By Chris Snellgrove | Published
While the Battlestar Galactica The remake is filled with big bad guys, the most convincing villain is not a cylon infiltrator or a tin -plated soldier. We can say that the best villain is Tom Zarek, someone who rises from the political prisoner to vice-president before directing a mutiny and finally being killed. Fans have generally imagined her as someone who hates his frequent training partner on the Laura Roslin screen, but when he discusses a plot that starts with the episode of season 2 “Fragged”, the actor of Zarek, Richard Hatch, checked that “even if Zarek is very competitive with Laura Roslin, he has enormous respect for her.”
How Tom Zarek is the best villain of Battlestar Galactica
For a little context, “Fragged” is an episode in which Commander Adama has been shot, leaving the colonel alcoholic in command of the galactica. Adama had already launched President Roslin in the Brick, and after Tigh declared martial law, she only escapes for the security of the civil fleet thanks to Tom Zarek, his most critical. Richard Hatch then stressed that Zarek helped her because he respects her and because “it is civil and military”, and he sarcastically noted that fans can “guess where he falls into this struggle”.
To which Richard Hatch is referring is that Tom Zarek began the show as a prisoner who had previously bombed government buildings and wrote a best -selling book on the fight against government corruption. In addition, her first big story in season 1 involved it by taking control of a prison ship and demanding that an appropriate election be held because Laura Roslin has never been properly elected … She was simply the closest surviving politician of the succession line when President Adar died.
For this reason, Tom Zarek’s decision to help Roslin escape the guard at Galactica is surprising because he could have let her rot. But it was unjustly owned without any kind of trial or hearing while the military officer of classification declared the martial law on all the citizens of the fleet. What Richard Hatch later underlined on his character is that Zarek is a man of principles who prefers to help an enemy whom he respects rather than helping a military force that he despises to pursue his oppression of civilians.
No one understood Tom Zarek better than Richard Hatch, and the actor was delighted to play a character who embodied what he considered a real and national struggle. “History speaks of the enormous issue to balance individual and survival freedom, which those of us in the United States all know at the moment.”
Of course, this refers to the growing government power during the George W. Bush administration and how citizens had to fight to find out if they were comfortable renouncing their constitutional freedoms in the name of national security. The national debate on these issues would continue during subsequent seasons, and these frequent reflections on the buffoonemeries of the Bush administration have indeed made Battlestar Galactica One of the most political science fiction programs in television history.
Tom Zarek would continue to face Laura Roslin throughout Battlestar GalacticaBut in season 2, he saved her from the custody of military overtaking. Hatch’s words illustrate how much fans have traditionally understood his charismatic character, someone who ultimately respects Roslin, regardless of the difference in their policy. And in his desire to save his most powerful enemy in the name of his beliefs, this memorable villain turns out to be the last thing that the public would expect: the most coherent ideological character in the show.
