Battlestar Galactica (1978 TV series)

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"There are those who believe that life here began out there, far across the universe, with tribes of humans who may have been the forefathers of the Egyptians, or the Toltecs, or the Mayans. They may have been the architects of the great pyramids, or the lost civilizations of Lemuria or Atlantis. Some believe that there may yet be brothers of man who even now fight to survive somewhere beyond the heavens..."

(For the 2004 series, see Battlestar Galactica (2004 TV series).)

At the end of a long, genocidal war between the twelve colony worlds of humanity and a race of robots called the Cylons, there finally appears to be a hope for peace. But the supposed end of the war is nothing more than a trap; humanity is almost completely wiped out when Cylon treachery (and a human traitor) catches them almost completely unawares. The survivors gather together to form a "rag-tag fugitve fleet" of refugees under the protection of the last remaining battlestar (the humans' most powerful class of space battleship), and flee Cylon-controlled space. Their goal is a legend -- a lost thirteenth colony world, known as "Earth", which they hope can help them stand against the pursuing cybernetic enemy.

Television's supposed first attempt to cash in on the popularity of Star Wars (and hilariously, Lucasfilm tried to sue). Originally called Adam's Ark, this 1978 Glen Larson production fused a Wagon Train to the Stars gimmick to a dose of Von Danikenite "Ancient Astronauts" atmosphere and a dash of Mormon theology. The result was a Space Opera with unsupported pretensions to a Myth Arc that was noteworthy for a number of television firsts: first SF series set in a spacecraft with sets that didn't look like they were built from cardboard and drywall, first TV series to cost a million dollars per episode, and the first prime-time series to recycle Stock Footage so much that everyone noticed it.

Although its first few episodes showed a certain amount of promise, the series quickly descended into a series of one Planet of Hats after another, many of them merely recycled plots from popular westerns. Its viewership ratings were high, but the TV network executives of the time had not yet embraced the notion of a million-dollar-an-episode series, so it was cancelled after one season. The fanbase was not amused.

In the face of a massive write-in campaign, the executives decided to Retool the series into a less expensive spinoff, and so Galactica was promptly resurrected as Galactica 1980.

Tropes used in Battlestar Galactica (1978 TV series) include:

