Truly horrible!!!


I'm one of those who enjoyed the 1978 "Battlestar Galactica" and never cared for the new version with Edward Olmos, etc. (OK, Katee Sakhoff, the blonde Cylon and Lucy Lawless are truly BABES). I do remember reading that ABC was going to bring back the show two years after its cancellation (and I recall the last episode, where Apollo and Sheba were starting a romance).

Then came "Galactica 1980".

It began bad and only got worse, as far as I'm concerned. I don't think there's any way (save for cosmetic surgery) that Boxey (Noah Hathaway) could have grown up to be Troy (Kent McCord). It was also quite curious that only Adama and Boomer were the only ones from the original crew to live to see their journey end (which it never really did!).

The worst part of all of this was Doctor Zee, the child genius. The conversation he has with Adama at the beginning sums it all up. When he informs Adama that the Cylons are, in fact, close behind them. Adama's reaction is "I lead them here"................................................

YES, YOU DID!!!! WASN'T THAT THE POINT OF THE ORIGINAL SERIES?!!!

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I'm going to agree that Dr. Zee was the worst part, not just in the pilot. In the original series, Adama was the father figure, grandfather figure, military leader, social leader, wisdom incarnate. In 1980, Adama couldn't go to the bathroom without asking Dr. Zee whether it was a good idea. He acted like a child in the shadow of this . . . well, child. I was embarrassed for him.

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The Super-Scout Campfire Song. I have nightmares now...

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Barry Van Dyke's acting!!!!

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The lowest point of this low, low show had to be where they were hopping around planting grain with that silly music playing in the background. Wow, how did that get made!

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The original 1978 movie and following single season TV series were very good and very popular and watching it all again some 37 years later it is still a great show as far as story and characters go. The original series had some annoying editing and a lot of re-used cuts/scenes especially in the viper battles etc. I assume to try and keep costs down as it was a considerably expensive series to produce.

Galactica 1980 would have been quite good had it been created as Larson wanted, the original cast been available and the budget sufficient. However this was not the case so a low budget, poorly cast spin-off is what resulted in the end .. for the full story see ..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactica_1980#Development

The 2003 mini-series and resulting TV series was brilliant in it's own right and cannot be compared to the 1978 show as they are 2 completely different shows based on a similar premise. This re-boot did so much for fans of sci-fi in that it showed the networks etc. that there was, is and always be a demand for good sci-fi action and drama..

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"Doctor Zee" was added to rope in the "smart kid" audience, or so I think. It's clearly a marketing ploy, but seemed more idiotic than anything. As a "smart kid" growing up I furled my brow at the character. Kids look up to responsible adults to solve problems, not to their friends.

And focusing on 20th century Los Angeles was the biggest cost cutting measure these people made, and PO'd all my friends who watched it. I think they were expecting Earth to be a high technology civilization, and instead they got the environment they saw everyday.

I didn't watch the show because original Galactica seemed to be aimed at a slightly younger audience than Star Wars, and certainly Star Trek, but I caught it every now and then. And people loved that show. All my friends talked about it. And when I could get away from studying and see it, it seemed interesting enough (though again, it seemed like it was for young kids and their families).

But this show? The first episode turned me off. In fact I couldn't get all the way through it. And then when I tried to watch it again (I can't remember the episode I tuned into) I just shook my head.

Every kid I knew b****ed and complained about it, except for one of my friends who seemed to like it. For them there were no dogfights, there were no spaceships, there were no action stories, no exotic locations, and everything else.

And I was always baffled as to why Universal shifted gears. I wasn't a big BSG fan, but the show was interesting enough that I tuned in every now and then when it first aired. Every one at school and elsewhere really liked it. Even the teachers. And then it's like Galactica 1980 was BSG's answer to third Season 1960's Star Trek.

As for the "newer" Galactica ... even though it had higher production values, and gave a real sense of fear and desperation, I couldn't get into it. Galactica and I have never really mixed well, but then again my personal tastes tended to veer in other directions.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on Galactica 1980. However, seeing Pamela Schoop as Mike Brady's assistant was kind of cool. A real pretty lady.

p.s. I remember being baffled and a little angry that original Galactica got replaced with some sitcoms. I was angry not so much because I had any affection for the show (I was never a big BSG fan), but because it seemed like everyone I knew watched it; friends and their parents, people who worked the stores and so forth.

And so when the plug got pulled it was like whoever was in charge of Battlestar Galactica, the tv station it aired on, the studio, the production team, or whoever, were thumbing their noses at the people who watched their show.

I can see cutting the budget, changing the stories to make it cheaper to produce, but to yank it, and then try to relaunch it with a kind of "everyday" angle, really was an insult to the people who wanted to watch it.

I guess Galactica got another shot some ten years back, but that was also a marketing move, and I'm sorry Richard Hatch's version didn't get a chance, and the "joyless" version did.

How unfortunate.

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