Are there any “missing episodes” of Battlestar Gallactica?

I was a little surprised to learn that Battlestar Gallactica lasted only one season (Sept. 1978 to Apr. 1979). See this episode guide. I watched the shows when they aired originally, then years later I watched them again on the Sci-Fi channel. But my brother and I both remember at least one old episode that was never re-broadcast on the Sci-Fi channel.

In this episode, they had reached Earth. (Presumably it was Earth; we’d been fooled before.) It was Halloween, and the Earth people assumed they were all dressed up for the occasion. In particular I remember a Cylon who was assumed to be in costume by a motorcycle cop. There was something about a taxi too (was the Cylon riding in it, or Apollo and Starbuck?). I remember distinctly that this episode, and at least a few others, were aired on a Saturday (or possibly Sunday) afternoon in 1980 or 1981. I don’t know if they were re-runs from the original airing of the show a year or two earlier, or if they were new episodes.

Are my brother and I delusional, or did these episodes really air? Did they continue producing episodes for syndication after the network cancelled the show? (This is what happened to another of my favorite shows, Due South).

I was only a click away from the answer. The page I linked to above had a link to the episode guide of a series called Galactica 1980, which is apparently what I was thinking of. There were ten episodes that aired between January and May, 1980. No doubt my original search was hindered by my spelling “Galactica” with 2 ls. The episode guide for the second series is here: http://www.battlestarfanclub.com/bg80eps.htm

I too was surprised to find that BG only lasted one season. They probably broadcast it for two (to get their money’s worth from the then-expensive special effects shots), but there were only one season’s worth shot.

Then came Galactica 1980. What a lame show! All the kids that had been born in space had superstrength when they were on Earth. There was a Dr. Zee character, a child prodigy that invented stuff to help Capt Troy (formerly Boxey) when he went down to Earth, like a flying motorcycle and cloaking devices for their Vipers.

There was one episode where Dirk Benedict returned to show an in-between years Starbuck story. It turns out that after being marooned on a planet with a woman and a Cylon (that Starbuck somehow made friendly), he fathered a “love child” with that woman. This child ends up being Dr. Zee.

According to the IMDb, some episodes in syndication carry the title Battlestar Galactica, instead of Galactica 1980.

Jeez, as a devoted fan and lover of Science Fiction, I had kinda hoped ALL the episodes of that silly travesty had been lost, along with every episode of Buck Rodgers and Wilma (I have really really tight clothes on for a reason and can’t decide whether men like blondes or brunettes better) Deering. ICH.
Fun while watching BG: count cylons killed going left, going right, going straight. Those were the only three versions ever filmed and used. Insipid idiocy.

DSYoung, you will be thrilled to know that Richard Hatch is pushing for a revival of the series, to be called Battlestar Galactica: The Second Coming. IIRC, they wanted to pretend that the events in Galactica 1980 never happened (not a bad idea, IMHO).

Cast your vote for it today! :smiley:

First off, as a not-so-closet BG fan, I need to remind y’all that Galactica <ptooie> 80 did not, in fact, ever happen. It was all a delusion. Forget what the episode guides say. It was a horrible, horrible mistake. And I have the episodes to prove it (I keep them for watching when I feel the need to do penance for some egregious behavior). OK, I will acknowledge the existence of the horribly misnomered “The Return of Starbuck” episode, if only because it had Dirk Benedict in it. However, I do need to make one correction…
AWB posted

Not quite. Starbuck did not actually physically father Dr. <spit> Zee. The woman was pregnant when the Cylon found her. She claims the kid is his “spiritual” kid. Whatever. I always thought it was very, very strange until I talked to an ex-Mormon. I can’t recall the particulars but I learned that a LOT of what happened in that episode and in “War of the Gods” (the one with Patrick MacNee) was related to some of the more “secret” aspects of Mormon Theology. Glen Larson being a member of the LDS church, this sort of makes sense. There are actually a lot of parallels between the series and LDS theology. I think some of the information can be found on the FAQ at http://www.kobol.com.

DSyoungEsq complained"

Ha! Dream on. :slight_smile: In actuality, it’s never been off the air for any substantial length of time since it aired. For many, many years it was run in syndication. Then the SciFi Channel picked it up (they still rerun it now and then, though they commit the terrible sacrilege of snipping scenes to make room for commercials…grrr). Yes, it’s hardly the world’s greatest Science Fiction series. In fact, when it comes to the “science” part of science fiction, it’s pretty poor. Probably because Glen Larson knows jack-felgercarb about even the most basic aspects of astronomy and he tended to interfere with the show writers all the time. For me it’s a guilty pleasure. The fact that I was only 8 when the show aired probably helped me enjoy it. And, FWIW, it was the most successful space-based science fiction series that ever aired on network TV. Despite what naysayers will tell you, it ranked somewhere in the 20s for the year. It got canned largely because of costs.

There was 24 hours of the first and only season aired. Some of the episodes have been released on VHS but not all (and, alas, not the best ones). A “widescreen” version of the theatrical version of the pilot is available, but since the show wasn’t filmed in widescreen this just means some of the top and bottom of each frames is cut off. Oh, and in Canada a series of “telemovies” was created…these are very, very odd cut-and-paste versions of the original eps, complete with bad voice overs to link the unrelated stories together. Scary. But, as a BG fan, I can claim to have those on tape, too. :slight_smile:

As for the revival, well, the less said about that, IMHO, the better. It’s a 20 year old show, and Mr. Hatch hasn’t managed to do anything useful with his career since then. He’s written two books, and they’re atrocious. Personally, I’d rather just remember the show as a nostalgic guilty pleasure and leave it at that.

Michele

Interestingly enough, the ghost of Galactica lived on. After the production company (can’t remember now) released clips to their stock library, an even-more-atrocious-than-Galactica movie called Space Mutiny used Galactica footage for every single exterior shot, including battles. Vipers (which they actually had the gall to call Vipers] and Cylon disks duke it out, and the Galactica herself stands in for the movie’s starship The Southern Sun…although the word “Galactica” is painted very clearly on the side of the ship. MST3K riffed Space Mutiny but never mentioned the footage as being Galactica (not even a Lorne Greene joke!).

I guess we can surmise the original series took place in the 1920’s. And perhaps any new series could take place in the 1950’s, still allowing for the existence of Galatica 1980.

On the other hand, perhaps Galatica 1980 did indeed happen, but that it really wasn’t Earth, but perhaps a planet of illusions. I was too young at the time to form an opinion about the show’s merits, I just knew it was cool, especially the flying motorcycles.

But in any event, Galatica 1980 did indeed happen. So explain it away in a creative way, but don’t pretend it doesn’t exist. I hate it when shows/movies do that. I think it does greater damage to a franchise, as you are forever wondering if the latest adventure is worth investing your time and heart into, only to have someone with no talent say “Nah, didn’t happen”.

Or you wake up and take a shower… :wink:

Alzarian wrote:

To which DSYoungEsqu replied

You laugh (or smiley) but Glen Larson has oft remarked that G80 was really just Starbuck’s nightmare. Too many mushies before bedtime, I guess.

As for the timeline of BG v. G80, there are some problematic elements. In G80 itself, Troy or Dillon or someone remarks that it’s been 30 years since the original planets were destroyed. Dr. Zee is 14 years old. Therefore, the events that occured in “The Return of Starbuck” must’ve happened 16 years after the planets were destroyed. But Starbuck and Boomer (the only original cast members we see in the episode) do not look any older (nor have they increased in rank) than they did during the BG run. So unless you get really creative with your interpretation of a “yahren” v. a “year”, the math doesn’t work. Not that this sort of thing ever worried the Galactica powers that be before…

Personally, I didn’t have a problem with the premise of G80 in the context of the BG universe; it was the execution that stank. Hatch’s stuff, in contrast, stinks both in premise and in execution. And, personally, I think his main reason for wanting to ignore G80 is that he was never in it in the first place. In fact, it’s implied that his character–Apollo–is dead by that time. And that would sort of defeat Hatch’s ultimate purpose of generating a vehicle to jumpstart his own career.

Some people on the BG mailing list that I’m on have suggested the idea that a revival that basically re-does the whole series from the beginning would be the best way to go about things. That’s if, of course, you really think a revival is necessary or desirable in the first place. I don’t, but YMMV.

In one of the first year BG episodes, the characters restore a long-forgotten observation dome on the Galictica’s surface. While there, they pick up a subspace “ghost” of a radio transmission taking place somewhere across the universe. That turns out to be the TV transmission from the Apollo 11 moon landing. That would date the episode in 1969 (not allowing for relativity or other time snafus).

But much as I enjoyed Battlestar Galactica, it had holes in it’s plots a galaxy could fit through. So expecting it to be consistant is a bit hopeless.

P.S. Bad as Buck Rogers was originally, the last season where they were all aboard an exploratory vessel was mind-bogglingly stupid. Wilma Deering and the Seven Dwarves may actually be the single worst episode of a SF show ever shown on American television.

Awe come on Lumpy! Bad as that was I don’t think it could possibly compete with any of the insipid Lost In Space episodes. I mean don’t get me wrong…I loved anything SciFi when I was a kid. I couldn’t get enough BG or Buck Rodgers, but even as an 8-year-old, I could tell that Lost In Space was REALLY BAD!!! And what about that movie they released a couple of years ago? Gosh, just goes to show that no matter how many cool special effects you put in a movie you just can’t cover up a lousy concept and a bad script.

Well Michele, as much as I totally identify with your passion for BG (I was 8 too, and totally ate it up), I think calling it the “most successful space-based science fiction series that ever aired on network TV” might be questionable. Star Trek comes to mind immediately as a top contender for that title, and one could argue that TNG and DS9 were different shows (spin offs albeit) and they also had tremendous success. But I applaud your devotion to the show! I got to see it recently on a SciFi channel BG marathon, and it brought back some memories…but I agree with you that it is totally a generation specific guilty pleasure, and I’m guilty as charged. I’d love to check out your video collection sometime. :slight_smile:

Galactica was a Star Wars ripoff, with Erich Von Daniken thrown in the plot. But heck, at least it was a FUN TV show (except for that monkey in a robodog suit. Ew). Then came the travesty, Galactica 1980. And I thought NOTHING could be worse than Buck Rogers’ second season (the one with that wingless birdguy)…

Oh, there’s worse. Remember The Man From Atlantis? It went downhill after the lousy episode “The Naked Montague” (where Mark Harris somehow becomes infolved in the legendary feud between the familiar of - gah! - Romeo and Juliet! He even helps the tragedy to have a happy ending!). Right after this episode, there were the equally stupid “C.W. Hyde” (C.W. drinks some stuff that turns him into a monster with bushy eyelids), “Scavenger Hunt” (the one with the two-headed, bipodal seahorse) and “Imp” (the one with Pat Morita as an imp that causes insanity).

Well, there was the missing “who cares” episode, and the never-to-be-forgotten “get a life” episode, and the… :smiley:

Buck Rodgers at least had lot o’ babes in skintight outfits- yowza!