How Battlestar Galactica’s "Frak" Solved A Sci-Fi Problem

The use of “frak” in Battlestar Galactica smartly got around network restrictions around bad language, while solving a common problem in mainstream science fiction on TV and in movies. The sci-fi expletive originated in Glen A. Larson’s original Battlestar Galactica, where it was spelt “frack” and predominantly used by Starbuck (Dirk Benedict) as a more network-appropriate replacement for s**t. When Ronald D. Moore rebooted BSG in the early 2000s, the subtly different “frak” was still frequently used by Starbuck (Katee Sackhoff), but was widely used across the whole fleet in place of the word f**k.