Battlestar Galactica (1978-79). Part One. A Nest of Vipers, But The Good Type.

it's a warrior to do after he's lost the big one when a few the low ones A Space Adventure series from the late 1970s that only ran for one year but has managed to remain beloved by many also it doesn't hurt that it's held up pretty well unlike that ski lift designed by Uncle Ridge but I'm sure you understand all that don't you humans and syons face off against each other in Battlestar Galactica battl Star [Music] [Applause] [Music] Galactica there are those who believe that life here began out there or was it there no there no I tell a lie it's in the shed out the back of Derek's place I'm not going to find the answer here Battle Star Galactica Chronicles the remnants of the 12 human colonies in space who having almost been destroyed by the robotic syons embark on a journey to find a lost 13th colony in the hope that they'll help them leading the fleet of surviving humans the last last remaining Battle Star the Galactica headed by Commander Adama and his rapidly diminishing extended family that was my son Mr President today we look at the late '70s classic battl Star Galactica a show that ran for just one season but refused to die even with the active encouragement of a really not well-received kid focused sequel series we're looking at the original 1978 Series in this video we'll take a look at Galactica 1980 another time and come back for a third video that looks back at every episode of both series you will of course do you think me a fool we kicked off this Channel with a review of the 2004 series back when the channel was launched in 2019 we remastered it once and really don't be too surprised if we take another look at that show at some stage I just love it all yes the Galactica Battle Star Galactica starts off with a 12 colonies of man celebrating the end of the war with the syon Empire an Armistice is near and the fleet of 12 Battle Stars is winding down after centuries of War you know what else seems like centuries waiting in the you to talk to customer services after they've said how important your call is to them the leader of the Battle Star Galactica Commander Adama isn't so sure that they should be letting their guard down just yet when the fleet is attacked by waves of sylon Fighters I mean who could predict simultaneously the colonies are attacked and by the end of the first hour we're the only surviving Battle Star the 12 colonies of man are all but destroyed and whoever can get into a ship will join the Galactica and its rag tag fugitive Fleet in search of the Lost 13th colony of man on a planet called Earth Adam's son Apollo is the serious hero with like his father the weight of the world on his shoulders his best as budus to Starbuck is a Charming Rogue with the eye for women and gambling the syons were once organic creatures who created robots who turned on them cheeky blighters but lately have embraced the philosophy of destroying every single human Apollo gets married to Serena who almost immediately dies leaving Apollo to raise her son boxy starbu can't decide between a relationship between between Adam's daughter Athena and an escort turned nurse copia Starbuck and Apollo's nextest bestie is Boomer later they're joined by Sheba meanwhile syons have a human traitor working for them in the form of bolar who is in command of his own syon basar hunting Galactica like all Great Space Opera it's epic and intimate at the same time my little ey something beginning with s space your turn pass by with my little eye something beginning with this space [Music] bu battl Star Galactica was envisaged and set up as three movie length events like a miniseries but spread throughout the 1978-79 TV season of something that has been described as the most significant event in history during production of the first episodes it was decided between Studio Universal and the network ABC that Galactica would instead be a weekly series is there any possibility how soon this did cause some friction when the production team now had to generate 1hour scripts that also balanced the budgets of these larger stories Battle Star Galactica was eventually made in a hurry and in order to get it done there are times when the corners is cut to get the show on air are visible but even at its worst it's still one of the series of the 1970s that holds up the best it's still highly entertaining like sucking on a helium balloon and trying to sing a death metal rendition of Dancing Queen I don't know if I'd go so far as to say you were incredible but uh I might be willing to give you reasonably proficient and buy you a drink Battlestar Galactica was created by Glen A Larson and was one of the most expensive television programs on the air at that time it looked unlike anything else so long as you've never seen Star Wars Commander Adama was the father of the fleet the man with the burden of leading several thousand survivors away from the pursuing silons he's a fairly cautious though successful military leader whose priority was keeping the inhabitants of the fleet safe and leading them hopefully to Earth if we don't have seeds we don't have food if we don't have food we will all perish that's a lot for one person to be dealing with but he's often shown to be dealing with civilian administrators who are portrayed as naive and unwilling to face the truth of the situation ready to claim the emergency is over St where you are I'm in charge here says he's in luren green of course had been the lead of the long running western series Bonanza where he cast a warm glow as that series patriarch green brings similar energy to Galactica with his booming voice and sense of gravitus with every