Kara Thrace
Encyclopedia
Kara Thrace is a fictional character
in the reimagined Battlestar Galactica franchise. Played by Katee Sackhoff
, she is a revised version of Lieutenant Starbuck
from the 1978 Battlestar Galactica
series. She is one of the show's main characters.
Kara Thrace bears some parallels to the original 1978 Starbuck character: both are portrayed as hot-headed and cocky fighter pilots, considered the best in the fleet, but with a tendency to challenge authorities and get into trouble. Both are avid gamblers and enjoy drinking, smoking cigars, and sex. Both have crashed and been marooned on a deserted planet, using a downed Cylon ship to make an escape. Both are best friends with Apollo
. Kara had a relationship with Apollo's late brother Zak (mirroring the original Starbuck's on-and-off relationship with Apollo's sister Athena), affecting her relationship to Apollo and Zak's father, William Adama
.
However, the two characters differ both in their gender – complicating Kara Thrace's relationships with other characters, notably Apollo – as well as their outward appearance: whereas the original Starbuck, played by Dirk Benedict
, was a slick, well-groomed ladies' man, Kara appears more rugged and grimy. USA Today described her as "the broken warrior, a young, idealistic soldier who has been fighting for all the right reasons, but has lost something along the way."
. Although Kara's mother, Socrata Thrace, had served as a Marine Sergeant Major in the First Cylon War, Kara was the first person in the family to become a commissioned officer. Socrata was not content with her daughter's military record, however, claiming she was not disciplined enough, and she was wasting her natural talent for flying. Kara's father, Dreilide Thrace, was a piano player. He left the family when she was a child.
As a Flight Instructor at the Colonial Flight School, she met and became romantically involved with one of her students, Zak Adama
. Although Zak told her he did not want any special treatment from her, Kara passed him even though he failed Basic Flight, as she could not bring herself to crush his dreams.
Her leniency cost Zak his life when he was killed on his first Viper mission. After his death, Starbuck met his father, William Adama
. He realized Starbuck and Zak had been engaged and brought her under his command as a Lieutenant. Zak's death, however, created a wedge between Adama and his other son, Lee "Apollo" Adama
, who blamed his father for Zak's death. After the funeral, Lee broke off all contact with his father and Starbuck.
Starbuck has a natural talent for flying and is considered Galacticas best pilot, although she is also known for being an avid card player and drinker as well as for her eruptive temper. Adama loves Kara despite her flaws and considers her something of a surrogate daughter. However, Starbuck and Colonel Tigh
share a mutual sense of loathing, despite their similarities.
' s decommissioning ceremony, Starbuck responds to Colonel Tigh's mocking of her call sign and her stint in the brig as a cadet by alluding to Tigh's troubled relationship with his wife. Infuriated, he flips the table over, and she punches him in the face. He sends her to the brig, promising her career is over. However, Adama tells Tigh he is probably overreacting: while he agrees to leave Kara in the brig until after the ceremony, Adama says there is no need to ruin Kara's career over the incident. Following the Cylons' attack on the Twelve Colonies, Starbuck is released to join the battle.
Starbuck keeps her secret about Zak buried inside until after the Cylon attack on the Twelve Colonies
. Soon after, when Starbuck fears she and the rest of humanity might be wiped out by the Cylons, she confesses her mistake to Lee. He is devastated. Later
, he confronts her about it when she is chosen to train new Viper pilots aboard Galactica after several pilots are killed in a freak accident. The quality of recruits she is sent is subpar but still she begins their training, ordering them to call her "God". Starbuck, blinded by guilt, washes all the pilots out for relatively minor flaws. She then admits her secret to Adama who is furious and heartbroken; he orders her to reinstate the trainees.
On the next training mission, Starbuck and the trainees are ambushed by a small group of Cylon Raider
s. Starbuck engages the Raiders on her own to cover the trainees' escape. With her Viper heavily damaged, she plummets toward the surface of a nearby desert moon, and is forced to eject and take her chances on the surface.
Starbuck is declared "missing in action", and Adama orders a search and rescue operation which strains the Galactica' s crew and combat resources. On the surface, Starbuck struggles with a broken knee and near asphyxiation as her oxygen runs out. Luckily, she discovers the Cylon Raider she downed. Using her exceptional skill in flying, she figures out the Cylon technology and is able to pilot it back to the fleet.
Depressed by her injuries, she initially needs incentive to work on rehabilitation and is soon rubbing people the wrong way again. Even after she is able to move around without a cane, the injury sidelines her from flight for many episodes; when given tactical charge of a mission in one episode, she can not fly the critical role because her knee still can't handle the G-force.
Despite her often crude exterior, Starbuck has a deep-seated faith in the gods. As a result, President Laura Roslin
asks her to carry out a dangerous mission: return to Caprica and retrieve the Arrow of Apollo, a religious artifact supposedly pointing the way to Earth
. She takes the Cylon Raider she had captured, leading Adama to declare Roslin had suborned mutiny; he sends a detachment of Marines to terminate her presidency.
During her time on Caprica, Starbuck encounters Number Six
(who beats her soundly); meets up with Karl Agathon
and the Sharon Valerii copy pregnant with his child; and meets a fellow pyramid player named Samuel Anders
. He leads a resistance group that had been waging guerrilla war against the Cylons. At one point Starbuck is injured in battle, captured, and wakes up in a Cylon "farm" as part of their experiments to create human/Cylon hybrids. Without her knowledge, apparently one of her ovaries is surgically removed before she escapes, a fact discovered only much later. Starbuck escapes, and plans to return to the fleet; she promises to return to rescue the Caprican resistance group and Anders, with whom she has developed a romantic relationship.
Soon after returning from the planet Kobol
, the Battlestar Pegasus
, commanded by Rear Admiral Helena Cain
, is discovered. Cain promotes Starbuck to Captain and assigns her as the CAG of the Pegasus.
After the fleet leadership denies her request to return to rescue the Caprican resistance fighters, Starbuck is depressed and guilt-stricken: she has broken her word, failed her duty, and assumes the man she is "hung up on" is either dead, or will be soon. As Pegasus CAG, she also feels responsible for the pilots who have died on her watch, or died because she has not yet killed the Cylon's "top gun", "Scar". She recklessly maneuvers to take out Scar, but at the last moment pulls away, setting up the kill for Louanne "Kat" Katraine
and giving up her own status as "Top Gun". Although this marks the beginning of a new resolve and the end of her self-destructive depressive behaviours, tensions between her and Apollo flare up again after she shoots him in a friendly fire
incident during a hostage stand-off.
