“What kind of crime is starbuckin’?”
A friend and I just started watching the original 1978 Battlestar Galactica, and in only a handful of episodes it’s already become one of my favorite things EVER. The show is such a smorgasbord of wonder that I don’t know how to write a coherent post about it, so I’ll just list ten of my favorite things about it at random.
1. It came out the year after Star Wars, and it shows. The Centurions of the Cylon Empire look like Imperial Stormtroopers, only they are robots, they are bright shiny silver, and they have a robotic red eye that moves back and forth across their forehead. The Colonial Viper pilots’s uniforms (Vipers are basically fighter planes with rockets, and don’t tell me things don’t need to be aerodynamic in space, because I’m not listening) are clearly based on Han Solo’s outfit, which is one of the hotter looks EVER, except the pants are white so that the thigh holster is even more visible. Basically, it’s kind of as if someone took the Star Wars aesthetic and made it way more fashion.
2. Apollo. He’s so well-meaning and earnest and brave and good-looking. And he adopts a kid like three episodes in. It’s really heartwarming.
3. Starbuck. The thing about Starbuck is that he just has so much fun. He loves swaggering around smoking cigars and playing poker pyramid and dating multiple women at once, and he’s always coming up with crazy get-rich-quick schemes. Plus, he really, really loves Apollo. I just have to ignore how Dirk Benedict hates women and everything’s okay.
4. Starbuck and Apollo. Their friendship is wonderful. Despite their differences, they don’t fit the typical bickery by-the-book/breaks-all-the-rules buddy mold. And I love that mold, don’t get me wrong! But Starbuck and Apollo just really appreciate each other and never really seem at odds. They tell jokes, they enjoy each other’s company, they talk to each other about things that are important to them, Starbuck steps up to babysit without the least bit of whining–and, of course, they risk their lives for each other about four times an episode. And the thing is, because most of the time they have so much fun, when things get tense and dangerous it’s really effective.
5. The robot bear
/dog/whatever. Yes, there is a robot bear. Apollo has it made for his son because the kid lost his dog when the robots almost wiped out the human race. I really, really don’t know why this character didn’t make it into the reboot.
6. The space Western episode. Complete with swinging saloon doors of smooth metal, metallic/plastic cowboy hats, and a lost Cylon warrior nicknamed “Red Eye” working for a smooth-talking Western guy-in-a-white-three-piece-suit-who-runs-a-town. There’s even a dramatic standoff/shootout between Apollo and the Cylon (Spoiler: Apollo is faster on the draw, and then gives the standard Western speech about how killing doesn’t make a man a hero). This show was before its time, you guys!
7. Lady Viper pilots. After a bunch of the Viper pilots get the plague, Apollo and Starbuck (shockingly, the only uninfected pilots) have to train a bunch of newbie female shuttle pilots to fly Vipers. The girls are all really awesome and heroic–they weren’t trained for this, but the human race is relying on them! Apollo has to learn not to be overprotective of his wife, which is great. Starbuck has to learn…um, mostly he has to learn that ladies like to talk about battles and beer too, and also that maybe describing a Viper’s controls as “as sensitive as a schoolgirl’s…um, lips” is not totally appropriate in the workplace. So now there’s just a whole squadron of lady fighter pilots being heroic in every episode (and looking great in their uniforms).
8. The show has the uncomplicated earnestness and enthusiasm of seventies TV. Sometimes I miss that. While I loved the new show, its determined “moral ambiguity” sometimes distanced me from the characters and the story, because it forced me to constantly evaluate the narrative at a meta level instead of just going with the flow. The classic series establishes fairly simple but compelling characters and then uses them to tell fairly simple but compelling stories, and I like that about it.
9. Lots of great evil. Just in the first episode there are: a Cylon leader in a giant chair with a long velvet robe and a British accent, a sinister presidential advisor, a corrupt orgy-having senator, and bee-aliens who run a space casino. Yes, you heard that right.
10. Look, even this show can’t top bee-aliens who run a space casino! Okay, I lied. It totally can. Watch it and find out! I’m just sad the limited edition Cylon Head Packaging DVD set is no longer available.
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“What kind of a crime is Starbucking?”
That’s a catchphrase around our house!
Oh yeah, I loved this show sooooo much back in the day. If you can find a copy of the novelization of The Gun on Ice Planet Zero, grab it. It’s tremendous fun, and has this superb side story about a clone of Starbuck messing with Imperious Leader’s mind.
Wow, they make a clone of Starbuck in the novel??? That…is an intriguing idea.
The Cylons make a clone of Starbuck and Imperious Leader chats with him in order to try to understand their enemies to get an edge on them. It’s really cool… or it was when I was 13.
Wow, poor Cylons! They really didn’t know what they were getting into with that one…
I told you it had Bee people!
Just wait until they play a game of Triad, my people.
Is Triad the one that’s like basketball with holes in the wall instead of hoops? I want you all to know that I watched this show on network television when it originally aired. I AM OLD.
The important thing is that you play Triad in a Speedo.
Hell yeah, you do.
That picture is changing my life.
Why didn’t Pyramid work that way in the reboot???
And if you’re doing a high-altitude dive into a Cylon Base on a planet below, you get to wear a Cooper Hockey Helmet! Eeee!
Loved original BSG. Loved it!