Introduction

Battlestar Galactica (BSG) is an American science fiction media franchise created by Glen A. Larson.

The franchise began with the original television series in 1978 and was followed by a short-run sequel series (Galactica 1980), a line of book adaptations, original novels, comic books, a board game, and video games.

A re-imagined version of Battlestar Galactica aired as a two-part, three-hour miniseries developed by Ronald D. Moore and David Eick in 2003. That miniseries led to a weekly television series, which aired until 2009. A prequel series, Caprica, aired in 2010.

Battlestar Galactica TV Series, Films & Webisodes

You can find a full index of Battlestar Galactica TV series, films and webisodes here.

Original Series (1978-1980)

Battlestar Galactica (1978-1979)

Glen A. Larson, the creator and executive producer of Battlestar Galactica, claimed he had conceived of the Battlestar Galactica premise, which he called Adam’s Ark, during the late 1960s.

As James E. Ford detailed in “Battlestar Galactica and Mormon Theology,” a paper read at the Joint Conference of the American Culture and Popular Culture Associations on 17 April 1980 (and published as “Theology in Prime Time Science Fiction: Battlestar Galactica and Mormon Doctrine,” Journal of Popular Culture #17 [1983]: 83–87), the series incorporated many themes from Mormon theology, such as marriage for “time and eternity”, a “council of twelve,” a lost thirteenth tribe of humans, and a planet called Kobol (an anagram of Kolob), as Larson was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

However, he was unable to find financial backing for his TV series for a number of years. Battlestar Galactica was finally produced in the wake of the success of the 1977 film Star Wars. The original Cylons of Battlestar Galactica, robotic antagonists bent on destroying all humankind, owe much to Fred Saberhagen’s berserker stories, including Saberhagen’s fictional race The Builders whose “sliding single red eye” became the signature design element for the Cylons.

Larson had envisioned Battlestar Galactica as a series of made-for-TV movies (a three-hour pilot programme and two two-hour episodes) for the American Broadcasting Company (ABC). A shortened version of the three-hour pilot, Saga of a Star World, was screened in Canadian theatres (before the TV series was telecast) and in American, European and Australian theatres later on. Instead of two additional TV movies, ABC decided to commission a weekly TV series of one-hour episodes.

In 1979 at the sixth annual People’s Choice Awards, the TV series won in the category of “Best New TV Drama Series”.

The first episode of the TV series (the long pilot TV movie) was broadcast on 17 September 1978. However, about 30 minutes before the end, that broadcast was interrupted by the announcement of the signing of the Egyptian–Israeli Camp David Accords. After the interruption (which was nearly an hour in length), the episode picked back up where it left off.

During the eight months after the pilot’s first broadcast, 17 original episodes of the series were made (five of them two-part shows), equivalent to a standard 24-episode TV season. Citing declining ratings and cost overruns, ABC cancelled Battlestar Galactica in April 1979. Its final episode “The Hand of God” was telecast on 29 April 1979.

Galactica 1980 (1980)

During the autumn of 1979, ABC executives met with Battlestar Galactica’s creator Glen Larson to consider restarting the series. A suitable concept was needed to draw viewers, and it was decided that the arrival of the Colonial Fleet at present-day Earth would be the storyline. A new TV movie called Galactica 1980 was produced. Again, it was decided this new version of Battlestar Galactica would be made into a weekly TV series. Despite the early success of the premiere, this programme failed to achieve the popularity of the original series, and it was cancelled after just ten episodes.

In this 1980 sequel series, the Colonial fleet finds the Earth, and then it covertly protects it from the Cylons. This series was a quick failure due to its low budget (e.g., recycling footage from the 1974 Universal Studios movie Earthquake during a Cylon attack sequence), widely panned writing, and ill-chosen time slot (Sunday evenings, a time generally reserved for family-oriented programming and, more specifically, also for the 60 Minutes news magazine programme). The TV series also had to adhere to strict content restrictions such as limiting the number of acts of violence and being required to shoehorn educational content into the script and dialogue.

To cut costs, the show was set mostly on the contemporary Earth, to the great dismay of fans. Another factor for fan apathy was the nearly complete recasting of the original series: Lorne Greene reprised his role as Adama (working unpaid), Herb Jefferson, Jr. played “Colonel” Boomer in about half of the episodes (with little screentime), and Dirk Benedict as Starbuck for one episode (the abrupt final episode, though his character was to have also appeared in the unfilmed episode “Wheel of Fire”, which was a semi-sequel to “The Return of Starbuck”). Richard Hatch (Apollo in the original series) was sent a script for Galactica 1980, but he turned it down since he was not sure what his part in the series would be now that all the characters had changed.

Some TV syndication packages for Battlestar Galactica incorporate the episodes of this series.

Cinema Releases

Besides a re-edited version of the pilot, released in Canada, Europe, parts of Latin America, and, following the broadcast of the series, in the US, two other Battlestar Galactica feature films were released in cinemas.

