Remembering Gil Gerard -- A Look Back at Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979-1981)

The media is reporting the death of Buck Rogers actor Gil Gerard today.  Buck (and the talented man who played him so well, from 1979 to 1981) was and will remain one of my great childhood heroes.  Today, in honor of Mr. Gerard, I'm reposting a look back the Buck Rogers production that brought the character back to life for the disco era.

The beloved heroic character of Buck Rogers first appeared in the pop culture fifty years before the 1979 television series debuted on NBC TV. Conceived first in comic-strip form by John Flint Dille, and artists Russell Keaton and Rick Yager, "Rogers" became a perennial American fan favorite in 1929. A radio serial about the pilot trapped in a future world was produced in 1932, followed by a series of cinematic cliffhangers starring Buster Crabbe in 1939. 

It is fair to say that Buck Rogers, along with Flash Gordon, personified space adventure in the first half of the twentieth-century. Even that was not the end of Buck, however. Ken Dibbs took on the role for ABC television in 1950, in a series of twenty-five minute episodes that aired for a single season. Shot lived, it was limited to small sets and primitive (by today's standards...) special effects.

Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, the 1979 series, is Glen A. Larson's second science fiction "opus." It premiered on NBC scarcely a year after Battlestar Galactica bowed on ABC. And like its 1978 compatriot, the first Buck Rogers television pilot played with great success in movie theaters throughout the United States. Starring Gil Gerard and Erin Gray, the series lasted for two years, thirty-six hours in all. It was a moderate success in the ratings during its Thursday night time-slot, slated against the highly-rated Mork and Mindy (ABC).

The 1979 Buck Rogers series was a hip updating that kept all the character names from earlier incarnations, but veered sometimes into tongue-and-cheek, humorous settings. We all know the premise: Astronaut Buck Rogers awakes in 2491 and finds Earth has survived a devastating nuclear war. Vulnerable, the planet is on the verge of annihilation from many alien sources. Pirates regularly attack shipping lanes, and every two-bit dictator in the galaxy has set his sights on conquering the green planet. In this environment of danger, Buck, his "ambuquad"(!) Twiki (voiced by Mel Blanc) and the gorgeous Colonel Deering defend the planet as secret-agent type operatives. In addition to his peerless ability as a starfighter pilot, Buck takes the world of the 25th century by storm with his 20th century wisdom and colloquialisms.

Unlike its somber Galactican counterpart, Buck Rogers was, essentially, a lark, at least to start. It was Mission: Impossible in space, only lighter, and on that basis a tremendous amount of fun. In the first season, the series eschewed morality plays, focusing instead on Buck's "unofficial" missions to bring down galactic criminals. 

In "Plot to Kill a City", Rogers disguised himself as a mercenary named Raphael Argus and combated an organization called the Legion of Death, led by Frank Gorshin's Kellog. In "Unchained Woman," he masqueraded as an inmate on Zantia to rescue from a subterranean prison a woman who might finger a crook. In "Cosmic Wiz Kid" - starring Gary Coleman(!) - he rescued a 20th century genius from the hands of mercenary Ray Walston.  Through it all, star Gil Gerard seemed the epitome of cool, and decency, and is performance grounded the series, even when the humor threatened to be too much.

This was essentially the pattern for the first 20-something episodes, and in many ways it was a unique formula for the genre on TV at the time. The "caper" was all that mattered. On Buck Rogers, there was no continuing alien menace, although Princess Ardala (Pamela Hensley), Kane (Michael Ansara) and the Draconians showed up occasionally. And unlike Star Trek, there was little or no exploration of new worlds. Instead, Buck was an outer space crime/espionage show. And that meant - that for the first time I'm aware of -- all the conventions of crime and spy television were transposed to the future; to outer space. 

On Buck Rogers, this transposition was accomplished with charm and a degree of wit. There were telepathic informants selling their services in "Cosmic Wiz Kid," powerful assassins from "heavy gravity" worlds in "Plot to Kill a City," super-charged athletes looking to defect from dictatorial regimes (the futuristic equivalent of the Kremlin) in "Olympiad," cyborg gun runners in "Return of the Fighting 69th" and a planet conducting a booming slave-trade in "Planet of the Amazon Women.".

However, in one important category, Buck Rogers was a letdown. The outer space battles were competently achieved with the special effects of the day (models; motion-control), but were often badly mis-edited into the proceedings. In the early episode "Planet of the Slave Girls," mercenary ships transformed into Draconian marauders - a noticeably different design - from shot-to-shot. In the same episode, a shuttle on the distant world Vistula launched skyward and passed the matte painting of New Chicago (on Earth), a matte painting that was used EVERY SINGLE WEEK to depict Directorate headquarters. This was the kind of goof that occurred repeatedly. The impression here is of an over-worked special effects department, and an editor with no eye for detail.

Another repetitive and very bad edit concerned the principal spaceship of the show, the very cool-looking starfighter. There were two different designs for this craft, the single and double seaters. Each one had a distinctive and recognizable cockpit design: one slim, one fat. However, the "space" footage of different crafts were often cut together interchangeably within one sequence. In one shot, Buck tooled around space in the single-seater, and in the next, his ship was the impossible-to-miss wider version.

