13 SCI-FI/FANTASY TV SERIES FAILURES OF THE LATE 70s 

Grant Rhodes Connie Sellecca wasn’t chopped liver either.

The younger Miss Grey grew up in California with a very specific set of family-oriented, health minded values, after which she must have attended acting classes and done well, not to mention having a decent talent agent representing her. I wonder how lucky we were she did turn away from being socially naked in mixed sex company and go the straight and narrow path to celebrity? ... And they say one person cannot make a difference but, I think Erin Grey made a difference in my young adult life, in all the typical hormone-fueled ways, for which I am seriously grateful!

I had a MAJOR crush on Erin Gray.

Nope, Linda Carter

...i wonder what Erin looks like now(?)

BSG only ran for 1 season. BR25 only ran 1 1/2 seasons, which was 1/2 a season too long.

Wesley Adams Space: Above and Beyond only ran for one season. Firefly only ran for one season. Were those failures too?

BG was just too expensive. It got ok ratings and if it had been cheaper to produce it would have lasted longer

Chris Cooling I think Project: U.F.O. ran for almost three seasons.

Soussherpa Robert T. Baumer Only a season and a half, Feb. 1978 to Aug. 1979.

trooper32556p 'The Night Stalker' was a fantastic show. I caught the show back in the 90s on BBC2 in the UK.

I agree night stalker should have had more than just 1 season

IKR?? Night Stalker was the doo-doo when I was 8 years old, couldn't wait to see the next episode each week - then suddenly it was gone...same with the planet of the apes series, which was probably better than the last 2 or 3 pota films of the 1970's.

One of the best.

trooper32556p It was a good show but it had too many well known guest stars. Hurt the believability of Night Stalker

I just looked up erin gray what a pig

Buck was a good series - especially first season. I'm glad MeTV is showing it. Part of my Saturday night routine.

Fun Fact: Twiki’s head was shaped like the tip of a penis!

They also exported those shows to other countries. I live in Chile and I grew up watching Buck Rogers, Battlestar Galactica and Spiderman :D

Yes, I like those shows as well.

They were the Firefly of their time. That show only lasted one season and new merchandise based on it is still being made.

At least, David McCallum did better as Illya Kuryakin with "MFU" and as Ducky on"NCIS". Not bad in "Sapphire and Steel" either. I was mad that "Invisible Man"' was replaced with "Gemini Man"-a too off-but happy the latter didn't last nearly as long and was soon cancelled. Glad that David has lasted longer in "NCIS".

@@virginiaconnor8350 invisible man was way better than gemini.especially because of melinda fee

I think these shows were fantastic and I totally agree. Sponsors are always uneasy with scifi shows and think their cancellation was really investors wanting to support a show with higher ratings rather than a show that pans to a dedicated audience. That fact I think would foster lifelong dedicated fans for their product because scifi fans are the most diehard fans out there.

Same but in England. I really liked Logan's Run.

We had to watch Man from Atlantis. Galway boy does good.

+AmusedChild Salvage I! Loved that show! But yeah, Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers were both rather successful.

Cool, someone else remembers Quark. Some of the episodes were quite good.

Especially on Quark they did their own version of 'Mirror, Mirror' when they went through a Black Hole and their evil twins except of the Plant Man came through and started to destroy other ships and Quark had to fight his evil self and sent them back into the Black Hole! LOL!

AmusedChild ] SO IN THE BEGINNING ] I BELIEVED EVERY WORD THAT ] U ] SAID ] NOW THAT YOUR GONE MY WORLD ARE IN SHERADES ] U ] LEFT ME YOU TOOK ALL THE THINGS THAT I NEEDED SO BAD ] NOW AM WONDERING WERE IS THE LOVE WE ONCE HAD SO GIVE ME ] BLUE SILVER + GOLD ] THE COLOR OF THE SKY AM TOLD ] MY RAINBOWS OVER DO ] SO DONT FORSAKE ME COUSE I LOVE ] U [@¤

Damn right Salvage! Best show ever!

+MERCS2046 This has come up often. The 'failure' is in terms of the shows' inability to sustain longer than brief runs, usually as a result of poor ratings. As the Uploaded note above explains, these are of shows that lasted a year and half or less, often less.

Yeah you should've done your homework better Buck Rogers and Battle Star were not flops

But their ratings were not high enough hits to justify their expensive productions. BSG and Buck Rogers were both the most expensive series on television. Ratings for both series dropped steadily after their premieres and neither were top ten shows.

