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Old August 10th, 2006, 05:54 PM   #1
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Default I think I'm going to make everyone's day...

It pays to have a library card (and, yes, they still make them...)
The Cincinnati Public Library system has greatly expanded its online reference sources in the past few years. If you have a Cincinnati library card, you can go to its website and look up its databases from a remote computer. One website that must be fairly new includes links to a number of Ohio newspapers and to The Washington Post (last time I looked, Washington DC wasn't in Ohio!). The Washington Post articles go back to 1977, so guess what I did a search on?
I found three articles. One of them was a story I had never heard before, about a Galactica cast member who doesn't get a lot of publicity. The other two articles was a review and an editorial, and they were pleasantly positive. For a major American newspaper to rave about a TV show is very unusual.
I suppose that what I am doing is a little bit, shall we say, violation of copyright, so if you think I should remove them, I will. If you have your own library card you might be able to access the Washington Post website throught your local public library.
I'm going to do each article as a separate file.
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Old August 10th, 2006, 05:57 PM   #2
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Default washington post sept 16 1978 (but the last sentence is a downer)

Son of 'Star Wars': Super-Duper Adventure on the 'Galactica'
Washington Post, The (DC)
September 16, 1978
Author:<invective deleted>Tom Shales
Estimated printed pages: 5

It wasn't so much "Star Wars" itself that inspired ABC's "Battlestar Galactica," to be realistic about it, as it was the success of "Star Wars". Most prime-time entertainment is derivative of something, and that something is often somebody else's smash hit.

The pleasant surprise about "Galactica," which premiers with a spectacular and captiviting three-hour episode Sunday night at 8 on Channel 7, is the number of other influences that have gone into the creation of the program - everything from "The Fall of the Roman Empire" to "Fiddler on the Roof," from "How the West Was Won" to the Bible.
And, oh yes, "Roots." It seems "Battlestar Galactica" is a genealogical epic as well as a spirited and rousing adventure story. It unravels the history of a mirror-image human race which exists, according to the edict of the celestial sonorous narrator, in another solar system "somewhere beyond the heavens." Way up high.

In no way does "Galactica" duplicate the enlightened escapist brilliance of "Star Wars." It doesn't have the wit, the whimsical personality, or the exhilirating pace. "Star Wars" was a masterpiece of instant mythology; "Battlestar Galactica" must settle for being merely a handsome, engrossing, supe-duper television show.

John Dykstra, who supervised the special effects for "Star Wars," produced the first "Galactica" and also coordinated its special effects. So there are zippy, trippy space battles and the most impressive display of special effects hardware and ersatz explotions ever seen in a fantasy television program.

What writer and executive producer Glen A. Larson has contributed is a pop-cultural pastiche that deploys nearly every conceivable family-baiting gimmick in the traditional television repertoire, plus a few more from other sources. It works amazingly well. "Galactica" may be essentially humorless but, to its credit, it actually has fits of dramatic impact that are more powerful and even more convincing than those of some TV program-s with far more recognizable settings and intrinsically empathetic situations.

When it was announced that former "Bonanza" patriarch Lorne Greene would play Adama, commander of the Battlestar Galactica, loud moans of "oh, no," did seem to be in order. The casting now appears a stroke of genius; Greene brings an unmistakably residual authority to the role that helps keep the program cohesive, despite the visual schism between the special-effects outer-space scenes and the more mundame interiors of the Battlestar shot on the soundstages of Universal Studios.

As his son, Capt. Apollo, Richard Hatch has the acceptably ineffectual appeal of many young TV actors, but sidekicks Dirk Benedict as Lt. Starbuck and Herb Jefferson as Lt. Boomer unfortunately emanate straight from the bottom drawer. Their fly-boy badinage, one of the few elements of the script too obviously scribbed from "Star Wars," comes off limp and flat, like the tedious small talk of the colorless ciphers who populated shows like "Emergency" and "Adam-12."

