I started thinking about all my "Top 10" moments on various shows, and thought it would be fun to unleash a few. So here goes, in very particular order -- my Top 10 moments from Battlestar Galactica (and WARNING -- SPOILERS BELOW!):

10. Caprica Six Meets ChipBaltar! (Season 2, "Downloaded") In the superb episode "Downloaded," one of my favorites, Caprica Six is a hero to her people for helping to annihilate mankind. Only problem is, in the very course of her mission she has begun to doubt the rightness of her objective. Complicating matters? She awakens in the Cylon goo tank of Rebirth with a little something extra: Just as Baltar has a ChipSix whispering in his ear, so it seems, in perfect symmetry, does Caprica Six have her own ChipBaltar whispering in hers. The moment we see Baltar, leaning forward with an unusually calm and loving expression on his face, is the moment this episode goes from good, to awesome. I screamed. Yeah, I'm a dork. But still, it's awesome.

9. Kara "Starbuck" Thrace Kills Leoben (Season 3, "Occupation"). It starts so innocently. A beautiful girl sits down to a meal across from an apparently affectionate husband. Then he comes over to her in the middle of their sumptuous meal... and she stabs him through the neck. As he falls, she stabs him violently again and again in the chest. He dies, smiling: "I'll see you soon." She gets up and calmly goes back to eating her steak, properly and smilingly, like a lady. One of the creepiest, most effective scenes in the show's history, not least because what we see is so completely not what is real: Leoben is not a husband, but a robot with an obsession, and Kara is a captive fighter pilot. Upending gender roles as well as, er, robot roles, Battlestar Galactica never goes for the easy story when the complex one will do. A great, if chilling, moment.

8. Gina Shoots Cain. (Season 2, "Take Me Out") There's no wrath like that of a Cylon scorned, especially one who's been as horribly abused as the Number Six model on the Battlestar Pegasus, known as Gina. Repeatedly abused, tortured, and gang-raped by a crew that doesn't regard her as human, Gina finally gets her revenge on the Admiral who masterminded her inhuman treatment -- Commander Cain, played by the fabulous Michelle Forbes. Not only is their final confrontation tragic, it's far more quiet than we expect, with Forbes showing all the humanity and acceptance of which the flawed yet proud Cain is capable. Two strong women confront each other, both acknowledging their mistakes, and one dies. It's a tribute to this series that we care so much about both -- even though one's not actually human and the other's hubris and insecurity have eaten away her soul.

7. Apollo Lets Go. (Season 2, "Resurrection Ship, Part II"). For me, one of the most beautiful and haunting scenes in the history of this show occurs when Lee "Apollo" Adama, running out of oxygen through a hole in his flight suit, eerily observes the space battle between humans and Cylons before him -- and all he can do is watch. At the end of this scene, he hauntingly lets go, and removes his hand from the hole in his flight suit, willing to let it all go and drift away. He is rescued, but at what cost? One of the most beautiful scenes in the history of the series.

6. The Torture of Leoben, (Season 1, "Flesh and Bone"). One of my favorite things about this show is the way it surprises you yet never shows you a side of a character that is unreasonable, where you think, "so and so would never do that." Not in this show, with its fragile characters constantly pushed to the limits. In this episode, Roslin experiences a strangely vivid, erotic dream about a strange man (the awesome Keith Callum Rennie, who evidently works nonstop up there in Vancouver) who approaches her in a forest, who seems to want to communicate with her until a sudden strange force or wind pulls him violently away from her. In this episode, all our expectations are reversed as Starbuck interrogates and tortures a Cylon who's the spitting image of the man in Roslin's dream -- and yet it is Starbuck who is moved, Starbuck who begins to see the futility of torture, and Roslin, who makes the final decree, and sends the man to his death -- by airlock, fulfilling the terrible finale of her dream. It's all the more moving that the man will not allow himself to "turn off his pain" even though he can, because (in a painful, wryly humorous admission) it's something that would diminish his humanity. It's also poignant and ironic that it is the warrior Starbuck, not Roslin, who is the only person to pray for his soul at the end of the story.

5. Adama Kisses Laura (Season 2, "Take Me Out"). Oh, stop looking at me like that. Yes, I'm a girl. But really, what a lovely, gentle scene this is: From Season 2 -- Laura is dying, faster and faster day by day. And for the first time in the series, we have seen a growing friendship and rapport -- even as she grows more frail by the minute -- between Laura and Commander Adama. In this scene, Laura's cancer is burning her alive from the inside, and it's a credit to Mary McDonnell's acting abilities that we believe a wisp of wind would knock her down or blow her away. She rises from a simple meeting with Adama, struggling simply to remain upright, to walk away in a dignified manner -- and Adama quietly and wordlessly helps her to her feet in that lovely way people do without calling attention to it. And as she turns to leave, looking sick and sad and tired, he leans forward and sweetly kisses her on the lips -- and she smiles.

