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Hollywood has been chasing the blockbuster high of "Star Wars" since 1977 — and often falling short. One of the first and most transparent copies, though, was on television. In 1978, Glen A. Larson created a space opera for serialization on ABC: "Battlestar Galactica." Set in far-away space, the series kicked off with the TV movie "Saga of a Star World." Humans, living on 12 planets named for the astrological signs, are at war with a robot race called the Cylons. A surprise attack sees the Cylons laying waste to their enemies — the remaining humans flee in a "ragtag fugitive fleet" led by the eponymous starship.

The "Star Wars" similarities are obvious, both in narrative and aesthetic. Lieutenant Starbuck (Dirk Benedict) in "Battlestar Galactica" is a cocky starship pilot, clearly modeled on Han Solo (Harrison Ford). Like the X-Wings in "Star Wars," the heroes fly one-man, fighter jet style ships ("Vipers") into battle. A...

The long-gestating reboot of the popular sci-fi franchise Battlestar Galactica, from Sam Esmail’s Esmail Corp., is no longer set up at Peacock.

First announced as being in development at the NBCUniversal streamer in 2019, the new incarnation of Battlestar Galactica never got to a green light but remained in development, including a writer change within the past year as The Sinner creator Derek Simonds came on board as writer, executive producer and showrunner.

That version of the project from Simonds will now be shopped to other platforms by its studio, Peacock’s NBCUniversal sibling UCP.

A new take on the classic IP, the latest incarnation is executive produced by Simonds as well as Esmail Corp’s Sam Esmail and Chad Hamilton. UCP, a division of Universal Studio Group, is the studio.

Battlestar Galactica has been a passion project for Mr. Robot creator Esmail who is a big fan of the original.

“Battlestar Galactica” will not chronicle its next chapter on Peacock. A planned reboot for the classic sci-fi hit is no longer in development at the streamer, an insider close to the decision-making told TheWrap.

The project had been in development since 2019, helmed by Sam Esmail (“Mr. Robot”). It was never officially picked up to series at Peacock, and though no plot details were revealed, the show was set to be set in the same timeline as the popular 2003 series.

The news comes months after “The Sinner” EP Derek Simonds was tapped to be writer, executive producer and showrunner. The reboot will now be shopped around to other outlets by its production company, UCP, with whom Esmail has an overall deal. The project was in development with UCP, Esmail Corp and Chad Hamilton.

“Battlestar Galactica” was first introduced in the ’70s as a single-season show starring Richard Hatch, Dirk Benedict and Lorne Greene.

The long-gestating reboot of “Battlestar Galactica” is no longer in development at Peacock, Variety has learned exclusively.

The project was first announced back in 2019 ahead of Peacock’s official launch as part of the streamer’s initial slate of original programming. It was never formally ordered to series, though, and has been in development ever since. Exact story details never emerged, but the show was said to be set in the same continuity as the 2003 “Battlestar Galactica” series.

The reboot was a passion project for Sam Esmail, who was executive producing via Esmail Corp. under the company’s overall deal with studio UCP. Chad Hamilton of Esmail Corp. was also an executive producer. Michael Lesslie had originally come onboard as the writer of the reboot in 2020, but it was reported that he left the project in 2021. Most recently, it was reported in January that Derek Simonds was attached to serve as writer,...

During its first three seasons on NBC, Stephen J. Cannell's "The A-Team" was one of the most popular shows on television. Critics dismissed it as mindless trash, but its 1983 premiere perfectly captured the gung-ho Reagan-era zeitgeist. The idea of a crack commando unit on the run from a government that did them dirty in the Vietnam War played to the country's bitterness over the mistreatment of veterans. Many Americans wanted to see the American military kick butt again, and what better way to scratch that itch than to build a series around a group of wrongly disgraced heroes?

The challenge for Cannell was satisfying his audience's bloodlust while observing the network's mandate that, due to its family-friendly 8 Pm timeslot, the good guys couldn't kill anybody. Could they fire off loads of cool-looking firearms or turn a bamboo into a bazooka? Absolutely! They just had to make sure their...

Battlestar Galactica has a compelling premise. Twelve human space colonies in a distant part of the universe are at war with a race of artificially intelligent robots called the Cylons. A human called Baltar betrays humanity and the Cylons wipe out the Twelve Colonies and most of their space-faring ships, the Colonial Fleet, in a nuclear attack that leaves their planets uninhabitable. The only surviving vessel from the Fleet is the Battlestar Galactica, along with a ragtag collection of other space vessels. So the human survivors travel across the universe led by Commander Adama of the Galactica, looking for the legendary 13th colony, Earth, to make it their new home.