After Lee Adama
's promotion to Commander and appointment as commander of the Battlestar Pegasus
, Starbuck transfers back to the Galactica
and assumes the role of its CAG.
while Starbuck moves planetside with Anders.
After an all night celebration of the first Founder's Day for New Caprica, tired and hungover, Starbuck and Tigh put their differences behind them. They even greet each other fondly following Tigh's demobilization and arrival at the colony. Her relationship with Lee, however, worsened to the point that they were not on speaking terms and he had little interest in helping her, even when Anders contracted a deadly pneumonia.
After the Cylon invasion of New Caprica, she is imprisoned inside a mental facility, designed to look like her own former Caprican apartment. While there, a Leoben
model tries to convince her they are destined to be lovers. For four months Starbuck denies his advances, killing him several times despite knowing he would be back. Then she is presented with a young girl named Kacey that Leoben claims is their daughter, created with the ovary removed when she was in the egg farm. Initially she refuses to believe it and wants nothing to do with the girl, but when Kacey is badly injured in a fall down a staircase, she calls on Leoben for help and seems to grow more attached to both of them. During the uprising on New Caprica, however, Starbuck once again kills Leoben and escapes with Kacey.
In the episode "Exodus" Part II, it is revealed Kacey is not Starbuck's child; the Cylons had abducted her. Kacey and her real mother are reunited on the Galacticas flight deck after the flight from New Caprica. Starbuck is left there alone on the flight deck, stunned and in disbelief.
Starbuck's relationship with Lee Adama takes another dramatic turn after she angrily challenges him to a brutal and emotional boxing match aboard Galactica. Their intense feelings for each other soon lead to an affair drawing resentment from their respective spouses. However, when Lee asks Starbuck to divorce Sam, she refuses due to her strong religious beliefs on the sacrament of marriage. Lee argues she is breaking her vows just by being with him, but Starbuck states she's merely bending the rules. Lee then decides he can no longer cheat while still married to Dualla. Later, Lee and Anders begin to voice their dislike for each other just as Starbuck's Raptor is shot down by the Cylons and she is reported missing. Anders vows to find her, but their position is outnumbered; Lee orders Anders at gunpoint to stay put and help defend their outnumbered position. Anders remains defiant.
Starbuck suffers severe hand burns in the crash and is rescued by Dualla. After they escape the doomed algae planet, Starbuck makes one final effort to have a relationship with Lee, this time offering to leave Anders if he will leave Dualla. Lee chooses to try to make his own marriage work instead.
Kara's experiences with Leoben, as well as her troubled childhood, eventually come back to haunt her. She has nightmares involving both Leoben and the mandala supposedly connected to her "destiny". She asks an oracle about her dreams and is told Leoben understands her better than she understands herself, and he will show her her "destiny."
During a patrol over a gas giant where the fleet is refueling, she sees a Cylon Raider and pursues it into a storm system which resembles her mandala. She is forced to abandon pursuit when her Viper is at risk of implosion from the pressure. Although she felt several impacts during her pursuit, then-Chief Galen Tyrol
finds no damage to her Viper and gun camera footage showed no evidence of any Raider, leading many to believe Kara had been hallucinating.
Adama is concerned Kara might have burned out, but he leaves the decision to ground her up to Apollo as CAG. Apollo decides to give her another chance, and offers to fly as her wingman on her next patrol. During the patrol, Starbuck sees another Raider and again pursues. Her Viper is hit by debris and she is knocked out. She experiences a conversation with an Avatar
with the appearance of Leoben set in her apartment on Caprica. The avatar forces Kara to confront her past, the abuse she received from her mother and the guilt she feels for leaving her mother to die alone. The avatar comments Kara has been running from her past just as she has been running away from death for her entire life, and implies eventually she will have to confront her fears and her "destiny". Moments before regaining consciousness in her Viper, Kara realizes the person she is speaking to is not the Cylon Leoben Conoy, and states, "You're not Leoben." The avatar grins and replies, "Never said I was." She awakens in her Viper cockpit as Apollo is calling for her to break off and ascend, or the atmospheric pressure will kill her. Starbuck keeps flying into the storm, and tells Lee to leave her. She is encompassed by a white light and a certain calmness. Apollo witnesses her Viper exploding, with no sign that she survived.
In the cliffhanger Season 3 finale, "Crossroads, Part II
", Starbuck reappears in a Viper and is discovered by Apollo, appearing to be alive and well, but the reason for her sudden resurrection has yet to be revealed. She tells Apollo not to "freak out" it is really her and she has been to Earth, and will show them the way.
Kara returns in Season 4 believing she had only been absent for six hours, but her husband Sam informs her she was really gone for two months. The crew is wary of her return except for Lee, who greets her with an enthusiastic and long hug, and is so grateful for her return he is willing to overlook the possibility she is a Cylon, and he may be willing to accept her even as a Cylon. This becomes evident in Lee's questioning of his father whether if it had been his son, Lee's brother, who returned, would it have made a difference whether he was Cylon or human. She experiences frustration upon her return to Galactica, as no one believes it is really her, and because of President Roslin's refusal to be guided by what she believes is a Cylon trick. The crew continues on the course Roslin had previously decided upon, and move further away from the area Kara believes is Earth's true location. She attempts to encourage Adama to follow her suggestions, but when he refuses, she fears his being romantically linked to Roslin has unjustly influenced him. Feeling hopeless and fearing as they make more jumps farther away she will lose the "feeling" of Earth's location, she becomes desperate and holds President Roslin at gunpoint.
During her standoff with the President, she tries to reason and appeal to the President's emotions. She hands the gun to Roslin and insists she shoot her if she really believes she is a Cylon, to which Roslin responds to by saying "They made you perfect, didn't they?" Roslin fires the gun, but misses Starbuck and hits a framed portrait of herself and Adama.
Starbuck is thrown into the brig and has a hostile confrontation with Adama, who angrily says, "You are so stupid you couldn't wait. You just lost your best ally. Now who is going to save you?" She responds, "Well, it certainly isn't you," and says she will fight to show them Earth's location until her death. She also accuses him of playing "wet nurse" to the president, to which he responds by throwing her to the floor and leaving her crying.
Later, after Adama attempts to have a conversation with Roslin, which turns into a psychological sparring argument, he rethinks his decision and allows Kara to secretly look for Earth on a barge called Demetrius.
.
