So Say We All

by Mark A. Altman

  In “Experiment in Terra,” the celestial aliens from “War of the Gods” return. Apollo and Starbuck meet John, played by The Ghost & Mrs. Muir’s Edward Mulhare, who asks for their help in averting a war between the militaristic Eastern Alliance and a pacifist Terra.

  STEVEN SIMAK

  Had Battlestar Galactica continued, viewers would have seen more stories using the Light Ship to explore the religious and moral underpinnings fundamental to the series.

  GLEN A. LARSON

  I always felt we had to go very carefully there for two reasons. One, of course, was that the network would go crazy if they thought we were going to get stuck in one groove. But also, I didn’t want to run the risk that we were going to suddenly lose the Bible Belt or have fundamentalists telling people not to watch the show. We had enough trouble trying to keep a science fiction audience without having someone banning us on religious grounds.

  SCOTT MANTZ

  That’s basically an episode of Quantum Leap. The Eastern Alliance was sort of introduced as a potential new threat, but they weren’t really much of one. It’s kind of fun, but again, here’s where they went right. Starting with “War of the Gods,” they more or less made you forget about the Cylons. Maybe we got rid of them.

  TERRENCE MCDONNELL

  Richard [Hatch] went to Glen and was upset. He wanted more fun stuff to do. And what Glen did was he took the script that he had already written [“Experiment in Terra”] and gave all of Starbuck’s dialogue to Richard and he gave all of Richard’s dialogue to Dirk.

  RICHARD HATCH

  I was very thankful for that. I had told Glen that I felt a little frustrated. I felt that my character had been painted into a box.

  ROD HOLCOMB

  It was the best choice. Richard, by far, had all the right elements for the character to be what he was. It was a certain kind of sense of innocence with Richard. There was a sense of you knew that he was supposed to be the best fighter. You weren’t worried about his strength, yet you were able to enjoy his mystified “Who am I? What am I doing here?” kind of thing, and he actually played it very well.

  I don’t think Dirk would’ve been right for that part. Dirk has got a certain edge to his humor and a certain edge to who he is, and it’s sometimes Dirk that gets in the way of Dirk. That’s what my thinking was. Now, I love Dirk, but I don’t think for that role he would’ve been right, because he was too self-conscious of who he was as a person.

  GLEN A. LARSON

  We went to a white suit on the guys because that’s a translated form at that point, impervious to death. It’s beyond death and that’s an interesting area. It deals with the higher level of creation. That episode is actually a resurrection theme in many ways. It’s translating the spirit into the purest form and has some theological underpinnings. I remember when I was growing up as a little boy and they say, “Say your prayers.” I wondered how could anyone listen to all your prayers, but then I realized as we hit the computer generation you should never try to interpret some superintelligence based with your own intelligence because it’s pretty ridiculous.

  The season finale, “The Hand of God,” which is almost universally considered the strongest of the one-hour episodes, is indicative of where many of the cast hoped the series would go during the second season. After an absence of several episodes, the Cylons return to threaten the fleet. With the help of the imprisoned Baltar, Apollo and Starbuck concoct a daring mission to infiltrate a Cylon basestar. Although action-oriented, the script focuses largely on the character relationships between Apollo and Sheba and between Starbuck and Cassiopeia, with a memorable tag involving the origin of a mysterious transmission.

  DIRK BENEDICT

  I liked that show, too, and it was kind of prophetic that that would be the last episode we ever shot, because of the nature of what that story was about. They didn’t trust the characters in the beginning, because, of course, everyone is just enamored with special effects and they’re very exciting until you realize that special effects are only interesting when its connected to the human personality.

  ANNE LOCKHART

  It was kind of where Apollo and Sheba both admitted their feelings, because we spent the whole season playing oil and water, but it was definitely set up as an opposites-attract thing. And we both finally admitted that there was something here in that episode. That’s my favorite episode, because the characters were very well fleshed out. We all had very true and real emotions that were very valid that we were playing. It also had one of the most interesting science fiction concepts, which was getting the transmission of the LEM landing on the moon. That concept was very cool.