With such a fascinating setup, it’s no surprise that Battlestar Galactica (1978) has had several sequels, spinoffs, and remakes: the short-lived sequel series Galactica 1980, which was hampered by a lack of most of the original stars; the very successful 2003-...

Exclusive: There is a new writer at the helm of Peacock’s long-gestating reboot of the popular sci-fi franchise Battlestar Galactica. The Sinner creator Derek Simonds has come on board as writer, executive producer and showrunner.

Battlestar Galactica, which remains in development at Peacock, has been a passion project for Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail — a big fan of the original — whose company Esmail Corp. is producing the reboot through UCP where the company is based.

First announced as being in development at NBCUniversal’s streamer Peacock in 2019, the Battlestar Galactica reimagening previously had Michael Lesslie attached to write and executive produce.

A new take on the classic IP, the latest incarnation is executive produced by Simonds as well as Esmail Corp’s Sam Esmail and Chad Hamilton. UCP, a division of Universal Studio Group, is the studio.

“We are working on it,” Esmail told Deadline in October about the Battlestar Galactica series reboot.

In 2023, crossovers and multiverses of madness are all the rage in the arts and media, the IP machine grafting other pieces onto itself in an ever-expanding effort to pull in mass audiences. Yet the initial creative impulse at the core of crossovers — "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if X met Y?" — goes much further back into history than the beginning of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Due to pesky issues like copyright law and the like, most crossovers in films prior to the MCU tended to be either "wink-wink" references or cameo appearances. Television was another matter, however; thanks to so many popular shows airing on a single network, many characters from sitcoms, dramas, and other series turned up for an episode or two on a sister show. This happened often enough that, beginning in the 1980s, the bizarre phenomenon known as the "Tommy Westphall Universe" inadvertently began (look it up).

Of course,...

Lieutenant Reginald Barclay was an outlier among "Star Trek" characters. First appearing in the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" episode "Hollow Pursuits", Barclay was a timid fellow, unable to converse with his co-workers and always late for his shifts in engineering. He was occasionally able to offer unique and helpful insights to engineering problems, but no one liked working with him because he was so awkward. Barclay found solace on the Enterprise's holodeck, where he recreated holographic versions of his co-workers that he could dominate or romance without consequences. When Counselor Troi (Marina Sirtis) discovered Barclay's proclivities -- including a sexualized holographic recreation of herself -- she informed the lieutenant that he might have some deep-seated issues that they weren't addressing in his therapy. 

Barclay was an outlier because he wasn't bushy-tailed and capable all the time. Most characters on "Star Trek" have an impressive set of starship-operation skills or...

Obliterated is a high-octane action comedy series created by Jon Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossberg, and Josh Heald. The Netflix series revolves around an elite team from various branches of the US armed forces in order to stop a terrorist attack that could wipe out Las Vegas. When the team thinks that they have completed their mission, they spend their night celebrating with lots of alcohol and drugs but disaster strikes when they find out that the threat is still active and they only have a day to save Vegas. In the haze of alcohol and drugs, the team gathers and goes on a mission to save Sin City. Obliterated stars Nick Zano, Shelley Henning, Terrence Terrell, and Alyson Gorske. So, if you loved Obliterated here are some similar shows you could watch next.

Archer (Hulu & Rent on Prime Video) Credit – FX

Synopsis: The suave, confident and devastatingly handsome Sterling Archer may...

The premise of Glen A. Larson's 1978 sci-fi series "Battlestar Galactica" was high-concept and complex. It took place far from Earth, at the end of humanity's millennium-long war with a species of robots called the Cylons. The Cylons themselves were built by a long-extinct race of humanoid reptiles, and they seem poised to offer the same fate to humankind. Feeling that the writing was on the wall, a human named Count Baltar (John Colicos) betrayed humanity and sided with the Cylons, putting the robots hot on the trail of the Battlestar Galactica, a massive starship carrying most of the galaxy's last-known humans. Their goal is to find a long-lost "thirteenth tribe," a human colony that was said to have settled on a distant planet called Earth. 

The assumption for viewers was that "Battlestar Galactica" was set in the distant future, but at the end of the 24th episode of its only season,...

"In 1972, a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn't commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire ... the A-Team."

So ran the narration at the beginning of the title sequence for the 1983 TV series "The A-Team." The "if you can find them" part always elicited titters from certain younger viewers, as the A-Team's devotion to helping people out as soldiers of fortune clearly didn't extend to being easy to reach. The A-Team was composed of five members, including the leader Hannibal (George Peppard), the charming Templeton "Faceman" Peck (Dirk Benedict), the zany "Howling Mad" Murdoch (Dwight Schultz), and their black Gmc Vandura van.

It's been nearly forty years, but people still remember "The A-Team." The action adventure series went on for five seasons, but stuck around in the public consciousness for much, much longer. People still remember the theme song, the cartoonish violence, the catchphrases. But although many viewers throughout the 2000s wanted a revival of the show, the TV series itself never came back.