Among the women on board, however, Maren Jensen and Randi Oakes are considerably more life-like, and Laurette Spang is touching as Cassiopea, and outcast "socialator" who, apparently to appease the dullards in the ABC Standards and practices department, is prevented by the script from ever actually socialating with a member of the opposite sex.

Some of the sets are impressive and some suggest corners cut. Costumes worn by the governing "Council of 12" adhere to the Hollywood notion that people in outer space would for some reason dress like those in movies about ancient Rome; it's a toga party for old-timers like Lew Ayres and Ray Milland.

The plot of the premiere makes a good story, and it would be a shame to give it all away. Basically it tells how our distant brothers and sisters are lured into false hopes of armistice with their dread enemies, the Cylons, a breed of artificial being created eons earlier ("centons" earlier, in the Galactican vernacular) by a reptilian society, and now clearly out of control.

On the very eve of peace, their treacherous "Imperious Leader" looks down into their silver heads and redbeam eyes and proclaims "the final annihilation of the life form known as man."

Eventually all the planets housing humans, and the battlestars that offered them hovering protection, are destroyed - all the battlestars but one. Lorne Green marches to the mountaintop of a charcoal briquet that used to be a planet and announces, "Let the word go forth to every man and women that survive this holocaust . . ."

And with that he sets the stage for an exodus scene right out of Cecil B. DeMille. It's really kind of wonderful and full quasi-historical resonance.As with much science fiction, genuine or ersatz, the air is thick with allegory, metaphor and random reference. Greene even has "uneasy lies the head" speech reminiscent of Henry IV, and the fact that the phony peace conference is arranged by a traitor named "Baltar," which nearly rhymes with "Yalta," is probably not an accident.

This is not to say that the people behind "Galactica" have lavished it with profound thought or even with a great deal of imagination. In fact, many of the straight dialogue scenes directed by Richard A. Colla are as dull as the draggy as on any humdrum TV series. But you can sense that the people who did the effects have fun at their work, and this esprit spread spread to other aspects of the production.

The point is, perceptible creative enthusiasm is very rare in television and it helps make "Galactica" better than even the average stand-out.

There are some discouraging signs, however - particularly in a tacked-on "epilogue" that unwisely resurrects the presumably exterminated arch villain; "Galactica" may degenerate into a weekly game of outer-space cat-and-mouse with humanity as the mouse.

Or it may go the alreadt well traveled routes of "Star Trek," with its heavy-laden moralisms, or "Space: 1999," which had a similar odyssey format and whose characters simply loped along from one kinky society of menaces to another.

Whatever its future, "Battlestar Galactica" gets off on a grand right foot in its premiere. The idea that this fellow human race of ours sees its one hope for survival as reaching what Greene calls "a shining planet known as Earth" is a real charmer of forced naivete. Shining planet, indeed. Won't they be surprised?

After protests and proddings from activist groups that were followed by pious pledges of reform, the three TV networks have regressed back to the Flinstones age of Saturday morning children's programming. Cheap and insipid animation dominates all three network schedules, with CBS appearing to have done the very least possible in fostering new production of live-action shows.

Perhaps to save a fraction of its face, then the network's CBS News division today unveils "30 Minutes," an informational half-tour which hosts Christopher Glenn and Betsy Aaron starchily pronounce is "devoted to the interests and concerns of young people." When kids hear that formal offputer, they may head straight for a cookie jar on some other channel.

The first program - at 1:30 p.m. on Channel 9 - has filmed features on acne cures and on the rigors of forming a rock band, but the show comes across as stiff and chilly. Glenn shortens his name to "Chris" and uses phrases like "goofin' around" and "doin somethin' good," but these do not dispel the impression that this program is a product of committeeville and the CBS News is the biggest square since Ronald Reagan.

On the second program, though, there are two excellent reports produced by Jo Ann Caplin, the first a sobering look at juveniles who were tried and imprisoned as adults, and the second a contrasting jolly visit to the offices where "Mad Magazine" is published every 45 days.

