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Battlestar Galactica - Lost Planet of the Gods
episodes 2 & 3
USA 1978
produced by Donald P. Bellisario, Glen A. Larson (executive) for Glen A. Larson Productions, Universal/ABC
directed by Christian I. Nyby II
starring Richard Hatch, Dirk Benedict, Lorne Greene, Herbert Jefferson jr, John Colicos, Maren Jensen, Noah Hathaway, Laurette Spang, Tony Swartz, Terry Carter, George Murdock, Ed Begley jr, Sheila Wills, Janet Julian, Jane Seymour, Larry Manetti, Sarah Rush, David Greenan, Bruce Wright, Paul Coufos, Jennifer Joseph, Janet Prescott, Leann Hunley, Gay Thomas Wilson, Millicent Crisp, Dick Durock, Patrick Macnee (voice), Felix Silla, Jonathan Harris (voice)
written by Glen A. Larson, Donald P. Bellisario, created by Glen A. Larson, music by Stu Phillips, visual effects supervisor: Peter Anderson
TV-series Battlestar Galactica, Classic Battlestar Galactica, Battlestar Galactica (original series)
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Shortly before he and Starbuck (Dirk Benedict) go on a patrol flight,
Apollo (Richard Hatch) proposes to his girlfriend Serina (Jane Seymour) -
which leads to Starbuck organizing a bachelor party behind Apollo's back.
On the patrol flight, Starbuck and Apollo encounter a vast, maybe endless
void in space, in which they almost get lost in. In the meantime, fellow
patrol pilots Boomer (Herbert Jefferson jr) and Jolly (Tony Swartz) land
on a planet where they encounter a Cylon base. When they return to
Battlestar Galactica they fail to follow decontamination procedure and
join the bachelor party - but have brought some virus with them that
infects all fighter pilots who are then cryogenically frozen to avoid
further infection and give them a lease on life until a cure can be found.
Only Apollo and Starbuck - the cause and the driving force of the party -
remain uninfected as they only returned to the Galactica after everyone
else got frozen. So it's up to them to train a new batch of pilots - a
group of female shuttle pilots including Serina, something Apollo is less
than happy about. All too soon, these newly trained pilots have to go on a
mission - back to the planet where Boomer and Jolly got infected, where
the ship's doctor (George Murdock) expects to find a cure. Despite a very
chaotic approach to the planet, Apollo, Starbuck and the girls succeed on
the mission and even manage to destroy the Cylons' base on the planet.
This is also a bad thing though because now the Cylons know where the
Galactica is, and thus Galactica's commander Adama (Lorne Greene) orders
the battlestar and all its accompanying ships into the void. On a patrol
flight while in the void, Starbuck flies into an ambush gets captured by
the Cylons, as their leader, human traitor Baltar (John Colicos), figures
he needs a hostage soon. Meanwhile the Galactica reaches a planet Adama
figures to be legendary Cobol, the planet where humankind originated. And
really, down on Cobol, the survey teams finds pyramids, the interior of
one seems to hold the location of the Galactica's ultimate destination,
earth. Then Baltar arrives on the planet and offers the Galacticans peace,
going so far as to bring Starbuck as a peace offering. But of course, it's
not long before the Cylons attack and bombard the pyramid before it can
give away all its secrets, and somehow Baltar gets caught in the rubble.
However, the Galactica, with their now cured fighter pilots and their new
female fighter pilots, now has twice the fighting force, and they manage
to drive off the Cylons - but Serina has to give her life, leaving Apollo
heartbroken - and as sole guardian of Serina's son Boxey (Noah Hathaway)
... Now on the plus side, this two-parter has a really
interesting story, and manages to pack much into approximately 100 minutes
without feeling over-convoluted. On the downside though, the writing again
isn't very good, as all the characters feel like stock characters rather
given any original traits, the dialogue is a mix of stilted and lame, and
the way women are treated seems old-fashioned even for the late 1970s.
Also in regards to production value, while many of the effects are still
impressive by today's standards (even if repeated way too often),
sometimes things just don't hit the mark, like with Baltar's
second-in-command Lucifer, who looks like just the wonkiest robot around
and just comes across as hilarious though he's intended to be threatening.
Also doing some shooting among some of the most prominent pyramids and
landmarks of Egypt comes across as less than convincing as all these spots
are well known, and having some of the leads doubled by obvious stand-ins
when walking among them is just too obviously cutting costs where a
wow-factor would have been needed. In all though, the engaging story
makes up for many of the shortcomings to make this ok sci-fi television.
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