Her hair is all 80s in this picture. Almost a little Joan Jett-y.

While it may not have the heaps of honors we may may think it deserves, but the Emmys may have thrown Battlestar Galactica a tiny bone. Mary McDonnell appears to have made the cut as a semi-finalist for an Emmy in the category of Best Lead Actress in a Drama.

Here’s the list of speculated-upon nominees, along with their corresponding shows and submitted episodes.

• Patricia Arquette, “Medium” ( “Aftertaste”)
• Glenn Close, “Damages” (”Pilot”)
• Minnie Driver, “The Riches” (”Dead Calm”)
• Sally Field, “Brothers and Sisters” (”History Repeating”)
• Mariska Hargitay, “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit” (”Undercover”)
• Holly Hunter, “Saving Grace” (”Tacos, Tulips, Duck and Spices”)
• Elisabeth Moss, “Mad Men” (”The Hobo Code”)
• Mary McDonnell, “Battlestar Galactica” (”Faith”)
• Kyra Sedgwick, “The Closer” (”Manhunt”)
• Jeanne Tripplehorn, “Big Love” (”Take Me As I Am”)

I don’t think I’ll be able to take it if Patricia Arquette and her dead eyes and her inflectionless voice get another Emmy nomination. Although I’m guessing that, like me, many people have kind of forgotten that Medium exists. In any case, I could live with any member of the Baby Boomer Actress Basic Cable Revolution (Close, Hunter, Sedgwick) wins.

I remember hearing about the Battlestar Galactica cast doing a Letterman top ten list, but I never actually sought it out.  Well, just because I care enough to give you something you don’t want three months late, here it is.

For what it’s worth, it’s mildly amusing to watch:

• Tricia Helfer politely fake-laugh through the entire set
• The guy who plays Baltar try to sell a really lame number 7
• Jamie Bamber accidentally lapse into his adorable English accent.

Bless this mess.

Well, well, well… three and a half seasons, a mini-series and a movie into the story, and the crew of Battlestar Galactica has finally reached Earth.

And so, what do we find? Earth sucks. (For the record, Maggie predicted the Earth suckage quite a while ago.) At first glance, it would appear that it’s a post-apocalyptic war zone — either World War Three broke out or there was a giant fire-breathing lizard or some other catastrophe that would decimate cities.

As the Galatica crew celebrated their discovery (hugging crew members, baby-smooching Chief, Tigh blubbering alone into his whiskey), you just knew that there would be some sort of gigantic tease at the end. (Just so you know, my favorite part of the revelry was Lee “Pinstripes” Adama standing on the table and doffing his jacket — it was uncomfortably nerdy). There’s never a tablespoon of sugar on this show without a cup of salt.

This latest twist is reminiscent of the season three finale when the four newfound Cylons were brought together by Bob Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower.” It’s a disconcerting trend, to say the least, when the creators are uniting the entirely disconnected world of Battlestar with the one we live in now. I can’t say I’m entirely comfortable with the idea of a world with New Caprica and FTL drives and downloading Cylons co-existing with a world with Britney Spears and Philly Cheesesteaks and the Hubble Telescope.

Now that we seem to be semi-permanently settled on Earth for the time being (complete with those depressing camera filters the producers love so much), let’s think of some potential directions for the next 10 episodes.

• A third, hostile force (the one that killed the Earthlings) comes, forcing Cylons and humans to cooperate.
• Earth is just a marker and there’s a new destination.
• The humans make a life among the the wreckage, and it’s a big sociological commentary.

Anybody got a better idea? Here’s the teaser for season 4.5.

If you’re interested, perhaps you are and perhaps you’re not, Battlestar Galactica’s Tricia Helfer is in the new video for alt-country group The Old 97s. She’s playing all fabulous and hard-to-get.

Take a look:

I’m not sure why Battlestar suddenly decided to take a little breather in the middle of the season — it’s been a long couple of weeks long week now that we’ve gotten used to a weekly serving of Adama and the gang.

(Apparently there was a new episode on Friday that I’m going to have to find some way of watching online. Why doesn’t Sci-Fi schedule Battlestar on normal nights? Accordingly, this might be an old preview. I care about you guys enough to warn you that it might be an old clip, but not enough to track down something new. Sorry.)

