Battlestar Galactica

Who, having grown up at the time, can ever forget the good old days, when TV shows like this were the ultimate scream of fashion?

I wasn't even born in the 70's, but I still remember very well that in the early 90's TV often aired TV series like this, which now looking back were made before my time but as a child I didn't know that fact nor do I cared.

'Battlestar Galactica' was created by Glen A. Larson, who also created 'Knight Rider', another TV series from my childhood.

Now, looking at it through an adult's perspective, it is lesser great than it was in the days of innocence, but still 'Battlestar Gallactica' shines in nostalgia. Although some episodes were better than others and they always had their flaws, the show really gives that feeling of nostalgia. If not perfect, at least it is authentic. It is from a time when things were real, when things had a special magic. The opening, for example, is fantastic, with those spectacular images of space and space wars. The opening music too is absolutely wonderful, and that opening quote is memorable:

«There are those who believe that life here began out there, far across the universe, with tribes of humans who may have been the forefathers of the Egyptians, or the Toltecs, or the Mayans. Some believe that there may yet be brothers of man who even now fight to survive somewhere beyond the heavens.»

Like I said, it's by no means a perfect TV show. But the action scenes and their delicious sounds, the special effects, the space backgrounds... ahhh.... it's all so authentic and perfect (as it should be), without any of the excessive action and explosive noise seen these days.

It starred Lorne Greene as Commander Adama, Richard Hatch as Captain Apollo and Dirk Benedict as Lt. Starbuck, all of them great. Most of these episodes also had Noah Hathaway in a minor role as Boxey, Apollo's little son. Boxey is the cute little tyke. Him and his Muffit. This was a few years before he "became" Atreyu. Too bad Boxey doesn't have a bigger role.

Inevitably, this TV series resembles '2001: A Space Odyssey', 'Star Trek' and 'Star Wars'. It was even accused of plagiarism when 'Star Wars' itself heavily drank ideas from an early 70's film called 'Silent Running'.

Having enjoyed the recent reimagining of Battlestar Galatica I was discussing it with a colleague when he brought up the original and I realised that I had not seen it for several decades and, even then, it was fragmented in my memory. I decided to watch it again and I was quite surprised by how much I remember some of the episodes and how I don't think I had ever seen some of the others. Anyway, this was reason enough to watch it from the start to the end – a decision made easier by the fact that it was only one season long before it got cancelled.

To get the comparisons out of the way, watching both leaves me in little doubt that those that trash the remake and praise the original are probably heavily influenced by protective nostalgia when they say that, because there are few ways that this is the case. Indeed the ways that the original is "better" than the remake relates to qualities that I didn't like in the original and that the remake didn't try and have (namely a swashbuckling comedy and the clumsy aim at the family/kiddie viewing sector). With that more or less done I can concentrate on judging the original Battlestar Galatica on its own terms and not against something else. This produces a mixed feeling that I struggle to reconcile because at times this series is awful and at others times it is actually quite engaging and offers potential (that it admittedly doesn't manage to deliver on) but mostly it is a mixed bag.

The split is not total but the series does seem to go through phases where it is silly and for kids and then also more dramatic stuff that could have been a solid backbone for more. Sadly it gets into the silly stuff first. While Apollo and Starbuck were always going to be the lead characters, the first half of the season makes it their show, with a weekly "theme park" style story where we have planets that are like the Wild West or like Medieval times etc etc. Annoyingly all these stories seem to involve the Cylons – who are either already on these planets or are using these planets as a trap for the Galatica. This bugged me because it felt like the Cylons were so far ahead all the time that the struggle to watch the survivors shouldn't be this hard and it minimised their presence as a real tangible threat because they were always a handful of robots laying a trap, not a race hunting another to extension. None of it is helped by the overuse of that child and also that bl00dy robot dog thing.

Happily things get a bit more "serious" in the second half of the series, where the approach appears to be more towards action and plot rather than the kiddie theme park approach. It doesn't really pull this off though. The Cylons drop off the map for many episodes while the Eastern Alliance comes into it, but then that thread isn't done particularly well either. That said though it did generally make for a much better series than the first half had been – but it is still not that great. It is the contentment with the basics that hurt it, because nothing really convinces and nothing really engages or builds. The Cylons don't menace like they should, the human fleet doesn't feel like it is more than a handful of people, many, many threads are left with unsatisfying endings (and I mean mi-series, not just cause it got cancelled) while other threads just "stop" without a thought for the viewer, as if to say "well, that's that episode filled". The Pegasus episodes along with the Eastern Alliance and other specifics do offer a more grown up thread/feel that could be expanded like the remake did to great success but this never happens and it retains a very fragmented and unsatisfying feel.

