The Base Star Model and an old style Centurion were present in the Galactica (BSG-75) museum, so very fitting. Also, without going to my discs, the Armageddon station officer had stat sheets on the old Cylons too, before he got waxed.
So this thing finally dropped like a turd into my mailbox from Amazon (what can I say, I'm a glutton for punishment!)
As I looked at the packaging and plopped it into my DVD player, I noticed a few unusual errors:
* The final 7 episodes after the initial 3 parter use the title 'Battlestar Galactica' in the opening credits rather than 'Galactica 1980'. If I recall, this is how it was syndicated. Fortunately, the episodes themselves appear to be complete and generally unmolested other than this mistake, judging by the running times. There's a Billy Joel song even featured in the first episode.
*The synopses provided in the packaging make an error on the 7th episode description for "Night of the Cylons Part 1". Instead of referring to a Cylon ship crash-landing, they instead refer to it as a Colonial ship, which is completely wrong and makes no sense.
Given the care and attention to detail that went into the original 1978 series' DVD release, it's obvious that different people were involved with this set, and that they had a MUCH smaller budget to work with putting this set together.
Nevertheless, the collection is now complete, and sits humbly on my DVD shelf steaming away...
I got this the other day too. Man is it bad, even worse than i remembered! Except The Return of Starbuck is fun. I still love that episode, and is worth the $20 alone!
The transfers are good enough to make Adama's Santa beard look more fake than ever. I would say they are on par with the earlier BG set. I don't think they've been remastered though, thank goodness. Nothing would be more disturbing than being able to count Robbie "Dr. Zee" Rist's nose hairs. Nor could it save the acting. Why some of these actors didn't have their SAG memberships revoked is truly one of life's great mysteries.
I think the actors did the best with what they were given. Jeremy Brett, (of Sherlock Holmes fame) turns up in one episode!
I never saw Galactica 1980 in syndication, save for footage from "The Return of Starbuck" spliced into one of the BSG tv-movies. I think the name change happened during the original ABC run. When the SciFi channel exhumed it back in the 90's, they made a point of saying the show hadn't been seen since it originally aired.
Anybody else get deja-vu when Troy is driving a police car?
It was Galactica 1980 til the very end. The name change came about when it went into syndication with Battlestar Galactica. After all, you barely have 30 episodes with BOTH shows together.
I think he meant worldwide syndication, as you're right, G: 80 was not part of the 1980s syndication packages (I had a local station running the show around 1983-84, and when they reached the end, they switched to Buck Rogers and then back to Galactica when buck finished).
As was previously said, the series on-screen title was Galactica: 1980 for the entire ABC run. I used to have all of them on a VHS copied from off-air 1980 broadcasts. I think the retitling was for (initially) foreign syndication, and one would think that it's likely these versions that got used for the DVD set.
At first, one would think "maybe the original-titled versions were never transferred to modern tape formats", but I have the old 1988 (or so) Goodtimes VHS of "Return of Starbuck" that retains its original Galactica: 1980 title (though the box just says "Battlestar Galactica").
Of course, errors like this appear to be fairly common: the first few episodes on the Kolchak set are missing their original on-screen title, which was (on original broadcast, and on some CBS Late Night reruns) simply The Night Stalker.
I just finished my set and despite the terrible dialogue, bad acting, dumb and predictable plots, reused footage from the original series, all of the stupid changes in cast and story, the loss of the cool bridge set, I loved every minute of it . This show was fun to watch and the Starbuck episode was by far the best episode. For the most part, the episodes looked really good. I'd watch this series again.
I only watched the three part opener, the Night The Cylons Landed and the final episode (Return of Starbuck). I just couldn't bring myself to watch any of the episodes with the 'Star Children.' Those were just beyond dumb.
I will say that the three part opener did have possibilities for a good series. The time travel aspect could have been a lot of fun. Chasing Xavier through different time periods. It would have gotten old after about the fourth or fifth time, but it did have potential.
All in all, I'm glad that I have this, but it will never compare to the original series. Galactica 1980 just looked cheap from the beginning.
I purchase Galactica 1980 and it was a neat show, especially the episode with the Return of Starbuck. I alway like the original series, especially Dirk Benedict as starbuck.
There were some good episodes, like when they went back to Germany during the War and when Robert Reed was on an episode.