Battlestar Galactica: Personnel: Captain Lee “Apollo” Adama

Name: Adama, Lee
Rank: Captain
Age: 32
Race: Caprican

Captain Lee “Apollo” Adama is the CAG (Commander Air Group) on the Galactica. He is responsible for directing his fellow pilots, giving pre-flight briefings and designing missions.
If you were to meet Apollo in a bar, he’d be drinking a beer. Probably a good American beer like a Sam Adams. He wouldn’t talk much, but we he does, people listen.

Apollo and his brother Zak were raised from birth to be a great fighter pilots and to achieve in everything they did. only Lee had the skills to accomplish it though. His brother still felt pressured to join the flight academy, and try to be a great pilot. Apollo believe his father Commander Adam pulled strings to get Zak into school, in reality he did not. During a training mission Zak was killed in an accident. Apollo, despite hearing evidence to the contrary, believes that Zak would still be alive today. Of course assuming that he didn’t die with the other 99.9% of humanity in the Cylon nuclear holocaust. Apollo blamed his father for Zak’s death, that is until Starbuck confessed to him, that she passed Zak despite his poor flight skills.

Behind the stick, Apollo is a terrific pilot. He can destroy most any target whilst avoiding a dozen boogies. He’s something of a hothead, but he’s earned that reputation. But his arrogance is reserved only for those beneath his command. Since the miniseries, Apollo has tried (unsuccessfully) to be more friendly with his pilots. He’s dropped his almighty attitude, but he lacks the charisma to be a truly effective leader.
Apollo was originally a test pilot on Caprica. He wanted to take a different career path than his father, and rocket monkey seems like a good idea at the time. He was temporarily assigned to the Galactica as a publicity stunt when she was to be decommissioned and converted to a museum. Then the Cylons attacked and changed everything. Lee played a major role in rescuing and collecting survivors after the attack, as well as assembling the fleet of ships.

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Apollo is still trying to find himself. He acts as the president’s military advisor as well as the CAG aboard the Galactica. He’s going through a tough spot in his life currently, and will occasionally disobey orders if he thinks it for the greater good.

Season 2 update:

Apollo has been plagued by failure, following the loss of his entire Air Corps.  Promoted to C.A.G (Commander: Air Group) his job now consists of massive tactical overviews, military planning, and babysitting the pilots.  Forced to recruit new pilots from the wash-outs among the fleet he promoted Starbuck to Flight Trainer.  Apollos feelings for Starbuck have finally come into the light after her tryst with Baltar, but have manifested themselves into an angry jealous man who is afraid of losing the woman he loves.  Apollo shined briefly when he destroyed an entire Cylon base single-handed, but still has not entirely gotten over his grief for destroying a human ship during the original evacuation.  His relationship with his father and Commander has not improved much even though they both finally discussed the death of his brother Zach.

Apollo is played by Jamie Bamber

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Review is copyright 2005 Ryan Bechtel

Battlestar Galactica names, characters and everything else associated with the series are the property of Sci-Fi Channel, NBC Universal and R&D Television

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