The Original Battlestar Galactica--Commentary Part Three

Apollo from "Greetings from Earth--Part Two."

"The Man With Nine Lives"

Adama is using the coordinates and directions given by the Beings of Light to make the way to Earth. Adama mentions "following the trail" left by the 13th Colony on their way to Earth. I guess that kind of solves my problem of what all these humans are doing on all these different planets all over the place. However, now aren't there many more such "colonies"?

Starbuck is interviewed for a TV show to recruit new pilots. He is an orphan, his parents supposedly killed during a Cylon raid on Umbra on Caprica when he was a baby. There's an old con man amongst the fleet who decides to take advantage of that and "become" Starbuck's father. His name is Chameleon--but pronounced SHA-me-le-on. Amazing how all the information he has is exactly just what Starbuck did in his interview and he never wonders, but I guess he wants to believe.

Of course, everyone is going gambling and dancing! I know they need some R&R but...The dancing is in skin tight jumpsuits with some kind of triangular hula hoop.

The Borellians, who are amongst the survivors, have come on a "blood trail" for the con man. The best way to describe Borellians is to compare them to Star Trek Klingons.

Starbuck is using a late 70s calculator to compute the odds of the Pyramid card game, right out on the table. WTF?

The Borellians answer the TV commercial in order to chase down the con man on the Galactica.

Funny how the crew on board the Galactica are running tests on Starbuck's paternity bot by DNA but by comparing brain cells. That's 1979 for you! DNA wasn't being compared yet, was it?

Starbuck acts like a little bitch when he fights with Apollo about not believing in his "father." He actually even plans on resigning his commission to be with his "father."

Chameleon (SHAmeleon) is running from the Borellians because he posed as Jackal Captain Dmitri--I've got no idea if the Jackal is just a curse or the name of a ship. They fight the Borellians and beat 'em. Of course. Then we find that Chameleon really is Starbuck's father! He makes Cassiopeia lie so Starbuck doesn't give everything up.

Actually, this wasn't a bad episode, but only if you are invested in the characters already.

"Murder on the Rising Star"

Adama mentions that they will observe Earth before just landing and scaring the hell out of Earth. For these last couple of episodes, Adama is speaking into his microphone as a sort of Captain's Log, and we watch the words come up on the screen sort of like Doogie Howser.

Starbuck and Apollo are in some kind of Triad tournaments on the Rising Star. That's that game that's a cross between basketball and racquetball. It is much more physical than we saw before, with punches and elbows. Starbuck and Ortega fight and get kicked out of the game. (Apollo tells Starbuck, "Go take a turbo-wash and cool off." Don't you just love it when they make a new name for common things? Turbo-wash = shower.) Ortega winds up shot to death in the locker room. Starbuck is seen running away from the scene, nervous. Adama wants Starbuck's laser gun checked. The laser has been fired. They run a laser ballistics check and prove that Starbck's gun killed Ortega. (Although, the test measured the laser power the body took and how much Starbuck's full laser gun expended. I just wonder if that's accurate on absorption and wouldn't a laser gun fire the same amount every time? Maybe I am just looking for something to pick apart--it's not like there's a laser science or that I know anything about it, but I just doubt the "laser absorption" that we were meant to buy.) Starbuck is arrested.

Apollo and Boomer get a lead on some dude named Charybdis. Starbuck makes a jailbreak but Apollo talks him out of running.

Charybdis is some other guy named Proteus, Baltar's pilot and electronics expert, the man responsible for sabotaging the defense computers on Caprica. He is supposedly dead. How the hell do they know of Proteus? How would they know he was dead? I guess they may have coerced some info out of Baltar in the brig.

So Apollo questions Baltar in the brig. They get another lead back to a gambling table on the Rising Star . The dealer is the same guy who found Ortega's body. We find out that his real name is Rifkis. He bribed his way onto the Rising Star when it was excaped from the devastation on Caprica, taking some child's place. Ortega was the bribe-taker. There were also two others who bribed themselves on board and now Ortega was blackmailing them. One of them is secretly Charybdis. (One of them is Ferris Bueller's father!) I wish here that there was more on this. It's a sad and evil little story on the hearts of men. Almost like they didn't really want to dive into that story because they were afraid of upsetting viewers. But that would be cool to concentrate on.

Apollo plays Baltar against Charydis. There's a confession, of course, listened to at Starbuck's trial. Starbuck is let off. Question #1--How the hell does Apollo get Baltar, public enemy #1 for genocidal treason remember, out of the brig? Even if he says it is for the trial, even on Apollo's word, there is no way he would be alone on a shuttle with him.

