Pop Culture WI: Galactica 1980 Isn't Terrible

MerryPrankster

Here's a pop-culture what-if: What if "Galactica 1980," the spinoff of the cult hit "Battlestar Galactica," wasn't atrocious and cancelled in mid-season?

ABC cut the budget in half, which meant that there was little (if any) space action, and the Cylons aren't seen much at all. Richard Hatch and Dirk Benedict refused to participate, since they felt the show had been ruined.

Since "Galactica 1980" ran in the 7 PM Sunday night time-slot, it had to have "family/educational" value--hence lots of "timely" plots (the Galactica's crew buying food from a Latino farmer being oppressed by white neighbors) and the significant role being given to "the Super Scouts" and a 15-year-old genius named "Dr. Zee" who invented a time-travel machine that was used for more "educational" plots set in various past locales.

I assume the POD would be that ABC decides (after cancelling the original show) to give Glen Larson more creative control and money. A different time-slot would be a must, I imagine.

Now what? Will science-fiction's burst of post-"Star Wars" respectability continue?
 

Chris

Banned
I always thought that there was room for more seasons in the first series. I considered the second to be s*** from start to the second-last episode. The last one had potentail, as it approached the Ilibs/light ship storyline, but the rest were junk.

Anyway, there are two things that could happen.

1) BG becomes more popular with a second season, like DS9 and VOY. The storylines become more complex and possibully expand people's minds. Galactica never finds earth as that ends the entire show. The actors become cult figures - Balter's actor probabuly never play's KOR in star trek

2) BG's writing declines futher and its popularity falls due to competition from Star Trek, B5, et al. The careers of Starbuck/Applio/etc skydive and go splat. There is no BG revival in 2003, nor are SF tv shows popular, therefore perhaps no ST:ING, et al.

Chris
 

Tom_B

Which came first--The Chircken or the Klingon?

Chris said:
Balter's actor probabuly never play's KOR in star trek

Chris
Click to expand...


John Colicos played Kor in the original Star Trek before Battlestar Galactica. In between I remember seeing him on the stage as MacBeth in CT.

If the original series had limped into a second season the problems of the budget cuts and the temptation to find Earh (which would not end the show immediately but would inevitably cuase it to morph along the lines of BG-90) would become nigh irrestible. I could see a two part cliffhanger ending season 2.

Actually the tempation to find earth would be something like Dave and Maddy falling in love on Moonlighting which also caused a downward spiral.

Tom
 

MerryPrankster

A complete collapse of "Battlestar Galactica" during the first season would end SF on television? Ouch.

I read some of the plots for the planned second season, and they were rather bad (one of which involved the Cylons replacing Commander Cain with a robot and turning the Pegasus against the Galactica). One hopes the POD will be early enough so that none of those get used.
 
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