98 Fun Facts About Battlestar Galactica

Who created the original 1978 Battlestar Galactica?

Glen A. Larson, a Latter-day Saint, wove Mormon ideas into the show, from a ruling council of twelve to marriages 'sealed' for eternity.

Which Bonanza star played Commander Adama in the original 1978 Battlestar Galactica?

Lorne Greene, Bonanza's Ben Cartwright, had been nicknamed Canada's 'Voice of Doom' for reading grim war news on CBC radio during World War II.

In June 1978, which studio sued Universal claiming Battlestar Galactica had stolen 34 ideas from Star Wars?

20th Century Fox listed 34 alleged similarities; Universal countersued, claiming Star Wars had itself borrowed from its 1972 film Silent Running and the 1939 Buck Rogers serial.

Which made-up swear word do Battlestar Galactica's characters use in place of the F-word?

Frak began as 'frack' in the 1978 original; the 2004 revival dropped the c so it would literally be a four-letter word.

In the original 1978 Battlestar Galactica, who created the Cylons?

An extinct reptilian species built the original Cylons as robot servants before dying out; the 2004 reimagining flipped this, making the Cylons humanity's own creation.

Who developed the 2004 'reimagined' Battlestar Galactica?

Ronald D. Moore got his TV break when Star Trek: The Next Generation bought his first script, 'The Bonding', and hired him onto its writing staff.

Which illness does President Laura Roslin battle in Battlestar Galactica?

Breast cancer: Roslin learns it is terminal on the day of the Cylon attack, and while taking the drug chamalla she has visions that convince her she is fulfilling an ancient prophecy.

Roughly how many humans survive the Cylon attack on the Colonies?

About 50,000 survived, and that was after Roslin ordered the ships with FTL drives to jump away, abandoning thousands aboard slower ships to the Cylons.

Why did Galactica survive the Cylons' crippling attack?

It was an old ship about to become a museum, and its computers had never been networked, so the Cylon sabotage that disabled newer ships couldn't reach it.

Which actor plays Commander William Adama in the reimagined Battlestar Galactica?

Edward James Olmos wore blue contact lenses as Adama so he would look more like Jamie Bamber, who played his son Lee.

What was Adama's callsign as a young Viper pilot?

Husker was young Adama's callsign, given by his first co-pilot, and he earned a commendation for shooting down a Cylon on his very first combat mission.

Before the attack, President Laura Roslin held which cabinet post?

As Secretary of Education she was 43rd in the line of succession, yet she became president because every official above her had been killed.

Mary McDonnell, who plays Roslin, was Oscar-nominated for playing Stands With A Fist in which film?

Dances with Wolves: Stands With A Fist, a white woman taken in by the Sioux as a girl after her family was killed, still remembers enough English to interpret for Dunbar.

Which actress plays Kara 'Starbuck' Thrace?

Katee Sackhoff's casting as a female Starbuck led the actor who had played the original Starbuck to publish an essay attacking the change.

According to a prophecy, Starbuck is the 'Harbinger of Death' who will do what?

A Cylon Hybrid tells her she will lead humanity to its end, yet she guides the fleet to a new Earth and then vanishes, as if she were a ghost.

Which Colonial system did Six help Gaius Baltar design, planting backdoors the Cylons later exploited?

The navigation program ran on Colonial fighters and warships, so when the Cylons attacked they used its backdoors to disable those ships.

Which actress plays Six, the blonde humanoid Cylon who seduces Baltar?

Tricia Helfer was discovered by a modelling scout at 17 while waiting in a movie-ticket line, and she modelled for a decade before acting.

Grace Park plays the Eight model, whose copies include Boomer and which other Raptor pilot?

Athena marries Helo and is sworn in as a Galactica officer despite being a Cylon.

Which slur do some humans use for the Cylon Centurions?

'Toasters' mocks the chrome Centurions; 'skinjob', reserved for the humanoid models, is borrowed from Blade Runner's term for replicants.

Brother Cavil, the priest played by Dean Stockwell, is which numbered Cylon model?

Number One was built by the Final Five, and Cavil later boxes D'Anna to stop her revealing who they are.

Which four Final Five Cylons are revealed in Battlestar Galactica's 'Crossroads'?

