3.25.2009

And now, I remind you of something best forgotten.



Recently, while poking around the iTunes Music Store, I was reminded of something best forgotten. So I thought I would remind you of it as well.

The Sci Fi channel "re-imagining" of the series "Battlestar Galactica" just had its finale last week. The just-ended series was of course a remake of a series from 1978, which was at it's core an attempt to capitalize on the popularity of "Star Wars," the film that had re-written the definition of "blockbuster" the previous year. Well, long before the latest incarnation of Galactica, but shortly after the original, a bastard child named "Galactica 1980" was brought wailing into the world. As much as the Ronald D. Moore's new version of the series raised the bar set by the original, "Galactica 1980" lowered it much, much farther.

Even though the "Galactica's" original Vipers looked too suspiciously like the "Star Wars" X-wing fighter, and the Cylons were little more than chrome-plated imperial stormtroopers, the 1978 series transcended rip-off status because it had at it's core a very intriguing concept: Humans, just like us, having been vanquished by an evil faceless empire, embark "on a lonely quest. . . a shining planet known as Earth."

Richard Hatch and most of the rest of the original cast never found Earth. The characters in the new series, guided by Moore's hand, did find Earth at the conclusion of a brilliantly crafted, four-year-long saga. (That's not really a spoiler.) In "1980", Lorne Greene and a scaled-down replacement cast also found Earth. They looked out a porthole one day and said, "Hey! Check it out! It's Earth. Let's take our flying motorcycles down and have a look."

The iTunes store has offered the original "Battlestar Galactica" series as video downloads for several years. I have several of these episodes in my iTunes library. But only recently has the iTunes store made "1980" available. I can't tell you how much I have NOT waited for this to happen.

I was inspired to write only my second review on the iTunes store, the text of which I share with you below:
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Absolutely, POSITIVELY do NOT spend more than $1.99 on "Galactica 1980." And only spend that much if you download the final episode, "The Return of Starbuck" and none of the rest of this awful garbage.

The only purpose of this series was to try to make "Battlestar Galactica" into a series that was more appealing to kids (it aired opposite "Wonderful World of Disney" if I remember right). Oh, and to also to make it extremely CHEAP to produce as the rapidly withering udder of the Galactica cash cow was nearly dried up for good.

Everything that made season one of "Battlestar Galactica" worth watching was ripped out like so many discarded fish entrails in "1980." Many of the special effects in "Galactica 1980" are an ongoing continuity error as we see "two-seater" Vipers in close-up cockpit shots, but single seat versions in all the (recycled) "open space" special effects shots. That alone show's the network's and producer's assessment of the viewers' intelligence level.

Apparently, people with some actual respect for the Galactica's founding concepts and possessing an iota of creativity staged a commando raid and took over the studio just long enough to produce "The Return of Starbuck." After that, with quality threatening to propogate, ABC rapidly made the decision to bury Galactica for all time. (Well, at least until 2003.)

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