The young men in prison interviewed Caplin and Glenn talk longingly and affectingly of the things that kill you the most," says a kid who suffers from dreams of being back home on the farm.

Glenn also brings up a prison hazard one may not expect to hear about on a show for young people - "the threat of homosexual rape."
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Old August 10th, 2006, 05:58 PM   #3
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Default washington post sept 19 1978

The Time Was Prime For a Pause for Peace . . .
Washington Post, The (DC)
September 19, 1978
Author:<invective deleted>Tom Shales
Estimated printed pages: 4

"As we approach the seventh millennium of time, the human race will at last find peace," declared President "Adar" on the premiere of ABC's space epic "Battlestar Galactica." Hostilities immediately ensued, but they were interrupted at 10:30 Eastern time - just as the Cylon warships were closing in - by the president of the United States, Jimmy Carter.

"We're privileged to witness tonight a significant achievement in the cause of peace," said Carter from the East Room of the White House. And because he was saying it in a particularly prime moment of prime time on the biggest viewing night of the week, it is possible that as many as 100 million Americans were watching him in their homes.
Yesterday, as the euphoria over the "framework for peace" agreements signed by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin was seasoned with notes of realistic skepticism, one particularly obvious question arose. Was the signing as big a triumph for world peace as the national telecast was a triumph for the battle-scarred public popularity of President Carter?

Had White House image-maker Gerald Rafshoon scored his greatest media coup yet - by getting all three networks to carry Carter's Peace Revue at a time when it would get him maximum exposure to the nation?

Sunday is traditionally the night when more Americans are watching television that on any other. NBC Research estimates that 62.7 percent of all U.S. television sets were turned on during prime time Sunday, and that the total number of viewers could range between 90 and 100 million.

It was also the most heatedly competitive night of the new fall TV season. ABC was showing its much ballyhooed, $3 million "Galactica" premiere, CBS had the live Emmy Awards from Pasadena, and Nic aired the concluding half of the first TV showing of "King Kong."

If Carter, Sadat and Begin had come on the air a couple of hours earlier, their ratings may not have been so sensational, but by 10:30, viewers were bound to be hooked by one of the three splashy network offerings, and "overnight" figures show that they remained in front of their sets for the White House show.

The glad tidings of peace came on just as King Kong was fording the East River looking for his girl friend, as the dread Cylons were closing in [LINE ILLEGIBLE] Alda was about to hand out the evening's umpteenth Emmy Award.

Yesterday White House sources insisted, though privately and not for the record, that the timing of the Carter announcement was actually dictated by the events at Camp David and not by the shrewd media strategy of Rafshoon, who did not respond to inquiries.

One veteran broadcast journalist, however, said it was "obvious" that the telecast was timed for maximum TV exposure and that even the Sunday deadline set by Carter for conclusion of the negotiations may have been part of the campaign to bolster his image through TV.

But NBC News bureau chief Sid Davis, chairman of network pool coverage for the event, said, "My judgment is that the White House really didn't know the way this was going until late in the day. When the day started out, it looked like nothing major was going to happen."

At 5 p.m., the White House phoned Davis to ask him to arrange a "possible 9 p.m. broadcast" from the East Room, where public television was just finishing up a live concert by cellist Mstislav Rostropovich. At 5:45, as Davis tried to round up crews and equipment for the broadcast, the White House called again and Rafshoon aide Anne Edwards told Davis, "You have until 10:30 now" to put the show on the air.

George Watson, ABC News bureau chief here, said "There really is no way of knowing for a certainty" if the timing of the broadcast was the result of Rafshoon's strategy or the logistics of the negotiations. "Perhaps we were beign jerked around," Watson said. "But I think the White House really was concerned about rampant speculation spreading so they wanted to get out the results of the conference as soon as possible."

Thinking it over, Watson added, "No, I do not think that the end of the summit was orchestrated with 'Galactica' or 'King Kong' in mind."

