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Greetings From Earth and Baltar's Escape Comments

posted 10 years ago by Slideman67
5 replies | jump to latest

Just watched these episodes and I have some comments:

What is the point to Greetings From Earth? It seems like a long pointless episode to me.

When did Athena become a teacher? She was a bridge officer. This seemed a little out of nowhere.

Even if they couldn't be flown, I find it hard to believe that in the situation the fleet is in, with limited resources, that they wouldn't at least try to recover the Vipers so they could be repaired. And for that matter, why the hell would you leave the cockpit open on the planet?

The whole romantic thing with Sarah was forced.

And don't get me started with Hector and Vector.

How come between these episodes, the Council of 12 had a complete turnover in membership? And is it just me or is the writing designed to make the Council look like a group of naive fools?

Is it just me or do the Eastern Alliance guys in their helmets look like Spaceballs? Both my wife and I pointed that out.

Did the Nomen end up on the Eastern Alliance ship? I couldn't tell.

Does the Galactica only have 1 shuttle? Another reused shot as it always shows number 356 on the side.

Finally, I am not a fan of how they dumbed down Baltar. He went from evil and cunning to a bumbling fool. Why, I don't know.

Thoughts?

[–] crockett_john 10 years ago

For the shuttle, in the episode with the Pegasus, the Pegasus has a shuttle with the same markings, even the "GAL."

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I'm just expressing my opinion.

You may all go to hell, and I will go to Texas.

[–] Samclyde2 10 years ago

Greetings From Earth was meant to be a pilot for a spin-off series that never happened. This is a much-maligned episode, but I've always enjoyed it despite its imperfections.

It was just to give Athena something to do, but you can tell she was really becoming a fifth wheel by that point. Sheba and Cassie really threw Athena to the curb, but it also had to do with the producers not thinking Maren Jensen was a good enough actress.

Unless they took the vipers in tow, we don't know.

It wasn't much of a romance though.

Hector and Vector -- yeah, definately the worst-looking robots in sci-fi history.

Yes, the Council was meant to look like a bunch of Neville Chamberlain's -- this series always seemed to have a pro-conservative stance.

I thought the Eastern Alliance made for pretty interesting new adversary, even though they were just Nazi caricatures.

Special FX cost-cutting. There was more than one shuttle.

Yes, the Nomen ran aboard the Alliance destroyer.

Baltar seemed to be a bit of a fool for most of the series.

[–] Darth_Ferior 9 years ago

1) Greetings From Earth was to set the stage for the next two episodes, introducing the Eastern Alliance and Terra.
2) It's a survival series, with fewer people around, individuals have to take on more than one role in the fleet.
3) It was a seventies thing - all science fiction series appeared to have an unlimited amount of spaceships, no one ever started asking questions like that until the eighties.
4) This idea has been used again and again in TV series
5) All down to low budgets.
6) It was stated in the novel that Sire Uri stepped down after they left Carillon. According to Galactica 1980, the destruction of the colonies took place in 1950, and as they saw the transmission of he moon landing in 1969, several years passed during the series, so there would have been lots of elections in that time.
7) Yes they did.
8) It was mentioned in the following episode by Commander Adama that the Nomen escaped with the Eastern Alliance.
9) Once again, 1970s unlimited ships, and low budgets meant only one model available.
10) Yes he was evil, however he feared what the Imperious Leader would do to him if he did something wrong.

[–] johnnybear (146) 3 years ago

I always assumed that the Galactica and the fleet may have either passed through a time warp or used their faster than light speeds to get to earth or away from another impending Cylon attack after the final Galactica 80 flashbacks because the images of the Lunar module on the screen date the episode as being sometime after 1969 or many years after but everyone is so much older in the new series when they reach earth!
Shut the door Mary
JB

[–] mikethemartian (6990) 2 months ago

I don’t think I’ve seen “Greetings from Earth” since it first aired about 45 years ago but the one thing I remember is Randolph Mantooth’s character asking the single most important question on the show “what the hell is a centon?”.