HM: Welcome to Destinies, I'm Howard Margolan and tonight, as I-Con 19 gets underway, the Voice of Science Fiction is coming to you live with our special guests: Richard Hatch who played Captain Apollo on Battlestar Galactica, Jack Stauffer who played Bojay on Battlestar Galactica, and our newest WUSB staffer, Doctor Demento.

No other radio show in the whole of the known universe would bring you a guest list like this one. Gentlemen, welcome to Destinies and I-Con 19!

So, Richard, you have been really active in keeping the spirit, the actual franchise of Battlestar Galactica alive, despite the fact that it actually hasn't been "alive" on network television since 1979. Starting with the four-issue series with Maximum Press [called] "Apollo's Journey", and the two hardcover novels you did for Byron Preiss, "Armageddon" and "Warhawk", and now you have a trailer that you brought to I-Con and you'll be showing here; and this is part of a project to revive Battlestar Galactica as either a feature film or series.

RH: I did something that probably most people would think is a little nuts, a little crazy because I literally spent my own money putting together a project that I do not have the ownership or the rights to. And I did not make it to make money, I did not make it in order to exploit it, I did it because I truly believe that this show had such an incredible story, an incredible premise, and I discovered in this land that too many people are pushing too many ideas. And the only way to get something across powerfully is to do it visually.

So I decided to put together a visual presentation, and it started to be a small thing that grew into a big thing. We played it at conventions to get some feedback on it - we had such an incredible standing ovation and tears in people's eyes that we realized this show and story touched a lot of people's lives. And when we played it for some of the executives, and for some of the companies we were going to for the money, every single one of those companies were willing to come onboard, put their money up, and do Battlestar right now.

But unfortunately, until the rights issue is resolved - and I believe that they're in an act of arbitration right now, Universal and Glen Larson, to determine what his separation of rights issue means exactly - I think that, until it gets resolved, nobody can move forward. But I think this is going to happen within the next several months, so keep your fingers crossed, say your prayers, and I think Battlestar will come back in the near future.

HM: Now, I understand that Glen Larson has his own idea of where a next generation Battlestar Galactica feature should be.

RH: The issue I think [is] Glen wrote the original story and I think I really thought was the most wonderful concept in Battlestar WAS the original story. Glen went on to do Galactica 1980 and then he wanted to do a story coming up now, around the Pegasus. And that's fine. There's plenty of room out there to do Galactica stories, but my thought was that we haven't really explored the Battlestar Galactica universe with the original story and premise. Why are we going away from that?

So we brought people together from all over the countries: Emmy-award winners, Academy Award winners, we have Dean Cundey who was the GP on Apollo 13, we have Volker Engel who won an award for ID4. We have all these people who were raised and got into science fiction because of Battlestar. All of them would love to see a new Battlestar come back, but they all would love to see the original Battlestar story, the original premise, and the original characters come back. And, of course, there would be an evolution. A new ship, new designs, and new characters that would join us; but they want to see that original show come back.

HM: Now, since you've lost Lorne Greene and John Colicos, would Captain Apollo, as in your book and as in the mini-series that Rob Riefeld did, become Commander of the Galactica now?

RH: You know, I think you just don't turn over a captainship or a commandership over to a character. I think you have to earn it and I think in this case we didn't want to take the license of saying "the commander" now. What we did was the "commander interim" between having the Council making the decision on who's going to be the lasting commander. Right now, "I'm" temporarily commander and, again, it's an evolution and it takes time to really know where you want to go. I think that you don't know who might end up being the commander, or it may be a different kind of commandership.

I think it's kind of cool to have maybe more than one character leading the Fleet, moving out of a hierarchical system and maybe into a triumviral, maybe have two or three characters manage the bridge. It's a twenty-four hour a day job. Who can stay up twenty-four hours? I think you maybe have two or three characters rotate.

HM: That's right, in your book there's something about a co-commandership with Athena.

RH: Between me and Athena, and Colonel Tigh, who is now President of the Council. In a sense, he's overseeing a venture ship program with both Athena and Apollo. I think there's room and options to explore different approaches to that.

Battlestar has an incredible story, it can go in many directions, and I would love to see some of the top science fiction writers come onboard and explore all the incredible stories that can be told. I've never seen a story with such heart, such spirit, and that's combined with great special effects. And that's a great, one piece punch.

HM: Where do you fit into all this, Jack?

JS: Well, when you started that, you couldn't leave everybody up on the bridge. So Richard and I sat down, writing through the story, finding a good place to put Bojay where he would be very influential running the ship and absolutely instructive to everybody around him. As it should be!

RH: (jokingly) Especially the young girls on the Battlestar!

HM: Now, when you came in mid season to Battlestar Galactica, were you told that after your first two parts, you would be a recurring character?

JS: Yeah. Actually when we did this, Anne Lockhart was a brought in to be a cast member from the beginning. In the original draft Bojay was killed in the raid on Gamoray, and I was hired because they wanted to put me back with Richard. And half-way through, after we had finished the first hour, the line producer, who was Guy Nagar, actually became my champion and liked a lot of what we were doing. And we were told that Glen was looking carefully at it.

