Battlestar Galactica: Will Ron Moore actually do it? (HUGE FRAKKING SPOILER)

This thread contains a MAJOR POTENTIAL SPOILER.

Do not read if you don’t want to know.

(some padding to
keep information out
of preview popup)

It’s a rumor that’s been burning up the BSG news and gossip sites.

This is not a relatively minor plot point, like “who kills Cain at the end of ‘Pegasus.’”

The rumor, which appears to have some basis in fact, is about the DEATH OF A MAJOR CHARACTER.

As in, CORE CAST. Not Billy, not Kat. One of the BIG FIVE.

Why the rumor has caught fire:

[ul][li]Ron Moore is on record with the opinion that the show has gotten “too safe” and the audience needs a punch in the gut.[/li]
[li]The cast member in question has confirmed that he/she wrapped this season months before the rest of the cast.[/li]
[li]The actor also says that he/she will appear in no more episodes this season after number fourteen. That’s three more after the return from the break, and then this actor is DONE this year.[/li]
[li]When asked directly what the early finish for the character means, the actor says: I’ve signed a confidentiality agreement and can provide no further details.[/ul][/li]
Which character, you ask?

I’m putting this in a spoiler box in the OP only, on the slim chance that anybody who has read this far might still be teetering on the edge of uncertainty, and to give you an opportunity to change your mind about reading on. If the rumors pan out, and this character dies, it will represent a major, major change in the show, so this is your last warning.

Further discussion of this possible spoiler, including naming the character in subsequent posts, will happen outside spoiler boxes. You don’t want to know, close the thread and bail out.

Okay. Here’s who is apparently on the execution block:

Starbuck.

See what I mean?

The thing is, though, I’m really not sure if I believe it. I mean, this show has demonstrated repeatedly it’s got some huge clanking balls, but this would alter the interpersonal dynamic that’s been operating from the miniseries onward in a deep and fundamental way. And it would seriously alienate a huge segment of the fan base.

Honestly, I don’t know whether the pluses of the move would, in a practical sense, outweigh the minuses. Still, the confirmed details above are pretty compelling.

I have to wonder whether they add up to something else, though. Maybe the character is abducted by the Cylons or disappears somehow, short of dying. At this point, anything is possible.

To listen to a radio interview with the cast member in which this rumor, and much else, is covered, click here. It’s about forty minutes long and is very entertaining, if occasionally distractingly digressive.

Anyway. There you go.

Discuss.

I kind of hope so. The soap opera aspects of the show bore me.

This rumor has been flaoting around since Comic-Con. I’m not putting much faith in it. If developments go that way, I predict the character will be resurrected somehow in the next season. The only way Ron would kill off a major character is if he is planning on ending the series within a few episodes of the death. When I hear rumors of the next season being the last, then I’ll start believing major character demises.

I am really over the whole “killing off main characters” thing on series TV nowadays. It’s overdone. People tune into series faithfully because they LIKE the characters. You kill off one of them, you’re alienating the fan base. I think it’s a symptom of the soap operization of series TV. It started with cop shows in the 80s, then medical shows, then it spread to everything. Hell, even 24 has soapish elements—elements that have frankly begun to turn me off the series and convinced me not to watch the new season.

Really hope he doesn’t pull the trigger on this one. He’s already killed off three characters this season–Ellen Tigh, Jammer, and Kat. That’s more than enough to establish the “dangerous universe” vibe.

I can’t get myself that worked up about it.
Boxing episodes do that to me. :slight_smile:

Ok, try this one on for size…

I read some modleing sites, and they have been jonesing for a version of Pegasus. They would give up paired organs for one.
The other day, one of the master model maker said that he had STOPPED his work on his version of the Pegasus.

Why, you ask?

Seems that he was now making a model of A NEW SHIP that will be prominitly featured in the second half of season 3.

He then clamed up.