sentence green insisted he'd be given important line so there's little frivolity emanating from Adama I mean would you waste Laur Green's voice to announce the lotto numbers or to narrate episodes of America's Fair I EST pets you can't be serious a d son Apollo is a serious person for whom the morally correct thing to do is the only course of action whatever the difficulties he's very much straight laced but not always by the book and will occasionally bend the rules the character of Apollo would evolve from somebody with a very rigid piece of wood inserted in an inaccessible place to somebody who well the stick doesn't really move much over the course of the series the character's name was originally Skyla and wouldn't be renamed to Apollo until a few days into shooting in the pilot he would lose his brother played by Rick Springfield and his mother he would quickly gain a wife Jane Seymour and a stepson and just as quickly would lose the wife wait a minute and it would only be at the very end of the series where it looks like he would start a new relationship Richard Hatch was always the leading Contender to play the character he was offered the role without a screen test a role that joined him to Galactica for the rest of his life I got to go it could be life or death for all of us in that case I've got a stake in it and I'm comeing alarm Starbuck was by far the breakout character the Charming roge that viewers loved watching and the writers in turn enjoyed writing for starbu grew up on his own and tended to keep his relationships short and to the point apart from his bestest buest Apollo he smokes cigars gambles can come off as workshy but he's not a coward he's responsible when he needs to be but he also likes to play the field with his romantic relationships where for a time he balances Athena and copia along with a few others that we hear about Durk Benedict had been out of acting for a few years dealing with health issues unlike Richard Hatch the network really did not want him in the series but eventually relented and then they hated him smoking cigars but then fans sent him cigars anyway and so that stayed but Starbuck was the character that people remembered which in turn saw the character featured in so many of the 1hour stories Benedict of course would probably be best known for starring his Templeton peek in the 18 Richard Hatch as the series had noticed his co-star surging popularity and wasn't happy not with Benedict but with the way Apollo was written since the character was in a weird place Starbuck you may be the best warrior in the fleet but you see everything in absolute basically being a younger version of a dharm who was verging on self-righteous hatch went to the producers with his concerns a bit late but the last few episodes do see a slightly more interesting Apollo slightly that's not fair one of the later episodes had Apollo have to role play as a character from another civilization that was based basically a local version of Starbucks that is a bit of a scandal but is all we've got to work with mainly because the episode was initially meant to feature Starbucks it's also not unsurprising that the Ron Mo series had the exact same problem of what to do with Apollo I don't know what else to do Terry Carter had been on the series McLoud and was originally wanted for Boomer until the actor had an injury and instead got the role of Colonel Tai Colonel Tai was a dh's loyal offsider while Carter was a dab hand at drw humor my commander ad dama sees the he's going to go crazy Herbert Jefferson Jr is Boomer the show's perennial third wheel nextest best as but of Apollo and Starbuck Boomer is their loyal friend in everything but the sport of Triad in which case he would like to smack them down hard every creature in the universe is out to exterminate us and you want to hire a vocal group boxy was Apollo's stepson who was heartbroken after the loss of his dock or dagger and had it replaced with a drone Muffet who despite Advanced AI programming seemed to run off at inopportune moments which is why it's a good thing that they never told boxy that every time Muffet comes back it's actually a new Muffet I think they got up to Muffet number 49 by the end of the series Muffet you came back Muffet was actually played by a chimpanzee in a suit usually Eevee while Noah hathway looks like a younger version of a trus from the never- Ending Story which is convenient because he was later cast as a trus in the never-ending story lorett Spang had been a guest on many shows and was led out of her contract to appear in the first Galactica movie it was originally a one-off character but was quickly made into a regular I'm designated a social ler it's an honorable profession practiced with the blessings of the elders for over 4,000 years however the network wasn't too Keen to have a space hooker as a regular character so copia quickly became a nurse and her past employment was quietly forgotten about like how my resume no longer lists my stint as an OAA thanks to the NDA oops I've said too much the love triangle between starbu copia and Athena was quietly forgotten about and Starbuck and copia were an item for most of the series what I ever do to deserve you copia was named after a character from Greek mythology or the constellation or if I were to believe stanf find's big book of [ __ ] she was named after a Casio digital piano former model Marin Jensen appeared as a dh's daughter Athena who was initially hot on Starbucks but lost out to copia for both Starbucks affections and any semblance of character development that little [Music] snake the series continuing villain was the treacherous bolar a former leader of a human colony who helped