Instead, we got a feature film in 2010 starring an updated A-Team, with the characters being veterans of the Iraq War instead of veterans of Vietnam. The film underperformed at the box office, however, and they never made a sequel. Unlike "21 Jump Street," a franchise where the later movies have now long-since overshadowed the TV show for most younger viewers, when people of all ages today think of "The A-Team," they're still almost certainly thinking of the show.

So what have the cast members been up to since...

America had just crawled out from under its Vietnam hangover when Stephen J. Cannell's "The A-Team" blasted its way into the country's living rooms on January 23, 1983. NBC did not have high expectations for the show, but when the second episode -- which aired after Super Bowl Xvii (the one where Washington's John Riggins rushed with shocking impunity against Miami's defense) -- scored sky-high ratings, the network realized it had a hit on its hands.

It was the right show for a weird moment in American history. The country had gone gung-ho. We were at the advent of the '80s action hero era, and everyone was flocking to bloody, high-caliber entertainments starring the likes of Charles Bronson, Chuck Norris, and Sylvester Stallone. Meanwhile, the pulpy adventures of Don Pendleton's Mack Bolan were flying off drug store bookshelves. There was an acute interest in vigilante justice, but people were...

TV drama writers obsess over audience engagement, with a huge emphasis on personal stakes for their characters. The biggest of these is the prospect of death. But 70+ years of TV have taught us that mortality is rare for characters played by a show's stars. So, when actors leave a show or the decision is made to cut a character, writers see a golden opportunity to play the ultimate stakes game by going terminal.

It's safe to say character departures always upset a segment of a show's audience, however small. But not all such deaths are created equal. Some generate a wave of complaints, others a tsunami of outrage. It's the deaths of characters we love or love to hate, and those especially shocking or egregious, that drive fans to write all-caps messages, accompanied by many exclamation points, in fanzines, letter columns, and social media.

Here are 14 of the most controversial of the controversial.

The 1980s were a junky era for film and television. Once the studios and networks figured out what kinds of formulas American audiences were keen on after Vietnam, Watergate, and the election of Ronald Reagan reshaped the country's psyche, they exploited them relentlessly. One particularly reliable genre of sorts was the gung-ho, men-on-a-mission actioner where outnumbered, yet armed-to-the-teeth heroes resourcefully defeated equally well-armed bad guys.

When these projects were made for the big screen, studios piled on the red meat. Scads of folks got shot, stabbed, and blown up, and the directors didn't skimp on the viscera. These were the hardest of the hard R-rated movies of the decade, and they made heaps of money.

At a network level, television was still cinema's less-appreciated little brother in the 1980s. Sitcoms were king, while hour-long dramas tended toward soapiness or murder-of-the-week mysteries. There were very fine shows that worked within these parameters,...

Dirk Benedict was fortunate enough to star in two television series that were iconic for their genres back in the late ’70s and early ’80s: Battlestar Galactica and The A-Team. They were so iconic that, ironically, Benedict got to see both of them remade — Battlestar Galactica as a TV series in 2004, and The A-Team as a film in 2010. After seeing both, Benedict revealed his thoughts about the projects at a fan event. (Click on the media bar below to hear Dirk Benedict) https://www.hollywoodoutbreak.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Dirk_Benedict_Battletle_A_Team_Reboot_.mp3

The post Dirk Benedict Gets Real About His Classic Shows, Remade appeared first on Hollywood Outbreak.

Created in 1978 by Glen A. Larson, the original Battlestar Galactica featured a great cast. Though the show only ran for a single season, the original series of Battlestar Galactica earned two Primetime Emmys and a People’s Choice Award in 1979 after its short run.

It also laid the groundwork for the 2004 reboot starring Edward James Olmos and Mary McDonnell, which was similarly critically acclaimed and remains one of the most beloved sci-fi series in TV history.

Maren Jensen, Lorne Greene, and Richard Hatch | ABC Photo Archives/ABC via Getty Images The original ‘Battlestar Galactica’ released in 1978

In both the original series and the reboot, the plot of Battlestar Galactica begins after a long war with the Cylons. Humans have been diminished to a single fleet captained by Galactica’s Commander Adama. On the run from their enemies and searching for the lost Thirteenth Tribe, members of the Galactica and its...

According to Dirk Benedict, the “A” in The A-Team could very well have stood for “alpha males.” When he talked about the classic ’80s action series at a fan event, he described how the shoots were the ultimate in male bonding — and a lot of fun. (Click on the media bar below to hear Dirk Benedict) https://www.hollywoodoutbreak.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Dirk_Benedict_The_A_Team_.mp3

The A-Team is currently airing on Me TV and is available on DVD and digital platforms.

