Customer Reviews

Buck Rogers in the 25th Century [VHS]

5 star:		(116)
4 star:		(60)
3 star:		(26)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

The shows are uncut and look better than you've ever seen them. Thank goodness, they've also included the original theatrical version of the pilot (released to theatres several months before the series aired) which has the most hilarious open credits scenes ever.

Don't worry about the "broadast" version of the pilot not being included; it is mostly just an *edited version* of what was shown in theatres anyway. A brief scene or two were added in the NBC aired version, but these were brief and didn't amount to much. Yes, they would have made a nice extra, but I for one am glad they went with the *original theatrical version* in the set, as it came first anyway.

I never much cared for the second season, but it is also included here! The entire series in one set...who can ask for more?

I will never forget first seeing the theatrical movie at the Mall of the Bluffs in Colorado Springs the day after a huge blizzard in 1979. I had no idea what to expect. I was already obsessed with Star Wars and my Dad took us to see a movie called Buck Rogers which he described as being similar to Star Wars so I was already expecting droids and robots and all kinds of special effects.

I had immediately recognized the similarities in production design to that of Battlestar Galactica which was also produced by Glen Larson and I had enjoyed very much. I was not at all surprised when it became a weekly series. Although it was much campier than the mythic Galactica, it was still a guilty pleasure whose tone harkened back more to Classic Trek with Buck's weekly womanizing reminiscent of Captain Kirk. It became a guessing game as to which colorful flavor of spandex Colonel Wilma Deering would be wearing each week, but who could forget most of all the lovely Pamela Hensley as the exotic Princess Ardala! My favorite episodes were "Space Vampires" featuring the uninhibited Wilma and "Flight of the War Witch" featuring Julie Newmar from Batman. The series also had its fair share of cheeze with cornball episodes like "Space Rockers" and "Space Olympics" but are amusing to watch for the sake of 70's nostalgia. Season 2 was a dreadful attempt to re-tool the series to make it more like Star Trek as the emphasis shifted away from Earth to a space quest onboard The Searcher. Gone were Wilma's luscious spandex outfits and her role was minimized to that of recurring guest-star. However, Season 2 introduced Thom Christopher as Hawk making his impressive debut with the cool talon-clawed ship.

Minus one star for Universal's bad decision to nix the commentaries by Gil Gerrard and Erin Gray and episodic promos, interviews and documentaries would have been nice. I'm just happy to see that this show has finally been re-awakened from the 20th Century and I didn't have to wait 500 years to see it again.

Some of you are like me, you watched this show as a kid and loved it. It didn't matter what the quality was or anything, you just enjoyed it. And now that you're in your thirties you're wondering if this little part of your past can be recaptured. You've been disappointed with other early 80s things that don't hold up so well these days.

Don't worry. This is a great DVD set. I thought about buying it for weeks and finally broke down and bought it for my birthday. I don't regret it. It was great reliving the past. I saw the last episode this evening and re-watched the first. The DVD has 24 episodes of season 1 and only half a season of season 2 which is all they made. The original theatrical intro is here (which is a hoot) and they don't have Mel Blanc dubbed over Twiki in the first several episodes of season 2.

Still, the show is just as watchable now as it was then. Erin Grey is still beautiful and Gil Gerard is still the guy to be. If you're agonizing over whether to buy this or not, go ahead and buy it. Sure, it ain't 21st century pyrotechnics and CG but the stories are still fun and it'll provide hours of harmless fun.

And isn't that the point? I'd rather have a new generation of kids watching this than a lot of the junk that is on TV these days.

For people concerned about the runtimes of the DVDs, here is what is listed for each disk from the Universal site:

Disc 1: Run time: 6 hrs 23 minutes
Disc 2: Run time: 6 hrs 31 minutes
Disc 3: Run time: 6 hrs 31 minutes
Disc 4: Run time: 6 hrs 30 minutes
Disc 5: Run time: 4 hrs 4 minutes

Judging from those times (about 52 minutes an episode), I'd guess that each of the first four discs would have eight episodes each (four to a side), with the final five episodes on the last disk. Looking at the time on disc 1, I'd guess that the original movie version will be shown in place of the re-edited version for the two-part opener, "Awakening" (which is fine, as the movie had a sexier opening sequence anyway ;) ). That would fit the advertisement of "five double-length episodes" included in the set (Planet of the Slave Girls, Plot to Kill a City, Flight of the War Witch, Time of the Hawk, and Journey to Oasis.)

In any event, this should be a good pickup with both seasons included in the set, even if it is a bare-bones release.