This is going to be interesting…

I am replying without looking at the spoiler box or scrolling down to read any other replies. Just wanted to see if I could resist the temptation. Yay, me!!!

I can’t wait to be shocked!!!

I hope that the OP is correct. I like the show, but that character just sucks. He/she should have been written off at the same time as the little kid from the mini-series.

I actually hope it’s true. That character bugs me. Gods! I want to slap that person every time they open their mouth.

It would certainly clear up a lot of the clutter in the relationship aspect of the show.

For Debaser and Skammer and others who share that opinion, I recommend listening to the radio interview. Katee Sackhoff is very up-front about how much of a hateful bitch Starbuck can be when she wants to be, and the only reason Katee still enjoys playing the character is that she totally gets the screwed-up and self-destructive thing. She says when she gets scripts she will frequently slap her forehead and say “you have to be frakking kidding me” but then she thinks about it and gets it and throws herself into it. The question for fans, I think, is whether the character is far enough gone down that road that letting her spiral now into what must be, sooner or later, her inevitable black hole is the right move for the show overall.

And I hadn’t heard this rumor before, so I can’t say about Comic-Con. I’m going on what seems to be new information about Katee having wrapped shooting early and confirmations that Starbuck will appear in no more shows this season after number fourteen.

Of all the major charactors to off, that one would get my vote… done properly, it can only help the story and not feal like a cheap ploy.

I still assume that the rumors of the boxed cylon to be true…Does she count as a major?

You don’t suppose she’ll get offed and wake up in a tub of goo?

Eh. Any show worth its salt isn’t dependent on any one character. Rather than worry about what the show would be like w/o Starbuck, why not speculate on what new character could be introduced to take her place? I’m cool either way, as long as the writing stays as good as it has been. It’s a great show, and it has lots of good characters. Starbuck adds a lot, but there’s a lot that I find irritating about her, too.

**Cervaise **, I should clarify that I think she is a great character and Sackhoff has done a great acting job to make me really, really sick of her. She has done just about everything she can to make herself and those around her (Lee, Adama, Kat, Anders) miserable. If she dies, it will be tragic, but I wouldn’t miss her the way I would Laura or Bill or even Chief or Helo.

I wonder what will happen to Baltar. Since in season 3.5 he ends up back in Colonial hands. Unless he single handedly wipes out the Cylon race and finds Earth there’s no way in Hades the Colonials will forgive him. Any scenario other than his execution (show-trial optional) wouldn’t be believalbe. On the other hand killing him off before the end of the show would be a big mistake.

I, for one, hope it’s not true.

The character really annoyed me at the beginning of the show. I remember posting about how much I just hated her. The “cocky badass who’s really damn good at everything” characters always annoy me.

Somewhere along the line, I changed my mind. I would really miss her. True, she still gets my ire up on occassion, but she’s really interesting now. I don’t think her story is played out. There’s still too much there to have her spiral into self destruction, have a quick redemption, then go away.

Frankly, if they’re going to kill off a major, I wouldn’t miss Apollo or Roslyn nearly as much. Those characters don’t have as much going on right now. I’m not nearly as drawn into their stories.

Katee Sackhoff is supposed to be off doing a movie, which is perfectly explains why she might be written out of several episodes (as the Billy Keikya character was), and does not require this hyped “spoiler” at all to explain her absence.

I’m going with Occam on this one.

How does killing a main character prove you’re serious? With the holodeck star chambers, Cylons who are indistinguishable from humans yet can stick cables into their arms, hybrid babies with magic blood, common cold viruses which wipeout whole fleets of Cylons, every other person running around having mystic prophetic visions and the sudden appearance of infinite algae food processors Ron Moore is going to have to do a whole heck of a lot better than kill a main character to prove he’s serious.

If he wants to really prove he’s serious he should make his science consistent with what we know of this fictional universe and what the heck, actually have them find earth and make me still want to keep watching.

Anyway, I’ll believe this particular character is dead for good only when the show is finally canceled and she actually was dead for good.