Buck Rogers 2.13: “The Dorian Secret”

Airdate: 4/16/81

While disembarking from a space station with a group of earth’s survivors, Buck encounters a woman fleeing from a group of thuggish aliens known as Dorians. The woman, Asteria, is invited on the shuttle headed back to the Searcher, but the Dorians seize the spacecraft and alter its temperature from one extreme to the other, in an effort to get the woman back, whom they charge with the murder of one of the Dorian’s brother. Buck attempts to negotiate with the unyielding aliens, and demands to see the evidence of her crime. Unconvinced by the evidence they show him, he is even more horrified to discover that the other human castaways, outraged by the harsh temperatures and inactivity, discover who Asteria really is and jettison her off to the Dorians. At the very last minute, her innocence is proven by a Dorian confession and the race decide that their justice system, and long standing practice of concealing their identities, needs a major overheal.

Solid if somewhat complex (by the show’s standards) story is intriguing, with a nice in-media-res opening and a subplot extremely reminiscent of Twelve Angry Men and the “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street” episode of Twilight Zone. The “shuttle” setting is a bit odd, as if they were trying to capitalize on the success of The Love Boat and Airplane! (Wilma is already dressed to approximate an airline stewardess), but, like most episodes of late, there’s a good message to be found when all is said and done.

They clearly didn’t know this would be the final episode of the series, and it’s too bad the writers’ strike abbreviated this season. One does tend to imagine what a final episode would be about (I envision it to be some kind of time-travel conceit in which Buck gets the opportunity to go home), but as far as I know no “reunion movie” was ever consider which would wrap up the saga in a satisfying way. Well, one can always fantasize. For now, Buck stays in the 25^th century, having a platonic relationship with Wilma, with Twikki his loyal sidekick.

Not a terrible way to go out.

Buck Rogers 2.12: “Testimony of a Traitor”

Airdate: 4/9/81

While in earth’s orbit, the Searcher is boarded by an intergalactic consulate, hell-bent on arresting and tying for treason – none other than Buck! Apparently, they have a 500-year old videotape unearthed from an ancient air force base showing Buck scheming, in 1987, a preemptive nuclear attack on U.S. enemies – most likely leading to the nuclear holocaust that occurred later that year. Yes, the tape is pretty damining, but Goodfellow suggests Buck undergo a mind probe to prove his innocence. It winds up doing more harm than good as the memory scan seems to reveal Buck’s further compliance in the plot, and everyone prepares for the worst; in this case – execution, the mandatory penalty for treason. But Buck keeps getting strong memory flashes of Mt. Rushmore, so Hawk and Wilma fly him to earth to actually see the monument in hopes of jogging his memory. It works; one final courtroom brainscan reveals the president, at his secret base in Rushmore, had made Buck the inside man to investigate renegade activities within the air force. (They had to hypnotize him for such a top secret job so he could never remember what he was part of.)

Another great job by Buck’s writers – it cobbles together parts of The Wrong Man and The Manchurian Candidate to fashion one hell of a potboiler. Of course, even if Buck is guilty, there must be some kind of statute of limitations to keep him from getting charged with something that happened 500 years earlier, but we’re not to ask such questions. (Never mind that that tape is in pretty good condition for its age – I have tapes less than 20 years old that are unplayable!) Not bad for Buck’s penultimate adventure. On to the finale!

Buck Rogers 2.11: “The Hand of Goral”

Airdate: 3/26/81

Buck, Hawk and Wilma explore another Earth-like planet and find a man who had crash-landed and been stranded there for several weeks. Wilma brings the man, named Reardon, back to the Searcher while Buck and Hawk continue to survey the weird, supernatural-seeming phenomenon on the “ghost world.” Upon returning to the ship, they’re even more surprised by the crew: the admiral has become a cruel martinet; Twikki a surly, resentful back-talker, Goodfellow a cranky old man and Chrichton is…. nice! Buck suspects that the ship, and everyone on it, is a fake – and when Wilma freaks out uncharacteristically, he learns she is too. When the Sracher is held by a snare beam emanating from the planet, Hawk and Buck go down to the source and there the find a wise old Asian man – the mastermind behind the “test” Buck had just gone through, and must now complete so he can take the old man’s place as 1,000-year protector of the planet. It involves finding a sabateur on the Searcher and stopping him – it turns out to be Reardon, or at least the entity inhabiting him, and so they must get to him before a bomb blows the whole ship to Kingdom Come.

