Battlestar Galactica

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epic space opera

[kg redhead]

CLASSIC SERIES
Battlestar Galactica is an American science fiction television series, produced in 1978 by Glen Larson and starring Lorne Greene, Richard Hatch and Dirk Benedict. After its cancellation, its story was continued in 1980 as Galactica 1980 with Adama and Boomer being the only continuing characters. It was reimagined in 2003 by the Sci-Fi Channel with Edward James Olmos stepping into Lorne Greene's role of Commander Adama. A weekly series on Sci-Fi followed in January 2005. (See Battlestar Galactica (2003) for more.)

The series title is sometimes formatted with a colon, as Battlestar: Galactica, however it is more commonly formatted without.

The opening narration is as follows:
There are those who believe that life here began out there, far across the universe, with tribes of humans who may have been the forefathers of the Egyptians, or the Toltecs, or the Mayans. They may have been the architects of the great pyramids, or the lost civilizations of Lemuria or Atlantis. Some believe that there may yet be brothers of man who even now fight to survive far, far away, amongst the stars.

The pilot to this series, the biggest budgeted ($7 million) at the time, was originally released theatrically in Canada, Western Europe, and Japan in July, 1978 in an edited 125-minute version. (See Battlestar Galactica for information on the pilot.)

On September 17, 1978, the uncut 148-minute pilot premiered on ABC to spectacular Nielsen Ratings (attracting 65 million viewers). Two-thirds of the way through the broadcast, ABC interrupted with a special report of the signing of the Camp David Accords at the White House by Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, and witnessed by U.S. President Jimmy Carter. After the ceremony, ABC resumed the broadcast at the point where it was interrupted.

In 1978, 20th Century Fox sued Universal Studios (the producers of Battlestar Galactica) for plagiarism, claiming it had stolen 34 distinct ideas from Star Wars. Universal promptly countersued, claiming Star Wars had stolen ideas from the 1972 film Silent Running (notably the robot "drones") and the Buck Rogers serials of the 1940's. The lawsuit would be eventually dismissed in 1980 as having no merit.

As the series progressed, the ratings began to slide, even though the show still consistently won its coveted Sunday evening timeslot. Although each episode had a budget of about $1 million, the show reused so many special effects shots due to budgetary constraints that many critics derided it as "overplayed into tedium."

In mid-April 1979, ABC executives cancelled the still strongly-rated show. Some sources indicate that the million-dollar-per-episode cost led to the show's demise. Others believe that it was a failed attempt by ABC to position its hit comedy Mork & Mindy into a more lucrative timeslot. (The ratings for Mork plummeted far below what they had been for Battlestar Galactica.) The cancellation led to viewer outrage, protests outside ABC studios, and even contributed to the suicide of Eddie Seidel, a 15-year-old boy in Saint Paul, Minnesota who had become obsessed with the program. On May 18, 1979, the theatrical version of the pilot was released in U.S. theatres.

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GALACTICA 1980
Set during the year 1980, and a generation after the original series, the Galactica and its fleet of 220 civilian ships have finally discovered Earth, only to find that the planet cannot defend itself against the Cylons as originally hoped. Therefore, teams of Colonial warriors are covertly sent to the planet to work incognito with various members of the scientific community, hoping to advance Earth's technology.

Commander Adama and Colonel Boomer—now second-in-command in place of Colonel Tigh— on the advice of a mysterious teenager named Dr. Zee who serves as Adama's advisor, sends Captain "Boxey" Troy, who is the adopted son of Adama's own son Apollo, and Lt. Dillon to North America, where they become entangled with TV journalist Jamie Hamilton. After an initial, epic time travel adventure to Nazi Germany in the 1940s (to stop a rebel Galactican trying to change the future to improve's Earth technology level), the three friends devise ways to help Earth's scientists and outwit the Cylons in the present day. Meanwhile, Adama sends a group of children from the Galactica fleet to Earth in order to begin the process of integrating with the population; due to differences in gravity and physiology, however, the children also have to learn to deal with the fact they have near-superhuman powers on Earth.