But this Friday’s episode is finally new and it promises to have a helping of long-lost Cylon Deanna played by Lucy Lawless. The following preview hints that we may finally find out who one of the final five is.

Have a look-see.

No one likes to get sucked out of the airlock. It’s not a very nice way to go.

So far, the people we’ve seen meet their demise that way include at least one cylon body, a few people deemed traitors by the New Caprica vigilante jury and, most recently, our beloved Cally.

I’ve always thought that when you get sucked into the vacuum of space that you just blew up immediately. Your body has air in it, so I thought that there would be a big bloody explosion. This can probably be traced back to my sophomore year in high school when we read The Cold Equations — which is a pretty wrenching story about an ill-fated space stowaway. My teacher, a mustachioed veteran who was more excited about snow days than a teacher should really tell his students, told us that’s what happened to you in space and I think that violent image has stuck with me.

I’ve asked the oracle of the Internet and found some answers.

Says one article:

When the human body is suddenly exposed to the vacuum of space, a number of injuries begin to occur immediately. Though they are relatively minor at first, they accumulate rapidly into a life-threatening combination. The first effect is the expansion of gases within the lungs and digestive tract due to the reduction of external pressure. A victim of explosive decompression greatly increases their chances of survival simply by exhaling within the first few seconds, otherwise death is likely to occur once the lungs rupture and spill bubbles of air into the circulatory system. Such a life-saving exhalation might be due to a shout of surprise, though it would naturally go unheard where there is no air to carry it.

A writer for Slate tackles the issue in the context of the Danny Boyle movie Sunshine (which was great for the first two-thirds until it decided to become 2001: A Nightmare on Elm Street). He mentions that the body undergoes ebullism when exposed to the vacuum of space, which means that the reduced pressure makes your bodily fluids’ boiling point reduce.

Slate writes:

An astronaut who fell unconscious from lack of oxygen would last for a few minutes more before dying from asphyxiation or the effects of the pressure reduction. Ebullism would result in the formation of bubbles in the moisture found in the eyes, mouth, and skin tissue. One NASA test subject who survived a 1965 accident in which he was exposed to near-vacuum conditions felt the saliva on his tongue begin to boil before he lost consciousness after 14 seconds.

Both articles seem to indicate that you’d probably live for at least ten to fifteen seconds without a space suit, which is a hell of a lot longer than I thought you could. The first article states you could even last a minute or two.

That article also claims that frostbite probably isn’t as big an issue because heat leaves the body slowly in a vacuum. Not being protected from the sun’s UV rays, though, could be a problem.

Last week’s episode of Battlestar Galactica saw the demise of a perfectly logical character. That is, a character that was important enough to draw a reaction from viewers, but not important enough to seriously impact the show as we know it.

The Battlestar writers did a pretty good job of keeping us guessing as to how Cally’s death would play out, what with the suicide-with-half-cylon-baby/no-Tory-is-here-to-help/no-Tory-is-here-to-murder fake outs. It’s probably the biggest moment Tory has had in the entire show, including being outed as a cylon.

It was a pretty shocking moment and I was sad for a minute. Only a minute though, due to her innocent, little girlish appearance. Eventually I realized that Cally was kind of a pain in the ass and the actress who played her wasn’t that great (did you see that scene with the doctor?).

This brings us to the whole issue of who’s going to drop dead this season. Speculation is rampant and bleak. Even Edward James Olmos is hinting that no one makes it in the end. And while I don’t necessarily expect everyone to end the series with babies and puppies and wood-burning stoves, I think that the theatrics of an everyone-dies-in-the-end conclusion might be a bit much — even for Battlestar.

So, who’s going to stick around for a while? I expect people to drop like flies all season, but the questions are who and when. Here’s a round-up…

(for the record, when I list cylons, I’m talking about their current body)

Gaius Baltar - Baltar’s death would be the most satisfying and longest overdue. He’s survived the attack on Caprica (saved by Number Six), survived the presidency on New Caprica, time with the Cylons, a trial on the fleet and avoided being killed by the masses afterwards. The very fact that he’s so awful is reason enough for the writers to keep him around, plus with his whole new guru storyline I expect this to take a while to play out.