Ed Fouhy, CBS News bureau chief, expressed a similar sentiment but had at least a glimmer of doubt. "No, I'm sure yesterday (Sunday) was dead honest," Fouhy said. Then: "Well, not dead honest, but fairly honest."

For nearly two solid weeks, network news teams had been standing vigil at Camp David waiting for a break in the story or in the secrecy which surrounded the negotiations. Most network sources conceded yesterday that the reason for the secrecy was partly to avoid the bedlam of "media diplomacy" that marked earlier hopes of a Mideast agreement late last year.

Nevertheless, the three networks dispatched their superstars - Walter Cronkite of CBS, Barbara Walters of ABC and John Chancellor of NBC - to corral Sadat and Begin yesterday and begin an undoubtedly long round of post-negotiation negotiations for TV viewers to see for themselves.

As if to further emphasize the importance of TV exposure in affecting public opinion on Carter's performance as prince of peace negotiations, his address to a joint session of Congress, originally scheduled by the White House for 9 p.m. yesterday, was moved back to 8 p.m. so it would not interfere with the telecast of the Monday night football game.

The three network evening newscasts resembled duplicate news magazine covers last night as they devoted large shares of broadcast time to interviews with Sadat and Begin, who must have had little time to do anything yesterday but be interviewed by networks.CBS and ABC evening newscasts are seen at the same time in Washington and one TV set tuned to each revealed interviews of Anwar and Menachem by Walter and Barbara running almost in unison.

Earlier in the week, Cronkite bowed out of a scheduled appearance on the Emmy Awards because he wanted to stay with the story; thus it was Cronkite himself who appeared on screen when CBS interrupted the Emmy show Sunday night.

"Walter, in our eyes, has been part of the Mideast summit from the very beginning," said Sanford J. Socolow, executive producer of the "CBS Evening News (With Walter Cronkite)". "He would have been god-damned disappointed if it weren't him on the air to report the conclusion."

Paul L. Klein, executive vice president for programming at the NBC Television Network, said yesterday from Burbank he was certain the timing of the Carter telecast was no accident, but also said he didn't see anything wrong with that.

"This is the age of media," said Klein. "You do what you have to do. You try to settle wars, you want to attract attention. I don't see why people try to find anything negative about that."
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Old August 10th, 2006, 05:59 PM   #4
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Default washington post nov 17 1978

TV Space Program Actor Tells of Earthbound Chase
Washington Post, The (DC)
November 17, 1978
Author:<invective deleted>Laura A. Kiernan, Washington Post Staff Writer

Col. Tigh, second in command of the Battlestar Galactica, took time of from his inerplanetar search for Earth yesterday to come to the D.C. Superior Court to testify about the night he chased a man accused of robbery through rush hour traffic in downtown Washington.

Actor Terry Carter, whose adventures are usually confined to the television screen for one hour on Sunday nights, held his audience - the jury - spellbound as he told his story that began, he said, when he saw a man run out the door of a Gino's at 1348 New York Ave. NW on May 22.
Carter, who was parked in his car waiting for a friend, testified a woman followed the many crying "Stop, thief," Carter who spent seven years on a television series as New York City Detective Sgt. Joe Broadhurst before his recent move to space, told the jury that he knew "something was going on that was not normal."

According to testimony, a 300-pound unidentified bystander unsuccessfully pusued the accused thief into an alley. Suddenly, Carter testified, the defendant Oscar Lee Johnson, 21, appeared in front of his car.

Carter began shouting, "It's an emergency! Move your car over!" he testified as he chased Johnson in his car down New York Avenue to 12th Street where he said he saw Johnson board a Metrobus.

"I realized if I didn't do something drastic the defendant would get away," Carter testified, so he pulled his car in front of the bus, got onto the bus himself, found Johnson and in "a kind of authoritative manner" said "All right let's go."

Carter told the jury during questioning by Assistant U.S. Attorney Roberta Eaton that he took the man back to his car and began to drive back to Gino's, when the man jumped out and fled. Carter, undaunted, testified that he pursued the man by car again and caught up with him - for good - at the nearby Greyhound bus station.

