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Aug 26, 2018

Battlestar Galactica: Star-Fighting Boyfriends

On Sunday nights in the fall of 1978, Boomer kids who were too young for All in the Family sat watching Battlestar Galactica, the beginning of a mythos that would last for three decades and rival Star Trek in scope and complexity.

The brief plot: in a distant part of the galaxy, the Twelve Colonies of Mankind have been destroyed by the evil Cylons.  A ragtag band of survivors, led by Commander Adama (Lorne Green) on the last surviving warship (the Battlestar Galactica), head out into space to seek the last human colony. . .Earth.

The beefcake was handled by the cute Star Wars uniforms. The bonding was handled by Commander Apollo (Richard Hatch, below) and Lieutenant Starbuck (Dirk Benedict, left).




In spite of their quests after girls, gay Boomer kids and the writers of slash fiction knew that they were romantic partners.


Teen magazines were content with gushing articles and semi-nude photos.

There were dozens of other characters. Ray Bolger, Fred Astaire, Randolph Mantooth, and Ed Beghley Jr. showed up.  Jonathan Harris of Lost in Space played Lucifer, leader of the Cylons (this was the heart of the Cold War, so good vs. evil were clearly drawn).






Ratings problems and howls of "plagiarism" from 20th Century Fox, owner of the Star Wars franchise, led to the cancellation of Galactica after just one season.  But it returned for Galactica 1980, set on Earth, with Kent McCord (left) and Barry Van Dyke (right) as the star-fighting romantic partners.

And in 2004-2009 as Battlestar Galactica, a re-imagined series with a female Starbuck.  And a prequel, Caprica (2010).

And feature films, comic books, a web series, over 20 novels (some written by Richard Hatch), video games, action figures, toys.

Just before the end of the 2004-2009 series, a couple of characters were outed, but not on screen, on a webisode. A bone thrown to gay fans, but more than they ever got from Star Trek. 

5 comments:

  1. Science fiction tv is always terrible about gay inclusivity. They think the viewers are all kids, why shouldnt know that gay people exist

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    1. Just look at how TNG really warped it. Aesop about gay inclusivity, pair Ruler with feminine androgynous alien who's persecuted for being too feminine, and all the aliens are played by women, and Frames really thought a male romantic opposite would drive the point home better.

      tl;dr: Failure to listen to Jonathan Frakes leads to story about man-hating lesbians persecuting one of their own for being straight. Would be a good story, if people back then knew what a TERF was.

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  2. Pathetic! Hollyweird is so homophobic that they take somebody who looks like Richard Simmons and turns him into Steve Reeves! They expect us to believe that sci-fi shows like these are so progressive and futuristic, and yet apparently, they also expect us to believe that there are NO gay people anywhere else in deep space; on any other planet; nor any other civilization. Straight bullshit!

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    1. To be fair, it's not like gay guys ever complained about seeing Steve Reeves (or Mark Forrest, or Lou Ferrigno) in a short skirt and nothing else. I'm just saying.

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  3. In the 90s, Syfy showed the original. Can the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints sue?

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