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ne of the things that has
always interested me about Battlestar Galactica is the way the episodes evolved
from scripts to film to the final version that appeared on television. Very often the
episode we ended up viewing on Sunday was very different from the original concept of the
writer. Throughout the run of ANOMALY I did a long series of articles on “The Lost
Worlds of Battlestar Galactica,” in which I discussed some of these changed
episodes. Those articles, and some new ones, constitute this section of the Battlestar
Zone.
1. The Lost Premiere. A look at how the premiere episode was changed, and changed, and changed....
2. The Lost Premiere 2. In an early draft of the premiere, Commander Adama was a much more adventurous character than we came to know.
3. The Lost Premiere 3. Here are some scenes that vanished without a trace...including a Colonial droid scene.
4. The Lost Premiere 4. Although much of the earlier part of the November 1977 draft of the premiere screenplay is very like the version that ended up on TV, the entire last hour of the episode is unrecognizable. Here are some highlights.
5. The Lost Premiere 5. Although there are two scripts for the BG premiere widely available to fandom, the actual shooting script isn’t one of them. This is an attempt to figure out what some of the scenes actually shot but later edited out, reshot, or trimmed looked like. Updated!
6. The Lost Premiere 6. Athena was originally intended as a major role in BG, but there was one problem; Maren Jensen couldn’t act her way out of a paper bag. These are some of her scenes that were actually shot for the premiere but edited out or reshot with changes later. Minor Update!
7. The Lost Premiere 7. It is widely known that the premiere originally featured a subplot in which Serina was dying of a form of radiation sickness. Here’s a look at a couple of scenes from that version. Minor Update!
8. Lost Planet, Lost Scenes. Some scenes from the script of Lost Planet of the Gods that didn’t make it into the final episode or were changed by editing.
9. Lost Worlds: Gun on Ice Planet Zero. As the oldest episode of BG aside from the premiere to make it to the screen, there was plenty of time to change and rethink the script that became Gun on Ice Planet Zero. Although much of that process has been lost, there are some clues in the final script.
10. Lost Worlds: The Beta Pirates. An October, 1977 script by Leslie Stevens is the subject of this article. The Beta Pirates probably wouldn’t have been a great episode, but it might have been a fun one.
11. Lost Worlds: Crossfire. Crossfire was the script Gun on Ice Planet Zero was broadly based on. It’s pretty stereotypical, but is interesting to look at as a glimpse of a very early version of the series.
12. Lost Worlds: Fire in Space. Fire in Space was a script written in June 1978 by Michael Sloan; the Carlson-McDonnell Fire in Space was broadly based on it, but the original was far superior and should have been filmed.
13. NEW! The Lost Revivals. Many fans believe that Richard Hatch was the first person to try to revive BG, but in fact his effort was only one in a string of tries, as revealed in this brief history of BG revival efforts.
14, NEW! The Lost Season. Although conventional wisdom has it that little or no planning was ever done for a second BG season, a newly discovered document suggests otherwise.