BG-13: Greetings From Earth

[BRG]

This was poor. 1 out of 5.

For me, this episode started pretty well, but completely fell apart in the second half. I enjoyed the stuff on the Galactica. The finding of the 'Earthship', the problem with trying to safely remove them from the life tubes(I can't recall the correct term!), and the way opinion was split between those who thought they should be imidiatly removed from the tubes- led by Dr Welker, the ships scientest. And those who felt they should be freed to retuned to there original corse- led by Dr Salik, the ships CMO. This part of the episode was good, and George Murdoch was excellent as Dr Salik, probably his best episode.

But it was just awfull once they went planetside. Hector & Vector, WTF! Those two are the worst characters I have ever seen. I would honestly rather watch a 3 hour movie starin Jar Jar Binks & Wesley Crusher than sit through another 5 minutes with those two! I understand that the actors who played them were huge stars from Song & Dance- one othe them played the Scarecrow in 'The Wizard of Oz', but they just never worked. And I found it unbelievable that Sarah would wreck both Vipers just to keep Apollo on the planet.
The dead city was pretty cool, had a very spooky feel to it, but apart from that it was a disaster.

But I also loved the look on Leiter's face as they approched the Galactica. One great line popped into my head-" Thats no moon, thats a space station......"
Very cool!
BRG

[Eric Paddon]

For those who've wondered about the Terran city location, here's a link to some pictures of Expo 67 in its prime (when Hector said the city was very beautiful!) The actual building they walked through was the US Pavilion.


https://naid.sppsr.ucla.edu/expo67/ma...itedstates.htm

[larocque6689]

This episode was - bar none - the worst episode of the entire series. Galactica tried and failed to come up with a new menace to replace the Cylons, the tin cans that Standards and Practices wouldn't let the writers shoot straight. It failed. The sorry Nazi/Soviet cliches of the Eastern Alliance don't date really well either, although they did resurrect "peace through strength" lines almost vertabim from an early draft of the Battlestar Galactica pilot into "Experiment in Terra".

Little kids are always a bad idea, even with Larson as their surname.

The "Young Lords" was silly but much more bearable than this. "Greetings from Earth" was probably the strongest indication yet that Galactica was devolving into something aimed just for the kids. I see ABC's hand all over this ("Hey, let's find Earth..."), as well as Larson, who was often all too willing to accede to the network's will.

It's been years since I've seen this episode, but I rate it lower than the entire Galactica 1980 series.

[Senmut]

Originally Posted by larocque6689

This episode was - bar none - the worst episode of the entire series. Galactica tried and failed to come up with a new menace to replace the Cylons, the tin cans that Standards and Practices wouldn't let the writers shoot straight. It failed. The sorry Nazi/Soviet cliches of the Eastern Alliance don't date really well either, although they did resurrect "peace through strength" lines almost vertabim from an early draft of the Battlestar Galactica pilot into "Experiment in Terra".

Little kids are always a bad idea, even with Larson as their surname.

The "Young Lords" was silly but much more bearable than this. "Greetings from Earth" was probably the strongest indication yet that Galactica was devolving into something aimed just for the kids. I see ABC's hand all over this ("Hey, let's find Earth..."), as well as Larson, who was often all too willing to accede to the network's will.

It's been years since I've seen this episode, but I rate it lower than the entire Galactica 1980 series.

TMW was worse. Absolutely.

[skippercollecto]

I think I've finally identified the voice of Paradeen's computerized ground control--the man who says "Lunar Par Avian." I knew it was a Lost in Space voice, but I also knew that it wasn't Jonathan Harris. I believe it's the voice of Dick Tufeld, who was the voice of the Robot and was also the series narrator.
I've always wondered why he was hired to say just that one line! Perhaps Jonathan Harris suggested him?

Mary

[Senmut]

Don't have that ep. Can you do an audio capture, or give a link?

[bsg1fan1975]

this episode was cheesy but not as cheesy as Magnificent Warriors was.

[Eric Paddon]

TMW is more tolerable from my standpoint because at least there isn't this pretension of being something bigger which GFE and the whole Terra trilogy suffers from.

[Senmut]

Compared to Siress Beloby, the Terran refugee kids were Shakespearean masters. She really was just an awful idea. Especially the flowers bit. With apologies to the actress.

[Eric Paddon]

Just the sight of Brett Somers in her full-blown Match Game persona is what makes her presence so jarring in that episode. I've seen her in plenty of other shows where she's just fine, but in Galactica I half-expected to see Charles Nelson Reilly as her attendant.

[Senmut]

Lords of Kobol save us!!!!

[Lyra]

Indeed this two part episode did possess that Cheesy quality, but the one part I loved about it was at the end, when Apollo and Starbuck ,capture the Eastern Alliance guys, and fly their Terra ship back to the Galactica, (Since their vipers were unflyable).

The colonial warriors do a kind of "Crocodile Dundee" line, reminescent with Paul Hogan's,"THAT'S NOT A KNIFE....THIS IS A KNIFE"!, when the Alliance Commadant boasts that only the Eastern Alliance is the most powerful in all the Universe, and then that beautiful moment arrives, when they approach the Galactica, and Apollo and Starbuck say their lines with such delightful innuendo that the Commandant's ship was a measly piece of felgercarb running around space, compared to the magnificent Battlestar........NOW THAT'S A SHIP! AND FAR MORE POWERFUL!!!! Kudos!

[skippercollecto]

Do you think that Ray Bolger found it ironic that he went from playing a scarecrow to Hector, who is essentially a tin man?!

[Athene]

Originally Posted by skippercollecto

Do you think that Ray Bolger found it ironic that he went from playing a scarecrow to Hector, who is essentially a tin man?!