the silons attack but was nearly thanked by being beheaded instead he's installed as the leader of his own syon Bay ship Bolta was untrustworthy and duplicitous like expecting help from an ambulance staffed by paramedic cats his motives are all over the place but always with how it would help his own Ambitions he'd be tasked by the sy's imperious leader to make peace with the humans but instead decides to hunt down the humans or work with them to attack the syons or well whatever the episode needs you can trust bolar as far as you could throw him unless of course you're on a moon with low gravity in which case you could throw him further than you could trust him John Kos often popped up as a cultured antagonist and could come awfully close to playing the role over the top but throughout always makes a borderline cartoon villain watchable do you think I believe in all that primitive superstition I didn't mean it his offsider was the robotic silent advisor Lucifer voiced by Lost in Space star Jonathan Harris perhaps he feels his report will not be received satisfactorily by you balar Lucifer is rather Katty and snide and was something that you really couldn't trust 100% but was also too weak will to do much about it Lucifer is that person at work whose main contribution to a meeting is to point out which attendees are contractors rather than permanent employees also it's a Pity that this scene was cut you Bubblehead booby back on Galactica there were various semi-regulars among the Viper Pilots we' often see Jolly occasionally green bean played by Ed Begley Jr and Magnum PI star Larry manetti as Guiles there was the main physician Dr salic the slightly too enamored with technical discoveries and inventure of Muffet Dr wilker Dr salic is a very intense Medico and Dr wilker is a borderline psycho on the bridge we'd see Omega and Riel but few of these characters had much in the way of character development over the show's run there's also a revolving door of incompetent civilian leaders played by different actors Midway through the shows run a new character was added Viper pilot Sheba who join Apollo Starbuck and Boomer as one of the main Colonial Warrior characters he's got to be planning something crazy I have to get back to the Pegasus sorry you're with us Sheba was a brilliant pilot and daughter of a military Legend to Commander Kane which are not sure if that would make her sheane which does make it sound something like a space dentist might use to dull your gums I love it Sheba and Apollo would become rather close actually becoming a sort of couple in the show's final episode and lockart would be a familiar guest star on television in the late 70s and 80s and was also the daughter of Lost in Space matriarch Jun lockart you'll feel differently when you come to understand that I had nothing to do with the defeat of the colonies I too was a victim yeah you look like one there was a trend of stories with Apollo or Starbucks but let's be honest usually Starbucks alone on the planet meeting up with the locals fending for themselves while waiting for a rescue rinse and repeat Just the Two Fellas I wanted to see or there are some rather big episodes where Apollo usually took a larger role Galactica is characterized by two types of episodes the bigger episodes either presented as a movie or in two parts and the more contained 1hour episodes there's quite a link between later episodes and it usually helps to watch them in specific order but the rule of thumb is usually the longer stories are often better written and more exciting while the single episodes are usually much smaller stories have a lot less action and use a lot more familiar storytelling tropes and often they're the more disappointing episodes the show starts off with a bang wiping out the colonies and then showed us some of the difficulties in keeping the fleet fed and fueled the silons kept chasing them but with an early evening time slot for a weekly series acts of violence had to be toned down to no more than six violent things do you know how many shuttle Pilots we lost on Caroline do you know how many civilians for a show where people died in their Millions if not billions in the first 3 hours hours only a very small number of people are actually shown to die from then on the syons are great villains but utterly rotten shots that's what you get from buying your targeting systems from Uncle reg's computer company com spat standby the silons were also originally meant to be organic creatures but quickly became robots so you could demolish them and the network centers wouldn't care as much the later series nicknamed them toasters but if I wanted to make violence against machines acceptable I would have just called them inkjet printers the show would have to Pivot away from having silons attacking each week and new humanoid villains were introduced sometimes with mixed results some believe that there may yet be brothers of man who even now fight to survive Glenn A Larson was originally a musician in the 1950s group the four preps and got into television writing in the mid-60s he kicked off the' 70s with the creation of western series Alias Smith and Jones and produced two early $6 Million Man TV movies and throughout the' 70s and 80s created co-created or developed Quincy me Buck Rogers in the 25th Century Magnum PI Night Rider Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo and the Fall Guy among many others also if you want to get technical he's also responsible for Automan and Manimal as well as Galactica 1980 but let's not hold that against him we get a little ahead of ourselves here Larson says he pitched a Sci-Fi series in the' 60s called Adam's Arc where a reclusive