It's a wonderful moment between these two former rivals -- and the loveliness of it is due in no small part that it's all things to all people. For me, yes it's romantic, but it honestly transcends romance. Far more important in this scene than whether Adama wants to screw Roslin is the fact that these two people -- for so long, so far apart and so combative -- are now friends, shipmates, confidantes. It's been such a long journey and in this quiet human frail moment we see what we have known all along -- Adama loves Roslin. And she smiles radiantly, and we know also that she loves him back. Frankly, after this scene I don't know who I'd want to vote for more as President -- Edward James Olmos or Mary McFreakin'Donnell -- because both are magnificent here.

4. The Destruction of Caprica (Miniseries). As anyone who watched the miniseries knows, this is one of the most haunting moments of the show, and is deservedly preserved in the beautiful, mournful opening credits. The Cylons attack, the bombs begin to fall, peppering the surface of the atmosphere of this earthlike planet with an unescapable death and destruction. And we see it both ways -- from the godlike heavens as the atmosphere glows with nuclear fire, as well as from the surface, where an uncomprehending Baltar is listening to the confession of the beautiful woman before him, the Cylon Number Six. And part of the beauty and power of the scene is the incongruity and realism of it -- Baltar reacts with fear and horror (at his own betrayal, at what is now to befall all mankind) even as Six reacts with love and sympathy. And every time I see those windows blow up around Number Six at Baltar's beautiful house, as she protectively shoves Baltar away from the nuclear blast, my heart stops. (Side note: It has to be said, the opening credits to this show are gorgeous in their own right -- apocalyptic and beautiful and lyrical, a visual poem).

3. End of Line (Season 3, "Rapture"). Someone smarter than me over on Television Without Pity said it gorgeously -- that "Three," aka D'Anna Biers, was the only Cylon you could never forget was a machine. While Boomer and Six always brought elements of humanity to their characters, Three, as marvelously played by Lucy Lawless (in a very different role from her Xena character of years past), always seemed a little alien, a little brittle, a little otherworldly. You never forget what she was. It was all the more fascinating, then, that we saw her begin to spiral downward in Season 3 as she began to question her destiny, to question the very nature of Cylon spirituality. I found myself wanting her to find the answers, wanting her to fulfill the tantalizing "what if" that even drove her to self-destruction, to find out what was on the other side. Then she is brave enough to step into the light, to face the madness that lies in seeing the face of the gods, even as she can communicate her discoveries to no one... not even Brother Cavil, who genially yet strangely sympathetically shows up to tell her she and her fellow Threes are boxed... permanently. Here's hoping D'Anna comes back from the edge, and back from the purgatory of permanent "Boxing," to tell us what she saw in that final vision...

Speaking of Television Without Pity, even if you never miss an episode, I highly recommend that you jump over to read the fabulous episode recaps by Jacob. They aren't just synopses, but are instead insightful and truly illuminating examinations of each episode's high points, of the characters' motives, of the very archetypes and themes offered by each episode. I can't tell you how much these recaps have added to my enjoyment of the show -- their richness and lyricism do the show justice. Some of the best writing about Battlestar Galactica -- or on it -- may very well take place right here. I usually want to scream, "I'm not worthy!" after reading each one. That's how good they are.

I'm not kidding. So go read them. Stop reading me, I suck in comparison. OK. you can come back. I 'll wait. ;-)

2. Boomer Shoots Adama (Season 1, "Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part 2"). Poor Boomer. She didn't get the grace of self-knowledge -- or choice -- given to Sharon Agathon -- nor, tragically her ultimate acceptance. Instead she spent her human life as a lie, struggling with the programming deep within as she began to realize she was not one of us, that she was, in fact, a Cylon. So many of us cheered when Boomer struggled against the alien within to complete her mission against the Cylons. And when Adama stepped forward to congratulate her, it was a wonderful and heartfelt moment in this dark universe -- until Boomer pulled out her gun even as Adama's hand stretched out -- and shot him two times in the chest. I know I'm not the only one who stared in surprise and horror at this moment, all the while thinking, "I am so this show's bitch."

1. The Battlestar Galactica Warps INTO the Atmosphere (Season 3, "Exodus, Part II") Led by Adama and a sacrificial Battlestar Pegasus (with a superbly heroic Lee Adama at the helm), the fleet returns for its own, falling on the ruling Cylons on New Caprica like the hammer of the gods. When the Battlestar Galactica actually dared to warp INTO the atmosphere (yes, I have to capitalize that, why do you ask?), plummeting in a glory of red-hot metal and steel toward the surface of the planet like some otherwordly hammer of the gods, well, I defy you not to cry. Seriously. I did. And then I rewound it. And watched it several more times. The story of this episode, in so many ways a de fact ending to Season 2 -- is tight, harrowing, tragic, moving, and finally uplifting. Anyone who wonders why we watch this show -- why so many freaking magazines swear it's so good -- here's why. Watch it. I'll bring the popcorn. A transcendent moment among many.

So there you go. So say, well, me all. Ha. And I didn't even get into such haunting moments as the Flight of the Phoenix, or of Kara's struggles in "The Farm," or Baltar's oddly noble survival of Three's torture in "A Measure of Salvation," of Chief and Helo loosing the ashes of "Hera" slowly into space (she's really alive), or when Laura defies Adama, or when Starbuck goes after the arrow of Apollo... etc. Um. You get the picture. So many good times. If you aren't watching this show, you're crazy. Patsy-Cline-singing-it-level-Crazy. Seriously.