Review for Battlestar Galactica - Complete Original Series

Introduction

I did finally get around to watching the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica late last year, after some ten years of procrastinating, and waffling. My primary excuse was that it was not My Battlestar, not the show that I grew up with and remembered most fondly. That Battlestar Galactica was a lot more fun, made in a more innocent time, and pitched as a TV rival to the Star Wars phenomenon. When first broadcast, it was one of the biggest hits of the year, and should have gone on to even bigger and better things, but it was the movie level budget, at the time some $1 million per episode that got it cancelled after just one season, never to be seen again, except for an abortive attempt at a lower budget series a couple of years later. It certainly begs the question just why I hadn’t bought Battlestar Galactica up to now on DVD.


I can procrastinate for my country, and this time I was faced with a UK release that was stripped of extras in comparison to the US release, and a US release that never fell to a comfortable enough price for me to import. Five years of that, and then a Blu-ray 10 disc collection was released in Germany, by which time I had seen the HD light, and waited for the German release to meet my budgetary requirements. While I was waiting, this UK release happened, and at a price that finally ceased my stalling. So it’s a 9-disc release as opposed to 10 (it ditches a 2003 Galacticon convention disc that was exclusive to the German set), but it has all of the episodes, and all of the extras excluding the German language stuff. It also has all ten episodes of Galactica 1980. Every silver lining has a cloud I guess. And for the purposes of this review, I’m actually getting the chore of watching this short-lived sequel out of the way first. I know that with one exception, I won’t be watching it twice.


Before this title was released in the UK, I did consider procrastinating some more and waiting to see what the inevitable US release would be like. It was eventually announced last month, and it turns out that Universal US aren’t as kind to US customers as Universal UK. They are going to have two editions; the Re-mastered Collection is the cheap 9-disc collection, which will have all the episodes cropped to fit modern widescreen TVs. The expensive definitive collection is an 18-disc affair, which includes the widescreen discs, and these original aspect ratio discs. US fans are already looking to see if this UK release is Region free. It’s worth noting that the usual Region info is printed nowhere on the packaging or the discs.


The UK release of Battlestar Galactica comes in two Amaray style cases held in a Cylon Head artwork, card slipcover. The six discs of Battlestar Galactica are in a fat Amaray, four discs, two either side of two hinged panels, with one disc on each inner face of the case. The three discs of Galactica 1980 are in a normal Blu-ray Amaray, one on the back inner face of the case, and two discs, one either side of a central hinged panel.

Introduction: Battlestar Galactica

“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. Some believe there may yet be brothers of man... who even now fight to survive - somewhere beyond the heavens!”


Sends a shiver down the spine doesn’t it? Erich von Daniken was a big thing back in the seventies with his ‘ancient astronauts’ theories, and Battlestar Galactica tapped right into that fervour for mysticism and mystery, and the idea that there is more to humanity and human history than we see on the surface, than we’re taught in history books. Once you establish a tantalising premise like that, you have to wonder what leaps of the imagination the show will deliver. Battlestar Galactica certainly got off to the right start.


7000 yahrens (years) of human history have been marred by the recent, millennium long war with the machine Cylons, but all that is coming to an end, as the twelve colonies of man celebrate the armistice and peace treaty brought to them by Count Baltar. As the fleet gathers to meet the Cylon dignitaries, and the Quorum of Twelve led by President Adar congratulate themselves on their wisdom and success, only Adama, representative of Caprica and commander of the Battlestar Galactica sounds a voice of caution. In the end even Adama is swayed by his friend Adar and the prospect of peace.


It’s a vacillation that the human race will come to regret, as Baltar is a traitor, and has colluded with the Cylons for personal power and gain. The fleet is heading into an ambush, and the colonies are left wide open for attack. Only the sacrifice of one of his sons gives Adama enough time to react, but in the end, only the Battlestar Galactica survives, and from the ruins of the colonies, a rag-tag fleet of a few hundred ships gathers in space. But there is still hope, for legends tell of a thirteenth colony, a distant beacon in a far off galaxy where another tribe of humans dwell. For the survivors of the twelve colonies this is their last hope, this planet called Earth, but the Cylons are determined to finish what they have started.


The episodes of Battlestar Galactica are presented across six discs in this collection, along with extra features, with the opening three part story, and one of the subsequent two part stories edited into feature length episodes.