After a crisp, formal cross-examination by defense attorney Christopher Hoge, Carter, who said later that he has been mugged once and burglarized twice, left the witness stand and spent a moment outside the courtroom shaking hands and signing autographs.

"I just feel people have to be concerned about what's happening around them," he said.

The trial before Judge John Hess is expected to resume today.
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Old August 10th, 2006, 08:31 PM   #5
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These are FABULOUS! Thanks for sharing!
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Old August 22nd, 2006, 08:54 PM   #6
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Very cool finds, Mary. The Terry Carter one is priceless. You may want to email a copy of that to MikeDX who does Terry's website if I remember right.
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Old August 28th, 2006, 04:06 AM   #7
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Default review of the theatrical release

Paper: Washington Post, The (DC)
Title: 'Galactica': The Same Old Future
Author: JUDITH MARTIN
Date: May 18, 1979
Section: Weekend; Weekend at the Movies; Pg. 27

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA - AMC Carrollton, Fairfax Circle, K-B Bethesda, K-B Cinema 7, K-B Langley, K-B MacArthur and Springfield Mall.


The future is doomed to repeat itself.Yet another space movie, "Battlestar Galactica," features the future that science fiction has long since agreed upon for our civilization: Leadership by a council of white-robed, short-sighted old bores, warfare conducted in dogfighter style by spunky young punks, threats of destruction from robots in black armor with voices like no hands telephones, cuddliness from cute mascot robots, vampy bad women wearing old bellydance costumes, submissive good women in Madonna outfits, and political philosophy from the Cold War.


Their dialogue always sounds like a bad translation of the Bible. "Let the word go forth," "It has been expressly forbidden," people says in "Battlestar Galactica" when they aren't using their homemade words the best of which are "socialator" for "prostitute" and "frack," a useful obscenity.

How far has the human race progressed since "Star Wars"?

Generally, this film, based on the television series, is at the identical level of civilization as that moneymaker. However, ficticious-science scholars may be able to observe some differences.

The film is made in something called "Sensurround," which means that the soundtrack is so loud that the seats of the theatre vibrate. There is no noise in space. of course, but this invention gives the viewer the thrilling sensation of viewing space battles while actually sitting on a subway.

The bar scene has been replaced by a disco scene.

One of the heroic warriors, either Richard Hatch as Captain Apollo or Dirk Benedict as Lieutenant Starbuck, wears clear nail polish, it looks like close-ups of a thumb on the throttle.

Where "Star Wars" had no blacks and no women except one princess, "Battlestar" has a black colonel, respectfully played by Terry Carter as subservient to Lorne Green, the white commander. Of the three young heros, one is black - the only one with no interest, who gets left behind in the climactic fight. There are two women aboard the battlestar in desk jobs. There are no other blacks or women among the military and none either in the leadership council.

Instead of being simply at a good-guys-vs.-bad-guys mentality, this film has a heavily political viewpoint. There are vehement speeches in which a defense of involvement in Vietnam and an attack on SALT are obviously intended. Since "the enemy" is dedicated to the total destruction of "freedom," talking peace and proposing disarmament is a sign of weakness and stupidity, and the brave do not hesitate to involve themselves in wars against anyone else the enemy attacks.

Aside from that, it's the same fracking picture all over again.
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Old October 12th, 2006, 08:22 PM   #8
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http://members.tripod.com/john_laroc.../washpost.html
http://www.battlestargalactica.com/o...outdoc0048.htm

You forgot this one. This is one of the key articles on TOS.

Countdown for "Rattletrap Galactica"

by Tom Shales

Washington Post, Sunday April 8, 1979

Somebody took a wrong turn on the way to Utopia. Battlestar Galactica, it was almost unanimously predicted last summer, would be the No. 1 guaranteed hit of this television season -- a certified Star Wars rip-off smash.

