Sunday, February 26, 2017
Who morns for Apollo?
Earlier this month, actor Richard Hatch passed away from pancreatic cancer with nary a blip on the news. He was 71.
Hatch was probably best known for playing Capt. Apollo on the ABC TV show, “Battlestar Galactica” in the late ’70s, and unlike other Sci-Fi icons from that era who have recently passed away, his death barely even rated a passing mention on my Facebook timeline.
Unlike the coverage given to Carrie Fisher (December 2016) and Leonard Nimoy (February 2015), Hatch’s death went seemingly unnoticed by most of the mainstream media. Even on some Sci-Fi websites his death only warranted an article or two the day his death was announced as opposed to the days of articles Nimoy and Fisher got.
Now, I realize Hatch’s contribution to science fiction is no where near that of Nimoy and Fisher. Let’s face it, the original “Battlestar Galactica” lasted only one season and didn’t have the cultural impact of either “Star Trek” or “Star Wars.” Still it seemed a shame.
I was in my early teens when it came out, and like other geeks my age, I was a fan of the show. In fact, I’m sure if I looked around hard enough, I could probably still find one of audio recordings I used to make of the original broadcasts on my portable tape recorder, so I could listen back to them later. (Yes, these were the days before we had TiVos and DVRs. In fact it was even before the VCR became ubiquitous!)
So naturally when I heard about his passing, I thought I should write about it here, adding to my now ever-growing series of posthumous memorials to the sci-fi/fantasy heroes of my youth.
The only problem is Hatch really wasn’t really a hero of mine in the way Leonard Nimoy or Ray Bradbury was. Nor like Carrie Fisher, did he play a character who “broke the mold” and changed the way we viewed the role of a certain class of people in the genre.
The Capt. Apollo of the original show was an archetype: The handsome, straight-laced hero with strong moral convictions. Or in other words, the “nice guy” as opposed to his co-star Dirk Benedict’s Starbuck character, who was the loveable, glib, rogue.
Now there’s nothing wrong with that. The show was meant as nothing more than a light sci-fi action-adventure show, and, as I mentioned above, I rather enjoyed it. So I thought Hatch’s passing at least deserved some mention in this column if only for being a part of my fondly-remembered youth.
At first I was unsure what to say other than it being a shame and he seemed kind of young to die suddenly (I thought he was in his early to mid-60s). Nor did I realize he was sick.
But after thinking about it some more I realized there was one thing I could say about him, something I think that’s probably the greatest complement about someone’s life: Like the character he portrayed all those years ago, he was in real-life, a genuinely nice guy.
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| Richard at the San Diego Comic Con in 2010 |
same thing about him. He was rather an intense person but very nice to fans and approachable. I recall one person writing on one of the sci-fi forums I frequent that they had bumped into him at a coffee shop in LA many years ago when he was working on a “Battlestar” script. The person reported that he was kind of intense but spoke at length and passionately about the project to him.
Remarkable?
No. I’m sure there are many nice, down-to-Earth famous people out there. What is remarkable is that so often after a person finds some fleeting fame, they become embittered when they can’t reach the same level of popularity again. By all the reports I read after Hatch’s death, he never reacted this way.
After his appearance in “Battlestar” his career never really took off. Sure, it looks like he had steady work and a few guest starring roles throughout the ’80s and the early ’90 in shows like “MacGyver,” “Riptide,” “TJ Hooker,” “The Love Boat” and “Fantasy Island.” But he was never again the star in a show centered around him after “Battlestar.”
Now whether this was because of type-casting, it is hard to say. But rather than being embittered by it, Hatch seemed to embrace the fact that he was forever linked with his Capt. Apollo character.
He penned a number of “Battlestar” sequel novels and in 1999 even tried to revive the show, rounding up several former cast members and acting and producing, “Battlestar Galactica: The Second Coming.” It was a short proof-of-concept film to try and convince Glen A. Larson, the producer of the original show, to let him helm a revival.
But in 2004, when Larson decided to let Ronald D. Moore revive it instead, Hatch though disappointed, wasn’t bitter.
Again – as many people might have been tempted to do – he didn’t trash the new show or deride its darker, grittier take on the tale of human refugees fleeing from robots hell-bent on their annihilation. He was generally supportive of it. As a “reward,” Hatch was asked to appear in it in what was no-doubt a bit of “stunt casting” by Moore, in an effort to lure back fans of the original show.
Though the role of Tom Zarek was probably only intended as a one-time appearance, Hatch gave the part of the shady, reformed terrorist his best, and made the character so nuanced that the writers decided to make him a re-occurring character who played a major role in the show’s story arch.
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| Richard Hatch as Klingon Supreme Commander Kharn, in the "Star Trek" fan-film “Prelude to Axanar” |
Though I’m sad that we may never get to see the follow-up, full, feature-length version of the film (its makers had been sued by Paramount and CBS ) I think “Prelude to Axanar” is perhaps a fitting final tribute to a man who may not have intended to be known primarily as a sci-fi actor but always did his best for its fans. And that in the end, that’s not such a bad thing to be remembered for.
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