", Thrace and Leoben look for the Colonial beacon which led them to Earth. They find wreckage of a Viper with Thrace's tail number and what appears to be Thrace's charred corpse. Both Kara and Leoben are shocked by this discovery and do not understand what it means. After removing the dog tags and wedding ring, Kara incinerates the body.
", Captain Thrace discovers civilians and a few mutinous Marines and crewmen arming themselves for battle. Thrace rushes back to her quarters to prepare for battle, grabbing her sidearms and ammunition. Kara then finds Lieutenant Margaret "Racetrack" Edmondson, Charlie Conner, and a few others preparing to execute Lee Adama. Thrace kills a Marine holding Adama and wounds Lieutenant Hamish "Skulls" McCall. Along with Lee Adama, Kara runs into several other loyal Colonials including President Roslin, Rear Admiral Adama, and Colonel Tigh. While searching for Adama, Kara and Lee free loyalists found in the brig which include Anders, who is then shot by a mutinous marine upon leaving. Kara, refusing to leave his side, pressures Lee and those who escaped to leave her in order for them to search for Adama.
", Starbuck encounters a pianist in Joe's Bar who is trying to compose a new song. At first she becomes annoyed by his repetitious playing, stating he reminds her of her father when he did nothing but play the piano and she mentions how her father left her and her mother to pursue it as a career. Over the course of the episode, Starbuck befriends the pianist and ends up working with him to try to finish his song.
Toward the end, the piano player writes down the notes Starbuck hums out on a sheet of paper. The pattern reminds Starbuck of a drawing of colored dots the Cylon-Human child, Hera Agathon had given to her earlier. She lines the child's drawing up with the notes the composer had drawn and they match exactly.
When Starbuck and the pianist play the notes, the song is instantly recognized by Saul Tigh
and Tory Foster
– who are sitting at a nearby table with Ellen Tigh
– as the song ("All Along the Watchtower") they heard in their heads when they learned they were the final Cylons. Ellen, of course, remembers it from Earth. A bewildered Saul asks Starbuck where she heard the song. Starbuck responds she played it as a kid and begins to mention her father, but stops short when she realizes the piano player, her father, was either a figment of her imagination or a vision.
In the episode "Daybreak, Part I
" Starbuck tries to get answers from Anders about the song, even turning notes into numbers to see if there is a mathematical solution.
In "Daybreak, Part II and III
", after getting the coordinates from Anders for the Cylon Colony, Starbuck joins in on the rescue mission for Hera. After saving Hera, and as the Colony is being destroyed, Starbuck is ordered by Admiral Adama to jump the Galactica away to safety. Although she has no coordinates, Adama tells her to make a blind jump to anywhere. Recalling the musical notes and the numbers she extrapolated from it, she inputs them into the computer; the resulting jump puts Galactica near a habitable planet the fleet decides to settle on. It is revealed this new planet is our world, some 150,000 years ago; Admiral Adama names it "Earth", believing it better matched the dream the fleet had been seeking than did the original Earth (which had been found destroyed by nuclear war).
Once settled on the world, Kara says a final goodbye to Admiral Adama and tells Lee she's leaving - her 'job is done' - and will not be coming back. Kara then disappears into thin air and is not seen again. What really happened to Kara is left ambiguous. According to Katee Sackhoff, "So when she at the end was saying goodbye to [Anders], I think that she was saying goodbye to their bodily forms," she said. "I think she knew, especially if he says, 'I'll see you on the other side,' I think she's with him. I think they're both dead, but I think she's with him. That was a decision that we made, because I selfishly wanted her at peace, and the only way to do that was to have her with someone at the end, or to be with the person she wanted to be with. I don't know. That's kind of where I think she is. She's with Anders playing pyramid in the sky somewhere."
recounts:
"When [the fans] heard Starbuck was going to be a woman, it was just like, There can never be peace between us! Blood has been spilled! We just decided that we didn't care." Moore explains the gender switch: "Making Starbuck a woman was a way of avoiding what I felt would be 'rogue pilot with a heart of gold' cliche."
Producers were looking for a mid-30s actress with a tough military demeanor for the role. Katee Sackhoff was not quite who they had envisaged, being a very feminine 23 year old in real life, however, they were impressed by her acting ability. Director Michael Rymer
explains: "Katee came in and my first reaction was, Well, she's the best actress, but she's too feminine." Katee Sackhoff admits: "Up to that point, I had always played pretty stereotypical blond roles. This was definitely a stretch for me. I wear high heels and dresses. I am a total girly girl. Now people avoid me at the gym."
Executive producer David Eick
recounts:
Executive producer Ronald D. Moore
wrote, "Katee auditioned for the role along with many other actresses, and simply blew them all away. Sometimes we get lucky."
For Sackhoff, the reaction to the reimagined role was difficult at first. "At the start, I was young; I was stupid," said Sackhoff. "I let the fact that people questioned whether or not a woman could play a man's role dictate how I was going to play her." Fans opposed to the casting of a female in the popular role expressed their discontent during production on the miniseries, and Sackhoff even received a death threat before the start of filming. During the 2004 San Diego Comic Con, the actress was booed:
, Katee Sackhoff's Starbuck has become one of the show's most popular characters.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
's Melanie McFarland notes: "[Starbuck], played with a tomboy
ish swagger by Katee Sackhoff, is fast becoming the latest in a long line of feminist television icons." Wired
s Hugh Hart praises Sackhoff's portrayal: "The actress' rough-and-tumble take on the fleet's most mesmerizing fighter jock will doubtless continue to render gender utterly irrelevant." Entertainment Weekly
's Jeff Jensen states: "Sackhoff has set TV's new standard for action-heroine cool and complexity." Mary McNamara of the Los Angeles Times
praised Sackhoff for creating one of the most fabulous female characters on television.
Salon.com
s Laura Miller states:
In 2005 Sackhoff won a Saturn Award
for Best Actress on Television. Slate magazine named the character as one of the reasons they were looking forward to the return of the show in fall 2007.
Fictional character
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...
in the reimagined Battlestar Galactica franchise. Played by Katee Sackhoff
Katee Sackhoff
Kathryn Ann "Katee" Sackhoff is an American actress known mainly for playing Captain Kara "Starbuck" Thrace on the Sci Fi Channel's television program Battlestar Galactica. In 2004 she was nominated for a Saturn Award in the "Best Supporting Actress in a Television Series" category for her work in...
