Welshrogue

A NASA shuttle pilot finds himself lifting off in the present day and after a lengthy frozen sleep, touching down in the 25th century where it isn’t all happiness and light.

Another show that tried to jump on the Star Wars bandwagon, Buck Rogers took a story that had been around for many years, including a very popular TV showing Buster Crabbe, and updated it for the late 1970′s.

Gil Gerard played Buck, and is pretty unoffensive, almost bland in his portrayal as a fish out of water. Col. Wilma Deering was played by Erin Gray and boys around the world are forever grateful for that. Clad in a skin tight white uniform, the movie and the following TV show captured the minds and ‘hearts’ of young men everywhere every time she walked onto the set. Don’t forget the friendly little robot Twiki, who was voiced by Bug Bunny himself, Mel Blanc. Even now, when I think of Erin Gray I find it hard to stop from saying ‘Bidi bidi’.

While Erin Gray was the regular highlight, perhaps the peak of interesting in the movie would have been Pamela Hensley as the often scantly clad Princess Ardala who along with her evil henchman Kane played by the always evil Henry Silva fill the bad guy portion of the film.

I should point out that Princess Ardala has a bodyguard that is half man, half tiger called, wait for it, Tigerman. The imagination boggles when you wonder how long it took to come up with that one.

Half of the special effects appear to have been borrowed by the Battlestar Galactica movie along with a lot of cheese. Yes the movie was made in 1979 but I find it hard to believe that the late 70s was that cheesy. It’s almost disco for the movies. If the Bee Gees had cameo roles it wouldn’t have surprised me.

I would mention the nauseating theme tune but that might send me over the edge into vomit land.

The memory of this show is a lot kinda than the reality of watching it.