there's something I love about her development which I find fairly unusual in television. She's not the main character -- Crichton is. And usually that means that either she wouldn't get substantial character development, or all of her character development would be based around him.

While she does move closer to earth-woman normal, that's not really entirely because she is focusing her character development around him. It's because Peacekeepers stand out in that part of the universe as a particular (like the Nebari do), and it's not so much that she moves closer to earth woman and more that she moves further away from Peacekeeper. And she gets her own arc, and the show respects her own griefs and needs which are distinct from Crichton (or at least distinct from Chricton-as-viewpoint). And I love how much she struggles, and where she stops, and who she becomes and how she is still always in movement, and how I believe in her character development even if John were to disappear.