Disc 1
1-3. Saga of a Star World
4. Lost Planet of the Gods
5. Lost Planet of the Gods, Part 2

Disc 2
6. The Lost Warrior
7. The Long Patrol
8. The Gun on Ice Planet Zero
9. The Gun on Ice Planet Zero, Part 2

Disc 3
10. The Magnificent Warriors
11. The Young Lords
12. The Living Legend
13. The Living Legend, Part 2


Disc 4
14. Fire in Space
15. War of the Gods
16. War of the Gods, Part 2
17. The Man With Nine Lives

Disc 5
18. Murder on the Rising Star
19 & 20. Greetings From Earth
21. Baltar’s Escape

Disc 6
22. Experiment in Terra
23. Take the Celestra
24. The Hand of God

Picture: Battlestar Galactica

Battlestar Galactica gets a 4:3 pillarboxed presentation on these Blu-ray discs, and the image is exceptionally good in HD, the limitations of television production notwithstanding. That said, Battlestar Galactica’s episodes were reputedly budgeted at a million dollars a pop back in 1978, so you do see a hell of a lot of production value on screen, the sets, the props, the special effects and costumes all look extravagant. But the time isn’t always there to get the lighting spot on, to get the best possible take, and sometimes you do get detail lost in contrast, but by and large, the transfer from film comes out brilliantly. This does indeed look like a film on Blu-ray, rich in detail and colour, offering more than you will have seen before. Print damage is mostly absent, the episodes look as if they were shot yesterday, and the colours and detail levels are fantastic. The only niggles you might have would be the matte lines on effects shots more visible than ever, the constant use of stock footage in spaceship shots, and odd moments of stock footage from other productions such as in Fire in Space, which is from an anamorphic source, and squeezed into the 4:3 ratio.

Sound: Battlestar Galactica

You have the option of DTS-HD MA 5.1 Surround English, and DTS 2.0 Stereo Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, with subtitles in those languages plus Japanese, Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, Finnish, and Swedish. The surround really does impress for the opening feature length triple episode, with the action and the music well presented, but for the rest of the series, the audio remains mostly glued to the front soundstage. It’s all good though, those memorable Cylon vocoder effects, the action, music and ambience, while the dialogue is clear throughout. Battlestar Galactica does suffer from loose ADR, and it appears that despite the considerable studio footage, a lot of the dialogue was looped in post, and it does tell.

Extras: Battlestar Galactica

Insert the discs, and you get 12 language options before a couple of logos and disclaimer screens. The discs boot up to a static-ish menu screen populated by icons, not text, although the extras (denoted by an asterisk, open up some text options).

Disc 1 offers an audio commentary on episodes 1-3 from actors Herbert Jefferson Jr. (Boomer), Richard Hatch (Apollo), and Dirk Benedict (Starbuck). This is taken from the 2003 US DVD release of the series (the commentary was left out of the UK DVD release), and it is initially interesting to listen to. But it quickly becomes an indulgence in nostalgia, a conversation between three friends, and it’s easy for the viewer to feel left out, especially when they talk over each other, or fail to complete a line of thought. What was the Mark Hamill story?


There are deleted scenes for many of the episodes, split across the appropriate discs. I say deleted, but they are a combination of alternate takes, rehearsal footage, deleted scenes and bloopers. They are presented in 4:3 480i SD, and in total run to 3.28:36

The rest of the extras are all on disc 6, and are taken from the 2003 DVD release of the series, and understandably presented in 480i SD format.

Remembering Battlestar Galactica begins with a few more bloopers, but really is a documentary featuring the cast and crew who are interviewed about the series, and there’s a whole lot of nostalgia. This lasts 44:59.

Glen A. Larson on the Creation of Battlestar Galactica talks for 5:48 on the spiritual and mystical underpinnings of the show.

Stu Phillips: Composing the Score lasts 5:03 and offers a brief insight into the difficulties of composing to a TV broadcast schedule.


The Cylons (4:50) looks at the practicalities of making the robots come alive on screen, and the problems as well.

Daggit lasts 5:12 and the cast and crew reminisce about the chimp in the dog suit.

It’s a little disappointing that the extra features presented here are all taken from the 2003 DVD release, and there has been nothing new put to disc for the Blu-ray. I would guess that this release happened a little too quickly for some sort of tribute to Glen A. Larson to be added, who passed away last November, less than two weeks before this Blu-ray came out. Hopefully the US release in a couple of months will remedy that.

