Friday, July 29, 2016

Battlestar Galactica (1978) 1.01

Saga of a Star World - Part 1

- Part 1 of a three part story that introduces the series; it aired as a movie in some theaters, as well as on TV

- Everything seems to be going fine, humanity is about to finalize a peace treaty with the Cylons after decades of war when out of nowhere the Cylons attack
- Commander Adama is the only leader prepared for the sudden attack, during which he loses one of his sons, Zack (Rick Springfield)
- The rest of the fleet and most of the planets inhabited by humanity are destroyed, only the Galactica and a rag-tag fleet of 200+ ships survive; things don't look good, food and fuel supplies are low; people are starving
- Commander Adama declares that while the 12 colonies have been destroyed, each of which seems to be named for a sign of the zodiac, there is a 13th colony and that they must seek it out; although he doesn't seem to know exactly where it is, other than it is far, far away and is called Earth

- Overall this episode was ok, not great; I'm not crazy about most of the acting
- Starbuck hitting on Athena, Zack's sister, right after Zack was killed, classy; or maybe I'm just misreading what he was up to
- I am watching this in large part because Mike and Chris of the Geek Brunch Retro Cast have started watching it and talked about the first three episodes on the latest episode

- I have no recollection of seeing this episode before but I did watch reruns of Battlestar Galactica back in the early 80s; I have no idea how many episodes of the original series 24 episodes I watched back then but this is probably the first time I have tried watching the show in over 30 years

- I recall watching a few episodes of the next series Galactica 1980; that series takes place in the present after the Galactica has found Earth; according to IMDB Galactica 1980 ran for 10 episodes from January to May 1980; the only episode that I recall any details from is a Halloween-themed episode which included a guest appearance by DJ Wolfman Jack

- I have done a little bit of research into the Starlog Archive to see what coverage of the show there was when it first aired and here's what I have found so far:
- Issue 17: 2-page spread with publicity shots from the show and a bit of text describing the show
- Issue 18: separate interviews with Richard Hatch (Apollo) and Dirk Benedict (Starbuck) which together span 6 pages
- Issue 19: 4-page interview with Maren Jensen (Athena, Adama's daughter)

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