#bsg 2003

Farscape

Stargate SG-1

Agents of SHIELD

Star Trek: The Next Generation

Battlestar Galactica

The X-Files

The Expanse

Fringe

Lost

Firefly

#OTD in 2007:

Bill: “Yeah. Yeah, I see the resemblance.”

So the thing is, Gillian Anderson is perfect in this episode and the strength of her performances sells me on this story line. I will also grant that Scully is nuanced enough (again greatly thanks to Anderson) so that I do buy her cancer diagnosis leading her to question her life.

However, the Scully we’ve seen up to now has referenced wanting to be a mother once or twice. She had talked about her love of work nearly every episode. She may vary in her commitment to the FBI, but her curiosity, her need to solve puzzles, that’s core to who she is. And a deep exploration of the pain of how those two parts of her conflict would be a really interesting story- a desire for family made unattainable by an unquenchable need to solve life’s mysteries- but we never really get that.

And I think that’s in part because many of the people writing Scully take her desire for motherhood for granted without needing to write it. And Scully is not alone here. She’s part of a foundational generation of Sci-fi women (Xena and Starbuck spring to mind) who despite displaying no interest in motherhood are one impregnating-by-a beam-of-light away from making being a mom core to their identity.