Most of these set's are defective! I returned 3 sets they all froze on disk 2 side b. and disk 5 on my first set had a dime size piece missing from it. what happend to quality control? universal need's to recall all of the sets. When I kept returning my set's they said that they had alot of returns on this set.and I see by reading the reviews that many more people are having this problem. Universal If you read this please do somthing about it.

I am now returning my second set of this DVD set. I love the show, I wish they had special features, but most of all I wish that I could get side A on all my discs to play. On both of the returned sets side A on 3 out of the 5 discs will not play. I have even contacted Universal about it. I had the same problem with Ray (another Universal release). The packaging on this Buck Rogers set is beautiful, but as it won't play, what good is it to me! So, here's hoping that my third attempt to own this series will be successful. I see from some of these other reviews that I am not alone. Why has Universal not fixed this?

Ok, now that I got your attention...

This is a great trip down memory lane for any of you Star Wars nuts that grew up in the late 70s/early 80s. Remembering how things were back in 1979, I can see how this show managed to captivate me. No internet, no video games, no cable, VHS, DVD... not a single luxury. Like Robinson Crusoe, as primitive as can be. We had nothing else. Even though as an eight year old, I knew this was kinda lame, it was an absolute godsend when there was only one TV in the house with a total of four channels.


Anyhow, stream of consciouness bullet list:

- First season is great cheese and hot chicks, second season is horrid.
- This is what Star Trek would have been if Roddenberry had come around ten years later.
- A Gil Gerard (circa 1979) versus William Shatner (circa 1969) stagefight would probably put me into a coma due to it's mind-blowing awesomeness.
- Ahead of even the great Princess Leia and the not-quite-as-great Cassiopia, Colonel Deering and Princess Amadala are the two women who made me realize I was down with the ladies, if you catch my very blatant drift. Nothing surpirsing here, but Erin Gray was my first crush.
- Twiki is not nearly as annoying as some stick-in-the-mud types would have you believe. His cheeseball comic relief works perfectly with Gil's cheeseball chest carpet and martial arts ability.
- Every scene involving "dancing from the future" or previously referenced martial arts is twenty times more entertaining that anything in the history of "reality TV".
- Hawk is not an interesting character, he is just the least crappy thing in a completely crappy second season.
- There are no extras at all, pretty dissapointing given the price point and the target audience of sci-fi geeks who thrive on that kinda stuff

In conclusion: I miss the days when Sci-Fi didn't have to beat you over the head and then strangle you with nothing but dread and darkness and doom. Buck Rogers takes place in post-apocolyptic, nuclear wasteland, mutants living in the desert, planet Earth... and it's still a hundred times less depressing than any of the cookie cutter sci-fi series plopped out in the last ten years.

Of course, we are a much more critical society nowadays... plumped up on years of cable networks, easily accessible VHS/DVD movies and other competitors for our time. Long gone are the days of shows like this. Shows where everybody involved, audience included, knew it was escapist/fantasy crap but just went along and had fun with it. Gil Gerard is an absolute joy to watch just because you always knew he was in on the joke (at least during the first season). Everybody takes themselves too seriously nowadays, especially Sci-Fi. The new Battlestar series is so painfully self-aware it's basically a soap-opera that happens to be in space.

Anyhoo... If are a male sci-fi fan who was between the ages of let's say... 6 to 12... when this series made it's run, go out and buy it. For better or worse, Buck Rogers took me back to the late 70s much more effectively than Star Wars or Battlestar.

4/5 only due to the complete lack of extras

While I am a avid scifi fan, I have gone through two replacements and still do not have a working copy. There is a major defect in Disc 2 - episode 2 Cosmic Whiz Kid. It will not play through.

I have e-mailed universal on this and they have yet to reply to me. Amazon has been a blessing to work with and accepted both copies back with no charges to myself

I have just watched 3 episodes (Space Vampire, 2 hour Flight of the War Witch, and Happy Birthday Buck). On Happy Bday Buck (Disc 2 side B) it starts skipping and freezing about 36 minutes in to the episode. I have tried 3 DVD players and it freezes on all of them. My PC DVD drive does better, but it still screws up. I can't believe this set is so expensive, has no extras, and doesn't include the first episode (it includes the movie instead). However, still would have been happy if it would have just worked. I will email Universal (if I can find and email) and return my set. I skipped through Side A of Disc 2 (lots of people seem to be having problems with Whiz Kid) and it seemed to play ok.