  LAURETTE SPANG

  It just started to open up. They started realizing they had to put more into the characters and put the Cylons a little bit more in the background for a while.

  GLEN OLIVER

  I’m a sucker for “hapless dudes on a suicide mission” stories, and this one was a fine one. It was nice to see Battlestar get back to a more rousing adventure motif after getting bogged down midseason. The final sequence, in which the Galactica receives Apollo moon-landing transmissions, is a doozy. The show felt like it was finally finding its footing toward the end of its first season. The disparate elements writers seemed to have difficulty juggling early on felt much more deftly conceived and smoothly integrated. Its existential and mythological arcs had been firmly locked into place, and for the first time the series suggested a narrative which could head in any number of interesting or insane directions, while also remaining true to itself. The show, on the whole, felt more balanced, more self-assured, more mature.

  SCOTT MANTZ

  When you get to “The Hand of God,” which was written and directed by Donald Bellisario, and it starts off with this double date, Starbuck and Cassiopeia, Apollo and Sheba, and they go to that dome and start getting the signal, which to you and me is clearly a transmission from Apollo 11, you know it’s going to be a great episode. And the Cylons are back. We missed you.

  What was great is there was no Imperious Leader, Baltar wasn’t on the ship, and you had the gold Cylon talking. When Adama says “I’m tired of running, we could attack” to Tigh, who replies, “We haven’t tangled with a basestar since we left the colonies,” it was a great moment. But what would get them an edge? They could knock out their scanners from inside, easy, and they use Baltar’s captured Cylon fighter.

  Then, there’s that great scene in Adama’s quarters, where Adama is looking at the Cylon basestar, which is the model that they shot for the show. Baltar doesn’t lose a moment of his charm, toys with Adama, and goes, “Playing with toys, Adama?” But now, for the first time, Adama is the one holding the cards. He’s the one pulling the strings. “What do you want, Adama?” It’s great. Adama goes, “Information,” and walks away. Baltar goes, “They found you,” drinks up. Adama goes, “We found them.” “It’s the same thing, isn’t it?” Adama goes, “We’re going to destroy them, with your help.” “Why should I help you?” Pulling the strings: “You’ll regain your freedom.” It’s brilliant, but what’s great about that episode, too, is the emotional stakes. It could have just been Starbuck and Apollo go off in the Cylon ship, but there’s the emotional pull of Cassiopeia and Sheba.

  The character development in “The Hand of God” was the best of the series. It was brilliantly, sensitively depicted. It was fully realized. It was deep. It made you care more about the characters you’ve known for a whole season. I’ve heard Anne Lockhart say, in an interview one time, “We finally got it, and the show was over.” It was the perfect last episode, and if they hadcome back for a second season, who knows? I was so sad when Galactica was over.

  DONALD BELLISARIO

  We were beginning to take the show in a direction that the viewers would have loved. We would have continued to make good television instead of just hardware stories, but by that time it was too late.

  8.

  BURN, GALACTICA, BURN

  “Your battlest
ar is quite impressive, but it is still just a single ship. We will dispatch it the way the wolf pack does the bear.”

  Maintaining moderately strong ratings all season long despite myriad preemptions and facing off against CBS’s still formidable All in the Family, Battlestar Galactica finished in the Nielsen Top 25 shows of the year. But even with a loyal fan following and solid, if not stellar, ratings, Battlestar Galactica was unceremoniously canceled at the end of the 1978–79 TV season by ABC. It came as a shock and a surprise to cast, crew, and fans, but no more tragically than to superfan Eddie Seidel, Jr., who committed suicide over the show’s cancellation. Unlike Star Trek, no amount of fan fervor would convince the network to continue the series, at least not in its existing form as an epic space opera about the Colonial fleet’s search for a shining planet known as Earth.

