I remember loosely connecting the dots with his name from the opening/ending credits whenever I watched Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. It was the same guy who created/developed them. Big discovery eh? I’m sure there’s a sarcastic comment my COPA 003 Teaching Assistant could squeeze in.
For me Battlestar was the show he really stood out with because Glen mostly worked on the usual dreck Hollywood and the networks wanted. Numerous procedurals or other time killers: Knight Rider, BJ and the Bear, Quincy ME (I do admit, the coroner angle was amusing) and McCloud. Sadly the Sunday-night competition killed the Star Wars-knockoff for a couple reasons: each episode was $1 million on average ($3.5 million today) and most adults wanted to know how All in the Family would end despite that show being too long in the tooth. I never noticed all the Mormon stuff since I was 10 when Battlestar debuted. It became more obvious (actually, it screams nowadays) after I reached adulthood and read about the organization’s sordid history. It didn’t matter in the late Seventies though. Battlestar provided a better, ongoing Space Opera for our toys to play out in our basement: Lego-based ships, a mix of action figures from Fisher-Price, Kenner, Mego, Marx and Kenner as the cast.
The premise remained a great idea which is why the reboot was better. Strip out the goofy religion, put in better Science, tweak the characters and it almost made it to 100 episodes! I have my gripes with the reboot yet Moore kept most of its good parts intact.
Given how lame the reboot’s finale was, I’m not surprised there’s talk regarding another reboot. I think they should give it a rest. Maybe another decade will be fine. Next time, bring back the Cylon Empire. I thought making them an internal enemy created by humans to be a lazy, low-budget cheat.
Buck Rogers was a decent modernization in the shadow of Star Wars (the EDF and Hatchet Fighters rule). It just fell into the procedural vein too quickly and became rather pathetic, especially the second season when Buck got transformed into a dumbed-down Star Trek–Love Boat spinoff.