It's not a bad episode really. The new BSG could really give this a refresher.

"Greetings from Earth--Part One" and "Greetings from Earth--Part Two"

Another Captain's Log entry from Adama reveals that they are "looking for signs that we are getting close" to Earth. I wonder how the plan for the series changed when they show was getting cancelled. After this two parter, there are only four episodes left. That's just the part of me that wonders at creative changes due to ratings, and remember that writer's strike earlier this year that supposedly changed the plot of the TV show Heroes, filming alternate endings in case of strike? I wonder if that affected Battlestar Galactica?

While out on a long range patrol, Starbuck and Apollo discover a sub-light ship with a family of humans in suspended animation. The whole Colonial fleet gets excited. Why didn't they get very excited at all those other human settlements? But they are hoping it is their "first contact with an Earth vehicle." Again, another monotheistic reference when the doctor says, "By the grace of God" when they go aboard the ship.

Athena --when was the last time we saw this character? No wonder she was considered superfluous later on--is running a school. Even her part here seems like something thrown in just to use her and Apollo's step-son character, Boxy. No daggit either.

When the crew discuss the new ship and Athena mentions the've encountered other humans, Boomer says, "Not since we've left range of our home planets...Everyone we've encountered up to now, every colony or outpost, are drifters or pioneers who set out from our home planets, terms, dress, technology all familiar to us." He goes on to mention that these settlements, if they are from the people who were to be the Thirteenth Colony, were left behind, and never made it to Earth. This ship is supposedly an alien technology to the Colonial Fleet. (In previous episodes, they mentioned leaving their "range" of their home planets long ago and then still meeting humans...They specifically mentioned back in the seventh episode, "The Lost Warrior," that they were leaving its galaxy, its star system, they say. But then that also doesn't make sense with the Gamoray outpost in "The Living Legend." But then again, like in Star Trek, maybe this is not intended to undergo all this scrutiny that I am putting it under.)

While they are all fighting about what to do with the people in suspended animation, they woke up on their own. Michael, newly awoken, stuns a Galactica police officer named Reese when he tries to come aboard. Michael is all disoriented and we discover that there is an incompatibilityv with the atmospheric pressure.

Adama decides to put the Earth-ship back on its original course to find the planet that they must be going to.

Michael asks if Apollo and company are part of the Eastern Alliance. He says his race is originally from Terra (Earth) but his family was born on Lunar 7. "That's where we were escaping from."

They take off and the end of the episode shows Adama mentioning that they have been gone for a secton (week) already. We find the Earth-ship is heading for a planet called Paradeen.

I must say, at the end of Part One here, I am quite invested in this show now. I'm extremely intrigued about them finding Earth.

Part Two begins. (Sidebar: I find it interesting that characters and their actors who ddidn't actually appear in part one, just part of the previews for about a second (micron!), are still given billing in the credits in part one.)

They find the planet Paradeen. It's a Terran colony. There's not much left, just farmers, and the city that they do find is abandoned.

There are two androids, Vector and Hector, that take them to Sarah's father's ranch. Her father has died. These two androids are like two C-3POs, with Ray "The Scarecrow" Bolger playing one of them. They discover that the atmospheric pressure difference will never allow the four children to go back to Earth. Then there is a really weird song and dance from the androids, reminiscent of the "best" from the Star Wars Holiday Special--remember that fiasco? (except the cool Boba Fett cartoon).

Anyway, we also discover that the Earth was made up of many nations but became the Eastern Alliance versus the Western Alliance. The war continues and the East is apparently the evil one, destroying West territories and outposts and known to kill children, all in the name of war. The Eastern Alliance is an oppressive government. Michael tells Apollo to "forget about Terra." The Eastern Alliance even look like Nazis. Here is a picture of the leader of the Eastern Alliance ship and one of its operators:

What tends to get lost a bit in this episode is that they have found proof of Earth.

Sarah has fallen for Apollo and Cassiopeia has fallen for Michael. Blah blah. Apollo and Vector meet a family of farmers, the Morlans. Someone has sabotaged the Vipers beyond repair. Starbuck winds up lost in the city archives, so they go after him. (This is a rather stupid error on Starbuck's part.) We find Sarah is the one who sabotaged the Vipers so Apollo would stay. Yeah, that's the basis for a strong, loving relationship.

