Battlestar Galactica is an American science fiction television series, created by Glen A. Larson, that began the Battlestar Galactica franchise. Starring Lorne Greene, Richard Hatch and Dirk Benedict, it ran for one season in 1978–79. After cancellation, its story was briefly continued in 1980 as Galactica 1980 with Adama, Lieutenant Boomer (now a colonel) and Boxey (now called Troy) being the only continuing characters. Books have been written continuing the stories.

The series was remade in 2003, beginning with a three-hour mini-series followed by a weekly series which ran from 2004 to 2009. A feature film remake was also planned, to have been directed by Bryan Singer with production input from original series creator Glen A. Larson. However, Larson died in 2014, and the movie has yet to go into production.

Narrations and theme music

The show begins with a narration, spoken by Patrick Macnee:

Some believe that there may yet be brothers of man...who even now fight to survive--somewhere beyond the heavens!
(The theatrical version of the pilot ends with "far, far away amongst the stars.")

Battlestar Galactica is an American science fiction franchise created by Glen A. Larson. The franchise began with the original television series in 1978 and was later followed by a short-run sequel series (Galactica 1980), a line of book adaptations, original novels, comic books, a board game, and video games. A re-imagined version of Battlestar Galactica aired as a two-part, three-hour miniseries developed by Ronald D. Moore and David Eick in 2003. That miniseries led to a weekly television series, which later aired up until 2009. A prequel series, Caprica, aired in 2010. A two-hour pilot for a second spin-off prequel series, Blood & Chrome, aired in 2013 though this did not lead to a series as originally planned.

All Battlestar Galactica productions share the premise that in a distant part of the universe, a human civilization has extended to a group of planets known as the Twelve Colonies, to which they have migrated from their ancestral homeworld of Kobol. The Twelve Colonies have been engaged in a lengthy war with a cybernetic race known as the Cylons, whose goal is the extermination of the human race. The Cylons offer peace to the humans, which proves to be a ruse. With the aid of a human named Baltar, the Cylons carry out a massive attack on the Twelve Colonies and on the Colonial Fleet of starships that protect them. These attacks devastate the Colonial Fleet, lay waste to the Colonies, and virtually destroy their populations. Scattered survivors flee into outer space aboard a ragtag array of available spaceships. Of the entire Colonial battle fleet, only the Battlestar Galactica, a gigantic battleship and spacecraft carrier, appears to have survived the Cylon attack. Under the leadership of Commander Adama, the Galactica and the pilots of "Viper fighters" lead a fugitive fleet of survivors in search of the fabled thirteenth colony known as Earth.

A number of video games have been released based on the various incarnations of the Battlestar Galactica franchise.

Original series

"Space Battle" & "Space Attack"

Mattel-developed Space Battle for Intellivision and its M-Network counterpart, Space Attack for the Atari VCS/2600 platform, were originally stated to be games based on the Battlestar Galactica series. One of Mattel's subsidiaries, Concepts 2000, had the license to produce Battlestar Galactica electronic toys, so it was figured to be a lock that Mattel would get the license to produce the official Battlestar Galactica video game. The game was well into development when they discovered Mattel didn't get the license. The name was changed, but the graphics remained the same. The "flying saucers" in the game are actually Cylon Raiders; this is mostly imperceptible, due to the lack of detail that could be used in graphics of the platforms of that era. In addition, squadrons of fighters are launched from a "base ship" to defend against the incoming enemy squadrons.

Battlestar Galactica is a three-hour miniseries (comprising four broadcast hours) starring Edward James Olmos and Mary McDonnell, written and produced by Ronald D. Moore and directed by Michael Rymer. It was the first part of the Battlestar Galactica remake based on the 1978 Battlestar Galactica television series, and served as a backdoor pilot for the 2004 television series. The miniseries aired originally on the Sci Fi Channel in the United States starting on December 8, 2003. The two parts of the miniseries attracted 3.9 and 4.5 million viewers, making the miniseries the third-most-watched program on Syfy.

Plot

Part 1

After a 40-year armistice in a war between the Twelve Colonies (the homeworlds populated by humans) and the Cylons (human-created robots), the Cylons launch a surprise nuclear attack intended to exterminate the human race. Virtually all of the population of the Twelve Colonies are wiped out. Most of the Colonial military is either rendered ineffective or destroyed due to malware in the military computer network that renders it vulnerable to cyber attack. The malware was introduced by Number Six (Tricia Helfer), a Cylon in the form of a human woman, who seduced the famous scientist Dr. Gaius Baltar (James Callis) and exploited their relationship to gain access codes under the cover of an insider contract bid.