According to executive producer Ronald D. Moore, Billy was killed to release actor Paul Campbell to do other projects.
Learning that Abinell is seeking revenge for her husband's death in a Cylon attack, Adama refuses and orders Starbuck to plan a rescue with several marines.
Adama sends over the corpse of Sharon "Boomer" Valerii, the Number Eight copy who shot him and died,[1] to give Marines time to storm the bar.
He also argues that Abinell's initial resistance to Adama's offer to bring Sharon dead and her violent reaction upon seeing the corpse prove that her motivations are personal rather than political.
He compares the process of stripping Starbuck of her protection to Eustace Scrubb losing his dragon skin in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.
[4] Moore said that Billy was killed in "Sacrifice" because Campbell was being offered good roles on other television series, and the scheduling conflicts were interfering with filming.
In the film, as in "Sacrifice", a "true believer" stands at the top of the hostage takers, who are ultimately unprepared for the arrival of the authorities.
Moore notes that Adama and Roslin also have loved ones in the bar (Lee and Billy, respectively), but the emotional connection does not affect their decisions, either.
[2] In a scene that was cut because of time and financial constraints, Starbuck's presence aboard Cloud 9 was explained by showing her about to have a liaison with a man she had just met.
Moore noted that showing this in "Sacrifice" would have contradicted the previous episode, "Scar", in which Starbuck finds a measure of peace over Anders.
[2] Executive producer David Eick knew actress Dana Delany (Abinell) personally and convinced her to make a guest appearance in the series.
Rose Wojnar of The San Diego Union-Tribune gave the episode a B−, criticizing "overuse of Sesha’s flashback of her husband dying and the predictable shot of her falling dead on Sharon’s body".
[4] Keith McDuffee of TV Squad was glad to see Lee back to form after several difficult episodes but questioned the plausibility of the terrorists falling for the Boomer-switching trick.
[9] Amanda Keith responded favorably to the episode in general but felt the writers "flubbed how they portrayed [Dee's] relationship with Lee".
[3] Simon Brew of Den of Geek wrote, "it was good telly, but the show has inevitably struggled to recapture the flat-out brilliance of the middle of the season.
He also disliked how Starbuck's raid was filmed and thought that the script fell short by not explaining why the Marines don't storm the bar from the back through the passage where Lee tampers with the oxygen sensor.
He praised the performances of actors Jamie Bamber (Lee), Paul Campbell (Billy), Kandyse McClure (Dee), Mary McDonnell (Roslin), and Katee Sackhoff (Starbuck).