I'm a smoker, what's so negative about tobacco?
But seriously, on Ron Moore's(BSG's producer) blog someone asks him about the smoking doctor amongs other things and he says that it's his personal FU to the anti tobacco lobby.
I must say I'm a fan of that.
""I love the smoking doctor! Does he have a name? Isn't sickbay a little small considering the size of Galactica?"
I love the doctor too. The character's name is Major Cottle and I think we're only seeing one part of one Sickbay on the ship. It's worth keeping in mind that while Galactica is an enormous ship and was built to be manned by a very large crew, that she had only a skeleton complement on board at the time of the Cylon attack. That explains in large part why we see so few officers and why people like Kara are pressed into service in roles other than their primary one. There are probably several (unused) Pilot Ready Rooms aboard Galactica and possibly other Sickbay facilities as well. Dr. Cottle is our only physician onboard, but if she were fully staffed, Galactica would probably have a large medical staff and would have a sizable hospital facility.
"Why does the doctor smoke?"
Because smoking is cool. Don't let anyone tell you different, kid.
Seriously, we're showing people doing what people really do and not all of their choices are smart ones. We smoke, we drink, we have sex with the wrong partners -- we make lots of bad choices and some of them we do knowingly and in full cognizance of the risks and consequences. Dr. Cottle obviously knows the risks associated with smoking and he elects to do it anyway -- that's his choice.
I'm also frankly tired of all the anti-smoking p.c. crap that we're bombarded with these days and I decided that this was a world without all that. Call it my one sop to the idea of an idealized society, the notion that adults can make informed choices and not be nagged to death or run out of public spaces for making choices that others may not like or agree with."
http://blog.scifi.com/battlestar/archives/2005/02/ index.html