Conclusion: Battlestar Galactica

Battlestar Galactica has aged surprisingly well, and I find that I enjoy and appreciate it just as much now as I did when I first watched it. However, I have to admit that when I first watched the show as a child, I could even then recognise those aspects of the show that I found trite, and even a little cheesy. There’s no way that the Daggit or the token kid could ever be seen as anything other than gimmicks to broaden the target audience. But by and large, the show still stands up well today. You might have to take some time to dismiss the superior remake from the mind, and remember that the original Battlestar Galactica was an action adventure show, the television equivalent of Star Wars, meant to appeal to a broad family audience, and as such, it was designed to be fun and entertaining, not realistic and thought provoking. Having said that, it still managed to tell some engaging stories, and offer some classic sci-fi allegory to boot.


This Blu-ray release of the show gives Battlestar Galactica a whole new lease of life, as you can now see the theatrical quality production values in terms of its production and costume design, and even the space effects sequences, while beholden to the budget savings of stock footage, still offer quality way beyond what any other show could manage at the time. Battlestar Galactica from 1978 looks better than anything Star Trek: The Next Generation could manage 10 years later (although that changed once CGI became more widespread). Battlestar Galactica looks and sounds fantastic in high definition, certainly better than any of my previous viewings of the show.


The show isn’t perfect though, and it does suffer, perhaps a little more than most, from first season jitters, which is made all the more tragic since there’s no second season of course. A lot of shows struggle to find their identity while bedding in, and it’s only in subsequent seasons that they develop those aspects that people find unique, and indeed signatures of the show. Battlestar Galactica had the added problem of not being shown in production order, so a couple of those early episodes don’t make that much sense in terms of continuity. They now appear to leave their home galaxy twice, venture forth into unexplored territory on more than one occasion, only to find remnants of Colonial expansion and people who are aware of them, making it less unexplored as it is forgotten. It’s only in the latter half of the series that the chronology, the back-story, and what we would now call the series bible, begins to find consistency.


Incidentally, one of the things that mark this show as different from its namesake is the sense of fun and ease of the characters, who don’t exactly behave like the shell-shocked survivors of a near extermination. It probably doesn’t excuse it, but in this Battlestar universe, humans are everywhere. The twelve colonies may have been wiped out, but the Galactican fleet finds more humans, survivors, colonies, and worlds wherever they venture, so there’s never the ominous threat of imminent extinction hanging over the survivors.


If it were just down to the first five episodes, (the original plan was for Battlestar Galactica to be a regular mini-series, before a full on series was commissioned) then I’d give it a 10/10 grade. The start of the show was spectacular and inspiring. The first three parts were shown on one night as a TV movie, which is how it’s presented on these discs, and it tells the story of the Cylon attack, the betrayal by Baltar, and the coming together of the survivors, the distant hope of planet Earth. While it begins with the devastation of the colonies and what seems to be an ultimate loss, it goes out on a positive note with the adventure on Carillon, where the fleet goes to replenish its supplies, discovers the Ovions, and almost gets trapped, before managing to give the Cylons a bloody nose and then making their escape.


The Lost Planet of the Gods 2-part story that followed probably was meant to be later in the broadcast run, but whereas the opener dealt with the action and sci-fi of the show, this one explored the mythology and back-story of the Battlestar universe. Where initially Adama dangled the carrot of Earth as a hope to hold the fleet together, this episode reveals that Earth is more than just a myth, as they find the ancient human home-world of Kobol, and discover the clues that point out the direction the thirteenth tribe took. Again this is storytelling that engages and gets the viewer interested in what the show is trying to do, and makes you want to see what will happen next.


Alas what happens next is that sense of a show looking for an identity, and like so many shows of that era, it does so by adapting that which has come before for its episodes. So often in the middle of the run, I wound up wondering just where I’d seen that movie before. The Lost Warrior is a remake of Shane, with Apollo crash-landing on a farming planet, one terrorised by a greedy landowner with an amnesiac gun-slinging Cylon at his command. Apollo gets to be the reluctant gunfighter here, refusing to fight, even though a young boy idolises the stranded warrior, until he has no choice but to put on his blaster and stand up to the cybernetic bully.


The Gun on Ice Planet Zero two part story manages to cross The Dirty Dozen, The Guns of Navarone, Ice Station Zebra, and even throws in a Captain Nemo type character (and Britt Ekland) as the Galactica finds a Death Star type gun on a planetoid in its path, and the universe is too small for the fleet to go around. It still manages to entertain though, with some interesting characters and a nice bit of arctic action. The Magnificent Warriors speaks for itself, considering there are seven on the shuttle that goes looking for new seed stock on a farming planet terrorised by local aliens. The Young Lords is another similar story to the latter and The Lost Warrior in that this time it’s Starbuck who crashes, and helps the locals defeat a Cylon menace.