Tigh, Tyrol, Tory Foster and Anders are drawn together by a song only they can hear; the fifth, Ellen Tigh, is revealed in season four and resurrected in 'No Exit'.

In the first regular episode, '33', how often must the fleet jump to stay ahead of the Cylons?

Every 33 minutes the Cylons reappear, so the crew goes five days without sleep and finally has to destroy one of its own ships; the episode won the 2005 Hugo Award.

Baltar wins the presidency from Roslin by promising to do what?

His promise to settle on a newly found planet proves a disaster when the Cylons arrive a year later and occupy it.

Which second surviving battlestar, commanded by Admiral Helena Cain, joins the fleet in season two?

Pegasus had escaped the attack under Admiral Cain, who had the families of civilians resisting conscription shot until the rest gave in.

Which Battlestar Galactica TV movie flashes back to Admiral Cain's first days after the Cylon attack?

Razor takes its title from Cain's lesson that to survive a war you have to become a razor.

Which composer scored the reimagined Battlestar Galactica from its first weekly episode onward?

Bear McCreary had assisted Richard Gibbs on the miniseries, then took over when Gibbs chose not to commit to the weekly show.

Which Bob Dylan song plays over the closing montage of Battlestar Galactica's finale, 'Daybreak'?

All Along the Watchtower's notes turn out to be the jump coordinates that Starbuck enters to take the fleet to Earth; the Hendrix arrangement closes the show.

In Battlestar Galactica's finale, what do the survivors do with their fleet?

Fly them into the Sun: the survivors chose to give up their advanced technology and start afresh among early humans.

The 'Daybreak' rescue mission is launched to retrieve which child from the Cylon colony?

Hera Agathon, the half-human, half-Cylon daughter of Helo and the Eight, is being studied for how Cylons might reproduce; the Colony sits beside a black hole.

Where are the angelic Baltar and Six walking in Battlestar Galactica's very last scene?

In modern-day New York City they debate whether this Earth will repeat past mistakes, as the show ends on footage of real robots.

Which prequel, set 58 years before Battlestar Galactica, shows how humanity first built the Cylons?

Caprica follows Daniel Graystone, obsessed with resurrecting his dead daughter, as his company builds the first Cylons.

Blood & Chrome, following the young Adama in the First Cylon War, was first released in 2012 as what?

A ten-part web series: Blood & Chrome was shot as a two-hour TV pilot, but when Syfy passed on a series it went online instead.

Which prestigious honour did the reimagined Battlestar Galactica win?

A Peabody: the judges said the show posed provocative questions about religion, politics, sex and what it means to be human.

Which international body hosted a Battlestar Galactica retrospective in March 2009?

The United Nations co-hosted the panel because the show's themes, from human rights to children in armed conflict, overlapped with its own work.

Where was the reimagined Battlestar Galactica filmed?

Vancouver, British Columbia: shooting there let Starbuck's actress also play a villain in NBC's Bionic Woman, made in the same city during the show's run.

Instead of lasers, what do the weapons in the reimagined Battlestar Galactica fire?

Bullets and missiles fit the show's push for realism, which also meant no technobabble and no aliens.

Which original-series actor returned in the reimagined Battlestar Galactica as the political extremist Tom Zarek?

Richard Hatch had played Apollo in 1978 and even shot his own trailer pitching a sequel, before Universal chose a remake instead.

Which effects pioneer's company, Apogee, created the visual effects for Battlestar Galactica's 1978 pilot?

John Dykstra's effects shots from the pilot were reused again and again throughout the weekly series.

Which Canadian actor plays Colonel Saul Tigh, Galactica's hard-drinking XO?

Michael Hogan plays Tigh, who loses an eye in Cylon captivity and later poisons his own wife for collaborating with the Cylons.

Starbuck's actress later played which character in The Mandalorian?

Bo-Katan Kryze was introduced as a militant opposing her own sister's rule of Mandalore, and she later fought more than once to reclaim her homeworld from invaders.

Battlestar Galactica's final season was split into two halves because of what?

The 2007–08 writers' strike shut production down mid-season, so the first ten episodes aired in 2008 and the last ten in 2009.

Before Galactica, its developer was co-executive producer for the final two seasons of which Star Trek series?

Deep Space Nine: when it ended he moved on to Voyager, but he left within weeks with only two episodes credited.

