Buck Rogers in the 25th Century: The Complete Epic Series

BUCK ROGERS was my favorite TV show which ran on NBC from 1979-81, especially when it premiered in the Fall of 1979 a week after CBS had cancelled WONDER WOMAN all of the sudden in mid September of 1979 which takes me all the way back to memory lane to when I was 7 years old in the 1st grade, plus this BUCK ROGERS DVD is awesome showing each and every episode complete and uncut like it was originally shown on their original air-dates on NBC, without showing any deleted scenes or added commercials, unlike the Sci-Fi Channel and Me-TV.BUCK ROGERS was a Science-Fiction drama produced by Universal that was inspired by the massive success of STAR WARS in 1977 and good box-office returns of the movie BUCK ROGERS:IN THE 25TH CENTURY in March of 1979 led NBC to comission a full series which began on Thursday September 20th, 1979 with a modified version of BUCK ROGERS theatrical release along with the fact that the production of BUCK ROGERS used a lot of recycled props from creator (Glen Larson's) previous Science-Fiction series BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, which was still in production ABC while the pilot film for BUCK ROGERS was in the Spring of 1979.This series centered on Capt. William "Buck" Rogers (Gil Gerard) who was a NASA pilot from the Air Force who commanded Ranger 3, a space-shuttle that was launched in May of 1987 and due to a life-support malfunction, Buck is accidentally frozen for 504 years while Buck learns that civilization on Earth was rebuilt following a devastating nuclear war that occured in November of 1987 and is now under the protection of the Earth Defense Directorate in New Chicago when Buck discovers the derelict remains of Old Chicago after he gets a rude-awakening in the 25th Century when his whole world from the 20th century disappears after being revived out of a coma.Therefore, Buck was aided by his pal and semi-love interest Col.Wilma Deering(Erin Gray) and his comic side-kick ambuquad robot(Twiki)voiced by Mel Blanc and Buck was like a ladies man since Buck was always involved with a different woman practically every week in the 1979-80 Season.In the 1st Season; Buck and Wilma took orders from the head of the Defense Directorate Dr. Elias Huer(Tim O'Connor)and the chief villian was the ruthless and power-hungry Princess Ardala(Pamela Hensley)whose goal was to conquer Earth and possess Buck and was aided by her henchman Kane(Michael Ansara).The 2nd Season was delayed till the Winter of 1981 and pushed back to an abbreviated season, due to an actors strike while production resumed in the Fall of 1980, but the series had a new set of producers headed by John Mantley and the format of the series changed by having Buck, Wilma, and Twiki being part of a crew aboard the Earth spaceship called the "Searcher" instead of defending the Earth from external threats like they did in the 1st Season.In addition to the notable transition of the Second Season was the departure of Dr. Huer, Dr. Theopolis, Princess Ardala, and Kane and were replaced with new characters such as*Admiral Efram Asimov(Jay Garner)which was the commander of the "Searcher" and a descendant of the famous science-fiction author Isaac Asimov.*Hawk(Thom Christopher) whom was an alien who represented the last of the nearly extinct birds people.*Dr. Goodfellow(Wilfrid Hyde-White)whom was an elderly scientist with insatiable curiousity.*Crichton, a snobbish robot built by Dr. Goodfellow, but who always finds difficulty believing that lowly humans could've built him.Additionally; the character of Wilma Deering was softened in the 2nd Season since the producers decided to tone down the militaristic "Col. Deering" image, who often gave Buck orders and tried to make Wilma more feminine instead of tomboyish.Another change to BUCK ROGERS Second Season was Mel Blanc left the series at the end of the First Season and was replaced by another actor(Bob Elyea)supplied Twiki's voice instead of Mel Blanc, but there was never an explanation for the change in Twiki's voice.Therefore the show tanked since the substance of the storylines in the 2nd Season also changed since less emphasis was placed on militaristic ideals by dealing with more serious concepts such as ecology, racism, pollution, war, nuclear power, identity, the self, and religion, plus Buck scaled back a lot of humor in the Second Season in favor of more serious episodes and Buck and Wilma's relationship slightly became more romantic than they were in the 1st Season since Gil Gerard had pushed for more