, she is a revised version of Lieutenant Starbuck
Lieutenant Starbuck
Lieutenant Starbuck of the Colonial Service, played by Dirk Benedict, is a fictional character in the 1978 science fiction television series Battlestar Galactica. Starbuck is a Viper starfighter pilot, gambler, womanizer and smoker of "fumerellos," or cigars. He is involved with Lieutenant Athena...
from the 1978 Battlestar Galactica
Battlestar Galactica (1978 TV series)
Battlestar Galactica is an American science fiction television series, created by Glen A. Larson. It starred Lorne Greene, Richard Hatch and Dirk Benedict and ran for one season in 1978–79. After cancellation, its story was continued in 1980 as Galactica 1980 with Adama, Lieutenant Boomer and...
series. She is one of the show's main characters.
Overview
Described as "one of television's most complex, ever-evolving characters", the role of Starbuck changed over the run of the series. According to Sackhoff, Starbuck originally "didn't value her own life," inspiring her readiness to die for her shipmates. By the end of the series, however, she is prepared to sacrifice herself for others because of her respect for all life. The character's physical appearance is based on Sackhoff's perception of Starbuck as an extremely fit, hard-drinking individual. "I didn't want Starbuck to be completely ripped," said Sackhoff. "This is a girl who drinks most of her calories."Kara Thrace bears some parallels to the original 1978 Starbuck character: both are portrayed as hot-headed and cocky fighter pilots, considered the best in the fleet, but with a tendency to challenge authorities and get into trouble. Both are avid gamblers and enjoy drinking, smoking cigars, and sex. Both have crashed and been marooned on a deserted planet, using a downed Cylon ship to make an escape. Both are best friends with Apollo
Lee Adama
Leland Joseph "Lee" Adama is a fictional character in the television series Battlestar Galactica. He is portrayed by actor Jamie Bamber. He is one of the main characters in the series.-Early life:...
. Kara had a relationship with Apollo's late brother Zak (mirroring the original Starbuck's on-and-off relationship with Apollo's sister Athena), affecting her relationship to Apollo and Zak's father, William Adama
William Adama
William "Bill" Adama is a fictional character portrayed by Edward James Olmos in the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica television series...
.
However, the two characters differ both in their gender – complicating Kara Thrace's relationships with other characters, notably Apollo – as well as their outward appearance: whereas the original Starbuck, played by Dirk Benedict
Dirk Benedict
Dirk Benedict is an American movie, television and stage actor, perhaps best known for playing the characters Lieutenant Templeton "Faceman" Peck in The A-Team television series and Lieutenant Starbuck in the original Battlestar Galactica film and television series.-Early life:Benedict was born...
, was a slick, well-groomed ladies' man, Kara appears more rugged and grimy. USA Today described her as "the broken warrior, a young, idealistic soldier who has been fighting for all the right reasons, but has lost something along the way."
Background
Kara had intended to be a professional Pyramid ball player until her knee gave out. She eventually joined the military, where she found more acceptance than she had felt at home as an abused childChild abuse
Child abuse is the physical, sexual, emotional mistreatment, or neglect of a child. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Children And Families define child maltreatment as any act or series of acts of commission or omission by a parent or...
. Although Kara's mother, Socrata Thrace, had served as a Marine Sergeant Major in the First Cylon War, Kara was the first person in the family to become a commissioned officer. Socrata was not content with her daughter's military record, however, claiming she was not disciplined enough, and she was wasting her natural talent for flying. Kara's father, Dreilide Thrace, was a piano player. He left the family when she was a child.
As a Flight Instructor at the Colonial Flight School, she met and became romantically involved with one of her students, Zak Adama
Zak Adama
Zak Adama is a fictional character on the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica science fiction series.-Biography:As the younger son of the celebrated Commander William Adama and Caroline, Zak felt pressured to join the Colonial Fleet and prove himself to his father...
. Although Zak told her he did not want any special treatment from her, Kara passed him even though he failed Basic Flight, as she could not bring herself to crush his dreams.
Her leniency cost Zak his life when he was killed on his first Viper mission. After his death, Starbuck met his father, William Adama
William Adama
William "Bill" Adama is a fictional character portrayed by Edward James Olmos in the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica television series...
. He realized Starbuck and Zak had been engaged and brought her under his command as a Lieutenant. Zak's death, however, created a wedge between Adama and his other son, Lee "Apollo" Adama
Lee Adama
Leland Joseph "Lee" Adama is a fictional character in the television series Battlestar Galactica. He is portrayed by actor Jamie Bamber. He is one of the main characters in the series.-Early life:...
, who blamed his father for Zak's death. After the funeral, Lee broke off all contact with his father and Starbuck.
Starbuck has a natural talent for flying and is considered Galactica
Saul Tigh
Saul Tigh is a fictional character on Battlestar Galactica played by Michael Hogan. The character was named Paul Tigh in early scripts, and was renamed due to legal issues, according to producer Ronald D. Moore. He is one of the main characters of the show.-Overview and personality:Saul Tigh is a...
share a mutual sense of loathing, despite their similarities.
After the attack
In a card game prior to GalacticaStarbuck keeps her secret about Zak buried inside until after the Cylon attack on the Twelve Colonies
Twelve Colonies
The Twelve Colonies of Man are fictional locations that constitute the principal human civilization in the original Battlestar Galactica television series, the "reimagined" series of the same name in 2004, and in the prequel series, Caprica...
. Soon after, when Starbuck fears she and the rest of humanity might be wiped out by the Cylons, she confesses her mistake to Lee. He is devastated. Later
Act of Contrition (Battlestar Galactica)
"Act of Contrition" is the fourth episode of the reimagined Battlestar Galactica television series.-Plot:After a fatal accident on the hangar deck in which thirteen pilots are killed by an accidentally launched recon drone, Starbuck is assigned to quickly train replacements...
, he confronts her about it when she is chosen to train new Viper pilots aboard Galactica after several pilots are killed in a freak accident. The quality of recruits she is sent is subpar but still she begins their training, ordering them to call her "God". Starbuck, blinded by guilt, washes all the pilots out for relatively minor flaws. She then admits her secret to Adama who is furious and heartbroken; he orders her to reinstate the trainees.
On the next training mission, Starbuck and the trainees are ambushed by a small group of Cylon Raider
Cylon Raider
The Cylon Raider is the standard starfighter used by the Cylons, in the various Battlestar Galactica movies and television series. Cylon raiders are used as the main line of defense for Cylon Basestars.- Original series :...
s. Starbuck engages the Raiders on her own to cover the trainees' escape. With her Viper heavily damaged, she plummets toward the surface of a nearby desert moon, and is forced to eject and take her chances on the surface.
