Special effects are just 1 component of a show's budget. They spared no expense getting A-list actors: Lorne Greene, Richard Hatch, Jane Seymour, Lloyd Bridges, FRED ASTAIRE, the list goes on. Battlestar Galactica season 1 budget: $1,000,000 per episode which was at the time the most expensive tv show ever produced. They absolutely ran out of money by hiring such a filmworthy cast. But of course I just made a huge bucket of popcorn and I'm eagerly anticipating your conspiracy theory as to the "real" reason they canceled the show.......

@rooprect said:

Special effects are just 1 component of a show's budget. They spared no expense getting A-list actors: Lorne Greene, Richard Hatch, Jane Seymour, Lloyd Bridges, FRED ASTAIRE, the list goes on. Battlestar Galactica season 1 budget: $1,000,000 per episode which was at the time the most expensive tv show ever produced. They absolutely ran out of money by hiring such a filmworthy cast. But of course I just made a huge bucket of popcorn and I'm eagerly anticipating your conspiracy theory as to the "real" reason they canceled the show.......

Everyone ignore Rooprecht's sarcasm. Wrong statement!Lorne Greene was on a lot of TV shows.Hatch was truly only so big. Since when was he a million dollar actor? Seymour did not do her overrated 'Somewhere in Time' yet how much could she command for a salary?The actors were usually not that expensive.

They went and made more kid friendly shows as it went on as it was on during the family hour. They got Ray Bolger aka Scarecrow for a kid friendly ep. Instead of hiring him ( not that he commanded a mega-fortune). They could have easily made eps about where we just saw mostly Hatch and Dirk Benedict and some cylon-dressed actors and lots of stock footage of star battles and it would have looked very expensive. Fact scripts closer to 'Lost in Space' than 'Star Wars' killed the show and zapped it right out of high ratings and 'All in the family' beat it in ratings by the end of ( BG's) first and last season. But they still blamed budget. Budget was not an issue. I did not explain for Rooprect just for those confused by his or her real bad sarcasm.

PS Anne Lockhart ( June's kid) did not help the show by being in it as she made it seem more like LIS.

Fred Astaire could have appeared free in a second ep. Could have just ran stock-flashback film from his first ep.

They lost all those The Avengers-fans by not running the stock-recording in the opening of every ep. You know the one with "John Steed" where he says "There are those who believe life here began out there!".

In short "Battlestar" went down the drain in an attempt to be less violent. Not because of budget. They never should have claimed it was the latter.