Show has finally begun to hit its stride – with only 3 shows before its cancellation. Too bad, too, because we’ve hit a stretch of imaginative, challenging storylines that give Buck more to do than just spout anachronisms and one-liners. Some of these shows, in fact, do remind me of vintage Star Trek; something I’m sure the creators would take as a compliment since that what they modeled season two after. The concept of personality shifts in characters we’ve now become familiar with is irresistible (gotta love the oversensitive Wilma!) and the finale inside the engine room is a genuine nail-biter (you sure couldn’t say that about many of the first season shows). The source of all of this – a mystical Asian man searching for his successor – is sort of part Kung Fu and part Willy Wonka. A wee bit hokey, but overall it works.

Buck Rogers 2.10: “Shgoratchx!”

Airdate: 3/19/81

Buck and the gang come across a drifting spacecraft and board it. It turns out to be a band of midgets in charge of a solar bomb disposal unit for “the queen,” but their vessel is so antiquated and badly damaged they’re essentially a floating time bomb. Buck invites the little guys to board the Searcher and offers to tow their ship to safety; that’s when the trouble really begins. In no time at all they screw things up royally, including blowing out the ship’s power grid and damaging Chrichton’s brain – they also find untold amusement in playing Asteroids by overriding the main gunnery controls. Buck gets everything back to normal – eventually – and with Twikki’s (and the dwarf’s) help they manage to jump start Chrichton’s central nervous system back to his old supercilious self. And they’re all too happy to get their diminutive guests back to their home. Particularly Buck, who hasn’t had a wink of sleep in 50 hours.

Another genuinely strange episode, and as a bonus it’s also extremely politically incorrect. Not only do “little people” take a beating, but so does feminism: in the most singularly awkward and offensive scene of the series, the dwarves, overcome by the novel sight of a woman, surround Wilma and use their telepathic powers (don’t ask) to attempt to undress her. Well, at least we finally know where Zapped! got its inspiration.

Beyond that, it’s all rather silly, but at least there’s a lot going on. Kinda cool to see Twikki sacrifice himself for the good of the ship, and Buck’s vain attempt throughout to get some shuteye is amusing, But those damn dwarves to get pretty frigging annoying after awhile – I’d have thrown them off after about 10 minutes.

The ragtag assortment of dwarves also seems to be a precursor to Time Bandits, released later that year. In fact, it looks like 1981 was a big year for little people, as Under the Rainbow was released that summer.

Buck Rogers 2.9: “The Satyr”

Airdate: 3/12/81

Buck heads to another Earth-like planet (how convenient!) to investigate a lost colony of humans – what he finds is a boy and his mother, who seems to be continuosly threatened by a fierce ogre-like satyr (half-man, half goat), who won’t go away until he gets his everlovin’ food and wine. Buck can’t figure out why she won’t leave, until the revelation that her own husband, the original founder of the colony, was infected with a virus and turned into one of the mean satyrs that are currently threatening her now. It’s the same virus that appears to be infecting… Buck! And now the race is on for him to help mother and son get safe and sound to another planet – before he turns whole-hog satyr and winds up joining the others in all-you-can-eat and drink debauchery. Fortunately the Searcher finds and rescues him, and gives him the shave he so desperately needs.

Wild episode weirdly vacillates between buffononish, cheap camp and, believe it or not, genuine terror as the satyrs wreak their havoc and Buck eerily starts to become one of them. Credit good makeup and effective growly sound effects for creating this effect, and give Anne E. Curry her due, while you’re at it, for imbuing her victim role with an appealing mix of vulnerability and compassion. A well crafted storyline here as well – with a bit of a tragic ending relating to the accidental but bound-to-happen death of the husband-turned-satyr. But he had a good, teary redemption scene before he met his maker, at least.

