Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/05/23/1980s-battlestar-galactica-had.html
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There are two reasons why Galactica: 1980 flopped:
- No Richard Hatch
- No Dirk Benedict (except for the Enemy Mine pastiche episode)
Said as a former kid of the era. Not having Starbuck and Apollo and the rest of the crew made the series dull. A bearded Lorne Greene was not enough.
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Tis true, tis so true.
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The theme music takes on a whole new level of awe when sung like a chicken…
Bwooooooook BWOCK bwock-bwock-bwock-bwock BWOCK bwooooooook!
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The teaser intro is enough for me. Brion James! Robert Reed!
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Two words though: child actors.
And an emoji: 
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More reasons:
Much lower special effects budget.
Pretty consistantly bad writing. The original BSG had quite uneven writing, but some of the episodes were surprisingly well written. The spinoff not so much.
It was definitely targeted at kids, while the original had at least aspirations of aiming at teenagers.
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- No Richard Hatch
- No Dirk Benedict (except for the Enemy Mine pastiche episode)
No Maren Jensen!
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Such a hopeful time for high-camp SciFi television, with The Phoenix, and Man From Atlantis following it on the same night, if I recall. For a couple of weeks, at least.
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The motorcycles!
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It lacked all the whimsy of the original series. A space opera with a mixture of New Age and misunderstood pantheons and Christian theology was silly, and compelling at the same time. The show embraced a baroque faux Egyptian art style against navy gray painted industrial sets covered with greebles. The only thing it didn’t do was add the word, “space” in front of any tool they used. It had an aesthetic that was campy.
The second series was not as camp. BattleStar Galactica 1980 was objectively bad at times, even compared to the original series. It added a kid as all knowing leaderish super genius, Dr. Zee who was played by two different actors. It was as though Cousin Oliver was leading everybody to their doom. The green/blue screening that was place over a “space” background fell apart when used against bright clouds, cities, and the real world. So many of the effects shots were reused, and that was part of the original, but for some reason in Galactica 1980 it sticks out. The aesthetic that unified the show in the first series looked as real as the cardboard it was made from against the “real” Earth. Gone were the deep space battles and sense of limited resources, isolation and impending doom. There were two cool motorcycles, that and suad. They kept the brown suede jackets.
Source from Galactica 1980, S1 E1
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They didn’t even have Princess Ardala, and I was looking closely.
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Q: How can you tell when a sci-fi space opera has jumped the shark?
A: It contains one or more episodes in which [plot device] transports the protagonists to contemporary Earth, where the protagonists’ failure to blend in becomes a driver for both plot and ‘comic’ relief.
“Dark Matter”, I’m looking at you. But not only you.
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Not just any child actor. Robbie “Cousin Oliver” Rist as Dr Zee.
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Wow, he still works! Lots and lots of voice work:
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There was a Brady-Bunch-themed episode of The Weakest Link a few years back.
He was on it. The host got snarky with him, and he immediately shot back with something like “Watch it, or I’ll kill this show too!”
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Changing the premise from “galactic fleet searching for Earth” to “galactic fleet hanging out at Earth” was a pretty good illustration of the truism the adventure is in the journey, not the destination.
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Mormon theology, to be precise.
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Space CHiPs, but not in space.
They should have stayed in space.
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i don’t need to watch episode 1, or 2 through 10. i was there. i watched them all, for the original airings… and i lived.
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