The post Dirk Benedict Loved Shooting With ‘A-Team’s’ ‘Very Male’ Cast & Crew appeared first on Hollywood Outbreak.

After Mr. T found unexpected overnight success thanks to his scene-stealing performance in Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky III, television was quick to come calling, looking to capitalize. And it did in a big way with The A-Team, a tongue-in-cheek action show about a team of mercenaries trying to clear their names. Mr. T and his co-stars, including George Peppard, Dwight Shultz and Dirk Benedict, played by their own rules, both on-camera and off, and Mr. T told us that their rebellious nature is what he’ll always remember most about making the show. (Click on the media bar below to hear Mr. T) https://www.hollywoodoutbreak.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Mr_T_A-Team.mp3

The A-Team is currently airing on Me TV.

The post Mr. T: ‘The A-Team’ Stars Did Everything Their Own Way appeared first on Hollywood Outbreak.

One of the most iconic shows of the 1980s was, without a doubt, The A-Team. Starring screen veteran George Peppard, Dirk Benedict, Dwight Schultz, and the legendary Mr. T, the show premiered in January 1983 and became a pop culture phenomenon. It helped that the show came out hot on the heels of Rocky III, with Mr. T already in the zeitgeist for playing the unforgettable villain, Clubber Lang. Here, as B.A. Baracus, T would adopt a much more family-friendly persona. While he was the breakout star, audiences also loved Peppard as Hannibal, the wannabe actor mastermind, Benedict as Faceman, the ladies’ man, and Schultz as Murdock, the crazy one. The story of an underground crew of Nam vets who are framed for a crime they didn’t commit, the show ran for five seasons before slipping out of fashion towards the end of the decade when the mix of...

When people described the cast of characters on The A-Team back in the ’80s, the word “ragtag” was thrown around quite a bit, reflecting the bizarrely diverse personalities of the four lead roles. As different as the characters were, though, the actors who played them — George Pappard, Dirk Benedict, Dwight Shultz, and Mr. T — were all on the same page. Speaking at a fan event, Benedict said the chemistry between the cast members was both extraordinary and immediate, as they all found different ways to bond with each other.(Click on the media bar below to hear Dirk Benedict) https://www.hollywoodoutbreak.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Dirk_Benedic_At_Team-Cast_.mp3

The A-Team is currently airing on MeTV.

The post Dirk Benedict & ‘A-Team’ Co-Stars Got A Solid ‘A’ In Chemistry appeared first on Hollywood Outbreak.

No bad attitude here! The A-Team is back on the air. It’s been 35 years since the explosive action series — about four Special Forces soldiers framed for a crime who, after breaking out of military prison, become soldiers of fortune — signed off on NBC. But there’s no keeping this team down: MeTV kicked off its “Summer of Me” with a marathon of fan-favorite missions, and on Monday, the series settles into its weekdays-at-6/5c time-slot, beginning with the pilot, which features a not-so-familiar Face: Tim Dunigan as Templeton “Face” Peck. Dunigan was, of course, subsequently replaced by star Dirk Benedict; rounding out the cast: Mr. T (above) as B.A. (“Bad Attitude”) Baracus, George Peppard as John “Hannibal” Smith, and Dwight Schultz as “Howling Mad” Murdock. Breakneck pacing, classic ’80s frenetic plot points and five-minute gunfights/chases defined this iconic drama for five seasons. We pity the fool who doesn’t love it.

When the Battlestar Galactica TV series was rebooted in 2004, some fans were up in arms about the Starbuck character being recast as a woman. The truth, however, is that the character needed the revamp. Sure, fans loved Dirk Benedict as the original Starbuck in the 1978 series, but if another man had tried to […]

The post Dirk Benedict & The ‘Battlestar Galactica’ Starbuck That Wouldn’t Fly Today appeared first on Hollywood Outbreak.

When you think of “quintessentially ’80s” TV, The A-Team is one of those shows that immediately comes to mind. A bunch of Rambos in a pre-Rambo world, it ironically took off as a vehicle for a new star popularized in one of Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky films, Mr. T. But while he drew a lot of [...]

The post Dirk Benedict Gives His ‘A-Team’ Experience An A-Plus appeared first on Hollywood Outbreak.

Looking back at some of the strangest cameos in film and TV history, we were struck by how many of them were by musicians. It makes sense. After all, musicians are already out of place among actors on a TV or film set. What they bring to the table is different from what actors bring, in terms of star quality, charisma, self-expression and established personae. If you’re familiar with both the musician’s work and the characters in a movie or TV show (and the actors who play them...

Exclusive: Peacock’s reboot of Battlestar Galactica has found its world builder. Michael Lesslie, who was the lead writer and showrunner of AMC’s spy drama The Little Drummer Girl and penned scripts for Macbeth and Assassin’s Creed, will create, write and executive produce the series.