Mission Galactica: The Cylon Attack and Conquest of the Earth were made up of various episodes of the original series and Galactica 1980 respectively.

Attempted Revivals

The original series maintained a cult fandom, which has supported efforts by Glen A. Larson, Richard Hatch, and Bryan Singer (independently of one another) to revive the premise.

Richard Hatch produced a demonstration video in 1998-99 which featured several actors from the original series combined with state-of-the-art special effects. This video, titled Battlestar Galactica: The Second Coming, was screened at some science fiction conventions, but it did not lead to a new series.

In 1999, the producer of Wing Commander, Todd Moyer, and the producer of the original TV series, Glen Larson, announced plans to produce a motion picture based on the TV series. It would have featured Battlestar Pegasus.

In 2000, the director and an executive producer of the X-Men movie, Bryan Singer and Tom DeSanto, began developing a Battlestar Galactica TV miniseries under the auspices of Studios USA for the Fox TV network. A continuation of the original series but set 25 years later, Singer and DeSanto’s version included several members of the original cast reprising their original roles and the introduction of newer characters.

It was intended to be telecast as a backdoor pilot in May 2002, and pre-production commenced and sets had even been partially constructed with a view to filming starting in November 2001.

However, production delays caused by the 11 September 2001 attacks meant that Bryan Singer had to drop out, due to his commitment to direct the X-Men 2 movie. This caused the executives of Fox TV to lose interest in this project.

Re-imagined Series (2003-2013) (First Reboot)

The Miniseries (2003)

Despite attempts to revive the series over the years, none came to fruition until it was re-imagined in 2003 by Universal Television as Battlestar Galactica, a three-hour miniseries.

Commissioned by the Sci-Fi Channel, screenwriter Ronald D. Moore and producer David Eick were the creative forces behind it. Academy Award-nominated actor Edward James Olmos was cast in the role of Commander Adama, while two-time Academy Award nominee Mary McDonnell was cast as President Laura Roslin.

Starbuck and Boomer were now female characters, portrayed by Katee Sackhoff and Grace Park respectively. Other cast members included Jamie Bamber (Captain Lee ‘Apollo’ Adama), James Callis (Dr. Gaius Baltar), and Tricia Helfer as a Cylon known as “Number Six”.

The mini-series was a ratings success for the Sci-Fi Channel and they commissioned a new weekly Battlestar Galactica series to follow.

Battlestar Galactica (2004-2009)

The new TV series was co-funded by the UK’s Sky Television, and premiered in the United Kingdom on the Sky1 satellite channel in October 2004. The series was then broadcast in North America on the Sci-Fi Channel in January 2005.

Continuing where the 2003 mini-series left off, the main cast all returned to reprise their roles. Several new characters were introduced, and Richard Hatch, who played Captain Apollo in the 1970s Battlestar Galactica TV series, also appeared in several episodes as Tom Zarek, a former political terrorist who later becomes part of the new Colonial government.

An edited version of the pilot miniseries was aired on NBC on 09 January 2005, five days before the Sci-Fi series premiere. NBC also aired three selected first season episodes to promote the show in advance of the second season premiere in July 2005. The series ran for four seasons between 2004 and 2009.

The second season was split into two halves screened several months apart. Due to production delays caused by the 2007–2008 Writers Guild strike, the fourth season was also split into two parts, with a seven-month hiatus in between.

The series has won widespread critical acclaim among many mainstream non-SF-genre publications. Time and New York Newsday named it the best show on television in 2005. Other publications such as The New York Times, The New Yorker, National Review and Rolling Stone magazine also gave the show positive reviews.

The show has received a Peabody Award for overall excellence, several Emmy Awards for Visual Effects, and Emmy nominations for Writing and Directing. Time Magazine named it one of the 100 Best TV Shows of All Time.

Battlestar Galactica: Razor (2007)

Battlestar Galactica: Razor is a 2007 television movie produced and broadcast in the gap between Seasons 3 and 4 of the re-imagined series.

Razor is also the first two episodes of Season 4 though it chronicles events on Battlestar Pegasus in two time periods, both of which are “in the past” with respect to the Season 4 continuity.

The “present day” framing scenes are set during Lee Adama’s command of the Pegasus in the latter half of Season 2, while “flashback” scenes depict Helena Cain’s command in the period between the Cylon attack (shown in the 2003 mini-series) and the reunion with the Galactica in the second season.

It aired in the US and Canada on 24 November 2007 and in the UK and Ireland on 18 December 2007. An expanded version of the movie was released on DVD on 04 December 2007.

