Season premiere: April 4

The cast of Battlestar Galactica appeared on Late Night with David Letterman tonight, reading the Top Ten list, "Top Ten Reasons To Watch the New Season of Battlestar Galactica." (Thank you to Sean Collins for alerting me to that fact.) This made me very happy. (Although Dave's forced pretense that he knew who the hell they were and what show they were from made a little sadness bubble inside my happiness: "It's a very, very popular program, the Battlestar Galactica," he prefaced, as one dude in the audience went, "Yeah!")

FYI, the list, with the characters as introduced by Dave [and the actors in brackets]:

10: Chief Petty Officer Tyrol [Aaron Douglas]: "In the dramatic season opening episode, we save 15% by switching our insurance to Geico." (Dave: "Whoa! Are you kidding?")

9: D'Anna Biers (note: Dave calls her "Diana Biers") [Lucy frickin' Lawless!]: "You'll find out what's in the hatch and who gets off the island -- crap, wrong show." (Dave: "Really?")

8: Dr. Baltar [James Callis]: "My character creates his own line of 'Honey Roasted Space Nuts'."

7: Lt. Sharon Valerii [Grace Park]: "What else are you going to do, read a book?" (Dave: "Yeah, exactly, exactly.")

Dave: "Number 6: Number 6" [Tricia Helfer]: "There's a good chance you'll get to see me naked." (Dave, "Oh, really, is that right?" Also: seen it, but hell, I wouldn't mind seeing it again, if that's how things work out, organically developing by way of the story and whatnot.)

5: Col. Saul Tigh [Michael Hogan]: "There's a good chance you'll see me naked."

4: Cpt. Lee Adama [Jamie Bamber]: "New FTL drives will allow the Colonial Fleet to better adjust to gravitational variations and achieve maximum superluminary travel to outrun the pursuing Cylon Basestars -- I don't know what the hell I'm talking about." (Dave, barely heard: "I don't either." Special nerd note: the captions say "superluminal" rather than Bamber's spoken "superluminary.")

3. Starbuck [my future widow, Katee Sackhoff]: "We engage in a life-and-death battle against evil robots... you know, same shit as last year." (Awesome. Though, of course, "shit" is both bleeped and blurred in the captions. Dave: "Wha-hey!")

2. President Laura Roslin [Mary McDonnell]: "I take on the most challenging task of my political career -- doing a lame Top Ten list on a third-rate talk show." (For the record: McDonnell's grin as she finishes is adorable. Dave: "I heard that. I, I'm sitting right here, for God sakes."

Dave: "And the number one reason to watch the new season of Battlestar Galactica, Admiral William Adama" [Edward James Olmos]: "Watch me lead us into war against the Cylons without an exit strategy."

Bonus bone thrown to BSG fans: as the cast exits after the list is done, Paul and the band play a passage from "All Along the Watchtower."