Battlestar Galactica Finished 24th Overall in the Ratings But it's Price Tag One Million Per Episode (The Most Expensive Series on Air at the Time) abc Network Decide to Pull the Plug.

You need to understand that at the time "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century" was decried by the critics as one of the worst sci-fi shows of all time. It actually did better than the original "Battlestar Galatica" in terms of run because it managed a whopping TWO seasons to "Battlestar Galactica"'s single season. And CBS basically killed "Battlestar Galactica", an ABC show at the time, because they moved two of their popular shows to the same time slot as "Battlestar Galactica" after it had high ratings when it first hit TV. Of course both have proven far more successful than they were viewed to be at the time.

I was halfway through clicking over to amazon.com to look for the slave auction before I realized you meant in the show.

chalkwalk Rofl, Rofl Rofl. If you find that auction on Amazon please let me know.

mike5556 I had forgotten how beautiful she was.

mike5556 that poster....

meow

I definitely did more than once. Glad it wasn't just me! Ah, youth!

Haha! I was going to comment the same thing! Damn, we're old!

Porch Fyre .. I am not bloody old! Just well developed. And the best program ever was Thunderbirds!

Porch Fyre no , if you can remember the flying nun then youre old , guilty as charged hahaha

Robert Luben.

BSG was the most expensive sci-fi show of its time!

I just made that exact observation. Two such fine actors in such a shitty show. Amazing

Even if it flopped, nothing with Ernest Borgnine was a flop, I remember thinking the TV movie pilot of Future cop was great.

Hulu dumped me into a marathon of Airwolf and I just rolled with it for Borgnine.

Harlan Ellison sued Future Cop off the air for copying his short story "Brillo".

Don't you mean that's the the most amazing thing you've NOT seen, actually?

If you watch the credits of Project UFO carefully you notice how much they are thanking the USAF. The USAF heavily underwrote the cost of the show. Project Blue Book was in truth likely the most cost effective (dis) information campaign that the Air Force ever threw together on a shoe string budget. The height of the Cold War. The Air Force was flying and testing all sorts of unique, innovative and crazy planes and programs. All Top Secret. So to cover it up they sent a couple of respectable looking officers out to start asking questions about UFO’s. This had a remarkable level of success as it accomplished a ton of unexpected tasks. It inundated them with reports about who had seen their aircraft and where. Gave them valuable data about how detectable the craft was. It put out an implausible but highly addictive viral cover story about UFO’s and Aliens that persists to this day. And it helped the USAF detect if their were any stealthy aircraft in US skies that were not theirs. (Remember we were flying U-2’s over the Soviet Union at this point. It is likely the Soviets we’re seeking to do the same.) The effectiveness of the program was remarkable. A little too much so when they started getting questions from Congress about Aliens. But really Project Blue Book was just a cover story for a program to see who saw their secret test flights. The Air Force even kicked in a bunch of money for the show. And the scary thing is even though the truth is essentially out there. Even though the truth passes the Occam’s Razor test quiet easily, still few believe it. They prefer the UFO’s and Aliens.

Invisible Man was a top rater in New Zealand; I think it was the highest rated show of the year. David McCallum had a special video message for us as a result of this. It just shows with some programs it can simply be the environment it is playedin - the day, time slot, and what is up against it.

I remember the invisible man. I was born in 78, so I must have seen reruns on something, but I watched it

Totally Agree...

Don't forget Project Bluebook another UFO-themed show!

Amazed planet of the giants wasn't listed.

Land of the Giants was a 1960s series. He listed those of 1970s.

I had forgotten about Cliffhangers. That was a LOT of fun recreating the old style serials.

See if your cable company / satellite company offer El Rey network &/or H&I channel, also ME TV. Between the 3 channels they carry a bunch of the 70's + science fiction series.

Logan's run needed better scripts

Nearly all of those shows came from the absolute powerhouse of the 1970s and early 80s...MCA-Universal Television. When Donald Bellisario scored with Magnum P.I. it was a culmination of many years of moving up in the business. Glen Larsen was probably the most prolific producer at MCA for 15 years. And while some probably called Battlestar Galactica a rushed show to capitalize on Star Wars, it had more depth and character than many other shows of it's time. Oh, it cost a lot of money to make, definitely. Still the 1970s could boast failed shows that were miles above today in quality. The three networks were serious about ratings and put their best up against promising looking shows on other networks. No pussyfooting around, money was being made and lost and no cable to cut into profits. What's more, when a producer had a hit show they had more power to bring other shows into the lineups. Totally different days. Days that were there to be dominated and owned.

