Even the people who got paid to oversee the DVD authoring of Galactica 1980 didn’t care enough about this show to pay attention.
Category Archives: Galactica1980
Galactica 1980 episode 6: Just like the Bad News Bears, only without the news. Or the bears.
So here we are, plodding through “Spaceball,” another fine Galactica 1980 episode. (Confused? See yesterday’s post for concise explication of the various Galactica series).
“Spaceball” is the personification of hell on earth, in that it’s a whole episode devoted to the premise that everyone loves precocious children playing baseball against a formidable opponent and winning at the last minute. In this case, it’s the Super-powered Galactica Children who need to win the big playoff game to save a baseball camp run by an earthling named William “Billy” Ayers.
The name of the team is the polecats.
Seriously.
Ayers is played by Paul Koslo, who has appeared in pretty much every cheesy 70s and 80s show ever made at least once. It’s impressive. You should click on that link and look for yourself. Go on, we’ll wait here, just be sure to come back!
Wasn’t that great? I love the fact that he even played Jesse James in that episode of the Dukes of Hazzard that’s presented as a flashback to the Old West while Uncle Jesse reads from an old a diary and all of the characters in the flashback are played by the actors who play the characters who are supposed to be those characters descendants.
See also: tropes that are only one step to the left of a full-on time travel episode.
See also: sweeps week stunts.
See also: we didn’t just jump the shark, we caught it, skinned it, ate it and wore it’s hide as a disguise so we could eat in the studio commissary without showing our faces.
So, back to Galactica 1980 – William Ayers only has one arm, it’s implied he chewed it off to escape the set of this show. Maybe I implied that. In the episode I think they explained how he lost his arm and why it ended his career, but I spaced out and missed the explanation.
Any episode with Starla and Moonstone and the other allegedly darling Galactica children makes my teeth itch.
And yet, this is also the best episode we’ve watched so far. The character of Xavier the time-traveling bad guy is being played by a different actor and he seems unclear what both his motivation and his ethnicity are supposed to be. You’ve got to watch the first 10 minutes of the episode on hulu to appreciate how hilariously bizarre this is. I swear at one point in that opening scene he seems to lapse into a Bela Lugosi impression.
We’ve learned important things from Galactica 1980, particularly this, which appears at the end of every episode:
Just in case you had any questions, I guess.
Most importantly, we’ve decided that “William Ayers and the Polecats” would make an excellent band name.
At long last we find the impulse for our Galactica 1980 marathon
We realized people have Oscars-watching parties because it’s the only way to make the damned things entertaining. Poor Hugh Jackman. He tried so hard, but he was doomed by the dreadful material he had to work with. We were embarrassed for him during that opening number.
Husband and I decided it was time, time to begin the long-promised Galactica 1980 marathon.
We’d already watched 4 episodes, but that was a long time ago. Figuring we’d repressed most of what we’d seen, we broke out the DVDs and began at the beginning. We watched the first 3 episodes and then tuned back in to the Oscars to catch the last hour of awards. Compared to Galactica 1980…the awards were still dull.
Things went off the rails quickly the last time I vowed to do this whole Galactica 1980 marathon thing – you can bring yourself up to date here.
This time, with God(s of Cobol) as my witness, I will watch the whole series. And blog about it. This week. I guarantee it, or we’ll give you a full refund.
Oh – here’s some obligatory Oscars content: The best Oscars-related opinion writing was in yesterday’s Washington Post. Robin Givhan made a sensible case for dumping the ridiculous custom of letting stars hold the fashion industry hostage for alleged “good publicity.” (“Designers in the Red: The System’s Wearing Thin”)
Galactica 1980
It may at last be time to face my arch-nemesis. No, not Wolf Blitzer. Galactica 1980.
I’m about to go totally meta here, and quote from that previous post about why you don’t want to try this at home:
Here are the original posts from that first little (mis)adventure, to help newer readers understand why they shouldn’t try this [watching Galactica 1980] at home. Not without first undertaking a rigorous training regimen. And possibly lobotomizing themselves with a number 2 pencil.
Remember people, I watch so you don’t have to. I am a trained media professional and this is the big time. You should not, I repeat, not, try this at home.
And if you do, I’m not responsible for the psychological carnage. Nor will I come to your home and scrape the fetid remnants of your anguished soul off of your rug.
1) galactica 1980 marathon, part I (caution: new series spoilers)
2) Cousin Oliver gets kicked to the curb; or, Galactica 1980 marathon, part 2
3) Mormons, or, Galactica 1980 marathon, part 3
6) And, if you got through all that, a bonus post, at no extra charge: The Big Score, and a minor Battlestar Galactica (new series) spoiler
The DVDs are standing by. If anyone wants to undertake this mission with me, drop me a line. Be warned that you aren’t getting your mitts on one of the lollipops and you’re going to need to know me fairly well to be allowed to babysit.
Galactica 1980
In February 2006 the SciFi channel aired a Galactica 1980 marathon. In a series of escalating dares, Husband goaded me into watching it. Perhaps it was the gray February weather, or maybe it was the drugs. Whatever the reason, I accepted.
Later, we needed to make room on the Tivo and I only saved one episode from this precious cache. I thought I could pick them up cheap somewhere for later, more leisurely viewing. This was a mistake, as I soon learned. For some reason (basic human decency?) the show wasn’t commercially available.
Until now.
Quite by chance, I just discovered that Netflix has every heart-wrenchingly bad episode available on demand. At long last, I can complete my journey through the darkness.
Here are the original posts from that first little (mis)adventure, to help newer readers understand why they shouldn’t try this at home. Not without first undertaking a rigorous training regimen. And possibly lobotomizing themselves with a number 2 pencil.
Remember people, I watch so you don’t have to. I am a trained media professional and this is the big time. You should not, I repeat, not, try this at home.
And if you do, I’m not responsible for the psychological carnage. Nor will I come to your home and scrape the fetid remnants of your anguished soul off of your rug.
galactica 1980 marathon, part I (caution: new series spoilers)
Cousin Oliver gets kicked to the curb; or, Galactica 1980 marathon, part 2
Mormons, or, Galactica 1980 marathon, part 3
And, if you got through all that, a bonus post, at no extra charge:
The Big Score, and a minor Battlestar Galactica (new series) spoiler
Now that I’ve reread them, I have to say that those were actually entertaining, if only because they brought back lovely memories of giant spaceships full of Lucy Lawless clones, getting in trouble for calling girl scouts “sugar whores”, the 1970s sci-fi show time travel Nazi-encounter plotline fad, and, a personal favorite of mine, our fearless leader freaking out over human-animal hybrids (Manimal?) in his State of the Union. Good times, indeed.