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Buck Rogers in the 25th Century - The Crystals
episode 2.8
USA 1981
produced by John G. Stephens, John Mantley (executive) for Glen A. Larson Productions, Universal/NBC
directed by John Patterson
starring Gil Gerard, Erin Gray, Thom Christopher, Jay Garner, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Amanda Wyss, Felix Silla, Mel Blanc (voice), Sandy Champion, Alex Hyde-White, James R. Parkes, Gary Bolen, Leigh C. Kim, Hubie Kerns jr, Jeff David (voice)
written by Bob Mitchell, Esther Mitchell, based on characters by Philip Francis Nowlan, Robert C. Dille, music by Donald Woods, visual effects supervisor: Peter Anderson, David Jones
TV-series Buck Rogers, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century
review by Mike Haberfelner
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The exploration vessel Searcher is stranded soimewhere in outer space,
but fortunately there's an uninhabited planet nearby that is known to hold
plenty of the crystals the ship needs to get unstuck, so Buck Rogers (Gil
Gerard), Hawk (Thom Christopher) and Wilma (Erin Gray) shuttle down to
explore - and pretty much stumble upon the crystal everywhere they walk.
And they also stumble upon a mummy (Hubie Kerns jr), that by all means
shouldn't be there since the planet's supposed to be uninhabited. Buck,
Hawk and Wilma decide to load the mummy on their shuttle with the
crystals, but while they go exploring some more, the mummy apparently
comes to life and breaks out of the shuttle, taking the crystals with it.
Still, Buck orders the other two to fly back to the Searcher to fetch some
mining kit and a mining crew while he stays on the planet - and soon
enough runs across young Laura (Amanda Wyss), a pretty girl who
immediately takes to him but has no recollection of what has happened
before three days ago. When Hawk and Wilma return with mining equipment
the very next day, they're quite surprised to find Buck in company, and
Wilma tries to help Laura regain her memory while also running some tests
on her - to find out she and the mummy share the exact same DNA.
Eventually they learn from super robot Crichton (voiced by Jeff David)
that Laura's species obviously turns into mummies later in life. That
makes Laura quite unhappy as she doesn't want to turn into a monster.
Meanwhile the actual monster attacks the miners time and again to take
their crystals. Then Buck gets into a fight with the mummy, but when
tearing away its skin a young man pops up underneath. Meanwhile, Wilma and
Hawk learn from Crichton that Laura's species doesn't actually turn into
mummies but evolve from mummies later in life, and suddenly everything's
all fine and peachy, as now that the mummy is a human as well, and a good
companion for Laura, our heroes can leave the planet with plenty of
crystals to last the Searcher a lifetime. From this episode onwards,
robot sidekick Twiki is once again voiced by Mel Blanc, and while I'm
usually a fan of the man, his very cartoonish Twiki has always been one of
the (many) weak links in the series. Now this episode starts
out pretty much like an episode of classic
Star Trek, really to a point where Buck's womanizing skills
almost rival Captain Kirk's. Eventually though the episode veers off into
too many directions all at once. For once, there's Laura's coming-of-age
story, but then there's also bits of gothic horror, and much science
babble, most of which seems to just have been made up to bring the muddled
story to a happy ending. Sure, it's still some fun to watch - but great
science fiction it's not.
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