Battlestar Galactica (1978) 1.02

Saga of a Star World - Part 2

- Apollo and Boomer solve part of the hunger crisis when they discover one ship that is hoarding food; the ship is controlled by Sire Uri, a member of the council of twelve who isn't very understanding when Apollo insists that he share his food with the starving people on other ships
- After some debate and some more unsolicited input from Apollo, the Council of Twelve decide the fleet should head for Carillon in the hopes that they will be able to refuel and resupply there
- the fleet arrives on Carillon and sends down two teams to scout the planet; the first team (Starbuck, Boomer) discovers a casino resort where no one seems to know about what happened to Caprica and the rest of the 12 colonies; Starbuck smells an opportunity to make some money and acts on it despite Boomer's warning that things seem a little strange at the casino resort
- the second team (Apollo, Jolly, Serina, Boxey) head in a different direction and encounter some alien life forms who look vaguely insectoid
- some thing goes horribly wrong at the casino resort at the very end of the episode but what it is exactly isn't revealed in this episode

- there's also a couple other subplots; one involves Starbuck and Cassiopeia; another is about snapping Boxey out of his funk over losing his pet

- still not great
- I know Starbuck is supposed to be the lovable rogue but I find him to be more icky than lovable
- the Council of Twelve looked considerably more diverse in the previous episode; in this episode it seems to consist of only white folks, more specifically white men; I'm pretty sure it was all male in the previous episode
- the Cylons do appear but only briefly and there are no fights between the Cylons and Humanity

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)