Season Two

[peter noble]

Well there obviously wasn't one and I've got the season two document but if you read it you wonder what the heck GAL and the writing staff were thinking.

It's obvious they thought they had too many recurring characters.

I do however like the idea of Cassiopea becoming a doctor and Boomer becoming more science based, building on his tech knowledge displayed in FIS and HOG.

However, getting rid of Sheba, Col. Tigh and Boxey would have been a stupid idea.

Recasting Athena? I really didn't think Maren was a bad actress, just inexperienced. I prefer the Athena of LPOTG and FIS and the unfilmed scripts like The Beta Pirates.

One thing the show did need was cool flying motorcycles!

[Ethan]

I assume your talking about some preliminary season two document from 1978. I don't know very much about that kind of history.


However, getting rid of Sheba, Col. Tigh and Boxey would have been a stupid idea.


Get rid of Sheba, Colonel Tigh, and . . . Boxey? . . . . :wtf: :eek:

thats BLASPHEMY!

Sorry, I sorta got attached to those characters. . . . :)

Ethan

[peter noble]

I assume your talking about some preliminary season two document from 1978. I don't know very much about that kind of history.

Here you go Ethan.

http://www.cylon.org/bsg/1978-season2-01.html

[Eric Paddon]

When I first learned about that memo, I actually found myself grateful that there never was a second season if that's what Larson planned on doing. Killing off Sheba and then disposing of Cain as a replicant or whatever? That would have been more insane than any of his "Galactica 1980" scripts! I especially can't believe Larson would have fired Anne Lockhart from the show given how all of Anne's interviews reveal that she was preparing to return for another season, and Larson used her again as a guest star in so many of his other shows.

[peter noble]

It is hard to believe.

Of the cast he obviously thought the most of Dirk, Lorne, Herb and Anne I'd say.

There does seem to be an underlying current of a need to cut the budget somehow. Having less of a main cast would have been a way of expediting that.

[Westy]

I would have liked to see more episodes giving hints about Earth like The Hand of God did.

One thing I remember quite clearly back then was becoming a bit upset that they rarely took on the Cylons in a fight. Hooking up with another Battlestar or a lesser warship permanently would have been nice and also would have opened the door to them being able to be more aggressive and therefore not constantly fleeing the Cylons all the time.

I wouldn't have minded having Boxey being de-emphasized and not so annoying. The daggit cold have stayed I guess heheh.

I wanted more of the Ship of Lights stuff. Knowing more of their *true* intentions and more of the back story would have been interesting to say the least.

Another thing that I didn't buy into and wanted reconciled, or fixed actually was how Earth's evolutionary history (i.e. fossil record) contradicted the shows premise (life here began out there). This could have opened up even more of their mythos and belief system to us.

Then there's the Cylons. More episodes devoted to them and their "Alliance" would have been awesome to watch.

There's other stuff, but that's what I always wanted to know and see more about.

[Titon]

It would have been interesting to find out what Glen was actually being told at the end of season one.

Get rid of some high priced characters or the show is canceled. Remember the high cost to produce this thing in 1978.

;)

[Eric Paddon]

It just sounds like we would have been given the equivalent of a Space: 1999 season 2 if they'd done this, where that show also dumped half the supporting cast and slashed the budget with more cheap looking sets. I have never felt Season 2 of 1999 works, and a Galactica season in that vein would have been just as bad if not worse.

[Titon]

I agree Eric, that would have been bad news!

But everything is smoke and mirrors. There's a posibility that it would have been completely different.

[ernie90125]

If season two had been made, do you think some people would have disliked/hated the TOS as much as GINO ? Might it have become like Galactica 1980 ? Might it, if it had gone ahead as descibed, have actually weakened TOS in the long term and might many of us not been here ?

So many people say that The Hand of God shows how much potential the series had, and perhaps we owe a lot of its long-term appeal to that ? If it had ended with a poor low-budget season 2, many people might have left it at that ? Whereas the potential exhibited in The Hand of God fuels a Continuation effort in my opinion.....

