At the recent BSG panel at the San Diego ComiCon, some hints dash a number of hopes for the final Cylon. You can read IO9’s article on important items from the panel.

Most telling is this line from Ron Moore:

“I can tell you it’s someone you’ve seen. It won’t be a guest-star”

This quickly eliminates a number of characters people have had under consideration, such as Joseph Adama and Zak Adama. Indeed, it won’t be anybody from Caprica. You can also count out Adar, Boxey and other such minor characters. If you want to take Moore in full TV-speak, a “guest star” is anybody who is not on the full regular cast. For example, Tigh, Foster, Tyrol, Anders, Helo, Dualla, Gaeta and many others are all listed as “guest stars” in the credits, though some of them approach the screen time of the regulars. In fact, if you combine the “Last Supper” picture which has all the regulars and a literal “no guest star” declaration, then everybody is eliminated, and you have to go to theories like “That’s the virtual Baltar in the picture.” So I take this to mean that it won’t be a new guest star, like Joseph Adama would be.

Another character, already eliminated by the declaration that there are “four in the fleet” is Gaeta. David Eick says that as they were picking who would be a Cylon in season 3, they debated for a while between Anders and Gaeta. If Gaeta were the final Cylon, that’s an unlikely debate. (One could stretch things and suggest they were debating who would be revealed and who would be hidden among these two, but frankly that doesn’t make a lot of sense.)

This does not leave fans with many workable choices. Percolating to the top now is Ellen Tigh. I will admit there are some interesting dramatic ironies to her story — two star-crossed lovers who, unaware of their nature, still find each other, collaborating with Cavil, one having to execute the other — but I just don’t see her as a satisfying final Cylon to be revealed.

I have similar misgivings for Cally, another popular fan choice. “Ah, it was her all along” doesn’t do it for me. Gaeta’s song does point to a female, but still.

Both Ellen Tigh and Cally were credited as guest stars but they are familiar to the audience. Cally got a lot of screen time. Ellen will be pretty unfamiliar to latecomer viewers, though we have seen Tigh have his visions of her.

It does make one want to believe that some of these elimination clues are just plain wrong. If four-in-the-fleet is wrong, then Gaeta’s elimination leaves us mostly with the uninspiring Dualla, with a few possible outliers like Cottle. If the Last Supper is false in spite of promises, I remain with Baltar.