Over the summer, Katee Sackhoff, who plays Kara "Starbuck" Thrace on "Battlestar Galactica," received a nerve-racking phone call from Ronald D. Moore and David Eick, the show's executive producers.
"David and Ron said, 'We want to start this phone call out by saying that we love you,' " Sackhoff recalled last week.
Sackhoff knew she might not like what came next. And she didn't. "They said, 'You're not really gonna die -- but we're gonna blow you up.' "
At the end of the March 4 episode of "Battlestar Galactica," Starbuck, the swaggering, troubled pilot who has been one of the show's leads during its three seasons, did indeed blow up. The series' voracious fans' reactions ranged from mourning to disbelief that the producers would kill off such a popular character.
Those in the latter category turned out to be right: Three episodes later, in the season finale's last moments, Starbuck reappeared, flying alongside her friend Apollo (Jamie Bamber). She said she had been to Earth -- the search for Earth is the show's overarching story -- and would lead everyone there.
In a spoiler-centric world, where the plots of television series leak throughout the Internet, the so-called death of Starbuck was a big secret to keep in the months-long lag time between shooting "Battlestar Galactica" and its broadcast. Adding on that she wasn't actually dead, along with the surprising circumstances of her return, made it even more difficult. After all, the Sci Fi Channel show isn't so much watched by its moderately sized but fervent audience as it is dissected.
So the other part of that summer phone call was the hatching of an ornate scheme that would keep even the most curious and snooping viewers surprised, even if they did guess that Sackhoff was not actually gone from the show. Eick said: "This was by far the most difficult and complex secret to keep. It was no small feat."
At first, the producers wanted to deceive the whole "Battlestar Galactica" production, including the cast, into thinking that Sackhoff was really leaving. "They said, 'We're not telling anyone,' " she recounted. " 'We're not telling the entire crew. The entire cast. Some of the writers aren't even going to know.' I was like, 'You've got to be kidding me!' "
The cast found out Starbuck was "dying" while production was underway last year when they received the outline of the episode in which she blew up. "Everyone flipped out," Sackhoff said.
