Batttlestar Gallactica - The Original Series (1 Viewer)

[Jasper70]

I've always felt the ratio of Galactica episodes breaks down pretty much the same for one year as Trek did over three years. One-third good, one-third average, one-third bad. My groupings.

Good
Saga Of A Star World
Lost Planet Of The Gods
Living Legend
War Of The Gods
The Man With Nine Lives
The Hand Of God

Average (Some are slightly better than others but all are middle of the pack)
The Lost Warrior
Gun On Ice Planet Zero
The Long Patrol
Fire In Space
Murder On The Rising Star
Baltar's Escape

Below Average to Bad
The Magnificent Warriors
The Young Lords
Greetings From Earth
Experiment In Terra
Take The Celestra

I will admit even the bad episodes occasionally had a good point or two like the location filming at the ruins of Expo 67 in "Greetings From Earth".

Can you expand upon your last sentence? Ruins of Expo 67? Not familiar with that.

 

[Jack P]

I only found one episode to be truly bad, "The Magnificent Warriors". For 1970's televised sci-fi, the rest were brilliant..

I would probably put "Magnificent Warriors" at the bottom simply because Brett Somers in this episode just evokes too many thoughts of "Match Game" for me. In fact, I have seen on GSN a Match Game where she reveals she has just come to this taping session straight off doing the night shooting for "Magnificent Warriors" and she's in an absolute fog!

The "Terra trilogy" as it is commonly known suffers from poor scripting and acting as opposed to concept with me. The stories needed some polish to be effective but the flaws that drag it down are things like the fact that Hatch insisted on switching lines with Benedict for "Experiment In Terra" and the problem is that he ends up delivering lines in a way that sound like Hatch as Apollo doing line readings like Benedict as Starbuck.

"Young Lords" has some redeeming points but the thing I had trouble with was one small family driving Cylons out and at the end, they're just one family staying behind which has some unsettling ramifications if you think too long (could have been covered with a line about other people in hiding on the planet).

 

[Jack P]

Can you expand upon your last sentence? Ruins of Expo 67? Not familiar with that.

The scenes of Starbuck and Hector (Bobby Van) going through the ruins of the "city" were shot on location in Montreal in the decaying US pavilion building from the old Expo 67 World's Fair. The same building can be seen in its intact state in the "It Takes A Thief" pilot.

 

[Jeff Flugel]

Thanks for these original Galactica reviews and comments, guys! I'm currently debating whether or not to pick this show up (via the 4:3 Blu-Ray set). It's been a loooong time since I've seen it, but with such good word of mouth from you fellas, and my general recently discovered love for most any drama hailing from the '70s, I'm leaning heavily towards pulling the trigger on this later this summer.

 

[Jack P]

I think the important thing when assessing it is to fairly evaluate based on what other shows of the day were like. That to me is when Galactica standing out better than other sci-fi shows of the decade like "Logan's Run", "Fantastic Journey", "Planet Of The Apes" becomes more apparent. Definitely worth a look.

 

[Dave Moritz]

The original series is a must buy on blu-ray this year!

 

[Jasper70]

I have never regretted mine even though I paid top dollar!

 

[BobO'Link]

I think the important thing when assessing it is to fairly evaluate based on what other shows of the day were like. That to me is when Galactica standing out better than other sci-fi shows of the decade like "Logan's Run", "Fantastic Journey", "Planet Of The Apes" becomes more apparent. Definitely worth a look.

I agree although I don't have a particularly high opinion of BSG from that era. I'm highly critical of "serious" SF/Fantasy material and hold it to a much higher standard. I've always felt the majority of SF product on TV is lacking, partialy (solely?) due to the penchant of the "suits" pandering to younger kids by including highly "kid friendly" crap. The thing about that is I felt that way when I was a kid myself. I've always disliked such material in my SF product. For me, that's a major stumbling block for BSG as well as Buck Rogers, ST:TNG, and others from the 70s/80s.

In spite of that I do enjoy many of those series today. Far more than I did when they originally aired.

 

[Dave Moritz]

TV series I really want this year!

Original Battlestar Galactica
Battlestar Galactica Rebot
Original Star Trek

 

[Harry-N]

I watched BATTLESTAR GALACTICA as it aired on ABC and was at least thankful that there was a weekly sci-fi series on the air. Those were the days when STAR TREK was still basking in the glory of 10-year-old reruns. Though happy to have BATTLESTAR, it tended not to really gel with me. I liked some things about it, and didn't care for others.

As noted, early on, the show was more difficult to enjoy. I liked it better once Sheba joined the ensemble.

The sequel series was pretty hard to take - at least after the first episode.

But my big question: Why is there an extra "t" in Battlestar in the title of this thread?

 

[TJPC]

I am only partly interested in this set, so when I saw the wide screen set available for a song, that is what I picked up. I found it perfectly acceptable, and unless it was played side by side with the original aspect ratio set, I could not really tell the difference.