The new Battlestar Galactica comes from Mr Robot and Homecoming exec producer Sam Esmail, who struck a big overall deal with NBCU’s Universal Content Productions last year. It is produced by Esmail Corp and Ucp, with Esmail and Chad Hamilton also exec producing.

NBCUni’s Universal produced the original Glen A. Larson-created Battlestar Galactica series for ABC. Ucp, then known as Universal Cable Productions, produced the successful Ronald D. Moore revamp that ran from 2004-2009 on the then-Sci-Fi Channel.

The original Battlestar Galactica centered on the last group of humans on the verge of extinction after a series of wars with a robot race,...

Some of the most beloved shows in TV history feature members of the military. You might remember Hawkeye Pierce and Radar O’Reilly from “M*A*S*H,” the breakout star of the “Andy Griffith Show,” Gomer Pyle, whose spinoff “Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.” ran for five years.

Mr. T shot to fame in the early ’80s by playing a veteran in “The A-Team as B.A. Baracus. Younger audiences may remember seeing pop-star Jesse McCartney in the final season of “Army Wives” — and fans of “The Office” can catch one of John Krasinski’s latest roles as the title character in “Jack Ryan.”

With Veteran’s Day taking place this Monday, here’s a list of military-themed TV shows to binge to in honor of our veterans.

“Hogan’s Heroes”

This sitcom aired from 1965 from 1971, and was set in a German Prisoner of War (Pow) camp in WWII. It followed Colonel Robert E.

Juliette Harrisson Sep 24, 2019

Battlestar Galactica had one of the most successful reboots ever. With a new show on the way, we examine what made it so special...

This article comes from Den of Geek UK.

Warning: contains spoilers for Battlestar Galactica.

Battlestar Galactica sits alongside Stargate, Star Trek, and Doctor Who as one of the biggest sci-fi franchises of the late 20th and early 21st century, sporting an original 1978 series, a 1980 follow-up, a complete reboot starting with a mini-series in 2003 and running for four seasons, and two spin-off series, prequels Caprica and Blood and Chrome.

With the news that a new spin-off in the universe of Ron D. Moore’s Battlestar Galactica is planned, this seems a good time to look at just a few of the things that made it so special.

The Cylons

Perhaps the single biggest change between the 1978 series and the 2003 "re-imagining" is the nature of the Cylons.

The new NBCUniversal streaming service that the company said Tuesday would be called Peacock will launch in April 2020 with original content that includes series reboots from the NBCU library among its fare. That list includes the return of a sci-fi classic: a new Battlestar Galactica, billed as an original series from Mr. Robot and Homecoming executive producer Sam Esmail.

Not much is known about the premise, but we hear Esmail is a huge fan of Bg and told NBCU brass it was high on a list of titles he wanted to tackle under the mega new four-year overall deal he closed at NBCU’s Universal Content Productions earlier this year.

NBCU’s Universal produced the original Glen A. Larson-created Battlestar Galactica series for ABC, and NBC Universal TV produced the successful Ronald D. Moore-commanded revamp that ran from 2004-2009 on the then-Sci-Fi Channel. We hear Esmail had been in touch with Moore,...

Jim McMullan, who portrayed one of Jimmy Stewart's six sons in Shenandoah and a top ski racer in the Robert Redford-starring Downhill Racer, has died. He was 82.

McMullan died May 31 of complications from Als at his home in Wofford Heights, California, his wife of 49 years, Helene McMullan, told The Hollywood Reporter.

McMullan and Dirk Benedict starred as police helicopter pilots on 1974's Chopper One, an ABC drama that was produced by Aaron Spelling and Leonard Goldberg, and he toplined the 1980 CBS series Beyond Westworld, based on the Michael Crichton movie. Both shows, however, were quickly canceled.

Dallas fans will ...

Jim McMullan, who portrayed one of Jimmy Stewart's six sons in Shenandoah and a top ski racer in the Robert Redford-starring Downhill Racer, has died. He was 82.

McMullan died May 31 of complications from Als at his home in Wofford Heights, California, his wife of 49 years, Helene McMullan, told The Hollywood Reporter.

McMullan and Dirk Benedict starred as police helicopter pilots on 1974's Chopper One, an ABC drama that was produced by Aaron Spelling and Leonard Goldberg, and he toplined the 1980 CBS series Beyond Westworld, based on the Michael Crichton movie. Both shows, however, were quickly canceled.

Dallas fans will ...

