ROBBIE RIST
I don’t get recognized nearly as much for Galactica 1980 as I do for a television show I did when I was thirteen called Big John, Little John. It ran for a year. It was producer Lloyd Schwartz’s first show after The Brady Bunch. That thing gets more juice than Galactica 1980. They released the DVD set of Galactica 1980 in Germany a few years ago, and I did an interview for that and they sent me the package and none of it is in English, so maybe if I want to get recognized for Galactica 1980, I have to go to Germany.
BARRY VAN DYKE
I have very, very fond memories of Galactica 1980. You know the funny thing is I still hear from people about it. Not long ago I went to one of those autograph shows with my dad [Dick Van Dyke] when they had the Diagnosis Murder cast there and people came up to me with all this stuff from Galactica: jackets, posters, pictures. Half the people there came for Galactica 1980 and I couldn’t believe it.
ROBYN DOUGLASS
It sounds a little silly, but one of the highlights I remember from doing Galactica 1980 was that I got to do the original Battle of the Network Stars. I know it sounds a little juvenile, but I got to get chauffeured around and treated like a movie star and met Howard Cosell. I got twenty thousand dollars for having a great time. It was a perk, and I got one huge, yummy, yummy perk. But that’s one of the real highlights for me of doing the show.
GLEN OLIVER
It’s hilarious to think the powers that be felt Galactica needed reformatting into this, when the show which has most successfully endured, and inspired remakes, is actually the show they were attempting to reformat. Galactica 1980 somehow, almost impressively, manages to be a double wasted opportunity: not only did it effectively castrate its progenitor season, it failed to satisfactorily exploit the “what if they find Earth?” scenario driving the whole damn concept. I fully realize it’s incredibly difficult to make a TV series, and even more difficult to realize onscreen what is in one’s heart or mind. But, on the whole, Galactica 1980 feels like little more than hackwork. Everyone creatively responsible for it should be ashamed of themselves. Except for Dirk Benedict, Robert Reed, and possibly Wolfman Jack. It’s hard to get pissed off at Wolfman Jack.
JEFF FREILICH
Until human beings actually have civilizations and societies on other planets, I don’t think they will ever tire of the fantasy of making contact with ETs, let alone ones that present themselves as humans and have human emotions and characteristics. The other thing that Galactica did that Star Wars didn’t do was to bring to Earth the story of people who live in other worlds. And as opposed to being in a galaxy far, far away, a long time ago, this was contemporary and it involved our own military. And we were basically as human beings, let alone Americans, being dragged into a war of the worlds. That’s what the theory of Galactica 1980 was, when they finally made contact with Earth. The original series and the remake were more space shows, so Galactica 1980 is unique. I still think it strikes a chord in the heart of a lot of generations. There was something about Galactica that even the original, which was not on at family hour, was one of those shows that the whole family could sit down and watch.
ALLAN COLE
The only reason people are still talking about it is because of the success of the final incarnation [Battlestar Galactica (2004)]. Real science fiction people produced and wrote that show, and they had fine actors to deliver the lines. Boiled down to its simplest line—human beings returning to Earth pursued by another civilization—Battlestar became the hit it would have been if Glen Larson had been forced off the show, like Klugman forced him off Quincy. Even so, we were told Larson collected a hundred grand per episode as the creator. Nice job if you can get it.
JEFF FREILICH
There was a charm that was very Glen Larson about Battlestar Galactica, because all of his shows had that charm. Even Quincy, which was a pretty dark show about a forensic pathologist in an era where that was just really being born as a science. The opening credits have Quincy doing a dissection and half of the people at the table, all medical students, fainted. And it got a laugh. The theme was a whimsical piece of music that tells you from the very beginning of the show that you’re going to be entertained, but you’re not going to be shocked beyond your comfort level. You’re going to be engaged with the characters, and you may laugh. That was a lot more the goal of entertainment in those days than it might be now.
You’ve got less restrictions on you now. The viewer has to make a choice about whether they think it’s appropriate for them and their families versus the network. And that’s why I think that Galactica in a way was a fairy tale told back in 1978 and 1980, not unlike the Grimms’ fairy tales and others that will never really die. When I was working on Grace and Frankie in Los Angeles or Burn Notice in Miami, a large majority of the people that I work with are half my age, if not younger, and they all know Battlestar Galactica.
MARC GUGGENHEIM
Both these stories are a postapocalyptic story where the thing that caused the apocalypse is still a constant danger, which makes it unique. Other than The Walking Dead, I can’t think of a series that’s done this. It’s a super clever idea where you do a story about an apocalypse, and what caused the apocalypse, the Cylons in this case, are still your primary villain.
JEFF FREILICH
These shows live on for years after their original run. Whereas television shows today don’t. They’re on, they’re gone. They live on streaming networks, but they don’t live on reruns on local and national television broadcast networks. You have to go to Hulu or Netflix to see shows that are from many years ago. And then they have a half-life on those streaming services. But they all recognize Battlestar Galactica right away. Like horror fans recognize Freddy’s Nightmares, which was from 1988 that I worked on. Every horror fan alive knows that show. And it’s appalling to me, actually. What parents allowed their kids to ever watch that show? It’s the goriest show in the history of television. And yet, when I did Wrong Turn 2 with first-time director Joe Lynch, who was a horror geek beyond description, I walked in the room and he bowed to me, and told me that his childhood was basically sculpted by his viewing of Freddy’s Nightmares. So it’s funny, there are many shows from those days that have long shelf lives that have become legendary. And Galactica, I think, is the most unique among all of them.