billionaire kidnap Earth's Best and brightest and launch them into space just before the end of the world that wasn't picked up as a series after shows like Star Trek hadn't done well enough for the network at the time nearly a decade later after the success of Star Wars Studios and networks were clamoring for space set or futuristic premises and all of a sudden we had shows like Logan's Run man from Atlanta's future cop Etc lson now having read the Chariots of the Gods revamped his Adam's AR premise and had a group of space humans searching for Earth with Earth now having been colonized by a lost tribe of those selfsame space humans it can't be serious that's nothing but a fable they were a lost tribe yet somehow there are all these cryptic Clues dotted around the place supposedly pointing Galactica in the direction of the Earth this has happened before and it will happen again you can't talk about Glen A Larson and Battlestar Galactica in particular without mentioning the words plagiarism copycat Xerox cut and paste and the like and the like and the like and the like just to be nice we'll mostly talk about the source of inspiration mainly because we like Battlestar Galactica but at the same time there are similarities that you really just can't ignore like that odd smell coming from the basement Glen a lson had a reputation as someone who would uh repurpose a concept from a popular movie and turn it into an unofficial and unaffiliated television series oh Alias Smith and Jones had strong Echoes of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid BJ in the bear wasn't a million miles away from Every Which Way but Loose one show where lson was a writer was the series McLoud where a lot of people consider a ripoff of kogan's bluff however one of that movie screenwriters Herman Miller is credited as the creator of McLoud though how a chair creates a television series I'll never know fairly belligerent genius writer Harland Ellison referred to lson as Glenn a lony and James Garner outlines in his Memoir a feud between himself and lson where it looked like the latter had cheekily taken a script for the Rockford files and repurposed it for one of Larson's series Garner says that he punched lson over the incident Galactica was announced a few months after star was released and well there were lawsuits and counter lawsuits maybe we can make a deal Larson maintained he had a form of agreement with Lucas's film so long as there were no things like animated beams on the hand lasers very few aliens and the robots were never referred to as droids 20th Century Fox distributed Star Wars and they suit over similarities while Universal countersuit Fox claiming Star Wars use of droids was based on the robots from their film Silent Running by the time all of this was settled Galactica was off the air anyway and then because the lawyers wanted to upgrade their BMWs lasson later sued Universal over the profits from the series he created for them it will drive a dama crazy he's not the only one you said something by your command so we have a clean cut hero a rogish offsider space Fighters armored villains cute robots and the like but several distinctions at no point does anybody fall off a high walkway missing a critical safety railing initially Galactica also had many of the same VFX artists from Star Wars and its designs were were based on concept art from Ralph mcari who was also an original concept artist on Star Wars galactic's aesthetic is very heavily influenced by the industrial design of Star Wars it was light years from the clean Star Treck inspired look that you saw on most other television science fiction well if you're not interested s Galactica would be notable for cherry picking from everything the world of Galactica is based on the 12 colonies each named after a zodiac sign caprika ton gy Pon Etc they obviously didn't subscribe to zodiac plus which unlocks a further six star signs for subscribers there's ctis Musa Navas calus computus and Bob newart there are names and Concepts cried from ancient Egyptians the ancient Greeks the Old Testament lon's own Mormon background the shows themselves borrowed from the best old western old war movies disaster movies murder mysteries but much of the time at least added a little of its own flavor and then the show would use its own words for whatever few Mel for cigars daggets for dogs the main sport shown is Triad and then there's the card games like pyramid wiers ambrosa Etc or two cent give or take a Centon then there are all the units of measurement for time and distance a Metron a Centon a centa a yaron a micron a Hector we'll check in with each other every few centons Apollo what is a senton and that's before you get to the ones that I just made up spatula [ __ ] and LeBron then we get to swear words which they drop quite Cas F now who knows what that means yes boxy oh production on a big budget event movie was one thing but production on a weekly series would be a challenge F larger budgets were set aside for the two-part stories which meant the 1 hour episodes would mostly have to make do with reusing already shot footage and repurposing sets and whatever happened to be on the universal back lot at the time the Galactica Bridge set was expensive with dozens of screens linked to an array of VCRs with pre-c data readouts and a giant projection screen a revolving Central de and the most expensive effect of the entire series La green they're Warriors and all Warriors the sent on they enlist know they may have to sacrifice their lives the initial 3-hour movie went way over the budget of what ABC was on the hook for with the studio eventually making its money back from a modestly successful