Starbuck is declared "missing in action", and Adama orders a search and rescue operation which strains the Galactica
Depressed by her injuries, she initially needs incentive to work on rehabilitation and is soon rubbing people the wrong way again. Even after she is able to move around without a cane, the injury sidelines her from flight for many episodes; when given tactical charge of a mission in one episode, she can not fly the critical role because her knee still can't handle the G-force.
Despite her often crude exterior, Starbuck has a deep-seated faith in the gods. As a result, President Laura Roslin
Laura Roslin
Her first actions include organizing all FTL-capable ships together and convincing Commander William Adama to abandon a retaliatory attack on the Cylons. President Roslin and Billy Keikeya, her aide/press secretary/chief of staff, establish a working office space aboard her transport, renamed...
asks her to carry out a dangerous mission: return to Caprica and retrieve the Arrow of Apollo, a religious artifact supposedly pointing the way to Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
. She takes the Cylon Raider she had captured, leading Adama to declare Roslin had suborned mutiny; he sends a detachment of Marines to terminate her presidency.
During her time on Caprica, Starbuck encounters Number Six
Number Six (Battlestar Galactica)
Number Six is a family of fictional characters from the reimagined science fiction television series, Battlestar Galactica. She is portrayed by Canadian actress and model Tricia Helfer. Of the twelve known Cylon models, she is the sixth of the "Significant Seven"...
(who beats her soundly); meets up with Karl Agathon
Karl Agathon
Karl C. Agathon is a fictional character on the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica TV series, portrayed by Tahmoh Penikett.-Background:...
and the Sharon Valerii copy pregnant with his child; and meets a fellow pyramid player named Samuel Anders
Samuel Anders
Samuel T. Anders is a fictional character from the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica television series, played by Michael Trucco...
. He leads a resistance group that had been waging guerrilla war against the Cylons. At one point Starbuck is injured in battle, captured, and wakes up in a Cylon "farm" as part of their experiments to create human/Cylon hybrids. Without her knowledge, apparently one of her ovaries is surgically removed before she escapes, a fact discovered only much later. Starbuck escapes, and plans to return to the fleet; she promises to return to rescue the Caprican resistance group and Anders, with whom she has developed a romantic relationship.
Soon after returning from the planet Kobol
Kobol
Kobol is the name of a planet in the fictional Battlestar Galactica universe.Within the context of both Battlestar Galactica stories, Kobol is the birthplace and original home of humanity, from which the civilization departed and formed the Twelve Colonies on other worlds...
, the Battlestar Pegasus
Battlestar Pegasus
Battlestar Pegasus is a fictional spacecraft that appears in the both the original and the reimagined television series Battlestar Galactica.- Battlestar Galactica :...
, commanded by Rear Admiral Helena Cain
Helena Cain
Admiral Helena Cain is a fictional character in the reimagined science fiction television series Battlestar Galactica, portrayed by Michelle Forbes.-Youth:...
, is discovered. Cain promotes Starbuck to Captain and assigns her as the CAG of the Pegasus.
After the fleet leadership denies her request to return to rescue the Caprican resistance fighters, Starbuck is depressed and guilt-stricken: she has broken her word, failed her duty, and assumes the man she is "hung up on" is either dead, or will be soon. As Pegasus CAG, she also feels responsible for the pilots who have died on her watch, or died because she has not yet killed the Cylon's "top gun", "Scar". She recklessly maneuvers to take out Scar, but at the last moment pulls away, setting up the kill for Louanne "Kat" Katraine
Louanne Katraine
Louanne Katraine is a fictional character from the reimagined Battlestar Galactica television series, portrayed by Luciana Carro.- Character biography :...
and giving up her own status as "Top Gun". Although this marks the beginning of a new resolve and the end of her self-destructive depressive behaviours, tensions between her and Apollo flare up again after she shoots him in a friendly fire
Friendly fire
Friendly fire is inadvertent firing towards one's own or otherwise friendly forces while attempting to engage enemy forces, particularly where this results in injury or death. A death resulting from a negligent discharge is not considered friendly fire...
incident during a hostage stand-off.
After Lee Adama
Lee Adama
Leland Joseph "Lee" Adama is a fictional character in the television series Battlestar Galactica. He is portrayed by actor Jamie Bamber. He is one of the main characters in the series.-Early life:...
's promotion to Commander and appointment as commander of the Battlestar Pegasus
Battlestar Pegasus
Battlestar Pegasus is a fictional spacecraft that appears in the both the original and the reimagined television series Battlestar Galactica.- Battlestar Galactica :...
, Starbuck transfers back to the Galactica
Battlestar Galactica (ship)
The Battlestar Galactica is a space battleship in the original and re-imagined science fiction television series Battlestar Galactica.The Twelve Colonies of Man in the original television series built a number of Battlestars during their thousand-year war with the Cylons, whose battleships are...
and assumes the role of its CAG.
New Caprica
The complication of Starbuck and Lee's relationship was furthered when a drunken night on the newly found planet, New Caprica, ended with Starbuck and Lee having a one-night stand where they both expressed their love for one another. When Lee woke up alone the next morning, he soon discovered Kara had proposed to and married Anders. Lee soon marries newly commissioned Lieutenant Anastasia DuallaAnastasia Dualla
Anastasia "Dee" Dualla, portrayed by Kandyse McClure, is a fictional character in the reimagined Battlestar Galactica.-Character history:...
while Starbuck moves planetside with Anders.
After an all night celebration of the first Founder's Day for New Caprica, tired and hungover, Starbuck and Tigh put their differences behind them. They even greet each other fondly following Tigh's demobilization and arrival at the colony. Her relationship with Lee, however, worsened to the point that they were not on speaking terms and he had little interest in helping her, even when Anders contracted a deadly pneumonia.
After the Cylon invasion of New Caprica, she is imprisoned inside a mental facility, designed to look like her own former Caprican apartment. While there, a Leoben
Leoben Conoy
Leoben Conoy is a fictional character portrayed by Callum Keith Rennie appearing in the reimagined Battlestar Galactica series....
model tries to convince her they are destined to be lovers. For four months Starbuck denies his advances, killing him several times despite knowing he would be back. Then she is presented with a young girl named Kacey that Leoben claims is their daughter, created with the ovary removed when she was in the egg farm. Initially she refuses to believe it and wants nothing to do with the girl, but when Kacey is badly injured in a fall down a staircase, she calls on Leoben for help and seems to grow more attached to both of them. During the uprising on New Caprica, however, Starbuck once again kills Leoben and escapes with Kacey.