Patrick Dempsey was horribly miscast

You mean Patrick Duffy?

LordSathar ????

I'm sure Battlestar lasted 2 seasons, though heavily revamped. Anyway, in the late 70s, if a show lasted even 1 full season, it was a success; most didn't last a half. Man from Atlantis lasted more than 1 season.

What show is this, I don't remember that series?

Serenity now!

@@John40ish I believe he is referring to Time Express. I remember that show- it was a time traveling train that allowed passengers to go back in time to give them a second chance to put things right (like finding a lost love, etc.).

@@asnrobert Sounds like Fantasy Island before Fantasy Island became a thing LOL:) OL J R :)

"Boss, Boss, the TRAIN, the TRAIN!!!!" just doesn't have the same ring to it... Later! OL J R :)

My dad and I liked this.

The only good thing about season two: Wilma in that sexy sailor suit. Damn! Oh, and Hawkman was pretty cool, too.

Yeah that's true... although it was "supposed" to be more of a "Star Trek" type ripoff than "cruise ship". The idea was to go "searching for the lost tribes of Earth", going off the premise introduced into the show in the first season in the episode with Gary Coleman and Ray Walston, where they explained that in the centuries immediately following the devastating nuclear holocaust, Earth was "looted by aliens", hence how Gary Coleman, who was a survivor of the holocaust and a child prodigy working on "suspended animation" who ultimately tested the technology on himself, and therefore was presumably "stolen" by aliens and handed down through the centuries til he ended up on Genesia, where they revived him and made him President of their planet, and he worked to improve their technology and quality of life. Anyway, also presumably, these aliens probably carried off captured humans from Earth, and probably fell prey to humans who took their ships and used them to escape, or who traded for their their technology and built ships or bought ships from them to leave Earth... Either way, a "lot" of humans were purported to have left Earth for deep space during the time after the nuclear holocaust but before the "Earth Federation" and the Defense Directorate were organized and created and society reestablished itself on Earth. Hence this was the "motivation" for Buck to go out on the "Searcher" looking for possible nuclear war survivors or their descendants he might have known. In reality, Gil Gerard had been pressing for a "reboot" or at least change in direction of the show through most of the first season. He disliked the "Bond in the 25th century" type flavor of the show with the one-liners, over-the-top stories, campy action, and babe of the week (God bless Spandex!!!) formula, even though it was working quite well. Buck Rogers had been blessed with many of the props and equipment and techniques used on Battlestar Galactica, which saved a lot of money, but it was still a fairly expensive show to produce. Glen Larson had pretty much had it with the studio pressure and difficulties producing BSG and trying to keep it going, and he was tired of fighting that battle and just pretty much decided to step back from Buck Rogers and let them have their way with it. In fairness the scripts and writing had steadily deteriorated through the first season of Buck Rogers; the first four episodes are noticeably better than the rest, and watched in sequence they go steadily downhill in production value, look, and storylines as the season progresses to it's end. The network decided to renew Buck Rogers for a second season, but major changes were afoot... basically Gil Gerard got his much wanted "reset" of the show, which was never properly explained, and no "closure" with the first episode was given... sadly the actor portraying Dr. Huer, Tim O'Connor, wasn't even informed that his character had been written out of the show and he was now unemployed... Instead we got the annoying Jay Garner as "Admiral Asimov", veteran actor Wilfrid Hyde-White as the rather cumbersome character of "Dr. Goodfellow", and Thom Christopher as the alien "Hawk", along with Erin Gray's "Wilma Deering" and a host of new "officers" on the ship, including Wilfrid Hyde-White's son or grandson and the guy that does the "Allstate" car insurance commercials... Even the actress who played "Hot Pants Hilliard" in "Smokey and the Bandit" was in an episode as a short-skirt sailor outfit crewman Buck passes in a hallway... The writer's strike hobbled the second season from before the get-go, and led to the short season with fewer than normal episodes, and the stories that got made were generally of poor quality and very nonsensical... The second season started off halfway decent witht he introduction of Hawk, but it rapidly went downhill from there. IMHO the best episode of the entire second season was the next to last episode "Testimony of a Traitor" where Buck is accused of war crimes and nearly sentenced to death after an old VHS tape is discovered in the bombed out ruins of the NORAD complex in Cheyenne Mountain, containing a record of Buck helping a group of rogue generals to obtain the missile launch codes to start WWIII on their own, with his only defense being an electronic memory probe by Dr. Goodfellow that shows most of his suppressed memories supporting the tape evidence, until flashbacks lead him and Wilma to Mount Rushmore and the President's "secret bunker" where his memory is restored when he recalls a secret meeting there when he was recruited to infiltrate the group of rogue officers under deep hypnosis in order to expose them... and promised his appointment to crew the next NASA mission as compensation... It was IMHO Gil Gerard's best performance as the character of Buck Rogers... The show went out with a whimper after the next episode. The whole second season couldn't really decide WHAT it wanted to be... a mish-mash of stories none of which really tied in to the new premise of the show, and adding an annoying admiral and forgetful if benign old man along with a TOTALLY ANNOYING new "robot" called "Crichton" didn't help AT ALL, neither did not getting Mel Blanc back until the second half of the second season to do Twiki's voice, after an unsettling and totally wrong recast of Twiki's voice by another voice actor... So the series went from good to okay to ho-hum, and came back as "uhh, what?" to "WTF" to "forgetaboutit" and was gone... Later! OL J R :)

