idol top four already been chosen?
• Ron Moore makes TV critics promise to not spoil the end of Battlestar.
• Sharon Lawrence will play Izzie’s mom on Grey’s Anatomy.
• The guy who played Dick Casablancas on Veronica Mars tours the set of Rockville CA, a music-themed Web series.
• The critic for the Baltimore Sun craps all over one of my favorite past-times — guessing who’s going to die on various shows.
• Is Simon Baker TV’s sexiest man?  TV Guide thinks so, but I’d urge them to reconsider Jamie Bamber or Nestor Carbonell.
• An interview with the young Ben Linus.
• Jon Stewart’s brother helped prep him for the Jim Cramer interview.
• Eddie Izzard is tweeting.  So is your mother, by the end of the week.

So, when last we left our naughty little Upper East Siders, thousands of weeks ago, the entire world hadn’t collapsed! Blair schemed a lot, Serena and Dan broke up, and Dan slept with his stupid teacher. And I think Rufus and Lily were still off boffing somewhere.

The costume budget at my high school was slightly lower.

I have to confess, y’all, I have neither read nor seen The Age of Innocence, because I went to public school. My Wharton is pretty limited; can we just pretend it’s actually Kate Chopin? I know her. Anyway, Blair and Dan are the leads in the school play, Jenny is doing the costumes (covered in tulle! And eyeliner!), and for some unbelievable reason, that stupid teacher is STILL THERE. And Vanessa is making a “documentary” about the school play. Shut up, Vanessa.

The caliber of acting in the play vastly amused me, because it’s several grades above that found on The City (feathers!). And did anyone else think that after his performance in The Age of Innocence, Dan will surely grow up to be Ted Mosby? It is also totally believable that Nate can’t pronounce “dilettante.” As for the tantrum Manbangs threw that effectively ended the play (and in front of Charles Isherwood!), let me just tell you that when I was in high school drama, the male lead of our senior musical literally passed out on stage in the middle of a scene (he was diabetic and had skipped dinner), pretty much collapsing on the female lead, who proceeded to improvise some dialogue and carry him offstage as the stage manager killed the lights. His understudy took over after intermission while John drank orange juice, and then he got up and finished the show. THAT is what we mean by “the show must go on,” you spoiled idiots!

Chuck is back in his ascots (I think he needs an internship with Barney Stinson) and is still harping on about his silly secret sex club subplot. The problem with Gossip Girl shooting in New York is that whenever they shoot outside, insane people take camera phone pictures and sell them to blogland. So I know that Bluck and Chair are getting back together at some point this season, and I have no patience for whatever inane bollocks the writers send Chuck on between now and then. Are they ever going to resolve the whole Blair-slept-with-Uncle-Jack ickiness?

Oh, and Nelly Yuki got accepted “early” to Yale. Never mind that it’s no longer early, for crying out loud. This is when you’re actually supposed to start getting college acceptances. She got Blair’s spot! Which…I did not know you could do that. Apparently, shocker, someone has it in for Blair and has spilled not only the Blair-hazed-a-teacher scandal to Yale (does no one at Yale have anything better to do? Like move the endowment into long-term mutual funds?), but also the Marcus incest brouhaha from earlier this season and the Serena-Yale-PR-clusterfrak news. But that was neither terribly interesting nor terribly important; it really only served to drive Blair farther into nihilism. And to Carter Baizen! I do not even remember what his deal is.

OH MY GOD RUFUS CAUGHT THAT TRAMPY TEACHER! Serves her right. My personal goal in this life is that no one compare me to any of the following: 1. Tonya Harding, 2. Mary Kay Letourneau, and 3. Ann Coulter. I know Dan is an adult, but there are things that are okay and things that are not. And for once, I agree with the parenting choice that Rufus made, because that affair is not right. But since Dan is a silly twit, it drove him directly into the adjunct strumpet’s arms. And then they DID IT IN THE SCHOOL. That is so trashy I’m surprised it didn’t happen in Florida.

You guys, I LOVE that this week’s episode is entirely sponsored by Wolverine. I think Blair would have done well at Professor X’s school for mutants, don’t you?