Just a brief observation regarding the continued flirting between Buck and Wilma: it’s too bad the plots never did anything with their relationship. I guess it’s not in the nature of a sci-fi series to do anything serialized or dealing with – gasp! – relationships, but some kind of romance, whether ill-fated or not, would’ve been good for the ratings. Alas, never meant to be, so the couple sadly went the way of Diana Prince and Steve Trevor.

Buck Rogers 2.8: “The Crystals”

Airdate: 3/5/81

Buck, Hawk and Wilma go exploring on a weird, earth-like planet with the intention of harvesting valuable red crystals that can be used as a power supply for the Searcher. Problem: an ostensibly inanimate mummy-like creature starts messing around with their shuttle – and later stealing their crystals. And then there’s a beautiful, white toga-wearing girl with no name or memory, but having a particular fondness for Buck. He and Wilma try to tap into her memory for more information, but they discover, along with Chrichton and his research, that the girl is part of species on an evolutionary track to transform into those beastly mummies. When she finds out, she’s horrified, but it turns out Chrichton was looking at his info backwards. That mummy is now a human – and the girl (whom Buck named Laura) is happy with her newfound companion.

Genuinely strange episode has a loopy plot and some pretty cheap-looking production values, starting with the “mummy monster,” which looks more like Swamp Thing than anything else. And who came up with the “reverse-evolution” idea that seems to threaten our maiden in distress? Silly, goofy stuff, barely redeemed by a early performance by Amanda Wyss as the girl. It’s sort of a throwback to the first season’s cavalcade of beauties. 

First episode to (finally) bring back Mel Blanc as the voice of Twikki. Evidently, there was a hue and a cry when Season 2 began without him. Unfortunately, they waited too long, and any Twikki fans by now had jumped ship.

Buck Rogers 2.7: “The Golden Man”

Airdate: 2/19/81

The Searcher gets collides with and gets stuck in a huge asteroid; concurrently, they harbor a floating life pod and its passenger: a golden skinned boy looking for help in rescuing his also golden companion from a nearby planet. Buck obliges, but his work is cut out for him when the planet turns out to be a fierce penal colony. It doesn’t take long for the golden man’s captors to realize he has powers of molecularly altering any kind of metal – it just might help escape their planetary prison – but Buck and the boy succeed in freeing the golden man and getting both mutants back to their ship, where they use the man’s powers to lighten its weight and dislodge themselves from the nasty rock.

Clever, intriguing story has some nice surprises (especially the “twist” ending), once you get past the cheesy gold makeup and doofy wigs sported by the golden pair. (It also doesn’t help that the penal colony looks a heckofa lot like the Universal studios backlot). You will probably recognize prolific juvenile star David Hollander as the boy, or if you don’t the voice will give it away. Of course he is probably best remembered as the “little boy with coffee” in Airplane! Sorry, Erin Gray fans, not much Wilma here as she stays on the Searcher along with the others.

Buck Rogers 2.6: “Mark of the Saurian”

Airdate: 2/5/81

The devious Saurians have found a way of flawlessly impersonating humans so as to infiltrate the Searcher and fly it into an enemy’s defense shield, destroying everyone aboard. The good news: Buck, being from the 20^th century, can see through the disguise and views them for the slimy, reptilian creatures that they are. The bad news: he’s sick with a rare virus, so everyone thinks he’s just hallucinating. The Saurians are on to him, so they steal a sample of his blood and “realign” their image devices, but Buck by now takes matters into his own hands by decreasing the ship’s temperature, paralyzing the cold-blooded intruders and sending them to the brig, all before certain disaster were the Searcher to continue its programmed course.