Anyway, to make a long story short, I got summoned to Glen's office, and with typical actor paranoia, I thought I was fired. So I went in there and Glen said, "It's obvious that you and Richard have tremendous chemistry. We'd like you to stay on the show, but I have absolutely no idea what to do with you."

There was never anything in writing, but it was from my understanding that Bojay would have been an inimical part of the show's second year. It was such a man-heavy show, they were going to nickname me like "boy-jay" or something or whatever. And we never got there, so who knows.

But we had a lot of fun shooting the four episodes that I did, and we had a lot of fun shooting the trailer together.

HM: Richard, how did you go about reassembling the cast for the trailer? Had you been in touch with your fellow cast members over the years?

RH: Well, to tell you the truth, most casts when you get together, working 18 hours a day, you have to find a way to get along and I think we did quite an extraordinary job to have that many egos working on the same show. Each trying to find their position and their optimum place for their characters to thrive, and it was difficult under very difficult circumstances. Pretty much everybody, I think, pretty much enjoyed each other and liked each other, and I think also Lorne Greene was a unifying factor and brought everybody together. We've kind of circled around Lorne and he kind of was the great, all-knowing father.

I think that when we started working on bringing the show back, my whole reason for doing the trailer was really to really inspire the studio and The Powers That Be. To bring back Battlestar without the original cast, and not exploring the original premise would really destroy the bridge between the fans and the show. And so often they bring back great shows and they destroy them! Somebody thinks they can do it better -- and I'm not saying that there isn't better and greater and wonderful stories to tell -- but I think the starting place is the original cast, the original premise, the original story and then evolve it from there.

And in the books we take it and we projected twenty years into the future. Where would the original cast be? Where would that story be? We've thrown 1980 away and we go into the heart and spirit of Battlestar. I can't think of a better way to do it, and to the life of me, I can't understand why anybody would want to throw that away again. Especially after the debacle of 1980!

Why would they not understand that the original show, which did incredible, never has a show have numbers like that on network television? And most people don't realize the reason we went off the air was financial, not because of ratings.

HM: I know, when I was in high school, I did a research paper on science fiction television, and I checked all the ratings for the science fiction programs from the previous twenty years from that point. And the year that Galactica was on, 1978 to 1979, was the number 22 rated show for the year.

RH: Right!

HM: Twenty-two is incredible ratings!

RH: And we were in the top ten for half of that year. We debuted at number five, and the reason we went down to the twenties was probably during the course of that season, where we had so many network notes telling us "don't do this", "don't do that". We basically had to move away from science fiction, and, in a sense, I think the show lost its course and towards the end of the season we started to find it again.

Had we not gotten off course, I think we would have stayed there, maybe even in the top fifteen at least. But for a first year show, network science fiction and a show that is as complex as Battlestar was - today you can do special effects much faster, but back then it took a long, long time - we did an incredible job, I think.

HM: It still did a whole lot better than the rating from the original Star Trek.

RH: Yeah, [in] the third year [it] was 66, but their top rating what was their top rating, do you think, in their first and second year?

HM: It was never high.

JS: They never reached above 40, I don't think.

RH: To tell you the truth, in one year -- and most one-year shows disappear for all time, you never see them again, and they're not remembered - it's amazing to me that, 20 years later, Battlestar is remembered with such fondness. When we played the trailer and traveled around the country and, in fact, around the world, [Battlestar is] still playing in Japan, in the movie theaters. It outdid, out grossed as a movie, it out grossed "Grease" in Japan. It did just as well as "Star Wars" in several markets in Europe and in France I think it did equally as well, and maybe even better because it came out at a more optimum time, it did extraordinary numbers. Merchandising was extraordinary, it's just the budget and the time it took to put that show together was almost impossible for television, because you have to do things much faster.

But why didn't they take that premise, that story, and develop movies after that? Especially when that movie went out it did, back then AFTER it played on television, it did another $45 million in the movie theater. And that's after they played the three hour movie on TV.

That's unheard of.

HM: Also, in the course of my research, I discovered that the show as preempted 42% of the time.

RH: Even the first episode was preempted.

HM: That's right, it was cut in the middle. I remembered watching the Emmy Awards, flipping back and forth during commercial, and Chevy Chase made a joke. And he was playing a kid writing "Dear Jimmy, please write or preempt soon." And they cut everything.

RH: I think that, back then, they didn't get it. Science fiction, in a sense, was thought of in a very strange way they could never embrace science fiction. I think that Fred Silverman was the head of ABC, he was not a science fiction fan and unfortunately, sometimes decisions are made between one and two individuals, and not just collective decisions. And I think that they never really embraced Battlestar Galactica and to tell you the truth, all great shows usually don't do very well in the beginning. Although Battlestar, for what we were up against, they threw everything at us but the kitchen sink.

