Admittedly I've never had the pleasure of catching up to the 2004 version of Battlestar Galatica,
I'm only familiar with the 1978 Lorne Green version.
The original
Battlestar Galactica series had some good memorable episodes. It was initially created to compete with
Star Wars on the big screen but was fast tracked to television. George Lucas even sued the series that he claimed had copyright infringements.
I loved Lorne Greene on
Bonanza. Perhaps that was the main reason why I saw him as Ben Cartwright on the show. The show had a definite western theme beneath its storytelling.
John Colicos was a real caricature of a master villain. A human duping an entire race of artificial intelligent beings every week into stalking the remaining human race into extinction. Baltar was never developed much beyond that created for the original movie, where he met
a very fitting demise.
Greene, Richard Hatch and continually typecast Dirk Benedict were the core of the show. Most episodes were basically Adama, the father, being fatherly from a distance to his blood son, Apollo, and his extroverted 'adopted son' Starbuck. I constantly wished Herbert Jefferson (Boomer) and Terry Carter (Tigh) would get more chances to get out from underneath their shadow. Anna Lockhart was (at least temporarily) a breath of fresh air as far as a main character getting some decent screentime of her own.
I still believe they did Marsen Jensen wrong. Her character Athena was minimized to practically nothing each episode. In my opinion, she was a very good combo of actresses with stunning looks.
The bridge crewperson, who was always coordinating the Vipers during Cylon attacks, was extremely one-dimensional but those hair loops of hers were definitely Princess Leia knockoffs, lol. The show's special effects budget was so bad that they basically re-used four or five shots of the Vipers operating in space. Very monotonous. Oh yeah. I almost forgot about BOXEY. I really REALLY wanted both Boxey AND Muffit the robot thrown out of an airlock so many times...
The re-imagined Battlestar Galactica of the 2000's got totally rid of the wishy-washy nonsense of its predecessor. The special effects were fresh and innovative, although I know some critics did not like all the shots panning in-and-out of ships in space (I thought it was great!) Every single main character and supporting character were unique individuals and received great dramatic dialogue.
Each episode was tense for numerous reasons. They were cutthroat. There was no dancing around life-and-death, making things superficial. These Cylons were genocidal to the extreme. Oftentimes, the HUMANS being hunted were just as brutally hardcore.
ALL the humanoid Cylon models were fantastic. Well, maybe the one always wearing the bad suits was too one-dimensional, haha. Even
Lucy Lawless played as one of the models.
Edward James Olmos WAS Adama. He was a combo Captain Ramius from
The Hunt For Red October and Moses wrapped into one. James Callis made Baltar into an eccentric but multi-faceted character. Same with Grace Park as Boomer. Too many actors to give props to, The show decided to not dwell as much on the Council of the Colonies as it did in the original series and focus almost totally on Mary McDonnell as President of the Colonies. She was outstanding in the series' final season in particular. Even a minor supporting actress like Kandyse McClure (Dualla) had the same bridge responsibilities as the crewperson I mentioned earlier but with way more flair. And McClure's eyes are to DIE for.
Tricia Helfer? Cylon model number six? 'nuff said. You will know if you ever watch the series.
What made the show a little extra special to me was the re-imagined Starbuck. I became a Katee Sackhoff fan for life from jump. Without getting into spoiler details, she and Olmos had some of the best back-and-forth dialogue in a scene during the first two pilot episodes:
~Starbuck destroying Cyon ships right and left~
Starbuck (in her Viper cussing and laughing/I'm paraphrasing): "The Cylon war is long over! Come get some, <expletive>! YEEHAW! (hears her comm and finally answers it) Good morning, sir!"
Adama (calling from the Galactica bridge/calm and collected): "Good morning, Starbuck. Listen. What do you hear?"
Starbuck: "Nothing but the rain, sir!"
Adama: "Grab your gun and bring in the CAG."
Great scene. Great show.