[David Kerin]

In that memo it talks about bringing Asimov on as a consultant. However the proposed story lines seemed very scifi cliched and I cannot see Asimov coming up with those.

And the proposed addition of Adama's "cabin boy" (sounds dirty in today's day and age) as the new teen idol would have irritated the crap out of me.

It does seem to have the season 2 "revamp-itis" that afflicted Space: 1999 and Buck Rogers. (although Buck wasn't exactly great in the first year)

[larocque6689]

I remember that thread at CA well, including the comment, "Thank God Battlestar Galactica was cancelled."

Galactica 1980 was the original "GINO". Outside of a handful of people (and you know who you are), there aren't many original series fans who had much use for it.

[ernie90125]

I like Galactica 1980 in its own right, but as a sequel to TOS I don't think it makes the grade. With the exception of The Return of Starback (Zee content edited out of course) as this one episode seems to have influenced all the Continuations I have heard of....

I'm not sure where I would place 'The Return of Starbuck' in terms of seasons though ? 'The Hand of God' was a great way to end Season 1, so does that make 'The Return of Starbuck' the first and only episode of Season 2 ???

[Eric Paddon]

I never hold Lee Storm's willingness to look for redeeming features in G80 against her, John! :)

In fact the one redeeming thing you can say about G80 is that it can inspire some creativity in the fanfic realm as far as trying to reconcile it back to the original series goes. Probably one of the more fun challenges I did was my "Galactica 1984" trilogy in which I managed to work back more TOS characters and explore their fates while fixing some of the more annoying aspects of G80. I found though that this approach only works if you build off the premiere movie and "Return Of Starbuck" and forget about everything else! There is NO way of salvaging anything out of the Super Scouts!

[Titon]

The sad thing is that G80 actually had potential if not for the rush job that Larson and company were pushed into.

I remember as a kid being absolutely thrilled when they announced Galactica was coming back and then it was *what the hell is this*??

I kept waiting on each episode for Starbuck and Apollo to come back. Man was i thrilled with the Return of Starbuck ep.

[Titon]

Super Scouts!

*shudder*

[Dawg]

I think it's also important to remember two things. First has already been touched on - there was no Season 2.

The other is this: how much "re-write" was going to be done to these base concepts and ideas? How much of this would have survived to shooting script? Who is to say that this memo wasn't typed up from notes on a cocktail napkin?

We have no way of knowing (without word directly from Papa Glen) - and then no way of knowing what - if anything - would have survived the brainstorming that would have followed had the show not been canceled.

I guess I'm trying to say that I don't put any faith in this memo as a guide for what we would have seen in a Season 2.

I am
Dawg
:warrior:

[Breea]

Well believe it or not i do have several copies of unfilmed scripts that Glen wrote.

They're in among my BSG stuff.

Breea

[Eric Paddon]

Would this include "Two For Twilly" (Carlson/McDonnell) and "I Have Seen Earth" which I know got to the final preparation and early casting phase? I think for the most part those have been viewed as leftover Season 1 material as opposed to a clear indicator of what Season 2 might have been like.

I remember Terrence McDonnell on the 15 Yahren Con Video (his power of memory was simply phenomenal) saying that Jamie Lee Curtis was one of the Universal contract players who read for one of the guest parts in "Two For Twilly".

[Breea]

I'll have to go into my BSG vault and see exactly which ones I have..because i think i've got about 24 scripts..i think...LOL...I haven't gotten them out in so long...you're talking about senior moments here guys...

[Pegasus4]

Eric, I assume you based your Two for Twilly story on the potential season 2 ep.

From what I understand these were just ideas being kicked around. Scripts go through several drafts and rewrites so alot of the above might not have happened. hopefully.

I wonder if they really would've fired Anne Lockhart knowing how popular she was plus she and Apollo finally started a badly needed romance. When I first saw her kiss him in HoG I remember my dad saying that he knew that was going to happen.

