Republibot 3.0
Regular
Anyone interested in the actual reasons the original Battlestar Galactica (1978/79) got cancelled?
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The Original Battlestar Galactica
- Thread starter Republibot 3.0
- Start date
Besides the massive costs and drop in ratings?
Republibot 3.0
Regular
Yup. That's the justification, not the cause.
Short form:
ABC wanted to cash in on the Star Wars craze, which they assumed would be short-lived. They decided to do a big-budget glitzy SF show, and use that as a loss leader. People would come for the shooty-shooty bang zwoosh, and they'd stay for "Angie" and "Up All Night" and the new sitcoms. They didn't care too much about the price of the show becuase they figured it'd fail. Since 1968 no SF show had lasted more than 13 episodes, so they figured by the time it crapped out, people would be hooked on the new shows.
IOW, Galactica was born to die.
Thing is: It didn't die. It had pretty huge ratings. And it cost (In modern cash) about $3.7 million/episode) which they couldn't afford to keep on the air. ABC had made it to # on the strength of cheap sitcoms like Happy Days, etc. Added to which, all the new sitcoms were dogs. Only one of 'em made it to the 2nd season. So their only hit was a show they intended to die, couldn't afford to keep on the air, and they freaked.
They started jumping it all over the schedule to drive ratings down. They'd run repeates 3 weeks, then a new ep with no real promotion, then two more weeks of repeats, then jump it to a new slot. It still holds the #2 or #3 spot for the most-moved show in TV history (WKRP in Cincinatti is #1) This worked, but not nearly so well as you'd assume. They only managed to drive it down to like #26 or so. It was still in the top 3rd, which would be good enoguh for it to come back for another season, but they claimed it was cancelled due to low ratings, after half a year of trying to drive the ratings down.
Interestingly, once they'd cancelled the show, they stopped moving it around, and left it in the same slot all summer long. Its ratings steadily increased, now that people knew where to find it. It was around #26 when they killed it. It was in the top 10 by the end of summer.
They took amazingly bad press over this, particularly after that one kid killed himself. They got hate mail for like a whole year. Finally, they created Galactica 1980 SPECIFICALLY to devaluate the brand. "Let's make a deliberately shitty show, have it bomb in the ratings, and then say 'look, we tried to give you people what you wanted...'" This worked perfectly, and BSG went from a show that nearly everyone kinda' liked in 1979 to a show that everyone kinda' laughed at in 1982.
And there you have it. There's a bit more to it than that, but that's the gist. All information comes from an extensive expose "Fantastic Films and Science Fiction" did in 1982, IIRC.
"But ABC had angered the television gods, and must pay," the article said. As a result of this debacle, they went from the #1 network to the #3.
Back then #26 was pretty bad. And summer ratings mean nothing unfortunately.
It was simply too expensive for a show that couldn't maintain the premier ratings. It has more to do with the writers being rushed by the network and them cranking out half ass ripoffs of movies in lots of episodes.
It was simply too expensive for a show that couldn't maintain the premier ratings. It has more to do with the writers being rushed by the network and them cranking out half ass ripoffs of movies in lots of episodes.
Republibot 3.0
Regular
26 is not great, admittedly, but remember: they were DELIBERATELY driving it down. If they hadn't done that, it would have probably hovered in the top 10. And, yes, summer ratings don't count.
However the fundamental issue here is this: ABC signed the show SPECIFICALLY because they figured it'd be dead in 13 weeks, and they were wrong. They couldn't afford to keep it on. So they decided to put a bullet in it's head. This didn't work, so they had to bring it back from the dead, and put another bullet in its head.
Ripping off movie plots? Pretty common for '70s TV, particularly Glen Larson shows. Short production schedules? No doubt. They were always in a crazy rush to catch up until about 2/3rds of the way through the season when they kind of figured out what they wanted to be.
Interestingly, the series was *initially* signed as a series of movies of the week. 3 or 4 (Depending on who you talk to). Specifically, "Saga of a Star World," "The Gun on Ice Planet Zero" and "Lost Planet of the Gods." If it got good ratings, they'd do 3 or 4 more the next year, or maybe go to series. If it got bad ratings, they'd maybe do a quickie film to have 'em find earth, and that's that.
"Ice Planet Zero" was in production when ABC expanded the order to 24 hours for the season, and the production team was totally not up to it. (You'll note, though, that 1 of the 3 movies had a blatant ripoff plot, and another was highly derivative).