Excellent episode is nail-biting from start to finish. Borrowing more than a bit from the “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” episode of The Twilight Zone, it employs the old “who’s really crazy?” trope to fine dramatic effect. Good makeup of the Saurians makes them intriguing enemies – if the show were to continue on, they could have been good continued foes, like the Klingons on Star Trek.

Buck Rogers 2.5: “The Guardians”

Airdate: 1/29/81

While exploring a supposedly lifeless planet, Buck and Hawk come across a

Anyone got a protein bar?

dying old man, whose last request to his visitors is to be the “guardian” of a small, green-light emanating chest and deliver it safely to an undisclosed location. Honoring the request, Buck brings it back aboard the Searcher, and from there his troubles begin. It seems as though anyone who looks inside the weird object has disturbing visions – for Buck it’s a dream/memory of his last hours before the ill-fated journey that froze him for 500 years. The admiral hallucinates that the entire ship’s crew is starving to death, Hawk sees a vision of his deceased wife, and Derring catches a glimpse of herself… as a blind woman. What do all these dreams have in common? Well it’s something to do with the space-time continuum, which has now been thrown out of whack thanks to the emerald enigma. Ultimately, Buck decides to have the ship follow the course the chest seems to have set for them – and the wind up on a strange planet where the object they’ve vouchsafed to the natives makes wise old men appear. Their line has been restored – and many thanks are paid to Buck for his fearless delivery.

Interesting premise is mostly successful once it gets going. Some of the folkish backstory involving the line of Guardians is little hokey, but the supernatural qualities of the chest, and the dreams those afflicted have, are quite eerie. I’m always a sucker for sci-fi works that deal with time-twisting, so this was up my alley. Most interesting scene: Buck’s flashback to his life before his trip, which we’ve seen only once before (“A Dream of Jennifer”).

Show has found its more cerebral, babe-less groove, but those pubescent boys that were the core of Buck’s first-season audience vacated the show in droves. No more ratings, no renewal, and so Buck has only 8 more shows left.

Buck Rogers 2.3 and 2.4: “Journey To Oasis”

Airdate: 1/22/81 (Originally broadcast as a two-hour episode)

Buck, Wilma, Hawk and Goodfellow volunteer to escort an ambassador, Duvoe, to the city of Oasis in order to arrange a peace treaty between the humans of earth and Duvoe’s alien race, the Zaccharians. A freak electrical storm, however, strikes and renders their ship completely inoperable (and invisible, after it sinks into deep crater). They must all get to Oasis on foot, braving marauding bands of savages, and aided only by a riddle-speaking gnome named OD-X. Compounding their problems is the possible rekindling of Wilma and Duvoe’s past romance, and the secret he harbors of having the ability to remove his own head, as well as the Zaccharian coalition on board the Searcher who thinks that the humans have kidnapped Duvoe and is holding him for some kind of bargaining leverage.

Third double-episode in a row is a dull, tediously protracted disaster. Say what you will about Buck’s first season campy episodes, but you can’t claim they were ever boring. Coming on the heels of a halfway decent season premiere, this one just seems to go on and on, with a storyline paper-thin and some of the shoddiest “special effects” and makeup work I’ve ever seen. The gnome that the crew meets on the Oasis planet looks like something out of Land of the Lost, while the finale, featuring Buck battling a disembodied sword while negotiating a precarious rope bridge, is derivative of old Saturday afternoon movie serials, only not nearly as much fun. Duvoe (looking suspiciously like Muammar al-Gaddafi) has the potential of being a complex persona with some interesting buried history, but instead comes off as half-baked oddball. The worst Buck so far, and if this is the trend for the rest of its truncated season, there’s no mystery as to why the show was cancelled shortly thereafter.

