"Battlestar Galactica" Ended Its Run 30 Years Ago Today

Technically, the original Battlestar Galactica ended its run 31 years ago, when ABC pulled the plug on the show in 1979. But when the fans protested, a ten-episode version entitled Galactica 1980, resulted, with just Lorne Greene remaining from the original cast. However, for what would be the last series episode, Dirk Benedict (later "Face" on The A-Team) reprised his role as "Lt. Starbuck." This episode, airing on May 4, 1980, called "The Return of Starbuck" was the brainchild of series creator Glen A. Larson and featured Starbuck befriending one of the dreaded Cylons.

Larson spoke about this episode in his Archive of American Television Interview:

"I think one of the best episodes we made in all of them was the very last one, the ‘Starbuck’ episode. I said, 'I don’t care, we’re done anyway. So I’m going to do an episode I always wanted to do,' where Starbuck finds himself crashed on a planet with a Cylon and the two bond... They talked about doing that as a play on the West End in London. You know, sometimes you write one for yourself. If I could do it, I’d do a lot of them like this, this would be great. Didn’t require a lot of special effects and things. We had what we needed. And it was a great story."

Watch Galactica 1980: "The Return of Starbuck" (embedded from Hulu) on Glen A. Larson's Interview page, where in Chapter 3 he speaks extensively about this series.