Dana, I missed the "it" in "pull it out" the first time and wondered what kind of story this was.

Not Dana, but:

At Dragon*Con 2005, Tricia (and Adam Baldwin) were donating all their autograph proceeds to Hurricane Katrina charities (the hurricane happened roughly concurrent with the con). Dana thanked Tricia and got a little, um, teary about it, and Tricia was very nice about being cried on.

Aw, nice one Ms Helfer!

I really have been consistently impressed by her performance & capacity to convince entirely different incarnations of the same Cylon. Props to her.

Meanwhile, yesterday I scored DVDs of Torchwood, Heroes, BSG and Big Love. And then I went home and watched the first two eps of Torchwood, kind of thinking 'it's silly and a bit crap, but I really loved the finale for Shallow and Obvious Reasons.'

And so I was really startled by the mighty wave of love that crashed over me within seconds. Because it is British!!!!!!!

OMG!!!

It's so bloody long since we've had genre shows set in Britain, damn it - and, better yet, NOT IN LONDON. (Although I really like it when Doctor Who is visibly in London, actually, to be fair. But OTHER BITS OF BRITAIN is even better - I mean, Jesus, when was the last time something was set in Wales? With Cardiff looking all fabulous and sexy and Cardiff!!!!??? And full of Welsh people!

loves show HARD.

I cannot adequately express the sheer joy I felt at having a fairly standard X Files/ Supernatural/ Genre show moment being expressed thus: "Let's stop playing silly buggers."

My people!

I mean, ALL the genre shows are full of your people. Hell, Buffy is set in a setting that is to a greater or lesser extent familiar to most of you - it has Cheerleaders and Proms and Sadie Hawkins Dances and Jocks and Geeks and all this crap. Which is every bit as alien and unfamiliar as anywhere Serenity ever landed, from the POV of UnAmericans. But Torchwood is FAMILIAR!!!!! Cops who don't know how to handle guns! Startled postmen! Cups of tea! People being crap! People looking normal, not airbrushed and Hollywood! People having fat arses! People who take the piss!

brims with love some more.

Also, my affection for Ianto increases by leaps and bounds. Ianto rocks my socks.

Also, the show is crammed with the hot girl-on-girl, boy-on-boy, girl-on-boy-on-girl-on-alien-on-cheesesandwich sauce! Which everyone is cool with!

It's like it is fandom, in some weird way - or fanfic, or something. Or, or, okay, I can't express myself very well. But I heart Torchwood. How can I fail to love a show which breezily makes MPreg canon within the first five minutes? It is crackfic incarnate. In Wales.

It is crackfic incarnate. In Wales.

Ah, bless Fay. So succinct.

Yes, Torchwood is great. Despite all it's obvious flaws (most of which I'm hoping will be worked out for the next series), it's extremely compelling and I adore it. Especially because it's probably the first sci-fi show to canonize slash.

the first sci-fi show to canonize slash

If you mean same-sex sex by slash, they're not. B5 occurs to me first, and DS9 had a girl-girl kiss.

Boy on boy? That's rarer. Can't find an example off the top of my head.

I liked Torchwood. I think it's messy and angular and I'm not sure if that's because they're being purposefully awkward or because they're not sure where they're headed. They have me curious, though.

Still want them to live up to the opening monologue properly.

True, B5 (and DS9? I knew I should have watched that show more) brought the girl-on-girl action - but then that's a much less risky thing to do, in terms of one's Geekboy audience. And heterosexuality was always the baseline 'normal' in these shows.

I mean, I'm still "Yay! Teh Gay!" about Winters/Ivanova and all that - but hot girl-on-girl is less challenging/threatening to the geekboy audience (not dissing Winters/Ivanova, which was handled well, I think, and wasn't exploitative wish fulfilment stuff) whereas actively being 'why yes, samesex sex is normal, widespread and fun, folks, and did we mention normal?' is just a wildly different mindset.

Torchwood really isn't heteronormative. And that's a breakthrough.

It's also fairly ethnically diverse, from what I can see - I mean, yeah, the majority of the characters are white, but that's a very fair reflection of Wales - in the second ep I loved the fact that SupportingCharacter was blathering on about how much it cost to hire workers, and how many Polish lads he could hire for the cost of one of these arsey Welsh blokes. Spot on, that.

OK, Fay just made me put "find ahems of Torchwood" on tomorrow's to-do list.

Yes, that Torchwood is set in a place that's not Generic Britain (i.e. London) is a great plus for me as well. Especially because in the American fantasy map of 'Wales' it's all Celtic woowoo historical stuff, so having a more contemporary fantasy paradigm is a great bonus, too.

And then there's the characters, and the plots, and the pretty....

Torchwood really isn't heteronormative. And that's a breakthrough.

I think this is what kept me watching even when I was thisclose to chucking it out the window as a load of crap. It's unlike anything else I've watched, really, because even shows like the L Word and Queer as Folk rely on the concept of heteronormativity to push the concept of homonormativity, or acceptance of both, rather. Torchwood doesn't even touch either one--it just says, "hey, lots of people in various combinations getting it on with no issues, how do you like them apples?" And I like them apples very much.