The fate of several characters from the original series are indicated during the course of the series. Apollo is apparently dead (cause unknown), Starbuck's fate would be revealed at the end of the series, Boxey is revealed to be Captain Troy, and Lt. Boomer is now Adama's second in command. The fate of several other characters - Adama's daughter Athena, Colonel Tigh, Starbuck's girlfriend Casseopeia, and the evil Count Baltar - is not revealed, and all four characters are absent from the series.

The series had a promising start with a three-hour adventure that saw Troy, Dillon and Jamie sent back in time to Nazi Germany to save the future, but the series could not sustain this momentum. For example, the next two episodes, "The Super Scouts" story, were widely ridiculed; many fans regarded the "aliens acquire super powers because of gravitional differences" aspect of the story as a rather blatant "borrowing" from Superman. Fans were also curious as to why these super powers had not been noticed by any of the characters during the first three episodes.

The show was unceremoniously cancelled after only ten episodes, many of which were multi-part stories, or what would be referred to now as arcs. The final episode featured unscreened footage of Dirk Benedict as Lt. Starbuck from the original series in a flashback episode; despite its popularity with fans, it wasn't enough to save the series. ("Return of Starbuck" was popular enough that Glen Larson had written a sequel episode entitled "The Wheel of Fire", but the series was cancelled before it could be filmed.

Many fans do not consider Galactica 1980 to be canonical with the original series (save perhaps for the Starbuck flashback episode); many cite Galactica 1980 as one of the worst shows in science fiction history. Furthermore, the books written based on the series conflict with Galactica 1980 in many respects, most prominently the death of Adama in the books.

The ten Galactica 1980 episodes were rolled into the television syndication package for Battlestar Galactica and were given the same title as its parent program.

A feature called Conquest of the Earth was released on home video only. This feature was stitched together from sections of the three "Galactica Discovers Earth" episodes and the two "The Night the Cylons Landed" episodes. A scene of John Colicos, playing Baltar, was also spliced in to this release. The latter footage was actually taken from an episode of the original series - Baltar makes no appearance in any Galactica 1980 episode - and is partially dubbed, so as to make the speech sound relevant to the Galactica's new situation. Several early scenes involving Adama and Dr Zee are also partially dubbed, to add more explanatory detail. In all cases, the dubbing is of a low technical standard.

An episode called 'The Day they Kidnapped Cleopatra' had begun shooting when the series was cancelled.

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THE MINI-SERIES
Battlestar Galactica is a science fiction miniseries which was first broadcast on the Sci Fi Channel on December 8, 2003. It spawned a regular television series which premiered on Sky One in the UK on October 18, 2004 and on Sci Fi Channel in the U.S. on January 14, 2005.

This new series was promoted as a "re-imagining" of the Universal Studios 1978 movie and television series Battlestar Galactica. It is not simply a remake of the original but a new direction taken from the same original premise, analogous to a "reboot" in comic books.

The new series departs from the original in several respects. In style, it rejects the traditional televised science fiction styles of Star Trek adopted by the original in favor of what executive producer Ronald D. Moore calls "naturalistic science fiction". In premise, the new series recasts several key characters from male to female and introduces the notion that the Cylons, the cybernetic enemies of the humans, were created by man. In addition to the Cylon Centurions there are also humanoid models that very closely mimic a complete human down to the cellular level. The look of the new series also benefits from recent advances in computer-generated imaging and digital special effects.

Although purists from the original series' fandom loudly disapproved of changes to the premise, the show was the highest-rated cable miniseries of 2003. In fact, it has been the highest rated original program in the Sci Fi Channel's history. Its strong audience draw was enough to prompt the channel to commission a new ongoing television series, the first episode of which drew an estimated 850,000 viewers — a 5% multichannel viewer share — on its world premiere on Sky One in the United Kingdom. Furthermore, the miniseries and the subsequent weekly series have enjoyed general critical acclaim as being superior to the original, leading TIME magazine to declare in the spring of 2005 that the new show was one of the six best drama series on television. In the tradition of science fiction series such as Star Trek, the writers use science fiction to examine contemporary social, moral and ethical issues in allegory.

