By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
Ronald D. Moore’s Battlestar Galactica reboot has a well-earned reputation for being a very serious show. Sure, there are moments of levity here and there, but the series never loses its endlessly grim dark tone.
That’s understandable, of course: the show follows the last surviving members of the human race as they flee from extinction at the hands of relentless robot killers. When your TV show is about a slow-rolling apocalypse set in space, there’s not much room (even in the vacuum) for jokes and laughter.
However, Moore has a pretty quirky sense of humor. If you look closely enough, you can find some hilariously off-kilter references to other media that are sure to make you laugh.
In the episode “Litmus,” for example, has a scene in which brilliant, egocentric scientist Gaius Baltar is threatened by the version of Six that lives in his head. As viewers, we’re supposed to take the threat very, very seriously. But that’s hard to do once you realize that she is quoting the Incredible Hulk right to the man’s face!
The Incredible Six
This bizarre Battlestar Galactica tale will require a bit of frakkin’ context. In the show, there are multiple versions of Six, the statuesque Cylon played to sexy perfection by Tricia Helfer. The most mysterious version is one that lives inside Baltar’s head: it frequently talks to him and offers surprising advice from time to time.
In “Litmus,” for example, Baltar decides to destroy the Cylon detector because he thinks it has made him a target. When she learns of his plan, though, Six tells the scientist, “You’re gonna complete the project, like I told you.”
To this, a defiant Baltar says, “Really. Will I? Or what?” A visibly angry Six then gets in his face to utter something quite intimidating. “Don’t make me angry, Gaius. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.” At least, the line is delivered in an intimidating way.
It’s tough for audiences to be scared, though, once they realize the hilarious truth. Six is inexplicably quoting a line made famous by Bill Bixby when he played the titular lead of the Incredible Hulk TV show. Later, Mark Ruffalo would do a callback to this line in Avengers, when he tells Captain America, “That’s my secret, Cap. I’m always angry.”
A Marvel Of A Woman
So, what’s a goofy line from a goofier Marvel show doing in Battlestar Galactica? Nobody knows for sure, but it seems a safe bet that Ronald D. Moore or others on his staff were big fans of the old Incredible Hulk TV show. That’s because we get at least two more homages to this classic television line.
In “Six Degrees of Separation,” Six repeats the “don’t make me angry” part when she threatens Baltar again. Later, in “Collaborators,” there’s a bizarre dream sequence where Sx says, “Don’t make me angry,” only for Adama to complete the quote: “You wouldn’t like her when she’s angry.”
There you have it, you frakkin’ toasters: Battlestar Galactica might be a fairly serious show, but it’s filled with silly homages to the goofiest line in Marvel history. Of course, what makes this tale even stranger is that, canonically, the events of this sci-fi show take place long before the advent of our own modern civilization.
That means that Tricia Helfer’s character isn’t actually quoting the Incredible Hulk. She might (given that this “Head Six” version is seemingly immortal) be the one who inspired Bill Bixby to say it in the first place!