Time magazine called the reimagined Battlestar Galactica a ripping sci-fi allegory of what?

The war on terror: Time pointed to its sleeper cells, civil-liberties crackdowns and a prisoner-torture scandal, and later critics read the Cylon occupation as Iraq.

Where on prehistoric Earth do Battlestar Galactica's survivors first land in the finale?

Ancient Africa, 150,000 years ago, is where the survivors land among tribal humans; modern humans are shown to descend from the colonists, their Cylon allies and those natives.

Battlestar Galactica's concept evolved from an earlier project with which title?

Adam's Ark sat unmade from the late 1960s until the success of Star Wars finally created interest in the show.

Battlestar Galactica's 1978 ABC premiere was interrupted by a special report on the signing of what?

The Camp David Accords were signed at the White House that night, and ABC then resumed the pilot exactly where it had cut away; West Coast viewers never saw the interruption.

In which sound format was Battlestar Galactica's 1978 pilot released to cinemas?

Sensurround came with the re-cut pilot that Universal sent to cinemas to help recoup the pilot's high production cost.

Which British broadcaster co-funded the reimagined Battlestar Galactica and premiered it in October 2004?

Sky co-funded the show, and in return Sky One premiered the first season in Britain three months before it reached North America.

Battlestar Galactica's slur 'skinjob' for humanoid Cylons was earlier an insult for artificial humans in which film?

Blade Runner used the word as a put-down for its replicants; in Galactica it marks the Cylon models that pass for human, as distinct from the metal ones.

Which dance legend guest-starred in 1978's Battlestar Galactica as Chameleon, a con man posing as Starbuck's father?

Fred Astaire played Chameleon in The Man with Nine Lives, a part written for him, and the old trickster may truly be the pilot's long-lost father.

Which animal performed inside the costume of Muffit, Boxey's robot daggit, in 1978's Battlestar Galactica?

A chimpanzee named Evolution, known as Evie, wore the suit of Muffit, a mechanical stand-in made after the boy's real pet was lost in the Cylon attack.

The sweeping red eye of the original Cylons was reused as a scanner light in which 1980s television series?

Knight Rider gave KITT its scanner as a deliberate nod to the Cylons, since one producer made both shows, and the car even reuses the eye's sound effect.

Laura Roslin's oath aboard a spaceship in Battlestar Galactica restages which US president's swearing-in?

Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in on Air Force One hours after Kennedy was shot, and the show copied that scene to root its story in familiar history.

Which former Bond girl played Serina in the 1978 Battlestar Galactica film and the first episodes of the series?

Jane Seymour had played the psychic Solitaire in Live and Let Die, and she stayed with Galactica for only its first five episodes.

Which future A-Team regular played Lieutenant Starbuck, later recast as a woman, in 1978's Battlestar Galactica?

Dirk Benedict went on to play Templeton 'Face' Peck, and one A-Team episode shows him doing a double take as a Cylon walks past on a studio lot.

Which future chart-topping pop star played Zac, Adama's doomed younger son, in the 1978 Battlestar Galactica pilot?

Rick Springfield's Zac is shot down by Cylon fighters just short of the fleet; three years later his song Jessie's Girl reached number one in the US.

Which New Zealand actress plays D'Anna Biers, the reporter exposed as a Cylon, in Battlestar Galactica?

Lucy Lawless, best known as Xena, plays D'Anna, who shoots a critical documentary about Galactica's crew before her true nature comes out.

A council of twelve and marriages sealed for eternity in 1978's Battlestar Galactica echo which religion?

Mormonism shaped the show because its creator belonged to the Latter-day Saints; a lost thirteenth tribe of humans comes from the same source.

Which American cable network first aired the reimagined Battlestar Galactica, as a three-hour miniseries?

Sci-Fi Channel later split the 20-episode second season into winter and summer halves, a schedule it normally kept for its Stargate shows.

Which callsign does Lee Adama, the commander's son, fly under as a Viper pilot in Battlestar Galactica?

Apollo is only a callsign, as Lee once pointed out, but President Roslin kept addressing him as 'Captain Apollo' because she liked the ring of it.

What do Battlestar Galactica's crews find when they finally land on the planet they call Earth in season four?