Update: I heard from Universal. This was the reply:

Please return the DVD or VHS, along with a copy of this correspondence and the following information:

1. Description of the problem.
2. Manufacturer and model number of your player.
3. Chapter and/or time code where the defect occurs.
4. Your UPS shipping address (U.S. and U.S. Territories.)
5. Mailing address (APO/FPO addresses only.)
6. Daytime phone number.
7. A copy of your receipt for original purchase within 30 days.

Send to:

M. Kustanovich
Universal Studios Home Entertainment
10 Universal City Plaza Suite 700
Universal City CA 91608

Please send only the item(s) to be replaced, and allow 4-6 weeks to receive your replacement.

Please only return the defective disc.


From this I gather that they only stand behind their product for 30 days. I don't want to wait 4-6 weeks, or risk losing the bad DVD disc and being stuck with an incomplete set. So I think I will try a return to amazon first, and if it is still bad, then send the bad DVD to Universal.

2nd update: I returned the set and disc 2 seems to be ok on this set, but the booklet is missingg.

This is arguably the cheesiest prime time series ever broadcast by a major network, and I unabashedly love every cheddar-infested minute! Instead of admitting defeat when his STAR WARS-clone "Battlestar Galactica" was axed by ABC, producer Glen Larson simply bought the rights to Buck Rogers, the popular serial character of the thirties, and plopped him into the standard space opera set-up (and in the process reused most of the sets and props, and even some footage, from "Galactica"). After the series' pilot was successfully released as a theatrical film, NBC aired the weekly series, which ran for nearly two seasons. In the end, "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century" is not nearly as beloved nor as well-remembered as "Galactica," but it actually contains more intentional camp and humor and is a lot more fun as a result.

Part of the reason that "Buck Rogers" is more fun than "Glactica" is the lighter tone (most of the humor on "Galactica was sadly unintentional). Though Larson retained the basic premise of the "Buck Rogers" comic and serial (20th century American astronaut is frozen in deep space and returns to Earth 500 years later), the style and tone of the show is "Solid Gold" campiness at it's worst (or best, from the guilty pleasure perspective). The sets and decor are awash in bright colors and funky patterns, while nearly all of the actors are sprayed into form-fitting costumes that look an S&M variation of "Star Trek" attire. In fact, with so many of the male actors parading around in such tight and revealing patented-leather pants and unitards, the show often feesl like it takes place in a homoerotic parallel universe where buff men are legally required to stretch spandex over their muscular bodies. It's bizarre and ridiculous, and I love the show for it!

Even more refreshingly tasteless is the series' musical score. Nothing can describe the hilariously awful music that underscores so many episodes. The music that scores various actions scenes are mainly variations on the amusingly pompous theme music, which inexplicably sounds like the main title music form STAR WARS crossed with the theme from "Dallas." Even worse are the show's attempts to contain up-tempo music (which Buck actually refers to as "rock" in the pilot), which sounds like the absolute worst disco songs imaginable rearranged for use in a public elevator. The production values and special effects are about on par with the series' music, although I'm sure that technical crew did the best they could given the time period and television budget restraints. And I haven't even begun to cover the series' shamelessly unoriginal storylines, poorly underwritten scripts, laughably untalented guest stars, or the unbelievably embarrassing actions scenes. Let's just say that "Buck Rogers" contains some of the weakest and most ineptly-staged fight choreography ever filmed. I can't believe that some of this stuff was ever considered satisfactory enough to be included in a finished episode, but I certainly wouldn't have any other way!

Considering how much of the show is delightfully abysmal, I will give Larson some genuine credit for hiring a surprisingly good ensemble cast. While none of the series' regulars were particularly great actors, they all had decent screen presence and were wise enough to have fun with their characters and not take the show too seriously. The masculine, square-jawed Gil Gerard was a real casting ace in the lead, and the show wouldn't work on any level without him. Handsome, beefy, and hairy-chested, Gerard was physically ideal as the macho Rogers, but it's the sly sense of humor he brought to role that really makes the whole project work. No matter how extremely ridiculous or appallingly shoddy the series became, there was spark in Gerard's performance that let viewers know he was in on the joke. It's that very almost indescribable quality that allows the series to be endearingly awful, rather than excruciatingly awful. Other than being American rather than European, I think that Gerard might have made a fine James Bond had he been given the opportunity. Given the limited range of emotions that this show required, however, there's no way we'll ever really know for sure.

