Movie DVDWith its campy combination of lightweight adventure and Spandex disco chic, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century is a nostalgic throwback to post-Star Wars opportunism. Series co-creator Glen A. Larson was incapable of originality, and former soap star Gil Gerard (in the title role) was a bland incarnation of the comic-strip hero, so the much-anticipated series premiered on September 20, 1979, with serious disadvantages. Although the two-hour pilot “Awakening” had tested successfully as a theatrical release, Gerard and the show’s producers could never agree on a stable tone for the series, which presents Capt. William “Buck” Rogers as a jovial space cowboy who is accidentally time-warped from 1987 to 2491. Earth is engaged in interplanetary war following a global holocaust, and Buck’s piloting skills make him an ideal starfighter recruit for the Earth Defense Directorate, where his closest colleagues are Dr. Huer (Tim O’Connor), squadron leader Col. Wilma Deering (former model Erin Gray, looking oh-so-foxy), the wisecracking robot Twiki (voiced by cartoon legend Mel Blanc), and a portable computer-brain named Dr. Theopolis, who’s carried by Twiki like oversized bling-bling.
The series struggled through an awkward first season, with routine plots elevated by decent special effects and noteworthy guest stars including Jamie Lee Curtis, ill-fated Playboy Playmate Dorothy Stratten (appearing, with her voice dubbed over, less than a year before her tragic murder), Batman alumnus Julie Newmar, Buster Crabbe (veteran of vintage Buck Rogers movie serials), and several others in a show that favored vamps and vixens over credible science fiction. A full-scale overhaul resulted in a disastrous second season, but devoted fans still gravitate to Hawk (Thom Christopher), the charismatic alien “birdman” who was introduced with new characters and a new, space-faring search for lost tribes from Earth (with echoes of Larson’s own Battlestar Galactica). Behind-the-scenes squabbles continued, and by mid-season of 1981, NBC pulled the plug on a breezy, still-engaging series that suffered from uneasy chemistry and never realized its full potential. Existing somewhere between Galactica and Lost in Space in the TV sci-fi food chain, this Buck–with a dearth of DVD extras–now functions as a cheesy stroll down memory lane. –Jeff Shannon
Buy “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century – The Complete Epic Series” For Only $12.99
May 25, 2008
#1
Well there’s no question that most of us informed sci fi fans have been waiting a long time for this late 70′s / early 80′s series to be repressed on DVD. The 2 questions are, 1: Are they going to remaster it w/today’s technology like George Lucas did w/the Original 3 Star Wars? I don’t get the impression they are, since it’s not bragged about on the DVD cover, but idk for sure? They may just reissue it like the Original BattleStar Galactica’s were. 2nd: the DVD cover says: “The Complete Epic Series”. Well how complete are we talking here? Their were 2 season of Buck Rogers. It does state that the new DVD’s will be of 5 cd’s. 4 episodes a cd(my guess) x 5 cd’s = 20 episodes. That put’s them 4 episodes short of the 1st season, but we’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. But I don’t see how their’s going to be a 2nd season, crammed in this 5 cd set? I could be wrong, but I’ve never yet seen a sci fi series that pushed more than 4(5 tops) on a regular cd. Btw: I’ve given this 3 stars, +1 if remastered, +1 more
if it contains both seasons.
May 26, 2008
#2
When I got the dvd series, the first dvd side A was cracked. Will be sending it back.
May 26, 2008
#3
When I was studying for my MBA I learned about the concept of brand equity and brand dilution. Buck Rogers built its brand equity back in the 1920s and 1930s as a newspaper comic and pulp magazine serials that were fun on a juvenile level. It diluted the brand with this ridiculous 1970s version.
The reason I use business terms is that’s what this was to NBC – an investment and not real entertainment. Shoddy production values (the space fighter fuel lines made out of Christmas tree lights was a new low), the enlightened attitudes of the production staff and network towards the cast (Erin Grey’s hopelessly exploitive costumes and the producer’s comments about “frying midgets” when the poor actor playing Twiky had health problems because of the robot suit), and the endless stories that centered on Gil Gerard trying to get some space tail all give a real “Day of the Locust” Hollywood feel to this.
Buck Rogers really was a product of its time. And this series was produced using the same editorial and conceptual approach Hollywood would have used in the 1930s. This is SF as Harry Cohn of the old Columbia Pictures would have done it. Who needs plots or characters when you have Wilma in incredibly tight Spandex?
