How Battlestar Galactica's Katee Sackhoff Felt About Starbuck's 'Death'

The reimagined "Battlestar Galactica" made some wild storytelling swings in its latter half, as the series dove fully into the spirituality earlier episodes alluded to. One of the most infamous twists was the death of hothead fighter pilot Kara Thrace/Starbuck (Katee Sackhoff) in season 3 episode, "Maelstrom." Drawn inside a gas giant by a religious vision, Starbuck's Viper explodes.

But after three episodes to make it seem like Starbuck really was gone (including Sackhoff's name being removed from the opening credits), she returned in the final scene of season finale "Crossroads," claiming she could guide Galactica's fleet to their destination: Earth. From its abruptness to its ultimately metaphysical conclusion, Starbuck's death remains one of the most controversial in sci-fi TV history.

If viewers felt disoriented by Starbuck's not-death, they weren't alone: so did the cast. Speaking to the LA Times in 2007, Sackhoff revealed that when "Galactica" co-creators David Eick and Ronald D. Moore told her about Starbuck's not-really-death, they had also concocted a scheme to keep spoilers from leaking. Specifically, not telling any of the cast and crew that Starbuck was coming back, so they wouldn't be able to leak the twist of her resurrection.

When the cast got the news Starbuck would "die," "everyone flipped out," Sackhoff recalled. Sackhoff herself had to lie and pretend that she really was leaving the show, up to and including having a going-away party after the production wrapped on "Maelstrom."

Speaking with Den of Geek in 2008 before the premiere of "Galactica" season 4, Sackhoff said of Starbuck's cliffhanging return that "only 'Battlestar Galactica' could pull that off." At the same time, having to pretend that she was leaving "Battlestar" was "not something I'd like to do again, that's for sure."

The idea to "kill" Starbuck came, unintentionally, from Katee Sackhoff herself. In Starbuck's old apartment, she'd painted a blue-red-yellow mandela on the wall. Sackhoff suggested to writer-producer David Weddle that the image could be related to something from Starbuck's past. Weddle and his co-writer Bradley Thompson came up with Starbuck confronting her past and destiny in "Maelstrom" — where she would die, only to soon return.

According to the behind-the-scenes book "So Say We All: The Complete, Uncensored, Unauthorized Oral History of Battlestar Galactica" by Edward Gross and Mark Altman, Ron Moore thought the idea was "really unexpected" and approved it.

In hindsight, though, Moore also called his and David Eick's attempt to prevent internet spoilers "one of the stupidest things that [they] did." Their thinking was "this was only going to work if the audience thinks we mean it, and the characters mean it," but once the news broke among the cast, it became a "fiasco." Edward James Olmos was especially baffled, saying that losing Sackhoff would diminish the show.

"I tell my mom, because I had to tell someone. My mom's on set. The crew were like, 'So sorry about Katee.' My mom's like, 'I know. She'll be okay. She'll land on her feet,'" Sackhoff recalled in "So Say We All." Eventually Eick and Moore relented and told the main cast that Sackhoff/Starbuck wouldn't really be gone.

"It wasn't fair to [Sackhoff]. She was going to have to lie to literally everybody in the cast: 'Yeah, yeah, I know, it's awfully sad. I'm gonna miss you guys!' It got ridiculous at a certain point. She was a trooper; I think she would have done anything we asked her to. But she's not inhuman!" recalled Eick to the LA Times.

In the build-up to "Crossroads," Ron Moore and David Eick teased that one of the "Battlestar Galactica" main cast would be revealed as a Cylon. This came true; "Battlestar Galactica" season 3 made a mystery out of who the "Final Five" Cylons were, and then "Crossroads" revealed four of them were major characters. (We'll refrain from saying who to preserve that surprise).

But this was also counterintelligence by Moore and Eick. "My goal was to mislead the audience into thinking Kara Thrace was a Cylon," Eick told the LA Times. In "Battlestar," the humanoid Cylons can resurrect by downloading their minds into new bodies. Indeed, when Kara returns to Galactica in season 4 premiere "He That Believeth in Me," everyone concludes she is a Cylon and she's briefly thrown in the brig. Since "Crossroads" only revealed four of the Final Five, that left an opening for Kara to be the fifth.

But the fourth and final season of "Galactica" confirmed Kara was not a Cylon, and things only got weirder. In "Sometimes a Great Notion," Kara finds the wreckage of a Viper and a charred skeleton inside it — and she concludes it must be her, the one who died in "Maelstrom." In series finale "Daybreak," Kara divines the coordinates to finally take Galactica to Earth. Once the people are settled, she vanishes into thin air.

Starbuck never truly came back; she needed to die so an "angel" wearing her face could lead humanity to their new home. When I spoke to Katee Sackhoff for an oral history of "Battlestar Galactica" season 4, I asked her if she considered the Starbuck who died and the Starbuck who returned to be different characters. Her answer? "Absolutely, 110%."