Sadly, I think the "Movie of the Week" format would probably have been ideal. Do 3 or 4 a year, make an event of it, plenty of time to hone the ol' scripts, it could have run forever.
Springer
Regular
From what I understand this latest attempt to make a movie is a 're-imagining' rather than bringing back the old show, although they keep changing their tune. I remember back in the late 90s Bryan Singer was talking about doing a film with Viggo Mortensen as Adama, and if I recall correctly Richard Hatch seemed to support Singer while at the same time pushing his own attempt at a sequel series. Will be interesting to hear what he thinks about this latest development, although until it comes out of development hell and footage starts to be shot I'm going to retain the right to be skeptical.
Bit of trivia: if the show had gone to a second season Apollo would have become psychic and left Blue Squadron, and Starbuck would have become the new leader of Blue Squadron. And in Galactic 1980, Starbuck was meant to return in subsequent episodes with the Ship of Light, guiding Troy. Troy would ask about his father, but doesn't tell him what happened to Apollo, but it seemed like Larson was trying to morph it back into the original Galactica. Even Baltar was going to come back. Kent McCord and Barry van Dyke were practically going on strike as they thought they were about to be replaced by the original actors... in short it was a mess but I almost wish it had continued to see what would have happened with the old characters returning.
I've picked up the new comic book series being written by Dan Abnett, not had chance to read it yet but it seems to be a mish-mash of original Galactica and Galactica 80. I met Abnett a few weeks back at a con and he says he was putting different elements together from both shows deliberately, as part of the 35th anniversary, without being canon to either. There is a whole issue dedicated to Athena...
Bit of trivia: if the show had gone to a second season Apollo would have become psychic and left Blue Squadron, and Starbuck would have become the new leader of Blue Squadron. And in Galactic 1980, Starbuck was meant to return in subsequent episodes with the Ship of Light, guiding Troy. Troy would ask about his father, but doesn't tell him what happened to Apollo, but it seemed like Larson was trying to morph it back into the original Galactica. Even Baltar was going to come back. Kent McCord and Barry van Dyke were practically going on strike as they thought they were about to be replaced by the original actors... in short it was a mess but I almost wish it had continued to see what would have happened with the old characters returning.
I've picked up the new comic book series being written by Dan Abnett, not had chance to read it yet but it seems to be a mish-mash of original Galactica and Galactica 80. I met Abnett a few weeks back at a con and he says he was putting different elements together from both shows deliberately, as part of the 35th anniversary, without being canon to either. There is a whole issue dedicated to Athena...
Republibot 3.0
Regular
Nope.
Had it gone to a 2nd season, they'd have killed off most of the sprawling supporting cast, and given double-duty to the remainders. The season premier was to be called "The Return of the Pegasus" and it might actually have been good. It would have killed off Tigh, Dr. Salik, Dr. Wilker, and Sheeba. Boxey would have been sent to a boarding school ship so Apollo could get some funky love. Kids are a damper on that. Boomer would have taken over as the ships science officer, Cassieopeia would have taken over as the ship's doctor. They also would have introduced humanoid cylons (Mainly because the chrome ones were too hard to film) Oh, and a re-cast Athena would take Tighs' job.
I don't recall anything about Apollo becoming psychic.
As for G-80, you're only a little bit off. The original concept there was that it was set 5 years after the end of the original show, and the core cast would have been Adama, Starbuck, Apollo, and Baltar. Baltar has somehow redeemed himself and is president of the council of 12. He wants to change history on earth so they can be ready for the Cylons. The council refuses, so he goes rogue and does it himself. Apollo was going to chase Baltar through time attempting to fix changes Baltar had made, while Starbuck would be traveling back and forth through time from the Galactica to Apollo and back again, bringing information on change and where Baltar is and stuff.
They basically couldn't get Hatch or Bennedict, and couldn't afford Colicos, so they re-cast and re-named the parts, and set it further in the future. (30 years after TOG).
The network insisted on dropping the Time Travel thing early on, and it became effectively 'child care in space.' Horrible.
The "Return of Starbuck" was originally written as "The Return of Apollo," but Hatch was distancing himself from Galactica at the time, as it was regarded as a very bad career move to have been on it. Benedict agreed to do it, and the script was reworked pretty much ONLY by changing the name of the character.
