Good 1970's Fun

ladymidath

I loved watching Buck Rogers when I was younger. It was a fun TV series with pretty reasonable acting. Looking at it today, it does seem a little creaky but it still holds up pretty well. The sets and special effects are dodgy by todays standards, but the overall show is still a lot of fun to watch. The first season introduced us to characters such as Dr Huer, Wilma Deering, Dr Theopolis and Twiki. There was also the unforgettable Princess Ardala and Kane and lets not forget the Tigerman. The stories were fun with a lot of tongue in cheek humour. As I recall, the first series actually did quite well. The second series was introduced later having been delayed by a writers strike. The second series a much different to the first. This time is was set an a starship called Searcher. Dr Huer and Dr Theopolis were no longer in the show and Twiki was voiced by a different actor. Also Ardala, Kane and the Draconians were not seen again. The second season did introduce some new characters though, Admiral Asimov, Dr Goodfellow and a robot called Crichton. But the best character to be introduced was Hawk, a bird-man whose entire village has been wiped out by humans. Wilma Deering and Twiki remained though I felt their roles had been reduced somewhat. Hawk became Buck's friend and quite often his back up. In fact some of the best scenes were between Buck and Hawk. In the first story, Time Of The Hawk, there was a brilliant aerial dogfight between Hawk and Buck where Buck was soundly whipped. There was also a very good hand to hand fight scene where it looked as though Hawk was winning. The stories were more serious as well, tackling issues such as alcoholism and domestic abuse, racism even the death penalty. It is a pity that the show was canceled, it was not as bad as everyone says and did have some very good scenes. All up it is dated, but still very entertaining.

score /10

ladymidath 22 July 2011

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2462583/