BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25TH CENTURY (1979 - 1981)

 

Based on characters created by: Philip Francis Nowlan

Developed by: Glen A. Larson, Leslie Stevens

Starring: Daniel Ades, Clay Alexander, Elizabeth Allen, John Edward Allen, Abraham Alvarez, Ana-Alicia, Keith Andes, Michael Ansara, Victor Argo, Keith Atkinson, Bill Baker, Buzz Barbee, Elgin Baylor, Kimberly Beck, Thomas Bellin, Wally K. Berns, Ramon Bieri, Len Birman, Sena Ayn Black, Stephanie Blackmore, Mel Blanc, Earl Boen, Heidi Bohay, Gary Bolen, Betty A. Bridges, Morgan Brittany, Walter Brooke, Dean Brooks, Douglas R. Bruce, William Bryant, Tara Buckman, Duke Butler, Barry Cahill, Macdonald Carey, Karen Carlson, Paul Carr, Tony Carroll, David S. Cass Sr, Lachelle Chamberlain, Sandy Champion, Ken Chandler, Judith Chapman, Ted Chapman, Diana Chesney, Linden Chiles, Thom Christopher, Gary Coleman, Gino Conforti, William Conrad, Robert Cornthwaite, Nicolas Coster, Paul Coufos, Tony Cox, Buster Crabbe, William Kirby Cullen, Howard Culver, Anne E. Curry, Billy Curtis, Jamie Lee Curtis, David Darlow, Jeff David, Anthony Davis, Brent Davis, Rosemary DeCamp, Nancy DeCarl, Steve "Bunker" de France, Michael DeLano, John Dewey Carter, Nick Dimitri, Tamara Dobson, Robert Dowdell, Ann Dusenberry, Walker Edmiston, Arthur Eisner, Bob Elyea, James Emery, Tony Epper, Devon Ericson, Mitchel Evans, Susie Ewing, James Faracci, Jessie Lawrence Ferguson, Eddie Firestone, Bruce M. Fischer, Jeannie Fitzsimmons, Lester Fletcher, Michael Fox, Nancy Frangione, Dennis Freeman, Alice Frost, John Fujioka, John Furlong, Tom Gagen, Gina Gallego, Ron Gans, Jay Garner, Sean Garrison, Gil Gerard, Seamon Glass, Liberty Godshall, Jesse D. Goins, Harry Gold, Frank Gorshin, Peter Graves, Erin Gray, Raven Grey Eagle, David Groh, H.B. Haggerty, Sid Haig, Brett Halsey, Kim Hamilton, Robert Hardy, Jeff Harlan, Andre Harvey, Dennis Haysbert, Thomas "Hollywood" Henderson, Pamela Hensley, David Hollander, David Hooks, Phil Hoover, Nicholas Hormann, Michael Horsley, Alan Hunt, Walter Hunter, Alex Hyde-White, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Sam Jaffe, Anthony James, Anne Jeffreys, Harry "Chip" Johnson, Peter Kastner, Stacy Keach Sr, Colleen