Buck Rogers: Awakening

By Lisa Fary

What has white spandex, blue camel toe, and a three foot robot voiced by Mel Blanc? Buck Rogers, people. Buck Rogers. There’s something special about getting the entire series new on DVD for eleven bucks.

Ha! Bucks!

Sorry.

The year is 1987, and NASA launches the last of America’s deep space probes. In a freak mishap, Ranger 3, and its pilot, Captain William “Buck” Rogers, are blown out of their trajectory into an orbit which freezes his life support system and returns Buck Rogers to Earth 500 years later.

During those 500 years in Ranger 3, Buck wasn’t just an inert, frozen guy. His mind was stuck in a place where fantasy and reality bent, a place where women in silver costumes pole danced on a stage shaped like Buck’s name to the dreamy Buck Rogers theme song.

Far beyond this world I’ve known,

Far beyond my time

What kind of world am I going to find?

Will it be real, or just all in my mind?

What am I, who am I, what will I be?

Where am I going, and what will I see?

Will I be pretty? Will I be rich?

Sorry.

And where was Buck during the sci-fi babe writhing? Zonked out in the middle his name-stage, and yet still managing to get a squeet in for the girls.

The pilot wastes no time getting it started – Buck is frozen before the opening credits and found immediately after by the Draconian flagship, where he’s revived and begins hitting on a princess. Shortly after being revived, Buck is sent on his way to Earth, while still under the influence of some powerful painkillers. He couldn’t even walk to his ship!

However, the Draconians have an evil plot. . . their very name means “harsh, severe, cruel,” so I don’t think they’re allowed to have any other kind of plot. They’ve hidden a transmitter thingy on Ranger 3 which will show them the exact flight pattern needed to enter Earth’s defense system. Once there, the Draconians can rule the world!

But, they’re going to Earth to sign a trading treaty, which would give them access to Earth anyway. Doesn’t that kinda make the subterfuge unnecessary?

Why does Earth need a draconian treaty with the Draconians? Because there are pirates hitting our shipping lanes, killing pilots and interrupting the food supply. Earth isn’t exactly a prosperous planet – shortly after Buck’s 1987 take off, there was some kind of holocaust that wiped out much of the population and destroyed the environment. 500 years later, Earth is still dependent on trade with other planets for basic supplies.

Buck’s bad singing gets the attention of a space scanner girl. Colonel Wilma Deering sets off to intercept the singing intruder and his antiquated ship and lead him safely to New Chicago, where Buck gets into a bathrobe and is debriefed on the holocaust by Theo, the sparkly AI unit that hangs around Twiki’s neck.

Meanwhile, everyone is suspicious of Buck. The Draconians thought he was an Earth spy. The Earth people think he’s a space pirate. Wilma wants to shoot him. The computer council wants to execute him. Only Theo and Twiki believe in him and want to spend quality time with him, watch him shower, and rub soothing balms all over him.

Wilma doesn’t love Buck nearly as much as Theo does. She’s more annoyed by him, what with his smart remarks and his sneaking off to snuggle with Twiki in the ruins of Old Chicago. But, she wants to believe him and takes him to rendezvous with the Draconian flagship to give him a chance to prove his story.

Only they’re thwarted by the draconian Draconians – it’s revealed that they’re behind the pirate attacks and they unleash a few to distract the Earth pilots, who rush to intercept. But, post-holocaust humans have become too reliant on computers to do things for them, things like combat. Buck gets on the radio and tries to warn the pilots.

“Thornberry! You’ve got one on your tail!” BOOM!!!

“Hey, there’s one right behind-” BOOM!!!

Soon, all that’s left are Wilma, who’s fiddling with her combat computer, and Buck, who does things the 20th century way: manually, while wisecracking.

The Draconian delegation arrives on Earth and the requisite, half-naked, sci-fi princess dirty dances with Buck at a futuristic cotillion. Buck uses the horny princess (really, she has horns on her headdress) to get him back on the Draconian flagship, where he’ll singlehandedly investigate and stop the invasion.

Buck Rogers in the 25th Century in 1979 looked better than Flash Gordon did in 2007. It’s campier than the neon macrame bracelets I made at sixth grade camp, without being nearly as silly and not giving me a rash. I forgot how much I love this show, and how much I loved Wilma Deering – she was like a space Amelia Earhart to me in the early 1980s.

I leave you with Wilma’s words to Buck after she’s rescued him from the blowed-up Draconian flagship:

“I may be a colonel, Buck. But, I’m a woman, too, and I’m going to show you.”

That means Wilma’s whipping out the shiny, blue, camel toe uniform in the next episode: “Planet of the Slave Girls.”

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Lisa Fary’s early exposure to classic Battlestar Galactica in 1979 is largely responsible for her lifelong interest in science fiction and her childhood ambition of being an intergalactic space cowgirl. She thinks diagramming sentences is a fun alternative to Sudoku.