serious storytelling and had clashed with the producers and the NBC network over the shows tone and handling & was even hoping the series wouldn't be picked up for a 2nd Season since Gerard didn't want to go through another season like the first one, despite the fact that the Second Season left us mourning the loss of Dr. Huer whom was also like a father-figure to Buck just like Devon Miles(Edward Mulhare)was a lot like a father-figure to Michael Knight(David Hasselhoff)on KNIGHT RIDER.Unfortunately, all the changes made in the 2nd Season resulted in a significant drop in ratings after its Season Premiere in January of 1981 and NBC had cancelled BUCK ROGERS at the end of the 11-episode-strike-abbreviated season in the Summer of 1981 with no finale episode broadcast being a normal standalone episode which was also when CBS unofficially announced that they were cancelling THE INCREDIBLE HULK in the mid Fall of 1981, due to budget cuts and a change in management at CBS.I enjoyed seeing guest stars like*Gary Coleman in the "Cosmic Whiz Kid" episode during his co-starring days on DIFFERENT STROKES*Lance LeGault in the "Time Of The Hawk" episode before his co-starring days as the hard-nosed Army nemesis(Col.Decker)on THE A-TEAM and as Magnum's bitter Navy nemesis(Col.Greene)on MAGNUM, P.I.*Markie Post in the Plot To Kill A City" episode before her co-starring days on NIGHT COURT and FALL GUY*Jack Palance in the "Planet Of The Slave Girls" episode before his co-starring days on RIPLEYS BELIEVE IT OR NOT*Jerry Orbach in the "Space Rockers" episode before his co-starring days on LAW & ORDER*Paul Mantee before his co-starring days as Cmdr. Clayton on the police drama HUNTER*Richard Moll in the "Space Rockers" episode before his co-starring days on NIGHT COURT*Anne Lockhart in the "I Dream Of Jennifer" episode after her co-starring days as Sheba on BATTLESTAR GALACTICA*Judith Chapman in her "Olympiad" episode before her co-starring days on THE YOUNG & THE RESTLESS, DAYS OF OUR LIVES, and ALL MY CHILDREN*Pamela Hensely as the relentless Princess Ardala before her co-starring days as CJ Parsons on the detective drama MATT HOUSTON.*Ray Walston after his co-starring days on MY FAVORITE MARTIAN*James Luisi after his co-starring days as Becker's hard-nosed superior officer (Lt. Chapman) on the detective drama THE ROCKFORD FILES & before his co-starring days on DAYS OF OUR LIVES & ANOTHER WORLD*Peter Graves after his co-starring days as Jim Phelps on MISSION IMPOSSIBLE*Jamie Lee Curtis during her earlier acting career days in the "Unchained Woman" episode after co-starring in John Carpenters 1978 masterpiece flick HALLOWEEN*Frank Gorshin in the "Plot To Kill A City" episode after his co-starring days as The Riddler on BATMAN*Cesar Romero after his co-starring days as The Joker in the "Vegas In Space" episode*Julie Newmar in the "Flight Of The Warwitch" episode after her co-starring days as Catwoman on BATMAN*Roddy McDowell in the "Planet Of The Slave Girls" episode after his co-starring days as The Bookworm on BATMAN*Brianne Leary in the "Planet Of The Slave Girls" episode after her co-starring days as Ponch & Jon's spunky fellow officer(Sindy Cahill) on the police drama CHiPsIn addition; this BUCK ROGERS DVD also shows a brief summary of each episode posting their original air dates on NBC, providing Closed Captioning too, which is mighty cool.Therefore, this DVD brings back a lot of memories for me when I lived in the Imperial Valley and used to watch it as a kid on NBC every Thursday night since BUCK ROGERS was part of NBC's Thursday night line-up back then along with the fact that the First Season of BUCK ROGERS was especially kind of funny with Twiki and Buck always mentioning words and terms and expressions from our time and Buck's past that people in the 25th Century have supposedly never heard of before, like not even a grilled cheese sandwich for instance when Wilma was baffled by Buck's analogy using that word.It was also interesting seeing Erin Gray playing as BUCK ROGERS co-star before her co-starring days as Kate Summers on SILVER SPOONS along with seeing Erin Gray with her sexy frosted ashy blonde hair that she had in the first 15 episodes, plus I also liked the narration done on the introduction of each episode in the 1979-1980 Season done by William Conrad too, which was neat along with the fact that William Conrad's narration to BUCK ROGERS 1st Season was way before his JAKE & THE FATMAN days on CBS.So I recommend this BUCK ROGERS DVD to anyone who liked this science-fiction drama as a kid when it was on NBC.

