Recently snicks gave us a list of Our Favorite Action and Fantasy Heroines and that list, combined with a catch-up marathon of Battlestar Galatica, got me thinking of women who are strong and formidable because of their intellects. Strong warrior women have a major presence in the gallery of gay icons, but we also love the women who outsmart the obstacles in their path. Since tonight marks the Battlestar Galatica midseason finale (and the last we'll see of President Roslin until 2009) here are some of sci-fi's smartest and most admirable women.

Mary McDonnell as President Laura Roslin
in Battlestar Galactica

Easily one of the most formidable minds in sci-fi TV is the woman left to keep humanity alive as it faces extinction after 42 people ahead of her for the presidency were killed in the holocaust. Initially she faced an army (almost literally) of skeptics who dismissed her as just a "school teacher" never meant to lead the twelve colonies. However, she quickly proved herself as a woman dangerous to underestimate, especially when she faced down a military insurrection led by Bill Adama. As played by Mary McDonnell, Roslin is someone whose mind is clearly always at work.

Amanda Pays as Theora Jones
in Max Headroom

Max Headroom gave us Theora Jones, who worked as reporter Edison Carter's controller, providing him with information as he questioned subjects and ventured into dangerous territory. Many times, Edison would have been toast if not for Theora's knack for quick research.

Catherine Tate as Donna Noble
in Doctor Who

With smart women like Martha Jones and Sarah Jane Smith, its hard to not make this list heavy on Doctor Who companions. However, Donna stands out for the way her first meeting with The Doctor transformed her. In her first appearance, she came off as intellectually lazy and demanding. However, she's also the first person (since the series was revived, at least) to work with The Doctor and have the insight to find his awesome powers to be something to inspire fear. She also became a stronger person all alone, turning into an investigator in order to reconnect with The Doctor. She's challenged The Doctor and his impulses from her earliest travels with him, contributing to the action instead of deferring to him.

Lisa Hayes
in Robotech (The Macross Saga)

For a lot of gay geeks who grew up in the 80's the animated serial Robotech was our afternoon soap. Not only did Robotech cheesily mix sci-fi and romance (how can you beat a story where aliens invade earth and are literally defeated by a love song?), it gave us plenty of strong women who succeeding by dismissing societal expectations. As the first officer of the SDF-1, Lisa's quick thinking saved the ship on several occasions and her tactical mind helped the ship's fighter pilots turn away various attacks.

Kristen Chenoweth as Olive Snook
in Pushing Daisies

While Ned, Chuck and Emerson go about trying to solve various murders, The Pie Hole's waitress Olive Snook solves the mystery of what those three are up to all on her own, discovers Chuck's family and realizes that she's officially dead. Olive is a sharp interrogator, often forcing Ned and Chuck to change the subject to avoid her questions. As hard as it would be to believe, I wouldn't be surprised if she figures out Ned's secret soon enough.

Stuff you should know about Bryan Fuller: He hates Queer as Folk. He has “a huge lesbian agenda”. His beautifully written, eye-popping pilot for ABC’s Pushing Daisies was named one of the 10 best television broadcasts of 2007 by The Washington Post.

And – boys – he’s totally adorable. Like clean puppies and chocolate birthday cake adorable. Noon on your favorite beach in June with a fistful of nostalgia-laden boardwalk cuisine adorable. Freshly cut Christmas tree, decorated in candy canes and red ribbons with a cute miniature train running through a cute miniature town underneath adorable.

And did we mention – he’s crazy talented. Fuller spoke to us for part two of our special investigative report: "Gays in Primetime", but there just wasn’t enough room for all the wonderfulness that is ... Bryan. So here are more tidbits from our interview. Topics include the gay Star Trek script that never got made, the de-gayed gay dad on Dead Like Me, the big gay character-driven show Fuller dreams of doing, and - *EXCLUSIVE* - his big reveal on the identity of Pushing Daisies’ gay character.

Click on through the jump for the gay spoiler and lots more Fuller!

With the gay geeks finally getting representation on Beauty and the Geek thanks to Gregg, I've been thinking about openly gay men in pop culture as well as the visibility of gay themes in the realms of science fiction, comics and video games. Overall, these are realms where gay fans frequently feel left out, but things are getting better. Here are six openly gay men working in those areas who have also helped improve visibility for those of us who'd like to have a superhero, space captain, or time-traveling immortal of our own.