There is much to enjoy about it despite this. The effects are limited but the designs are great, with the centurions, the base stars, the vipers or the Galatica herself being iconic and memorable. The comic swagger it has also works well, with Starbuck benefiting from this with some nice moments in the action. Such things as these combined with the better aspects of the second half of the series do combine to make it a solid enough piece of TV sci-fi but the "downsides" do limit it a lot and make it less than it could have been. The mix of aims, the lack of consistency in the central plot (escaping genocide) and in the tone (is it for kids, it is for adults, is it a comedy, is it all worthy and heavy??) are too big to overcome and, as a whole series it is not that great when you sit now and watch it with as little "warm nostalgic glow" as you can muster. Has good episodes and bad episodes but too many fall somewhere in the middle, showing a potential that frustratingly it never really seems to realise or do anything with.

ok.. I have read all the comments about BSG... I must say I am disappointed in many of the truly negative comments. I remember watching BSG when it first aired... I would never miss the show when it was on. I was sad to see it leave the airwaves when it was canceled. I did watch 'Galactica 1980' when the series resurfaced for a brief time. The only episode I liked from that was the one featuring Starbuck when he crash landed on a planet and had a cylon as his companion for company. Yes... the show had feathered hair styles that showed the influence of the times of the late 70's. But who cares! I liked the friendship between Apollo, StarBuck, and I loved when they added Sheeba into the group. BSG is a part of Sci-Fi History. I would really love to see Richard Hatch's film he made of BSG that he financed and made. but unless it was ever shown at a convention... I will never get to see it. I will watch SciFi channels 'Re-Imagined' BSG, but hate the fact that StarBuck and Boomer will be female characters now. With StarBuck as a Female... it will kind of take away a lot of the friendship that Apollo and StarBuck had together. It's not like you will see them going to the rising star or an officer's club looking for women together anymore. No daggit Muffy either. But I'll give the newer series a chance...Just as I did for ST:TNG(Star Trek:The Next Generation). Fans of Star Trek, and even the original Trek cast from TOS were back handed slapping TNG when it first came out. They claimed they knew Star Trek, and the new show will fail. But TNG made it through a rocky 1st and 2nd season. They really came into their own as the 3rd season began. Maybe the new BSG will be Ok? We'll see what happens when it starts in Dec.2003. I just wish people would stop slamming BSG in so many of the comments I have sat through for the last 15 mins. Some of them are by people that have just seen the series for the first time on the sci-fi channel.. It's really all about right now is what the fans of the show remember from seeing it back in 78/79 and appreciating it all over again in reruns on SciFi, and buying the DVD set due out 10/2003. It's a piece of history for SciFi. Those of you that have been slamming it. Maybe it was your first time seeing it as a rerun someplace. Watch the newer version coming out in Dec. 2003. SciFi has a web site up for it right now giving some background into the newer 'Re-Imagined' version.

Well all I want to say is. I love the show. It still stands up to the test of time as a great series. no matter what you others have been saying about it. Hopefully I will be around long enough to see all of the newer BSG if it does become a TV series... Seeing as I have cancer (Hodgkins disease) and have endured a long treatment in a year and 7 months among which was a really long treatment called 'Stem Cell Transplant'.... Anyhow. Enough said.

The original Galactica was in my opinion, good, but the reason why it only lasted one season in my opinion are as follows:

-The effects did not look original, so it was seen as a Star Wars Ripoff.

-It was seen mostly as something for kids at the time, so adults felt no use in watching it.

-The sociopolitical sitcoms of the time(All in The Family, Sanford and Son, The Jeffesrsons, etc)were winding down and prime-time soap-operas like Dallas and Knots Landing were starting to get big, so it was doomed from the beginning since most people at the time would rather watch a prime-time version of daytime drama like Dallas than a sci-fi epic series on television. Dallas debuted at the same time period as Galactica.

-No such thing as "first-run syndication" existed at the time. It probably would have gone on longer if it had. I don't think frist-run syndication existed until Star Trek: The Next Generation came on the air in thae late 1980s.

Only in the last five years or so has "Battlestar Galactica" begun to emerge from the unfair stigma that was attached to it for so many years as a "Star Wars ripoff". Although a lot of people don't know this, based on what gets written by BG bashers in their histories of sci-fi TV, George Lucas's lawsuit against Universal was dismissed on all counts and found to be without merit. Indeed, considering how Lucas had "borrowed" from so many other genre stories of the past his lawsuit claiming Galactica stole from Star Wars was the biggest case of hypocrisy ever.

For me, "Galactica" continues to age well and is even better than it was when I first experienced it as a child in 1978. Unlike the Star Wars series, which increasingly came to be about FX at the expense of characters, BG's appeal has always lied in its characters. The characters of Apollo (Richard Hatch), Starbuck (Dirk Benedict), Adama (Lorne Greene), Sheba (Anne Lockhart) and even the wicked Baltar (John Colicos) were fascinating and multi-dimensional. And unlike Star Trek, there was a semblance of continuity and character development whereas the former was entirely self-contained from week to week with no development in the characters.

Was BG flawed? Certainly. But it also attracted a larger audience in its one year on ABC than any Star Trek series ever has in syndication. What can't be forgiven is ABC's quick dismissal of this show and then insulting the intelligence of us all by bringing it back in a bastardized version known as "Galactica 1980".

Hopefully, Galactica fans will one day get the last laugh if there is a successful revival with the original cast. It's a show that deserves another chance even more than Star Trek did.