Sacrifice (Battlestar Galactica)
Encyclopedia
"Sacrifice" is the sixteenth episode of the second season
of the reimagined Battlestar Galactica
television series. It aired originally on the Sci Fi Channel
on February 10, 2006.
In the episode, Dee
spurns Billy Keikeya
and goes on a date with Lee "Apollo" Adama
at a bar. An armed group takes control of the bar, demanding the captive Cylon
Sharon in return for the lives of their hostages. Lee is badly wounded when Starbuck
attempts a rescue. Billy is shot and killed saving Dee just before a team of Marines raids the bar and rescues the remaining hostages.
The episode focuses on Admiral William Adama
's relationship with Sharon as he weighs the gunmen's demands. It also presents the gunmen's motives and raises questions about whether there is merit to their point of view.
According to executive producer Ronald D. Moore
, Billy was killed to release actor Paul Campbell
to do other projects. Campbell said in an interview that it was because he was unwilling to sign a five-year contract for the series. In early drafts of the episode, Colonel Saul Tigh
clashed with Adama over his handling of the crisis, but in the final version episode the two of them and President Laura Roslin
all agree that they cannot bow to the demands of a group they call terrorists.
Critical reaction to "Sacrifice" was lukewarm. Moore discussed his own disappointment with several aspects of the episode in his podcast
commentary on the episode.
s brig. Admiral Adama insists to President Laura Roslin
that Sharon is a valuable source of intelligence. Billy, Roslin's chief of staff, urges Adama to tell the fleet about Sharon.
Billy proposes marriage to Dee, but Dee turns him down. Later he discovers Dee on a date with Lee in a bar on Cloud 9 and is heartbroken.
Gunmen led by Sesha Abinell take over the bar, demanding that the Admiral hand over Sharon. Learning that Abinell is seeking revenge for her husband's death in a Cylon attack, Adama refuses and orders Starbuck
to plan a rescue with several Marines. A ruse by Lee convinces the gunmen that the bar is losing oxygen, giving Starbuck an opening. Her attempt backfires, and she accidentally shoots Lee during the confusion. Dee and Billy attend the bleeding, unconscious Lee. Roslin argues to Admiral Adama and Colonel Tigh they cannot give in to terrorists. As Abinell threatens Ellen Tigh
, who is among the hostages, Adama agrees to hand over Sharon, but not alive.
Adama sends over the corpse of Sharon "Boomer" Valerii, the Number Eight copy who shot him and died, to give Marines time to storm the bar. Abinell shoots Boomer's corpse but discovers the deception shortly after. She orders Dee killed. Against Dee's advice, Billy grabs a gun and shoots the would-be executioner. The executioner also shoots and kills Billy. The Marines kill the remaining gunmen, including Abinell, and free the hostages.
Roslin mourns Billy, whom she described as "the closest thing I have to family left". Dee awaits Lee's recovery in Galacticas sickbay as Starbuck looks on.
writes that Adama's trust of Sharon places him apart from other characters in this episode, and that Billy's life is the price of that trust.
Moore notes that Abinell has a fundamentally different perspective on the events of the series than the audience. The audience sees the fleet's leadership in action and understands why Adama and Roslin makes the decisions they do. By contrast, Abinell's perspective is shaped by what she hears from the press and other characters. Moore said one aim of the episode was to raise the question of whether the audience could understand her point of view and should sympathize with her. He also notes that, in at least one respect, Abinell is right where Adama and Roslin are wrong: she believes correctly that the defense ministry of the Twelve Colonies
was infiltrated by Cylons before the initial Cylon attack on the Colonies. Abinell is also correct that Sharon is not being as helpful as she could be: she refuses to name other Cylon agents in the fleet. Jacob Clifton of Television Without Pity argues that "all of her info is pretty much on target" and says both her group and the Cylon sympathizer group Demand Peace "are right about everything". However, in his judgment she is wrong to take her grief out on the people in the bar, because everyone in the fleet has lost loved ones for no good reason. He also argues that Abinell's initial resistance to Adama's offer to bring Sharon dead and her violent reaction upon seeing the corpse prove that her motivations are personal rather than political. This accords with that he sees as one of the series's main themes: that political questions and conflicts generally boil down to personal ones.
