(Caution: Spoilers ahead!)

Dear Bill:

Man, did you disappoint me at the end of last Friday's episode of Battlestar Galactica. Yes, the (apparent?) execution by firing squad of Tom Zarek and Felix Gaeta for treason was a knockout punch dramatically (from which I am still recovering), and yes, you could argue that under centuries of military tradition mutiny is just cause for capital punishment, but you're missing the bigger picture: Galactica is existentialist TV, in which tradition—all existing codes, conducts, and beliefs—is irrelevant, and you and everyone else in your fleet have been given the opportunity (welcome or not, and in this case obviously not)—even the moral imperative—to reinvent the very definition of humanity. Reach higher, Bill. Learn from the litany of mistakes your race has left in its path. Reject archaic, destructive beliefs that debase humankind; embrace new ones, promoting forgiveness, redemption, the preciousness of human life.

Premeditated murder is barbaric, inhuman behavior, Bill, no matter how you slice it.

Watching Friday's episode, I was struck by how both sides—the mutineers and those loyal to you—mowed each other down with reckless abandon. I kept trying to keep track of how many humans you were down to, but the action was too fast and furious. One premise of the series, dating all the way back to the 2003 miniseries that launched it, has been the sanctity of human life. Don't you remember President Roslin telling you, "The human race is about to be wiped out. We have 50,000 people left, and that's it. If we are even going to survive as a species we need to get the hell out of here and we need to start having babies." Sure, you scoffed at first, but eventually you came around.

Don't get me wrong, Bill. I applaud your willingness to work with the Cylons (Out with the neocons and in with Obama, right? I get it!), and your recognition that peace is a better goal than war. I admire your willingness to die for your principles (easy for me to say!), and I loved your line about how "I didn't give aid and comfort to the enemy; they gave aid and comfort to me" (or something like that). You have a real way with words, Bill; I'll never forget the episode "A Message of Salvation," when you cautioned the president against implementing your own son's plot to wipe out the Cylon race with a man-made virus: "We start destroying entire races, even mechanical races, we're liable to tear off a piece of a man's soul."

Bill, you may not want to hear this, but I'm going to suggest that in the coming, final weeks, you look for guidance to none other than Gaius Baltar, who, judging by last week's episode, succeeded exactly where you failed: by rejecting every base instinct in his body (and we both know there are plenty of them) and reinventing himself as a person of conscience, first by announcing his intention to go back to the Galactica to be with his followers, and then by reassuring Gaeta that he understood and appreciated him. Baltar gets it, Bill: Old rules, old prejudices, old beliefs no longer matter. You're free! Rise above them!

Jean Paul Sartre would be proud—if, of course, he existed in your universe.