Russell T. Davies

Davies became a well-known name when he created the original Queer As Folk, a series that was groundbreaking at the time for prominently featuring gay characters including Doctor Who fanboy Vince Tyler. Davies was a longtime Doctor Who fan himself and was eventually tasked with reviving the franchise. Davies' Who run brought queer characters to the franchise. While most gay characters were a part of the world's background, Davies' first season of Who gave us Captain Jack Harkness, a charming and roguish, time-traveling con artist. Captain Jack was a popular character who got his own spin-off series (we've discussed it occasionally) giving us the first bisexual male heroic lead on a mainstream sci-fi program.

One of the interesting tendencies of Davies is to reuse names, something that Davies says helps him flesh out a character. His Queer as Folk everyman Vince shared a name with the first companion in Davies' Doctor Who run, Rose. (And the Tyler name continued in a show that Davies didn't work on when the creators of Life on Mars named their time-traveling protagonist, Sam Tyler, after Rose.) He's introduced two smart and capable women named Jones (Prime Minister Harriet Jones and medical student Martha Jones) as well as Torchwood's super capable office assistant Ianto Jones. However, the character that has the geekiest lineage is Captain Jack who is named after Agatha Harkness, a popular character among gay Marvel readers. Naming your influential character after the tutor of a d-list comic book diva, that's geek cred.

Phil Jimenez

Jimenez's artwork first hit the comic shops in 1991, his amazingly detailed and realistic style quickly made an impression. Over time, his consistently strong work has built him a following that has made him one of comics' marquee names who publishers court for an exclusive contract (he's currently exclusive to Marvel and is working on the flagship Amazing Spider-Man, with his first issue hitting the shelves earlier this month).

Jimenez became a role model for gay comic fans in 1996 with an editorial that appeared the last issue of the Tempest mini-series that he wrote and pencilled. In the editorial, Jimenez publicly came out and touchingly remembered Neal Pozner the man who first hired him to work for DC Comics who became a mentor to Jimenez, as well as Jimenez' partner. Pozner died in 1994 and the eulogy was powerful not only for increasing gay visibility among comic creators but for bringing a gay relationship into the dialogue.

Clive Barker

Barker quickly made an impression as a horror writer, particularly after Stephen King praised him as "the future of horror". Barker has had a long and varied career that has included film (which includes the horror series Hellraiser as well as producing the film Gods and Monsters), comic books (Barker has an original series comic soon from IDW, who've previously published adaptations of his The Thief of Always and The Great and Secret Show) and video games.

Scissor Sisters' Jake Shears is telling Tales

In a continued effort to bring you all that is important in the world of gay entertainment and ensure that you are being spoon-fed images of gorgeous, commoditized manflesh, we present the newly-minted AfterElton Briefs. Following the usual assortment of carefully-selected news items, interested readers can find a refreshing pic of a hot man in underwear after the jump. Yes, we're serious.

• It looks like that rumored Tales of the City musical we mentioned a few months back has become a beautiful reality. The "large-scale" show, based on the first of Armistead Maupin's classic books, will hit the Great White Way in the 2009 season courtesy of Avenue Q bookwriter Jeff Whitty and Scissor Sisters' Jason Sellards (better known as Jake Shears) and John Garden.

• GLAAD has teamed with the gayest non-gay net out there, Bravo, to air the 19th Annual GLAAD Media Awards later this year. This marks the first time the awards will be broadcast on a fully distributed national cable channel.

• The gays like John Krasisnski, and he likes them right back.

• The Lambda Literary Foundation announced the nominees for its awards recognizing excellence in gay books, and our own Brent Hartinger is among the nominees for his young adult double-novella, Split Screen (in the Bisexual category). Congrats, Brent!

• Hey, Pushing Daisies fans! Our own Dan is out at the Paley Fest and has lots of fun updates on the show (including pics of out creator Bryan Fuller and the delightful cast) over on his site, The Pie Maker.

• The Advertising Standards Authority rejected the 54 complaints filed against the UK "Some people are gay. Get over it!" anti-bullying campaign. Good for them. Because they really do need to get over it.

And today's Briefs are brought to you by...