In 2003, the San Diego Comic-Con was a much less intense event than it is today, but networks and studios still saw the value of promoting new TV shows to fans. So, a few months before the premiere of the miniseries that re-launched “Battlestar Galactica,” creator Ronald D. Moore and cast members Edward James Olmos, Jamie Bamber, and Katee Sackhoff, sat on a raised platform in one of the venue’s smaller conference rooms.

They screened the trailer. And then they ate a lot of crap. Although the original “Battlestar Galactica” premiered in 1978 for just one season, the audience was rooted in debating the old version, and why the Sci-Fi Channel (as it was then known) wanted to reboot the show.

The mood did lighten a bit when Sackhoff, cast as the gender-swapped character of Starbuck, addressed how much her role would resemble the one originally played by Dirk Benedict as a womanizing,...

The weekend of November 10th-11th saw some of team Nerdly make the 3-hour trek up to Edinburgh for the inaugural Comic Con Scotland event which, given the guest list, had also been dubbed “For the Love of 80s.” Not really surprising also given that this convention was put on by the folks at Monopoly Events – who also run For the Love of SciFi and For the Love of Horror out of Manchester’s Bowlers Exhibition Centre.

The big draw for this event was the plethora of 80s superstars who were in attendance: Lou Ferrigno, David Hasslehoff, Streethawk’s Rex Smith, Dirk Benedict, Gremlins’ Zach Galligan, Bret “The Hitman” Hart, Ray Parker Jr. who wrote the theme tune for Ghostbusters, and many more. There were also a number of props and vehicles from 80s franchises to take photos of – the A-Team van, Kitt fron Knight Rider, the bikes from both...

Here’s the latest episode of the 365Flicks podcast, part of the ever-growing podcast roster here on Nerdly. If you haven’t heard the show yet, you can check out previous episodes on Libsyn, whilst we’ll be featuring each and every new episode as it premieres.

365Flicks Podcast: Episode 120 – Heading to Scotland Comic Con: For The Love of 80s

Kev and Ruby jump into the booth to let everyone that the lads are heading to Scotland Comic Con For the Love of 80s next weekend Nov 10 – 11th to see some of there favourite stars and icons of the 80s. That’s right Edinburgh will be graced by a whole host of legends including “The Hoff” himself. Flash Gordon’s Sam Jones. A bunch of the Battlestar Galactica including Dirk Benedict. Zach Galligan w/ Gizmo. Ghostbuster Ernie Hudson and theme tune singer Ray Parker Jr. Wrestling icon Bret the Hitman Hart and many many more.

“He’s the kind of hot where, trust me, when he’s in front of you, you would just grab your ankles,” Amy Schumer said about Bradley Cooper in her “Saturday Night Live” monologue. And yet of course, Cooper has gone from relative obscurity and bit parts on television to playing perfect asshole types to now being looked at as a bona fide auteur after his directorial debut. Cooper’s good looks, charm and humor have kept him out of action hero roles and superhero tights and made him better suited to play over-eager boyfriends and charismatic jerks. His latest film “A Star is Born” has him playing opposite Lady Gaga and channeling Eddie Vedder. Here’s Cooper’s evolution across the years.

“Sex and the City” (1999)

Bradley Cooper’s very first acting role was in the second season of “Sex and the City,” where he had a quick-fling with Carrie Bradshaw.

Spencer Mullen Oct 1, 2018

Five lucky geeks can win a copy of So Say We All: The Complete, Uncensored, Unauthorized Oral History of Battlestar Galactica!

Frak yes! Our friends at Tor Books have given us five copies of So Say We All: The Complete, Uncensored, Unauthorized Oral History of Battlestar Galactica to give away to a few lucky readers. Cylons need not apply.

From Mark A. Altman and Edward Gross, the bestselling authors of the definitive two-volume Star Trek oral history, The Fifty-Year Mission, and the oral history of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Slayers & Vampires, comes So Say We All.

Four decades after its groundbreaking debut, Battlestar Galactica―both the 1978 original and its 2004 reimagining—have captured the hearts of two generations of fans. Featuring never-before-seen interviews with series creators Ronald D. Moore and Glen Larson, Edward James Olmos, Katee Sackhoff, Dirk Benedict, and many, many more, this is the story of...

The new oral history of Battlestar Galactica, So Say We All (Tor Books), from bestselling authors Mark A. Altman and Edward Gross, tells the story of how a 1978 space opera greenlit in the aftermath of Star Wars, and featuring a robot dog and lumbering, mechanical robot villains called the Cylons, evolved into one of the greatest and most critically acclaimed series ever. Debuting on the Syfy Channel in 2004, the same season as Lost, Battlestar Galactica (truly born out of the ashes of 9/11) was not immediately embraced by fans of the original show when it was first announced as a miniseries — not the least of which was because the 1978 popular character of Starbuck, played by a swashbuckling Dirk Benedict, was reconceived as a kick-ass woman played by Katee Sackhoff. (Starbuck, then and now; Photo Credit: Getty Images) Those robot villains? They were remade as humanoid villains, and even the Galactica's first officer,...

