Actor Richard Hatch has died at the age of 71.
While he got his first TV role on the daytime soap opera “All My Children” in the early 1970’s, he is best remembered for his role of Captain Apollo in the first season (1978/79) of the original “Battlestar Galactica”.
Hatch also appeared in the remake, portraying interstellar politician Tom Zayek.
USA Today story:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/tv/2017/02/07/reports-richard-hatch-battleship-galactica-dies/97617100/ .
Incidentally, the original “Galactica” was one of the most heavily-hyped shows in TV history prior to its premiere in September, 1978. It seemed that if you watched ABC for more than twenty minutes in the weeks leading up to the show’s premiere, you saw at least one promo.
The show’s premiere episode got very strong ratings, but the numbers began to slide after that. While “Galactica” was renewed for a second season, producers changed the format to some of the “Galactica” team (nut not Hatch’s character nor most of the season One cast) reaching then-present day (1980) Earth, with the series being retitled “Galactica 1980”, premiering at mid-season in early 1980. But the revised version wasn’t as popular as the first version, and the original show was cancelled for good in the Spring of 1980.
The more recent reboot was far more successful.
While I’m here, one bit of trivia about the original “Battlestar Galactica”: It’s premiere broadcast on September 17th, 1978 was interrupted for about twenty minutes by breaking news coverage of President Jimmy Carter, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin announcing that they had reached agreement on a peace treaty. I was watching “Galactica”‘s premiere that night, and I recall that while ABC interrupted the show for about twenty minutes to carry that special news report, that when it ended, they picked-up “Galactica” at the point where it had been interrupted. As a result, local late-evening newscasts on ABC stations in the Eastern and Central time zones didn’t begin until 11:20 P.M. EDT/10:20 CDT.