I loved Heather Menzies and enjoyed the show.

loans run needs a reboot..just like westworld on HBO is getting now,and they are doing a fantastic job,just 2 episodes in and I'm hooked, he'll buck Rogers could do well too on HBO Netflix or Starz give it an r rating like daredevil or Luke cage.

Steve Joseph Give me Yul Brynner any day.

I think ed harris is playing yul in the reboot,and he's doing great,have you watched it?..very well done. but you are right yul was great.

Now that is a memory, "Which tv show characters did you play during recess" :)

Star Trek ran for 3 seasons; '66 thru '69. You might want to amend that.

PortMantoo Star Trek was cancelled after its first season and again after its second season, and was only saved by letter writing campaigns, so it is a valid example. Of course it doesn't really count, because it was not from the'70s. ;-)

Read "Inside Star Trek: The Real Story" by Herbert F. Solow and Robert H. Justman. They were THERE before ST was born and nurtured it all through its first 3 years! It was not cancelled after the first season. I was a tiny part of that letter campaign.

Way late... but agree 1000 percent. I did too. TV was a wasteland for Scifi and fantasy. We were happy to see the Wizard of Oz once a year.

They couldn't just call him Aquaman?

@@tenhirankei nah...... how 'bout Marine Boy.

Youre thinking of Galactica 1980, right?

Galactica only ran one season, so that may be why it's on the list. Buck Rogers was on for two seasons though.

@@bob_._. No, Galactica 1980 was a "reset" or "soft reboot" of the original BSG... it was supposed to be a follow-on of the story a number of years later after the events of the first season, when they FINALLY made it to Earth and discovered that the "Thirteenth Colony" had suffered some horrible event that set the survivors back by centuries or even millennia technologically, so 20th century Earth was completely incapable of helping the Colonial survivors against the technologically advanced Cylons... Basically BSG suffered the same fate that Buck Rogers faced-- a "reboot" of the premise of the show that simply DIDN"T WORK worth a hoot in h3ll... and which ultimately sealed the fate of both shows in the end. In BSG's case it was to try to cut down the production costs by being on "contemporary Earth" as the settings thus cutting the sets and FX budgets, but it resulted in a show that bore virtually NO resemblance to the first season "Battlestar Galactica", didn't resonate or attract fans, and was ultimately and thankfully cancelled. Buck Rogers suffered the same fate for different reasons-- Glen Larson's departure and replacement by John Mantley, and Gil Gerard's continued pressure throughout the first season for a 'reset' of the show's premise away from the "James Bond in the 25th Century" type stories with the super-villain and sexy babe of the week (clad in Spandex of course!) got traction with the studio looking for cheaper production costs... The cast changed and the direction of the show along with it. The show suffered a months-long delay due to a writer's strike, and so had a "short season" of fewer then normal episodes, though on the whole the stories were pretty atrocious in the second season anyway, excepting perhaps the two-part introduction to the second season that brought Hawk onto the ship, and "Testimony of a Traitor", the next to last episode of the series. Other than a now "hippy looking" Gil Gerard and of course the always gorgeous Erin Gray, the two seasons had virtually NOTHING in common... Both shows died of the same shortsighted cost-cutting nonsense of the networks/studio and ill-advised money-driven "reboots" or changes to the show that turned it into something completely different from what it started out as... Later! OL J R :)

Star Trek almost was a failure, but Lucille Ball fought tooth and nail to keep it going. If it hadn't been for her, Star Trek wouldn't have been at all.