P. S. Twiky? Who names a robot Twiky? If I were a robot I’ll call my anti-defamation league ASAP.
May 26, 2008
#4
For anyone who is a true, die-hard fan of science fiction, this set is not for you. Sorry, it just isn’t. “Buck Rogers” is in the vein of space-operas like Star Wars or Battlestar Galactica, but much, much, (add multiple “muches” here) more dated. Yeah, the space gambling and disco aliens from Galactica sent you in a tizzy, but this might drive you straight over the edge.
If you are a fan of classic television, this is also not for you. I can remember robots, an uptight doctor-guy with gray hair, a lead actor in Gil Gerard that always tried to be Mr. Cool and, of course, Erin Gray who played a colonel. She was sexy in that classic sort of Star Trek Voyager / Enterprise – X-Files way where everyone can see it, but nerds basically turned into overnight stalkers because of it (Hey, just because I used to pass out with a blood-rush when Gray did Bloomindale’s commercials doesn’t make me a bad person). However I don’t remember a single episode’s plotline.
This set is for the folks who grew up in that era and remember it fondly through the glassy eyes of nostalgia. Powerful performances, mind-blowing conceptual plot twists and the like are in short supply. Try the original “Twilight Zone” box sets for that. No, this is for us young’uns from the 70s who fought over which one of us was Bo or Luke Duke, debated over why a trucker had an orangutan (or better yet, why all truckers DIDN’T), and speculated over which Three’s Company blonde was the best / hottest / smartest.
My suggestion for you, child of the Beaten Generation: Go for it. Buy the box, get some nachos and bean dip, invite your old buds over (and their significant others, if they can stand the quantum geekery) and have fun…
Just don’t expect Othello, ’cause you won’t get it.
DwD
May 26, 2008
#5
Is it just me or is this entire series a subtle send-up of the average male’s deepest fantasies of sexual revenge?
Here you’ve got Commander Wilma as the frigid, no-nonsense wife. Buck, unable to relax in the face of such assertive iciness, invariably goes off adventuring, and — WITH FEW EXCEPTIONS — manages to bring back some tractable concubine. Wilma is forced permit her to service Buck as, having defeminized herself, this is apparently the only way to sate that wanderer’s overwrought and victimized libido.
I mean, think about it: at the end of nearly every episode, Buck comes back with some hot, randy girl! There’s never, say, a large black man or a dwarf in need of rescuing! Or any man, for that matter.
Just kidding. Seriously, though, these episodes were from the early 80s, and I think you’ll be surprised how overtly sexist they seem now. There’s NO WAY a major network would allow anything like them on the air these days. My, how we’ve changed.
I saw most of the episodes as a kid. At that age, their cackhanded cheesiness completely escaped me. Now, however, it it mercilessly apparent.
Fortunately, the first episode (at least) remains truly excellent. I remember it as being so, and I’m happy to report it can still hold up after all these years. This series can also boast the most amazingly brilliant title sequence I’ve ever seen in a TV show.
Other reviewers have griped that certain scenes were deleted from the first episode, so the version on the DVD is not the one that you may have seen on TV, but the “film cut” that played in theaters (the producers apparently thought the pilot episode was so good that they forewent showing it on TV, releasing it instead as a stand-alone movie).
Alas! I too feel that the deletion of these scenes, even though they were inarguably deletable, is a tragedy of great moment.
There’s one scene where Buck is getting his futuristic apartment. They’ve given him this super-sophisticated sort of bed that puts him to sleep almost immediately. Ah, how I’ve dreamed of such a bed!
There’s another scene (I think) when Dr. Theopholis is showing Buck movies of the earth’s destruction, and he’s explaining what probably happened.
Well, for some reason, minor scenes like those have stuck with me for over two decades, and now they’ve been deleted! On a DVD, no less! Couldn’t they have just hidden them away in the extras or something?
As for the other episodes, most of them are so scorchingly lame that you just want to hide under the table, even though you didn’t have anything to do with the writing or the filming! I’m sure you know what I’m talking about: it’s that feeling of ineffable, giddy shame you get when you’re witnessing something that makes you embarrassed just to be human, as if all of us — Jew and Gentile — have somehow been defiled the asininity you’re seeing.
However, if you grew up with these shows, likely you already have a critical blindspot for them, and nothing I say is going to make any difference. Just be aware that you’re gonna be learning a lot more about American values during the 80s than you remember.