Webisodes (2006-2008)

The first set of webisodes were a series of shorts produced in 2006 to promote the third season of the re-imagined show. Made as an “optional extra” to Season 3, the webisodes filled in some of the events between the second and third seasons and featured some of the main cast, though did not reveal what would happen in the beginning of Season 3, nor was viewing them essential to follow the story of the third season. Each of the ten webisodes was approximately three minutes long, and they were released twice a week leading up to the US Season 3 premiere in 2006.

The Razor Flashbacks were a series of seven webisodes produced in 2007, set some 40 years earlier during William Adama’s fighter pilot days during the later stages of the First Cylon War. They were released on the Internet as “webisodes” leading up to Razor’s release. They are now available on the DVD and Blu-Ray releases of Battlestar Galactica: Razor, and some are inserted into both the broadcast and extended cuts of the movie on DVD and Blu-Ray. The installments that did not make the final cut include 1, 2, and the latter half of 7.

In May 2008, a set of 10 webisodes were announced to be in the works which were released during the seven-month hiatus between episodes 10 and 11 of Season 4. Titled The Face of the Enemy, the web series premiered on 12 December 2008 on SciFi.com. Again, viewing of the webisodes was optional prior to the second half of Season 4.

Battlestar Galactica: The Plan (2009)

In August 2008, the Sci Fi Channel announced the production of a two-hour TV movie which was planned to air after the final episode of the series in 2009. The movie began production on 08 September 2008. The movie premiered exclusively on DVD, Blu-ray and digital download on 27 October 2009 and aired on 10 January 2010, on Sci Fi.

Written by Jane Espenson and directed by Edward James Olmos, The Plan storyline begins before the attack on the 12 colonies and shows events primarily from the perspective of the Cylons.

Edward James Olmos reprised his role as Adama, and ten of the eleven actors who played Cylons appeared, including Michael Trucco, Aaron Douglas, Dean Stockwell, Tricia Helfer, Grace Park, Rick Worthy, Matthew Bennett, Callum Keith Rennie, Michael Hogan and Rekha Sharma. The only “Cylon” actor not present was Lucy Lawless (although previously filmed footage of her was included).

Caprica (2010)

Caprica is a prequel television series to the 2003 re-imagined Battlestar Galactica.

It premiered on Syfy (formerly Sci-Fi) on 22 January 2010, and was described as “television’s first science fiction family saga”. It was a two-hour back door pilot for a possible weekly television series, but on 02 December 2008, Syfy gave the go-ahead to expand the project into a full, 20-episode series.

Caprica is set on the titular planet, 58 years before the events of Battlestar Galactica. The show revolves around two families, the Adamas and the Graystones, and the creation of the Cylons.

The pilot was directed by Jeffrey Reiner and starred Eric Stoltz, Esai Morales, Paula Malcomson, Alessandra Torresani, and Polly Walker.

The pilot was released on DVD on 21 April 2009 and the series was broadcast in January 2010.

On 27 October 2010, Syfy cancelled Caprica due to low ratings. The final five episodes were aired in the US on 04 January 2011 though they had aired a couple of months earlier on the Canadian network Space. The entire series was released on DVD in 2011.

Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome (2012)

Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome was to be a spin-off series from the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica series.

Syfy approached show runner Ronald D. Moore to produce another spin-off set in the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica universe, which was to begin as a two-hour pilot focused on William “Husker” Adama (portrayed by Luke Pasqualino) during the First Cylon War (as was glimpsed in Razor and the corresponding webisodes).

Syfy decided against moving forward with the Blood and Chrome TV series, but on 05 November 2012 it was announced that a 10-part webseries would begin on 09 November 2012 and be released over four weeks via Machinima.com.

The webseries was also aired as a 2-hour movie on Syfy on 10 February 2013 and was released on DVD shortly afterwards.

Feature Film

Creator Glen A. Larson entered negotiations with Universal Pictures for a film adaptation of the 1978 series in February 2009.

Bryan Singer signed on to direct the reboot the following August, but was obliged to direct Jack the Giant Slayer.

In October 2011 John Orloff was hired to write the script. “I have wanted to write this movie since I was 12 years old, and built a Galactica model from scratch out of balsa wood, cardboard, old model parts and LEDs,” Orloff told Deadline Hollywood.

By August 2012 the script was being rewritten, with Singer explaining that “It will exist, I think, quite well between the Glen Larson and Ron Moore universes”.

On 07 April 2014, the studio hired Jack Paglen to write the script for the film.

On 12 February 2016, Universal signed Michael De Luca, Scott Stuber and Dylan Clark to produce the Battlestar Galactica film. On 09 June 2016, Lisa Joy was reportedly writing the film, and Francis Lawrence was in talks to direct.

On 18 December 2018, it was reported that Jay Basu (The Girl in the Spider’s Web) had been hired to rewrite Joy’s script.

Second Reboot

On 17 September 2019, NBC Universal announced a straight-to-series order of a reboot of Battlestar Galactica, produced by Sam Esmail as part of their new Peacock streaming service, set to premiere in 2020.

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