Clifton connects Starbuck's botched rescue in "Sacrifice" with her failures in the previous episode, "Scar
". He sees them as part of a disintegration of the professional competence that helps Starbuck endure her broken personal life. He compares the process of stripping Starbuck of her protection to Eustace Scrubb
losing his dragon skin in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
.
Moore said the plot was influenced by the film Dog Day Afternoon
. In the film, as in "Sacrifice", a "true believer" stands at the top of the hostage takers, who are ultimately unprepared for the arrival of the authorities.
Early drafts of the episode focused on a conflict between Admiral Adama and Colonel Tigh over the hostage situation. In these early versions, Tigh pressed Adama to give the hostage-takers what they asked for to protect Ellen. The confrontation was even supposed to turn violent. Eventually the writers decided that Tigh would not want to give in to the demands of people he considered terrorists, and the conflict was removed from the script. Moore notes that Adama and Roslin also have loved ones in the bar (Lee and Billy, respectively), but the emotional connection does not affect their decisions, either.
In a scene that was cut because of time and financial constraints, Starbuck's presence aboard Cloud 9 was explained by showing her about to have a liaison with a man she had just met. This was intended as a counterpoint to Lee pursuing a relationship with Dee rather than Starbuck and as further demonstration of Starbuck's self-destruction over her feelings about Sam Anders. Moore noted that showing this in "Sacrifice" would have contradicted the previous episode, "Scar", in which Starbuck finds a measure of peace over Anders.
Executive producer David Eick
knew actress Dana Delany
(Abinell) personally and convinced her to make a guest appearance in the series. He first approached her about it during the first season
.
The bar scenes were filmed on a film set rather than in an existing location. The writers considered having the hostage situation occur aboard a shuttle. They moved it to a bar because they did not have a shuttle set available, and building the bar was less complicated and less expensive. The shots of the Marines preparing for the final assault were taken from the first-season episode "Bastille Day
".
gave the episode a B-, criticizing "overuse of Sesha’s flashback of her husband dying and the predictable shot of her falling dead on Sharon’s body". Clifton gave "Sacrifice" a B+, praising Delany's performance but criticizing the lack of context for Lee and Dee's relationship. Overall, he called it "the best episode in a while". Keith McDuffee of TV Squad was glad to see Lee back to form after several difficult episodes but questioned the plausibility of the terrorists falling for the Boomer-switching trick. Amanda Keith responded favorably to the episode in general but felt the writers "flubbed how they portrayed [Dee's] relationship with Lee". Simon Brew of Den of Geek wrote, "it was good telly, but the show has inevitably struggled to recapture the flat-out brilliance of the middle of the season."
Moore felt the episode fell short in several respects. He felt that the episode did not spend enough time with Abinell, getting the audience to understand how the loss of her husband radicalized her after the loss of the Colonies did not; he said Delany's strong performance made up for some of this. He hoped there would be more tension surrounding how Admiral Adama, Roslin, and Colonel Tigh each had a loved one in the bar. He also disliked how Starbuck's raid was filmed and thought that the script fell short by not explaining why the Marines don't storm the bar from the back through the passage where Lee tampers with the oxygen sensor. Moore emphasized that he believed the episode's shortcomings were his responsibility as showrunner and that his criticisms were directed at himself and not at anyone else. He praised the performances of actors Jamie Bamber
(Lee), Campbell, Kandyse McClure
(Dee), Mary McDonnell
(Roslin), and Katee Sackhoff
(Starbuck). Overall, he called it "a decent episode, not my favorite but I don't think a disaster."
Battlestar Galactica (season 2)
The second season of the reimagined science fiction television series Battlestar Galactica premiered on the Sci-Fi Channel in the United States on July 25, 2005, and concluded on March 10, 2006. The season was split into two parts, each containing 10 episodes...
of the reimagined Battlestar Galactica
Battlestar Galactica (2004 TV series)
Battlestar Galactica is an American military science fiction television series, and part of the Battlestar Galactica franchise. The show was developed by Ronald D. Moore as a re-imagining of the 1978 Battlestar Galactica television series created by Glen A. Larson...
television series. It aired originally on the Sci Fi Channel
Syfy
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...
on February 10, 2006.
