Galactica 1980

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Galactica 1980

Galactica 1980 intro
Format Science fiction
Created by Glen A. Larson
Starring Lorne Greene
Kent McCord
Barry Van Dyke
Richard Lynch
Country of origin Flag of the United States United States
No. of episodes 10
Production
Running time approx. 45 mins
Broadcast
Original channel ABC
Original run January 27, 1980 – May 4, 1980
External links
IMDb profile
TV.com summary

Galactica 1980 is a science fiction television series, and a spin-off from the 1978–1979 series Battlestar Galactica. It was first broadcast on the ABC network in the United States from January 27, 1980, to May 4, 1980.

Contents

[edit] Development

A massive write-in campaign began with the cancellation of the original Battlestar Galactica. Such things were uncommon in those days, and it prompted ABC to re-think their reasons for canceling the show. After some deliberation, they contacted Glen Larson to see about reviving the series, albeit in some modified and less-expensive format.

Both Larson and the network felt the show needed some major change of focus to re-launch it as a spinoff, and Larson and Donald P. Bellisario decided to set the new series five years after "The Hand of God," the final episode of the original series. This would allow them to weed out many supporting characters who were now considered superfluous - Colonel Tigh, Athena, Cassiopea, Boxey, etc - which would bring down production costs. The only major characters to return from the original series would be Commander Adama, Colonel Boomer (Replacing Tigh), Apollo, Starbuck, and Baltar. Baltar was to have somehow made atonement for betraying the Colonies to the Cylons, and was now the President of the Council of Twelve.

Upon discovering a 'present day' Earth completely unable to defend itself from the Cylons, Adama decided to just head off into deep space to lead the Cylons away from the planet, but Baltar suggested using Time Travel Technology to alter Earth's history so its technology would develop more rapidly up to a Colonial level. The Council votes this suggestion down, so Baltar steals a ship capable of time travel and heads into Earth's past to carry out his plan anyway. After some deliberation, Starbuck and Apollo are sent after him to bring him back or at least un-do his changes to history. Episodes would feature a new "Time Mission" every week, generally with Apollo at some different time in the past, and Starbuck flying back and forth between "Now" and "Then" to give information and support to Apollo. ABC approved this pitch, and gave the go-ahead to develop a pilot for the series.

Unfortunately, Dirk Benedict was apparently unavailable at the time, and Richard Hatch wanted no connection with the series. Thus, after a quick re-think, it was decided the series would take place thirty years after the end of the original series rather than five, and that Boxey would be renamed Troy and would take Apollo's role, while a character named Lt. Dillon would take over the Starbuck part. President Baltar was written out entirely, and Xavier was created to take up his role as resident bad guy.

After the pilot was completed, the network was unhappy with the time travel aspects of the story, and agreed to pick up the series only if that subject was dropped. Larson and Bellisario reluctantly agreed, and the series instead became focused on Troy's and Dillon's attempts to protect some colonial children on Earth. Bellisario later re-tooled the original time travel concept and re-used it as the basis of the considerably more successful Quantum Leap.[1][2]

[edit] Narration

The opening narration (spoken by Lorne Greene) is as follows:

The great ship Galactica, our home for these many years. We have endured the wilderness of space. And now we are nearing the end of our journey. We have at last found Earth.

[edit] Synopsis

Set during the year 1980, and a generation after the original series, the Galactica and its fleet of 220 civilian ships have finally discovered Earth, only to find that its people have forgotten much of the technology that the Thirteenth Tribe of humanity brought with it, and as a direct result, the planet cannot defend itself against the Cylons as originally hoped. Therefore, teams of Colonial warriors are covertly sent to the planet to work incognito with various members of the scientific community, hoping to advance Earth's technology.

