If you have been watching Sci-Fi’s Battlestar Galactica (and you should) then you know there’s something weird about Kara “Starbuck” Thrace. In the next episode, will Starbuck’s secret finally be revealed?

Spoiler Alert – please don’t read further if you do not want to know Starbuck’s story.

Starbuck has a secret. You see, she died back in Season 3 (see Maelstrom episode) while chasing a phantom Cylon raider into the “great spot” of a gas giant. Lee Adama chased in his own Viper, and saw Starbuck’s apparently explode in the dense atmosphere.

Then she was mourned, and that little rag-tag group of humans did what they could to get over Starbuck’s death. That was until Starbuck magically returned in the Season 3 final cliffhanger, saying she has been to Earth and would lead the fleet there.

OK that was strange.

Then, during Season 4, there was some – shall we say – skepticism about Starbuck’s miraculous return. After all, the folks on the good ship Galactica have seen people return from the dead before, but those people always turned out to be Cylon. But Kara Thrace is different – she returned in a shiny new Viper. She can’t be a Cylon, right? She can’t explain why she knows what she knows, but Starbuck is pretty certain she’s no fracking skin-job.

Next, as the most of the “final five” Cylons are revealed, we find that the key to finding Earth is linked to her new Viper, still sitting in the launch bay. Indeed, the fleet finds it’s way to Earth – the fabled home of the thirteenth tribe of Cobal.

Everyone’s hopes are dashed as Earth turns out to be a ghost planet destroyed by nuclear catastrophe millennia ago. Devestated, but determined, Starbuck sets off with the Cylon Leoben to find the source of the beacon that led them to Earth in the first place. And they succeed.

Starbuck and Leoben find the Viper that Starbuck flew back in Season 3.

With her body still in the cockpit.

So, now the question is exactly who, or what, is Kara Thrace? Is she a Cylon, a ghost, a demon? Cylon doesn’t seem likely since there are 12 models, and all of them have been revealed. Or have they? In the No Exit episode, the last of the Final Five Cylons argues with Cavil about a lot of things, but also mentions how the Five worked with the Cylons to create eight human models. Now I’m know math whiz, but as far as I know, 5 + 8 doesn’t equal twelve.

In the trailer for the next episode, we’re teased about finding out the truth about Starbuck. Since this isn’t Star Trek, we can probably rule out parallel realities or disturbances in the space-time continuum. Nope – if Sci-Fi is going to reveal Starbuck’s truth, they have only four episodes left to do it in – and they have to stick to the rules.

And that’s why I think she’s a Cylon.

Preview of the next episode

It’s a new season is on for Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and I have to confess that this is one of my favorite sci-fi series. The writing is way better than you’d expect for a series about assassination cyborgs from the future.

In the latest episode, Sara Connor is suffering from a gubshot wound, and she needs to enlist the help of a doctor to save her life. Sarah floats in and out of pain-induced delirium, and she is “assisted” by a long-dead Kyle Reese – John Connor’s father. One thing I didn’t care for is casting Jonathan Jackson as Kyle. This was the role that Michael Biehn played in the original Terminator – and Kyle was a gritty, war-weary soldier from the future. In this episode, Kyle looks like he might have stepped off the set of the OC, what with his boyish looks and immature partial beard.

Still the episode, much like the series, works – as improbable as that may seem. Summer Glau is surprisingly convincing as the futuristic, emotionless cyborg protector for John Connor. Thomas Dekker plays John Connor with just enough teen angst and a palpable sense of apprehension about the approaching rise of the machines. And I doubt that the show’s producers could have found someone better than Lena Headey to play Sarah Connor. She’s all business – just like we expect given the way Linda Hamilton played the role in Terminator 2.