And, of course, we have the luminous Erin Gray as the sometimes bitchy Col. Wilma Dearing, who became one of the prime objects of lust for heterosexual adolescent males of the late-seventies and early-eighties. Gray is perhaps the original model-turned-actress, and in addition to being extremely beautiful, she also managed to express the genuine toughness that is appropriate to her character. While her line-readings are occasionally quite stiff, she is, nonetheless, surprisingly credible as the no-nonsense Colonel. Underrated genre actor Tim O'Connor has a nicely genteel presence as Dr. Huer, but he is generally underused throughout the series. The best (and campiest) role is that of the evil (and often horny) Princess Ardala, played with commendable oomph by the sultry Pamela Hensley. Ardala's goals are usually either to destroy the Earth or have her way with Buck (or both!), and Hensley plays the part with such gleeful wickedness that she has remained a Sci-Fi fan favorite - even though she only appeared in four of the series' 32 episodes! If Gil Gerard might have made a good Bond, then Hensley definitely would have been a smashing Bond villainess.

The 21 episodes of the first season (24 if you count the three two-hour episodes separately) are all a terrific assortment of some of the most tacky entertainment ever filmed, and it is truly awe-inspiring to watch the low-rent proceedings. The first season episodes range from almost-respectable science-fiction ("The Plot to Kill a City," "Unchained Woman"), to pleasantly mediocre diversion ("Space Vampire," "A Dream of Jennifer"), to outrageous "what-were-they-thinking" schlock ("Cosmic Whiz Kid," "Olympiad," "Space Rockers"). However, the entire first season (including all of the good, the bad, and the very ugly) is tremendous fun thanks largely to Gil Gerard's good-natured mugging and Erin Gray's catsuit-wearing chic. The only thing that genuinely grates my nerves about the first season is the presence of the series' token R2D2 clone, the woefully unamusing robot comic relief known as Twiki (played by Felix Silla, voiced by legendary cartoon voice-over actor Mel Blanc). While the rest of the series is entertainingly bad, Twiki is a character that is too obnoxious to even be enjoyed as camp.

The bad pun that is Twiki aside, the first season of "Buck Roger" is probably the most entertainingly campy series of all camp television. In my opinion, the best, funniest, and campiest episode of the series is the uproarious "Planet of the Amazon Women," which is where the elements that made the show an outrageous hoot are all in abundance. In this episode, two female space vixens lure Buck to their planet, where there is a shortage of men. In order to cope with their loss, the planet has begun to capture men throughout the universe and make them slaves, and veteran character actor Jay Robinson turns in a wonderfully over-the-top performance as the chief slave trader. Once Buck lands on the planet he is taken captive and enslaved, which leads to the most memorable scene of the series as Buck is auctioned as a sex slave to the planet's desperate women (I swear I'm not making this up)! This scene is so simultaneously bizarre, absurd, surreal, and hilarious that it has to be seen to be believed, as Robinson strips Buck shirtless and sells him to the highest bidder. I do not know what the episode's writers (husband and wife team Richard and Dorothy Fontana) were smoking when they penned this one, but I'm certainly thankful. From Robinson's bug-eyed celluloid-chewing to Gil's ample pectoral flexing, this episode is somewhere beyond camp.

Unfortunately, the good-natured camp of the first season was stripped away as the show entered it's second season, and was replaced by a grim seriousness. This was a major miscalculation on the part of the creators. The 11 second season episodes (13 if you count both two-hour episodes separately) are just as terrible in story and production quality as the first season, however, the goofy tongue-in-cheek attitude that made the previous season enjoyable is completely discarded. Everything is unwisely played with a straight face in the second season, which renders most of the episodes unwatchable. With the change in format also came changes in the cast. Buck and Wilma thankfully remained on the series (although Wilma was sadly changed from a tough, independent soldier to a wimpy damsel in distress), but neither Dr. Huer nor Princess Ardala were ever seen or even referenced again. The new cast members were mostly dreadful, including a dull Admiral (Jay Garner), a smarmy Doctor (Wilfrid Hyde-White), and an arrogant robot (voiced by Jeff David) that could make something as irritating as Twiki seem cute by comparison. On the plus side, the remaining addition to the cast, an alien/birdman called Hawk (Thom Christopher), was a conflicted and potentially interesting character, yet he remained wasted until the very end of the series.

But such criticism is really pretty moot. Anyway you slice it, "Buck Rogers" is the best slice of cheese I've had the pleasure of enjoying in a long time. Universal's treatment of the show on DVD is fairly cheap (there are no extra's, and the picture quality, though perfectly decent, has not been remastered at all), but I am still thankful they threw us fans a bone and released it anyway. Everybody sing along, "Searching my past from the things that I've seen..."