Previous efforts to remake or continue the story of Battlestar Galactica by Tom DeSanto, Bryan Singer, and original series star Richard Hatch have mainly involved using the original cast, or at least the original characters and plot. None of these projects proceeded beyond the developmental stage.

Ronald D. Moore, executive producer and screenwriter of the new Battlestar Galactica, was previously credited with bringing darker story arcs to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine in the 1990s. Of Battlestar Galactica, he wrote in February 2003: "Here lies a slumbering giant, its name known to many, its voice remembered by but a few. For a brief moment, it strode the Earth, telling tall tales of things that never were, then stumbled over a rating point and fell into a deep sleep." He tackled the remake with realism in mind, and intended to portray the show's heroes as being part of "flawed" humanity. Examples of this include Commander Adama and his son harboring resentment towards each other, Colonel Tigh being an alcoholic, an outdated battlestar prone to problems and outside sabotage, muted special effects shots lacking unscientific sounds commonplace in TV and movie sci-fi, comparatively realistic Newtonian physics, and the use of bullets and missiles instead of energy weapons such as lasers.

Ronald D. Moore has also admitted that the mini-series and series drew inspiration from the tragic events of 9/11 and after. They feature elements such as "sleeper" agents, the threat of sneak terrorist attacks using civilian transports, Cylon suicide bombers, the torture of prisoners (as at the Abu Ghraib prison), and a struggle motivated by intense religious differences.

The Twelve Colonies of Kobol ("Heaven" in ancient Persian) long ago created the Cylons as machine worker drones for humanity. These machines became independent after fighting in wars between the Colonies, rose in rebellion, created their own empire, and launched war on their masters. Forty years before the series takes place, a ceasefire was declared, the war ended and the Cylons withdrew to their own new planet, after which they were never seen or heard from again. However, unknown to the Colonies, they had been evolving into more human form, creating synthetic bio-mechanical Cylon models who seek to exterminate true biological humans. Following the nuclear destruction of the Colonies, the Cylons pursued the Galactica and its companion fleet, fearing that the surviving humans would someday return to take revenge on the Cylons.

The Cylons use a human scientist, Dr. Gaius Baltar, to help one of their infiltrators (known as Number Six) to penetrate the Colonies' master defense mainframes. The Number Six android covertly assists Baltar in developing the Command Navigation Program, or CNP, which is eventually deployed on almost all Colonial spacecraft. Baltar is reluctant, but smitten with Number Six, who appears as a woman of seemingly insatiable sexual desire. The result of their affair is a nuclear sneak-attack which rapidly annihilates billions of people on the Colonies and the fleet deployed for their protection. The CNP had backdoors written into it that allowed Cylon fighters to shut down the power and weapons systems of battlestars and other ships during the attack, leaving them defenseless and easy to destroy.

One ship, however, survives; a less advanced battlestar designated Galactica, part of Battlestar Group 75, which had been scheduled for decommissioning and conversion into a museum to honor its role in the first Cylon war. After the destruction of their fleet headquarters on Picon and nearly 120 other battlestars and support ships in the Colonial fleet, Galactica's commanding officer, Commander Adama, assumes leadership of whatever surviving fleet remains.

Galactica's first task in its new life as sole remaining battlestar is to refill its munitions, which were destroyed as part of the ship's decommissioning ceremony. After an FTL jump to avoid Cylon forces, the ship arrives at the Ragnar Anchorage depot, a space station located deep within the upper atmosphere of a gas giant. The location of the station was chosen because the storm was known by Colonial fleet to emit radiation that caused Cylon technology to malfunction, and also provided cover for any ships residing within the storm.

Education Secretary Laura Roslin is designated by a Colonial government "doomsday" contingency computer program as President of the Twelve Colonies after the deaths of all other more-senior government officials. She convinces Commander Adama of the futility of continuing to fight and the importance of escaping with the last 50,000 humans from the Colonies who were fortunate to have been in space on FTL-capable ships during the attack. The Galactica must now lead the surviving humans on a quest for a new homeworld on which to rebuild humanity.