I think he did. As I recall he was given the role of the tin man originally and wanted to play the scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz.

I also really like this episode.

[cyfilon]

Originally Posted by kingfish

This one is perhaps the worst one ever made. The Eastern Alliance couldn't fight their way out of a paper bag. The ship the Earthlings/Terrans were on was from Buck Rogers In The 25TH Century. This episode was the beginning of the end of a great concept. Hector and Vector at least knew the difference between the genders however. I also noticed that this 2 hour episode had the opening narration by Patrick Macnee included in it. Larson was hoping for a spin-off series.

this was were starbuck was first shown as a girl maybe this was where they got the idea. ps they should have backtracked and gotten those raider's left out of fuel at living legand, and used hector/vector as the basis for suicide fighter's the cylon scanner's would pick them up as robot's not human just a thought.

[Senmut]

I confess, I liked it. Although I would have toned down the bit with the robots, it was good.
I would have explored the particulars of why Terran society was seemingly more advanced in robotics than the Colonials. Perhaps prejudices stoked by the War? Would a Cylon have recognized H&V as "fellow machines"?

[skippercollecto]

Was Greetings the only episode filmed on location? In all these yahrens of following Galactica, I don't ever remember any of the cast or crew mentioning it at a convention or reading an article in a magazine or on line about filming there. Are the structures still there? Have any of you visited the location? For that matter, did any of you go, or know someone who went, to Expo 67?

[jewels]

The frame for the Buckminster Fuller dome still exists:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_Biosph%C3%A8re

The exteriors in SOASW of Caprica were shot in Long Beach, IIRC, night scenes at Gamoray were at a college in SoCal, I think someone said near Northridge.

[Senmut]

Originally Posted by Eric Paddon

Just the sight of Brett Somers in her full-blown Match Game persona is what makes her presence so jarring in that episode. I've seen her in plenty of other shows where she's just fine, but in Galactica I half-expected to see Charles Nelson Reilly as her attendant.

Shakin' my head. Can't see why you liked her Belloby so much, yet can't stand a good ep like GFE.

[Apolloisall]

GFE was guilty of poor pacing more than anything else. It would have made a tolerable, maybe even good ep at 1hr, but I'll tell ya, I really can't sit through the whole thing. It's the ONLY Galactice ep I don't watch enthusiastically. Even EIT is cool as far as I'm concerned (Amnesia line & all).

Now actually, I never watch the broadcast GFE episode at all- I watch the Kerin version instead!

[skippercollecto]

Adama says that "Terra" is Gemonese for "Earth." Here on Earth, "Terra" is Latin for "Earth." So is Gemonese the same as Latin?!

[Senmut]

Sic.


Given the obvious similarities in Colonial and Earth cultures, it would appear that the root language at least evolved in the same basic direction.

[Croft2018]

Starbuck and Apollo find a starship with a family in cryogenic freeze on board and bring it aboard the Galactica. It would seem they're humans from a unknown, nearby human civilisation on a plant called Lunar 7. They are refugees from the Eastern Alliance; the planet is held sway to two opposing power blocs who're at war.

It's found that the humans can't survive in the heavier atmosphere on the Galactica so Apollo, Starbuck and Cassiopeia flee the Galactica with them to escape Quorum of Twelve interference. They take them to their destination, the plant Paradeen which is a long uninhabited colony of Lunar 7 in the hope of finding the location of Earth. Meanwhile, an Eastern Alliance destroyer is on the way.

This is the only other feature length episode and was broadcast as a special; a big deal to us kiddies back in '79. However, it's all a bit half-arsed with too many subplots that take up time away from the main story to little impact. The politicking of the Quorum members led by Geller (Murray Matheson) is crass and simplistic, the subplot with Sarah (Kelly Harmon) fancying Apollo, the two robot caretakers Hector (Bobby Van) and Vector (Ray Bolger) and their comedy relief ... all annoy and distract.

It's all very watchable but lumpy and uneven.

[Charybdis]

I remember about this episode that the first part is some of the best stuff Galactica had done. Moving, gripping, with real questions about humanity, etc.

The second half? oh boy...

[Eric Paddon]

Part 1 could have used a little bit of dialogue polishing (and Hatch could have toned it down a bit) but it was holding together. The second half though is a jumble of stuff that just goes nowhere. Even in the context of a subsequent "arc" there is no dramatic payoff of any kind that justifies the episode being the only one in the series after Saga that was originally aired as a two hour movie and not two parts originally.

Combine it also with the fact that Hatch's performance gets worse, the fact that Mantooth and Harmon give not very good performances and it's even more lethal.

[Senmut]

Personally, I thought Harmon was fine. Mantooth as well. I have never seen the problem with it.

[Eric Paddon]

The script is still poorly written. The entire scene with Starbuck and Hector, shot on location in Montreal at the ruins of Expo 67 comes off more as something that ultimately doesn't do much to advance the plotline. The real big problem of the script is that there's far too much tease and not enough proper revelation of the whole Terra backstory so that consequently, the Eastern Alliance isn't revealed to us as a big threatening menace. They're talked about in sinister terms but then show up for a too quick scene where they get very easily disposed of. Granted, this was to lead into a larger arc in the next two stories but even there the connecting points weren't done well. Doing this episode as a fanfic adaptation was something that ultimately required a massive overhaul I felt to put some semblance of coherence that's just lacking.

[Croft2018]

I think it might be interesting to have a series of graphic novel adaptations of the TV episodes incorporating deleted scenes, early concepts and flesh them all out with a new guiding hand towards world building and making it all hang together better.

[Senmut]

Bravo! That would be great!