In the episode "Exodus" Part II, it is revealed Kacey is not Starbuck's child; the Cylons had abducted her. Kacey and her real mother are reunited on the Galacticas flight deck after the flight from New Caprica. Starbuck is left there alone on the flight deck, stunned and in disbelief.
Back with the fleet
After her situation on New Caprica and the truth about Kacey, she is left simmering with rage, which causes her to be reckless and destructive, almost killing herself in a Viper training exercise. After being removed from flight status by then-Major Lee Adama, she takes up residence in the pilot's mess along with Colonel Tigh, drinking and lowering the morale of Galacticas pilots by attempting to draw divisions between New Capricans and those who stayed with the fleet. Rear Admiral Adama gives her an ultimatum; either straighten up and act like an officer, or 'get the hell off his ship' and find another ship to live on. Starbuck changes her attitude after Adama literally knocks her on her rear after she thumbs her nose at him.Starbuck's relationship with Lee Adama takes another dramatic turn after she angrily challenges him to a brutal and emotional boxing match aboard Galactica. Their intense feelings for each other soon lead to an affair drawing resentment from their respective spouses. However, when Lee asks Starbuck to divorce Sam, she refuses due to her strong religious beliefs on the sacrament of marriage. Lee argues she is breaking her vows just by being with him, but Starbuck states she's merely bending the rules. Lee then decides he can no longer cheat while still married to Dualla. Later, Lee and Anders begin to voice their dislike for each other just as Starbuck's Raptor is shot down by the Cylons and she is reported missing. Anders vows to find her, but their position is outnumbered; Lee orders Anders at gunpoint to stay put and help defend their outnumbered position. Anders remains defiant.
Starbuck suffers severe hand burns in the crash and is rescued by Dualla. After they escape the doomed algae planet, Starbuck makes one final effort to have a relationship with Lee, this time offering to leave Anders if he will leave Dualla. Lee chooses to try to make his own marriage work instead.
Kara's experiences with Leoben, as well as her troubled childhood, eventually come back to haunt her. She has nightmares involving both Leoben and the mandala supposedly connected to her "destiny". She asks an oracle about her dreams and is told Leoben understands her better than she understands herself, and he will show her her "destiny."
During a patrol over a gas giant where the fleet is refueling, she sees a Cylon Raider and pursues it into a storm system which resembles her mandala. She is forced to abandon pursuit when her Viper is at risk of implosion from the pressure. Although she felt several impacts during her pursuit, then-Chief Galen Tyrol
Galen Tyrol
Galen Tyrol is a character on the television series Battlestar Galactica. Tyrol is responsible for the maintenance of the Vipers and Raptors aboard Battlestar Galactica...
finds no damage to her Viper and gun camera footage showed no evidence of any Raider, leading many to believe Kara had been hallucinating.
Adama is concerned Kara might have burned out, but he leaves the decision to ground her up to Apollo as CAG. Apollo decides to give her another chance, and offers to fly as her wingman on her next patrol. During the patrol, Starbuck sees another Raider and again pursues. Her Viper is hit by debris and she is knocked out. She experiences a conversation with an Avatar
Avatar
In Hinduism, an avatar is a deliberate descent of a deity to earth, or a descent of the Supreme Being and is mostly translated into English as "incarnation," but more accurately as "appearance" or "manifestation"....
with the appearance of Leoben set in her apartment on Caprica. The avatar forces Kara to confront her past, the abuse she received from her mother and the guilt she feels for leaving her mother to die alone. The avatar comments Kara has been running from her past just as she has been running away from death for her entire life, and implies eventually she will have to confront her fears and her "destiny". Moments before regaining consciousness in her Viper, Kara realizes the person she is speaking to is not the Cylon Leoben Conoy, and states, "You're not Leoben." The avatar grins and replies, "Never said I was." She awakens in her Viper cockpit as Apollo is calling for her to break off and ascend, or the atmospheric pressure will kill her. Starbuck keeps flying into the storm, and tells Lee to leave her. She is encompassed by a white light and a certain calmness. Apollo witnesses her Viper exploding, with no sign that she survived.
In the cliffhanger Season 3 finale, "Crossroads, Part II
Crossroads (Battlestar Galactica)
"Crossroads" are the nineteenth and twentieth episodes of the third season and season finale from the science fiction television series, Battlestar Galactica...
", Starbuck reappears in a Viper and is discovered by Apollo, appearing to be alive and well, but the reason for her sudden resurrection has yet to be revealed. She tells Apollo not to "freak out" it is really her and she has been to Earth, and will show them the way.
Kara returns in Season 4 believing she had only been absent for six hours, but her husband Sam informs her she was really gone for two months. The crew is wary of her return except for Lee, who greets her with an enthusiastic and long hug, and is so grateful for her return he is willing to overlook the possibility she is a Cylon, and he may be willing to accept her even as a Cylon. This becomes evident in Lee's questioning of his father whether if it had been his son, Lee's brother, who returned, would it have made a difference whether he was Cylon or human. She experiences frustration upon her return to Galactica, as no one believes it is really her, and because of President Roslin's refusal to be guided by what she believes is a Cylon trick. The crew continues on the course Roslin had previously decided upon, and move further away from the area Kara believes is Earth's true location. She attempts to encourage Adama to follow her suggestions, but when he refuses, she fears his being romantically linked to Roslin has unjustly influenced him. Feeling hopeless and fearing as they make more jumps farther away she will lose the "feeling" of Earth's location, she becomes desperate and holds President Roslin at gunpoint.
During her standoff with the President, she tries to reason and appeal to the President's emotions. She hands the gun to Roslin and insists she shoot her if she really believes she is a Cylon, to which Roslin responds to by saying "They made you perfect, didn't they?" Roslin fires the gun, but misses Starbuck and hits a framed portrait of herself and Adama.
Starbuck is thrown into the brig and has a hostile confrontation with Adama, who angrily says, "You are so stupid you couldn't wait. You just lost your best ally. Now who is going to save you?" She responds, "Well, it certainly isn't you," and says she will fight to show them Earth's location until her death. She also accuses him of playing "wet nurse" to the president, to which he responds by throwing her to the floor and leaving her crying.
