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Production: USA, 1978-80 Cast: Richard Hatch, Dirk Benedict, Lorne Greene, Herbert Jefferson jr., John Colicos, Maren Jensen, Laurette Spang, Anne Lockart, Patrick McNee. Since the first release of this serie something was clear: the huge influence from “Star Wars”, released a year before. So that immediately there was an action for plagiary from 20th Century Fox, which owned the rights. |
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The action had no effect, but the similiarities existed. There were
battles between space fleets, dogfights with space fighters and, quite
important, the special effects supervisor was the same of “Star Wars”,
John Dykstra. The plot was very simple. Human race exists since a very long time, and colonized a large number of planets and also Earth (whose first colonizers were perhaps the egyptians or the mayas). But an evil race, called Cylons, is trying to exterminate all humans. By a surprise attack, they destroy all the human ships, except for the “Galactica”, commanded by Adama (Lorne Greene, which was already famous for the western serie “Bonanza”, where he had a similar, in a certain way, leading role). Adama rescues the surviving colonizers and decides to search for the mythical 13th human colony, Earth. |
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Adama is trusted by his whole crew: thanks to his wisdom he didn’t obey to
the colonial council saving the Galactica from the Cylon attack… Another leading character is captain Apollo (Richard Hatch): son of Adama, he absolutely trusts his father and is leader of the Viper Squadron, single-seater space fighters (which terribly look like the “x-wing” fighters from “Star Wars”…). Then there is Starbuck (Dirk Benedict, who will later appear in “A-team”). Starbuck is a member of the Viper Squadron and often works together with Apollo. Here too we have resemblances with “Star Wars”: although brave and loyal, Starbuck loves money very much, he is lady-killer and daring, a sort of space cow-boy as Han Solo (we could point that Viper pilots uniform looks like Solo’s clothes…). Together with him we often see coloured lt. Boomer (Herbert Jefferson jr.), another member of the |
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Viper Squadron. Cain (Lloyd Bridges) is the commander of the Pegasus, another battlestar ship which all believed destroyed during the first attack. Cain is a skillful commander and a resolute warrior: he asks for Adama’s help to attack and destroy the Cylons for ever. His ship is finally destroyed by enemies… but no one is really sure about that. Count Baltar (John Colicos) is the ultimate villain: he has the task of dealing with Cylons, but he is double-crossing and stays by the Cylons’side. A real traitor who proves to be even worst than the Cylons themselves. But the most evil character should be Count Iblis (the late Patrick McNee, unforgotten as John Steed in “The Avengers”): Count Iblis, in fact, is the Devil himself, and of course is very simpathetic to Baltar…! Iblis tries to seed disagreement and evil |
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temptations among the Galactica’s crew, but after
two episodes he disappears (there are shining beings, possibly angels,
chasing for him…). A female character always present is Athena (Maren Jensen), Apollo’s sister: on duty on the Galactica’s bridge, is mainly a decorative presence (something like the “U.F.O.” moonbase girls). More important is Cassiopea (Laurette Spang): she does all her best to be Starbuck’s girlfriend, but keeping tied such a man is a desperate task. In the first episodes appears Serina (Jane Seymour), Apollo’s fiancèe, who dies in the fifth episode during an enemy’s attack. Serina leaves a little son, Boxey (Noah Hathaway), who is adopted by Apollo. Sheba (Anne Lockhart) is Cain’s daughter, who finds her new home aboard the |
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Galactica after the disappearing of her father with his ship. She is
corageous but also naïve, and Count Iblis nearly succeeds in bringing her
by his side. The serie is produced by Glen A. Larson, an american television’s old fox, and had a very troubled story. At first was born as a three hours miniserie, followed by other two with a length of two hours each. But ABC network’s executives, after watching the first reels, pushed for a real serie. Realizing how difficult could have been making a serie with such production standards (the “Star Wars” ones, and anyway it was a TV show in year 1978…), Larson tried to have a deal to make the serie the following year, but ABC didn’t want to hear him: the serie had to be produced immediately. So the troupe and the cast had to face a exhausting job: they worked for 14 hours |
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a day, seven days a week, and this lasted for 18 months. The result was obvious: they all lived for today, and the scripts quality was absolutely discontinuous. Sometimes writers had to re-write all during the shots, and delivered the finished script when the episode was almost half finished. ABC executives pretended to control everything, and ordered changes in the stories following their very personal ideas. A good exemple are the centurions, those cool big Cylon robots which are one of the best remembered features of the serie. At first the Cylons were a race of humanoid reptylians: but the stories needed a lot of them to be killed during battles, which was not “politically correct”: so the centurions were born, because it was less immoral to destroy machines, although very sophisticated ones. |
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After such a labour, there was the final sell: there was not a second
season because ratings were not considered satisfying. On the other hand, there was a sort of spin-off titled “Galactica 1980”. This serie was much shorter, and showed what happened 30 years later when the Galactica finally found Earth, discovering it was not enough advanced to fight the Cylons (in fact on Earth it was the year 1980). The main characters were not the same of the original serie, except for Adama, Boomer (who now was a colonel and Galactica’s first officer) and, as a guest star, Starbuck, who was believed for dead and was instead a castaway on Earth. The new main characters were Captain Troy (Kent McCord) who was simply a grown-up Boxey, the adopted son of Apollo in the previous serie: now he was a Viper |
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pilot.
Lieutenant Dillon (Barry Van Dyke) was his friend and worked with him in
every episode. |
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Battlestar Galactica (24 episodes, colour, 60') 1) Saga of a Star World, part I 2) Saga of a Star World, part II 3) Saga of a Star World, part III - (with these episodes is made the movie "Battlestar Galactica") 4) Lost Planet of the Gods, part I 5) Lost Planet of the Gods, part I 6) The Lost Warrior 7) The Long Patrol |
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| 8) The Gun on Ice Planet Zero, part
I 9) The Gun on Ice Planet Zero, part II 10) The Magnificent Warriors 11) The Young Lords 12) The Living Legend, part I 13) The Living Legend, part II 14) Fire in Space - (with this episode, together with the two previous ones, is made the movie "Mission Galactica: the Cylon attack") 15) War of the Gods, part I 16) War of the Gods, part II 17) The Man With Nine Lives |
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| 18) Murder on the Rising Star 19) Greetings From Earth, part I 20) Greetings From Earth, part II 21) Baltar's Escape 22) Experiment in Terra 23) Take the Celestra 24) The Hand of God Galactica 1980 (10 episodes, colour, 60') 1) Galactica Discovers Earth, part I |
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| 2) Galactica Discovers Earth, part II 3) Galactica Discovers Earth, part III 4) The Super Scouts, part I 5) The Super Scouts, part II 6) Spaceball 7) The Night the Cylons Landed, part I 8) The Night the Cylons Landed, part II 9) Space Croppers 10) The Return of Starbuck |
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