Tigh - Tigh is another one who’s “had it coming” for a while, mostly through being unpleasant to any and everyone.

Adama - Wouldn’t that be a kick in the head to have them kill off the old man prematurely? To have them kill Adama and then see people scramble to replace him and cope with the loss in leadership? The more I think about it, the better idea it seems.

Apollo - No effing way.

Helo - Helo has always been a bit peripheral to the whole Starbuck and Apollo Awesome People Fan Club Superstar Show. Hell, he spent the first season in the woods. He could be a mid-season death that makes people sad, but doesn’t change the season’s trajectory too much.

Roslin - Roslin will die in the last episode or not at all. For a woman who was supposed to be dead meat in season one, this would kind of make it all come full circle. I can’t imagine they’d off her beforehand with a cylon attack or some such nonsense.

Anyone else have thoughts on the way the rest of the season will play out?

Well, it finally arrived!

Welcome to Awkwardville. Population: 3.

After a year of waiting, Battlestar finally returned with new episodes. (See how I’m pretending like I was waiting this whole time too? Even though I only just finished the third season…)

In any case, over in space things are just as tense as ever. Kara’s all “I’m not dead, sucka” and Lee’s all “my love for you is complicated” and Anders is all “you’d be cool if I were a cylon, right Kara?” and Tigh is all “Arrrrrrrrrrr!” I don’t necessarily have a large, overarching opinion on the premiere other than “Battlestar — yay!” but

• Nice try on the Six Feet Under-ian fake-out of Tigh hallucinating that he shot Adama in the eye. While I don’t necessarily think Adama won’t get shot in the eye by the end of the season, it’s highly unlikely people are going to die within the first three episodes of the season or so. For the record, my bet on the first person to “die” is Anders.
• The ending scene is very “to be continued-y” but I imagine the resolution to the Thrace vs Roslin showdown will involve a lot of combative dialogue and won’t have a lot of action. Meanwhile, though, looks like Roslin’s guards need to step it up a little bit. Kara didn’t seem to have too much trouble just strutting into the presidential quarters. Like Roslin just told the guards “Go ahead and get some dehydrated ice cream, I’ll just be in here with a damp compress on my eyes. I’ll be fine. I’m the president.”
• I still can’t believe Chief is a cylon. Everybody else, sure. They keep saying “we’ve been this way since the beginning” and I’m trying to figure out what that’s a metaphor for. Since I haven’t been watching Battlestar as it aired, some of the broader social commentaries have been a little harder to recognize.
• Gaius Baltar as David Koresh — unexpected, but it seems as good an option to do with the character as any. Seeing as how he can’t exactly just rejoin the gang.

Get ready kids, tonight everyone’s favorite depressing space opera returns! It’s been a long time since we last checked in with our friends on the Battlestar Galactica. Here’s a quick catch-up:

Everything is harder to deal with than you could possibly imagine.

And yes that is Tricia Helfer playing both Jesus some other character who isn’t really in the original painting. Are there any DaVinci Code-style clues in here? Does the space between some people spell out a C, perhaps indicating who the final Cylon is?

Let’s revisit the old (olde?) TiFaux favorite Who Would Win in a Fight, shall we?

Now that I’m all caught up on Battlestar Galactica, I feel qualified to weigh in on its cast of characters — including everyone’s favorite accent-masking dreamboat Jamie Bamber as Lee “Apollo” Adama. Pit him against Josh Holloway’s twangy, nick-naming Sawyer and I think you’ve got a fairly even match — two pretty boy tough guys who are pretty and tough in completely different ways.

Let’s break it down.

Apollo

Strengths:

• Seasoned war veteran
• Tough boxer, as evidenced in that one boring episode in season three
• Big ole’ arms

Weaknesses:

• Easily exploitable emotional weak spots
• Not necessarily as formidable when he’s not in a plane
• Definitely the prettier of the pretty boys

Sawyer

Strengths:

• Scary stubble and tangled tresses
• Bad temper results in a lot of bold actions
• Vendetta against the world

Weaknesses:

• Needs glasses
• All talk, for the most part
• Undisciplined; general misanthropy doesn’t always translate to fighting prowess