Commander Adama and Colonel Boomer—now second-in-command in place of Colonel Tigh—on the advice of a mysterious teenager named Doctor Zee who serves as Adama's advisor, sends Captain "Boxey" Troy (Kent McCord, one of several actors who had been considered for the role of Apollo), who is the adopted son of Adama's own son Apollo, and Lt. Dillon (Barry Van Dyke) to North America, where they become entangled with TV journalist Jamie Hamilton (Robyn Douglass). After an initial, epic time travel adventure to Nazi Germany in the 1940s (to stop rebel Galactican, Commander Xavier, trying to change the future to improve Earth's technology level), the three friends devise ways to help Earth's scientists and outwit the Cylons in the present day. Meanwhile, Adama sends a group of children from the Galactica fleet to Earth in order to begin the process of integrating with the population; due to differences in gravity and physiology, however, the children also have to learn to deal with the fact they have nearly super-human powers on Earth.

The fate of several characters from the original series are indicated during the course of the series. Apollo is apparently dead, the cause of his seeming death being unknown. Starbuck was apparently marooned on a desert planet although the script for the episode The Wheel Of Fire (unfilmed at the time of cancellation) indicated that Starbuck was eventually rescued from the planet by the inhabitants of the Ships of Light and became one of the inhabitants. Captain Troy is revealed to be Boxey, and Lt. Boomer is now Colonel Boomer, and has become Adama's second in command. The fate of several other characters—Adama's daughter Athena, Colonel Tigh, Starbuck's girlfriend Cassiopeia, and the traitor Count Baltar—are not revealed, and all four characters are absent from the series.

[edit] Cast

Greene (Adama) and Jefferson (Boomer) were the only major cast members of the original series to return, with Richard Hatch and Dirk Benedict both unable to return due to commitments to other projects, although as noted below, Benedict did appear in an episode using previously unscreened footage from the original program.

[edit] Short life

The show was cancelled after only ten episodes, many of which were multi-part stories, or what would be referred to now as arcs, such as the final episode—"The Return of Starbuck"— Guest starring Dirk Benedict as Lt. Starbuck in a flashback episode. Despite its popularity with fans, to the point that Glen Larson wrote a sequel episode entitled "The Wheel of Fire", it was not enough to save the series, which was cancelled before it could be filmed[3]. The series was cancelled during production of episode 11, The Day they Kidnapped Cleopatra.

[edit] Syndication and beyond

The ten Galactica 1980 episodes were rolled into the television syndication package for Battlestar Galactica and were given the same title as its parent program.

Following the series demise, a feature called Conquest of the Earth was stitched together from sections of the three "Galactica Discovers Earth" episodes and the two "The Night the Cylons Landed" episodes. A scene of John Colicos, playing Baltar, was also spliced in to this release. The latter footage was actually taken from an episode of the original series—Baltar makes no appearance in any Galactica 1980 episode—and is partially dubbed, so as to make the speech sound relevant to the Galactica's new situation. Several early scenes involving Adama and Dr Zee are also partially dubbed, to add more explanatory detail and to explain why two actors appear playing the role of Dr. Zee. The feature was released in cinemas in Europe and Australia and on home video elsewhere.

[edit] DVD release

On December 23, 2007, Universal released all of the Galactica 1980 episodes on DVD in a 2-disc set. This release is touted as "The Original 'Battlestar Galactica's' Final Season." [4]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Paxton, Susan J. "Unshot Battlestar Galactica Scripts". 1995. Originally published in Anomaly.
  2. ^ Bellisario's real plan for Quantum Leap was to re-introduce the long-form anthology series format to television. Not all fans supported his use of time travel as the gimmick by which to do this, however, as a cardinal unwritten rule of time-travel science fiction calls for avoidance of alterations of history, either by rendering it impossible to change or by prescribing severe penalties to characters who do change it. By contrast, the very mission of Quantum Leap's central character was specifically and unapologetically to alter history; in his case, always to improve it where he could.
  3. ^ http://www.blast.net/hart/BG80.htm History of Galactica 1980 at blast.net
  4. ^ Galactica 1980 DVD news: Box Art for Galactica 1980 - The Complete Series | TVShowsOnDVD.com

[edit] See also

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[edit] External links

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