What’s old is new again, and that includes the practice of gender-flipping a role. Commonly seen in folk tales and comic book properties, the practice has been a staple on the big screen and gaining popularity on TV, especially when it comes to reimagining male characters as female.

Swapping a character’s gender often occurs in the process of remaking or reimagining a pre-existing story. The most recent example on TV is the casting of Parker Posey to portray the villainous Dr. Smith on Netflix’s reboot of “Lost in Space.” The role was originated by Jonathan Harris in the ‘60s-era Irwin Allen series.

But gender-flipping can also occur in the process of creating a new character. In the case of lawyer Jeri Hogarth on “Marvel’s Jessica Jones,” the production started by crafting a female character and then retrofitting her with an identity from Marvel. That’s how Jeryn Hogarth,...

Ah, the 2000s — an indefinable decade of war, social progression, and an explosion of prestige TV. With so much great television came many, many great television characters. The best shows were built on battles of quality characters: Is Don Draper better than Peggy Olson? Lorelai Gilmore or Rory? Walter White or Jesse Pinkman? Or is there a third, less-referenced character who’s the secret star?

These aren’t problems by any stretch of the imagination: Great characters lead to better episodes, seasons, and series, so having too many is hardly a handicap in a medium with so much time. But before standalone episodes started trending, these were the best characters during the onset of TV’s new golden age.

A few rules, to keep things sane: Characters had to be created between 2000 and 2009. So even if the show was created before we knew Y2K wasn’t worth the worry,...

Richard Hatch, best known for his role as Captain Apollo on the original Battlestar Galactica, has passed away from cancer.

His friend, composer Bear McReary broke the news on Twitter today.

Hatch had been in hospice care after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 71 years old.

Hatch began his long career in theater before catching his first television break on All My Children in 1971.

His theater credits include runs in the Los Angeles Resperatory Theater as well as in Chicago and off-Broadway roles.

He got his first big break with a role on The Streets of San Francisco in its final season as Inspector Dan Robbins.

It was on Battlestar Galactica in 1978 where Richard Hatch became a household name.

As Captain Apollo, Hatch starred alongside Dirk Benedict and Lorne Greene for one season.

Yes, the original series of Battlestar Galactica was on the air for only one season,...

Richard Hatch, who starred alongside Lorne Greene and Dirk Benedict in the 1970s sci-fi series Battlestar Galactica, has died. He was 71. Ronald D. Moore, who created the 2000s reboot of the show in which Hatch also appeared, tweeted the news: Richard Hatch was a good man, a gracious man, and a consummate professional. His passing is a heavy blow to the entire BSG family. — Ronald D. Moore (@RonDMoore) February 7, 2017 Alec Peters, who is working on the…...

If you wish more horror films came with onomatopoetic titles, I’ve got the movie for you.

When Kevin Smith released his now -notorious horror comedy Tusk, many reviewers took issue with the ludicrous premise in which a mad scientist takes it upon himself to transform a man into a walrus. Apparently none of these critics had ever seen Bernard L. Kowalski’s 1973 horror film Sssssss—new to Blu-ray from Scream Factory—because if they had, they might have recognized that the premise of Smith’s movie had been covered nearly 30 years earlier, only with a snake instead of a walrus. It is, to put it bluntly, not a very good movie. But it is a weird one, and sometimes “weird” counts.

Dirk Benedict (“Face” from TV’s The A-Team) plays college student David, hired as an assistant to Dr. Carl Stoner (Strother Martin), who specializes in snakes and doubles...

There aren’t a lot of horror and sci-fi titles arriving on Blu-ray and DVD this Tuesday (there are four, to be exact), but the few we do have to look forward to are an eclectic and entertaining bunch nonetheless. Scream Factory is giving HD overhauls to both Death Becomes Her and the cult classic Sssssss this week, and Christmas is coming a bit early this year by way of Michael Dougherty’s Krampus, which hits Blu-ray and DVD on April 26th. Our last release for this week is a pair of 1970s underground classics, Crypt of the Living Dead and House of the Living Dead, which arrive together on DVD courtesy of Vinegar Syndrome.

Death Becomes Her (Scream Factory, Blu-ray)

An actress and an author fight over a plastic surgeon and the secret of eternal beauty. Directed by Robert Zemeckis.

Special Features include “The Making of Death Becomes Her...

Scream Factory will release slithering scares on home media tomorrow with their Blu-ray release of the 1973 snake-centric horror film Sssssss, and we’ve been provided with three copies to give away to Daily Dead readers.

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Prize Details: (3) Winners will receive (1) Blu-ray copy of Sssssss.

