G80-04: The Night The Cylons Landed

[Flamingo Girl]

Series stars: Lorne Greene, Kent McCord, Bary Van Dyke, Robyn Douglass, Richard Lynch, Robbie Rist, Richard Eastman, Vernan Weddle, Herbert Jefferson Jr., Patrick Stuart, Allan Miller

Guest stars: William Daniels, Lara Parker, Peter Mark Richman, Roger Davis, Marj Dusay, Val Bisoglio, Bernie Hamilton, Heather Young, Wolfman Jack

A patrol viper runs across new Cylon fighter, and damage it, causing it to fall to Earth. Troy and Dillon set off to recover it, assuming it is a Galactian patrol. Due to heightened Air Force security, they are forced to take Earth transportation to New York, and in-flight, thwart a hijacking. Meanwhile, Adama learns that the ship Troy and Dillon will be intercepting is a Cylon one, and have no way to warn them, or tell them that the Cylon they will be meeting up with is a humanoid. They are delayed by the press surrounding the hijacking, but escape from the airport using their invisibility. They are further hampered in their search by the Halloween festivities, which also serve to aid the Cylon by allowing the Centurion to blend into the costumed crowds. They arrive at the crash site moments before it self-destructs, and steal a police car, but the Cylons are ahead of them, and are offered a ride to a party in with a group of broadcasting employees. In an effort to find a change of clothing to keep from being spotted by the police, Troy and Dillon grab costumes from a stage show and thwart muggers as they continue their hunt for the Cylons, who have kidnaped Wolfman Jack and taken him to the radio station. Troy finds the party, after the apartment has been set on fire by the Cylon, and rescues a boy and his dog from the flames. The Cylons are tracked to the station, and Troy and Dillon have to use their “super powers” to leap up and elevator shaft to prevent the Cylons from broadcasting Earth’s position to the Cylon fleet. Their chase leads them to a rooftop batttle, that ends with the Centurian carrying the wounded humanoid off the edge of the roof.




(I just wanted to say that the line “I wonder what someone would do with an aircraft once they seized it?” spoken by Dillon in the airport after they were introduced to the idea of hyjacking, gives me a chill when I hear it now.).

[shiningstar]

This was one of the FEW eps in G80 that I thought had
any potential.

ShiningStar, I am with you. It is one of the three BG80 episodes I can say I actually liked. I think it is a good episode that ALL fans should see because it is here where the idea of human-cylons was introduced to the Galactica universe.

I hadn't seen this episode in years and forgot it was a Halloween Party. I thought it was a New Year's Party. I forgot all about the hijacking part. That is chilling to think of that in today's world.

[launchcruiser7]

better then at least five battlestar shows no fights i have my list love the parts with wolfman jack the new ab craft two seater viper <any tell witch other times they used the spare seat>?? second best of the so called second season might have been 6 cylons in craft ghosts and goblins and part time frankensteins one of the female viper pilots is the stewadtess on the plane dillon and troy fly on only one other female was on galactica1980 can any one tell me who one hint best sugglebunny in battlestar if only they left the kids on the fleet and had more shows like this happy brithday to general mayhem comander of the heavy launchcruiser hawkeye with the devil dog{JARHEAD} warstar cerbesus god bless you all happy st pats day ywha bless america long live battlestar

[launchcruiser7]

scooby doo and hong cong phooy in space were was miss piggy and link hearttrob and wolfmanjack and clowns and cyclons and vampires oh my

Originally Posted by antelope526

ShiningStar, I am with you. It is one of the three BG80 episodes I can say I actually liked. I think it is a good episode that ALL fans should see because it is here where the idea of human-cylons was introduced to the Galactica universe.

Even Galactica 80 could have been saved if it had had good writing rather than fast and cheap writing. But even with poor writing, it had its moments.

[Senmut]

Wolfman Jack was a nice tough.