@@imperiallebaron2391 Watch the Herb Solow/ Bob Justman audio version of their book on RU-vid... Solow (who was intimately involved in the creation of Star Trek and bringing to the airwaves, and as a studio executive at Desilu was in prime position to know, recounts one of their executive board meetings with Lucy in attendance, as owner of the studio. Star Trek was just one of the many projects Desilu Studio was working on, and most of the studio executives were opposed to Star Trek, figuring it was a bad risk for the studio. Herb Solow had promoted it in earlier meetings, but no decisions had been made, and it hadn't even been discussed in quite a while. As the meeting was breaking up, Lucy came up to Herb Solow and asked him, "what about that South Seas thing you mentioned a few months back?" Solow drew a blank, "I'm not sure what you're talking about, we didn't discuss any South Seas series at all to my knowledge". Lucy was INSISTENT he described a series the studio was considering producing about the south seas and the USO. Again, Solow was confused and befuddled, and didn't know what she was talking about. It was common to discuss MANY different show ideas, some of which would be produced, some of which would never see the light of day, so he thought perhaps something had totally slipped his mind. Finally Lucy started describing it, "It's a show about all these celebrities travelling with the USO to entertain the troops in the South Seas during the war, oh, what did you call it... Ah... STAR TREK, that was it!" Solow immediately understood that Lucy had heard the name "Star Trek" but hadn't listened or remembered much about the description of the premise of the show, so she naturally assumed that "Star Trek" was about a group of "movie stars" travelling to the exotic locales of the South Seas to entertain the troops, which of course would have to be set in wartime, in the Pacific, in WW2. She didn't even know what Star Trek was! He said it was going very well and she gave tacit approval, as Lucy's involvement in studio management was actually pretty limited-- that's why she had a board of executives that actually ran the studio and handled the day to day work. Oh, of course she had the "final say" as studio owner, but she rarely if ever used it on way or the other, and she CERTAINLY didn't "campaign tirelessly" for Star Trek and solely ensured that Star Trek was given a chance. That is a completely erroneous statement and a Hollywood legend that has no bearing in fact. Later! OL J R :)

It had two seasons as well.

Westworld was reimagined by HBO. Spider-Man became a successful series of blockbuster movies. The only ones I can imagine a "reboot" are Time Express (as an anime) & Tales Of The Unexpected (Netflix or Hulu).

Battlestar Galactica was originally axed after one season. Then it proved really popular and did very well in syndication. The studio then tried to resurrect with Galactica 1980 but a lot of the sets had been destroyed and they tried running it on a much smaller budget. That ended again after one season. The reason it was originally axes was because the special effects were top notch for its time and that made it expensive. Just compare it to the much cheaper Buck Rogers, which was also an attempt to recapture the success of the original Battlestar Galactica.

@@rogerwilco2 You'd think it wouldn't be that expensive since they reused effects a LOT.

@@rogerwilco2 Some of the sets and costumes for BSG were also used on Buck Rogers.

WTF!!! They threw "Buck Roger's" and "Battlestar Galactica" in together with the rest of that dogshit??? That's blasphemy!!!!!!

Masculine Buddha Agreed. BR was the best and BG was amazing. I was only 13 and I had the biggest crush on Starbuck.

Cool crush.

"By your command"

RightURKen7 I even use this sound on my cell hehehe

I would've taken one look at the first script for season two and quit on the spot. For added measure I would've sent back the script shredded.

the second season was sick

Yeah, Buck Rogers really jumped the shark when they permanently put him on that spaceship and added that hawk-man character.

The producer Glen Larson quit after the first season, and Gil Gerard got uppity and worked with the second producer to turn the show into Star Trek, which didn't work.

I agree. Some of those episodes are really good.

MasterJediDude Yeah, its funny because i remember them from when i was a kid, vaguely, And when i bought the set to watch now as an adult i thought that they wouldn't be all that good, or not as good as i remembered them being. But they were great!. If any ones a fan of the Logans run movie, and the books then they would deffo get a buzz out of watching the t,v, series, for sure. Just a shame the series didn't run longer than it did. Also got the Buck Rogers in the 25th century box sets, great show!. I should think many of us who saw that show as a kid have fond memories of it. Although watching it now i can see season one was more impressive than the later ones. No way was that show a failure though. And what the hell is B-Galactica doing in this video. That show was awesome!

