This is a box set containing the original Battlestar Galactica series that aired 24 episodes during the 1978/1979 TV season and the 10-episode spinoff series, Galactica 1980, which aired in the winter and spring of 1980. The original series starred Richard Hatch, Dirk Benedict, Lorne Greene, Maren Jensen, Laurette Spang, John Colicos, Herbert Jefferson, Tony Swartz, Noah Hathaway, and Terry Carter. Jane Seymour had a guest starring role in the first handful of episodes but left the series early in the season, and Ed Begley Jr. had a supporting role in the three-part pilot episode. If you watch the bonus features, you will find out all the male cast members were bumed when Seymour left because they all had the hots for her. Galactica 1980 had an almost entirely new cast, with only Greene and Jefferson reprising their characters from the original series (although Benedict did appear in what would be the series finale). The main cast members in the spinoff series were Kent McCord, Barry Van Dyke, Robyn Douglass, and Robbie Rist.
The plot of both series involves a war between humans from a different galaxy and a race of androids called Cylons. In the pilot episode, the Cylons lure the leaders of the 12 human colonies (planets) to a peace conference, under the guise of negotiating a truce. The Cylons attack the conference and the 12 colonies, virtually wiping out the humans except for the crew of the Galactica, a battleship (called a Battlestar), and several colonial ships with refugees from the various colonies. The remaining ships start on a quest to find a lost 13th colony, Earth (which is in a different galaxy), while trying to avoid Cylon attacks. The original series was canceled after the first season without the Galatica reaching Earth. In the spinoff series, set 30 years after the events of the original series, Galactica arrives at Earth, only to discover humans on Earth are not technologically advanced enough to fight the Cylons. The Galactica drops off two crew members, (McCord and Van Dyke's characters) to integrate with the humans of Earth and help them advance their technology and then leaves the solar system to lead the Cylons away from Earth.
The Blu-Ray set is an eight-disc set. The original series has six discs and Galactica 1980 has two. Only the original series has bonus features. Those include a commentary track on the three-part pilot episode, including Richard Hatch and Dirk Benedict. There are deleted scenes and outtakes for most episodes spread across the six discs, and then, on the final disc, a series retrospective that includes interviews with some of the surviving cast members and the series creator, and featurettes on restoring the series in HD. Galactica 1980 does not have any bonus features. The episodes can be played in a "play all" mode and you can pick up where you leave off if you stop in the middle of an episode. The A/V quality is good to excellent, but because computer-generated effects did not exist when the original series aired, you can definitely tell how fake the effects were when watching the series in HD, probably moreso than if you watched the episodes in standard-definition.
The original series is okay, but very dated and cheesy. Galactica 1980 is dated, cheesy, and mostly bad (although it has some okay moments). Neither series is as good as the 2004 reboot, not only because the special effects were not as advanced, but because Sci-Fi series at the time were not taken all that seriously, so the writing was not all that good and the look and feel of both series was very dated. Ultimately, while neither series is great, the original series is a Sci-Fi classic. If you are a fan of the 2004 reboot series, it is interesting to watch these series to see how the 2004 series changed and adapted the storylines and the various characters.
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