[luicfer7thfleet]

adromanis we have done what no cylon before us as been able to do we have found the lost thirteenth tribe of humans we have found the planet earth only time the AB CRAFT WAS SHOWN

[n-121973]

Antelope, If you think hijacking a plane was chilling, remember from where the Cylons were going to transmit their message to their mothership. Not mention what happened to them. And on a lighter note, there's Bernie Hamilton playing the same role as on Starsky and Hutch albeit with the NYPD. Can anyone remember is character's name/rank?

[Dayton3]

Ironically, the concept of humanoid Cylons was later taken to the extreme in the new series.

[captmiloman]

Originally Posted by n-121973

Antelope, If you think hijacking a plane was chilling, remember from where the Cylons were going to transmit their message to their mothership. Not mention what happened to them. And on a lighter note, there's Bernie Hamilton playing the same role as on Starsky and Hutch albeit with the NYPD. Can anyone remember is character's name/rank?

On "Starsky & Hutch", Bernie Hamilton portrayed Capt. Harold Dobey.

[Starkiller]

1980 was rushed, it could've been a hit. but it was total crap

[Lara]

Originally Posted by Starkiller

1980 was rushed, it could've been a hit. but it was total crap

I'd go so far to say brutalised, not just rushed

Which is how my hope felt when I got to see it.. I remember having an attack of righteous indignation about it, of an intensity only a teenager can feel. Everyone was in numb shock after that, not believing what we were served up. At least the Return of Starbuck was watchable!

Even so, I don't 'hate' it, just 'regret' it...

Cheers,
Lara

[Senmut]

Same here. Even so, it was a notch above just about everything on TV at the time.

[Benedict]

Probably the only episode outside of Starbuck's that had something better than the rest of the series but not by much. One perk is the sight of Bernie Hamilton more or less in Captain Dobie mode, the advanced Cylon raider, even the slightly chilling moment of when the centurion steps off the roof with his master...

Still, the cons outweigh what positives there are. 1980 just makes me shake my head.

[Jubal]

I loved the part where Dylan and Troy fly on the air plane. They go in all excited and leave just disgusted with a "It really took 5 hours to fly that short a distance"

I did a lot of flying in my time going to and from Kuwait when I was stationed over there, and I used to look back on this episode and laugh.

[Eric Paddon]

I never realized this until now but in Pt. 2, Ken Lynch (who was in "Experiment In Terra") plays a New York cop named "Grover" and that's the same name as his New York cop character he played 16 times on "McCloud" (where Terry Carter was Sgt. Joe Broadhurst). That means "McCloud" and G80 occupy the same universe!

[Senmut]

Inside joke.

[Eric Paddon]

To be sure, but under the "St. Elsewhere" formula it still puts them in the same universe! (That's a reference to how "St. Elsewhere" would load itself up with references/character cameos that linked the show to other TV series).

[Eric Paddon]

As a little follow-up on my earlier point about the Grover character. I came across a copy of Larson's earlier draft for this episode, and it turns out he was intending a blatant call-back to "McCloud" by having the Chief Clifford character played by J.D. Cannon return and for Grover to be explicitly the same character from "McCloud". Chief Clifford makes two explicit references to the McCloud character when he at one point tells Colonel Briggs that "We once had a Marshal on loan from New Mexico" who caused all kinds of headaches for the department and then at the end of the scene when they get the report about the Cylon spewing fire from his fingertips and they have go investigate, Clifford says, "This is even worse than McCloud!"

In the end these blatant callbacks were removed from the final script because apparently, J.D. Cannon was unavailable to return as Clifford. So they instead cast Bernie Hamilton (the captain from "Starsky And Hutch") as an unnamed Chief, while Ken Lynch as "Grover" is now a uniformed cop instead of the plainclothes detective he was on "McCloud" which suggests he isn't the same character. Or it could be that Larson couldn't do these callbacks because while he was the Executive Producer of "McCloud" he wasn't the credited creator of the show, and thus using explicit characters from that show might have actually required permission or payment to "McCloud's" credited creator Herman Miller (who wrote the short story that led to the movie "Coogan's Bluff" which in turn inspired the creation of "McCloud")

It's too bad they couldn't have left those callbacks in, because it would have made the episode, which is bad to begin with, a little more interesting from a TV crossover standpoint!