Battlestar Galactica is based on the myths of Lost Tribes of Israel and the Mormon faith. I suppose I do not have to point out the power such images and myths have had or that TV producers want to make money so they go with tried and true appeals to whatever worked - ignorant or otherwise. Machiavelli recommended it and called it "appeals to base human urges".
Israel's Lost Tribes
You wrote:
“Battlestar Galactica,” in essence, was Mormons in space.
Glen Larson, himself a Latter-day Saint, had infused his series mythology with too many Mormon references to ignore. His Twelve Colonies of Man were essentially the Lost Tribes of Israel whose history began at Kobol, an obvious anagram for Kolob, which, in Mormon theology, is the star nearest to the throne of God. The colonies were led by a "Quorum of 12," and marriages were referred to as “sealings” that extended beyond mortality and “through all the eternities.” The show never shied away from religious themes, and, at one point, the characters encounter a group of angels who paraphrase LDS Church President Lorenzo Snow.
“As you are, we once were,” the angels tell the Galactica crew. “As we are, you may become.”
Sound familiar? It certainly did to me.
I was thrilled to see Mormon themes woven into pop culture, but not everyone shared my enthusiasm. My mother thought it was a light-minded approach to sacred things, and I have to concede that time has provided some evidence for that point of view. Critics of my faith take Mormon precepts and present them with a Galactica-esque spin to make them sound kooky and bizarre. An anti-Mormon film in the 1980s sneeringly referred to the LDS concept of heaven as “Starbase Kolob,” and during the so-called “Mormon Moment,” I sensed “Galactica’s” influence in the media reports about Mormons “getting their own planet” after they die.
So if “Battlestar Galactica” is your only context for what Mormons believe, you can be forgiven for thinking that we Mormons are a whole lot less boring than we really are.
But I don’t think Larson’s intent was to mock things he held sacred. I think he was trying to make them accessible to a wider audience. Those kinds of themes were missing from 1970s television, and they’re still missing from much of television today. In a medium celebrated for its vapidity, Glen A. Larson dared to produce something profound.
He will be sorely missed.
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Curious, did other writers or "people in the know" say much about this elsewhere?
I watched some of the episodes, but I lost interest after awhile. Had I known it had some Mormon themes within the story, then I would have taken more interest in the series. I don't know much about the faith, though "family focus" and church participation seems to be a serious "requirement" to be a worthy member.