Getting rid of Boxey?! oh no. :) err...wait they did. He and Athena make their final appearance in GFE. That thing with him made it's last appearance in WoTG 1/79 (that's why I laugh when people say that a continuation is for those who want to see robot dogs, that thing was gone halfway thru and some eps before that we only saw it for a minute). They could've kept him and made him less cutesy. After all he was supposed to represent their future.

I'm surprised that GAL was going to get rid of Tigh. Terry Carter was and still is a friend of his since working together on McCloud. He wanted Carter to play Boomer but the actor (I kid you not) broke his ankle while skating with his daughter. Larson still wanted him on the show and gave him Tigh.

[Ethan]

Sorry Peter, there is no way I can believe that season two script would ever have aired. ABC must have been more messed up than I thought. If I were GAL, that script alone, would have gave me reason to quit!

Boxey did not have to be in every episode, but remaining 'cutesy' had to happen. Boys that age are that way. My son is, my sons friends are. Thats part of what makes a family challenging and sometimes uplifting. You want a serious scene of Boxey? Add more plots like Gun on Ice Planet Zero. When Apollo told Boxey he had to to the snow planet on a mission and then left through the door, Boxey got a good scheming look on his face. . . totally serious, and totally rebellious. Heck, you want a good subplot? Add more Boxey! A bored kid could have probably caused a lot of hell on a battlestar, especially one so close to the commanding personnel. Imagine if Boxey and his friends had some sort of April Fools day or scavenger hunt. Boxey's character could have provided scripts all on his own.

Tigh taken out? Rubbish! He could have gone all different directions. Counsel of twelve would I think have been the best route.

Sheba killed off? puh-leaze! I agree that she would have been Apollo's best chance for a love interest.

I guess if this bad script would have aired, maybe I would not have loved this show as I remember now.

I say put that script in the same crate as the Ark of the Covenant from Raiders of the Lost Ark, and forget it. Lets give Tom Desanto all the help he needs for the continuation!

Ethan. :salute:

[Eric Paddon]

Yes, I adapted the "Two For Twilly" script into episode #3 of the ongoing "Second Season" project of my fanfic group. I didn't make too many changes from what had been planned other than expanding it into something a little fuller and more detailed (as well as making it conform to ongoing story arcs). The story itself, as Terrence McDonnell explained, was basically a reworking of the 1950s Alec Guinness movie "Captain's Paradise" about a British sea captain with two wives in different ports, and the sudden chaos that happens as he tries to keep them separate but then suddenly finds them thrust together.

Getting back to this controversial Season 2 memo, *if* GAL had been forced to go a Space 1999 style cutback for Galactica, then frankly it would have made more sense to give Athena a dramatic sendoff and death given how her character had basically stagnated after Fire In Space to the point where Maren Jensen had already left the show before Galactica was cancelled. Sheba had become too much an ingrained part of the show by then and it would have been far easier to just keep the two actresses (Laurette and Anne) who were working out better. HOG in fact was the first time that showed an episode that was basically distributed evenly in terms of Richard-Dirk-Anne-Laurette and could have easily served as a template for Season 2.

One other change that memo talked about was having Apollo and Starbuck switch roles in that Apollo's grief over losing Sheba makes him become a hard-living partyer while Starbuck now becomes the voice of reason and restraint. VERY BAD IDEA! This in effect would have meant we would have gotten what happened in Experiment In Terra on a weekly basis. Recall that originally in EIT it was supposed to be Starbuck abducted by the SOL and Apollo going in to rescue him but Richard insisted on switching it around. Except that after the switch, they didn't change the dialogue to adjust it for the characters so as a result you have Apollo sounding far too flip than usual and it really doesn't work at all. Seeing that on a weekly basis would have been annoying beyond belief.

[Lara]

One other change that memo talked about was having Apollo and Starbuck switch roles in that Apollo's grief over losing Sheba makes him become a hard-living partyer while Starbuck now becomes the voice of reason and restraint. VERY BAD IDEA! This in effect would have meant we would have gotten what happened in Experiment In Terra on a weekly basis.