Galactica holds back two Cylon basestars and their Raiders while the civilian ships jump away from Ragnar to a new location and to the void of space. After the escape, during the funeral for the dead crew on the ship, Adama inspires his crew by pretending to know the location of the legendary thirteenth colony known as "Earth." In the end, we see that the humans are not out of danger yet—Number Six warns Baltar (and the audience) that Cylon agents, who may even believe that they are human, could still be within the fleet. Adama finds a cryptic message in his quarters reading simply, "There are only 12 Cylon models," while on Ragnar, a group of Cylons rescue Aaron Doral. One of them is an exact copy of Lt. Sharon Valerii, revealing that Valerii is a Cylon.

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THE NEW SERIES
he first season of thirteen one-hour episodes was announced by the Sci Fi Channel on February 10, 2004, and aired in the United Kingdom between October 18, 2004 and January 24, 2005 on Sky One, which co-financed the series with the Sci Fi Channel and NBC Universal. Produced in 2004 by David Eick and Ronald D. Moore and starring the original cast from the 2003 miniseries, it was aired in the United States from January 14, 2005 and from January 15 in Canada. Moore left his position as producer on HBO's Carnivàle after its first season to concentrate more on BSG.

Battlestar Galactica's first season aired in the UK three months ahead of the show's premiere in the U.S. and Canada. This rare example of a North American television show being aired across the Atlantic before its first broadcast "at home" was the result of Sky's partially funding the first season's production.

The time lag between the UK and U.S. screenings led to widespread distribution of episodes via peer-to-peer networks, such as eDonkey and BitTorrent, often within only a few hours of Sky One airing them. Although Sci Fi and Moore deplored this and publicly appealed for downloaders not to pirate the show, there was widespread speculation that its unauthorized electronic distribution contributed to the U.S. success of the show by creating a favourable word of mouth impression among key demographic groups. Perhaps in recognition of this, the first episode was later made available for viewing in its entirety and without charge from the Sci Fi website. Moore also sought to address the "Internet generation" by posting podcast commentaries on individual episodes on the Sci Fi website.

The series proved successful on its UK premiere, attracting favorable comments from reviewers and generating considerable anticipation in the U.S. The first episode aired in the U.S. became one of the highest-rated programs ever on Sci Fi with 3.1 million viewers. Successive episodes proved equally successful, and on February 9, 2005, Sci Fi announced that it was commissioning a 20-episode second season — seven episodes more than the first season. Premiering in the U.S. on Sci Fi on July 15, 2005, a UK premiere will follow in January 2006 — the second season, unlike the first, is funded entirely from U.S. sources, so Sky will revert to its normal practice of only broadcasting it after its U.S. premiere. The second season will feature all of the first season cast.

The first episode of the regular series, "33", won the 2005 short form Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation.

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Changes from the original series include:

* The Cylons are now a creation of the humans. They rebelled against their creators during a war which ended forty years ago, formed their own civilization, broke off all contact with the humans and are now resuming the same genocidal conflict after an extended truce.
* There are no other alien species shown in the series, just Humans and Cylons.
* Cylon soldiers are significantly different from the "classic" Centurion design. These new units are faster, streamlined, more agile, and have built-in weaponry. They are also mute, their usual response of "By your command" completely absent. (The older models do appear as "museum pieces", obviously indicating the Cylons have "evolved")
* Cylon Raiders (small fighter/attack craft) are no longer manned by a crew of three Cylon Centurions. Instead the crafts themselves are cybernetic organisms.
* Some Cylons are designed to be almost biologically and phenotypically identical to humans in order to serve the purpose of infiltration. Some units don't even know they are Cylons. So convincing are the stealth units that they can associate with humans even at an intimate emotional and sexual level. There were no human Cylons in the original series, but some did appear in the Galactica 1980 episode The Night the Cylons Landed. These human Cylons were much more simplistic then their re-imagined equivalents, however.

