Benedict doesn’t want any moral ambiguity in his space opera. He doesn’t want any lingerie models either. He wants Hollywood to stop remaking old shows, make better new shows, and recognize how awesome the old shows were, all at once. He wants business people to stop telling stories and start taking more risks. I want someone to clue Benedict in on the idea that all stories are the same story, no matter how we tell them or who pilots the Vipers. Monomyth, much?

He insists on referring to Katee Sackhoff's character as "Stardoe," and Tricia Helfer's Six-Caprica as Cylon #69. He might have had a point. He might have turned what is fundamentally a personal affront ("But Starbuck doesn’t have a vagina!") into something more than grudge kvetching. Instead, he loses what little point he started making and pretty well proves that the re-imagining (a word he uses with extreme contempt) connects to audiences far more clearly, and deeply, than the original ever might have. He could have argued a legitimate point about institutionalized misandry aboard the average spaceship, and what the juxtaposition of culture and genre said. Instead he tries to get Freudian ("Men hand out cigars. Women 'hand out' babies.") and ends up sounding like a misogynist jerk.

Of the people I know who saw the original, only one of them hates the new version. Sexy Cylons, Asian Girl Boomer, and Swarthy Cheesecake Dr. Baltar are right out for that person. And I think that that’s mostly because it infringes on cherished childhood memories, not from any artistic affront. Those who don’t hate it think, yeah, it is better than the original. It has more color, more depth, and lingerie models don’t ever hurt any show.

If it comes down to the moral ambiguity, maybe that's what we need more of. Our literacy rate in the United States is staggeringly high. Our Critical Thinking rate is staggeringly low. If you can get beyond the cheesecake (and I will be the first to admit I watch BSG because in no small part because I lust for dark-haired, large nosed men who straddle the line between villain and anti-hero) then you can start contemplating what they’re really saying. Good guys sometimes must do bad things. Bad guys sometimes are justified in their actions. Life is not beautiful black and white, man and woman, cigars and helicopters, all crisp and clear, Benedict. We use these stories to help us learn about differentiating shades of gray, and confronting our own prejudices. Fiction helps us look into the void, should we be brave enough to confront it for what it is and deal with the discomfort of it looking back at us. Benedict, evidently, can't see beyond the end of his cigar.