| Battlestar Galactica | |
|---|---|
Battlestar Galactica intro |
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| Format | Science fiction |
| Created by | Glen A. Larson |
| Starring | Richard Hatch Dirk Benedict Lorne Greene John Colicos Maren Jensen Noah Hathaway Jane Seymour Herb Jefferson, Jr. Tony Swartz Laurette Spang Terry Carter Ed Begley, Jr. Rick Springfield Anne Lockhart David Greenan Sarah Rush |
| Composer(s) | Stu Phillips |
| Country of origin | United States |
| No. of seasons | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 24 (List of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Running time | 45 minutes per episode |
| Production company(s) | Glen A. Larson Productions MCA/Universal |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | ABC |
| Original run | September 17, 1978 – April 29, 1979 |
| Chronology | |
| Followed by | Galactica 1980 |
| Related shows | Re-imagined Battlestar Galactica |
Battlestar Galactica is an American science fiction television series, created by Glen A. Larson. It starred Lorne Greene, Richard Hatch and Dirk Benedict and ran for one season in 1978–79. After cancellation, its story was continued in 1980 as Galactica 1980 with Adama, Lieutenant Boomer (now a colonel) and Boxey (now called Troy) being the only continuing characters. Books have been written continuing the stories.
The series was remade in 2003, beginning with a three-hour mini-series followed by a weekly series which ran from 2004–9. A feature film remake is also planned for 2013, directed by Bryan Singer with production input from original series creator Glen A. Larson.[1][2][3]
Contents |
The show begins with a narration, spoken by Patrick Macnee:
There are those who believe that life here began out there, far across the universe, with tribes of humans who may have been the forefathers of the Egyptians, or the Toltecs, or the Mayans. That they may have been the architects of the great pyramids, or the lost civilizations of Lemuria or Atlantis. Some believe that there may yet be brothers of man who even now fight to survive somewhere beyond the heavens. (The theatrical version of the pilot ends with "far, far away... amongst the stars".)
The short version of the narration, also spoken by Macnee:
There are those who believe that life here began out there, far across the universe, with tribes of humans who may have been the forefathers of the Egyptians, or the Toltecs, or the Mayans. Some believe that there may yet be brothers of man who even now fight to survive somewhere beyond the heavens.
During the narration, the viewer sees scenes of nebulae and other celestial phenomena. Macnee provides the character voice of the Cylons' Imperious Leader throughout the series, and appears as Count Iblis in "War of the Gods", a two-part episode which originally aired in January 1979.
This is followed by images of the Galactica, the colonial fleet, and other scenes. The Battlestar Galactica theme plays prominently, an orchestral piece with an emphasis on brass instruments. It was written by Stu Phillips.
The show closes with narration by Lorne Greene:
Fleeing from the Cylon tyranny, the last Battlestar, Galactica, leads a rag-tag fugitive fleet on a lonely quest -- a shining planet, known as Earth.
Humanity lived on twelve colony worlds in a distant star system. They fought a thousand-year war with the Cylons, warrior robots created by a reptilian race which expired long ago, presumably destroyed by their own creations. Having never been commanded to cease fire, these warrior robots waged war against the colonials. Mankind was defeated in a sneak attack on their homeworlds conceived by the Cylons, carried out with the help of the human quisling Count Baltar (John Colicos). Protected by the last surviving warship, a "battlestar" (the word, presumably coined by Glen Larson, is short for the phrase "line-of-battle starship") called Galactica, the survivors fled in available ships. The Commander of the Galactica, Adama (Lorne Greene), led this "rag-tag fugitive fleet" of 220 ships in search of a new home on a legendary planet called Earth. The episodes dealt with the fleet's struggle to survive the Cylon threat and to find Earth.
The era in which this exodus took place is never clearly stated in the series itself. The implication of the final aired episode, "The Hand of God", was that the original series took place after the Apollo 11 moon landing in July 1969. The later Galactica 1980 series is expressly set in the 1980s.
Larson incorporated many themes from Mormon theology into the shows.[4]
The pilot to this series, budgeted at $7 million (the most expensive at that time), was released theatrically (in Sensurround) in various countries including Canada, Western Europe and Japan in July 1978 in an edited 125-minute version. (See Saga of a Star World for information on the pilot).
On September 17, 1978, the full 148-minute pilot premiered on ABC to high Nielsen ratings. Two-thirds of the way through the broadcast, ABC interrupted with a special report of the signing of the Camp David Accords at the White House by Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, witnessed by U.S. President Jimmy Carter. After the ceremony, ABC resumed the broadcast at the point where it was interrupted. This interruption did not occur on the West Coast. The theatrical cut of the pilot was also released in US cinemas some months later.
In 1978, 20th Century Fox sued Universal Studios (producers of Battlestar Galactica) for plagiarism, copyright infringement, unfair competition, and Lanham Act claims,[5] claiming it had stolen 34 distinct ideas from Star Wars.[6] Universal promptly countersued, claiming Star Wars had stolen ideas from their 1972 film Silent Running (notably the robot "drones") and the Buck Rogers serials of the 1930s. 20th Century Fox's copyright claims were initially dismissed by the trial court, but the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit remanded the case for trial in 1983.
Battlestar Galactica initially was a ratings success. CBS counter-programmed by moving its Sunday block of All in the Family and Alice an hour earlier, to compete with Galactica in the 8:00 timeslot. From October 1978 to March 1979, All in the Family averaged more than 40 percent of the 8:00 audience, against Galactica's 27 or 28 percent.[7]
In mid-April 1979, ABC executives canceled the show. An AP article reported "The decision to bump the expensive Battlestar Galactica was not surprising. The series ... had been broadcast irregularly in recent weeks, attracting slightly over a quarter of the audience in its Sunday night time slot."[8] Larson has claimed that it was a failed attempt by ABC to reposition its number one program Mork & Mindy into a more lucrative timeslot.[9] The cancellation led to viewer outrage, protests outside ABC studios, and even contributed to the suicide of Edward Seidel, a 15-year-old boy in Saint Paul, Minnesota who was obsessed with the program.[10][11][12]
While primarily English, the Colonial language was written to include several fictional words that differentiated its culture from those of Earth, most notably time units and expletives. The words were roughly equivalent to their English counterparts, and the minor technical differences in meaning were suggestive to the viewer.
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