Yeah, I still like going back and watching these old shows. Even Buck Rogers is a guilty pleasure of mine -- especially the Andromeda episode. LOL!

MasterJediDude I agree buddy. Watching these old sci-fi t,v, series again really does take you back. Awesome!

@@MasterJediDude The Harlan Ellison scripted "Crypt" and the David Gerrold(credited as N. Ward) scripted "Man out of Time" are the standouts of the series.

Ha, silly, did you ever watch the Starlost? Now that was silly!

@Darryl Ruiz SHE was the reason a lot of us watched. Though, you could kind of tell she wasn't happy with the direction her character took as it went on.

So did the re boot of Battlestar Galactica. It started off as a decent sci fi show, then turned West Wing in space on us.

No argument there buddy. Greatest show opening of all time. I am 50 and it still sends chills up my spine.

I can listen the BG theme over and over. It was one of the greatest of all time.

Yes, the opening shows how far above a standard "sci-fi adventure show" of that era BG TOS was. Much bigger, more expensive, better thought-out, movie-grade props & modeling, etc.

Made it even more sinister when McNee also voiced the Cylon leader and later in the series, a "fallen Angel" who presumably created the cylons in the first place.

Came here to say this. Saw you had it covered. Left happy. On the other hand; it is nice to see all these intros together in one place... even if it is a bit of a misnomer when it comes to Buck and BSG.

I liked the Original Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers

rajvader Heh, "Holmes & Yo-Yo" What memories.

+rajvader That was probably because SF writers Ben Bova and Harlan Ellison tried to sell a series called "Brillo" that ABC rejected before they released this too-similar series. Bova and Ellison sued them and won! They threatened to do the same when "Holmes & Yoyo" was released. Even NBC tried to revive "Future Cop" as "Cops and Robin!" The Suits never learn I guess!

+rajvader Anyone remember "Mann and Machine"? That was a fun, short-lived series. The idea, just as itself, has been done to death, but the slightly dystopian future, combined with great chemistry from the leads and some good writing, made for a highly enjoyable show.

+David T. Smith Harlin Ellison is greedy and loves to be litigious. Terminator was not based on any episode of Outer Limits, not Demon With A Glass Hand nor The Soldier. What the hell, Cameron could've have ripped off Cyborg 2087 made in 1966 - hell, why did not the makers of that film not sue, it is the American way, good or bad, and increasingly bad! I think Harlan Ellison should get the L. Ron Hubbard award, you know him, a good friend of Ellison's

Jeffrey314159 I'm glad to read that you know Harlan so intimately. What happened? Did he threaten to sue YOU for attempting to make a tacky fan video based on one of his short stories? Was it one of your friends? I guess you've never heard of Intellectual Property! I guess that you didn't know that Harlan and Ben Bova submitted a treatment based on a short story that they collaborated on called "Brillo" and I guess you think that it was just a coincidence that "Future Cop" was released not long after it! I didn't know you were an ABC groupie! Do you have a picture of Leonard Rule posted on your bedroom wall? I'm so happy for you!! As for LRH, you make HIS conspiracy theories sound reasonable by comparison, you KAZOONIE!

Let's not forget Gerry and Sylvie Anderson's SPACE:1999... The first season of which featured the legendary theme and score by Barry Gray.

@MOONBASE ALPHA Gerry should have made it how he wanted it and ignored American interfwerence.

Andy Griffith's show was named, "Salvage 1", yeah, I watched that one also!

I remember watching Salvage 1 in the early 80s .

The Salvage TV movie rocked. The series was boring.

Wished they made a gruesome remake for Shudder. 💀

Maybe they were failures from a ratings standpoint when compared to other shows at the time. Maybe someone just wanted to generate full video views for advertising revenue from youtube. Who knows?

Fantastic Journey was great, big fan of Roddy McDowell.

Michael Hinxman what? The average time span of a successful series since the Sixties was five seasons, like Star Treks Five Year Mission. The point by that time was syndication and four to five seasons was considered the minimum necessary to have enough episodes to have a profitable syndication. Only comedies escaped that to a small extent.