Buck Rogers 2.1 and 2.2: “Time of the Hawk”

Airdate: 1/15/81 (Originally broadcast as a two-hour episode)

Buck is now on an intergalactic spacecraft, The Searcher, along with Wilma, Twiki and other members of the Defense Directorate, whose missions is to roam the far reaches of space to locate lost tribes of humans rendered homeless after earth’s apocalyptic war. They locate an abandoned spaceship and discover its crew mercilessly slaughtered; all clues point to a half-bird, half-human known as the Hawk. His mate, Kooni, is captured by Buck to lure Hawk out of hiding, but she is severely wounded during their dogfight. Forced to crash land on an earth-like planet, the two enemies become uneasy allies in the race to bring Kooni some much-needed medical attention, but during this time Buck also understands the source of Hawk’s wrath: the genocide of his ancestors, of distant to recent past, and the vengeance he feels the need to visit upon its perpetrators. After Kooni dies, a heartbroken Hawk resumes his enmity towards Buck, while Buck must fulfill his orders to kills or capture the birdman (he does the latter). In front of an intergalactic council, Hawk is almost sentenced to death, but Buck appeals for leniency on the basis that his actions were no worse than the humans that nearly wiped out his species. Hawk’s life is spared but ordered to be closely monitored by the Searcher’s crew – Buck proposes a compromise that Hawk join them on their mission – one which bird-boy accepts readily.

What started out with a feature film premiere, a huge budget and extensive word of mouth is now trundling limply along. Buck’s ratings during its first season were fair but barely covering the mammoth weekly budget that the show required. On top of that, the critics weren’t exactly lining up behind it either, so the decision was made for some major retooling. Producers changed the venue from New Chicago to a travelling space cruiser roaming all parts of the galaxy a la Star Trek (but, given their mission, reminding me more of Damnation Alley). Hawk would become the new Spock, while Wilma was made up to look and dress like Uhara.

But the actors’ strike of 1980 delayed the season, and by the time the new, revamped series was ready it was already January of 1981. That, along with the new tone and setting of the series, understandably confused would-be viewers, and the ratings nose-dived. Despite launching the season with two double-length episodes (or perhaps because of it), the Buck “reboot” was short-lived; by mid-April, Buck had fired his last ray-gun, spoken his ending anachronism and seduced his final female crew member.

Captain, meet your new crew

But the irony is that this episode is pretty darned good – maybe the best Buck yet. Gone are the scantily-clad vixens and shameless overacting. In fact, with the exception of some pretty hokey headwear on Throm, this is pretty much camp-free, and instead we get a serious story that generates suspense, thrills, and a meaningful finale (don’t miss Buck’s speech at the end). Thom Christopher, once you get past his one-note stoicism, slowly develops into a layered, sympathetic protagonist, and the Searcher’s acceptance of his as a comrade just gives you that warm fuzzy feeling all over.

Other new cast members are pretty good too, particularly Dr. Goodfellow, a kind-hearted, quirky counsel who’s like a combination of Dr. Huer and Santa Claus, and Chrichton, a snarky, sassy robot unwilling to believe he was created by humans. But beware – the new voice of Twiki is astoundingly bad (did they even try to approximate Mel Blanc?) and the new opening narration is wordier and more awkwardly written.

Buck Rogers 1.23 and 1:24: “Flight of the War Witch”

Airdate: 3/27/80 (Originally broadcast as a two-hour episode)

A weird orb lands outside of New Chicago, and the Directorate discovers it to be some kind of invitation from another universe, complete with directions on how to get there. Buck volunteers for the perilous mission, but Princess Ardala knows something is up and, not wanting to be left out, tags along too – forcing Huer and Wilma to go with. Now everyone together gets to find out what the deal is: their help is needed to defend the planet Pendar from the wrath of evil War Witch Zarina and her Zaad armies, who have captured a Pendarin scientist who can deactivate the Pendar force field and render the planet completely unprotected from any alien attacks. Essentially held hostage until the work is through, the good guys, led by Buck, figure out how to fry the Zaad battle cruiser inside the force field when it gets activated again, and once again all is well – even if in another universe.