  SCOTT MANTZ

  (film critic, Access Hollywood)

  When the first show premiered, it was a massive hit, a hit that could not be sustained week-to-week. Now, when the show finished its run at the end of the season, I think it was in the Top 25, which today anyone would kill for, but Galactica was an expensive show. It cost a million dollars an episode. For 1978–79, that was a lot of money. And it was on ABC. And you know what else was on ABC? Mork & Mindy, Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, and Three’s Company. Those were hit shows that cost a lot less.

  When the show finished out the season, the excitement, the anticipation, leveled off. It still had a steady place in the ratings, that was still pretty damn successful, especially for a sci-fi show, but they didn’t think long-term. If they would have renewed it for a second season, had that show gone on for like three or four years, it would be just as popular and relevant as Star Trek, but it didn’t have the chance.

  GLEN A. LARSON

  (creator/executive producer, Battlestar Galactica)

  I could handle the network or I could at least get a truce out of a lot of the things they wanted. I lost the battle and wound up with three themes in one show and I knew better, but at the time I felt I had to bite the bullet. Anyone with less power would’ve written that Galactica discovers Earth because they would have been pushed around.

  WINRICH KOLBE

  (associate producer, Battlestar Galactica)

  What ultimately worked against the show was we could not keep up with the hardware. The audience had been promised Star Wars for the small screen and I guess they wanted to see Star Wars for the small screen. The problem is that the moment you introduce any type of action or hardware you take away from the dramatic element, because it takes so much longer to shoot. So you can’t develop stories to such a degree and still try and shoot it in seven or eight days.

  It came out immediately following Star Wars, so everybody automatically assumed that Glen Larson was ripping off Star Wars, which worked against him. Glen also had a certain reputation as a “screw you” guy as far as the studio was concerned. He wanted to do the stories his way, and being the consummate writer he was, he wouldn’t let go, which was another thing that was a strike against him. I kept saying that Glen writes until they tear the show away and air it. Even in postproduction for Glen, he was writing and was perfectly capable of sitting there and reediting shows until finally the studio said, “Glen, it’s airing tomorrow, you have to get rid of it,” and I think that worked against him. There was a certain dissatisfaction on the side of the studio with his working process.

  Glen also had a reputation for lighter material with shows like McCloud and Switch and Quincy. There’s a certain touch of humor in there that is rather intriguing but it put him in a nice place that wasn’t either hard drama or comedy at the time. The moment somebody was out of the ordinary, especially in television, people have a tendency to say, “Oh God, he doesn’t know how to write drama and he doesn’t know how to write comedy,” which I think is false because looking back at the shows now I think they stand up quite well to time.

  ROD HOLCOMB

  (director, “Experiment in Terra”)

  You walked into that building and it immediately affected you. I did the Jack Klugman thing when he was the coroner, Quincy, and it was the same place, same office, walking, talking, that kind of stuff. You walk into the Galactica set, it was like another world. You’re almost overwhelmed by it. Then in the end, you walk out of it and you take it home with you because it made such an impression on you. I lived that through all that time. I wasn’t doing anything else other than just doing Galactica. It must’ve been maybe over six months, I just stayed with it, and I had a great time. When you’re young, you’re just doing it. That’s what’s fun about it. You’re just doing it. By the way, nobody was thinking about Emmys and shit like that. I wasn’t. I was just there doing the job. I don’t even know if I was watching any of the Emmy shows, to be honest, because I didn’t watch television at night. I found this to be a wonderful grade of entertainment.

  SCOTT MANTZ

  The other thing about it that makes the original show stand out is the show is timeless, other than the hairstyles. There’s nothing that really gives away when the show is filmed, or when it takes place, because Glen Larson imagined this star system in a way that, while the influence of Egypt and pharaohs was there, it could have taken place in our past or in our future.