In the episode, Dee
Anastasia Dualla
Anastasia "Dee" Dualla, portrayed by Kandyse McClure, is a fictional character in the reimagined Battlestar Galactica.-Character history:...
spurns Billy Keikeya
Billy Keikeya
Billy Keikeya is a fictional character in the miniseries and television remake of Battlestar Galactica. He is portrayed by Paul Campbell. Billy appeared until late in the second season, at which point he was killed by terrorists. Paul Campbell has said that his character was killed because he had...
and goes on a date with 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:...
at a bar. An armed group takes control of the bar, demanding the captive Cylon
Cylon (reimagining)
Cylons are a race which appear in the reimagined Battlestar Galactica television series and its prequel Caprica. They have several forms, some of which resemble and even mimic the behavior of humans, while others are mechanical in appearance and function.In the first DVD, one of the show's creators...
Sharon in return for the lives of their hostages. Lee is badly wounded when Starbuck
Kara Thrace
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...
attempts a rescue. Billy is shot and killed saving Dee just before a team of Marines raids the bar and rescues the remaining hostages.
The episode focuses on Admiral William Adama
William Adama
William "Bill" Adama is a fictional character portrayed by Edward James Olmos in the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica television series...
's relationship with Sharon as he weighs the gunmen's demands. It also presents the gunmen's motives and raises questions about whether there is merit to their point of view.
According to 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...
, Billy was killed to release actor Paul Campbell
Paul Campbell (Canadian actor)
-Life and career:From 2004 to 2006 he portrayed Billy Keikeya on the reimagined Battlestar Galactica. Campbell's character was a personal assistant to President Laura Roslin....
to do other projects. Campbell said in an interview that it was because he was unwilling to sign a five-year contract for the series. In early drafts of the episode, Colonel 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...
clashed with Adama over his handling of the crisis, but in the final version episode the two of them and 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...
all agree that they cannot bow to the demands of a group they call terrorists.
Critical reaction to "Sacrifice" was lukewarm. Moore discussed his own disappointment with several aspects of the episode in his podcast
Podcast
A podcast is a series of digital media files that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication...
commentary on the episode.
Plot
The press has learned that a Number Eight model Cylon is being held in GalacticaBattlestar 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...
s brig. Admiral Adama insists to 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...
that Sharon is a valuable source of intelligence. Billy, Roslin's chief of staff, urges Adama to tell the fleet about Sharon.
Billy proposes marriage to Dee, but Dee turns him down. Later he discovers Dee on a date with Lee in a bar on Cloud 9 and is heartbroken.
Gunmen led by Sesha Abinell take over the bar, demanding that the Admiral hand over Sharon. Learning that Abinell is seeking revenge for her husband's death in a Cylon attack, Adama refuses and orders Starbuck
Kara Thrace
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...
to plan a rescue with several Marines. A ruse by Lee convinces the gunmen that the bar is losing oxygen, giving Starbuck an opening. Her attempt backfires, and she accidentally shoots Lee during the confusion. Dee and Billy attend the bleeding, unconscious Lee. Roslin argues to Admiral Adama and Colonel Tigh they cannot give in to terrorists. As Abinell threatens 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...
, who is among the hostages, Adama agrees to hand over Sharon, but not alive.
Adama sends over the corpse of Sharon "Boomer" Valerii, the Number Eight copy who shot him and died, to give Marines time to storm the bar. Abinell shoots Boomer's corpse but discovers the deception shortly after. She orders Dee killed. Against Dee's advice, Billy grabs a gun and shoots the would-be executioner. The executioner also shoots and kills Billy. The Marines kill the remaining gunmen, including Abinell, and free the hostages.
Roslin mourns Billy, whom she described as "the closest thing I have to family left". Dee awaits Lee's recovery in Galacticas sickbay as Starbuck looks on.
Analysis
Moore says in his podcast commentary on "Sacrifice" that the episode "is all about Sharon in some measure, because even though she's off-camera for most of it, all the events are driven by her presence and what she's about." He notes that Sharon's motivation and whether the humans can trust her are open questions. Moore says that Admiral Adama feels an emotional connection to Sharon despite her being a Cylon and despite having been nearly killed by another Number Eight copy. He contrasts this with Colonel Tigh, who is more skeptical. At several points in the episode, Tigh reminds Adama that Sharon is a machine, a "thing". Amanda Keith of the Los Angeles Newspaper GroupLos Angeles Newspaper Group
The Los Angeles Newspaper Group is an umbrella group of local daily newspapers published in the greater Los Angeles area by MediaNews Group. The news coverage of the newspapers are mainly local stories. The newspapers contain some national and international news, often from the Associated Press...
writes that Adama's trust of Sharon places him apart from other characters in this episode, and that Billy's life is the price of that trust.