Main article: Cylon (Battlestar Galactica)

* Dr. Gaius Baltar was tricked into betraying humanity as opposed to making a conscious choice to do so.
* In both series, Adar is President of the Colonies and is killed in the Cylon attack. In the original, he organises the peace conference that leads to the destruction of the Colonies and is portrayed as misguided idealist and tool of Baltar. He dies telling himself (literally) that he is responsible for the destruction of the human race. In the new series, President Adar is never seen nor heard; the audience knows of him chiefly through the recollections of others. These range from Laura Roslin, who seems to have idolised him, to Adama, who tells Billy "Adar was a moron". There is no suggestion that Adar was at fault for the Cylon attack in the re-imagined series.
* Adama no longer genuinely believes that Earth exists and that they can find it. Instead, he uses the Colonials' beliefs and claims that the route to Earth is a closely-guarded military secret (mini-series) to give the survivors a purpose.
* Instead of being the flagship, albeit generations old, of the colonial forces, the Galactica is one of the last of its kind still in operation. Slated for decommissioning and conversion to a museum when the story begins, it survives the Cylon onslaught due to its reliance on older technology. This is largely due to Commander Adama's insistence that there be no computer networks installed on the Galactica, and that all communications on board be conducted using old-fashioned wired telephones, so that the Cylons can not infiltrate the ship's computers.
* Physically, the Galactica is far more clearly designed for combat. She has heavy armor plating covering structural ribs and water tanks under the plating to absorb kinetic damage from missiles or harmful radiation from nuclear-tipped Cylon missiles. The command centre is much better protected, being located deep inside the ship (much like the Combat Information Center in a modern naval warship), rather than exposed on the outside as in the case of Star Trek's U.S.S Enterprise, or the Galactica in the 1978 series. The Galactica must now also retract its landing bays prior to executing an FTL jump, then extend them upon entering normal space in order to conduct flight operations.
* Operations have become more militaristic on the reimagined Galactica. Unlike the original, many new details are taken directly from present-day aircraft carrier operations, such as standard operating procedures, combat air patrols, and the term "CAG" for the Galactica's command Viper pilot. The original, by contrast, was extremely unmilitary in its operations.
* The original Galactica utilized "scanners" to detect objects in space, while the reimagined battlestar is equipped with "DRADIS" — the Colonial equivalent of RADAR.
* The original Colonial Fleet costumes appeared to be a blend of World War II uniforms, disco fashions, and retro-futuristic attire. The original Colonial Warrior (Viper pilot) emblem on the uniforms was the branch insignia used by U.S. Army military intelligence officers with the interior of the rose petals colored in blue. The current costuming strongly resembles contemporary fashions, as does some of the technology.
* The new series has a deliberate "retro-tech" look, and there are no sophisticated computer systems or energy weapons — soldiers carry rifles, the fighters of both sides fire projectiles, and communications often take place on personal wired telephones.
* Most of the strange dialect of the original series, including the decimal time-measurement system of "centons" and "yahrens", has been removed and replaced by conventional present-day language. One instance of the word "yahren" does escape this revision and appears on the Cylon Centurion Model 0005 specification sheet seen at the beginning of the miniseries — either a homage to the original series or an indication that the Colonials' language had changed since the first Cylon War.
* There are no "daggits." The new series does not use a robotic daggitt like the original's Muffit — considering the origin of the Cylons in this series, the Colonial peoples are perhaps less than receptive to the idea of such advanced robotics.
* Adama is now only a military commander, rather than being "dual-hatted" as a member of the Council of Twelve. Since the colonial rank system is very different from that of the UK & U.S., and since he is the commander of a large warship (equivalent to an aircraft carrier) and a fleet, his commensurate responsibilities in the UK & U.S. systems would be like that of a Commodore.
* There is no mention in the miniseries of the council; however, it is shown in the series' first season as the "Quorum of Twelve." Instead, President Adar and most other government officials are killed in the initial Cylon bombardments; the highest ranking survivor of the Cabinet is the Secretary of Education, Laura Roslin, who is sworn in as new President, a scene highly reminiscent of the 1963 swearing-in of Lyndon B. Johnson after the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy. Civilian and military duties are divided between Roslin and Adama, respectively. In this version, the "Quorum of Twelve" is more akin to the UN Security Council than a unifying government.
