"Doctor Zee" was added to rope in the "smart kid" audience, or so I think. It's clearly a marketing ploy, but seemed more idiotic than anything. As a "smart kid" growing up I furled my brow at the character. Kids look up to responsible adults to solve problems, not to their friends.
And focusing on 20th century Los Angeles was the biggest cost cutting measure these people made, and PO'd all my friends who watched it. I think they were expecting Earth to be a high technology civilization, and instead they got the environment they saw everyday.
I didn't watch the show because original Galactica seemed to be aimed at a slightly younger audience than Star Wars, and certainly Star Trek, but I caught it every now and then. And people loved that show. All my friends talked about it. And when I could get away from studying and see it, it seemed interesting enough (though again, it seemed like it was for young kids and their families).
But this show? The first episode turned me off. In fact I couldn't get all the way through it. And then when I tried to watch it again (I can't remember the episode I tuned into) I just shook my head.
Every kid I knew b****ed and complained about it, except for one of my friends who seemed to like it. For them there were no dogfights, there were no spaceships, there were no action stories, no exotic locations, and everything else.
And I was always baffled as to why Universal shifted gears. I wasn't a big BSG fan, but the show was interesting enough that I tuned in every now and then when it first aired. Every one at school and elsewhere really liked it. Even the teachers. And then it's like Galactica 1980 was BSG's answer to third Season 1960's Star Trek.
As for the "newer" Galactica ... even though it had higher production values, and gave a real sense of fear and desperation, I couldn't get into it. Galactica and I have never really mixed well, but then again my personal tastes tended to veer in other directions.
Anyway, those are my thoughts on Galactica 1980. However, seeing Pamela Schoop as Mike Brady's assistant was kind of cool. A real pretty lady.
p.s. I remember being baffled and a little angry that original Galactica got replaced with some sitcoms. I was angry not so much because I had any affection for the show (I was never a big BSG fan), but because it seemed like everyone I knew watched it; friends and their parents, people who worked the stores and so forth.
And so when the plug got pulled it was like whoever was in charge of Battlestar Galactica, the tv station it aired on, the studio, the production team, or whoever, were thumbing their noses at the people who watched their show.
I can see cutting the budget, changing the stories to make it cheaper to produce, but to yank it, and then try to relaunch it with a kind of "everyday" angle, really was an insult to the people who wanted to watch it.
I guess Galactica got another shot some ten years back, but that was also a marketing move, and I'm sorry Richard Hatch's version didn't get a chance, and the "joyless" version did.
How unfortunate.
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