A radioactive ruin is all that awaits: the landing parties touch down among the remains of a large city and stand speechless at a desolate, lifeless world.

What verdict does the tribunal reach, by three votes to two, at Gaius Baltar's trial in Battlestar Galactica?

Not guilty is the shock result that sends the courtroom into uproar, and Admiral Adama later admits to a displeased Roslin that he voted to acquit.

What do the Cylons worship in the reimagined Battlestar Galactica, a faith Gaius Baltar ends up preaching?

A single God is the Cylon creed, first held by the metal Centurions, and Baltar spends the final season leading a cult that spreads the belief through the fleet.

Mattel recalled its 1978 Battlestar Galactica toy ships within weeks because which feature proved a choking hazard?

Firing pellets vanished from the Galactica toy range after a child choked on one at Christmas 1978; the redesigned ships kept theirs fixed inside when triggered.

From which ancestral homeworld did humanity migrate to found the Twelve Colonies in Battlestar Galactica?

Kobol turns up abandoned at the end of the reimagined show's first season, when President Roslin concludes that a habitable world is the mythical birthplace.

Which British actor won a Saturn Award for playing the self-serving genius Gaius Baltar in Battlestar Galactica?

James Callis took the Best Supporting Actor prize in 2006, and filmgoers also know him as Tom, the best friend in the Bridget Jones films.

Which British actor adopted an American accent to play Viper pilot Lee Adama in Battlestar Galactica?

Jamie Bamber credits the accent, often praised for its accuracy, to hearing his American father speak throughout his childhood.

Twin Battlestar Galactica roller coasters, Human and Cylon, opened in 2010 at a Universal park in which country?

Singapore's duelling tracks were built to launch rival Human and Cylon trains together, the only Battlestar Galactica coaster at any Universal Studios park.

What is unusual about the Number Six who haunts Gaius Baltar for the whole of the reimagined Battlestar Galactica?

Only he can see her, which earned this version the nickname Head Six; in one episode a flesh-and-blood copy turns up to accuse him of treason.

Which problem, alongside declining ratings, led ABC to cancel the original Battlestar Galactica after 24 episodes?

High production costs sank the show, and the axe brought protests outside ABC's studios; the network's cheaper follow-up lasted only ten episodes.

Which currency, shown as rectangular coins in 1978, do the people of Battlestar Galactica's Twelve Colonies spend?

Cubits share their name with an ancient unit of length, part of the 1978 show's habit of renaming everyday things: a ducat, for instance, was a ticket.

What is odd about the shape of paper, photographs and books in the reimagined Battlestar Galactica?

The corners are cut off almost all printed matter, an easy trick the producers chose to make the world look a little unconventional and unfamiliar.

Which Airplane! star played Commander Cain in The Living Legend, a two-part story in 1978's Battlestar Galactica?

Lloyd Bridges's Cain and his battlestar were both revived by the reimagined show in 2005, this time with a woman admiral in command.

Noah Hathaway, the boy Boxey in 1978's Battlestar Galactica, later played the warrior Atreyu in which fantasy film?

The NeverEnding Story came six years after he joined Galactica at the age of six, a part that earned him a nomination at the first Young Artist Awards.

The opening theme of the reimagined Battlestar Galactica is a setting of a sacred hymn from which religion?

Hinduism supplies the words: the theme is a new-age take on the Gayatri Mantra, a hymn addressed to the solar deity Savitr.

Which running tally appears in the opening credits of Battlestar Galactica's second season?

The surviving population figure, jokingly known as the Countdown to Extinction, drops to reflect deaths the audience has only just watched.

Props, costumes and effects shots from 1978's Battlestar Galactica were recycled for which other space series?

Buck Rogers in the 25th Century shot its pilot while Galactica was still in production, and its starfighters even borrowed the Viper's control sticks.

How does President Roslin dispose of a captured Cylon after questioning in Battlestar Galactica's first season?

Out of an airlock is where Roslin sends him, moments after he admits that the nuclear bomb he claimed to have hidden never existed.

Which Raptor officer gives up his seat to Gaius Baltar and is left behind in the Battlestar Galactica miniseries?

Helo was written to die off screen after that sacrifice, but the actor impressed the producers and fans asked what became of him, so the plans changed.

Which doctor, rarely seen without a cigarette, serves as chief medical officer aboard Battlestar Galactica?

