Formative Performances: Grace Park in “Battlestar Galactica”

[Women’s History Month, Day 19]

This next performer is not someone who is usually singled out for her acting, but she played two characters on a critically acclaimed show for four years and she deserves some recognition.

Battlestar Galactica was widely admired by critics and fans alike. I was obsessed with it for a little while, but the show would never make my all-time favorite list simply because it was so inconsistent in its mythology and became so ponderous and lecturing.

Despite the show’s flaws, I still became very attached to the stories of Boomer, a sleeper Cylon agent who thought she was human, and Sharon, a Cylon who eventually allied with the humans out of love for one man. I never bought into the concept of equality between Cylons and humans, but I believed in the stories of both Sharons from beginning to end. I was pleased with Sharon’s growth and moved by the tragedy of Boomer.

Grace Park is a formative performance because she made me feel emotionally invested in a robot. The following clip is from the series finale where one version of her character kills the other. Poor Boomer. Poor, poor Boomer.