Buck Rogers 1.22: “Buck’s Duel to the Death”

Airdate: 3/20/80

This dude named Traybor is showing a group people named the Katarianswho’s boss, and they not a fan. He has a nasty habit of stealing their women, too, and to flaunt his power, he picks some poor dude to fight in a duel to the death. The thing is, he’s got a bit of an unfair advantage because he uses deadly bolts of the now obscure electricity – only Buck, whom the Katarian leader asked for help from, seems to be the best qualified to defeat this badly coiffed menace. Using Twikki to absorb Traybor’s power and deflect it back to him, Buck emerges victorious, thereby fulfilling the prophecy that a man from 500 years n the past could set the Katarians free once and for all.

Last single-length episode of Buck’s first season is campier than average, thanks largely to William Smith’s overwrought performance as Traybor, and it doesn’t help that he seems to have borrowed Ricardo Montalbon’s hairstyle from Star Trek II. The usual array of buxom beauties comes in the form of Traybor’s harem of abducted women (subplot deals with a blonde Katarian’s angst over losing her sister in such a way). Best part, though, is Buck’s fighting “uniform” when he prepares for mono-a-mono battle against Traybor; it’s nothing less than a 70s leisure suit!