Galactica

Yeah yeah, so it may be considered a Star Wars ripoff by some. Who cares? As a kid in the 70's, I loved nothing more than the movie and then the subsequent ABC TV series especially with all of the special effects that kids love to see after Star Wars came out. And when the Scifi Channel started to show the series again, I couldn't get enough of it. An underappreciated scifi series in my opinion.

Battlestar Galactica is one of those series you either love or hate, or else didn't watch. I loved it. It had a great concept and, generally good effects. The writing was a bit uneven at times, with the "homages" to other genres and movies getting way out of hand (Magnificent Seven, Guns of Navarone, Shane, Dirty Dozen, Perry Mason, Towering Inferno, etc.). As far as the criticism of "rip-off" goes, Battlestar Galactica was vindicated in court and in saga itself. The only real similarities with Star Wars are that both are space opera, both have bad guys in armor, both had dogfights in space, and both had John Dykstra supervising the effects. Otherwise, the biblical story of Galactica bore little resemblance to the mythical Star Wars. Besides, Star Wars was inspired by Flash Gordon, Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress, The Dam Busters, King Arthur, and the works of Joseph Campbell. I think a series based on Exodus and Erik Von Danekan can be cut a little slack.

The acting was generally good, although the child actors were not the most skilled (but, hey, they're kids). Lorne Greene was great as the fatherly Adama, leading his people on a search for their brethren. Richard Hatch was the mature and stoic Apollo; the cerebral hero. Dirk Bennedict is the reckless and fun-loving Starbuck, the true fighter pilot in space. John Colicos is the evil Baltar, traitor to his people; part Benedict Arnold, part Herod, part Hitler. Add a well rounded supporting cast and you have a fine ensemble.

Yes, there is much dated material here: feathered hairdo's, disco clothes, social interaction; but it doesn't detract from the better stories. The use of a unique slang was a nice idea, but a bit distracting. The music was good and the Egyptian influences were interesting in the designs. The uniforms were stylish and gave a sense of military symbol and function. The ship designs were cool (can't say it any other way).

The biggest fault in this series is the tendency to depart from the overall saga into homage episodes. "Gun on Ice Planet Zero" was a fine remake of the Guns of Navarone and the Dirty Dozen, but it also presented a threat to the fleet and a new obstacle they must overcome. Others, like "The Lost Warrior" or "The Magnificent Warriors" had little consequence for the fleet and tended to get bogged down. The series was at its best when the Galactica found a new clue to the lost tribe, or overcame the Cylons to live another day. Unfortunately, the producers didn't have a timeline in mind when they created this show, unlike Babylon 5. Had they determined how long the journey should take, they could have avoided unnecessary episodes and concentrated on the overall saga, bringing character development and drama into the story, without losing sight of their goal. As it was, we were teased with false Earths and little idea when the Lost Tribe would be found. Unfortunately, when it was found, the series took a complete nosedive.

It will be interesting to see what the future will bring for this series; but, for the present, I will continue to watch my tapes. Is it too much to ask for a DVD release for the entire series?

It is very easy to see why 'Battlestar Galactica' was popular at the time, even with its early cancellation, and had high ratings, as well as still having people very fond of it.

At the same time it is also easy to pick faults with 'Battlestar Galactica', which through adult eyes is an uneven show with the flaws much more noticeable. With me, there is still fondness for it from a nostalgic point of view, it fascinated and entertained me as a child and it still does now as a young adult. However, 'Battlestar Galactica' is a long way from a perfect show and could have done far more with the potential it had. It is a long way from a bad show, just not great.

There is a lot to like. Apart from costumes and hairstyles that feel very 70s and date the show a bit, repetitive use of effects and lack of scope for space itself (space is huge, this felt pretty compact), the look of 'Battlestar Galactica' is fine. The sets are eye-catching, it's very nicely shot and the effects themselves were great for the 70s and even though used in a repetitious and recycled fashion hold up reasonably well now with the odd limitation here and there.

With the music, one has to love the rousing bombast and playful energy of the scoring, while the theme tune is up there with the most iconic theme tunes of any show from the 70s and of the sci-fi genre. There are many nice moments in the script, with some knowing humour and thought-provoking opening narration and closing quotes. Tonally and quality-of-plots-wise, 'Battlestar Galactica' is inconsistent. When it was not good it was cringe-worthy ("The Young Lords", especially the annoying interplay of the child actors and the child actors themselves) but when it was good it was fantastic ("War of the Gods" took a darker and bolder approach and at the same time ended up epitomising what the show is all about).

'Battlestar Galactica's' stories could have benefited better from having a time-line, which would have made the tone more focused and the quality of stories more consistent. Due to that the show can get bogged down by some childish antics, that turned out not to be cheesy in a good way it sometimes got embarrassing (like they were trying too hard to appeal to children or a family-friendly audience). As well as too many homages (like in "The Magnificent Warriors" or that clumsy and weird cowboy in space episode "Lost Warrior" - in an attempt to appeal to older audiences, indicating a confusion as to which target audience to aim it at- that serve little relevance or point, loses the whole focus of the story in question and like they'd forgotten what the quest was. When it took a darker and bolder approach with more challenging subjects, it was often very engrossing and that approach could have been explored even more.

Most of the characters work very well, Starbuck (a favourite among fans and with good reason) and dignified Adama are my favourites. Apollo and Boomer are also great. The exceptions are the child actors in "The Young Lords", annoying and trying-too-hard-to-be-cutesy Boxey (played to not much better effect by Noah Hathaway, who went on to give a great performance in 'The NeverEnding Story', so the blame lies on the writing not Hathaway) and the less said about Muffit II (especially painful in his very over-exposed role in "Fire in Space") the better. The Cylons are also inconsistently characterised, sometimes menacing at other idiotic and made to look like fools.

The performances, apart from the children, are in fine keeping with the show and hold up well on their own, Lorne Green, Richard Hatch and Dirk Benedict being especially good. Patrick Macnee, Herbert Jefferson Jnr and John Colicos are sterling support as well.

In conclusion, uneven but entertaining. 7/10 Bethany Cox

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.

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.