 

[Jack P]

"Galactica 1980" doesn't count as a true "sequel." Just a grotesque nightmare that represented ABC's half-hearted way of acknowledging they'd made a mistake cancelling the show but bringing it back only on the cheap and then being caught by the fact that all the contracts of the actors had expired which meant they weren't under obligation to return in the same way that Pierce Brosnan was obligated to do another year of "Remington Steele" instead of becoming James Bond in 1987. Hatch and Benedict both turned the script down. Greene's return was literally a last minute thing (implausible as it was).

Because G80 was such a slight it was the reason why there was a lot of years of hope for a true revival/closure project to just see it done right. The optimum time would have been the mid-90s when all of the cast was still alive save Greene and could have done it (even John Colicos, Lloyd Bridges and Patrick Macnee). Unfortunately the moment never came (in the interests of thread harmony please leave certain later matters out).

 

[TravisR]

But my big question: Why is there an extra "t" in Battlestar in the title of this thread?

The same reason there's an extra "L" in Galactica in the title of this thread.

 

[Harry-N]

Heh!

 

[BobO'Link]

"Galactica 1980" doesn't count as a true "sequel." Just a grotesque nightmare that represented ABC's half-hearted way of acknowledging they'd made a mistake cancelling the show but bringing it back only on the cheap and then being caught by the fact that all the contracts of the actors had expired which meant they weren't under obligation to return in the same way that Pierce Brosnan was obligated to do another year of "Remington Steele" instead of becoming James Bond in 1987. Hatch and Benedict both turned the script down. Greene's return was literally a last minute thing (implausible as it was).

I was surprised to find Galactica 1980 wasn't the train wreck I was expecting. While it's truly not all that good it does have some interesting ideas.

 

[Dave Moritz]

Not a fan of Galactica 1980

 

[TJPC]

At about the same time George Lucas was building a universe from state of the arts special effects, wonderful acting and wonderful music.

Battlestar Galactica attempted to build a universe completely out of cheese!

 

[Blimpoy06]

I was surprised to find Galactica 1980 wasn't the train wreck I was expecting. While it's truly not all that good it does have some interesting ideas.

I still wish the time travel premise was maintained with Xavier trying to artificially advance Earth technology. It could have given them more story possibilities other than trying to hide the children of the fleet on Earth.

 

[Jack P]

They were in the midst of shooting another time travel episode when they got word of the cancellation and it was never finished. IT was a very unimaginative one involving Cleopatra being brought into the present (I haven't seen the full script) so as was the case with other G80 episodes, they revolved primarily around gimmicks and not interesting concepts the way Galactica had done at its best with Sagan, LPOTG, Living Legend etc.

 

[ScottRE]

I loved Battlestar Galactica both as a kid and to this day. I think the fact that the style is so close to Star Wars gives the series an undeserved bad rap. While a number of the single-part episodes do suffer from being done quickly (and some corniness), most of the two-part episodes are really excellent. The series did have a very strong mythology and a great feeling of family.

The pilot movie was insanely good - even with the dip into disco in the final third. The performances and cinematography were stellar. I refuse to call it Saga of a Star World because this rip-off title makes absolutely no sense.
Lost Planet of the Gods deepened the relationships and mythology.
The Gun on Ice Planet Zero was a super fun Dirty Dozen style adventure with fabulous effects and a broad scope.
The Living Legend - while deeply flawed - was a turning point in the series and a great "Space Patton" showcase.
War of the Gods is my all time favorite epic two parter and a real format changer. It was dark yet hopeful and not even action/adventure. Some deeper stuff here.
Greetings from Earth was the least successful of the feature length stories, especially in its back half. Yet the first part is quite serious and very good. Last time we see Athena or Boxey...

Having said that, there are a number of strong single part episodes as well.

The Long Patrol is the best of the "stranded warrior" plots, even though The Lost Warrior has a sweet relationship story with Apollo, Bella and Puppis.
Fire in Space is a guilty pleasure, but great fun. Sadly the wire work in the space walk scenes is laughably obvious, especially in HD.
The Man With Nine Lives is lovely and a superior Starbuck episode. He and Fed Astaire remained friends until the elderly dancer's death, which was very sweet.
Murder on the Rising Star is above average and a nice look at the night the cylons attacked.
Baltar's Escape is another fine bottle show.
The Hand of God is exceptional. This could easily have been two parts and it's a hell of a way to end the series.

Then came the crushing Galactica 1980. While Galactica Discovers Earth isn't all that bad, it is still a bold step down from what came before. The leads were white bread bland, which didn't help.

After that, it's almost all kids and goofy crap, with The Night the Cylons Landed a wasted opportunity. Instead of an inedible two part epic, we get Wolfman Jack and meatball jokes. To this day, I still say in my best William Daniels nasal: "his meatballs are to the digestive tract what Vida Blue is the the San Francisco Giants...a stoppah."

The Return of Starbuck, however, almost makes this all worthwhile. What a beautiful sendoff to the character and the concept. Such a lovely episode and very sad. Everyone involved was proud of this one and with good reason. Just incredible.

Was Battlestar Galactica cheesy? Sure, it could be. Was it derivative? In some ways, yes. Was it any more or less cheesy than Star Trek or other shows were in the context of their times? Not really. This was the style of TV adventure in the late 70's and for a lot of viewers, it was just fine.

Where are you guys getting your info on the making of the series? I'd love to read as much as I can on it.