"The year is 1987 and NASA launches the last of America's deep space probes. In a freak mishap, Ranger 3 and its pilot, Captain William "Buck" Rogers, are blown out of their trajectory into an orbit which freezes his life support system and returns Buck Rogers to Earth - 500 years later."Easily one of the most cheesy sci-fi shows in history, Buck Rogers was still in my top five favorite genre programs. I always had a soft spot for Buck, Wilma, Dr. Huer, Hawk and even Twiki (at least when voiced by Mel Blanc). I received my DVD set yesterday and Smallville got tabled for the weekend while I popped in my favorite episode and spent the evening in heaven. While I've had these episodes on VHS for some time now, they were all the 45 minute, syndicated variety, with the exception of 4 or 5 professional tapes of select episodes. So about 80% of the series I haven't seen uncut and in their original format in 25 years. The two-part syndicated episodes were mostly 2 hour specials in 1979 and it's great to see them complete as aired. These were edited worse than the others due to the time they needed to put in the extra episode credits and recaps.So, last night I eagerly cued up the second season premiere "Time of the Hawk", my favorite episode. While most fans hate the second year (since they changed it much like Space:1999 was changed in its second season), I found it enjoyable and this two hour episode is simply outstanding. It gave Gil Gerard (who was never the best actor in Hollywood) a chance to show his chops as he played the hero with fewer campy one-liners than the previous year. He still had a sense of humor though and interacted well with the new supporting cast. The character of Hawk was introduced and played splendidly, so much so that following episodes were disappointing because they failed to adequately exploit him (although I've read that if the second season were given the go ahead for 13 more episodes, this would have been rectified). Still, he is an extremely well-drawn character and the actor was brilliant (stage and soap actor Thom Christopher).SPOILERS BELOW!For those not in the know, Hawk is the last of a race of "bird people" from Easter Island who fled to the stars after humans hunted them nearly to extinction. They lost the ability of flight by breeding it out of future generations in an effort to stay hidden and not draw attention. Settling on the planet Throm, Hawk and his people established a small colony and lived in peace until human hunters came and exterminated the colony while Hawk and his mate Koori were away. Hawk discovered the carnage and a dead human and declared war on humanity. Buck is sent to bring Hawk in and face justice after an impressive (for 1980 television) space & aerial dogfight, Hawk and Buck crash-land on Throm, gravely injuring Koori. The two adversaries trek across Throm to bring Koori to an acient mystic with healing powers and along the way they begin to understand each other. Buck, due to his compassion, impresses Hawk, but doesn't quite shake his resolve to hate humans. Koori dies and Hawk is devastated, but allows Buck to leave unharmed because of his help. Buck, however, still needs to being Hawk in. So there is a reluctant showdown between them on a mountain peak. It was the most realistic and harrowing fight of the series, ending in a draw (something of a change for the usually invincible Buck) thanks to the intervention of the mystic. Later, Hawk is in custody and because he does not recognize human laws, he refuses to plead in court. Hawk is about to be sentenced to die when Buck gives a desperate and passionate speech to the court. This is Gerard's moment to shine and it is the best work of his career. It's a sober and adult moment in a series often lambasted for it's cheese and disco atmosphere. The finale, where Hawk is (thanks to the court's change of heart) asked to join the crew and he agrees, is a touching and emotion ending and a promising start to the new season. Sadly, few episodes took advantage of this promise, but I still found the show extremely enjoyable.Buck Rogers. . .one of the many shows I love that most people hate.