This thread is devoted to the original Battlestar Galactica TV series and novels (ca. 1978-79).
Specifically, this thread discusses the BSG episode "Gun on Ice Planet Zero", which was novelized (loosely) as "The Cylon Death Machine". As I recall, this episode was criticized as being Glen Larson's plagiarized "The Guns of Navarone", "The Dirty Dozen" and at least one arctic adventure movie to make pulp sic fi for 1970s TV. I don't doubt there is some truth to this, and that Larson, whom Harlan Ellison nick-named "Glen Larseny", may have even lifted elements of Star Wars and Cecil B. Demille's The Ten Commandments to form Galactica in the first place.
The having been said, I think that the bigger issues with the original BSG were that the concept and stories were half-baked, that production values obviously suffered when an episode was hurriedly thrown together, and that this story in particular would have had promise if it had been left in the oven for a little while longer. As indirect evidence, I offer up Stargate SG-1 as an example of a conceptually similar series that obviously was better written and better-developed for the long-term.
One of the big criticisms of this story is that it did not make sense for the Galactica and her fugitive fleet to fall prey to a planetoid-based beam weapon; that space is vast and the notion of being "herded" into a "safe passage" made no sense. It also seemed silly that the beams were randomly firing into space, hitting nothing but still exploding.
Just recently, I visited NBC's web-site (from what I can see, at least some of the original series is still streaming there, although the streaming mechanism is quirky and prone to breakdowns in the stream) and watched this two-parter from the fall on '78. Despite some obvious bloopers and blunders, this show was not as bad as its critics insist.
Is it possible for a space fleet to be "herded" into a "safe passage"? Is there any phenomenon in space that would lend itself to this kind of trap? I say there is, and we can see examples from Earth. Less than a year after BSG went off the air, Cosmos by Carl Sagan provided some clues, and modern astronomy seems to back them up.
If, say, Commander Adama's fleet encountered several Cylon outposts and patrols in the neighborhood of a large nebula or "stellar nursery" or just a basic dark dust cloud, conditions would be perfect for a fugitive space fleet to seek either refuge or an escape route by passing through. If the ice-planetoid of Arcta were situated in a huge asteroid field within such a dark cloud, and Cylon snipers were taking occasional pot-shots to continue pressuring Adama, following an open corridor might be seen as worth the risk if the fleet were seeking an escape.
Such clouds, as is the case with the Crab Nebula or the great cloud formation that contains the Horsehead Nebula, can be vast themselves. They can be several lightyears across. They can also be rich in organic molecules and hydrogen as well as other useful materials that a fugitive space fleet may find useful.
The biggest issue for me was the notion that the Ravashol Pulsar weapon is a fixed installation on a mountain located on the planetoid Arcta. If this were the case, Arcta's rotation might render the weapon useless at least part of the time. But that would depend on the orientation of Arcta's axis relative to the "safe passage". If the mountain were located near one of Arcta's poles, and the axis pointed toward the "passage", it would be like a sentinel there.
As for the notion of the Ravashol Pulsar's beams being shot into the corridor, missing the fleet, but still exploding nearby: What if the beams were hitting nearby asteroids?
I actually liked the idea of a hit-team staffed with a Colonial prison gang, even if that angle didn't really develop in the TV version of the story. The only unbearable part of the story was Boxey and Muffit. Take them out and you might have had extra airtime to develop the other characters.
Specifically, this thread discusses the BSG episode "Gun on Ice Planet Zero", which was novelized (loosely) as "The Cylon Death Machine". As I recall, this episode was criticized as being Glen Larson's plagiarized "The Guns of Navarone", "The Dirty Dozen" and at least one arctic adventure movie to make pulp sic fi for 1970s TV. I don't doubt there is some truth to this, and that Larson, whom Harlan Ellison nick-named "Glen Larseny", may have even lifted elements of Star Wars and Cecil B. Demille's The Ten Commandments to form Galactica in the first place.
The having been said, I think that the bigger issues with the original BSG were that the concept and stories were half-baked, that production values obviously suffered when an episode was hurriedly thrown together, and that this story in particular would have had promise if it had been left in the oven for a little while longer. As indirect evidence, I offer up Stargate SG-1 as an example of a conceptually similar series that obviously was better written and better-developed for the long-term.
One of the big criticisms of this story is that it did not make sense for the Galactica and her fugitive fleet to fall prey to a planetoid-based beam weapon; that space is vast and the notion of being "herded" into a "safe passage" made no sense. It also seemed silly that the beams were randomly firing into space, hitting nothing but still exploding.
Just recently, I visited NBC's web-site (from what I can see, at least some of the original series is still streaming there, although the streaming mechanism is quirky and prone to breakdowns in the stream) and watched this two-parter from the fall on '78. Despite some obvious bloopers and blunders, this show was not as bad as its critics insist.
Is it possible for a space fleet to be "herded" into a "safe passage"? Is there any phenomenon in space that would lend itself to this kind of trap? I say there is, and we can see examples from Earth. Less than a year after BSG went off the air, Cosmos by Carl Sagan provided some clues, and modern astronomy seems to back them up.
If, say, Commander Adama's fleet encountered several Cylon outposts and patrols in the neighborhood of a large nebula or "stellar nursery" or just a basic dark dust cloud, conditions would be perfect for a fugitive space fleet to seek either refuge or an escape route by passing through. If the ice-planetoid of Arcta were situated in a huge asteroid field within such a dark cloud, and Cylon snipers were taking occasional pot-shots to continue pressuring Adama, following an open corridor might be seen as worth the risk if the fleet were seeking an escape.
Such clouds, as is the case with the Crab Nebula or the great cloud formation that contains the Horsehead Nebula, can be vast themselves. They can be several lightyears across. They can also be rich in organic molecules and hydrogen as well as other useful materials that a fugitive space fleet may find useful.
The biggest issue for me was the notion that the Ravashol Pulsar weapon is a fixed installation on a mountain located on the planetoid Arcta. If this were the case, Arcta's rotation might render the weapon useless at least part of the time. But that would depend on the orientation of Arcta's axis relative to the "safe passage". If the mountain were located near one of Arcta's poles, and the axis pointed toward the "passage", it would be like a sentinel there.
As for the notion of the Ravashol Pulsar's beams being shot into the corridor, missing the fleet, but still exploding nearby: What if the beams were hitting nearby asteroids?
I actually liked the idea of a hit-team staffed with a Colonial prison gang, even if that angle didn't really develop in the TV version of the story. The only unbearable part of the story was Boxey and Muffit. Take them out and you might have had extra airtime to develop the other characters.