• A-Team Firing
• Ace Pilot: Apollo, Starbuck, Boomer, Jolly, Greenbean, Cree, and Sheba. If you aren't a Bridge Bunny, good chance, you're an Ace.
• Aggressive Negotiations: Count Baltar arranged a peace treaty between the 12 Colonies and the Cylons. The Colonies sent all 12 Battlestars to the conference, leaving the Colonies completely undefended. The Cylons carried out a massive attack on both the Battlestars and the colonies, almost completely wiping out both.
• Aliens Speaking English: Justified with the Colonial outposts the Rag-tag Fleet encountered earlier; becomes blatant with the Terrans, who were explicitly not Colonial, but whose only problem communicating with the main cast is not understanding what a "centon" is.
• Ancient Astronauts
• Apocalypse How
• Applied Phlebotinum: Applied quite generously, in fact.
• Arbitrary Maximum Range
• Aristocrats Are Evil
• Battle Couple: Apollo and Serina, his wife, for one two-part episode. Apollo's wife dies heroically, mostly to get her out of the way.
• The Battlestar: Trope Namer.
• Big Bad: The Cylons.
• Black Best Friend: Lt. Boomer and Colonel Tigh.
• Blood Knight: Cain. He is effectively Patton Recycled in Space.
• Bloodless Carnage
• Bright Is Not Good: The Cylons wear (or are made of) bright shiny armor.
• California Doubling: The opening of the series pilot, showing the Cylons attacking the home world of Caprica, was filmed at the City Hall/Main Public Library complex in Long Beach.
• Call a Rabbit a Smeerp: They don't have dogs, they have daggits.
  • They don't play poker, they play pyramids.
    • And, confusingly, "pyramid" is also the name for a basketball/handball-like indoor sport.
      • Actually, that was "Triad". The 2000s version called it "Pyramid", and the card game "Triad".
  • They don't spend dollars or Deutschmarks, they spend cubits. Which are rectangular coins.
• The Captain: Adama.
• Captain's Log
• Catch Phrase: "By your command."
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Count Baltar. In "Lost Planet of the Gods", he tries to get into a position to backstab either the Cylons, the Rag-Tag Fleet, or both at once -- and not even the audience is sure where he actually wants to aim the knife. It all ends with him pinned under rubble at the bottom of a Space-Egyptian pyramid when both sides refuse to trust him.
• Clip Show
• Coming in Hot: Trope Namer.
• Contractual Immortality
• Cool Spaceship: The Battlestar Galactica.
• Crystal Spires and Togas: to the Nth degree.
• Cyber Cyclops: The Cylons.
• Daddy's Girl: Sheba.
• Dances and Balls
• Deadpan Snarker: In one episode when Baltar is attacking Galactica while Pegasus is pulling round, his Cylon pilot says, "I really think you should take a look at the other battlestar."
• Death Ray: Blasters, anyone?
• Demoted to Extra: Athena ends up getting this treatment. She starts out as a Bridge Bunny, but isn't shown on the bridge after the pilot. Then she's used as part of a triangle with Starbuck and Cassiopeia, but that plot is dropped fast. The only time after this she's given any significant screen time is when she's one of the characters trapped in the fire during "Fire In Space".
• Depopulation Bomb
• Devil in Plain Sight: Count Iblis.
• Dirty Coward: Baltar. Commander Cain once altered the course of a battle just by heading the Pegasus in his direction to scare him into pulling back and leaving the other two basestars to protect him.
• The Dragon: Baltar, to the Cylons' Big Bad; then, later, to Count Iblis.
• Driving a Desk: Used for the in-cockpit shots.
• The End of the World as We Know It
• Enemy Mine
• Everybody Is Single
• Explosions in Space
• Explosive Instrumentation
• Fantastic Measurement System: According to its The Other Wiki article, the only distance unit that wasn't an Earth name was "metron" (1 meter).
• Father to His Men: Adama.
• Fighter Launching Sequence
• Forgiveness
• God Test: In "War of the Gods Part 1", Count Iblis claims to have great powers and knowledge. The Council of Twelve gives him three challenges: to deliver their greatest enemy (Baltar) to them, to lead the fleet to Earth, and one more to be named later.
• Greater Need Than Mine
• Guilt-Free Extermination War: Between humans and cylons. And the Ovians, the only aliens to appear actually are exterminated. But then they eat people.
• Head-in-The-Sand Management: President Adar, with disastrous results.
• Hooker with a Heart of Gold: Cassiopeia.
• Humans Are Their Own Precursors: The Twelve Colonies believe themselves to be descended from humans from an ancestral homeworld called Kobol, which the Galactica visits in an attempt to find the location of the thirteenth colony, Earth.
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: You'd think intelligent computers would be better shots.
  • Hey, you try to shoot when your eye is constantly darting back and forth!
    • It's their own fault. They should make more efficient eyes.
• I'm a Humanitarian: The Ovians in the first episode.
• Infinite Supplies
  • Averted in the pilot, when resources were so scarce that the fleet practiced Forced Socialism against Sire Uri, and braved the Nova Matigon so as to make it to Carillon for resupply before they starved.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Starbuck.
  • More like a Loveable Rogue. He's a pretty likeable guy when you aren't annoyed at one of his irresponsible schemes.
• Killer Robot: The Cylon Centurions.
• Lady of War: Sheba. Also, Apollo's short lived wife, Serina.
• Living Legend: In the episode "The Living Legend", the Galactica encounters the battlestar Pegasus, whose captain is the Colonial military legend Commander Cain.
• Lost Colony: Earth, specifically; however, several others show up in the course of the series.
• MacGuffin Location: Earth.
• Microts: Honed to an art form. They had:
  • "microns" (or "millicentons") for seconds.
  • "centons" for minutes (hours in the pilot).
  • "centars" for hours (after the pilot).
  • "sectons" for weeks.
  • "yahrens" for years.
• Misanthrope Supreme: Baltar.
• Mooks
• Notable Original Music
• Only One Name
• Pardon My Klingon
• Photoprotoneutron Torpedo: Pulsar cannons.
• Planet of Hats
• Planet Terra: Subverted. Despite multiple layers and episodes of teasing ("Terra" being a Geminese term for "Earth", the Terran political situation being based on the Cold War), the planet called Terra turns out to not be Earth.
• Precursors: The Lords of Kobol.
• The Promised Land: Earth.
• Readings Are Off the Scale
• Recycled in Space: Many episodes were blatant retreads of popular movies, frequently Westerns, right down to their titles.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning
• Redshirt Army
• Road Trip Episode: Type 3 trips appeared in several episodes.
• Robo Speak
• Robot Buddy: Muffet, Cy.
• Robot War
• Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale: The writers simply didn't understand the difference between a system and a galaxy. Made worse by the fact that only the Galactica has FTL.
  • Even worse, the Galactica only has L, without the FT.
• Space Is Magic
• Space Mines: In the pilot, they have to go through a Cylon minefield.
• Space Opera
• Spared by the Adaptation: Baltar was Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves in the pilot movie; new scenes were shot for the series to keep him around as a recurring villain.
• The Starscream: Lucifer.
• Stock Footage: The special effects were based on optically overlaying stock footage (spacecraft, explosions, and so on), and several completed scenes were used more than once.
  • Some of the completed effects from Galactica were used in the B-movie Space Mutiny.
  • The beginning and end of one establishing shot (in a city) became two establishing shots in Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.
• Straw Civilian: Sire Uri and the Quorum of the Twelve.
• Supernatural Aid
• Techno Babble
• There Is Another: The Battlestar Pegasus.
• Tonight Someone Dies: Jane Seymour, in the second episode.
• Too Many Mouths: In the pilot, there was a female singing group that each had four eyes and two mouths (and apparently could each sing two different notes).
• Unusual Euphemism: Frack, felgercarb.
• Wagon Train to the Stars
• Wave Motion Gun: "The Gun on Ice Planet Zero".
• Whole-Plot Reference: Several, including "The Gun on Ice Planet Zero" (The Guns of Navarone).
• You Can't Go Home Again