Later, after Adama attempts to have a conversation with Roslin, which turns into a psychological sparring argument, he rethinks his decision and allows Kara to secretly look for Earth on a barge called Demetrius.
Aboard Demetrius - Looking for Earth
After taking command of Demetrius to find a way to Earth, Thrace finds herself at odds with the crew when her orders cause them to doubt her command ability. With only two days remaining until the ship must return to the Fleet, her command is further compromised by her refusal to explain her actions and her decision to bring the Cylon Leoben aboard after having found him in a damaged Cylon Heavy raider. Eventually, she finds herself torn between following Leoben's advice to forge an alliance with the fragmented Cylons, or distrusting him because of what the risk entails. The tension with the crew leads to a mutiny, after which Kara acknowledges her errors and instead takes a small crew with her in a Raptor to visit the base ship. There, she meets with the base star's hybrid and is told, "You are the harbinger of death, Kara Thrace. You will lead them all to their end." This echoes the warning given by the first hybrid to Kendra Shaw at the conclusion of RazorBattlestar Galactica: Razor
Battlestar Galactica: Razor is a television film of the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica television series. It premiered in the United States on Sci Fi Channel, in Canada on the Space channel and in the United Kingdom on Sky One.-Production:...
.
Earth
In "Sometimes a Great NotionSometimes a Great Notion (Battlestar Galactica)
"Sometimes a Great Notion" is the thirteenth episode in the fourth season of the reimagined Battlestar Galactica. It aired on television on SCI FI and Space in the United States and Canada respectively on January 16, 2009 and on Sky One in the United Kingdom on January 20, 2009...
", Thrace and Leoben look for the Colonial beacon which led them to Earth. They find wreckage of a Viper with Thrace's tail number and what appears to be Thrace's charred corpse. Both Kara and Leoben are shocked by this discovery and do not understand what it means. After removing the dog tags and wedding ring, Kara incinerates the body.
Mutiny
In "The OathThe Oath (Battlestar Galactica)
"The Oath" is the fifteenth episode in the fourth season of the reimagined Battlestar Galactica. It aired on television in the United States and Canada on January 30, 2009 and in the UK on Sky One on February 3, 2009....
", Captain Thrace discovers civilians and a few mutinous Marines and crewmen arming themselves for battle. Thrace rushes back to her quarters to prepare for battle, grabbing her sidearms and ammunition. Kara then finds Lieutenant Margaret "Racetrack" Edmondson, Charlie Conner, and a few others preparing to execute Lee Adama. Thrace kills a Marine holding Adama and wounds Lieutenant Hamish "Skulls" McCall. Along with Lee Adama, Kara runs into several other loyal Colonials including President Roslin, Rear Admiral Adama, and Colonel Tigh. While searching for Adama, Kara and Lee free loyalists found in the brig which include Anders, who is then shot by a mutinous marine upon leaving. Kara, refusing to leave his side, pressures Lee and those who escaped to leave her in order for them to search for Adama.
The song
In the episode "Someone to Watch Over MeSomeone to Watch Over Me (Battlestar Galactica)
"Someone to Watch Over Me" is the seventeenth episode in the fourth season of the reimagined Battlestar Galactica. It aired on television in the United States and Canada on February 27, 2009. The survivor count shown in the title sequence is 39,556....
", Starbuck encounters a pianist in Joe's Bar who is trying to compose a new song. At first she becomes annoyed by his repetitious playing, stating he reminds her of her father when he did nothing but play the piano and she mentions how her father left her and her mother to pursue it as a career. Over the course of the episode, Starbuck befriends the pianist and ends up working with him to try to finish his song.
Toward the end, the piano player writes down the notes Starbuck hums out on a sheet of paper. The pattern reminds Starbuck of a drawing of colored dots the Cylon-Human child, Hera Agathon had given to her earlier. She lines the child's drawing up with the notes the composer had drawn and they match exactly.
When Starbuck and the pianist play the notes, the song is instantly recognized by Saul Tigh
Saul Tigh
Saul Tigh is a fictional character on Battlestar Galactica played by Michael Hogan. The character was named Paul Tigh in early scripts, and was renamed due to legal issues, according to producer Ronald D. Moore. He is one of the main characters of the show.-Overview and personality:Saul Tigh is a...
and Tory Foster
Tory Foster
Tory Foster is a fictional character from the 2004 TV series Battlestar Galactica, portrayed by Rekha Sharma.-Character biography:Tory, like the other members of the Final Five, was originally from a planet called Earth...
– who are sitting at a nearby table with Ellen Tigh
Ellen Tigh
After she is killed for treason against the resistance on New Caprica, Ellen resurrects aboard a Cylon ship, where John Cavil holds her prisoner. However, by downloading into a new body, she regains the memories that Cavil had blocked decades earlier...
– as the song ("All Along the Watchtower") they heard in their heads when they learned they were the final Cylons. Ellen, of course, remembers it from Earth. A bewildered Saul asks Starbuck where she heard the song. Starbuck responds she played it as a kid and begins to mention her father, but stops short when she realizes the piano player, her father, was either a figment of her imagination or a vision.
In the episode "Daybreak, Part I
Daybreak (Battlestar Galactica)
"Daybreak" is the two-part series finale of the reimagined science fiction television series Battlestar Galactica, and are the 74th and 75th episodes overall. The episodes aired on the U.S. Sci Fi Channel and SPACE in Canada respectively on March 13 and March 20, 2009. The second part is...
" Starbuck tries to get answers from Anders about the song, even turning notes into numbers to see if there is a mathematical solution.
In "Daybreak, Part II and III
Daybreak (Battlestar Galactica)
"Daybreak" is the two-part series finale of the reimagined science fiction television series Battlestar Galactica, and are the 74th and 75th episodes overall. The episodes aired on the U.S. Sci Fi Channel and SPACE in Canada respectively on March 13 and March 20, 2009. The second part is...
", after getting the coordinates from Anders for the Cylon Colony, Starbuck joins in on the rescue mission for Hera. After saving Hera, and as the Colony is being destroyed, Starbuck is ordered by Admiral Adama to jump the Galactica away to safety. Although she has no coordinates, Adama tells her to make a blind jump to anywhere. Recalling the musical notes and the numbers she extrapolated from it, she inputs them into the computer; the resulting jump puts Galactica near a habitable planet the fleet decides to settle on. It is revealed this new planet is our world, some 150,000 years ago; Admiral Adama names it "Earth", believing it better matched the dream the fleet had been seeking than did the original Earth (which had been found destroyed by nuclear war).