* The Colonials themselves are clearly far more culturally and politically diverse, having previously experienced both political and even military conflicts between the different Colonies, and there are clear suggestions during the series that the Colonial society is riven by deep class divisions.
* The personal details of various characters have been changed; for example, Starbuck and Boomer are now women. Instead of being blacks, Boomer is now Asian, while Colonel Tigh is Caucasian. On the other hand, the character of Athena, originally a Caucasian woman and Adama's daughter, has been replaced by Petty Officer Dualla, a black woman of no relation to Adama. (Instead, Adama seems to treat Starbuck — who would have been his daughter-in-law — as a daughter.)
* The unusual names of some of the original series characters — e.g. "Starbuck", "Apollo", "Boomer" — have become pilot call signs, although characters more often talk to each other using their call signs rather than their given names. Characters are instead given names that, in many cases, are very similar to Earth names, such as William Adama, Laura Roslin, Shelley Godfrey, and so on.
* The "rag-tag, fugitive fleet" is now made up only of ships with faster than light (FTL) capabilities. This helped to resolve a problem with the original show – the fleet could only move at the speed of the slowest ship in the convoy.
* The humans are polytheistic and follow a religion similar to Greek mythology, worshipping such gods as "Athena" and "Apollo." The Cylons are monotheistic and believe in one God.
* In the Original series, the Cylon sneak attack on the colonies marked the end of the war with the Cylons, which had lasted 1000 yahren (approx. 1000 years). In the new series, an armistice between the Colonials and the Cylons, had been in effect for approx. 40 years, prior to the attack.
* The Colonial military pilots and other troops, are no longer refered to as Warriors.
* The military sidearms of choice have been changed to conventional pistols and rifles, rather than lasers or blasters as in the Original series. Many of the pistols have a pod mounted below the main barrel, used to muzzle load and fire explosive rounds, one at a time. The sidearms are modified FN Five-seveNs. The rifles are Beretta Cx4 Storm carbines.
* In the original series, Zak is killed when his Viper is destroyed in the initial Cylon attack. In the new series, Apollo's brother Zak was killed in a Viper accident two years prior to the first episode, which becomes a major plot point in later episodes.
* In the original series, Adama and Apollo had a strong father/son relationship — Apollo saw his father as a hero. At the beginning of the current series, the relationship was clearly strained. While there is clearly strong affection between them, political ideas and circumstances sometimes place them at odds. In the beginning of the series Apollo blamed Adama for pushing Zak (his brother) into flight school, even though he wasn't cut out to be a pilot. Zak's subsequent death led to a rift between father and son. It is later revealed that Starbuck may have indirectly caused her fiancee's accidental death. The father/son relationship again saw strain when Apollo agreed to be President Roslin's military advisor, a move that disturbed Adama. At one point, Apollo also sided with the President when Adama terminated her Presidency and had her arrested.
* Colonel Tigh is an alcoholic. In addition, he is married to a woman who often brings out the worst in him. In the old series, Tigh was not an alcoholic, was a different race, and was also a bachelor.
* In the old series, some humans had very limited psionic powers. In one episode, Adama demonstrated limited telekinetic abilities. In the new series, no human to date has been shown to have psionic powers.
* Commander Cain was a patronizing, belligerent old warhorse in the original series, with a daughter, Sheba, who became a regular cast member; now Admiral Helena Cain is an attractive woman in the prime of life, albeit an authoritarian bloodthirsty sociopath, and apparently has no children.
* Both Adama and Cain held the rank of Commander in the old series. However, Adama had senority over Cain, and at one point relieved him from duty for insubordination. In the new series, Cain is now an Admiral and is Adama's superior officer. When Tyrol and Helo are tried, convicted and summarily condemned to death by Cain for murder and treason Adama defies her and incites mutiny by sending a Marine detachment and the alert fighters to the Battlestar Pegasus to retrieve Tyrol and Helo.
* The character of Jolly, a regular in the original series, has all but disappeared. His name is mentioned once only, in the mini-series. He is a member of the group of modern Vipers that is destroyed when the Cylons knock out their power. Jolly is presumably killed along with the rest of this group.
* There are fewer ships in this series than the original, only 70 ships are in the fleet (while the original series had 220), but more human survivors -- fifty thousand people are alive as opposed to the original series figure of only 6,000 (episode Greetings from Earth).

