Jane Espenson

In a galaxy far, far gay.

Sci Fi Channel’s Battlestar Galactica enters its fourth and final queer season.

When we’re introduced to Lieutenant Kara “Starbuck” Thrace, we find her chomping on a cigar while playing poker with her fellow soldiers. Her superior officer, Colonel Saul Tigh, enters. They argue, she slugs him and, moments later, she’s locked up in the brig. It’s an auspicious moment for LGBT viewers—our first glimpse into Battlestar Galactica’s cool queer world.

Starbuck is not a lesbian. In fact, there are no out characters on Battlestar, or even LGBT-specific themes for that matter. But the Sci Fi Channel’s popular remake—in which mankind’s only survivors crisscross the universe in search of a mythical place called Earth while pursued by their nemeses, the robot Cylons—is a gay favorite. It’s easy to see why.

For starters, Starbuck’s toughness makes lesbian viewers swoon. Her character also has a gender-bending twist: In the original series, Starbuck was a man; as one Battlestar devotee put it, “They kept the masculine characteristics of Starbuck, but she has a vagina.” Then there’s the men on the show: buff, often bare-chested military dudes who just happen to be sensitive and emotional. The ship’s tactical officer is the dapper and ambiguously gay Felix Gaeta (pronounced gay-ta…hmm), and in a casting coup, lesbian icon Lucy Lawless has a recurring role as Cylon badass D’anna Biers.

Battlestar’s gay following hasn’t surprised its creative team. “I think that it’s a natural match,” says writer and co–executive producer Jane Espenson. “Look at the Vulcan symbol [in Star Trek], the idea of infinite diversity, infinite combinations. Diversity is built into sci-fi.” Indeed, gay themes and subtexts have long been part of the sci-fi/fantasy genre: Homosexual sex is mentioned in sci-fi scribe Robert Heinlein’s 1973 novel Time Enough for Love; gay themes were frequently addressed both literally and metaphorically in the Buffy universe, including Buffy’s own “coming out” as a slayer; and Dr. Who spin-off and current BBC hit Torchwood features Captain Jack Harkness as the bisexual protagonist (played by out actor John Barrowman).

Not unlike those old soft-core Abercrombie ads, sci-fi encourages the imagination to run wild. When actor Tom Lenk played the fey comic-relief Andrew on Buffy, a genre favorite that featured prime time’s first in-depth lesbian relationship, his character’s sexual ambiguity drove viewers nuts. “I’d have fans coming up to me all the time at conventions and asking if [Andrew’s] gay or not,” Lenk says.

Also key to sci-fi’s queerness is that it’s often set either in the distant future or in an alternate universe where racism, sexism and homophobia no longer exist. “Differences are truly treated as unimportant in the idealized worldview that sci-fi has,” Espenson says. “It’s sort of inevitable that sci-fi/fantasy do that because to look at your own world, you create this parallel one, and so it allows you to comment on it.”

On Battlestar, for instance, gender roles are neutralized: A woman is president, the battleship’s locker rooms are coed and soldiers refer to commanding officers as “sir” even if that officer’s a woman. And it’s no big deal. While Espenson doesn’t offer any clues to Gaeta’s alleged same-sex attraction, she does say that it isn’t an issue. “I don’t think that’s the kind of thing that would lead to someone getting beat up in the locker room on Battlestar,” she says. “In the Battlestar world, [being gay] would not get you kicked in the ass.”

One thing is clear: Sci-fi/fantasy’s impact on queer culture can’t be ignored. Lenk recalls meeting two fans who thanked him for Buffy’s explicit gay story lines, in particular the Willow character’s coming out. “[It gave] these women the confidence to come out themselves,” he says. “In some ways it’s just amazing what it has done for people.”

Battlestar Galactica returns Friday 4.