Why was Battlestar Galactica cancelled?
On April 29, 1979, ABC aired “The Hand of God.” It would be Galactica’s last original episode, for the network had just cancelled the series. No longer riding the initial momentum of the premiere, ABC felt Galactica wasn’t getting high enough ratings for the investment they put in the show, and believed it could maintain or exceed its ratings in a show with a much lower investment value. ABC’s assumptions were wrong, for when it moved Mork and Mindy, into the same time slot (Sunday, 8PM EST), it got even lower ratings than Galactica did. The network realized it made a mistake, but by then it was too late. In a controversial article in Fantastic Films #29, the author claimed that Galactica was actually a ratings success, and that ABC exaggerated its ratings loss to kill a series it viewed as too expensive. In his book, Confessions of the Kamikaze Cowboy (pg. 139), Dirk (“Starbuck”) Benedict relates the thinking behind Galactica’s cancelation: For whatever reasons… Battlestar Galactica
