Battlestar Galactica (1978) Explained: the Original Series and Galactica 1980

Battlestar Galactica (1978) is the original Battlestar Galactica, the ABC series created by Glen A. Larson in which the last battlestar leads a ragtag fleet of human survivors away from the robotic Cylons, searching for a lost colony called Earth. It ran for one season of 24 episodes from September 1978 to April 1979, and came back in 1980 as the cheaper, Earth-bound Galactica 1980. It's a separate continuity from the 2004 series, which remade it. (Battlestar Galactica 1978, "Saga of a Star World"; Battlestar Galactica 1978, "The Hand of God (1979)"; Galactica 1980, "Galactica Discovers Earth")

What is the original Battlestar Galactica about?#

The Twelve Colonies of Man have been fighting the Cylon Empire for a thousand yahrens. The Cylons are an alien machine empire whose soldiers are chrome robots, the Centurions. When they sue for peace through a human go-between, Count Baltar, President Adar takes the fleet to the moon Cimtar for the signing. Only Commander Adama of the Galactica suspects a trap. (Battlestar Galactica 1978, "Saga of a Star World")

He's right. Adama's son Zac is killed on patrol, the Cylons hit the fleet and destroy the Atlantia, Acropolis, Pacifica and Triton, and at the same moment they wipe out the Colonies. Galactica gathers every surviving civilian ship it can find and flees. The fleet's food is poisoned with pluton, and the fleet sets off to find Earth, the thirteenth colony, whose way was known only to the lords of ancient Kobol. (Battlestar Galactica 1978, "Saga of a Star World")

The pilot was also released in cinemas as a single film, and that version differs at the end: the Imperious Leader has Baltar executed. In the TV version Baltar is spared and given a basestar to hunt the fleet. (Battlestar Galactica 1978, "Saga of a Star World")

The main characters#

• Commander Adama (Lorne Greene) commands Galactica and becomes leader of the whole fleet. He's a member of the Council of the Twelve and the keeper of the old scriptures that point to Earth. (Battlestar Galactica 1978, "Saga of a Star World")
• Captain Apollo (Richard Hatch) is Adama's elder son and commander of Galactica's strike wing. He marries Serina, who is killed on Kobol, and raises her son Boxey. (Battlestar Galactica 1978, "Lost Planet of the Gods")
• Lieutenant Starbuck (Dirk Benedict) is Apollo's best friend and the best pilot in the fleet, a gambler and a charmer with a cigar. (Battlestar Galactica 1978, "Saga of a Star World")
• Count Baltar (John Colicos) is the human who sold out the Colonies to the Cylons. He spends the series commanding Cylon forces against the fleet, and by "Baltar's Escape" he's a prisoner aboard the fleet's prison barge, plotting his way out. (Battlestar Galactica 1978, "Saga of a Star World"; Battlestar Galactica 1978, "Baltar's Escape")
• The Imperious Leader rules the Cylon Empire. He plans the ambush at Cimtar and, in the pilot, decides no human should survive. (Battlestar Galactica 1978, "Saga of a Star World")

Lieutenant Boomer, Colonel Tigh, Adama's daughter Athena and the socialator Cassiopeia round out the regulars. Sheba, daughter of Commander Cain, joins after the Pegasus story. The 2004 show reworked most of them, and its versions are profiled in our Battlestar Galactica characters guide. (Battlestar Galactica 1978, "Saga of a Star World"; Battlestar Galactica 1978, "The Living Legend")

The 24 episodes: how the story goes#

The series is mostly self-contained adventures, with a handful of episodes that move the search for Earth forward. The timeline's Original Series section puts the key events in order. (Battlestar Galactica 1978, "Saga of a Star World"; Battlestar Galactica 1978, "The Hand of God (1979)")