Sherman Cottle's constant smoking marks him out as a crusty leftover from an earlier age, and sets him apart from Baltar, who prefers fine cigars.

Which Galactica tactical officer joins Tom Zarek in a failed mutiny against Admiral Adama and is executed for it?

Felix Gaeta had earlier risked his life as a Resistance spy while appearing to collaborate with the Cylon occupiers as a presidential chief of staff.

Which 2009 Battlestar Galactica television film retells the early seasons from the Cylons' point of view?

The Plan revisits the miniseries and the first two seasons, shifting the emphasis to the Cylons and their scheme to wipe out the human race.

Which science-fiction prize did 33, the reimagined Battlestar Galactica's opening weekly episode, win in 2005?

The Hugo Award for short-form drama went to an episode its makers had been pressed to soften, for fear it would prove too dark for audiences.

Which film director was developing a Battlestar Galactica revival in 2001 before leaving to make a superhero sequel?

Bryan Singer's version would have continued the 1978 story 25 years on with original cast members, but delays after September 11 sent him to X-Men 2.

Which volatile fuel, derived from mined minerals, powers the engines of the fleet's ships in Battlestar Galactica?

Tylium is so explosive that Galactica keeps it in two inboard tanks, because a hit on either one would be enough to destroy the whole vessel.

Which orchestra performed the score for the three-hour pilot of 1978's Battlestar Galactica?

The Los Angeles Philharmonic recording of the theme was kept for every later episode, though a studio orchestra at Universal played the weekly scores.

Which British actor voiced the Cylons' Imperious Leader and appeared as Count Iblis in 1978's Battlestar Galactica?

Patrick Macnee was best known as the heroic John Steed of The Avengers, yet many of his television parts, like these two, were villains.

Sued over Battlestar Galactica, Universal countersued claiming Star Wars had copied the robot drones of which film?

Silent Running was Universal's own film, and the studio argued that its robot drones had been lifted for Star Wars, turning the plagiarism charge around.

Which Cylon, played by Callum Keith Rennie, insists that Kara Thrace has a special destiny in Battlestar Galactica?

Leoben Conoy also holds her prisoner during the Cylon occupation, where a kiss finally distracts him long enough for her to kill him and escape.

Which defence lawyer, played by Mark Sheppard, represents Gaius Baltar at his trial in Battlestar Galactica?

Romo Lampkin ends up with a far bigger job: in the final episode he becomes President of the Twelve Colonies as the survivors scatter.

Which passenger ship do Galactica's own pilots destroy in the episode 33, with more than a thousand people aboard?

Olympic Carrier is left behind, then turns up three hours later; an effects supervisor slipped faint movement into its windows as a small act of defiance.

Aboard which prison ship does Tom Zarek lead a hostage-taking riot in Battlestar Galactica's Bastille Day?

The Astral Queen's prisoners had just been asked to volunteer as labourers when they broke out, seized the vessel and took Galactica's envoys hostage.

Which aide to President Roslin dies saving Dualla from execution by hostage-takers in Battlestar Galactica?

Billy Keikeya had only just caught her with the pilot she would later marry, and Roslin counted her young chief of staff as family.

Which actor, Star Trek's first on-screen Klingon, played the traitor Baltar in 1978's Battlestar Galactica?

John Colicos was a noted Shakespearean at the Stratford Festival before he became a science-fiction villain as Commander Kor and then as Baltar.

Which former Oingo Boingo keyboard player composed the music for the 2003 Battlestar Galactica miniseries?

Richard Gibbs also wrote the theme of the weekly series that followed, and had earlier served as music director on The Simpsons.

Which Australian director made the 2003 Battlestar Galactica miniseries and returned for several later episodes?

Michael Rymer was born in Melbourne, and this show, more than any of his feature films, is the work he is best known for.

Gaius Baltar trained away the dialect of which home colony at the age of ten in Battlestar Galactica?

Aerilon's dialect, he decided, would hold back his career, so he taught himself to sound like a citizen of a richer and more respected colony.

Which Star Wars concept artist also produced design illustrations for the original 1978 Battlestar Galactica?

Ralph McQuarrie later won an Academy Award for his work on Cocoon, having also contributed to E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and Raiders of the Lost Ark.