Galactica 1980 - Development

Development

A massive write-in campaign began with the cancellation of the original Battlestar Galactica. Because letter writing campaigns in favor of restoring canceled television programs were uncommon in 1979, it prompted ABC to re-think their reasons for canceling the show. After some deliberation, they contacted Glen A. Larson to see about reviving the series, albeit in some modified and less-expensive format.

Both Larson and the network felt the show needed some major change of focus to re-launch it as a spinoff, and Larson and Donald P. Bellisario decided to set the new series five years after "The Hand of God", the final episode of the original series. This would allow them to weed out many supporting characters who were now considered superfluous - Colonel Tigh, Athena, Cassiopea, Boxey, etc. - which would bring down production costs. The only major characters to return from the original series would be Commander Adama, Colonel Boomer (replacing Tigh), Apollo, Starbuck and Count Baltar. Baltar was to have somehow made atonement for betraying the Colonies to the Cylons, and was now the President of the Council of Twelve.

Upon discovering a 'present day' Earth completely unable to defend itself from the Cylons, Adama decided to just head off into deep space to lead the Cylons away from the planet, but Baltar suggested using Time Travel Technology to alter Earth's history so its technology would develop more rapidly up to a Colonial level. The Council votes this suggestion down, so Baltar steals a ship capable of time travel and heads into Earth's past to carry out his plan anyway. After some deliberation, Starbuck and Apollo are sent after him to bring him back or at least undo his changes to history. Episodes would feature a new "Time Mission" every week, generally with Apollo at some different time in the past, and Starbuck flying back and forth between "Now" and "Then" to give information and support to Apollo. ABC approved this pitch, and gave the go-ahead to develop a pilot for the series.

However, Dirk Benedict was apparently unavailable at the time of filming. Richard Hatch (Apollo in the original series) apparently was sent a script for Galactica 1980, but turned it down since he wasn't sure what his part in the series would be now that all the characters had changed. It was then decided the series would take place thirty years after the end of the original series, and that Boxey would be renamed Troy and take Apollo's role, while a character named Lt. Dillon would take over the Starbuck part. President Baltar was written out entirely, and Commander Xavier or Doctor Xavier was created to take up his role as the resident bad guy. The premise of setting the series thirty years after the original series created a plot hole in that the original series ended with a video transmission being picked up by the Galactica from the Apollo moon landing, meaning that the original series would have to have taken place sometime after 1969 by Earth's calendar. A thirty year journey would mean that the Colonial Fleet could not have possibly reached Earth until the turn of the 21st Century rather than in 1980.

After the pilot was completed, the network was unhappy with the time travel aspects of the story, and agreed to pick up the series only if that subject was dropped. Larson and Bellisario reluctantly agreed, and the series instead became focused on Troy's and Dillon's attempts to protect some colonial children on Earth. Bellisario later re-tooled the original time travel concept and re-used it as the basis of the considerably more successful Quantum Leap.

The name "Pacific Tech" ("Pacific Institute of Technology") used in the three-part opening episode "Galactica Discovers Earth" is a name used several times in films and television when directors/writers/producers wanted to depict a science-oriented university without using a real institution's name, as also was earlier done in The War of the Worlds and later in Real Genius; an earlier draft of the script used the real-world name "Caltech".