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Glen A. Larson, the Executive Producer of Battlestar Galactica, has stated in many interviews that he originally conceived of the Galactica premise in the late 1960s, which he originally called Adam's Ark. However, he was unable to get the project greenlit for many years.

Battlestar Galactica was finally produced in the wake of the success of the 1977 film Star Wars. In fact, 20th Century Fox sued Universal Studios (the studio behind Battlestar Galactica) for copyright infringement, claiming that it had stolen 34 distinct ideas from Star Wars. Universal promptly countersued, claiming Star Wars had stolen ideas from the 1972 film Silent Running (notably the robot "drones") and the Buck Rogers serials of the 1940s. The lawsuit was eventually dismissed in 1980.

Initially, Larson envisioned Battlestar Galactica as a series of made-for-TV movies (a three-hour pilot and two two-hour episodes) for the ABC television network. A shortened version of the three-hour pilot, Saga of a Star World, was released in Canadian theaters (before the series aired) and American theaters (after the series aired), and instead of two additional movies, a weekly television series followed.

In 1979 at the 6th Annual People's Choice Awards, the series won for Best New TV Drama Series. [1]

During the eight months after pilot was broadcast, 17 original episodes of the series were aired (five of them two-part shows), totaling 24 hours of broadcasting. Citing declining ratings and cost overruns, ABC canceled Battlestar Galactica in April, its last episode "The Hand of God" premiering on April 29, 1979.