TV Guide ad for the show

First season finale also represents the final appearances of Huer, Theopolis, Ardala and Kane as the show gets revamped for the second season. Knowing this, the producers gave Pamela Hensley plenty of midriff-baring screen time – and even lets her be a good girl for a change, while Tim O’Connor gets to say goodbye to Buck, even if not at the end of the show. Things get a little silly toward the end, particularly when Ardala tries to negotiate a separate deal with Zarina (whose portrayal by Julie Newmar isn’t near as fun as it should be), and the storyline is a bit too thin to fill a two-hour episode. Still, the action is rollicking enough, and some of the superimposed animated special effects look so good they almost resemble CGI. 

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!

Buck Rogers 1.21: “Space Rockers”

Airdate: 2/21/80

The kids are diggin’ a new rock group, Andromeda, but Dr. Huer is disturbed by reports that some of the young un’s are acting a bit rowdy at their concerts, even by adolescent standards. When Buck goes undercover to the band’s headquarters, he discovers that their new manager, Mangros, has altered the altered the transmission of their music so that its listeners go completely beserk. It’s a race against time for Buck to stop this fiendish plot before Andomeda’s big concert – fortunately he has the help of some of the bands more sensible members – and when Mangros’s signal is destroyed, he becomes a laughing stock.

Hands down the most god-blessedly dated episode of the series thus far. The “Space Rockers” resemble a cross between Daft Punk and Devo, while the funk they’re playing could’ve been the B-side of a Meco single. Not enough? A young Jerry Orbach as the heavy and Night Court’s Richard Moll (with hair) as his head henchman. And the usual babe quota includes hot Judy Landers in a completely superfluous role as one of the groupies. Clearly a metaphoric episode given the “threat” of late-70s punk and metal on the nation’s youth (The Incredible Hulk and Quincy had similar episodes during this same TV season), which had culminated in the deadly Who concert stampede just the previous year. 

Buck Rogers 1.20: “A Dream of Jennifer”

Airdate: 2/14/80

Buck swears he sees he girl he knows at the New Chicago Mall; through a dream we learn that it could be Jennifer, his girlfriend from the 20^th century whom he left to fly the mission that tore then apart. Determined to find her, he travels to the “City By the City,” or the new version of New Orleans, and does indeed get a chance to talk to her. Flattered by his adulation, she’s also a bit heartbroken as she knows that it’s Jennifer that he sees in her, not her true identity: Lela, a woman used as bait by the alien race of Kovens to get Buck to suppress a trade blockade by rebel colonists – the same colonists Wilma and her crew are coincidentally supporting. Buck manages to forgive Lela’s duplicity long enough to thwart the mighty Kovens’ plan, but he can’t stop Lela’s death during the final shootout. In her final words she was glad to be the girl Buck loved, even if just for a moment.

Gorgeous, doe-eyed Anne Lockhart shines as here as the molecularly altered Lela (no wonder there’s a website solely devoted to the babes of Buck Rogers – what a gallery of looks and talent!). And lest we forget Mary Woronov, in redface, as the evil Koven named Nola. Definitely cool to see the flashback dream of Buck in the 1900s – presumably 1987 when he starts his mission but looking a heck of a lot more like the 70s than the 80s.

And don’t miss the cute-funny epilogue (does Wikipedia have a name for this yet?) in which Huer gives Buck a movie (a disc, presumably) with a title something like… mandibles? No, it’s Jaws! and Buck has the final line, “Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the 20^th century!” (Jaws studio Universal also produced Buck).

Buck Rogers 1.19: “Olympiad”

Airdate: 2/7/80

It’s time for the 2492 Olympiacs, and Buck, knowing a bit about the event, is invited to attend as a special guest. A troubled beauty named Lara asks him to go star cruising with her, but it turns out she needs his help to save her athlete boyfriend, Jorax, from the oppressive clutches of Allerick, a tyrant using Jorax as a political figurehead. Not necessarily the easiest thing in the world, especially when you consider that Allerick has implanted a molecular bomb inside Jorax’s head, and can detonate it if he senses any escape attempt. Oh – and the bomb – it can kill anyone next to the vertical vaulter as well. Buck, Wilma and Twikki know this, so they fly Jorax through the stargate, where any hope of remote detonation is – remote. Naw, make that impossible!