theatrical release the large two-part episodes had famous guest stars more action more special effects while the weekly episodes were would get by on scraps with budgets more akin to a standard 1hour drama location filming was quite rare with most of the series shot either on the sound stages or at Universal Studios Backlot however some later episodes did feature more location work with a few episodes shot at the S of Expo 67 in Montreal in Canada the western town sets would be used again and again effects footage would be used again and again Starbuck or Apollo would be separated from the fleet again and again bolar's plans would fall apart like a house made from tissue paper in a rainstorm again and again I've done it Centurion launch by your command as universal was also making Len series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century at the same time the two series would make use of each other sets costumes and props Buck Rogers would be a much cheesier brighter confection usually a lot less serious than Galactica you know I love Buck Rogers but it's definitely a show that's made a forced Landing in a Molten cheese Lake one full-size Viper was constructed as was a cockpit section for close-ups if you saw a Viper in the distance it was probably a flat wooden cutout with an actor sitting on a chair behind it or it was a painting or a projection a sense of scale was added to many scenes by using projection screens placed behind the actors same for the scenes set in the Viper cockpits in fact most scenes involving the actors had the effects captured in camera wherever possible the effects of Battlestar Galactica were very impressive for television and they still mostly impressive today but they're the very latest for your time yes after Star Wars had wrapped George Lucas's newly built special effects house industrial Light and Magic was pretty much idle ilm effects supervisor John dyra formed a new group with many XM staffers and leas ilm's equipment to make effects for Battlestar Galactica motion control for television was unheard of but it gave Galactica its distinctive look with the effects crew using the experience gained from Star Wars to push the envelope of television effects vipers and syon Raiders don't just travel across the screen but they bank and turn roll and they're waggling waggling motion control lets you repeat a camera move so you can film the same model again and again with different lighting and then combine all of the separate pieces of film in an optical printer where you would also add things like animated laser beams okay baby let's see what you can do one thing that was still semi- practical the turbos on the Viper used compressed gas coming out of the engines of the motion control hero model look I dig after some cheesy cauliflower bake I'm fairly certain I can replicate the effect myself compared to Star Wars this still looked great since the same people built on their experience Galactica was made in the then standard 4 to3 aspect ratio for television and used standard 35 mm film rather than the higher quality Vista Vision that was used on Star Wars some of the effects do look a little grainy when multiple pieces of film have been composited but what's probably more not noticeable once the weekly episode's kicked off is how often you would see the exact same pieces of footage of vipers launching syon ships banking the syons looking up Pilots getting Whiplash during the launch sequence those turrets on the galactic ATT tracking Raiders and the like eh sell TV John dyra wasn't happy with his work designed for the small screen being exhibited theatrically but at the same time his company was only contracted for a few early episodes before moving on to other work Universal had already built up its in-house effects unit for its long and development Buck Rogers project and so they would take on galactic's effects you said so yourself what's all this observation felger carb felger carb it's also long being Galactic a legend that for whatever reason one scene in the pilot has a hidden message arranged in the lights on Capra you may need to use your imagination but it's not clear to whom the message is directed or why but if that is the limit of Capra's defense then it is no wonder that the syons shattered in isn't he wonderfully deep we can learn much from him unlike some of his later Series where lson would offer turnover his Creations to other writers and producers Glenn A Larson stayed on Galactica throughout its run writing scripts along the way he would be known for constant last minute changes to scripts and to final edits but he also brought in other people outer limits producer Leslie Stevens was on the project for a time and the pair would later work on Buck Rogers in the 25th Century Donald P Bellisario was the show's supervising producer more or less the man in charge of keeping the production rolling along the move from movie events to weekly series resulted in lots of late nights for the writers overtime for the crew and episodes being worked up right until the moment they were needed for broadcast if I I Don't Want to Miss a moment of the last battle Stars destruction I really think you should take a look at the other battle St babbling about up costume designer Jean Pierre Doc's Creations have taken on a life of their own the look of the colonial Warriors is instantly recognizable incling including their Egyptian inspired flight helmets and their marking pens painted gold on their belts the silon look is Iconic in its own way they were unmistakable care had to be taken when shooting is to not get reflections of the crew in the syon armor they're originally fiberglass in the pilot and replaced