Apollo would have returned as a seraph in subsequent episodes. They'd written another time travel story, but it's unclear if it would have met with network approval (I personally think not, as Christians would have found it extremely sacriligious)
Anyway, the bottom line is that the basic premise of G-80 was never really used, so later on it was heavily re-worked and recycled as "Quantum Leap."
Republibot 3.0
Regular
26 wasn't that bad. There were only 78 shows on the air at the time. Generaly speaking in those days any show that was in the top 50% got renewed. Larson thought he was going to get a 2nd season if he could bring the cost-per-episode down, and was dumbstruck by te cancellation. (Network politics)
The summer ratings dont' count, agreed. I just mentioned them to show that once people could FIND the show, and the network wasn't jumping it all over the schedule in an effort to kill it, the ratings were pretty good.
Republibot 3.0
Regular
Actually, I think Singer said his impression is that the new movie will be unrelated to either series, and probably mid-way between them in terms of tone and subject matter. I don't think Singer's attached to it, though, so take that with a grain of salt.
My HUNCH is that they're hoping to Chris Pine/JJ Abrams it, they way Paramount did Trek.
Demonn
Regular
Springer
Regular
I don't know about that, but the psychic thing is straight from the mouth of Richard Hatch at a convention I attended about 2005 which had pretty much all the surviving cast bar Maren Jenson. He was going to develop some of the funky powers of the Lords of Kobol that Adama alluded to on occasion. I may be misremembering but didn't Adama display some limited telekinesis in War of the Gods?
There's a write up on the Battlestar wiki about one of the unproduced episodes that showed the direction it was going to head in:http://en.battlestarwiki.org/wiki/Wheel_of_Fire.
Edit: actually I'm just reading the second season proposal on the wiki right now. I'd not noticed it before. Interesting stuff. It confirms that Apollo would have left Blue Squadron and it would have been Starbuck that became psychic, not Apollo (so either Hatch misremembered or I did). I hate what they wanted to do to Apollo, and a complete contradiction of the character – he never thought about stepping down after Serena was killed. Don't like the idea of Sheba being killed either.
Larson was going to bring Isaac Asimov on board as a consultant and writer! Now that would have been interesting, especially with his fascination with robots.
Sounds like it would have been mixed - some good, some bad.
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Republibot 3.0
Regular
Yup!
Someone on io9 said "They'll gender-swap starbuck into a guy, and then people will complain about it."
Republibot 3.0
Regular
Meaning no disrespect to Hatch, who's a super-nice guy, but he misremembers a lot. Listen to the commentary track for the BSG box set. The others are all like, "Yeah, I remember this scene. Right after this I got a haircut" and "Oh, sure, they signed me as a recurring character, but you guys got signed as principles for 24 hours," and other very specific memories. Hatch is like, "What's this? I don't remember this." and "Oh, yeah, this, this, this is the scene where...no, wait....what is this again?"
So talking about Season 2 is basically asking an actor to remember a show from 28 years ago THAT HE NEVER MADE. (Caps intended to be funny, not actually yelling). I'd be surprised if anyone could remember anything with any detail over that space of time.
Yes, he did. He moved a paperweight with his mind, and mentions that he studied psychic research at the academy in his youth, and drove his wife crazy bending spoons.
Probably Hatch.
Agreed. Apollo was kind of a schlub of a character, but he WAS a character. He was very duty-oriented, very loyal, none of this "I've got to find myself" touchy-feely crap.
I remember reading that a long time ago, but I'm not sure if it was a done deal or not. I know they'd talked, I think I read something where Asimov mentioned it in passing and was rather cool on the idea. Probably would have if they paid him.
Would it have been good or bad? "The Return of Pegasus" actually sounds kinda' cool, just based on death toll alone. The rest of the episodes sound terrible, though, and we both agree they were gonna' ruin Apollo.
I think whether it was good or bad would depend on how many BTS people they were able to bring over from the first season again. Because the first season didn't really figure out what it wanted to be until the Terra arc, and what we see here sounds like they were ditching that and moving in a safer direction.
Looney
Regular
Very interesting stuff. Last summer I sat down and watched all of that first season for the first time. I had seen several episodes throughout my life, but never all of them end to end. I was very surprised how much I enjoyed it. And the reason I decided to sit down and watch them is because I met Dirk Benedict at a Con and then found out he and Richard Hatch were going to be at another Con near where I live together. It was at a little convention in St. Louis so I actually got to talk to Hatch for awhile, very nice man and very engaging. We didn't get into many details he could mis-remember. LOL Very sad that he passed away so soon after I met him.