The Eastern Alliance ship has landed near Sarah's farm and takes her prisoner. Apollo and the rest rescue Starbuck and then go to rescue Sarah. They do. Sarah all of a sudden falls in love with Michael--even for a woman, that's fickle. The Eastern Alliance commander says, "We are the most advance military force in the galaxy." But they don't know about the Galactica. Apollo and Starbuck take the captured Eastern Alliance ship back to the Galactica and the Alliance people are awed at the size of it.

Then it ends, but I can't wait to see what happens next. They have proof of Earth, but they have brought aboard the bad guys.

"Baltar's Escape"

Captain's Log: The Fleet is buzzing about the opressive Eastern Alliance. Have they traded to Cylons for another bad guy? Adama does not want to release the prisoners from the Alliance because he does not want a rehash of the Cylon "peace" mission that went horribly wrong.

Adama, Apollo, and Starbuck go to interrogate the prisoners. The Alliance Commandant says, "We are at war with the Nationalists...people who want to change the natural order."

Baltar on the prison barge joins the Borellians in a jailbreak to get on the shuttle that is due to take the Alliance prisoners to the Galactica. The Borellians can fake death.

The Council of Twelve wants to give Adama the Star of Kobol, but he refuses because he knows it is just to take away military control, something he does not think is wise in their present situation. The Council does it anyway, taking away martial law. One of the Council, Siress Tinia, is to be Adama's civilian aide.

(Sidebar: a toilet is known as a turbo-flush.)

This Siress Tinia ends up directing Adama's decisions completely, almost taking away any security procedures. She thinks it is time for the diplomats to take over. It's exactly like the Cylon "peace" though they didn't even need Baltar to lead them astray this time.

The bad guys capture the Council waiting to speack to them. Apollo and Starbuck prevent the bad guys from taking the bridge of the Galactica. Now it's a hostage situation.

Part of Baltar's demands is the release of the two Cylon pilots who flew him to the Galactica. Unfortunately, the scientist Dr. Wilker has dismantled them as he was experimenting on them. So the really interesting question this poses is whether or not these Cylons have any kind of sentience in them then. Were they killed? Are they just robots gone astray?

Now Siress Tinia says, "Commander, I am not stupid" when she finally goes along with a military assault. You just wanted to slap her.

Baltar agrees to give them another [hour] to put the Cylons together if they take Adama as another hostage. Tinia says she is going too. Apollo changes Adama's planned attack because the Cylon pilots are rigged. They can't put them back together well enough and everything they touch gets destroyed. Baltar is captured. They let the Alliance ship go in order to track them back to Luna 7. Adama gets quite cozy with Siress Tinia.

Now, even after all this, Baltar is still not executed? Genocidal treason, jailbreak, and a hostage situation involving most of the members of the Council of Twelve. Boy, are they lenient.

According to the Battlestar Wiki page I like:

At the end of the show, Baltar is again captured, and the Eastern Alliance
prisoners flee aboard they['re] vessel, with the Borellian Nomen along for the ride.
The ulimate fate of the escapees is never dealt with, however. The episode ends
with the capture of Baltar and although Blue Squadron, and Boomer in particular,
pursue the Eastern Alliance cruiser back to Lunar 7 during the course of the
next episode, Experiment in Terra, this plot detail is lost amidst the drama of
the intervention at Terra, and we never learn what happens to the Alliance
villains or the Nomen.

"Experiment in Terra"

Now we come to the Quantum Leap episode. I don't know if anybody noticed this before--this is my independent conclusion but this must have been noticed by somebody before (I edited the Battlestar Wiki page on this). One of the writers and producers of Battlestar Galactica is also the creator of Quantum Leap, one Donald P. Bellisario. The situation is just way too coincidental. This horrible episode of BSG was also even made into a longer movie-of-the-week. OMG, is all I have to say. If this is the episode of BSG that they made into a longer movie, they had no idea what they were doing.

First of all, it amazes me how they are still giving acting credits to people who aren't even in the show any more. There's no Boxey or Athena and they get "Also Starring" credit. Jolly, that fat pilot who is barely in the entire frakking series, is in it for all of ten seconds.

Captain's Log: Galactica is chasing the Eastern Alliance ship back to its base. And that's the last we hear of this ship. I guess it tucks its tail between its legs, yet never calls home base to tell them of their imprisonment or the remarkable Battlestar that is on its way, following them. Don't even try to tell me they don't know the Galactica is following them.

