This is the 3-hour pilot episode. For the most part, all my knowledge of Galactica comes from this episode. It was later edited and shown theatrically as a movie, and there was a novelization written. I read the novel in sixth grade for a book report, and most of the stuff I knew or remembered about Galactica comes from that.
It is clear from the start that this is a product of the 1970s. The ships and effects are very reminscent of Star Wars, and so it was not surprising to learn that John Dykstra was behind the effects work, and that much of the design was done by Ralph McQuarrie. The Cylon ships prefigure some later ship designs in Empire Strikes Back, and the Vipers are a cross between the X-Wing and the shuttle in Jedi. The Battlstars themselves actually look remarkably similar to the runabouts on Deep Space Nine, though of course they are much larger. Despite the re-use of footage, the effects work is pretty effective overall and looks good on television. Doing film-level effects for a weekly series should be commended.
The opening narration, which will end up opening each episode, confused me some. It plays on the speculations of alien origins for early civilizations like the Egyptians and Mayans. Funny how the Chinese are never included in these speculations. As the story goes on, we will learn that there are twelve human colonies, as well as a lost thirteenth called Earth. At this point, I was unsure whether Earth was seeded by the same group that seeded the others, or whether Earth WAS the mother colony. All my memory of Galactica was of people returning to Earth, not just looking for Earth. This idea made sense to me, because Earth was in a whole other galaxy, and I didn’t really see why that was. In any case, the notion of humankind living in a galaxy far, far away is yet another echo of Star Wars, though we don’t know if it was long ago or not.
I forgot that Zack died at the beginning, and it was surprisingly effective, given the little screen time we had with him. I thought he was going to be a lead character, but like Psycho, we got the bait and switch and our lead was dead in the first twenty minutes.
It seems lame to me that each of the colonies is named for a zodiacal sign, though they play with suffixes some. It interests me that they pronounce Gemini with a hard G for some reason. Still, as easy as it seems to name twelve colonies for twelve constellations, it’s even sillier to me some of the names characters get. Some are obvious mythological references, like Apollo or Athena or Adama, which is obviously a variation of Adam. Starbuck comes out of Melville. But who names a kid Boxey? Hey Boxey, meet your new baby sister, Spherical! And your cousin, Shaped-Like-a-Trapezoid. And then there’s a pilot named Greenbean. I wish I had made that up. I think he was played by Ed Begley, Jr. of all people though, so the name is kind of prescient.
Before the Borg, before the Terminator, only slightly after Darth Vader, there were the Cylons. The original conception, and the one in the novelization, is that they are cyborgs; mostly robotic beings with an organic internal component. This is much more interesting. All that survives now is a race of robots who overthrew their reptilian makers (before the Matrix there were... okay I’ll stop). Their design is sort of a warrior Darth Vader variation. I like the cyclops look, though the shininess with the constant light flaring off them is distracting. They seem to have some sort of leader in this episode, but we don’t know what he is. He’s not a shiny centurian, nor does he have a robotic voice. He’s certainly not human. So what is he? This is not explained in the pilot. I don’t like the monotone robot voice. It is hard to understand at times, and makes the Cylons boring. I think the organic element would have heightened them, because then both humans and Cylons are races bent on annihilating each other. Much more interesting dynamic.
There is a traitor among the humans named Baltar. He’s a kind of Judas figure, who works with the Cylons, causing mass destruction. Humanity’s colonies are wiped out leaving only a scattered number of humans and ships, and the one Battlestar, Galactica. Jane Seymour appears, long before her Dr. Quinn days. I like her in this. I have to ask though, how much of the planets have these people colonized? Because the supposed “destruction of the colonies” seems like just an attack on a few cities. Planets are BIG. There are TWELVE of them!
The robot daggit (read: dog) is an odd looking thing; part Ewok, part Gremlin. With a bit of Teddy from A.I. thrown in.
My favorite character in the book was Starbuck. I pictured him a bit older though, so the long David Cassidy hair kinda threw me. I still like him though. He’s Han Solo crossed with Dr. Smith. He can be comical, and can get you in trouble, but can also save your butt. A decent portion of the episode is the triangle with Starbuck, Athena, and Cassiopea. This is just one of the reasons that the idea of a female Starbuck on the new BSG seemed sacrilege to me when first rumored, and still does. He’s a player. Why lose that?
After the Pearl Harbor-like attack, humanity starts a wagon train to the stars (where have I heard that before?) in search of the lost 13th colony, Earth. There’s a segment where they clear a minefield that is surprisingly effective. The rest of the episode is a kind of siren song tale where the humans come upon a resort planet that is actually a trap set up by insectoid aliens who want to eat them. It takes WAY too long for the humans to figure this out. The double-faced singer girls are scary-looking; like double vision seen all at once. Most of this storyline is ultimately predictable, and by the third group that gets stuck in an elevator, I was feeling the repetition. This all does lead to one great moment though; Starbuck and Apollo blow up the whole darn planet and take the Cylon Base Ship out with it. THAT’s how you destroy a colony! Death Star style!
The terminology is sometimes fun, sometimes off-putting. Everyone now is familiar with the expletives “frack” and “felgercarb”. Time seems to be measured in centons (which I guess are like minutes), but there was a point where centons sounded like a measure of distance. Is time metric? What year is this? One of the elders calls it the “seventh millennium of time”, but what’s the starting reference? Is this our future? Cassiopea’s occupation is “socialator” which obviously means prostitute. Silly television censors. It’s an especially odd description, since she calls it a noble profession, and we learn there is a group that only engages in sex every seven years when married (Vulcans?). Is this the practice of ALL married couples?
I’d like to add that one of the nicest bits of this episode is the super-cute communications officer. I wanna see more of her!
Favorite line: “Do you ever take that smoldering weed out of your mouth?”
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