It’s around episode 12 that Battlestar Galactica begins to find its identity, with The Living Legend two part story that introduced Commander Cain of the Pegasus, a Patton like character who’d much rather kick Cylon butt than flee with the survivors. This is a fan favourite story, but I have to admit that I’d only seen Lloyd Bridges to this point in Zucker comedy spoofs, and I could never take him seriously as a straight actor. I always expect him to drop a zany one-liner, but he never does as Cain. We have time for one more movie remake as the Towering Inferno becomes Fire in Space, but the two part story War of the Gods adds another layer of mythology to the show, introducing the demonic Count Iblis, suavely played by the voice of Imperious Leader, Patrick MacNee, and also the Ship of Lights, perhaps transcended humans, perhaps angels, perhaps the gods themselves, although this Battlestar’s human society is monotheistic.


A couple of entertaining solo episodes ensue before what is for me Battlestar Galactica’s high point, an indication of the promise the show had. It’s the four episode stretch from Greetings From Earth to Experiment in Terra which I always enjoy, despite the Cylon threat having been left behind at this point. It looks as if the Galactica might have found Earth when they discover Terra and its system of moons, but they also discover a society split in two and on the verge of war. Terra may be more advanced than Earth, but the allegory is obvious, with its Eastern Alliance obviously standing in for the Soviet Union, versus their equivalent of the US and the Galactica forced to interfere as the two sides head towards mutual destruction.


The penultimate episode is an interesting one, one that’s most similar in content to the re-imagined show, depicting dissent and disaffection in the fleet, where it looks like one ship commander in the fleet is behaving like a martinet, and treating his crew as little more than indentured servants. Unsurprisingly, a mutiny results. Of course you can’t stay away from the Cylon menace for long, and the chrome plated adversaries return for the season finale, what would turn out to be the end of the series. Although the show does leave on a tantalising head rush of a promise of distant Earth, with perhaps the most iconic television image of the 20th Century.


It’s the characters of Battlestar Galactica that still stand out today, larger than life and iconic. Adama as the redoubtable fleet commander, the Han Solo-esque ladies man in Starbuck, which ought to have made Apollo the Luke Skywalker character, but he managed to be upright and heroic while also displaying a tender warm-hearted side as well, the one man in the fleet who could stand up to his father. In all other occasions Adama was right and the civilian government wrong. While the show revolved around these three characters, the supporting cast was strong and made an impression in their own rights, Tigh, Boomer, Cassiopeia, Athena, Sheba, Boxey, and even the Daggit. You can’t get away from Galactica without discussing the villains, and there was an embarrassment of riches even there, the chrome dome Cylons with their vocoder voices definitely outlasting the television series in terms of stature (although how much of that was down to the A-Team opening credits is another matter). You also have the ever shrouded Imperious Leader, and the IL series droids, while the second part of The Living Legend hinted at a complex Cylon society. That’s before you get to Baltar, who by modern standards seems weak, but for late seventies television was a great pantomime villain, confident, scheming, duplicitous, and apt to be stumped by unexpected setbacks, and whose motivations never really made sense. John Colicos somehow made the character shine and manifest far beyond the daft writing that went into Baltar.


If you have seen nu-BSG, then you might be surprised at just how much of this series is echoed in the re-imagining. Events in this show, even whole episodes inspire, certainly season 1 of nu-BSG, although it takes things a lot more seriously than the original series ever did. While a lot of Battlestar Galactica was inspired by classic Hollywood movies, what I did find surprising is the odd episode of Battlestar Galactica that would serve to inspire in turn. The Long Patrol features Starbuck at the controls of an experimental recon fighter, one with a talking, and smart computer, one who can fly better than he can. Take a look at the lights that flash whenever the computer talks... A couple of years later Glen A. Larson would produce Knight Rider. Then there’s Experiment in Terra, where Apollo is snared by the Ship of Lights again, who ask his aid in preventing a war on Terra. They do this by ‘leaping’ him into a Terran’s life, where everyone else sees him as Charlie Watts, not Apollo, and where a non-corporeal ‘angel’ named John, that only he can see, advises him on what he has to fix to avoid the war. Not ten years later, Donald P. Bellisario would make Quantum Leap...


