Galactica 1980

Partly a spin-off, partly a revival, Galactic 1980 is an atrocious sci-fi series that completely bastardizes Battlestar Galactica. Set a generation after the original series, the Colonial Fleet finds Earth but discovers that the Cylons have followed them, so to protect Earth they continue on into open space leading the Cylons away; but secretly a pair of viper pilots are sent back to establish contact with Earth. Initially it starts out as a time travel story with rouge elements of the Fleet going back in Earth’s history to advance technological change in order for Earth to be able to fight off the Cyclons in present day. But that’s quickly dropped and the show becomes about setting up a colony for the Fleet’s children. Lorne Greene returns as Adama, but is relegated to playing lackey to a child genius. And the new leads, Kent McCord and Barry Van Dyke, are awful; they don’t have any charisma or personality. Virtually no time is spent on the Galactica, as the show veers more toward a fish-out-of-water comedy with the Colonials getting into wacky adventures. Fans of the original series won’t even recognize this show and will find nothing to like. An extraordinarily bad attempt to revive Battlestar Galactica, Galactica 1980 is an embarrassment.

This series is FASCINATING if you want to watch something that is so bad, it destroyed a strong franchise for decades. This is a piece of history folks. From the original series, we kids owned the Galactica lunch box, tormented our parents for the toys, and as kids even loved the stupid robot dog. Fandom was strong. Enter Galactica 1980 and the ensuing obliteration from our hearts. Decades of hatred and ridicule of the franchise ensued, thus making the achievement 25 years later of the 2005 reboot all the more amazing and admirable. But it took TWENTY FIVE YEARS for us to even consider a reboot due to the pox called Galactica 1980. Side note trivia: Just to be extra cheap and crappy, the geniuses at Universal Studios recycled footage from another horrible movie, "Earthquake (1974)" for the first episode of Galactica 1980 rendering the special effects budget almost zero. And then they repeated the same shots over and over again to save more money and stretch the clock further.... We the audience noticed this, and found it disgusting.

Terrible acting. Bad stories. Should have kept to the tone of the original series

Compared to its predecessor this was almost an insult. Problem was the studio wanted a cheap continuation and that is exactly what they got. So, no more space battles with the Cylons. Just put it in the then present day, use some old sets, bring in some new actors (I guess Richard Hatch was wise not to participate and Dirk Benedict was lucky he hadn´t got time) and mix up new shots with stock footage that at times were not even from any Galactica episode. Put in some stupid comedic situations and you´ll end up with a silly show that even in 1980 felt like something from 1960. Luckily the intended concept set in place with the pilot didn´t made it in production or this would have been even worse (check the Wikipedia link). Which in turn may lead to some confusion later on. However you look at it, this hasn´t much in common with Galactica beside the simplest groundwork. The one positive of the show was it´s final episode where Dirk Benedict re-appeared as Starbuck and we learn about his fate. There isn´t much reason to watch the rest, really, other than maybe you just want to complete the whole thing. It doesn´t take a lot of time with only 10 episodes.