TV Series Review: GALACTICA 1980 – 1980

So I’ve been getting into the BATTLESTAR GALACTICA Franchise over the last few months. This time coming to GALACTICA 1980, I can see why this show only lasted 10 episodes.

GALACTICA 1980 is the next show to follow the original BATTLESTAR GALACTICA from 1978 (my review here). The series is set decades after the original, where our refugee humans from 12 far away worlds, have found Earth, the 13^th Human colony in the Universe. However, this show is not really deserving of the “GALACTICA” name.

Here’s why: GALACTICA 1980, strips down everything that made the original such a great show. The story sees them find Earth, which is too technologically primitive to save the Refugees from the Cyclon threat that they’ve been running from, who destroyed their home worlds. So the premise for the new show completely destroys the premise of the original.

The original had these Refugee ships, lead by the ship known as Battlestar Galactica, searching for the long lost 13^th Colony of Humans (Earth) in hopes that they could save and protect them from the all machine race of the Cyclons. That was what drove the original series. 1980, starts off with dashing all those hopes, as Earth is nowhere technologically advanced enough to do anything against the Cyclons, but be invaded, basically.

So, what’s the premise of this series you ask? Nothing! The crew of the Galactica, basically just hang out on Earth, trying to nudge them towards making advancements in technology, which will take eons, to help them catch up to their level of technology. What!? So the plan is to hang around in Earth’s orbit for generations, till they become space faring people THEN rely on them to help the Galaticans?! That makes no sense!

Then you have the characters of this show. Colonel Adama, who was a huge player in the original, does nothing this time around. He has a few minutes every episode, walking around, stating the obvious (“We have little time!” or “This means *something obvious*” ) and sporting a new rocking beard. That’s all he does!

The new leads are uninteresting replicas of the original Apollo & Starbuck. These two new guys are just meat suits who have no personality or charisma whatsoever… and they’re so damn monotonous!

The final nail in the coffin for GALACTICA 1980 was that it was SO removed from the original concepts of what made BATTLESTAR GALACTICA awesome. Majority of the show took place on Earth… not in Space, but on Earth. It was basically a cheesy semi sci-fi show about these two idiots + a bunch of kids on Earth. Doing… nothing!

It’s easy to see why GALACTICA 1980 got cancelled after only 10 episodes. The show stripped away everything which made the original such a great show. The original story was diluted and had none of the mythical and fantastic elements. The characters were bland and 1 dimensional, and ultimately there was nothing driving the story forward in this Series.

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