`Battlestar Galactica' will get relaunch
Actor Edward James Olmos says Sci Fi Channel's series may rile fans of old program
By R.D. Heldenfels
Edward James Olmos has some advice for fans of the old TV series Battlestar Galactica.
Don't see his Battlestar Galactica.
The new version of the show, which ran on ABC in 1978-79 and as the revamped Galactica 1980 the following year, will air as a four-hour movie on the Sci Fi Channel in December. A series derived from the movie is already in the works.
The earlier series involved the last survivors of an ancient civilization navigating a fleet of spaceships to a new planetary home while being pursued by the evil Cylons bent on their destruction.
As The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows says, ``If this sounds like a copy of the movie Star Wars, it was.'' In fact, the series was seen as a cheap knock-off of the movie, and it drew few viewers during its short TV run.
But like just about anything with spaceships, it retains a fervent following, active on the Internet to this day.
So in making a new version, Sci Fi wants to draw new viewers while not overly antagonizing the old ones, who are already debating the new version's changes. Among them: More sex, more edge and changing the character Starbuck, played by Dirk Benedict on the old show, into a woman, played by Katee Sackhoff (The Education of Max Bickford).
The old show's fans probably will watch the new one just to see how mad it makes them. (Olmos said he and Sackhoff were already getting e-mails from old show fans who are ``really bitter... very angry.'') And there's nothing wrong with revising a production that wasn't very good to begin with.
Still, at a Galactica news conference, people generally tried to appeal to both fans and nonfans.
Ronald D. Moore, writer of the new Galactica, said he was really drawn just to the core idea of the old show, which he felt was more resonant since 9/11.
``You wake up one morning, and your world has changed forever, and what happens to you?'' Moore said. ``What do you do? How do you react to it? How does the guy next to you react to it? What does it say about you?''
However appealing he found that idea, did Moore really think the old Galactica was good? When I asked that, Moore said yes, but with considerable qualifiers.
``I think it was a good show, and that it had an extraordinarily interesting premise,'' he said at first. But he went on to refer to it as ``a show of its time,'' ``more escapist'' than the new version and one that seemed ``more, you know, planet of the week.''
It was sort of difficult, he said ``for that series to find its footing.''
It finally took Olmos to cut through the diplomatic replies and go to the core issue.
``A person who has a really strict belief in the original, I would advise not to watch this program,'' he said. ``It'll hurt them....
``Some of the characters' names are the same, but the intent and the way we are building the (show's) reality is not the reality that was built in the original. So I tell (fans)... buy yourself the new DVDs they are putting out of the old episodes, and whenever we come on just put that one in.''
Sci Fi President Bonnie Hammer stood by as Olmos delivered his warning against a show she was trying to publicize.
``Kill me now,'' she said.
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"Kill me now." - Bonnie Hammer