Kelly, Hubie Kerns Jr, Lincoln Kilpatrick, Leigh C. Kim, Paul Koslo, Francisco Lagueruela, Judy Landers, Robert Lane, Eric Lawrence, Paul LeClair, Lance LeGault, Cynthia Leake, Brianne Leary, Mark Lenard, Kelli Lessie, Ken Letner, Leonard Lightfoot, Anne Lockhart, Bebe Louie, Barbara Luna, Robert Lussier, Richard Lynch, Peter MacLean, Ernesto Macias, Tommy Madden, Patty Maloney, Paul Mantee, Don Marshall, Diane Markoff, Michele Marsh, Anne-Marie Martin (Eddie Benton), Michael Masters, Don Maxwell, Tobar Mayo, Leigh McCloskey, Roddy McDowall, James McEachin, Barney McFadden, Duncan McKenzie, Marsha Mercant, Shawn Michaels, Kelley Miles, Vera Miles, John Milford, Denny Miller, Tracy Miller, Bob Minor, Gwenn Mitchell, Richard Moll, Harry Monty, Nancy Morris, David Moses, Michael Mullins, Julie Newmar, Stuart Nisbet, Elaine Nista, Trisha Noble, Kenneth O'Brien, John O'Connell, Chris O'Connor, Tim O'Connor, Timothy O'Hagan, Timothy O'Keefe, Wendy Oates, David Opatoshu, Jerry Orbach, Cathey Paine, Jack Palance, Carlos Palomino, Frank Parker, James R. Parkes, Vic Perrin, Donald Petrie, Wesley Pfenning, Andrea Pike, Albert Popwell, Markie Post, Edward Power, John Quade, Jerry Quarry, Robert Quarry, Eldon Quick, Richard Reed, Carl Reindel, Mitch Reta, Jay Robinson, Lavelle Roby, Melody Rogers, Cesar Romero, Bert Rosario, Roger Rose, Brady Rubin, Jackie Russell, Spencer Russell, John P. Ryan, Whitney Rydbeck, Alfred Ryder, Fred Sadoff, Bob Seagren, Charles Secor, Eric Server, Pamela Susan Shoop, Teddi Siddall, Felix Silla, Borah Silver, Hank Simms, James Sloyan, Caroline Smith, Jim B. Smith, William Smith, Olan Soule, Elizabeth Stack, Gary Stang, Antoinette Stella, K.T. Stevens, Shawn Stevens, Christopher Stone, Dorothy Stratten, Woody Strode, Michael Stroka, Dan Sturkie, William Sylvester, Joe Taggart, June Whitley Taylor, Robert Tessier, Harry Townes, Clifford Turknett, Charles Walker, Ray Walston, Larry Ward, Richard Washington, Vernon Weddle, Donn Whyte, Katherine Wiberg, Russell Wiggins, Nonice Williams, Sheila Wills, Nathaniel Brian Wine, Joseph Wiseman, Victoria Woodbeck, Mary Woronov, Bruce Wright, Eugenia Wright, Richard "Dub" Wright, Amanda Wyss, Buck Young, Cameron Young, John A. Zee, Darrell Zwerling