Moore notes that Abinell has a fundamentally different perspective on the events of the series than the audience. The audience sees the fleet's leadership in action and understands why Adama and Roslin makes the decisions they do. By contrast, Abinell's perspective is shaped by what she hears from the press and other characters. Moore said one aim of the episode was to raise the question of whether the audience could understand her point of view and should sympathize with her. He also notes that, in at least one respect, Abinell is right where Adama and Roslin are wrong: she believes correctly that the defense ministry of 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...
was infiltrated by Cylons before the initial Cylon attack on the Colonies. Abinell is also correct that Sharon is not being as helpful as she could be: she refuses to name other Cylon agents in the fleet. Jacob Clifton of Television Without Pity argues that "all of her info is pretty much on target" and says both her group and the Cylon sympathizer group Demand Peace "are right about everything". However, in his judgment she is wrong to take her grief out on the people in the bar, because everyone in the fleet has lost loved ones for no good reason. He also argues that Abinell's initial resistance to Adama's offer to bring Sharon dead and her violent reaction upon seeing the corpse prove that her motivations are personal rather than political. This accords with that he sees as one of the series's main themes: that political questions and conflicts generally boil down to personal ones.
Clifton connects Starbuck's botched rescue in "Sacrifice" with her failures in the previous episode, "Scar
Scar (Battlestar Galactica)
"Scar" is the fifteenth episode of the second season of the reimagined Battlestar Galactica television series. It aired originally on the Sci Fi Channel on February 3, 2006....
". He sees them as part of a disintegration of the professional competence that helps Starbuck endure her broken personal life. He compares the process of stripping Starbuck of her protection to Eustace Scrubb
Eustace Scrubb
Eustace Clarence Scrubb is a fictional character in C. S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia. He appears in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Silver Chair, and The Last Battle. In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, he is accompanied by Edmund and Lucy Pevensie, his cousins...
losing his dragon skin in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is a fantasy novel for children by C. S. Lewis. Written in 1950, it was published in 1952 as the third book of The Chronicles of Narnia...
.
Production
Moore said that Billy was killed in "Sacrifice" because Campbell was being offered good roles on other television series, and the scheduling conflicts were interfering with filming. The writers found it implausible that Billy would simply quit as Roslin's chief of staff and could not think of any other good excuses for the character to be missing from the narrative for long stretches, so they decided to kill the character. Moore called Campbell's departure sad and said in his podcast commentary, "It's not something I thought we'd be doing when the season began." Campbell said in an interview that he was not surprised by the decision. He said that he was unwilling to sign a five-year contract, and the producers concluded he was not committed to the series.Moore said the plot was influenced by the film Dog Day Afternoon
Dog Day Afternoon
Dog Day Afternoon is a 1975 drama film directed by Sidney Lumet, written by Frank Pierson, and produced by Martin Bregman. The film stars Al Pacino, John Cazale, Charles Durning, Chris Sarandon, Penny Allen, James Broderick, and Carol Kane. The title refers to the "dog days of summer".The film was...
. In the film, as in "Sacrifice", a "true believer" stands at the top of the hostage takers, who are ultimately unprepared for the arrival of the authorities.
Early drafts of the episode focused on a conflict between Admiral Adama and Colonel Tigh over the hostage situation. In these early versions, Tigh pressed Adama to give the hostage-takers what they asked for to protect Ellen. The confrontation was even supposed to turn violent. Eventually the writers decided that Tigh would not want to give in to the demands of people he considered terrorists, and the conflict was removed from the script. Moore notes that Adama and Roslin also have loved ones in the bar (Lee and Billy, respectively), but the emotional connection does not affect their decisions, either.
In a scene that was cut because of time and financial constraints, Starbuck's presence aboard Cloud 9 was explained by showing her about to have a liaison with a man she had just met. This was intended as a counterpoint to Lee pursuing a relationship with Dee rather than Starbuck and as further demonstration of Starbuck's self-destruction over her feelings about Sam Anders. Moore noted that showing this in "Sacrifice" would have contradicted the previous episode, "Scar", in which Starbuck finds a measure of peace over Anders.