Now the old trawler is limping into port with so-so ratings and an uncertain future. Its place on next fall's ABC schedule is by no means secure. It has become "Rattletrap Galactica," defying the soothsayers who foresaw its triumph.

The ratings were sky-high at first, when the program about a lost tribe of humans wandering through another galaxy exploded onto the air. But as the weeks went by, the ratings for this "rag-tag fleet" of supersonic nomads got raggier and taggier.

Now, the mission could be scrubbed after only one season -- a meltdown for Galactica. And that's no felkercarb.

Why did it happen? "There are thousands of reasons," says supervising producer Don Bellisario, who still believes ABC will renew the show. But special effects maestro John Star Wars Dykstra, who produced five hours of Galactica and left the series, thinks it all boils down to logistical dilemmas; you can't make a show this fancy and elaborate when under the laser gun of hectic TV production schedules.

Originally, Galactica was supposed to be only a miniseries totaling seven hours of programming. But then ABC ordered it up as a weekly show, and network brass did it late in the year for such a complicated production.

"It was very late," says Dykstra. "But that's nothing new. Television works late. They have two calendars in TV -- the one they talk about and the one that's real. I still think it has much greater potential as a miniseries than as an episode show."

If Galactica is not renewed, it will be a major concession of failure by ABC and no fun for Universal Studios, since TV shows only become really profitable for producers when there are three or four years worth lying around to syndicate.

On the other hand, NBC President Fred Silverman says that if ABC does renew the series, that will be an admission of vulnerability, of not having anything in the wings with more potential than this marginal also-ran.

"If ABC renews that show, that will prove they are in real trouble," Fred Silverman says. And when Fred Silverman talks, even E.F. Hutton listens.

Thus we have this stranded band of interstellar gypsies flouncing around the galaxies with nowhere to go. And they won't know if ABC has a future for them until April 15 or later. In all of the universe, nothing is more absolute than low ratings.

"I can't argue with numbers," says Bellisario. "We have dropped down. There's no one thing to blame. Sunday night is the hottest viewing night of the week and the other networks hit us with everything they could."

There were additional hang-ups. The traditional curse of science fiction on television, where it draws culty but rarely enormous audiences; the technical problems of getting special effects done on time; and the fact that the show, like most sci-fi, fails to draw the most coveted of TV demographic groups: women 18-49.

So Galactica is constantly being tinkered with. To lure women, a basketballish game call Triad was invented; it is played by handsome young men wearing slingshots for shorts. "And we're going to play up the female leads on the show," says Bellisario, which helps explain why cast member Maren Jensen keeps popping up on the covers of silly magazines.

To broaden the appeal of the program still further, it ironically or not is becoming less and less a science fiction series. Now, with series star Lorne Greene riding herd over his sons and the Galactica's arkful of transients, the program's plots have degenerated into stock domestic drama -- a Ponderosa of the cosmos. Galactica could have been the first smash hit in television to make it on visual spectacle, but that angle has been largely jettisoned in favor of meat, potatoes, and corn.

"I really haven't been watching it a lot," says Dykstra, "I'm not in love with most television, I don't watch much TV. The little parts I have seen have veered much more toward standard stories than action-adventure."

Dykstra says the program doesn't entice him because the effects are no longer the main attraction. "If you are going to put on 'Joe Smith, Motorcycle Rider,' you've got to have a new stunt every week or people won't keep tuning in. The writing on Galactica is good, but they're doing only personality stories; so people don't get the magic they were promised. And in order to make that convincing you need more lead time than they have in TV."

Those menacing but highly photogenic Cylons have been keeping a low profile lately while the good ship Galactica went off on other courses, many of them straight into the black hole of soap opera. But the insidious muttering androids will return April 29 for the season's last episode -- perhaps the last episode of all. Bellisario says the Cylons were a handicap to the program, but it wasn't their fault; the real villains were the network censors.