37 episodes

(TV-PG - sci-fi/fantasy violence)

PLOT:

After a space phenomenon disrupts his NASA mission in deep space in 1987, astronaut William "Buck" Rogers is put into suspended animation, only to be awakened 500 years later. Finding an Earth unlike anything he could have ever imagined, he tries to adjust to new customs and new lifeforms that threaten mankind.

season 1 - 

In 1987, a space phenomenon sends NASA astronaut William "Buck" Rogers and his space shuttle off course and freezes his life support systems for 500 years. In 2491, he awakens aboard the flagship Draconia, under the command of Princess Ardala and her henchman Kane, a former native of Earth. The Draconians repair Buck's shuttle, but secretly plant a homing beacon aboard to track a path through Earth's defense shield. Upon arriving on Earth, Buck learns that everyone he knew had perished in a nuclear holocaust and Earth has been rebuilt over the centuries. However, he must adjust to the 25th century, and convince the Earth Defense Directorate that the Draconians are secretly planning to conquer Earth. The Earth Defense Directorate faces a crisis when nearly everyone becomes sick after eating poisoned food. An attempt is made to create an antidote but the plan is thwarted when the laboratory is sabotaged and an assassin positions his weapon at Dr. Huer. Buck Rogers, Wilma Deering and Major Duke Danton travel to the planet Vistula where the poisoned food was exported from and they find a world engaged in slave labor. Then they discover that a fanatical religious leader and slave trader named Kaleel poisons Earth's food supply in order to weaken their defenses. Meanwhile, Kaleel is secretly planning to conquer Earth from his mountain fortress while their defenses are incapacitated. To ensure a notorious smuggler's cooperation, Buck and a fellow officer must infiltrate a crime lord's casino resort, to rescue a young woman who has been kidnapped by one of the smuggler's rivals. After capturing notorious assassin Raphael Argus, Buck Rogers learns that the killer-for-hire is to attend a meeting with a group of elite assassins known as the Legion of Death on Aldebaran II. Buck assumes his identity, meets the group's leader, Seton Kellogg, and learns that each member has a unique power - Sharese is an empath capable of reading the emotions of other people; Jolen Quince is a telekinetic who can move objects with the power of his mind; Marcos has superior strength, and Varek is a mutant who can walk through solid matter. After one of the group gets killed by an Earth Defense Directorate agent, the Legion of Death vow revenge and devise a plan to destroy New Chicago. Buck Rogers' true identity is briefly questioned by one of Raphael Argus' girlfriends, Joella Cameron, but she goes along with the deception to assist Buck. However, his cover has been eventually blown when an informant named Barney Smith, who knew the real Argus, confirms he is an impostor. The Legion of Death discover Buck's true identity, but he manages to avoid being killed by the nefarious group of deadly assassins. By then, Buck has already learned the group's plan to destroy New Chicago, by sabotaging the city's antimatter power plant, and he and Joella race back to Earth to stop them. Buck Rogers and Wilma Deering pursue notorious gunrunners Commander Corliss and Roxanne Trent who are planning on dropping deadly nerve agents from the 20th century on Earth. A squadron of elderly space fighter pilots led by Major Noah Cooper who were forced to retire are brought back into active service so they can lead an attack on the criminals' asteroid base. Because of their age, Wilma has doubts about the squadron's reliability, but Noah's team departs to prove they still have what that takes to get the mission done. During the attack, Buck and Wilma are captured by Corliss and Trent who both show horrible scars from injuries they received from Wilma during a previous confrontation. Posing as a prisoner named Valzhan, Buck Rogers has been taken to a penal colony on Zeta Minor where he springs a female inmate named Jen Burton. The young woman had taken the blame for crimes committed by her boyfriend, Malary Pantera, and the Earth's Directorate wants her to testify against him. However, she still loves Pantera and refuses to cooperate, and Pantera happens to have a business associate back on Earth, a Zetan diplomat whose involvement could be exposed once she testifies. Furthermore, they have to cross a desert on foot to succeed to the nearest spaceport and are being followed by an android prison guard, damaged during the prison break. Earth is negotiating with the planet Ruatha to maintain its right to mine barbarite on the Ruathan-held planet Madrea. While Buck Rogers is flying to keep the space between the planets clear, he is lured to the planet Zantia by a phony distress call from two beautiful women. After bringing them home, a man named Cassius Thorne takes Buck into custody and has him sold and mated with the Prime Minister's daughter Ariela Dyne. Meanwhile, Wilma Deering arrives looking for Buck and learns that Buck is planning to meet with the Ruathan leader and expose the truth that Zantia has no warriors. Buck and Wilma must escape Zantia while he finds a way to smooth the negotiations with the troublesome Ruathan diplomat. The President of the planet Genesia is no ordinary President... he is 493-year-old child genius Hieronymous Fox. Originally from Earth's 20th century, he developed advanced cryogenics technology and had himself frozen before the nuclear holocaust. After being revived in the 25th century, Fox helped the struggling Genesia colony and they made him their leader. A political dissident named Roderick Zale has kidnapped him for ransom and held him captive on Aldebaran II. The