  He was creating another civilization from scratch, one that was timeless. Compare that to the other show he had going on at the time, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. The reason why that show is very dated is because he was imagining the twenty-fifth century from the disco era. That show looks like disco in 1979, so that show has not aged well. It’s also not as good, but the original Galactica holds up and still stands out today, because of everything that went into it. Yes, it was rushed, sometimes the writing suffered. Some episodes are much better than the others, but when Galactica was good, it was as good as any sci-fi series ever got.

  With the series canceled after one season, the studio needed to find a way to recoup their massive investment in the series. With ABC paying only $750,000 an episode, it was Universal that financed the large deficits incurred by the series’ massive overages. That helped prompt a theatrical release in the United States following an international release in Europe and Canada, where the movie had been surprisingly successful. Interestingly, it was the last film ever to be released in Sensurround, the gimmicky low-end bass format, which had been introduced to audiences with the release of Universal’s film Earthquake, also starring Lorne Greene. Despite Battlestar Galactica’s having already aired on television, the theatrical release earned over $10 million at the box office in 1979, an impressive sum given its pedigree.

  GLEN A. LARSON

  Someone asked for a screening up on the twelfth floor at the Universal Black Tower [the studio’s executive offices]. [Chairman] Lew Wasserman and [studio president] Sid Sheinberg saw it and said, “Do you want to release this as a feature?” So, we did go back and do a little more work, but it was really the work that everyone had already done.

  In addition, the studio created a syndication package for local channels as well as international distribution, which combined pairs of episodes into multiple two-hour blocks. In the case of Mission Galactica: The Cylon Attack, it also received a wide release overseas in theaters, as a reedit of “The Living Legend” and “Fire in Space.” (Another edited movie, Conquest of Earth—which was a combination of several episodes of the critically reviled Battlestar Galactica sequel series, Galactica 1980, including “Galactica Discovers Earth,” “The Night the Cylons Landed,” and “Space Croppers”—was released on VHS in the United States and got a limited theatrical release internationally. It featured ham-fisted ADR (automated dialogue replacement), or looping as it’s commonly referred to, in order to explain the presence of two actors playing Dr. Zee by creating a second child genius, Dr. Zen. In addition, Robyn Douglass’s looping was done by another actress, which made the actor who looped Gene Hackman’s lines in Superman II seem authentic by comparison.) The remaining telefilms were create
d exclusively for television, and in some cases featured footage cut from the original airings as well as a new wraparound, directed by Glen Larson, in which an astronaut discovers the logbook of the battlestar Galactica (along with, apparently, a bevy of preproduction art), which also finally explains the original Cylon war. For the insatiably curious, it is easily accessible on YouTube despite never having been released on home video.

  The syndication package included the three-hour premiere, Lost Planet of the Gods, The Phantom in Space, Space Casanova, Gun on Ice Planet Zero, Curse of the Cylons, Murder in Space, The Living Legend, War of the Gods, Space Prison, Greetings from Earth, and, most intriguingly (and inexplicably), Experiment in Terra, which married parts of the “Return of Starbuck” episode from Galactica 1980 with the original Galactica episode “Experiment in Terra” along with a bevy of deleted scenes to reach the requisite running time.

  JEFF FREILICH

  (producer, Galactica 1980)

  Budget was the last thing that Glen Larson ever cared about. If anything, Glen, in a way, delighted in making some of the most expensive episodes of television, ever. But he rationalized it in an actually pragmatic way. Conquest of the Earth, for example, was a combination of a couple of episodes, and they were written specifically to do that. He would sell that through Universal Distribution as a feature all over the world and as a cassette throughout the United States and make back way more than whatever the overages on the episodes were. That’s something that I took with me when I created Dark Justice, because I was short. CBS gave us a lower license fee, and I needed more money. So I proposed to Warner Bros. Television that I do a two-part episode that shot in Barcelona the first season and that I would make it into a movie, and they would be able to distribute it. I wouldn’t have even thought about doing that until I woke up one day and went, “Well, Glen used to cover his overages by making two-part episodes that could be turned into movies, and I’m going to do the same thing.”