Wax Packs: Battlestar Galactica

I'm one of those rare beasts who like the original and "re-imagined" Battlestar Galactica. While I'll concede that the new series is better on pretty much every level, there's still a lot to love about the original, which is more Flash Gordon/Star Wars than The Shield.
I had a lot of these cards as a child. Even had some of the Wonder Bread cards, which were printed in better card stock but lacked the crisp design of the Topps series.
And what a series it is! Somehow, BSG skirted the rules of non-sport trading cards by producing a massive 132-card set, with a 22-sticker subset. That's twice as large as any single-series of Star Wars cards.
BSG burned out quickly, though, and was gone by the end of it's first year. Naturally, it took the Topps series with it, and it would be many more years before BSG returned to trading cards.
This series also includes a few cards of my first boyhood crush, Maren Jenson. By all rights, that honor should have fallen on Batgirl, but Maren just happened to be in the right place at the right time, I guess.

REVIEW:

Cover Card: (0 out of 5)
Nope. The idea of the "cover card" hadn't really caught on yet at Topps. To add insult to injury, the first card in the set features Lorne Green striking a sexy pose.

Design: (8 out of 10)
Crips and bright, though a little generic. While the "cutline" is a little dull, I love how the logo is prominently displayed on the front of each card. (Weirdly, BSG had two different logos, one that appeared on merchandise like cards and comics, and the one that was used in the title credits.) And the design allows for both verticle and horizontal positioning without disruption.

Photography: (9 out of 10)
Just short of perfect. This is a case where a card set's reach exceeds its grasp. The cards were produced using (primarily) images from the pilot episode. By trying to squeeze 132 cards from a single film, some of the images get a little repetitive. On the plus side, though, there are a few promo photos used, apparently taken on the Universal Studios lot. Outside of Star Wars, it's hard to find "behind the scenes" cards. Remember what I said about Miss Jansen?

Production: (9 out of 10)
Pretty good. Not as sharp and clear as some of the Star Wars cards, but leaps and bounds beter than the photos in the second Return of the Jedi series. There are a handful of dark, grainy photos in this set, something that could have been corrected by reducing the series to 100 cards.

The Other Side: (4 out of 5)
A puzzle, trivia and details about the cast and crew. Good stuff, but nothing groundbreaking.

Stickers: (8 out of 10)
With a set this ambitious, ,there's bound to be some re-runs. Many (all?) of these stickers reproduce photos already found on the cards. That's not such a bad thing, though. Also, the stickers are based on the designs of the Star Trek/Star Wars stickers, so there's a great sense of lineage in this set.

TOTAL: 76 PERCENT (38 out of 50)