Son Of A Daggit!

The Final Frontier - Mission Galactica: The Cylon Attack

Continuing the late 70's tradition of releasing TV pilots on the big screen, Glen A Larson of Automan fame released a Battlestar Galactica sequel into European cinemas in 1979. Mission Galactica: The Cylon Attack was, like its predecessor cobbled together from 3 TV episodes; in this case the two part 'Living Legend' and also 'Fire In Space'. And despite it's TV pedigree, it plays pretty well.

On the upside you've got the two most dramatic stories, outside of the pilot, with the Galactica discovering and teaming up with the Battlestar Pegasus and her hotdog Commander Cain (a fantastically charismatic Lloyd Bridges) and the episode where the Galactica nearly goes down in flames after a punishing Cylon assault. Production values are smaller than the pilot (lots of brightly lit interiors, tons of special effects stock footage from Universal's 70's disaster movies, and a multitude of running around modernist concrete structures in black spandex).

But thanks to the tension laden premise inherent in the Galactica story, along with some nifty dramatic tension between the crews of the two battlestars, Stu Phillips epic score, John Dyskra's movie quality shoot-em ups this is a fun addition to the Galactica mythology (unlike the remainder of it's two seasons.)