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Similarities and homages to the 1978 series

* The "museum" section of the Galactica features both a suit of "classic" Cylon armor as well as the original model for the Cylon Base Ship. It would also seem that all original series designs are acknowledged as having existed, but in the new series, they are relics of the previous war with the Cylons.
* The original Battlestar Galactica theme, by Glen A. Larson and Stu Phillips, is heard in at least two points in the new show. It is played briefly during the Galactica's decommissioning ceremony in the opening episode of the mini-series. It is also the music played over a reporter's documentary about Galactica in the season 2 episode, Final Cut. In-story, it appears to be a sort of 'Colonial National Anthem.'
* The "cubit" is still the unit of currency in the Colonies, even though it appears now as paper money rather than the gold ducats seen in 1978.
* Despite the removal of most of the original Colonial dialect, the word "frak"—often described as a way to get "fuck" past network censors—has been retained as the all-purpose expletive of choice for most humans. As opposed to the original series, where it was used exclusively as an interjection, the new series uses it in almost any context, employing variations such as "frak!" "frak you," "frak off," "what the frak?" "we're frakked," and even "motherfrakker," as well as referring literally to sexual intercourse. A "Frack" shaving mirror from IKEA appears in Adama's cabin as a bit of an in-joke. "Felgercarb," the original series' substitution for "bullshit," has yet to make an appearance.
* The original series' Colonial Viper design—referred to as the "Mark II"—is retained with a few tweaks as the mainstay fighter of the Galactica, while a newer design introduced in the miniseries—the "Mark VII"—occasionally makes an appearance. One of design changes are the use of Reaction Control Systems similar to those found on the Space Shuttle which can enable moves such as a 180 degree pivot to attack a pursuing enemy while the ship continues to move in its original direction, much like a Babylon 5 Starfury. The Galactica is similarly equipped with RCS units forward and aft on both port and starboard.
* Richard Hatch, who played Captain Apollo in the original series, returned to play Sagittaron terrorist-turned-politician Tom Zarek. The character is very loosely based on Nelson Mandela.
* After President Roslin continues to call Lee Adama "Captain Apollo," he tells her that his real name is Adama. Roslin tells him: "I know who you are, but Captain Apollo has a nice ring to it." She repeatedly calls him "Captain Apollo" afterwards.
* The last line in the miniseries, spoken by a "Number Six"-model Cylon, is "By your command," a phrase often used by the Cylons of the original series.
* A basketball-like game, called "Triad" in the original series, appeared in the new series -- however, it was called "Pyramid," which was the name of a different, poker-like card game in the original series. The producers have admitted they made a mistake, but noted that by the time they noticed it, it was too late to fix the dialogue.
* Pyramid playing cards remain hexagonal.
* Starbuck still smokes cigars, and in early episodes of the series, Katee Sackhoff often incorporated mannerisms and facial expressions reminiscent of Dirk Benedict's portrayal; this decreased as the first season progressed.
* Upon being introduced to Admiral Cain, Baltar calls her "Commander," and she sternly corrects him. This may be an in-joke to fans familiar with the original Cain.
* In his speech at the end of the mini-series, Adama says that the ancient scrolls of the Colonial religion begin with the words 'Life here began out there'. These are the beginning words of the voiceover introduction of the original series.

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season 3 is confirmed...I hope they find Earth before the series concludes and in a twist on the original series it's actually super advanced and kick ass like the Trek Federation meets the Blake's 7 Federation meets Starship Troopers