Every network wanted to outdo us and in spite of all that, we did extraordinary numbers. But the first season, you never have the chance to really develop your stories and your characters, and really get into the heart of the show. Had they had a second and third year, brought on somebody like Issac Asimov as head storywriter, really got into the heart of the show could've done, I think it would've been a mega hit. A huge, huge franchise, and still could be. It's sitting there, waiting. It is timeless premise, that story, and even today, looking at the old show, it has not aged at all. I mean the special effects still hold up and look almost as good as today's.

HM: Right. The only problem with the effects was that they kept using the same six shots for the fighting scenes.

RH: That was the biggest problem, the stuff that they did do they did add new shots. But when you're having to do a show that normally should take seven days to film, it was taking twelve days to film, seven days a week, eighteen hours a day, you could not - they did not have special departments set up when we began that show. So all that stuff against us, but if they had a season to prepare properly, set up the department and get it all laid out, and organized, they could have produced the show faster for less money.

I still today do not understand how Universal let that go, and then I cannot understand why, when they brought it back, that they have ever done what they did to it with 1980. I do not get it.

HM: No. I always, from the beginning, when I first saw Galactica 1980 I said, "Wait a minute, in the last episode of Battlestar Galactica, they had Apollo leaving the observatory and they were picking up a TV transmission of Apollo 11. So that means the show had to set way the heck into the future, by the time the transmissions from Earth reached the Galactica years later. By the time you guys reached Earth it would be many, many years later. Certainly not eleven years after the Apollo 11 mission.

RH: If this show is about finding Earth, finding the mythological Thirteenth Colony, that's mythology, exploring all of that and finding where they went and that whole adventure crossing space, almost like Moses and the Israelites, tell me why you'd bring it to Earth. Once you bring it to Earth, you've just brought closure to the original premise, and now if you want to continue it, move on to a secondary show, then fine.

But why would you take a show that hasn't even begun to explore that premise yet, bring it to Earth, destroy the thing that made it special, and that's why I turned it down. I don't know why Dirk turned it down, but I turned it down because it was a rip-off. It was very, very superficial version of Battlestar.

HM: Think about it, setting it on Earth means that you don't have to build all those sets. It's a whole lot cheaper.

RH: That's why. I mean that's exactly why!

HM: Jack, what is it that you're doing these days?

JS: Like any actor, you're auditioning, I'm deeply involved with Richard and his project. I'm directing theatre, I'm out there hustling. I've been 40 years in this industry, just doing what I've done since I was twenty. Keepin' goin'. Keepin' goin'.

HM: Wow, you don't look like you've been in the business 40 years. I'm impressed.

JS: Well, I'm just a little big younger than Richard. Not too much, but a little bit younger.

RH: You're younger than me?

JS: Yeah. I actually started when I was 10, I'm a child actor and went back into it when I went to college. I've never looked back, and I would like to say to all the fans who are listening that if you are in the neighborhood, please come and see what Richard has done with this trailer, which will be shown at I-Con, both Saturday and Sunday. And see the premise and the future of this show.

RH: Everybody we played it for was blown away. They could not imagine that we put the time, the energy, the money and the care and the heart into this presentation. It's about four minutes long, all new footage, it's got great special effects, and I think the biggest thing that comes out is the heart, the spirit. The minute you see it, you go "Where's the movie? Where's the line? I want to see it!" And I think most people that saw it thought that there was a movie already shot, because normally you don't shoot the trailer first. You shoot the movie. We did it the other way around, but we wanted to inspire the Powers That Be and from this point Sean Cassidy, who was one of the big producers at the USA Network, saw it and he said, "This could revolutionize the industry, because most people do pilots," you know.

There's a four minute trailer, movie trailer, presenting a new series concept and he says, "It's extraordinary what you've done."

HM: Well, I'm looking forward to seeing it, certainly. And it'll be playing tomorrow and Sunday at I-Con. Lets have a quick round of everybody talking about their websites, because I know all of you have them! Jack, you have a website?

JS: Absolutely! My website is connected to both BattlestarGalactica.com and BattlestarPegasus.com, and mine is the local doctor's column, since Richard wears so many hats. I keep fans up to date on the monthly goings on with the trailer, and any new news, and just answer all the questions because he's too busy to do it.

HM: Is there a Quicktime version of the trailer on the website as well?

RH: We cannot put the thing on there, since number one: the legal issues. It's only a presentation; it cannot be sold and made money from?

JS: How 'bout paying me?

RH: I've been paying you all my life, Jack!

HM: And your website?

RH: It's BattlestarGalactica.com, which has all the information, all the pictures from the trailer, all the things that are going on with all the cast. It is also linked over to my own personal website, which is RichardHatch.com.

I do a lot of things: write, direct, produce, act, and I'm also doing a lot of teaching around the country; do seminars and workshops. I lecture at churches, corporations, businesses, and I do these boot camps. And you can find the information about those teachings and all the things that I do, and please check it out and e-mail us. If you've read the books, please e-mail us and give us some feedback on what you think about the story.

HM: Well, I wish we had more time, but unfortunately all good things must come to an end.

RH: It's a pleasure to be here, and I hope the fans will all come out and say hi to us this weekend. That's why we're here, to talk to all the fans, and please don't be shy. Come up and say hi!