Apollo's Viper is immediately abducted by the ship of the Beings of Light in order to meet some dude named John. "You have got to help [Terra]," John says. "You must do your best to stop a war." He says he has no physical body. He says he is Apollo's "brother" but from many generations in the future. "What happens to the people on Terra can affect us as well as you and your people." John is going to put Apollo on Terra in the persona of a soldier named Colonel Charlie Watts who has gone missing in action. He's "a bit of a scoundrel," John says. The real soldier is held captive on Luna One. This is supposedly because Apollo does not have time to gain their confidence as Apollo. What the hell kind of plot is this? This is where the Quantum Leap shit starts.

Starbuck goes to help Apollo when his ship comes back. And poor Boomer! Always left behind Apollo and Starbuc to mind the store.

Apollo lands on Earth and is now Charlie Watts. He's almost run over by a car driven by his girlfriend, a girl named Brenda. She received a phone call to meet him out there--I guess John placed that call. She takes Apollo to her apartment and this should have been my first clue as to the ending because I could not tell if they were being all 1970s futuristic or not. You simply cannot tell the year or decade from the decor of the buildings. There is a video-phone and everything is all white and clean.

John appears again, just like Al in Quantum Leap. Nobody can see him but Apollo. John says his sense of humor is necessary in "working with primitive cultures." Brenda calls the military police to take Apollo away. A forcefield on the jailcell is another indication of advanced culture.

We see the President of the Western Alliance, some ponce in high boots, that knows all about Charlie Watts being "tucked away" on Luna One. He is trying to make a peace treaty with the Eastern Alliance. Indeed, he is fighting the Precedium for such a treaty. I guess, when all is said and done, you have to think of this President as Poland making a non-aggression treaty with Germany. He says he is trying to avoid "an abyss which will end all civilization on this planet."

Starbuck finds Apollo's Viper on Terra. He is then found by the People's Nationalist Force. He stuns all nine of them and blows up their vehicle.

Brenda's father has been on a secret mission for the Precedium, saying that the President has been lying. Watts would be the only proof of the President's deception. He and Brenda are then captured.

Apollo tries to convince everyone he isn't Watts. So why the bloody cover or disguise in the first place? It would have been simpler if he just tried to prove who he really was.

John appears now to Starbuck. "I am not allowed to interfere in any way." Even though it sure looks to me like he is interfering. Then he talks to the sky, presumably the other Beings of Light, saying, "It's the best I can do with the material I've got. They're primitives!"

Starbuck rescues everyone. The father says, "You mean that crazy story you told us was true?" Which would be easier to believe: a man saying he is from another planet or a man that you know very well saying he is really a man from another planet underneath? Wacko. Starbuck says the Vipers are enough "to prove we're from another galaxy."

The Eastern Alliance, I can't tell if they're Nazis or from the Death Star briefing room, is readying its final strike. The Precedium doesn't believe in the holocaust on the Luna Bases.

Brenda takes Starbuck back to his ship to contact Galactica. Hopefully, the Galactica can save them all.

Apollo, even introduced as Apollo and not Watts, gives a little speech to the Precedium. He tells them about the Twelve Colonies. Wouldn't he be considered an utter wack-job right now? The Eastern Alliance launches its nuclear attack. The Western Alliance automatically launches its counter attack. The Galactica finally arrives in orbit.

So how does the Eastern Alliance think it's going to win anything, when John tells Starbuck that 4/5 of the planet will be destroyed? Did Apollo actually fail to prevent the bombs from going off in the first place?

Galactica takes out all the missiles with less than 30 seconds to spare. It's a shield of some kind and looks like what Reagan probably conceived of as Star Wars during his Presidency. I swear, Reagan must have been influenced by this episode. The Eastern Alliance caves.

Apollo thanks the Lords of Kobol, yet five seconds later, John tells Apollo it was good to put "the fear of God" into them. Apollo disappears.

Apollo asks John, "Is this Earth?"

John answers, "This is not Earth and this is not the end of your journey."

So it's yet another colony of humans?? Presumably, this one is an offshoot from Earth and not the Twelve Colonies. And there's part of me that wonders if one of the reasons we have not seen any Cylons recently is that they are letting the Galactica find all of these human colonies and then coming up after them to destroy them all.

Question: Why the hell does what happen on this fake Terra in any way affect the people of the Galactica?

Question: What exactly did Apollo and Starbuck do on the surface of the planet? Nothing. The Galactica did everything from space. They didn't even need to be on the surface of the planet in any way, shape, or form. You could argue that Apollo gave that little speech on peace, but remember, he was supposed to be Charlie Watts, not Apollo. That speech didn't do anything anyway.

