Remembering Cain: A 41-Yahren Retrospective
Battlestar Galactica’s take on “Patton in space” aired 41 yahrens ago on ABC.
Battlestar Galactica was a “hit or miss” proposition at the best of times. Sweeping — well, swiped anyway—themes proliferated the series during its short single yahren existence on 1978–79's ABC.
Pitched to writing partners Jim Carlson and Terrence McDonnell as “[George S.] Patton in space” by Don Bellisario, their first two acts became both the basis for “The Living Legend” and for being hired as Story Editors on the beleaguered series. After all, it quickly became apparent that Story Editors were needed, given that they could only pull from so many novels and movies before it became trite. Oh, and the Borays of banality: “The Magnificent Warriors.”
In front of the camera, “The Living Legend” was a chance to bring an additional strong female character into the series to address the shortcomings of Maren Jensen’s “Athena.”
In McDonnell’s words:
“Annie Lockhart [joined Galactica as “Sheba”] because they used that half of the script to entice her to the show. She read it and accepted it. That particular script, by the way, was taken away from us. We called it “The Last Legend.” In the script, we called [Cain] Jedediah, but Glen [Larson] always used the Bible, so he called him Commander Cain.”
The story for this episode was later credited to TV western writer Ken Pettus alongside Larson, and absent were credits to McDonnell and Carlson. However, in Larson’s version — extended into a two-parter as he was wont to do — he also gave dimension to another female character, Laurette Spang’s “Cassiopeia.” As she explained:
“Early on I felt that I just wasn’t getting anything to do, so I went into Glen’s office and asked to be given the chance. A week later he wrote the two-parter Lloyd Bridges episode. He was terrific that way. He listened and was reasonable. He was a nice guy.”
Larson wrote Cassiopeia as a former love interest of Cain’s, during her time as a socialator and following the death of his own wife. In doing so, Larson:
- Shed some light on the strongly patriarchal Colonial culture, particularly as Apollo advises Starbuck (relating to the age disparity between Cassiopeia and Cain) to review the Book of the Word as “the Lords of Kobol had some pretty young wives.”
- Set up conflict between Cassiopeia and Sheba, as Sheba resented Cassiopeia for replacing her deceased mother in Cain’s eyes. This mirrors how Athena and Cassiopeia were pitted against each other over Starbuck early in the series. That blunder apexed into the cringe-worthy “The Long Patrol” scene where Athena tells Cassiopeia about Starbuck’s disappearance. Unfortunately, this was a motif when it came to Battlestar Galactica’s interactions between female characters, and is an affectation of Larson’s storytelling.
Aside from the hero-worship of Lloyd Bridges’ “Cain” throughout, this first half of “The Living Legend” is a character-driven showcase of the upgraded ensemble to come, particularly between Sheba and her antagonistic relationship with Apollo.
Further, this episode should be applauded for showing how two dissenting and competent leaders can polarize the other’s crew so easily, without need for comically incompetent Quorum members or mustache-twirling villains chewing the scenery.
On that point, this episode would have been better off without the “Zachary Smith” style scheming of John Colicos’ “Baltar,” focusing instead on the conflict between Galactica’s and Pegasus’ crews. There are two different philosophies in play that deserved to be better explored — one extremely defensive, the other extremely offensive — as Carlson pointed out:
“Adama was cautious but rightfully so, as opposed to Lloyd Bridges’ character, Cain, who was a bull in a china shop. Not that there was anything particularly wrong with that, except that in this case you could get people killed.”
This missed opportunity causes “The Living Legend” to fall short of its true potential. The core conflict is the “Cain and Abel” story between, well, Cain and Adama, in both person and philosophy. The catalyst for this conflict being Adama’s relieving Cain’s of duty and Pegasus crew’s reaction to it, and it is played solely for a sleight of hand instead of a greater effect. Demonstrably, Cain’s ego prevents him from dereliction of duty — his adherence to boundaries and respect for the chain of command being something that certain crew members hadn’t bothered to learn from their leader.
That tragedy later leads to a scene where Sheba and Bojay lead a small group of Pegasus’ Warriors to stop Apollo and Boomer from commencing a desperately needed fuel transfer. After trading words about the Fleet only needing one leader, and some feelings that “we have the wrong one [Adama],” the scene culminates into Apollo and Boomer pulling out their laser pistols before Pegasus’ mutineers can do so.
The timely intervention of Baltar’s Cylon attack force throws a wrench into the stand-off, but one must wonder how it would have been otherwise resolved. While it would deprive us both Baltar’s comical response in the cliffhanger and his equally ludicrous space-spartan helmet, that wouldn’t have been such a bad thing given the rich opportunity otherwise presented. Yet another example of the “one step forward, two steps back” dance in the Battlestar Galactica number.
Next time: Part 2 of “The Living Legend” where Baltar’s power play is thwarted yet again (shocking!), Warriors storm Cal State Northridge at night (expensive!), and Cain’s legendary blaze of glory (explosive!).