How to Enter: For a chance to win, email contest@dailydead.com with the subject “Sssssss Contest”. Be sure to include your name and mailing address.

Entry Details: The contest will end at 12:01am Est on May 1st. This contest is only open to those who are eighteen years of age or older that live in the United States. Only one entry per household will be accepted.

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From the Press Release: “Before Venom, Anaconda, Python, or Snakes on a Plane, there was the seminal snake-centric horror film, Sssssss. The story of a mad scientist hell bent on turning humans into snakes and using these hybrids...

Back in February, it was announced that Bernard L. Kowalski’s Sssssss would be coming to Blu-ray courtesy of Scream Factory on April 26th. With just four days to go, two Blu-ray clips—one featuring an interview with Dirk Benedict—and the film’s official trailer have been released, and we have them for Daily Dead readers to enjoy. “Don’t say it, hiss it.”

From the Press Release: “Before Venom, Anaconda, Python, or Snakes on a Plane, there was the seminal snake-centric horror film, Sssssss. The story of a mad scientist hell bent on turning humans into snakes and using these hybrids to get revenge on those who have wronged him, Sssssss is every Ophidiophobe’s nightmare. Making its Blu-ray debut April 26th, 2016 from Scream Factory, Sssssss comes loaded with bonus features, including a new interview with actor Dirk Benedict, a new interview with actor Heather Menzies-Urich, a photo gallery,...

It’s a bird. It’s a plane. No, it’s snakes! This time, Scream Factory has passed the Blu-ray torch to Bernard L. Kowalski’s Sssssss. Packed with bonus features that include but are not limited to new interviews with the cast, Sssssss is available for pre-order now.

Press Release: Before Venom, Anaconda, Python, or Snakes on a Plane, there was the seminal snake-centric horror film Sssssss. The story of a mad scientist hell bent on turning humans into snakes and using these hybrids to get revenge on those who have wronged him, Sssssss is every ophidiophobe’s nightmare. Making its Blu-ray debut April 26th, 2016 from Scream Factory, Sssssss comes loaded with bonus features, including a new interview with actor Dirk Benedict, a new interview with actor Heather Menzies-Urich, a photo gallery, theatrical trailers and more! Fans can pre-order their copies now by visiting ShoutFactory.com

In Sssssss, Strother Martin...

Since its debut in 1978, Battlestar Galactica has never really been absent from popular culture. That first series may have only run for one season, but it has been rebooted, re-imagined and re-worked more times than anyone over the age of 35 would probably care to remember. Despite more failures to launch than successful orbits, Universal has assembled a team of powerhouse producers to make a Battlestar Galactica movie franchise a reality.

Michael De Luca (Captain Phillips, Moneyball, The Social Network, and the Fifty Shades franchise), Scott Stuber (The Break-Up, The Kingdom, Ted) and Dylan Clark (The Heat, the Planet Of The Apes franchise) are combining their considerable forces to begin piecing together what the studio hopes will become a movie series of the tent-pole variety. While that sounds, perhaps, ill-advised, it is certainly the case that the Battlestar Galactica brand has enormous potential for development.

Created by Glen A. Larson (Magnum P.

Best known for playing Norman Bates in the Psycho films, Anthony Perkins played a plethora of other cinematic characters in his career, including roles in Destroyer and Edge of Sanity, both of which will come out on a new double feature Blu-ray this year from Scream Factory.

Originally planned to be released last summer as a double feature release with Scarecrows, Destroyer—along with Edge of Sanity—will finally get its high-def due on April 12th from the fine folks at Scream Factory.

Also slated to slither onto shelves this spring is the snake-centric horror film Sssssss, which is scheduled for an April 26th release. Below, we have Scream Factory's official details on both upcoming Blu-rays, as well as a look at the cover art:

From Scream Factory: "Another wild & crazy retro double feature (both featuring Psycho star Anthony Perkins) is planned for release on blu-ray this Spring!

Their hissing can cause you to stop dead in your tracks... or pick up the pace. Snakes are often the source of slithering scares, and Scream Factory's set to release the 1973 snake-centric horror film Sssssss on Blu-ray for the first time next year.

Sssssss will make its Blu-ray debut in the spring/summer of 2016. No special features have been revealed yet, but we'l keep Daily Dead readers updated on further announcements.

From Scream Factory: "If you're into snakes then we have a film for you: The 1973 cult classic called Sssssss (don't say it, hiss it) will be slithering its way to the Blu-ray format for the first time sometime in late Spring/early Summer! Stars Heather Menzies (Piranha), Dirk Benedict (Battlestar Galactica) and Reb Brown (Yor, the Hunter from the Future).

No other details to report at thissss (sorry, we can't help ourselves) time."

Synopsis: "Strother Martin and...