SECTAR TWO
BATTLESTAR GALACTICA
THE MINISERIES (2003)
All of this has happened before.
And all of this will happen again.
10.
WHAT ABOUT THE OTHER BATTLESTAR?
“I really think you should take a look at the other battlestar.”
Maybe it would have been better for us to have died quickly back on the colonies with our families instead of dying out here slowly in the emptiness of dark space. Where shall we go? What shall we do?
—Commander William Adama
The seeds for the new Battlestar Galactica were already being planted as the Star Trek television series Deep Space Nine came to an end in June 1999. By that point, writer Ronald D. Moore had spent a decade writing in the world of Trek, having begun as a freelancer for The Next Generation and gradually moved up to the position of coproducer. With that series concluding—and after cowriting the first two features based on it with Brannon Braga—he shifted over to DS9, eventually becoming co–executive producer.
As a part of the Star Trek franchise, Deep Space Nine was unique. It embraced serialized storytelling, delved into a darker dramatic territory that was atypical, and tried its best to create and sustain a reality among a future landscape with humans interacting with various alien species. It pushed the envelope at a time when few shows were, and yet for Moore it still wasn’t enough.
One of the members of the DS9 writing staff, which included showrunner Ira Steven Behr, René Echevarria, Robert Hewitt Wolfe, and Hans Beimler, Moore felt a creative freedom on that show that he had never felt on its predecessor, The Next Generation. And still he believed
that things weren’t pushed hard or far enough; that there was untapped potential yet to be explored. When the series ended following a seven-season run, he joined the next installment of the franchise, Voyager, which at the time was getting ready to enter its fifth season.
It should have been the perfect match. After all, the show’s newly installed showrunner was Brannon Braga, Moore’s friend and frequent collaborator. However, in this particular hierarchy he was co–executive producer under Braga, an important distinction to be made compared to their previous collaborative working relationship, where he had been the “senior partner” of the writing team.
Upon joining Voyager, Moore had some very clear notions in mind on how he wanted to evolve the Star Trek franchise, updating the format for the soon-to-begin twenty-first century. Unfortunately, he was pretty much the only one who felt that way.
BRANNON BRAGA
(executive producer, Star Trek: Voyager)
Ron came aboard as a writer and he came aboard wanting the show to do all sorts of things. He wanted the show to have continuity. When the ship got fucked up, he wanted it to stay fucked up. For characters to have lasting consequences. He was really into that. He wanted to eradicate the so-called reset button, and that’s not something the studio was interested in, because this thing was a big seller in syndication. It wasn’t until season three of Enterprise [the next spin-off] that we were allowed to do serialization, and that was only because the show needed some kind of boost to it, because it was flat. I made a big mistake by not supporting Ron in that decision or in supporting Ron in general when he came aboard the show. That was a dark chapter for me and Ron and [executive producer] Rick Berman. It was a bad scene.
RONALD D. MOORE
(cocreator/executive producer, Battlestar Galactica [2004])
One of my few regrets with my association with the franchise is that brief, but very unhappy, period at Voyager. It was just a very unhappy experience and a mistake I shouldn’t have made. I should not have taken that gig. I think I took it for the wrong reasons and went into it with the wrong expectations. When it went south, I clearly wanted to get the hell out of there. I remember when Brannon said he really wanted me to do it and we had talked about it through that last season of Deep Space Nine. I did it because I just didn’t want to leave Trek. I had been there for ten years. I was comfortable there. I was making a lot of money. I loved Star Trek. It was just what I did. It’s weird to think of now, but it was ten years of my life and it was my first ten years of being a professional writer. Every year I just kept coming back. I took my two weeks’ vacation and showed up and started the next season. That was my life. That was part of my routine, and it was hard to imagine not doing it. I didn’t really want to go out and I didn’t have a pilot I was desperate to go pitch and I didn’t exactly want to learn another show. And not one of those reasons was, “Oh my God, I’m so intrigued by Voyager.”
If anything, I stepped into it feeling like I was going to fix Voyager. I felt it was flawed and problematic and wasn’t working very well. And in my hubris at the time, I thought, “Well, I’m going to go and I’ll show them how to do a Star Trek show. I’ll fix that show. Brannon and I, we’ve worked together for years. It’ll be fine. He and I together—we’ll turn this into a really great show.” I came in and tried to change things, tried to play with the concept, but it was all different. Brannon was in a different space. He was in charge.
BRYAN FULLER
(cocreator, Star Trek: Discovery)
I’ll give you a personal angle into the story. I’m the youngest of five, and I watched my parents play my sisters off of each other to the point that they haven’t spoken to each other in forty years. I saw that happening with Rick Berman playing Brannon and Ron off of each other in a way that caused them both to behave outside of their natural states, because insecurities were played on, exposed, manipulated. What happened between Brannon and Ron boils down to bad parenting on Rick’s behalf.
