By Mark Meier
My parents are jerks. That's where I got it, BTW. I learned from them.
Kidding, really. It's the sense of humor all three of us share, so I'm not complaining.
Way back in the caveman days, only a few short years (nine?) after Star Trek (The Original Series) went off the air, there were all sorts of promotional ads for a new TV show coming up. Battlestar Galactica was coming soon! It. Looked. AWESOME!
If anyone remembers how campy Trek (TOS) was, BSG was anything but. They had a big budget, the special effects on the promos was beyond belief, and I couldn't wait.
Keep in mind this is 1978. Star Wars (Episode IV) had swept the nation the year before, and nobody wanted the low-budget kind of science fiction Trek had. (Actually, I think I was still watching that in syndication.)
So here comes BSG. A million dollars per episode to make. Back then it was a HUGE number for a television episode. I come home from school and . . . .
The TV was gone.
GONE! WHAT WAS GOING ON? Battlestar Galactica was coming TONIGHT! "Mom, WHERE IS THE TV?"
I don't remember what exactly she said, but it was spoken with a shrug like it didn't really matter.
I seethed. I was depressed. And to make up for it, Mom and Dad took us out for supper that night. Probably McDonald's. That was a real treat for us back in 1978.
There's not much more about supper that lodges in my head. The pain of disappointment was too tangible. Everything else was pointless if I didn't get to watch BSG.
Yeah, I was a drama queen.
So on the way home we stopped at a local appliance store.
We picked up our TV.
I don't remember if it was a new one or just that the old one had to be fixed for some reason. That doesn't matter. I got to watch Battlestar. Almost as good as Star Wars, but I didn't have to go to the theater to watch it.
Then, about twenty minutes before it was over, the President of the United States interrupts with some pointless address that had nothing to do with BSG. GAAAAAAH! The world was ending. The drama queen was back.
The network was kind, though. They finished with Jimmy Carter and picked up with BSG. I got to see the end.
But my parents . . . .
It's amazing I turned out so good, considering the trauma.
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