2007 was quite a year for gay geeks, with gay representation in comics books, on science fiction television and in video games being a frequent discussion topic. While these topics aren't entirely new, this year the discussion was at its most active.

On TV, we saw ourselves more often, especially on BBC America's Torchwood ... even though we had frustrating setbacks on shows like Heroes. Things looked incredibly bright for gamers, who found themselves expecting a good number of games with expected gay-inclusiveness and found it easier to find each other.

Additionally, gay geeks became more visible. Logo debuted its collection of animation, Alien Boot Camp,which included bumpers showing gay fans at comics and sci-fi conventions, as well as gay comic creators like Alison Bechtel. For a long time, this subset of queers weren't seen often, with gay geeks being happily surprised when they found each other, but that's changing as our visibility within the gay community increases.

Let's take a look back at the past year, shall we?

Here they come, the sound of drums

If we were to declare a king of the gay geeks, Russel T. Davies would be the candidate to beat. The Doctor Who producer did plenty to increase gay visibility on sci-fi television. The past season of Who regularly showed gay people as simply a part of the human tapestry. More importantly, 2007 was the year Torchwood made its USA debut. The series quickly became BBC America's biggest hit and, seeking to maintain the momentum from season one's success, the network announced that the second season will air only two weeks after it airs on BBC Three.

The success of Torchwood, as well as Doctor Who, is a significant development for gay sci-fi fans. On Torchwood, Captain Jack Harkness is a very different way of portraying queer men on television: as a dashing, heroic lead. Meanwhile, Captain Jack's return to Doctor Who this season continued to show his relationship with The Doctor as one having the kind of strained affection previously seen only with female companions like Sarah Jane Smith and Rose Tyler.

While Doctor Who is an obscure series for American fans, it's a major franchise in the UK and the series is the target of constant rumors and speculation regarding arrivals and departures both in front and behind the cameras. Those rumors included talk that Davies' may be cutting back on his Who duties with Steven Moffat taking over the series. Moffat wrote some of Who's most popular episodes and created the gay-inclusive Coupling and Jeckyll. If the speculation has any merit, Moffat sounds like a promising replacement.

We're still holding on for our hero on Heroes, Monday nights

For some media pundits, Heroes is a solid example of what diversity should look like on television,; but for people who actively advocate for increased diversity, the show is a mix of potential and problems. Last December, we noted that early promotion for the series had Zach as gay but that the show had suddenly turned away from the idea. Discussion into the character continued into the new year. Out producer Bryan Fuller confirmed that the character was written as gay, only to have those plans derailed by the management of Thomas Dekker, who played Zach. In its second season, Heroes was supposed to add a lesbian character but she, too, disappeared before becoming a major presence.

The new fall TV season is upon us which means there's a new line-up of shows to discover. However, only a third of those shows will get a second season and, unfortunately, some will be worthy of a second (or third or fourth). As a fan of "Brilliant but Canceled" shows myself, here are a few shows that included gay characters and deserved a longer run.

My So-Called Life (ABC)

A teen drama that managed to find the fine line between exploring teen angst without letting their characters come off as shallow and self-obsessed, My So-Called Life managed to realistically explore issues teens faced, especially with gay teen Ricky Vasquez, memorably played by Wilson Cruz. Despite a loyal fanbase, the show struggled against Mad About You and a freshman Friends on Thursday nights and ABC canceled the series. Reruns on MTV, however, helped the show find an even larger audience.

Action! (Fox)

A cynical and bitter view of Hollywood, Action focused on Peter Dragon, a selfish and mean-spirited movie producer fighting to maintain his clout after his latest film bombs. Peter heaped abuse on his gay assistant Stuart (played by out actor Jack Plotnick) while repeatedly losing power games against Bobby Gianopolis, a gay mogul whose generous endowment would mesmerize Peter. One of Action's many memorable episodes came when Peter has sex with a closeted star (played by Richard Burgi) in order to convince him to stay closeted. The series also featured Fab Filippo, who'd later play Justin's violinist boyfrined on Queer as Folk, as a drug addicted young star.

We've spent the past week covering the TV upfronts and while there's not a lot to anticipate in terms of gay visibility there's plenty of good looking men coming to the airwaves. Let's take a look at what the upcoming season has to offer.