Battlestar Galactica looks great on Blu-ray, as good as you might expect classic television to look, and the show has certainly aged well, although you might have to meet it halfway, and shift your mindset back a couple of decades. Nu-Battlestar Galactica is the superior show when it comes to storytelling and a consistent direction, but it never would have existed without this show, and the original Battlestar Galactica never really had the chance it deserved. Of all the one-season wonders I have in my home video collection, this show had the most promise. It leaves you with a lingering wonderment at what could have been. Of course what shouldn’t have been was Galactica 1980, but that’s a story for the next paragraph.

8/10

Introduction: Galactica 1980

So you have one of the biggest hits on television, but at a bank-busting price that makes the suits cancel it at the first opportunity. You’ve generated an audience that love the show, you’ve got a cupboard full of expensive special effects and model footage that didn’t see nearly enough use, you’ve got these costumes and sets, and a story idea that is smart, entertaining, and has plenty of life left in it. It’s time to recoup that investment. Thus Galactica 1980 was born, with a significantly lower budget made possible by having the Galacticans find modern day Earth. When your spacemen are wandering the streets of downtown USA, then the bean-counters are going to be happy. Unfortunately, Galactica 1980 loses more than just its budget for its episodes.


After several decades traversing the wilderness of space, believing that they had eluded Cylon pursuit, the Galactica and its rag-tag fleet of survivors from the twelve colonies have finally discovered Earth, but to their shock, they learn that Earth is not ready to receive them, let alone help them in their battle against the Cylons. They find that their cousins are a primitive, fractious race, liable to react aggressively to an ‘alien’ encounter. Advised by wunderkind Doctor Zee, Adama decides to send small infiltration units to test the lay of the land, learn how this strange primitive society works. To a place called The United States, he sends his grandson Boxey, now an experienced warrior named Troy, and his wingman Dillon, but the two Galacticans aren’t ready for the culture clash, while in the fleet, some aren’t so willing to accept a furtive approach to Earth after such a long exodus.


Ten episodes of Galactica 1980 are presented on three discs.

Disc 1
1. Galactica Discovers Earth: Part 1
2. Galactica Discovers Earth: Part 2
3. Galactica Discovers Earth: Part 3

Disc 2
4. The Super Scouts
5. The Super Scouts, Part II
6. Spaceball
7. The Night the Cylons Landed

Disc 3
8. The Night the Cylons Landed, Part II
9. Space Croppers
10. The Return of Starbuck

Picture: Galactica 1980

Just like Battlestar Galactica, Galactica 1980 gets a 4:3 pillarboxed transfer at 1080p resolution. At first glance it looks great, the high definition image offering far greater detail than ever before from the film source, rendering the show with greater clarity and a richness and vibrancy of colour. That said, the image quality is let down a little by the condition of the source material, and while some episodes look pristine, some have suffered the indignities of age to a greater degree, with signs of print damage, scratches and dirt, fading of colours, and in one of the Super Scouts episodes, a distinct staining on the print in one scene. It also seems as if these episodes use the title card from Battlestar Galactica in the credits, not Galactica 1980.

Sound: Galactica 1980

Ignore what’s written on the box. Galactica 1980 comes with a simple DTS-HD MA 2.0 English track, which given the lack of separation I assume merely reflect the original mono broadcasts. You also have the choice of DTS 2.0 Latin Spanish, Catalan Spanish, French, Italian, and Portuguese, with subtitles in these languages and Japanese, Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, Finnish, and Swedish, the same language options you get when you first insert the discs. The dialogue is clear throughout, and if you need them the subtitles are there. There’s no problem with dropouts or distortion. Most of the music cues are re-used from the 1978 series, although the disco-fied version of the theme music when the bikes take to the skies quickly gets old.

Extras: Galactica 1980

Insert the discs, and you get 12 language options before a couple of logos and disclaimer screens. The discs boot up to a static-ish menu screen populated by icons, not text, which makes the language choice pretty moot. There are no extra features with Galactica 1980.

Conclusion: Galactica 1980

You might wonder what went wrong with Galactica 1980, but the real question is did anything go right for this misfire of a show? For nine out of its ten episodes, it’s an unmitigated train wreck, and its myriad flaws even manage to taint the one decent episode in its run. The real problem with the show isn’t its lack of budget, it’s that right from the beginning, it’s targeted at children instead of the broad audience of its predecessor. Jettisoned is the premise of the original, gone is the angst and depth of the writing, the complexity of the characters, the richness of the universe, and what’s left is kiddie friendly fare, lubricated by low-rent culture-clash comedy as the space aliens try to fathom the trivialities of modern day Earth, where every problem is solved by Galactican technology, helpfully signalled by a magical sound effect.