Now do you see what I mean by that Quantum Leap connection? A man is put in the guise of a local to solve a situation with the help of a "holographic" companion that only he can see or hear. This is the first Quantum Leap.

This is what Richard "Apollo" Hatch had to say about this episode in an official statement on

"Experiment in Terra"http://en.battlestarwiki.org/wiki/Experiment_in_Terra
Richard Hatch discusses his "Starbuck"-esque role in this episode: Richard
Hatch: One of the biggest, well, kind of practical jokes was, there was an
episode written for Dirk [Benedict], and I got the episode and I…I was a little
upset. I felt they were, you know, knocking Captain Apollo. I felt they were
really pushing him aside and I said, I think it’s time that HE had a story, that
you did something for this character rather than just letting him give orders
and go march around the ship. So he, Glen [Larson] said, you’re right, we really
should, we need a story with Captain Apollo going down to HIS planet. So, about
two hours later, the script I’d had, featuring Dirk, arrived at my house, and it
had been…the two characters of Captain Apollo and Starbuck were simply
interchanged, they’d put my name where Starbuck was and put Starbuck where
Apollo was. And I immediately got into the car and was seeking out Dirk to
apologize, because I simply had no idea, I thought, down the road, the next
story, maybe a couple of stories later he’d write one for Captain Apollo. He
didn’t do that, he just took the very story that had probably been in Dirk’s
hands, he’d been going “what a wonderful script I have here!” and two hours
later he gets a script where he was now Captain Apollo and I’m Starbuck and
literally he has not changed any lines. In any case I was very embarrassed and I
found him at a party and I explained the whole situation to him and how sorry I
was and he said, well, I understand, I just think you should go to Glen Larson
and ask him to reverse it, put it back the other way. So I tried to find Glen
Larson, and I told him, I appreciate the gesture, but the next time will you be
a little more subtle? Sometimes you want to expand your character, you want to
bring in new dimensions to the character and they gave Captain Apollo the chance
to do a few things that he didn’t normally do on that show because, as you all
know, Starbuck got to run around and have fun with the ladies and Captain
Apollo…kind of had fun with himself…and from that time on they actually began to
change, not change the characters, but to give Starbuck a little bit of the
Captain Apollo quality and Captain Apollo a little bit of the Starbuck
qualities, and they started to make the characters more well-rounded, and I
appreciated that.

"Take the Celestra"

No Cylons again! When was the last time we say a Cylon? Way back in "Fire in Space" NINE episodes ago. I don't count those two in "Baltar's Escape" because they were dismantled and hastily put back together, presumably dismantled again after Baltar's re-capture. Those don't count as they were no threat. Nine episodes ago. I guess that kind of gives a bit of crediblity to the suicide attacks of that episode being some kind of last ditch effort.

Captain's Log: Adama talks about the increasing number of inhabited planets they are discovering.

Starbuck sees a long-lost love, Aurora, when the Commander Kronus of the Celestra is being given an award. She's pissy that Starbuck never looked for her.

Kronus has a list of accomplishments that would put him above Adama, but he retired and only became active again after the Cylon decimation when they needed people. He even remarks that Adama was once his aide.

Starbuck wants to patch things up with Aurora, even though Apollo tells him to remember Cassiopeia. They both head for the Celestra. Cassiopeia must be a real stupid woman to let this go.

We find that Aurora is part of a rebel force on the Celestra that mutinies against Kronus and his first officer Charka. The mutiny takes place, luckily with Apollo and Starbuck already on board. They stop the mutiny. They put the prisoners on a shuttle for trial, with Kronus who must press charges, to go back to the Galactica. It's all Mutiny Plan B by first officer Charka. Seems he is pissed when Kronus won't retire. He knew either the mutiny would succeed, deposing Kronus, or they would be captured and this shuttle-thing would happen. The shuttle is given directions to take it out into deep space so it will run out of fuel and never make it back.

The shuttle is lost. There's a stupid little love triangle between Aurora, Starbuck, and Damon, one of the mutineers. They find the Celestra by a very good guess. They land just as their fuel runs out. (As they try to retake the Celestra, why do they bother getting out of the shuttle? They weren't seen boarding. Couldn't they just radio for help? I don't know.)

They retake the ship in a fun little gun battle. Charka kills Kronus saving the ship. Charka is imprisoned.

Cassiopeia goes back to that bastard Starbuck after he was chasing an ex-girlfriend. She says she doesn't want to "own" him but she could at least stand up for herself. He's done this before with Athena, remember? What a strong, modern woman.

"The Hand of God" The last episode of Battlestar Galactica.