• Lost Planet of the Gods (episodes 4 and 5): the fleet crosses a void and reaches Kobol, where Adama finds signs pointing the way to Earth. Apollo marries Serina, who is killed there. (Battlestar Galactica 1978, "Lost Planet of the Gods")
• The Lost Warrior and The Long Patrol (episodes 6 and 7): single-pilot adventures for Apollo, stranded on a frontier world, and Starbuck, flying a new long-range Viper. (Battlestar Galactica 1978, "The Lost Warrior"; Battlestar Galactica 1978, "The Long Patrol")
• The Gun on Ice Planet Zero (episodes 8 and 9): a strike team goes after a Cylon gun on a frozen world that blocks the fleet's path. (Battlestar Galactica 1978, "The Gun on Ice Planet Zero")
• The Living Legend (episodes 12 and 13): Galactica finds the Pegasus, thought destroyed in battle, under the legendary Commander Cain. Cain vanishes attacking Cylon basestars. (Battlestar Galactica 1978, "The Living Legend")
• Fire in Space (episode 14): a Cylon attack sets Galactica on fire. (Battlestar Galactica 1978, "Fire in Space")
• War of the Gods (episodes 15 and 16): Apollo and Starbuck meet the Beings of Light aboard their Ship of Lights, and the devilish Count Iblis. (Battlestar Galactica 1978, "War of the Gods")
• Murder on the Rising Star (episode 18): Starbuck is accused of murder aboard the liner Rising Star. (Battlestar Galactica 1978, "Murder on the Rising Star")
• Greetings from Earth and Experiment in Terra (episodes 19, 20 and 22): the fleet finds a ship of sleeping humans whose origins raise hopes of Earth, and Apollo is sent by the Beings of Light to the planet Terra, which isn't Earth. (Battlestar Galactica 1978, "Greetings from Earth"; Battlestar Galactica 1978, "Experiment in Terra")
• The Hand of God (episode 24): Apollo gets Galactica's old celestial dome working again, and it picks up a faint transmission. Apollo and Starbuck fly Baltar's captured Raider into a basestar and help destroy it, and the transmission turns out to be the Apollo 11 Moon landing. (Battlestar Galactica 1978, "The Hand of God (1979)")

The 24 hour slots add up to 17 stories: the pilot is three hours, five stories are two-parters and the rest are single episodes. (Battlestar Galactica 1978, "Saga of a Star World"; Battlestar Galactica 1978, "The Hand of God (1979)")

Galactica 1980#

Galactica 1980 picks up about thirty years later, when the fleet finally reaches Earth in 1980. Adama, now bearded, decides the planet is far too primitive to survive a Cylon attack, so the fleet stays hidden. Captain Troy, the grown-up Boxey, and Lieutenant Dillon go down to Earth in secret with the reporter Jamie Hamilton, guided by the boy genius Dr. Zee. In the opener, the rogue councillor Xaviar travels back to 1944 to give the Nazis rocket technology, and Troy and Dillon have to stop him. (Galactica 1980, "Galactica Discovers Earth")

Later episodes lean on Earth-bound plots, including a Cylon ship crash-landing on Earth. The last episode is a flashback: Dr. Zee dreams of Starbuck, stranded years before on a desert world with a rebuilt Cylon he named Cy, and the baby born on that world turns out to be Dr. Zee. ABC ended the show after 10 episodes. (Galactica 1980, "The Night the Cylons Landed"; Galactica 1980, "The Return of Starbuck")

How the 1978 series differs from the 2004 series#

The 2003 miniseries and the 2004 show kept the outline: the Colonies destroyed in a surprise attack, one surviving battlestar, a ragtag fleet and a search for Earth. Most of the details changed. (Battlestar Galactica (miniseries))

• The Cylons: in 1978 they're an alien empire of robots. In 2004 humans built them, they rebelled, and they came back with humanoid models who look exactly like people. See Cylon models. (Battlestar Galactica 1978, "Saga of a Star World"; Battlestar Galactica (miniseries))
• Baltar: the 1978 Count Baltar is a deliberate traitor. Gaius Baltar is a scientist who unknowingly gives a Cylon agent, Number Six, access to the defence network. (Battlestar Galactica (miniseries))
• Starbuck and Boomer: both were male pilots in 1978. In 2004 Starbuck is Kara Thrace, and Boomer is Sharon Valerii, a Cylon sleeper agent who shoots Adama. (Battlestar Galactica (miniseries); Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part II)
• Who's in charge: the 1978 Adama leads both fleet and government. In 2004 William Adama shares power with President Laura Roslin, and his son Lee Adama takes the call sign Apollo. (Battlestar Galactica (miniseries))
• Pegasus and Cain: the 2004 show reworked "The Living Legend" as the Pegasus under the far harsher Admiral Helena Cain. (Pegasus; Battlestar Galactica 1978, "The Living Legend")
• Earth: the 1978 fleet reaches our Earth in 1980. In 2004 the fleet settles on prehistoric Earth about 150,000 years ago. (Galactica 1980, "Galactica Discovers Earth"; Daybreak, Part II)

Richard Hatch, the 1978 Apollo, came back for the 2004 series as the rebel leader Tom Zarek. (Bastille Day)