Editing Galactica Discovers Earth, Part III
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* Hamilton agrees to help Troy and Dillon with their next mission. | * Hamilton agrees to help Troy and Dillon with their next mission. | ||
== Review == | |||
Galactica Discovers Earth turns out to be a watchable pilot, but watchable is about all. From the very first episode, the series looks like a cheap attempt by ABC to cash in on the Galactica name by simply reusing the expensive special effects stock footage from the original series. The other episodes would only confirm this. Kent McCord (Troy) and Barry Van Dyke (Dillon) are likable, but they still come off as inferior clones of Starbuck and Apollo. Indeed, the script for the pilot was originally written for Starbuck and Apollo. When those plans changed, the names were simply switched to Troy and Dillon. | |||
Jamie Hamilton comes off as a carbon copy of Lois Lane. Unfortunately, we are never given any backstory to any of these characters. | |||
The idea of the Cylons closing in on Earth and the Colonials trying to advance Earth's technology is a very compelling premise, but the problem is that Dr. Zee's plan to slowly increase Earth's technology is flawed. At the rate in which the Colonials were going, it probably would have taken at least decades to get Earth's technology increased enough to be able to fight the Cylons. Long before then, the Cylons would probably tire of waiting and decide to just destroy the Colonial fleet. Even if the Cylons didn't attack, how far could the Galactica lead the Cylons away from Earth before they (the Colonials) were too far away from the planet to ever go back there? It probably would have been smarter to temporarily abandon Earth and lead the Cylons away until Dr. Zee could invent some technology that would allow the Colonials to destroy the Cylon armada. (Actually, since Colonial Vipers can now turn invisible, it should have been fairly easy for the Colonials to launch a surprise attack on the Cylons and defeat them once and for all!) | |||
The problem with the original premise of Galactica 1980 is that it would have eventually become tiresome: Troy and Dillon each week would find a way to introduce some new technology (clean nuclear power, etc.) which would make some small improvement, but do little to bring Earth up to the level it would need be to fight the Cylons. As a result, the series could never evolve to the next level (i.e. Earth is ready to fight the Cylons), because the series' budget was too small for any kind of "final battle". As a result, Galactica 1980 was stuck in a rut from the get-go. It tried to distract viewers from the main plot (the Cylon threat) with time travel and cub scout outings because there was little that could be done with the original premise. It might have worked well as a single movie or perhaps a series of movies, but it's unlikely that Galactica 1980 could have ever jelled as a weekly series.<ref>Sheba's Galaxy: The Ultimate Battlestar Galactica Information Site.</ref> | |||
==Notes== | ==Notes== | ||