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Battlestar Galactica - The Magnificent Warriors
episode 8
USA 1978
produced by David J. O'Connell, Glen A. Larson (executive), Donald P. Bellisario (supervising) for Glen A. Larson Productions, Universal/ABC
directed by Christian I. Nyby II
starring Richard Hatch, Dirk Benedict, Lorne Greene, Herbert Jefferson jr, Noah Hathaway, Tony Swartz, Terry Carter, Brett Somers, Dennis Fimple, Eric Server, Ed Begley jr, Barry Nelson, Olan Soule, Rance Howard, David Greenan, Ben Frommer, Patrick Macnee (voice)
written and 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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After the Cylons destroy two of the Galactica's fleet's agricultural
ships and severely damage the third, the whole fleet is in dire need of
seed. Fortunately, they just happen to pass an agricultural planet where
Commander Adama (Lorne Greene) is in hope he can swap an old energizer
against enough seeed to entirely restock. Thing is, the only energizer of
the fleet without Galactica markings is owned by Siress Belloby (Brett
Somers), who for some reason or other is madly in love with Adama and will
give the energizer up only in exchange for him courting her. So ultimately
Adama, Belloby, the Galactica's top pilots Apollo (Richard Hatch),
Starbuck (Dirk Benedict), Boomer (Herbert Jerrerson jr), Jolly (Tony
Swartz), and Apollo's foster son Boxey (Noah Hathaway) all go down to the
planet, where Starbuck and Boomer are to broker a deal with the planet's
leader Bogan (Barry Nelson), who seems to be the mayor of a small village
that appears to be the planets only human settlement. Thing is, what the
locals of the planet need much more than an energizer is a constable to
hold off the local creatures known as the Borays, who raid the village's
supply every full moon. Now they're easily scared off, but usually kill
the constable in the process. Bogan tricks Starbuck into becoming the
town's new constable in a card game, but Starbuck, with the help of
Boomer, Apollo and Adama, scares the Borays off without dying, however
they take Belloby hostage. The Galacticans though manage to track the
Borays to their village, and Adama tries to broker peace and Belloby's
release with their leader Nogow (Ben Frommer), but diplomacy gets him
nowhere when it turns out that Nogow is just too lazy to make any
concessions. That's where the morally more corrupt Starbuck steps in, and
before you know it he has made Nogow the constable of the human village
who will hold off the Borays by simply commanding them to do their own
agriculture while he'll remain well-fed by his now human employers. And as
a thank you, the Galacticans get Belloby and all the seed they need ... One
of the more entertaining episodes, as while it does follow the
planet-of-the-week formula the series has come to follow more and more, it
has a more comedic touch than usual as Lorne Greene shows quite some comic
skills when trying to evade the avances of Belloby and proves he can do
more than just being Bonanza's
Ben Cartwright in space if allowed. There are of course also downsides to
this episode, especially the portrayal of the subhuman native Borays vs
the "good" human settlers/colonists that shows a very archaic
view of things, and the story's resolution is rather on the weakish (if
fittingly comedic) side, but taken as a time capsule rather than a
foundation for discourse, this one's actually pretty entertaining.
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