No. BSG was canceled after one season, but, after huge fan protests, Galactica 1980 was created. The thing about BSG was that ABC thought it was too expensive, so, when Galactica 1980 was created, they did tons of cost cutting, and, well, it showed. So, yes, in a sense, the two shows were closely related, but they weren't planned that way from the outset.

Yes...Yes I do. Wow that was a long time ago now.

Lynn Jepson You mean Project: UFO.

Lynn Jepson it's Project U.F.O.

it was called project blue book in some other countries such as Australia.

It was called Project Blue Book in the Boston area also. My brothers and I all remember it by that name.

I too remember Project Blue Book, as it was called in the UK. I seem to recall they called it that in the pilot episode too.

"Faliures", in terms of ratings strong enough to stay on the air. BSG and BR25 do still stand up well. ST:TNG's early sfx look more dated than BSG's, despite being 17 years newer.

To call some of these series failures overlooks the fact that in the `70`s and early `80`s few SF series ever ran to more than a single season due to the way that US networks worked at the time. And the fact is a couple of these `failures` did actually run beyond a single season.

I remember the pilot for Battlestar Galactica was released as a feature movie (cashing in on the success of Star Wars), and it's sell was sensaround or some such, basically massive cerwin vega speakers (audiophiles wet dream of the day) that shook the floorboards. It was cool for it's time.

Buck Rogers pilot movie was also released for theatrical showing in many countries outside the US. I watched it first on the big screen. which means both BG and BR were filmed on film, and not video taped.

This seems to be a common misunderstanding as to what is meant by "failure" with the shows in the video. As I explained in my description beneath the video, the shows were all those that lasted a year and half or less and, as such, are deemed failures in terms of longevity. Despite what some believe, both Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers had a first full season followed by only a half-season the following year, totaling 34 and 37 episodes, respectively.

Battlestar Galactica Had 24 eps of the original series which had a beggining, obviously, but also had an end when they finally discovered earth where they are from.. then it had a series in the 80's which was commonly known as the earth series.. which in my book is 3 years, not 1 and a half years, plus by the calculation of a year and a half or less, then Buck Rogers was a success as it ran for 2 seasons which is, ohh let me think 2 years..

Martin Barber You're a moron. The original Battlestar Galactica lasted ONE season. ONE year. It wasn't brought back for a second season, and they'd never found Earth. Too late the network decided they'd made a mistake in canning it, and tried to bring it back. The series known as "Galactica 1980" was a "next generation" type of thing, because the original actors were, for the most part, not available, and the suits were trying to save money. Galactica 1980, which did depict them finding Earth, only lasted a few weeks and it tanked. Fans of the original Galactica have long viewed it as a bad dream and in all official efforts to revive the original series, G '80 was ignored as not a true part of Galactica's continuity. Thanks for playing.

nakyer Except of course, the Starbuck / Cylon episode.

Brian Fink But that makes Dr. Z a real Galactica character. Please...no. Just...no. Anyway, the official efforts to revive the original DID reject G80 as having never happened.

Yeah, Galactica 1980 was a great example of tying to do sci-fi on the cheap, and failing miserably. :/

Gil Gerard did it for me.

Agreed, William. Studios today have all the special effects they can afford, but none of the fantastic writing or story ideas.

Oh yeah I grew up with all of these :) I think the only one I don't recognize (and remember watching all the episodes of the others) is Time Express. Although on a related note I think you missed a few like Holmes and Yoyo a comedy version of Futurecop and the incredibly uniquely 70's Supertrain. Also I thought Buck Rogers got 2 full seasons, which was generally viewed as a successful SF show at the time. also thank you OP you are one of the few I have seen that categorizes that Spiderman show as a series and not "tv movies". It was a failed series that got cut up into tv movies later.

That guy was in everything in the 70s.

Pop Turner He was talking about the 70s. Not the 60s. OP, you missed Search. Hugh O'brian, Burgess Merideth

Pop Turner space 1999 had 2 seasons also

+wjrasmussen666 I loved that show!

Gerry Anderson's UFO hit the US in 1972. Alas, only lasted one season (26 episodes).

Even the gemini man did

+malvelus they went and made a white cop?? why not a chinese or black? damn! things havent changed in 50 years since that show came out bro

How did you do?! LOL

Even South Park made a "parody" episode with Cartman as BR --same into too.

TheAnubis57 L

TheAnubis57 They even did the barely-noticeable little 'shift' of Buck Rogers's floating body where it slightly centers itself. I just love the attention to detail South Park gives their parodies.