History Series / BattlestarGalactica1978

* DemotedToExtra: Athena ends up getting this treatment. She starts out as a BridgeBunny, but is only sometimes shown on the bridge after the pilot. Then she's used as part of a triangle with Starbuck and Cassiopeia, but that plot is dropped fast. The only time after this she's given any significant screen time is when she's one of the characters trapped in the fire during "Fire In Space." Late season, she spends her time, apparently, as a school teacher. This was reportedly due to the producers' lack of interest in coaching Maren Jensen, who was at that time an inexperienced actress. Cassiopeia was developed to take Athena's place as a frontline female character.

* SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale: The writers simply didn't understand the difference between a solar system and a galaxy, and frequently used the terms interchangably. Made worse by the fact that only the ''Galactica'' is even capable of "lightspeed" (with no mention of an FTL drive), so the entire refugee fleet is moving at sub-light speeds.

%%* SpaceBasedWeaponHasCutoffRange

* SpaceOpera: This show was one of many such productions (movie or TV) to made following the success of the previous year's [[Film/ANewHope Star Wars]], which some consider this show to be a clone of.

* WagonTrainToTheStars: Or, from the stars.

* WhatTheHellHero: Sure Siress Belloby, use the one item in your possession that could help a lot of starving children (not to mention the last surviving remnants of your own race) as a bargaining chip in your bid to...get into Adama's pants... ''Really?''

* WritersCannotDoMath: The Fleet has 220 ships, and about 6,000 surviving Colonists. That's about 27 people per ship. Not crowded, but also no population base.gods No wonder the Fleet seems like it suffered a DepopulationBomb. The revival does better, with about 200 per ship.

* SpaceColdWar: This is the situation on Terra and its colonies. In "Experiment in Terra" the Eastern Empire attempts to go hot, but all their ICBMs are shot down by the Galactica.

Although its first few episodes showed a certain amount of promise, the series quickly descended into a series of one PlanetOfHats after another, many of them merely [[RecycledINSPACE recycled plots from popular westerns]]. Its viewership ratings were high, but the TV network executives of the time had not yet embraced the notion of a million-dollar-an-episode series, so it was cancelled after one season. The fanbase was not amused.

->''"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, [[{{Mayincatec}} 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 somewhere beyond the heavens..."''

* FantasticMeasurementSystem: According to Wiki/TheOtherWiki's [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlestar_Galactica_(1978_TV_series)#Language article]], the only distance unit that wasn't an Earth name was "metron" (1 meter).

** Calvinball: the card game Pyramid and the sport Triad.

* TheStarscream: Lucifer is a more subtle variant. As for [[UpToEleven Baltar]], if Classic Galactica had lasted longer ''he'' could have been the TropeNamer.

* BigBad: The Cylons' Imperious Leader, both the first and second one.

* MissingMom: Ila, Adama's wife, is heavily implied to have been killed when the Cylons bombed out her home, and Adama is seen sifting through the bombed-out ruins of the building, picking up a family photo of her, and lamenting with tears that he has always been too late to be there for her. Although his children are hopeful she got away from the Cylons because they NeverFoundTheBody, Adama lived with her long enough to how she would act and presumes, "No. She was here." Her fate is left ambiguous. Of the following, A: she did get away and was never heard from again and has yet to reunite with her family, B: someone already found and buried/cremated her, C: she was buried too deeply under the rubble to be found, D: she got thrown from the house during the attacks, or E: she was outright vaporized. With four-to-one odds she bit the dust, chances are not in Ila's favor.

* CommonKnowledge: It's harder to people who've heard of the show who ''don't'' think that daggits are funny robotic creatures like Muffit. "Daggit" is just the Colonial word for "dog", and Muffit was created to be Boxey's substitute for a real one.

* DancesAndBalls: In one episode the colonists shake their disco funk with hand held cords, in another they have a slightly more formal hand meeting dance.

* SpaceColdWar: This is the situation on Terra and its colonies. In "Assignment in Terra" the Eastern Empire attempts to go hot, but all their ICBMs are shot down by the Galactica.

* RoleOfSymbolism: Glen Larson is a [[Literature/TheBookOfMormon Mormon]], and deliberately peppered the series with Mormon imagery. For example:

* ThereIsAnother: The Battlestar Pegasus, which appears in the two part episode "The Living Legend". It was thought to have been destroyed along with all the other Battstars. [[note]]As the closing narration indicates, the Galactica is supposed to have be "the last Battlestar".[[/note]]

* SingleBiomePlanet: In "The Gun on Ice Planet Zero", the the surface of the planet Arcta is entirely covered by ice and snow, with a constant blizzard blowing overhead.

* LoopholeAbuse: How Galactica is in a posituon to defend itself in the first battle.

* SpaceClothes: Mostly averted. They're wearing clothing, for the most part not in Earth fashions (except for some disco wear). The main exception to this are the Terran colonists, who do indeed wear shiney space clothes.

* SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale: The writers simply didn't understand the difference between a solar system and a galaxy. Made worse by the fact that only the ''Galactica'' has FTL, so the entire refugee fleet is moving at sub-light speeds.

* SleeperStarship: The fleet comes upon a ship carrying 2 families (a father and his kids, a mother her kids but the adults aren't a couple). The fleet nearly kills the father, by waking him up. The atmosphere on the Galactica is too heavy for him. They are escaping from a colony, where none of the people born can return to their home world which is divided into east (USSR) and west (US) because they can't survive in the atmosphere.

%%* RoadTripEpisode: Type 3 trips appeared in several episodes.

* MonochromeCasting: Averted with the principle cast including two Black characters, Lt. Boomer and Col. Tigh. Very slightly better than the typical TokenMinority situation of the day in retrospect, but an improvement over the original ''[[Film/ANewHope Star Wars]]'' movie which had no minorities at all.

* BeautyIsNeverTarnished: [[Serina]] gets shot and dies in the medical bay, but looks like a beauty queen throughout.