with vacuum formed plastic armor with chrome plating these costumes were expensive but not that robust anytime a sylon fell over it would require expensive replacement parts it's not hard to imagine that the costume Department would play game where every time a silon costume was destroyed during a shoot they would take a nip of whiskey by the end of some episodes they' probably be singing SE shanties in the corner of the studio where's F he's off sick what happened do not break by windows out gate one design that wasn't well loved was the look of the syon imperious leader and so its fleeting appearances were shot in a way as to not show the face in closeup it does maintain an air of mystery and hides a mask that nobody was happy with pretty much like the time I went to a Halloween party in a cheap Phantom of the Opera costume bought on teu but so embarrassed by it I hid in the cupboard the whole time just how long is this party going to last Glenn a lson of course started off as a musician so it's not surprising that he would occasionally contribute to the music for shows he created he is right about that lson often worked with composer Stu Phillips and the pair are credited together as composers of theme Tunes to several lson series Phillips by himself would compose and conduct the rest of the series score which was remarkably grandiose sounding for a television series at the time the Galactica theme was one of those tunes that just stuck with you and wouldn't go away like the pin in your leg launch when [Music] ready Galactic a was also one of the few series for its time that had sound effects associated with the series the sylon scanner the weapons the Viper launch sounds which were all used in other Universal series but of course after spending all that time making unique lasers and daggets and syons they could only afford one sound effect for explosions we found signs of humanoid relegates our Patrol is tracking them the robotic syon voice was fairly unique and while this may mean little to most people stereo the way the voices were created is fairly simple using a type of device called a vocoder which takes two signals and mixes them together one signal the modulator would be a human voice the other a synthesizer which would play a tone called a carrier where you would play notes on the synthesizer keyboard while somebody spoke and then you could make somebody with a monotone sound like they're singing or you could make someone sound like a robot don't suppose you want to drink I do not interest consumables in this case you're not missing anything as we said at the start we'll take a deeper look at the individual episodes at a later date but if you wanted to look at Galactic is highs and lows that's fairly simple generally the movie length or two-part stories are much much much better than the single 1 hour episodes the introductory movie sets up the whole shebang Lost Planet Of The Gods gave us a glimpse of the spiritual background of the culture of the 12 colonies as they descended from Cobalt living legend brought a Dharma into conflict with the leader of another battle star and War of the Gods had a man who was more or less implied to be the devil trying to take over the fleet the low points are pretty much the onep part episodes where they're fun to watch but they're also sometimes hard to separate when too many Galactica episode titles have the words lost God or Warriors in the title card so many episodes can be characterized by which film they were let's say inspired by Lost Warrior is Shane magnificent Warriors is bit Magnificent Seven living legend is patent gun on Ice Planet zero is well what do you got if I had to pick a favorite it's probably War of the Gods where Patrick MC's character count Eble wants the Fleek to follow him and while they're at it a bit of worship wouldn't go astray I'd heard you'd felt that way if he's not the devil then he's doing a pretty good impression one Infamous cut scene didn't come out the way they expected it to they cannot touch you so long as I am inside you living legend with Lloyd Bridges as Commander K is also really very well done and enjoyable two Battle Stars would completely overwhelm gamore later in the series there was a conscious move away from syons appearing each week the rather Bland Eastern Alliance were introduced as well space Nazis but technologically inferior Space Nazis for a while there's hints the terror home of the Eastern Alliance may be closed but the galactians are warned that they may not like what they find there the guest cast of Galactic Hil was pretty impressive there are a few instances of somebody appearing in a small role before they became a bigger star later on Rick Springfield as Apollo's doomed brother Zach Audrey Landers now a haway Ed Begley Jr Larry manetti James Olsen Roy thinis Richard Lynch Christine Belford Melody Anderson before Flash Gordon Jane Seymour who was already a well-known actor at the time our minor anti-hero Lance lold who always seems to be chasing the heroes in Glenn Aaron or Don bellario shows here he appears in two different roles in Galactica Daniel O'Hurley Denny Miller Brit Eckland Edward M then there are all the veteran actors who appeared Ray Miland Wilfred Hyde white Fred a stair Barry Nelson Jonathan Harris is the voice of Lucifer oh Felder and there's also the Fantastic guest star appearances from Lloyd Bridges and Patrick bney who was not only the narrator at the start of most episodes but also the voice of the syon imperious leader and of course count e galactica's introductory movie presentation debuted two Stellar ratings when it was first screened by ABC in September of 1978 but as with the quality of scripts the