President's bodyguard, Lieutenant Dia Cyrton, appeals to Earth's Directorate for help to rescue him but officially Earth cannot help. When her request is denied, she enlists Buck to her cause who is only too eager to meet someone from his own time. Princess Ardala returns with a powerful orbital weapon she threatens to bombard Earth with unless she has Buck Rogers for herself. After the galactic beauty queen Miss Cosmos is attacked by a mysterious woman, Buck Rogers and Wilma Deering are assigned to protect her while she travels aboard a luxury space liner. Onboard, Buck encounters Alison Michaels, who suffers from periodic blackouts which her boyfriend, Jalor Davin, dismisses as mental stress caused by hypertension. After another attack against Miss Cosmos, Buck confronts the assailant, Sabrina, a wild-haired woman with superhuman strength and deadly psychokinetic powers. He begins to suspect that Sabrina and Alison are the same and that Jalor has been exploiting her powers so that they can capture Miss Cosmos and sell her perfect genetics on the black market. Buck Rogers and Wilma Deering arrive at Theta Station to have Twiki serviced, but soon a freighter crashes with the space station. The freighter crew are found in a state between life and death, and believing a virus may be responsible, Commander Royko orders the base under quarantine. Soon however, Wilma feels a cold, evil presence stalking her and several station crew begun turning up half-dead. Buck learns that the source of said deaths is the Vorvon, a space vampire that can drain the life energy from his victims and turn them into zombies. However, only Buck is convinced that the Vorvon exists and plans on making Wilma his next victim. Nearing his 534th birthday, Buck Rogers feels homesick for the 20th century and Wilma Deering plans a surprise party to cheer him up. To lure Buck out of his apartment and allow Wilma to arrange the party, Dr. Huer assigns him to escort psychic courier Raylyn Derren to New Detroit. Meanwhile, the bitter and vindictive Cornell Traeger escapes from a remote planet that he has been imprisoned on for 15 years. He acquires a mutant power to change molecular structures and plans revenge on Dr. Huer for sending him on a disastrous mission. Traeger kidnaps the psychic courier to find out Dr. Huer's location and Buck must stop him before he can carry out the assassination. A satellite enters Earth orbit. This transmits a message intended for Buck, and a warning of a possible attack. Buck and his friends attempt to figure out who might have sent the satellite to prevent the attack. Kane has designed the Hatchet Fighters of the Draconian Realm, resulting in the invariable deaths of the empire's best pilots who cannot control their ships. Determined to launch attacks on Earth, Princess Ardala orders the capture of Buck Rogers, the one pilot in the galaxy who can possibly control Kane's Hatchet Fighters. Using a dramatic ruse, Ardala succeeds in capturing Buck and Twiki, and prepares Buck for the debut of the Zygots, android clones of himself. Strapping Buck into a space suit, the Draconians record his combat experience and transfer the information into the clones. Buck attempts to escape, but finds Ardala has sent one of his clones as an impostor, rigged with a bomb capable of destroying New Chicago. After an uprising of miners on the asteroid Toros, the mining operator Kerk Belzak wishes to replace the human workers with robotic drones. He kidnaps Twiki so he can investigate the diminutive drone's unique circuitry and make cheap duplicates of Twiki to work in his mine. Buck Rogers goes after Belzak's enforcers, the Omniguard, three female paranormals with psychokinetic powers to save Twiki. Meanwhile, Wilma Deering has her hands full with a huge floating chunk of frozen oxygen that could destroy most of Earth's population once the iceberg veers off course. Buck attends a new version of the Olympics. He meets Lara, one of the athletes, who tells him that she is involved with Jorex, an athlete from a planet, that's ruled by a dictator, who has Jorex under his thumb. She's asking for Buck's help so that Jorex can defect to Earth. Buck calls Wilma and Huer, who agree to help. They decide to consult another refugee from Jorex's planet. He tells them that the dictator will do whatever he has to do to keep him from escaping, even kill him. However, Allerick, the man in charge of Jorex, learns of the plan and abducts Lara. Buck sees a young woman who looks identical to his girlfriend, whom he left behind when he was sent on a space mission in the 20th century. The stranger, named Lela Markeson, catches a flight in the resort town of City-on-the-Sea (what was once New Orleans), and Buck follows her there. However, Lela reveals that she was purposely altered to appear as Buck's long-lost girlfriend and sent to lure Buck into a trap by aliens. With Buck captured, the aliens want him to attack a freighter transporting weapons to a colony planet which they planned to conquer. Buck gets Wilma to detonate a warhead to deceive the aliens into thinking the shipment is destroyed. When an evil rock impresario devises a means to implant a hypnotic signal into a rock band's music to drive their young audience berserk, Buck must thwart his schemes of conquest. Buck learns that the population of a planet oppressed by a powerful evil warlord believes that he is their prophesied deliverer and are begging for him to help. After a mysterious probe lands on Earth, Buck and Twiki travel through a vortex to another universe where the peaceful inhabitants of the planet Pendar are under attack from the ruthless war witch Zarina. Buck has to form an uneasy alliance with Draconian Princess Ardala, who has followed him through the vortex, in order to defeat Zarina. 