Whether or not they wanted this to be their last episode, it is what it is. It may have been a forced conclusion because the plug was pulled to give a hell of a series finale. This show must have been somewhat successful enough to allow for a spin-off series, Galactica 1980, no matter how ill-conceived or ill-perceived it was. That spin-off will only last ten episodes. But we'll get to that another time.

To me, this is all just a duplication of the Battle of Yavin (the first Death Star battle at the end of Star Wars: A New Hope). You'll see.

Starbuck gets a cheap look up Cassiopeia's skirt as they and Apollo and Sheba climb to the highest point of Galactica's interior to look at the stars. While there, we hear that Galactica launched over 500 yahren ago (that's about 342 years ago according to my calculations). They pick up a TV signal on an unused gamma frequency of the Apollo moon landing, although they don't know what it is. Apollo says the ship "looked like something the Colonies flew a couple of thousand yahren ago." They have no idea how long the signal has been floating through space.

Apollo, Starbuck, and Sheba go on patrol to search for the source of the transmission. Poor Boomer has to stay behind to work on cleaning up the signal. They fly past planets as fast I drive past lampposts, Jupiter, Mars, the Moon--then something comes out from behind the Moon--a Cylon BaseStar! Sheba will later confirm that the BaseStar was "behind the third planet." The case could be made where this is just another solar system though, I guess, but it sure looks like the Cylons found Earth first.

They run back to the fleet without being seen. Adama says, "I thought we'd lost them for good." Adama wants to make an all-out assault on the BaseStar. "I'm tired of running."

They prepare for the assault. Jolly gets one sentence of dialogue even though he still gets an "Also Starring" credit, talking about "If the commander is buying, I'm drinking!" That poor actor who plays the Galactica operator Omega gets more dialogue and action and screen time than this fat bastard but does not get the billing. What the frak does Jolly do to warrant even a name?

Knowing that they still have Baltar's Cylon ship to help them with the sneak attack, Adama strikes a deal with Baltar. Freedom for info. Adama will let him off on some habitable planet somewhere, all alone.

The romance ensues! Sheba and Apollo kiss. Cassiopeia and Starbuck kiss.

Apollo and Starbuck will pilot Baltar's Cylon ship inside the BaseStar to blow up the control center while Boomer gets to lead the squadron in the attack.

Baltar briefs Apollo and Starbuck. His info that was so important that Adama would make a freedom exchange for? The control center is at the bottom of the central core with one guard--smash those computers and the BaseStar is blinded. That's the important info? They could have beaten that out of him. They get aboard the BaseStar without incident. They infiltrate the central core, killing the one guard. They set the explosive charges. The squadron takes out the Cylon Raiders in a nice little space battle. The Galactica destroys the BaseStar.

(Sidebar: It's amazing how at least two Viper pilots are blown to smithereens but there are no tears or even mention of them--they are all worried about the return of Apollo and Starbuck.)

The end has Apollo and Starbuck back in the observation deck. They leave for the party without seeing the new television signal of "The Eagle has landed" coming through. The case could be made, like SETI, that if you don't monitor signals you could miss it.

So that's the end. The end of a show that everyone knows about but lasted only one season and 24 episodes. There are so many questions that never got answered. Who were the Cylons? Why did they want the extermination of mankind? Who exactly were the Beings of Light and just WTF did they want? Did they ever find Earth? I guess we get a kind of answer to that last one in the horrible spin-off series Galactica 1980, but as I have been reading, most BSG fans don't even consider that as part of their canon material.

The biggest question is why did the idea of this show last? Admit it, everyone knew about this show, and remembered it. I honestly thought it was getting better as the season progressed. What if there had been at least one more season--could it have taken off? Think of all the shows that really gather a fan base well into the second, third seasons. TV was at a point in 1979 where there was no SCI-FI Channel to save it. I remember this show being successful enough to have an attraction at Universal Studios Hollywood that I remember seeing when I was younger. Why did the idea attract enough devotion to ultimately inspire the new reimagined series? Thank goodness it did because the new series is one of the best shows ever. Could this type of show be better as like a "movie of the month" than a TV show? Concentrate on, like, six to ten "episodes" a year. Would this have fared better or worse under the current system of like 12 episodes to a season? It would have sort of eliminated its budget problem, plus the creators could concentrate on better stories.

Well, at least the reimagined it for us. Thank goodness for that. I just remember not giving the new show a chance when it first came out because of all the horrible things that are said about this 1978 show. I wonder how many other people skip it based on what they "remember" of the old show?