Er, it went up against 60 Minutes. Right idea, wrong show. Though to be honest, it would have had a better shot against All in the Family, as that show was winding down, soon to become Archie Bunker's Place. 60 Minutes was just hitting its stride as the '70s wound down.
Could "The Starlost" be remade today?
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Er, it went up against 60 Minutes. Right idea, wrong show. Though to be honest, it would have had a better shot against All in the Family, as that show was winding down, soon to become Archie Bunker's Place. 60 Minutes was just hitting its stride as the '70s wound down.
It was also preempted or time shifted due to Football on ABC as I recall.
28% percent of the viewership is hardly a "flop."
Was it a ratings juggernaut that could overcome its tremendous expense? Of course not. But, don't be guilty of the same thing you are accusing "Modern BSG fandom."
Enough people complained they brought it back a year later--with the terrible beyond all imagination, Galactica 1980.
I was also one of the original viewers as well, and I didn't forget about it. And I'm not a big superfan of stuff.
I would agree with this. A big idea that was to expensive for it's time and couldn't keep up with the demands of a weekly format.
They already remade Star Lost recently.
It was called Game of Thrones.
That story was totally set on a broke down spaceship.
"Winter" was when they were travelling between star systems.
It was called Game of Thrones.
That story was totally set on a broke down spaceship.
"Winter" was when they were travelling between star systems.
The situation was that the ratings were indeed still good, and the show had a following - evidenced by a letter writing campaign, but it was too expensive. The suits believed that if they put it on Earth in contemporary times, and had Earth based stories/plots, they could keep the ratings and reduce the cost of the show. The network hated the time travel aspect of the pilot because they thought it would again raise production costs. However G1980 bombed in the ratings and was cancelled after the 10th episode.
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The sad/funny thing is for all the retooling, the show might have cost even more to make than the first. I know Glen Larson had a few hits but when you look at how many times he couldn't deliver, and how over budget he went.. why did he keep getting to produce shows?
The time travel idea that they did not roll with got picked up by former BSG writer Bellisario, and Quantum Leap became a hit.
Interestingly, NBC took its own stab at throwing a sci fi series against the juggernaut of 60 Minutes, a fun little time travel series called Voyagers! that I enjoyed quite a bit as a kid, but it did no better than BSG
Because he made a LOT more money than he lost.
Here's a premise for you:
There's one pod a the front that's crewed, rather than occupied; it's the command module, they know it's a ship, and they know which pod is which. They also know that no one in any of the other pods know it's a ship.They will be landing in a generation, and the time has come to tell everyone else onboard that it's a ship. Those that don't know they're on a ship have that long to redefine their culture so that when they land, they'll be able to adapt to their new situation. But many of the pods have cultures that have devolved, some into religious paranoia, others into barbarism, still others into myriad forms of nihilism and/or fatalism that could result in the extinction of their culture if not properly prepared for their new homeworld. The 'pilots' must figure out how to save as many as possible, without compromising their cultural identities, so they can integrate without conflict upon landing.
There's one pod a the front that's crewed, rather than occupied; it's the command module, they know it's a ship, and they know which pod is which. They also know that no one in any of the other pods know it's a ship.They will be landing in a generation, and the time has come to tell everyone else onboard that it's a ship. Those that don't know they're on a ship have that long to redefine their culture so that when they land, they'll be able to adapt to their new situation. But many of the pods have cultures that have devolved, some into religious paranoia, others into barbarism, still others into myriad forms of nihilism and/or fatalism that could result in the extinction of their culture if not properly prepared for their new homeworld. The 'pilots' must figure out how to save as many as possible, without compromising their cultural identities, so they can integrate without conflict upon landing.
BSG1980 had Dick Van Dyke's son on the cast, and they didn't time travel to Edwardian England and dress him up as a chimney sweep to fight Cylon Penguin hybrids?
@FormerLurker
Interesting, so you have the crew at the front, know everything, but maybe have been sealed off after that accident, but in the next say 7 years ( length of a series) that they will make landfall/planet orbit and have to inform the passengers in some way.
Show the.. lets say 15th captain on the boat is the one that up, maybe have some malaise of its been 100's of years, nothings happened..
Interesting, so you have the crew at the front, know everything, but maybe have been sealed off after that accident, but in the next say 7 years ( length of a series) that they will make landfall/planet orbit and have to inform the passengers in some way.
Show the.. lets say 15th captain on the boat is the one that up, maybe have some malaise of its been 100's of years, nothings happened..
And lets face it, with late-70s TV, in that post-Star Wars rushs, most US studios didn't have the budget (or frankly the imagination) to do any decent sort of multi-year television sci-fi (US television anyway - UK tele was going strong). And shows really did suffer, especially those with interesting (even by today's standards) premesis.
Buck Rogers with 2 seasons I think of all the shows, got the best run of things :/
The BSG1978 production was also a bit screwed over because originally, they weren't going to have it be a weekly series - they were going to do 3 to 4 'telefilms' a season. Aside from the pilot that they were shooting, they had the Kobol story, "Living Legend" and and "Gun on Ice Planet Zero" in various stages of production development when ABC said, "Hey, we want to make it a weekly series..." as they were wrapping shooting on the 3 hour pilot; so GL and Universal had to scramble to get a weekly paced production up and running.
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Somewhat. But the 7 year series length is a new thing. It could last 10, or just 5. The primary focus would be the difficulty of telling the devolved cultures what's happening without creating chaos. And obviously a time-jump for the last 2-3 episodes to show how well they did as they make landfall.
All too true. I like to quote the conceit that the pilot aired and the network called the next morning asking if the next episode was ready for the next week, but clearly they had more lead time. The next episode aired on schedule (even if it was rushed in all things, especially writing).
Read a book series awhile back, about a ship colonizing a new world. and it wasn't basic setup or tents.. They had industrial replicators/3d printers, in a couple years they were building 20 story builidings.. a planned city.
So I would hope that, on said ship, that it would have a "Colony set up container" or something.. maybe a way of landing each dome in different areas, and that be the city for the first years.. maybe..
Well, Last night rewatched 2012, good movie to me, but I relearned that there was going to be a sequal to it in a TV series called 2013..
with it picking up on the rebuilding of humanity etc. I for one can't really think of a good series premise for that.. and sounds kinda boring..
Rather the movie/book When Worlds Collide, and the sequal, After worlds collide.. now that would make a good series!
So I would hope that, on said ship, that it would have a "Colony set up container" or something.. maybe a way of landing each dome in different areas, and that be the city for the first years.. maybe..
Well, Last night rewatched 2012, good movie to me, but I relearned that there was going to be a sequal to it in a TV series called 2013..
with it picking up on the rebuilding of humanity etc. I for one can't really think of a good series premise for that.. and sounds kinda boring..
Rather the movie/book When Worlds Collide, and the sequal, After worlds collide.. now that would make a good series!
This is probably why XCV330 kept saying the network messed with its schedule. Preemption does affect it, but the way XCV kept saying it, is sounded like they meant different nights and times. This is a nice clarification.
It initially went up against 60 Minutes, but:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlestar_Galactica_(1978_TV_series)#Ratings
Some of that must have depended on the market. In Denver BSG always aired at 6:00pm, opposite 60 MInutes, unless preempted or delayed by sports or other special programming. All In The Family aired at 7:00.
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