Political exploitation of the Olympics was sure a hot-button topic in the winter of 1980 (the U.S. had just announced a boycott of the Moscow Summer Olympics in protest over the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan). Buck Rogers, never missing the chance for socio-political editorializing, explored this brazen Carterian move with this story of a would-be defector, desperate for the chance to escape his shackles and come to earth – and by earth we mean America (New Chicago, to be specific). But seriously, not a bad outing with Buck and the gang – definitely highlighted by the charming, ever-appealing soap and TV veteran Judith Chapman as Lara. In addition to being a fantastic fox, she’s a wonderfully nuanced actress, as evidenced by her ride with Buck when she appeals to him for help. Also, don’t miss the beginning scene of the futuristic Olympic events, particularly the telekinetic boxing. Perhaps farfetched back then, it doesn’t look so nowadays, what with virtual gaming and the like.

Buck Rogers 1.18: “Twikki Is Missing”

Airdate: 1/31/80

Don't mess with the midriff.

Say it ain’t so! Buck’s little sidekick is indeed abducted – it seems that thenefarious ruler of a mining planet Toros wants robots for his slave labor after an uprising nearly topples his reign. The ruler, Kerk Belzak, has his eyes on Twikki, an “ambiquad” possessive of not simple his native computing abilities but also the humanistic characteristics Buck has endowed his with. After a failed attempt to buy, Kerk’s cohort, a lovely “paranormal” named Stella, turns to force, using her psychokinetic powers to seize Twikki, and later, Buck himself. But she makes the fatal mistake of befriending the handsome flyboy, who convinces her that she needs to escape Toros or she’ll never see her son, who Kerk has imprisoned again. The good guys all escape – and get extra brownie points for stealing some of Toros’s ore, which comes in handy for exploding a deadly spaceberg off course from a catastrophic meeting with earth.

Sort of a Ben Hur meets Armageddon storyline here, with a Twikki kidnapping story that gives the rascally robot extra screen time for those so desirous. Fantastic, lovely and archy supporting actress Anne-Marie Martin shines as this week’s damsel in distress, but she an also hold her own, especially when doing her mind-melding routine with fellow space vixens as part of the “Omniguard” (this show is chock full of that cool sci-fi nomenclature). Not much Deering in this one – all her scenes are on a space fighter (probably shot everything in one day on another soundstage). 

Buck Rogers 1.17: “Ardala Returns”

Airdate: 1/27/80

The Directorate finds an abandoned spaceship, appearing to be from the 20^thcentury. Buck, being the best qualified, goes in to check it out – but he discovers it to be a trap… too late. The culprit: Princess Ardala, who wants to clone Buck into “Zygots” to man her new, revamped Hatchet fighter program. Oh, and there are a few fringe benefits: namely, plenty of Buck to satisfy her decidedly amorous inclinations. But the fake Buck (in New Chicago) is promptly found out by Wilma, and the real Buck manages to escape in time to stop his doppelgangers from accomplishing their fiendish mission. And anyways, Ardala finds out that there really is only one true Buck – like a sequel, it just doesn’t have the magic of the original.

Pleasant enough escapade with amusing pre-digital multiple Buck special effects. It’s a hoot to see Gerard play the android – not particularly good at human skills such as watering plants. But the endearing part of this one is seeing Ardala, as played by the always half-clad Pamela Helmsley, having genuine feelings for Buck, especially after discovering how turned-off she is by his dupes. She plays this role tottering on the line between high camp and shadowed poignancy – her episodes always entertain in multiple ways, and yes, one of those ways does appeal to the male (or at least female appreciating) sensibility. Twill be mighty sad to see her go at the end of the season. Fans just had to wait a couple for a new ABC series called Matt Houston.

BTW – Buck’s joke at the end, in which he pretends to get a 20^th century idiom wrong so Huer and Wilma might suspect he’s an android, is extremely ill-advised considering Wilma vaporized his double earlier for the exact same reason.