Once settled on the world, Kara says a final goodbye to Admiral Adama and tells Lee she's leaving - her 'job is done' - and will not be coming back. Kara then disappears into thin air and is not seen again. What really happened to Kara is left ambiguous. According to Katee Sackhoff, "So when she at the end was saying goodbye to [Anders], I think that she was saying goodbye to their bodily forms," she said. "I think she knew, especially if he says, 'I'll see you on the other side,' I think she's with him. I think they're both dead, but I think she's with him. That was a decision that we made, because I selfishly wanted her at peace, and the only way to do that was to have her with someone at the end, or to be with the person she wanted to be with. I don't know. That's kind of where I think she is. She's with Anders playing pyramid in the sky somewhere."
Casting
There was considerable outrage from fans of the original series when producers announced their intention to re-cast Starbuck and Boomer as women, with the decision to change Starbuck's gender especially controversial due to the character's popularity. Ronald D. MooreRonald D. Moore
Ronald Dowl Moore is an American screenwriter and television producer best known for his work on Star Trek and the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica miniseries and television series, for which he won a Peabody Award for creative excellence in 2005 and an Emmy Award in 2008.-Early life and...
recounts:
"When [the fans] heard Starbuck was going to be a woman, it was just like, There can never be peace between us! Blood has been spilled! We just decided that we didn't care." Moore explains the gender switch: "Making Starbuck a woman was a way of avoiding what I felt would be 'rogue pilot with a heart of gold' cliche."
Producers were looking for a mid-30s actress with a tough military demeanor for the role. Katee Sackhoff was not quite who they had envisaged, being a very feminine 23 year old in real life, however, they were impressed by her acting ability. Director Michael Rymer
Michael Rymer
Michael Rymer is a television and film director, best known for his work on the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica TV series, for which he directed the pilot miniseries and several episodes of the series...
explains: "Katee came in and my first reaction was, Well, she's the best actress, but she's too feminine." Katee Sackhoff admits: "Up to that point, I had always played pretty stereotypical blond roles. This was definitely a stretch for me. I wear high heels and dresses. I am a total girly girl. Now people avoid me at the gym."
Executive producer David Eick
David Eick
David Eick is an American producer and writer, best known as the Executive Producer of Battlestar Galactica, of which he also wrote several episodes with Ronald D. Moore, as well as the re-imagined version of Bionic Woman...
recounts:
"I was at home, looking at old tapes of auditions, just bemoaning the fact that we didn't have a Starbuck. It was the most talked-about role; this was not the role to fall on our faces with. Jenny, my wife, happened to be in the room when Katee was reading, and in an off-hand kind of way said, What's the matter with you, she's right there! I was like, Really? We brought [Katee] back, and it was like, Oh! She's right!"
Executive producer Ronald D. Moore
Ronald D. Moore
Ronald Dowl Moore is an American screenwriter and television producer best known for his work on Star Trek and the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica miniseries and television series, for which he won a Peabody Award for creative excellence in 2005 and an Emmy Award in 2008.-Early life and...
wrote, "Katee auditioned for the role along with many other actresses, and simply blew them all away. Sometimes we get lucky."
For Sackhoff, the reaction to the reimagined role was difficult at first. "At the start, I was young; I was stupid," said Sackhoff. "I let the fact that people questioned whether or not a woman could play a man's role dictate how I was going to play her." Fans opposed to the casting of a female in the popular role expressed their discontent during production on the miniseries, and Sackhoff even received a death threat before the start of filming. During the 2004 San Diego Comic Con, the actress was booed:
"I was booed. It was lovely. At that point, I'd seen the miniseries and I knew I'd done a good job. I had my confidence back. I didn't care anymore."
Critical response
Despite the initial backlash, even by original male portrayer Dirk BenedictDirk Benedict
Dirk Benedict is an American movie, television and stage actor, perhaps best known for playing the characters Lieutenant Templeton "Faceman" Peck in The A-Team television series and Lieutenant Starbuck in the original Battlestar Galactica film and television series.-Early life:Benedict was born...
, Katee Sackhoff's Starbuck has become one of the show's most popular characters.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is an online newspaper and former print newspaper covering Seattle, Washington, United States, and the surrounding metropolitan area...
's Melanie McFarland notes: "[Starbuck], played with a tomboy
Tomboy
A tomboy is a girl who exhibits characteristics or behaviors considered typical of the gender role of a boy, including the wearing of typically masculine-oriented clothes and engaging in games and activities that are often physical in nature, and which are considered in many cultures to be the...
ish swagger by Katee Sackhoff, is fast becoming the latest in a long line of feminist television icons." Wired
Wired News
Wired News is an online technology news website, formerly known as HotWired, that split off from Wired magazine when the magazine was purchased by Condé Nast Publishing in the 1990s. Wired News was owned by Lycos not long after the split, until Condé Nast purchased Wired News on July 11, 2006...
s Hugh Hart praises Sackhoff's portrayal: "The actress' rough-and-tumble take on the fleet's most mesmerizing fighter jock will doubtless continue to render gender utterly irrelevant." Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
's Jeff Jensen states: "Sackhoff has set TV's new standard for action-heroine cool and complexity." Mary McNamara of the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
praised Sackhoff for creating one of the most fabulous female characters on television.
Salon.com
Salon.com
Salon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...
s Laura Miller states:
"Starbuck is blond, cocky, insubordinate, a cigar-chomping, card-playing showoff; another stock figure, really, with roots as far back as Shakespeare's Hotspur -- if not for a clever twist. In the original series, Starbuck was played by Dirk Benedict; in the new version, it's Katee Sackhoff, a gender switch that knocks the character well out of type."
In 2005 Sackhoff won a Saturn Award
Saturn Award
The Saturn Award is an award presented annually by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films to honor the top works in science fiction, fantasy, and horror in film, television, and home video. The Saturn Awards were devised by Dr. Donald A. Reed in 1972, who felt that films within...
for Best Actress on Television. Slate magazine named the character as one of the reasons they were looking forward to the return of the show in fall 2007.
External links
- Kara Thrace at the Battlestar Wiki
- Official "Maelstrom" podcast from the Sci FiSci Fi Channel (United States)Syfy , formerly known as the Sci-Fi Channel and SCI FI, is an American cable television channel featuring science fiction, supernatural, fantasy, reality, paranormal, wrestling, and horror programming. Launched on September 24, 1992, it is part of the entertainment conglomerate NBCUniversal, a...
website