Rick would taunt Brannon, saying things like, “I should have hired Ron to run Voyager instead of you.” So of course Brannon is going to be insecure and vulnerable. Brannon is a very complicated guy, but an amazing storyteller and a good guy ultimately. Both Ron and Brannon are good guys. But when you’re in a situation where you are feeling vulnerable and insecure and you’re having somebody essentially say “I wish you were more like that guy,” you’re going to resent that guy. And when that guy is told, “I wish Brannon was more like you,” then you’re going to feel like you should come in and you should be in a position where you’re exerting a certain sense of control over the story. So I feel like both of them were victims of bad parenting in that scenario.
BRANNON BRAGA
Ron came in with a very strong point of view, and I was irrationally resistant, because I felt that I had just earned my keep as a showrunner. I felt a little threatened by my old colleague, which was silly of me. Ron is always one to push the boundaries, and I wish I’d listened to him.
RONALD D. MOORE
I think at the heart of it is that when we were partners, I was something of the senior partner, because I started a year before him. And in our relationship as people, I took somewhat of a more dominant role. It was a marriage and a partnership. I’m not saying I was number one and he was number two, but there was a certain dynamic between the two of us that I was used to, saying what I wanted to do and not the other way around. And then I was going to work for him and he was a different person running that show. This is from my perspective, but he seemed less willing to take chances. He seemed more afraid of changing the show, and his arguments were feeling a lot like Rick’s arguments about what Star Trek was and what it wasn’t. He still had his Brannon ideas about weird science-fiction things and strange concepts and bizarro time travel. Things that were kind of his signature at the time. But the character work, he was not as receptive to really challenging the characters. A lot of things I eventually put into Battlestar Galactica, I started pitching to him originally.
But the bottom line is that it was his show and I acted like it was my show, which was not the smartest move. I really underestimated what it would be like to go work with him again. In my heart, I was ready to move on. I should have left Trek at the end of Deep Space Nine and taken on other challenges. Instead I went for comfort and ease and it blew up on me.
BRANNON BRAGA
Now I think it was best he left, because he was frustrated with me. On the one hand I wish I had responded differently, because I think the show would have been better for it. But then again, if he had remained, Ron might not have gone on to do Battlestar Galactica—which, in my view, is what he wanted to do with Star Trek. Every show creator has their moment, their show, and I really think Battlestar was Ron’s best work. It was what he was yearning to do with Star Trek, but was constrained by the premise.
DAVID WEDDLE
(executive story editor, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)
We were privy to his frustration on Star Trek. We were still in a box of things we couldn’t do on Deep Space Nine, because of all of the rules that had been put in place. Ron was always very vocal in the room and saying to Ira Behr, “Are you gonna take this?” And Ira responded as best he could. And as you know, Ron went over to Voyager and really tried to change it, and Rick Berman didn’t like it and he ended up leaving and eventually created Galactica.
BRADLEY THOMPSON
(executive story editor, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)
There’s a beautiful story that illustrated what Ron was trying to do on Star Trek. On Deep Space Nine there was an episode called “One Little Ship,” and in it the Jem’Hadar take over the ship the Defiant. They say, “Okay, you’re going to do X, Y, and Z. You’re gonna get these engines up, and we’re going to go do something really, really bad. And if you don’t do it, we’re going to shoot this young ensign.” The stock version we gave to Ron was the captain says, “Don’t worry, Ensign. Everything’s going to be fine.” Because it’s our captain
, we’re keeping him strong. And Ron took the pass, he took the same line, “Don’t worry. Everything will be all right.” And the Jem’Hadar blows her head off and says, “No it won’t.”
DAVID WEDDLE
And then that had to be taken out.
BRADLEY THOMPSON
The studio just totally freaked out when they saw that.
DAVID WEDDLE
And there you can see the beginning of the birth of Battlestar Galactica.
“Our goal is nothing less than the reinvention of the science fiction television series.”
Those are the words that begin the “series bible” for Battlestar Galactica, as written by Moore on December 17, 2003—completely born out of frustration with the conventions of the genre in which he had spent his career.
“We take as a given,” he continues, “the idea that the traditional space opera, with the stock characters, techno-double-talk, bump-headed aliens, thespian histrionics, and empty heroics has run its course and a new approach is required. That approach is to introduce realism into what has heretofore been an aggressively unrealistic genre. Call it ‘Naturalistic Science Fiction.’ This idea, the presentation of a fantastical situation in naturalistic terms, will permeate every aspect of our series.
“Visual: The first thing that will leap out at viewers is the dynamic use of the documentary or cinema verite style. Through the extensive use of hand-held camera, practical lighting, and functional set design, the battlestar Galactica will feel on every level like a real place. This shift in tone and look cannot be overemphasized. It is our intention to deliver a show that does not look like any other science fiction series ever produced. A casual viewer should for a moment feel like he or she has accidentally surfed onto a 60 Minutes documentary piece about life aboard an aircraft carrier until someone starts talking about Cylons and battlestars.…
So Say We All Page 28