The main driver of these stories is wunderkind Dr. Zee, and the previously strong leader of the fleet, Commander Adama is reduced to a litany of “Gee, Dr Zee. What do we do now, by golly?” As for the two main characters providing the action and drive to the show, the replacement Starbuck and Apollo, they’re a character and charisma free zone. Remember the show The Dukes of Hazzard? They had a pay dispute with the cast one year and hired a new pair of cousins for the General Lee. Troy and Dillon are Coy and Vance.


The thing is that there were a couple of good ideas in the show, and if they hadn’t been hampered by the child-friendly direction, and the main cast, it might just have worked. They just didn’t have the courage of their convictions to carry the premise through, and that’s apparent from the first episode. The Galacticans discover Earth, learn that it is primitive, and decide to accelerate Earth’s technological evolution by benevolently and secretly interfering in societies. This would have been an interesting idea, aliens ‘helping’ Earth in secret, walking the tightrope of politics and the Cold War, trying to keep their presence hidden. It would have made for an interesting drama. But they gave up on that idea before the end of the first episode when they brought in Xaviar and his time travel shenanigans. The first episode isn’t even over and the show has a new premise, with Troy and Dillon leaping through time, putting right what Xaviar once put wrong (hmm, sounds familiar). The end of the two part story in episodes two and three promises more in the way of time travel from our bland heroes, but someone did the numbers in the studio found it was expensive to make, and that idea was unceremoniously and immediately ditched.


Premise three introduced the Space Scouts, the kiddie friendly kiddie quotient, and all of a sudden the Galacticans are retconned as having superpowers on Earth. Shame that Troy and Dillon didn’t use these abilities to get out of all those scrapes in the first three episodes. I guess they forgot that they could leap higher than a tall tree. This is the death knell for the series, the annoying kids with their annoying song, but there is still that half-season of episodes to fill, so the show keeps going on momentum. Then someone remembers that people really watched Battlestar Galactica for the Cylons, the bad guys were the interesting bit. So we have a humanoid Cylon and a chrome toaster walking the streets of Manhattan for the duration. I must admit that the Vhmmm Vhmmm cliff-hanger managed to deliver a few chills, as the ominous figure of a Centurion made his presence felt, but the humanoid Cylons were a daft idea here, the possibilities of infiltration not even considered, and certainly not in the way the reboot managed it. It was when the Centurion was laid low by a microwave oven, while Troy and Dillon danced with Scooby Doo... That’s premise 4 wasted.


When all else fails, go back to the original cast, and episode 10 is the one decent story that Galactica 80 managed, Starbuck returns and in one episode delivers more personality, charisma, wit, and charm than all of the other characters managed in 9 episodes, and for most of that story, he’s stranded alone on a planet, until he reactivates a Cylon for company. It’s a tale of Robinson Starbuck and Cylon Friday, and it would have been almost as good as anything in the original series, were it not for the framing device of Dr. Zee recounting the tale as his dream and asking Adama, “Is Starbuck my daddy?”


I’m glad I watched this first, as I wouldn’t want my final memory of this collection to be Galactica 1980. It’s worse than I remember it to be, but then again I last watched it when I was in the target audience, and even then I thought it was bad, although I thought the flying bikes were cool. Now not even that.

3/10 for The Return of Starbuck.

In Summary

I’m not going to average the scores as I usually do. After all, I bought this collection for Battlestar Galactica. Galactica 1980 is just the unsightly wart that comes with it, and you are under no obligation to actually watch it. The original series is still a whole lot of fun, and it looks fabulous in high definition, one show that definitely shows the benefit of the HD upgrade. Confidentially, I think it looks better that the original Star Trek Blu-rays, although that’s probably through lack of tinkering with the image. If there is a disappointment, it’s that in terms of extras, it’s really just the 2003 DVD release re-packaged. We’ve had the whole nu-BSG phenomenon in the interim, and some sort of crossover featurette looking at the two shows side-by side would have been appreciated to show just how much the new show was inspired by the old. But if you have the DVDs, I would make a point of double-dipping the Blu-rays. You won’t be disappointed.