"They took the balls out of the Cylons," Bellisario laments. "And so they became rather laughable. Since we are an 8 o'clock show, the network is very tough on us about violence. We had some leeway because we said, 'Look, we're only killing machines.' But when you have 150 Cylons against three humans and the humans always emerge without a scratch, the audience won't take them seriously. We just couldn't take them seriously. We just couldn't make them believable as adversaries." In other words, what ABC wants is a science fiction show with as little science fiction as possible, and an action adventure show with as little action and adventure as possible.

If the truth be told, Galactica has been a disappointment in more ways than its ratings. The special effects on the old Star Trek show may have been tacky by Galactica standards, but at least the scripts had some sort of idea behind them. Often allegorical, sometimes genuinely thoughtful.

Galactica is just a lot of buzzing around interrupted by discussion in L.A.-speak about caring and relationships. The only prevailing theme -- unfortunately and perhaps accidentally -- seems to be that civilizations are best left in the control of the military and that peacemakers and deliberators tend to be the dupes of fiends.

On show after show, the "warriors" of the Galactica urge brinksmanship, displays of might, and an attack-now, talk-later strategy. The lord high poobahs want to try reconciliation and trust; some are depicted as namby-pambies, others are soft on Cylonism.

The military is always proven correct. The hatchet buriers are always proven wrong.

"No, no, I wouldn't say it is a fascist show at all," says Bellisario. The question has been asked half-jokingly. "But we are doing action-adventure television. If they just ran into wonderful warm people every week, the ratings would really be in the toilet. You've got to have adversaries, jeopardy, and crisis."

Besides, Bellisario says, he can't worry about political sub-texts. He has to sweat out getting the show on the air. Because of all the technological bric-a-brac, the last six episodes of Galactica did not finish shooting "any earlier than 10 days prior to air time" -- a perilously close margin -- and then, editing and dubbing has gone on as late as the Saturday morning before the scheduled Sunday night telecast.

"I really don't have time to worry about subtleties," says Bellisario. "I just get it made and out."

Indeed, this is the great cosmic dilemma of the loudest and costliest crashes in TV history; the first seven hours alone cost more than $7 million to produce. But Bellisario is determined to remodel the show so that it will become "the hit it was always predicted to be" -- next season, if there is one.

Meanwhile, a theatrical version of the first show, having been successfully tested in various domestic and foreign markets, will open in dozens of American theaters this summer as a way for Universal to make a bundle even out of a possible flop. "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century," originally made by Universal to be an NBC movie, has been released instead to theaters first and is toting up rosy grosses, a Universal spokesman says.

The spokesman, a wry type, is asked why he thinks Galactica failed to become the socko smash everyone expected. "Well, it did," he says, "for three minutes, anyway.
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Old October 12th, 2006, 09:34 PM   #9
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Thanks.

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Old October 13th, 2006, 08:12 AM   #10
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Quote:
Bellisario says the Cylons were a handicap to the program, but it wasn't their fault; the real villains were the network censors.

"They took the balls out of the Cylons," Bellisario laments. "And so they became rather laughable. Since we are an 8 o'clock show, the network is very tough on us about violence. We had some leeway because we said, 'Look, we're only killing machines.' But when you have 150 Cylons against three humans and the humans always emerge without a scratch, the audience won't take them seriously. We just couldn't take them seriously. We just couldn't make them believable as adversaries."
Gritty Reality is the popular cliché these days with many shows even some called Battlestar Galactica. Concerning the Cylons expect Gritty Reality in our film. They will be 98.9% the Cylons of TOS but we won’t be consulting the retired ABC Network censors. I will let this out; expect our heroes to take a pasting in the 14th Colony Film. You’ll never stop rooting for them and you’ll admire their sacrifice. The Cylons will be everything you expect but not the nice guy waving to Boxy on a lunch box.
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Old October 13th, 2006, 11:14 AM   #11
KamikazeAthena
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Originally Posted by Sept17th
The Cylons will be everything you expect but not the nice guy waving to Boxy on a lunch box.
Yeah. WTF is up with that? I always keep that side facing away from me. It is simply irresponsible!
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