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Forget almost everything that happened in the first season of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century - sure, Buck's (Gil Gerard) still a pilot from the 20th century who got frozen in time for 500 years, and survived it, too, sure, Wilma Deering's (Erin Gray) still by his side, as is obnoxious robot Twiki (Felix Silla, now voiced by Bob Elya), but Buck's now no longer the ace defender of earth but an explorer, and essentially a space scout. He travels the galaxy on the Searcher, a ship commandeered by Admiral Asimov (Jay Garner) that also carries eccentric scientist Dr. Goodfellow (Wilfrid Hyde-White) and his haughty robot Crichton (voiced by Jeff David).

With the set-up out of the way, the story of this episode starts with birdman Hawk (Thom Christopher) and his wife Koori (BarBara Luna) returning to their small village from a trip to the stars to find all of the locals slaughtered, apparently by humans. Hawk is so enraged by this that he swears to in return slaughter humans wherever he can find them. The crew of the Searcher learns about this, and they send out Buck to bring Hawk to justice. He manages to find Hawk's hide-out but only finds Koori there, so he takes her captive to lure Hawk to him. Soon enough, Buck and Hawk are caught up in a space duel in their respective spaceships, and their battle is only cut short when Hawk accidently injures Koori during the fight. Buck and Hawk agree on an uneasy truce while bringing Koori to a healer (David Opatoshu), and unexpectedly take a liking to one another on their path to him. However the healer can't save Koori's life. After that, the two men continue their fight mano a mano, and ultimately fight to exhaustion, and are eventually picked up by a search crew coming after Buck. On the Searcher, Hawk is put before an intergalactic court, but remains stubborn and quiet during the proceedings - until Buck can't stand it anymore and he argues since Hawk isn't strictly a human he can't be sentenced in a human trial, and ultimately Hawk agrees to join the crew of the Searcher - and become a regular on the series.

Exploitation favourite Sid Haig (who also graced the series in season 1 episode Flight of the War Witch) has a dialogue-free role as one of minor villain Lance LeGault's henchmen.

Ok, the total change of the premise of the show, also in tone, for the new season comes very much as a surprise - but given hos repetitive season one has become over its run, this isn't necessarily a bad thing, and at least in its first feature length episode (later split in two), Buck Rogers in the 25th Century shows some new spark, explores new worlds (quite literally), and shows at least some inventiveness regarding costumes and set design. And the central story not only shows heart, it also is bold enough to take the standpoint of the "enemy", shows grey areas between black and white. That said, at times the episode also tries to drive its point home way too hard, and it's not without lengths and a certain degree of repetitiveness. That said, with this episode the series that has grown stale suddenly shows promise again ...

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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