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...
knew actress Dana Delany
Dana Delany
Dana Welles Delany is an American film, stage, and television actress, producer, host and health activist.After various roles in the early career, Delany garnered her first leading role in 1987 in the short-lived NBC sitcom Sweet Surrender and achieved wider fame in 1988–1991 as Colleen McMurphy...
(Abinell) personally and convinced her to make a guest appearance in the series. He first approached her about it during the first season
Battlestar Galactica (season 1)
The first season of the reimagined science fiction television series Battlestar Galactica, commissioned by the Sci-Fi Channel in February 2004, began airing eight months later in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It premiered on Sci-Fi in the United States with a two-hour debut on January 14, 2005...
.
The bar scenes were filmed on a film set rather than in an existing location. The writers considered having the hostage situation occur aboard a shuttle. They moved it to a bar because they did not have a shuttle set available, and building the bar was less complicated and less expensive. The shots of the Marines preparing for the final assault were taken from the first-season episode "Bastille Day
Bastille Day (Battlestar Galactica)
"Bastille Day" is the third episode of the first season of the reimagined Battlestar Galactica television series.-Plot:After a source of water is located on a nearby moon, Apollo suggests the use of the 1,000 prisoners aboard the Astral Queen to extract it, but President Roslin does not want to...
".
Reception
"Sacrifice" received a lukewarm response from critics. Rose Wojnar of The San Diego Union-TribuneThe San Diego Union-Tribune
-Predecessors:The predecessor newspapers of the Union-Tribune were:* San Diego Sun, founded 1861 and merged with the Evening Tribune in 1939.* San Diego Union, founded October 10, 1868.* Evening Tribune, founded December 2, 1895.-Ownership:...
gave the episode a B-, criticizing "overuse of Sesha’s flashback of her husband dying and the predictable shot of her falling dead on Sharon’s body". Clifton gave "Sacrifice" a B+, praising Delany's performance but criticizing the lack of context for Lee and Dee's relationship. Overall, he called it "the best episode in a while". Keith McDuffee of TV Squad was glad to see Lee back to form after several difficult episodes but questioned the plausibility of the terrorists falling for the Boomer-switching trick. Amanda Keith responded favorably to the episode in general but felt the writers "flubbed how they portrayed [Dee's] relationship with Lee". Simon Brew of Den of Geek wrote, "it was good telly, but the show has inevitably struggled to recapture the flat-out brilliance of the middle of the season."
Moore felt the episode fell short in several respects. He felt that the episode did not spend enough time with Abinell, getting the audience to understand how the loss of her husband radicalized her after the loss of the Colonies did not; he said Delany's strong performance made up for some of this. He hoped there would be more tension surrounding how Admiral Adama, Roslin, and Colonel Tigh each had a loved one in the bar. He also disliked how Starbuck's raid was filmed and thought that the script fell short by not explaining why the Marines don't storm the bar from the back through the passage where Lee tampers with the oxygen sensor. Moore emphasized that he believed the episode's shortcomings were his responsibility as showrunner and that his criticisms were directed at himself and not at anyone else. He praised the performances of actors Jamie Bamber
Jamie Bamber
Jamie Bamber is the stage name of Jamie St. John Bamber Griffith , a British actor known most widely for his roles as Lee Adama on Battlestar Galactica and Detective Sergeant Matt Devlin on the ITV series Law & Order: UK...
(Lee), Campbell, Kandyse McClure
Kandyse McClure
Kandyse McClure is an actress, best known for playing Anastasia Dualla on the Sci Fi Channel's television program Battlestar Galactica.- Biography :...
(Dee), Mary McDonnell
Mary McDonnell
Mary Eileen McDonnell is an American film, stage, and television actress. She received an Academy Award nomination for her role as Stands With A Fist in Dances with Wolves, and she is also very well known for her performance as President Laura Roslin in Battlestar Galactica, the President's wife...
(Roslin), and 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...
(Starbuck). Overall, he called it "a decent episode, not my favorite but I don't think a disaster."
External links
- "Sacrifice" at the Battlestar Wiki
- "Sacrifice" at SyfySyfySyfy , 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...