If you thought my crushes were limited to emotionally precarious boy geniuses with floppy hair and OCD, you were sorely mistaken. My crushes also happen to include emotionally stunted, muscle-bound, girl fighter pilots named Kara Thrace. I don’t have a type: I have brainy girl crushes too (I’m looking at you, Velma), it’s just, there’s something about women butt-kickers: the legs, the attitude, and the kicking (with the legs). There’s also something about underwear scenes.
Starbuck (Kara Thrace) played by Katee Sackhoff, is an enigma wrapped in a gun-belt, wrapped in a cute tank top, wrapped in an angel-faced Caprican. She’s hot-headed and cocky, single-mindedly anti-cylon and pyramid-balls-to-the-wall alcoholic. She’s not about to do as she’s told but you better believe, when the chips are down, she’ll pull some twisty loop-de-loop maneuvers in her viper to save Galactica from nuclear missiles.
I have to admit, I could never get into the original Battlestar. I’m not proud of my ignorance, and after this let’s please never mention it again. I mention it now only because it makes it hard to do a play-by-play comparison of Katee Sackhoff’s Starbuck and Dirk Benedict’s 1978 version. I can, however, make a comparison between their equally awesome actor names that evoke certain anatomical treasures best left euphemized.
Here are the two Starbucks, in Starbucks, drinking Starbucks, smoking Starbucks cohibas:
I especially love Starbuck when I compare her to the skinny, pointy, blond Cylon (Trisha Helfer) everyone seems so excited about. Puh-lease. Yes, Starbuck is by any account a 100% gorgeous woman, but she manages to also not be a stick-girl, which, while I wish I didn’t have to mention it because it shouldn’t even be an issue, is an issue and I do have to mention it.
I don’t know if the network gave her a hard time about her weight but I would be surprised if they didn’t. She’s got discernible hips! You can’t see a single rib! I choose to believe Katee Sackhoff, true to her character, flipped a big fat finger at the network and played Starbuck just as she should have: curvily. I like boobs. Call me crazy.
One thing that kind of annoys me about Starbuck is her slight dip into the crazy sauce towards the end of the series. C’mon, S.B.! I count on your unerring fortitude, your flinty tenacity. Painting pretty pictures of circles all over the ship is not the act of a mighty, strapping young pilot. Although, sexy paint-spattered skin and outfits does kind of make a psychosis worthwhile.