Looney
Regular
Oooooo! Why?! :guffaw:
:guffaw:It is not. It is currently on Amazon, but it is Pay-Per-Episode. (Don't do that. It isn't that good.
) I also checked Hulu and nope. I am sure it will be back on one of them soon. Or maybe Go90 will get it to go along with B5. :thumbsup:I will say that it is not a show you should go into thinking it will be brilliant, unless you can put mind back in time to 1978. It is fun and at times has some brilliant qualities. Of course there are also annoying aspects as well. Basically don't have high expectations other than trying to enjoy the fun retro quality of it.
Looney
Regular
I only saw a few reruns when I was a kid. Then when I was older and SciFi Channel ran them. Last summer was the first time I could say I saw all of them. I don't think I am ever going to give Galactica 1980 a shot. The whole basis of that show is one of the main things I can't stand about TV. We are doing a space show, but to save money we are going to do as much of it as we can, or even all of it, on a planet. Then we can just film it out in the desert or the woods and claim it is an alien world. :klingon:
Talvitar
Member
In my memories, I grew up watching Galactica. Obviously, in reality, there wasn't enough of it to do much growing during it, but I was 10 at the time the show first came to Finland, and I guess that's how a child's memory works.
When I was even younger, I watched Space:1999 (which in Finland was titled like "Spacestation Alfa" - which doesn't matter much, just thought you'd like to know ). For me, that was it. So, I was like 6 when I got into certain kind of scifi, and 40 years later I'm still loving it.
After Space:1999, it was the Galactica. I was young and impressionable - and totally in looooove with Starbuck He was ever so dashing!!
And the cylons... 'by your command'... oooooooh!
I've never seen the show since. I'm almost afraid to watch it - what if the childhood memories' magical glow will vanish?
I watched the first season of the new Galactica when it became available on dvd. I was suitably enraged with lady-Starbuck (couldn't really understand why it was done... it felt so contrived). I didn't 'get' the show, it felt fake and affected and overly mysterious.
Then, back when my second child had been born and I spent all my nights up, breast-feeding and holding a child who Would. Not. Sleep. during nights for the first couple years of her life. I watched ENDLESS amounts of series, voice muted, with Finnish or English subtitles. Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, whole of Friends, Las Vegas, Babylon 5, Odyssey 5. Whatever was available. Then after everything else was watched, I looked at the Galactica box and thought: what the hell, let's try it again.
You know what?
The second time's the charm. After I was maybe halfway through rewatching the first season, I was baffled: why hadn't I liked it earlier? I had absolutely no idea! None of the things that had annoyed me the first time "existed" anymore. I was totally hooked.
However. I've never watched the fourth season. Everyone I've told this has said "you haven't missed out on anything. Everyone should stop after the third season."
I do have the 4th season on dvd. So maybe one day I'll risk it...
When I was even younger, I watched Space:1999 (which in Finland was titled like "Spacestation Alfa" - which doesn't matter much, just thought you'd like to know
). For me, that was it. So, I was like 6 when I got into certain kind of scifi, and 40 years later I'm still loving it.After Space:1999, it was the Galactica. I was young and impressionable - and totally in looooove with Starbuck
He was ever so dashing!!And the cylons... 'by your command'... oooooooh!
I've never seen the show since. I'm almost afraid to watch it - what if the childhood memories' magical glow will vanish?
I watched the first season of the new Galactica when it became available on dvd. I was suitably enraged with lady-Starbuck (couldn't really understand why it was done... it felt so contrived). I didn't 'get' the show, it felt fake and affected and overly mysterious.
Then, back when my second child had been born and I spent all my nights up, breast-feeding and holding a child who Would. Not. Sleep. during nights for the first couple years of her life. I watched ENDLESS amounts of series, voice muted, with Finnish or English subtitles. Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, whole of Friends, Las Vegas, Babylon 5, Odyssey 5. Whatever was available. Then after everything else was watched, I looked at the Galactica box and thought: what the hell, let's try it again.
You know what?
The second time's the charm. After I was maybe halfway through rewatching the first season, I was baffled: why hadn't I liked it earlier? I had absolutely no idea! None of the things that had annoyed me the first time "existed" anymore. I was totally hooked.
However. I've never watched the fourth season. Everyone I've told this has said "you haven't missed out on anything. Everyone should stop after the third season."
I do have the 4th season on dvd. So maybe one day I'll risk it...
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