A massive write-in campaign began with the cancellation of the original Battlestar Galactica. Such things were uncommon in those days, and it prompted ABC to re-think their reasons for canceling the show. After some deliberation, they contacted Glen Larson to see about reviving the series, albeit in some modified and less-expensive format.

Both Larson and the network felt the show needed some major change of focus to re-launch it as a spinoff, and Larson and Donald P. Bellisario decided to set the new series five years after "The Hand of God," the final episode of the original series. This would allow them to weed out many supporting characters who were now considered superfluous - Colonel Tigh, Athena, Cassiopea, Boxey, etc - which would bring down production costs. The only major characters to return from the original series would be Commander Adama, Colonel Boomer (Replacing Tigh), Apollo, Starbuck, and Baltar. Baltar was to have somehow made atonement for betraying the Colonies to the Cylons, and was now the President of the Council of Twelve.

Upon discovering a 'present day' Earth completely unable to defend itself from the Cylons, Adama decided to just head off into deep space to lead the Cylons away from the planet, but Baltar suggested using Time Travel Technology to alter Earth's history so its technology would develop more rapidly up to a Colonial level. The Council votes this suggestion down, so Baltar steals a ship capable of time travel and heads into Earth's past to carry out his plan anyway. After some deliberation, Starbuck and Apollo are sent after him to bring him back or at least un-do his changes to history. Episodes would feature a new "Time Mission" every week, generally with Apollo at some different time in the past, and Starbuck flying back and forth between "Now" and "Then" to give information and support to Apollo. ABC approved this pitch, and gave the go-ahead to develop a pilot for the series.

Unfortunately, Dirk Benedict was apparently unavailable at the time, and Richard Hatch wanted no connection with the series. Thus, after a quick re-think, it was decided the series would take place thirty years after the end of the original series rather than five, and that Boxey would be renamed Troy and would take Apollo's role, while a character named Lt. Dillon would take over the Starbuck part. President Baltar was written out entirely, and Xavier was created to take up his role as resident bad guy.

After the pilot was completed, the network was unhappy with the time travel aspects of the story, and agreed to pick up the series only if that subject was dropped. Larson and Bellisario reluctantly agreed, and the series instead became focused on Troy's and Dillon's attempts to protect some colonial children on Earth. Bellisario later re-tooled the original time travel concept and re-used it as the basis of the considerably more successful Quantum Leap.

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