While I was watching that ep recently my husband made the comment that he thought the 'white suit effect' had switched Apollo and Starbuck... I just had to laugh, but it did illustrate it was screaming obvious to even casual viewers that the casting and the script were out of synch..

Cheers,
Lara

[jjrakman]

Husband? You just killed all of my hot Australian fantasies!

[Pegasus4]

I didn't know that about EiT. ack

The final GAL novel Surrender the Galactica had Boxey, tired of Apollo constantly being away, running away to the abandoned(!) lower sections of the Galactica making friends with derelicts(!) and walking up to the main parts of the ship thru the closed off supply corridors.

yes I said that the lower areas of the battlestar were abandoned, darkened and filled with scavengers. this novel and Larson's other books not based on tv eps gave me an idea of what season 2 would've been like now that I think about it.

So we could've had an ep about a bigamist (polygamist actually) with Jamie Lee Curtis? aw man. she was in a Buck Rogers episode that season. Quantum Leap (another series I want continued and thought it was in the process of doing so) had an ep like that.

[Sept17th]

...yes I said that the lower areas of the battlestar were abandoned, darkened and filled with scavengers. this novel and Larson's other books...

I was just thinking about that last night while watching Babylon5. I never liked it and as child I knew no military ship would have whole sections dark and abandoned with low-lifes about.

[Pegasus4]

if no one from the main crew ever goes down there it makes you wonder what the outer hull underneath is like. if no one goes to this part for repairs and with all the battles the ship's been in what is the hull integrity underneath?

:rolleyes:

[peter noble]

I personally liked the idea of the Devil's Pit. It somehow emphasised how big the Galactica actually is.

[Sept17th]

It sounds like the kind of thing you'd see in GINO and we would all be ripping it a new one for it. I don't really like it in Babylon5 but it makes more sense their.

[Eric Paddon]

Well, this "Pit" idea is not too implausible from my standpoint since we know there are sections of the Galactica neglected for some time, just from HOG alone with the Celestial Dome. When you have Adama saying "I'd forgotten about that dome topside" it ends up revealing that even the man who's commanded the battlestar for what has to be many yahrens doesn't know all the details of his ship inside-out!

[Pegasus4]

I can see him forgetting a small dome over the engines but whole levels on the underside? they stuffed survivors into the the other ships while the Galactica has large abandoned areas that could've been used for more refugees. hard for me to swallow especially on Adama's and Tigh's ship. it gave the impression the derelicts were there for years. Before the Peace Conference during the war?

[Lara]

Husband? You just killed all of my hot Australian fantasies!

Shucks :blush: , sorry JJ, and tho' I've had the old man for a while, I haven't broken him yet, so I'm not even up for a replacement soon :D :D

Cheers,
Lara

[Senmut]

I can see him forgetting a small dome over the engines but whole levels on the underside? they stuffed survivors into the the other ships while the Galactica has large abandoned areas that could've been used for more refugees. hard for me to swallow especially on Adama's and Tigh's ship. it gave the impression the derelicts were there for years. Before the Peace Conference during the war?



Storage areas, gradually becoming empty as supplies are exhausted.

[Shatter]

I personally think that the Devil's Pit idea is something of an intriguing one, if handled correctly. To me, if derelicts did reside in its darkened corridors, it would help to communicate the wide array of humanity that made up the "rag tag fleet". Of course, all would depend on how the story itself was crafted, but if the same heroic values that marked the stories of the first season remained intact, I think a compelling episode could have been produced.

[martok2112]

It is also quite possible that in the "devil's pit" of Galactica, these derelicts may not have been aware of many of the events happening in and about the Fleet. Sounds like easy pickings for Count Iblis to make a return, and influence some people who have had not much hope to begin with to rise up against the Galactica.

Respectfully,
Martok2112

[oldwardaggit]

In any case, the history of what might of been in Galactica season 2, Galactica 80 and in the recent years of walking vipers, tells me that Tom Desanto should be allowed to have pretty much full range with any Galactica continuation movie. Making sure Desanto is on board would be a sure way of Glen Larson getting the original fans on board right from the get go.

OWD