ratings weren't sustained throughout the season it was still a highly rated show but a very expensive one on the top rated Network especially when you looked at its competition sitcoms that rated well but cost way less Larson and his team knew that they would need to reshape the series format to make it more affordable starting with pruning the enormous cast Galactica cost on average about a millionar an episode with the two-part stories getting bigger budgets at the expense of many smaller episodes ABC's licensing fee of around $750,000 per hour still left the studio a deficit one that lson wasn't too keen on worrying about theatrical releases helped bring the show into profit and there are also TV movie versions of more episodes coupled together to resell later on if if if if so many ifs is incalculable but possible of all the science fiction series of the late '70s that mainly attracted interest from TV networks because of Star Wars Galactica was most obviously the most Star Wars like of them all and came very close to putting out a Star Wars style story each week peppered with ideas from Western's war movies and murder mysteries on a planet called Earth however all plans for continuing the series came to not when the show was canceled by ABC towards the end of The Season's broadcast a combination of time slot issues preemption strong competition a high cost relative to ratings Egos and shortsightedness saw Galactica ending in 1979 there was a minor outcry about galactica's cancellation from a business perspective the network seemed to regret its decision just me the Rubie's Galactica replacement Moran Mindy wasn't able to scare up similar ratings in galactica's time slot months after Battlestar Galactica was canceled lson and Company were back making a sequel series Galactica 1980 we have at last found Earth of course we'll look at that in another video but suffice it to say oh Starbuck I thought this was awesome horrible awful dream Galactica was gone but not forgotten even after Galactica a 1980s failure in well basically every major metric the hardcore fans still love the show the show managed to sustain a small convention circuit and merchandise was still released fairly regularly by the late '90s there were murmurings that a remake was in order Richard Hatch had tried to gather resources to make his own version of Galactica well that's it Universal had its own ideas with several producers working on a version of Galactica as a movie or a television series eventually in 2003 a battl Star Galactica Mini series was broadcast by the Sci-Fi channel its cheap budget and made in Canada feeli was quickly supplanted by the realization that it was an exceptionally well-made and well acted show is that anything like the original battle stara you know what's weird it's practically a shot for shot remake really Richard Hatch was a very vocal decer of the new series that show's producers created a one-off role for Richard Hatch as antagonist Tom zarak where hatch's performance was by far more interesting than anything we ever saw from Apollo in the original series that miniseries became a series that ran for Four Seasons and would be one of the most popular and influential science fiction programs of the 2000s its ending didn't please many and of course many fans will have a moment where Galactica was good until and then they would insert their own point where the show for them jumped the shark some old school fans hate the reimagine show which quite honestly is their loss it's just a totally different take on the 197 8 Galactica made for a different audience I treat the shows the same way I treat different versions of Tarzan or Sherlock Holmes there are different takes on the same basic Source material and can be enjoyed in different ways at the moment of posting this review in late 2023 Universal is working on another version of Galactica so a new new Galactica would make new Galactica into middle Galactica while 1978 Galactica would also be the OG Battle Star Galactica or for the sake of brevity bog and apart from one episode in particular Galactica 1980 can [ __ ] right off for Galactica sure what do you mean sure sure as in I sure will do that hey I am your Superior would it kill you to give me a by your command actually it would I went very high for my position I toiled for 20 bloody years to get where I am now yeah yeah but it doesn't hurt B good luck to all of us Galactica had its merch a series of not particularly attractive action figures and some nice spaceships which led to a child tragically dying from swallowing the plastic missiles for a while afterwards toys generally didn't feature tiny missile projectiles such was the show's longevity that collectibles were still released books Comics video games based on both versions of Galactica we'll be back at some point to look at the episodes of Galactica and Galactica 1980 battle Star Galactica was great then it went away but it never really went away and never will so long as like Sheba can't e is inside all of us if you enjoyed this video please like And subscribe leave a comment below or check out some of our other [Music] [Applause] videos yeah I got to talk to those girls

Channel: Stam Fine

Views: 175,861

Keywords: StamFine, stam fine, comedy, humor, funny, tv review, Lorne Greene, Richard Hatch, Dirk Benedict, Herbert Jefferson Jr, Anne Lockhart, Terry Carter, Noah Hathaway, Laurette Spang, Maren Jensen, John Colicos, apollo, starbuck, glen a. larson, buck rogers, galactica 1980, cylon, battlestar galactica, patrick macnee, 70s tv shows, seventies, 1970s, ronald d moore

Id: 9b-ONYLOZog

Length: 38min 27sec (2307 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 08 2023