season 2 - 

Buck Rogers, Wilma Deering and Twiki embark on a journey through the galaxy as members of the spaceship Searcher, which is on a mission to find the lost tribes of Earth who escaped the planet in the wake of a devastating nuclear holocaust. Meanwhile, proud half-man, half-bird being Hawk returns home and finds his people slaughtered by human pirates and angrily promises to destroy all humans he encounters moving forward. After Hawk attacks the crew of a freighter, Buck goes to find him determined to terminate his killing spree and bring him to justice. Having learned not all humans are evil, Hawk joins the Searcher crew and goes along with Buck on many subsequent adventures. Earth and the rival planet Zykaria are on the cusp of war. Zykarian Ambassador Duvoe travels by a shuttle piloted by Buck Rogers to a peace conference in the city of Oasis on the otherwise desolate planet R-4. Things go awry when the shuttle encounters a sudden radiation storm and Buck is forced to land on the harsh desert surface of R-4, populated by a savage tribe of primitive mutants. Buck and Hawk must then escort the ambassador to the city on foot, with Wilma and Goodfellow, and only the riddles of a blue-skinned alien dwarf can reach the city alive. Buck also battles his feelings for Wilma when he learns the ambassador was her former love interest and his return rekindles her affections. Buck and Hawk discover an old man dying on a uncharted planet while searching for evidence of human settlements. He says it was destiny that brought him to this time and destiny that brought him to that planet. He entrusts Buck with a green jade box and tells him to take it to the next guardian. It's a legendary box and strange things start to happened to those who touch the box. Horrific future visions, but Asimov wants to get to his R and R, so he throws the box on the back burner. But they soon realize is if they don't take the box right away, that the time shifts may destroy them all. While sick in bed with Cignus Fever Buck starts seeing Ambassador Cabot and his party have a strange aura around them. Ambassador Cabot is responsible for bringing peace with the lizard people known as the Saurians with the Delta Defense Grid which destroys all ships without a proper code. The Aura that Buck is seeing is connected to the fact that Ambassador Cabot and his party are not who they claim to be but Saurians in disguise. Buck's unique condition allows him to see the aura around the illusion. But now the Searcher is on a deadly course which is all part of a plan to take over the Delta Defense Grid but only Buck suspect something is amiss. While traveling through an asteroid field, Buck Rogers and crew come across a life pod. Inside is a young golden-skinned boy, Vellus, who displays the unusual ability to alter the nature of metals. When the Searcher becomes hopelessly stuck on an asteroid, Vellus suggests that his friend Relkos, whose life pod landed on a nearby planet, is more powerful that he and could lighten the ship enough to free it from the asteroid. Buck and Vellus head down to the planet, unaware that it is a penal colony full of unruly prisoners. They discover that the criminals are also after Relkos's metal-altering powers, hoping he can lighten a crashed vessel enough for them to escape. Buck Rogers visits the planet Phibocetes with a landing party, hoping to gather some thurbidian crystals to power the Searcher. Though the planet is believed to be uninhabited, the landing party soon comes across a "mummy" that mysteriously comes to life and wanders off into the bushes. Buck soon meets another life form - a young girl - who has no memory of who she is or where she came from. The crew is puzzled when blood samples from the girl match that of the creature and assume the girl will eventually become one of the mummy-like beings. Both life forms also seem strangely affected by the thurbidian crystals, and it's not long before the "mummy" makes off with their entire supply. After Buck is bitten the crew realizes that the Satyr is really the male colonist that has been infected by the planet. Shortly after they discover who the Satyr is, Buck battles the Satyr until he electrocutes himself with his laser whip. Buck and Hawk are ordered to explore an old derelict spaceship, where they find a hold full of solar bombs and a crew of seven dwarfs. The crew are transferred to the Searcher, and it is decided to take the derelict to a safe location to detonate the bombs before they can explode on their own. Buck turns the seven uniformed dwarfs over to Wilma, who has her hands full when she discovers the little aliens have never seen a woman before. The curious little aliens begin to wreck havoc aboard the Searcher and severely damage Crichton's positronic brain. With the ship out of control and heading toward a star, Twiki offers his own electronic brain to repair Crichton so he can initiate repairs to the ship. While exploring Deeth, the "Planet of Death," Buck Rogers, Hawk, and Wilma come across a stranded crash victim. His wrecked ship mysteriously disappears after he is rescued - the first in a long line of strange happenings. Buck and Hawk must contend with a duplicate of their ship, the Searcher, as well as find a way to release the real Searcher from a snare beam. Their search for the beam's source takes them back to the planet's surface, where they meet an old man who identifies himself as the "Hand of the Goral." He informs them that they have a final test to pass - if they succeed, they will reap the rewards, but if they fail, the Searcher and all aboard will be destroyed. The crew returns to Earth. Buck is put on trial for helping a group that may have had a hand in the nuclear war that devastated Earth in 1987. Buck and Hawk transport refugees of a planetary disaster to a new home. Buck allows a fugitive woman named Asteria Eleefa to board the Searcher. Eleefa is a member of a harsh mutant race called the Dorians, who hide their faces behind decorated masks. The ruthless Dorian leader Koldar reveals that Eleefa is wanted for murder and hence demands that Eleefa be handed over to him. When Buck refuses to oblige Koldar's demand, Koldar decides to randomly increase and decrease the temperature on the Searcher. Meanwhile, the suffering passengers on the Searcher demand that Buck surrender the woman before they take drastic action themselves. 

INTRO: