Battlestar Galactica 1980
By Mal Simons, Blockbuster.co.uk
Set around fifteen years after the original Battlestar Galactica series, Galactica have found Earth. Sending warriors down to the surface, the Galacticans have to move Earth’s sciences forward at the same time as avoiding the Police and the Airforce who have launched a full manhunt. Includes the brilliant episode – The Return of Starbuck which stars original cast member Dirk Benedict and reveals Starbuck’s fate.
The Galactica has made it to Earth but Earth is not what they had hoped. Set in the current day (at the time) – in the year 1980, Galactica and the fleet cannot land on the planet Earth for fear of bringing down the wrath of the Cylon Empire on the last planet of human kind. Furthermore, Earth is on the brink of war - the forty year old Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union is in full swing, Galactica’s arrival and cooperation with one faction could cause bloodshed.
Instead, Commander Adama and ‘Dr Z’ (please shoot me), decide on a plan to progress human science by revealing themselves to leading intellectuals and scientists, helping them to develop the types of technology that can defend mankind and finally defeat the Cylons. The hope that is, in a generation, this could bring Earth on to a point that it matches Galactica and the people of the fleet would then be able to announce itself to the rest of humanity..
Sending down his two best warriors, his grandson Troy (), known in the original series to be ‘Boxy’ (the kid with the Daggat / dog thing) and Dillon (); Adama takes the fleet away from Earth, drawing the Cylons away with them. Upon arriving on Earth, Troy and Dillon become friends with a local news reporter who protects them from the rest of the media and make contact with a leading scientist working on nuclear power.
Needless to say, it is not long before Troy and Dillon’s outlandish appearance, lack of money and space-age flying bikes and planes bring them to the attention of both the police and the US Airforce. Both forces begin a manhunt for the pair.
Also, the decision to bring Earth’s technology up slowly has not gone down well with everyone on the Galactica council. Troy and Dillon have to stop an evil ‘Galactican’ who travels back to the 1940s in order to give Nazi Germany the technology to win World War II. This results in the Germans getting V2 rockets before our heroes follow him back in time and stop him.
Half way through the series, a fleet ship is attacked that contains all of the Galactican children (makes sense….put them all in one place with no weapons and allow them to drift behind). With not enough fuel to make it back to the fleet, Troy and Dillon (who have apparently rejoined the fleet at this point), take all the Galactican children (all 12 of them), to Earth. Once on Earth it is revealed that despite their appearances, the Galacticans have superpowers – they can jump higher and run faster than normal humans due to the environment that they have grown up in. (Higher gravity and so forth).
Admittedly this all sounds silly…. In fact it is silly but it does stand up remarkably well to the first Battlestar Galactica series. Although the show reportedly had a smaller budget than the earlier Dirk Benedict series, this cannot really be seen on screen, with plenty of special effects all the way through – although many are reused from the previous incarnation.
The show itself does move on the Galactica storyline quite a bit, more than I ever imagined. Near the end of the show it is revealed that the Cylon have evolved to resemble humans, very similar to those in the reimagined noughties series. These Cylon-humans are machines inside however, meaning that when they’re shot, machine parts shoot out everywhere.
“What should we do Dr Z?”
The only thing that lets this show down is ‘Dr Z’. Apart from resembling ‘The Milky Bar kid’ he boasts a very deep, posh English Accent and basically tells Adama what to do. Luckily, he is hardly in the show…. But it does seem incredible that Adama seems unable to make even the simplest of decisions. Maybe he’s just gone a bit loopy in his old age?
The best thing by far about this show though is the final episode – The Return of Starbuck starring Dirk Benedict. Set years before this series, this tells the story of what happened to Starbuck, the best character from the old show. Starbuck crash lands on a deserted world following a fight with a Cylon raider and ends up rebuilding a Cylon to talk to (he has no hope of escape and he’s lonely). It’s a brilliant episode, with Benedict on screen for almost the entire time. Touching, funny and very good – this is worth getting just for this one episode alone.
Related Interview with Dirk Benedict