As far as show length goes, more is always better, sez I.

Seriously, the new BSG is something you need to see. Period. I don’t understand how we could have scared you off with this conversation.

But definitely start with the miniseries, so you won’t get lost on a handful of backstory points.

Mark: there is a box set that has the miniseries and the entire first season. It’s a blue box that has Six prominently featured on the left, and Apollo and Starbuck farther back on the right. It also has more extras than the first version of the season 1 set.

The first release of the first season was a Best Buy exclusive release (July instead of September), and for copies purchased in July and August, you got a Serenity preview DVD along with BSG season 1. Can’t get that disc anymore, and I’m not sure that first season set is still available either (a brown box with just S1 and a couple extras).

I was a senior in HS when the old one came out (that’s the sound of my old bones creaking) and hot for more sci-fi, so I watched it for longer than I probably should have–or maybe it was that it started out good and then jumped the proverbial shark. I still think the original theme score ROCKED, though. Just one of the coolest sci-fi themes ever. I’m kind of let down to think they have a different one for the new version of the show. At any rate I shudder at the memories of the last episodes I did watch, but to hear you guys dissect the good stuff helped ease that pain. Isn’t there a DVD release that has the mini-series plus 1.5 seasons all in one package? I can’t seem to find it at Amazon.

Congrats on getting listed in iTunes, it makes getting your kick-ass show so much easier!

Mark in NY

I’d always counted the pilot as one episode and the two-parters as separate episodes, because except for the pilot, none of them were ever originally aired together.

Guess that’s why the 22 episode count always stuck in my mind, but I could see how the folks who actually filmed and acted in them see them as 17 episodes (’cause likely they were filmed together).

And yes, I’ve never read the Berserker novels. I’ve read Empire of the East and some of Saberhagen’s Dracula novels, but not those.

(As far as the story backdrop, Hollywood TV just can’t get it into their heads the Science Fiction does not equate to lost peoples trying to find/return to Earth.)

mark

taken from - http://epguides.com/BattlestarGalactica_1978/

1. 1- 1 50280 17 Sep 78 Saga of a Star World (1)
2. 1- 2 50281 17 Sep 78 Saga of a Star World (2)
3. 1- 3 50282 17 Sep 78 Saga of a Star World (3)
4. 1- 4 50204 24 Sep 78 Lost Planet of the Gods (1)
5. 1- 5 50205 1 Oct 78 Lost Planet of the Gods (2)
6. 1- 6 50908 8 Oct 78 The Lost Warrior
7. 1- 7 50902 15 Oct 78 The Long Patrol
8. 1- 8 50206 22 Oct 78 The Gun on Ice Planet Zero (2)
9. 1- 9 50207 29 Oct 78 The Gun on Ice Planet Zero (2)
10. 1-10 50912 12 Nov 78 The Magnificent Warriors
11. 1-11 50905 19 Nov 78 The Young Lords
12. 1-12 50919 26 Nov 78 The Living Legend (1)
13. 1-13 50920 3 Dec 78 The Living Legend (2)
14. 1-14 50917 17 Dec 78 Fire in Space
15. 1-15 50921 14 Jan 79 War of the Gods (1)
16. 1-16 50922 21 Jan 79 War of the Gods (2)
17. 1-17 50916 28 Jan 79 The Man With Nine Lives
18. 1-18 50924 18 Feb 79 Murder on the Rising Star
19. 1-19 50926 25 Feb 79 Greetings From Earth (1)
20. 1-20 50947 25 Feb 79 Greetings From Earth (2)
21. 1-21 50927 11 Mar 79 Baltar’s Escape
22. 1-22 50928 18 Mar 79 Experiment in Terra
23. 1-23 50929 1 Apr 79 Take the Celestra
24. 1-24 50930 29 Apr 79 The Hand of God

Number of episodes -

During the eight months after the three-hour pilot episode aired, 17 original episodes of the series were aired (five of them two-parters), totaling 25 hours of broadcasting. Citing declining ratings and cost overruns, ABC cancelled Battlestar Galactica in April, its last episode “The Hand of God” premiering on April 29, 1979.

Meanwhile, while listening to the show, I was recalling many other famous SF actors who appeared on BSG in the 70’s. Dan O’Herlihy from THE LAST STARFIGHTER and ROBOCOP played father in the two-parter Gun on Ice Planet Zero. (i.e. BSG does Guns of Navarone!) You also had in the same episoide Roy Thinnes who was in the 60’s show THE INVADERS and a character actor who managed to play Xavier in The Series The Must Not Be Named.

In the modern BSG’s, the only crossovers, apart from Mr. Hatch himself and Edward James Olmos who was Batty in BLADE RUNNER, is Lucy Lawless (Xena) and Michelle Forbes who was our beloved Ensign Ro in ST:TNG.

Yep…let’s all play Six Degrees of SciFi!

Ash: I think I mentioned that Buck came on the year after Galactica. And yeah, that might be a fun one to try, since I know that Season 1 (the entire series) is on DVD.

Yes, that idea hit me because I’d watched “Serenity� about 12 times that week… your point?
[/quote]

Well my point was basically to think of an idea that would fit in with the show and not end up Galactica 80. The last thing in the world I want to see in a Sci Fi show is a programme which ends up in the now. I always ruins the suspention of disbelief.

Besides that last idea I had ended up a mirror of what the Enterprise producers did for solving the human looking Klingon paradox.

The podcast has me itching to go out and get TOS and re-watch it. Forgot so much about it. Anyone have a link to a hosted copy of the Hatch trailer for his show-concept. The idea sounds great, though.

Having listened to RDM’s podcast in reference to the new series, I know he has no particular end to the series. It is an interesting conundrum. The show idea is great, but it is not one that lends itself to a very long term run (such as Doctor Who, which can re-invent itself as it gets long in the tooth). The trick will be to see if he kills it before it goes down hill.

But how?
- Find Earth? No one home, they blow themselves up?
- Give up the search?
- Peace with the cylons and the next step in human evolution?
- I am at a loss.

You guys are Frakking Great. Can’t wait for the next one.

Bob

Fourthof5: That’s similar to the idea I threw out on a recent episode of Slice of SciFi… “what if the fleet found Earth, but no one was home?” only my idea was either that we’d already advanced, and left the dead planet, or we’d already destroyed ourselves… basically they get to Earth, and it’s a shadow of what they found on Kobol.

Yes, that idea hit me because I’d watched “Serenity” about 12 times that week… your point?

There were not only 3″ action figures, but two 12″ figures as well (cylon and Adama). I still have a bunch of the 3″ figures. Don’t know if I can part with them. I still have the first set of Star Wars figures as well!

I adore the new show, but I am in the camp of hating the mini-series as well. After going back and watching it now, I like it more. I am really glad I gave the TV series a chance!!