Saturday, August 22, 2009

Galactica Discovers Earth Parts 1,2 & 3

The opening 3-part episode of 1980 feels like another extended pilot. There are a number of elements that seem to get thrown out afterward.

The first big question when watching is what's the time frame? How far into the future is this from when we last saw it the show? We know this must be 1980, since the title says so. That would imply that the Apollo 11 transmissions we saw in "The Hand of God" were essentially real-time and that this series picks up 10 or 11 years after the last series. Not sure why that means no Apollo, Starbuck, Cassiopeia or Colonel Tigh. But it must be the future because Adama's got a Santa Claus beard, right?

Having the fleet finally reach Earth is good, but it just happens so suddenly. It's the first thing we get. Couldn't it at least have happened at some point during this episode? It's so abrupt. Since the point of the last series was the quest for Earth, it makes you stop and go, why am I watching this then? They got there! Of course, the smart thing about the series is it allows us to say, yes you got there, but now what? Did they think they'd just drop down to the planet and everything would be fine? They had no plan, and this series shows it. I still wish it weren't "modern day" though, since I don't see how that jives with all that Terra stuff from the last show.

Thank God they never appear again, but when I saw them I said to myself, "Oh no... TWO daggits!"

Larson does himself a favor here by telling us that "Boxey" was a nickname (the whole time, his own mother never used his real name??) and that his name is Troy. Good masculine name. And if we're not going to have any other leads, making Boxey the lead character isn't the worst thing. It's like "Galactica: The Next Genereation". Too bad more of the screen time seems to go to Barry Van Dyke.

The flying motorcycles are really silly. Pop some "wings" in the back and you can fly! The effect doesn't look all that great either. However, I would very much like to praise the effects in the computer-simulated Cylon attack on L.A. There are some VERY good matte shots in there, and its quite impressive for 1980 and on television. And Dr. Z brings up a good point; why was Adama so stupid as to not think the Cylons would just follow them to Earth?

Who is this Dr. Z anyway? We have a child genius, so suddenly he gets to make all the decisions? Adama is barely in command anymore! What makes Z a doctor? He's smart so we gave him an honorary degree? If he's so great why doesn't he have a full name? We never see the Galactica bridge anymore; nearly all ship scenes occur in Dr. Z's Warholian black room of TVs and colored lights. Does he eat? Does he sleep? Have his legs atrophied from sitting so long? And Adama's leadership concerns me. He runs to this kid like a magic 8 ball:
Adama: "Oh please, Doctor Z, will the Cylons attack Troy and Dillon?" 
Dr. Z: (in snobby child voice) "Ask again later."

This episode is a LOT like Star Trek IV to me. There was the "cloaked" ship in the field. The girl who gets swept along in the story, the professor who gets groundbreaking science typed into his computer for him, the environmental concerns. I was going to say at least there's no time travel, but then there was time travel!

Why exactly don't they have fingerprints? I thought they were human! That was the whole point, wasn't it, that they were human just like those on Earth?

They can just travel through time? So why don't they travel to the FUTURE when Earth is hopefully unified and a lot more hospitable? Or travel to the distant past and join the Colonists who just landed there? Time travel is one element this series never needed.

I hate the wacky music in this episode. It's all goofy '80s electronic stuff. I'm glad it was toned down as the series went on. 

I thought Vipers were one-man craft; how come there's room for Jamie in one?

Does anyone else think Robyn Douglass (Jamie) bears a remarkable resemblance to Julie Bowen (from Boston Legal, and Jack's ex-wife on Lost)?

It's good to see Boomer again, and I'm glad he appears in most of the series.

Jamie explains World War II by saying "It literally involved ever continent on Earth". ...Well, I've never heard of the Battle of Antarctica, so I'm going to say no it didn't.

Nazis. Why is it always Nazis when there's time travel involved? It's such a lame story point. But I guess I will give them points for originality in one regard; this is the first time I've ever seen a plan to HELP Nazi Germany. Usually it's "We have to stop such and such or the Nazis will take over the world and we won't exist!" Here, Dr. Z suggests helping the Nazis get the bomb will end the conflict, unify the world, and have better immediate results. This is why that kid shouldn't be in charge.

With Part III, they decided to drop Galactica 1980 and just go back to calling it Battlestar Galactica. This is sensible since the first was a stupid title in the first place, and would date the show immediately. What do you do for season two, keep changing the date? It's the dumbest TV title since Match Game '73. I guess this technically means there have been three different series with the name Battlestar Galactica.

Okay, all that build-up to travel through time and go to Berlin in 1944. And in the end... nothing. Most of the screen-time was spent on Nazi stuff and it was ultimately inconsequential! They decided NOT to help Germany and just went home. So what was the point??

I don't get why Xavier is so evil. He just wanted to get to Earth quickly, and suddenly he's working for Nazis and trying to undermine everything Troy and Dillon do. What does he gain by this? He wants to rule the world? What's his motivation? And whatever became of Baltar? Perhaps Xavier is related somehow.

I understand now that it's their family's field so it sort of makes sense, but I was surprised that the school bus picks up Willy in the middle of a field.

This whole episode follows Troy and Dillon and their misadventures in scouting Earth. But we were told there were other groups sent out to other nations around the globe. So what were their results? Didn't they have massive consequences? Why aren't we told about this at all? 

It's too bad the Robert Reed stuff never returns in the series. That was a fairly interesting (for this show) story line about clean nuclear energy and what not. 

The end of the episode really screams that it's a pilot. The set-up is that Xavier is going to keep jumping through time, and they will keep trying to stop him. This seems to be what the show will be about. Like Superbook (the second series where they follow the dog through the computer. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, check this out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5iYLWOaE-A). It's all pointing to the next episode being set in the American Revolution. Jamie is now part of the Galactica team (never mind how her sudden disappearance will effect things on Earth). I was so not looking forward to Galactica does the birth of America. And how exactly would Xavier be able to stop American democracy?

Jamie seemed FAR too excited at the prospect of being groped by Ben Franklin.

This series is much more a children's series (or at least family series) then its predecessor. From the pilot, I gathered that it was essentially going to be a means to teach history. We got lessons in World War II and the Holocaust (grossly oversimplified) in this one. I thought the series would be like the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles in that regard (though it's already far inferior). This turned out not to be the case, but more on that later. Anyway, as a children's series, I thought I'd end each post with a kind of "what we learned" moral of the story.

Lessons of the week: Nazis are bad, the Holocaust was bad, nuclear energy is not as bad as it sounds

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