Lords of Kobol, hear my prayer...

On the one-sided topic, Roger is the ONLY man in the crew who speaks up against the assault and I think that has a lot more to do with his profession than his gender. The other men in the crew either don't understand the 'big deal' or they stay completely silent, which is almost worse, in my opinion.

And yeah, I get that the rape gives the virtual vs. reality story more weight but I think there were plenty of other ways to accomplish that and they would've been more interesting/meaningful to the overall storyline.

In my opinion, the rape itself and the circumstances surrounding it were driven by RDM's desire to make the darkest show possible. I still see the actual rape as a stunt and the fact that it happens to THAT character...We're told from the beginning that Billie is the character the audience identifies with so I think she was the lazy choice.

Why not have the assault happen to Alice, one of the married characters? Then you can play out how the rape effects her relationship with her husband. We've already seen that they have a very sexual relationship so how would that change, post-assault. Or why not have the attack happen to a MAN and explore all of the (mostly untapped) storyline possibilities there?

At the end of the day, the rape storyline was just one more thing to make me NOT like the series. If it does continue (which is doubtful based on the ratings) it would take an awful lot to make me give it a second chance.