| Brendan Costanza | ||
|---|---|---|
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Name |
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| Age | ||
| Colony | ||
| Birth place | {{{birthplace}}} | |
| Birth Name | Brendan Costanza | |
| Birth Date | {{{birthdate}}} | |
| Callsign | Hot Dog | |
| Nickname | {{{nickname}}} | |
| Introduced | Act of Contrition | |
| Death | ||
| Parents | ||
| Siblings | ||
| Children | ||
| Marital Status | Single | |
| Family Tree | View | |
| Role | Viper pilot, battlestar Galactica | |
| Rank | Lieutenant | |
| Serial Number | {{{serial}}} | |
| Portrayed by | Bodie Olmos | |
| Brendan Costanza is a Cylon | ||
| Brendan Costanza is a Final Five Cylon | ||
| Brendan Costanza is a Human/Cylon Hybrid | ||
| Brendan Costanza is an Original Series Cylon | ||
| Related Media | ||
| @ BW Media | ||
| Additional Information | ||
| [[Image:|200px|Brendan Costanza]] | ||
Lt. Brendan "Hot Dog" Costanza is a cocksure pilot, originally washed out of Colonial flight school, but selected as a candidate pilot (nugget) for Viper training under the command of Kara "Starbuck" Thrace.
Biography[edit]
Costanza was a Fleet Academy washout, surviving the Cylon Holocaust. He is recruited as a Viper pilot trainee after an accident kills 13 Viper pilots, including Flat Top (Act of Contrition). Initially washed out from Viper training under Lieutenant Kara Thrace, Costanza is reinstated after Commander William Adama ordered his and other nuggets' return to flight training status.
After the reinstatement, Costanza demonstrates an aptitude for being inventive and an overenthusiastic tendency for taking initiative. He acts more experienced than he really is and tries to be top dog. Costanza demonstrates this when a group of eight Cylon Raiders encounter Starbuck, Hot Dog and his fellow nuggets on a training flight. Instead of obeying Starbuck's orders by returning to Galactica at full throttle, Hot Dog returns to assist Thrace as a wingman. This act almost gets the young, inexperienced pilot killed, but buys Starbuck time to dispatch all eight Raiders in a situation where, if not for Hot Dog's distraction of the collective enemy fighter group, Starbuck's odds of survival would be considerably less (Act of Contrition).
Costanza ejects from his severely damaged Viper and is subsequently rescued by Alert 1 (Act of Contrition) and a Raptor piloted by Sharon Valerii and Crashdown (You Can't Go Home Again). However, he loses his lunch on the Raptor's deck.
Costanza develops a bond with Louanne Katraine and Chuckles, members of his training group (Act of Contrition).
Hot Dog takes part in the attack on a Cylon tylium refinery as part of Strike Force One. It appears he assumes command of the group with the death of their flight leader, Fireball (The Hand of God)
Hot Dog takes part in defending Galactica from a Cylon attack while she relocates the separated Fleet (Scattered). After returning to Galactica, Hot Dog survives a brief run in with a Cylon Centurion that boards the ship. With shipboard systems unreliable, Apollo orders Hot Dog to personally report the situation to CIC (Valley of Darkness).
While flying CAP, Colonel Saul Tigh orders Hot Dog to intercept a Raptor carring the escaping President Laura Roslin. After pilot Apollo continues their escape after Hot Dog fires a warning shot across his bow, Colonel Tigh orders Hot Dog to stand down rather than shoot Apollo's Raptor down (Resistance).
Costanza is one of the pilots, along with Apollo and Starbuck, who are scrambled to intercept two Cylon raiders on a presumed reconnaissance mission to find Galactica. The raiders are dispatched with ease, though their real mission was to relay a transmission from a Cylon agent on board Galactica to Caprica (Final Cut).
Costanza is again scrambled with the rest of Galactica's air group to face a massive formation of Cylon forces. With the timely intervention of Caprica-Sharon, the enemy fighters are disabled and Hot Dog joyfully takes part in the Great Cylon Turkey Shoot (Flight of the Phoenix).
Costanza is among the pilots on Galactica assigned to patrol the asteroid field during mining operations. He survives the operation, though several of his fellow pilots do not (Scar).
Hot Dog leads Blue Squadron in the attack on the shipyard on New Caprica, when he and his wingman Redwing provide cover fire for resistance members attempting to enter the facility (Exodus, Part II).
Costanza is the one that suggests Athena as a callsign for Sharon Agathon. He appears to be one of Major Lee Adama's senior pilots (Torn) and is a member of the boarding party sent to investigate the dying Cylon basestar found in the Lion's Head Nebula (A Measure of Salvation).
At a mission briefing he complains about a rash in his pubic region. Helo teases him about and says that he hopes the girl was worth it, moving to the next seat (A Day in the Life).
Costanza is assigned to fly as Starbuck's wingman during a routine CAP while the fleet undergoes refueling operations near a gas giant. It is on one of these CAPs Starbuck believes to have made visual contact with a Cylon ship, though Costanza and Starbuck's gun camera see nothing (Maelstrom).
Two weeks after Starbuck's death, Costanza is present during the daily mission brief conducted by Lee Adama immediately prior to the Major being taken off flight status and replaced with Karl Agathon as CAG (The Son Also Rises).
During the opening days of Baltar's trial, Costanza is playing a game of Pyramid in Joe's bar with the nuggets Diana Seelix and Samuel Anders (Crossroads, Part I).
Notes[edit]
- Kat is promoted to Lieutenant after passing through Viper training, so presumably Hot Dog has also been promoted to Lieutenant by the episode "Final Cut", but this has not been confirmed in an aired episode as yet. Apparently, as seen in the episode "Scar" newly graduated cadets actually hold the rank of Ensign, and presumably get promoted over time. However, Kat had been confirmed as a Lieutenant at that time and Hot Dog has been a pilot as just as long as her (they were in the first batch of nuggets), so he is probably a Lieutenant as well.
- Actor Bodie Olmos is the youngest son of Edward James Olmos (Admiral William Adama) and the grandson of actor/singer Howard Keel.
- In the DVD commentary for "Act of Contrition", David Eick and Ron D. Moore elaborate on the increased role of the nugget pilots as the series progressed:
- Eick: This young actress playing Kat has proven to be--and there's Bodie Olmos, Eddie's son, in the center there who's Hot Dog, he's also become a recurring character.
- RDM: Well those three in the front, Chuckles, Hot Dog, and Kat, they all became "pilots" to us. And I don't think we really had any expectation of that. The idea was we were going to do "the nuggets", "the new pilots", was just going to be its own kind of story, and maybe you might see one of these guys again later. And what started happening is the writers just started putting them in, like almost every scene that we dealt with the pilots (of Galactica) so these became our "recognizable faces".
- During the initial briefing with Starbuck, Hotdog can be seen to be flipping his pen around his fingers in a similar fashion to "Iceman" from the movie "Top Gun" (Act of Contrition).