The reviews you'll read about this show are so varied, that they speak to the many missed opportunities that fill any post mortem of the original Battlestar Galactica.
Over and over in our history, we see this shared culture of ours spawning the same idea simultaneously in different locales. In the years just after 2001 A Space Odyssey and NBC's Star Trek raised the quality bar in Sci Fi like nothing before - - George Lucas and Glen Larson were crafting their huge space operas.
Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica TOS will remain forever linked by their proximity in time and their space-battlefield similarities, and this is unfortunate, because the success of Star Wars ultimately served to scuttle any chance that Battlestar Galactica had to succeed on its major DIFFERENCES. They were many and great, these differences, as we would finally see in 2003.
Battlestar Galactica starts with the destruction of a dozen human homeworlds and the deaths of billions of people at the hands of the Cylons, a reptilian foe. Decades later, Ronald D Moore and David Eick gave us this deep dark story in their excellent Battlestar Galactica 2003 and 2004, so we know this awesome dark potential existed right from the start in 1977. It really did. We all sensed it in the first two hours.
Why didn't we get that show? Because the TV industry which gave us crap like the Irwin Allen shows, and which undercut and ruined Star Trek years too soon, also dove in for a big cash grab while the Star Wars iron was hot. ABC gave no deep thought to what they had on their hands, or how to make it successful over a long haul.
What ABC did, was employ the recipes they used to create the other hits in their stable. They bought the series on a lowball budget that was presented and not possible to meet. They required kid-friendly elements and limited gunplay and violence (this is how the Cylons became a robot race - you could destroy dozens of them at a time since they weren't living beings after all). The budget meant the show veered from sci fi, to cheap episodes on backlot western town and historical drama sets, and struggled to explore the dark story and mystical supernatural theme that was introduced.
SO HERE WE ARE. While you read the haters here who LOVE the cheesiness of the original and rip and belittle Eick and Moore, just remember what Glen Larson actually envisioned, and how Eick and Moore really refined it and NAILED it in an excellent way in BSG 2004.
You CAN love both. It's ok. I do. It's also OK to blame network TV of the 60s and 70s for ruining Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica, so we could have both shows made better, later on.
Over and over in our history, we see this shared culture of ours spawning the same idea simultaneously in different locales. In the years just after 2001 A Space Odyssey and NBC's Star Trek raised the quality bar in Sci Fi like nothing before - - George Lucas and Glen Larson were crafting their huge space operas.
Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica TOS will remain forever linked by their proximity in time and their space-battlefield similarities, and this is unfortunate, because the success of Star Wars ultimately served to scuttle any chance that Battlestar Galactica had to succeed on its major DIFFERENCES. They were many and great, these differences, as we would finally see in 2003.
Battlestar Galactica starts with the destruction of a dozen human homeworlds and the deaths of billions of people at the hands of the Cylons, a reptilian foe. Decades later, Ronald D Moore and David Eick gave us this deep dark story in their excellent Battlestar Galactica 2003 and 2004, so we know this awesome dark potential existed right from the start in 1977. It really did. We all sensed it in the first two hours.
Why didn't we get that show? Because the TV industry which gave us crap like the Irwin Allen shows, and which undercut and ruined Star Trek years too soon, also dove in for a big cash grab while the Star Wars iron was hot. ABC gave no deep thought to what they had on their hands, or how to make it successful over a long haul.
What ABC did, was employ the recipes they used to create the other hits in their stable. They bought the series on a lowball budget that was presented and not possible to meet. They required kid-friendly elements and limited gunplay and violence (this is how the Cylons became a robot race - you could destroy dozens of them at a time since they weren't living beings after all). The budget meant the show veered from sci fi, to cheap episodes on backlot western town and historical drama sets, and struggled to explore the dark story and mystical supernatural theme that was introduced.
SO HERE WE ARE. While you read the haters here who LOVE the cheesiness of the original and rip and belittle Eick and Moore, just remember what Glen Larson actually envisioned, and how Eick and Moore really refined it and NAILED it in an excellent way in BSG 2004.
You CAN love both. It's ok. I do. It's also OK to blame network TV of the 60s and 70s for ruining Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica, so we could have both shows made better, later on.