Special effects from Buck's sister series, Battlestar Galactica, were mercilessly plugged into the proceedings too. In "Planet of the Slave Girls," the Cylon base from "Lost Planet of the Gods" substituted for Vistula's launch bay. In "Vegas in Space," "Cosmic Wiz Kid," and many others, the Galactica planet Carillon, seen in "Saga of a Star World," was substituted for the planet of the week. This was achieved in so sloppy a fashion that the Cylon-mined Nova of Madagon, a red star field, was even visible for a few seconds. BG spacecrafts were also brought out of mothballs. The Galactica shuttle doubled as Buck's shuttle in the second season, and ships from Galactica's rag tag fleet showed up in "Planet of the Amazon Women" and "Space Vampire" among others.

Make-up, costumes and props from Galactica also materialized with regularity. The alien "Boray," the focal point of the Galactica episode "The Magnificent Warriors," was seen in the BR episode "Unchained Woman," and Colonial fatigues, also BG hand-me-downs, were utilized as the uniforms for Roderick Zale's henchmen in "Cosmic Wiiz Kid." This oppressive re-use of Galactica equipment, effects, make-up and sets, along with the frequent editing glitches, often made the future depicted in Buck Rogers appear cobbled-together, cheap or just unimpressive.

Story-wise, Buck Rogers also rehashed identical plot elements in tale after tale. A spy in the Directorate might have made an effective plot development in one or two episodes. However, different spies in Huer's HQ showed up in "Planet of the Slave Girls," "Plot to Kill A City," "Return of the Fighting 69th," and "Unchained Woman," episodes 2, 4, 5, and 6 of the series! 

There was also the embarrassing overuse of what this author calls the goofy drug. This was a chemical compound that, when injected into suspects, made them look like a total goofball, stoned and "groovy" feeling.

Buck received the goofy drug twice in "Awakenings," and once in "Cosmic Wiz Kid." He used it on a thug in "Vegas in Space," and Wilma utilized it on Quince in "Polot to Kill a City" and then again on Mykos in "Olympiad." This drug was a truth serum, and interesting to see deployed, but six times in less than two-dozen episodes may have been too much.

After its first year on the air, Buck Rogers underwent dramatic changes. Gil Gerard and Erin Gray were both apparently unhappy with the less-than-substantive storylines. In an interview with Starlog, Gerard confided that he'd re-written virtually every episode of the first year, sometimes on-set, to make terrible stories passable. As a result of his disenchantment, a new format was devised. Dr. Huer, the Defense Directorate, Dr. Theopolis and the Draconians were axed. Buck, Wilma and Twiki became crew-members aboard a starship called the Searcher (really the redressed cruise ship from "Cruise Ship to the Stars.") The Searcher's mission was to locate the "lost tribes" of Earth, men who were believed to have fled the planet sometime after the nuclear holocaust of the late 20th century.

But let’s revisit the premiere episode.

Buck Rogers in the 25^th Century -- though designed as a TV series -- actually had its premiere in American movie theaters on March 30^th, 1979.   

The film, originally a pilot called "Awakening" quickly provided a remarkable return on Universal’s investment.  It was produced for a little over three million dollars (or one-third of Star Wars’ budget, essentially, in 1977) and the movie grossed over twenty-one million dollars in American theaters alone.  

Perhaps even more surprisingly, the film was generally well-received by critics, despite its TV origins.  Vincent Canby at The New York Times belittled the film as “corn flakes” while simultaneously comparing it to the big boys: Star Wars and Superman: The Movie.  He also noted (with grudging admiration) the ingenuity of the film’s makers.

I remember seeing Buck Rogers in the 25th Century in theaters and enjoying it tremendously, unaware that it had been conceived and shot as a TV series pilot and then kind of exploded into becoming a full-fledged feature film.  In 1979, the special effects held up on the big screen beautifully (particularly the moments in Anarchia, a ruined 20^th century city inhabited by mutants…), and the film, overall, was a lot of fun.  

Today, however, it is not difficult to detect some of the “growing pains” of this production as it stretched from being, essentially, a kid-friendly TV pilot to a more adult-oriented,“big” event movie.  What began as a relatively straight space adventure inched closer to a nifty and ingenious paradigm: James Bond in Space.  

This shift in premises is best exemplified by an opening credits sequence which features Buck romancing scantily-clad women of the 25^th Century, who pose and preen on the over-sized letters of his “name” while a Bond-like ballad blares on the soundtrack.  It’s a little bit ridiculous, and a little bit cheesy, but it definitely captures the 007 aesthetic: sexy women and a catchy pop-tune.

The Women of James Bond Buck Rogers.

The women of Buck Rogers #2

The Women of Buck Rogers #3

The Women of Buck Rogers #4

The Women of Buck Rogers #5

Other moments are more clumsily folded into the narrative than the enjoyable Bondian-opening.  Late in the film, aboard the Draconia, for instance, Ardala declares she wants Buck to take her father’s “seat” on the throne.  Suddenly, the film cuts to a shot of Buck -- obviously shot at some later date, on a different set -- declaring that her father’s “seat” is the furthest thing from his mind (implying it’s her seat – her buttocks – that interests him).  

Thus sexual double-entendres were ham-handedly added to the production when the shift in venues was broached.  Other double-entendres work a little better than this one because they arrive via the auspices of ADR or looping, and therefore we don’t get the chance to visually note the inconsistencies.

Another not-entirely successful addition to the original pilot sees Buck going mano-a-mano with Tigerman, Princess Ardala’s hulking bodyguard and the film’s equivalent of Oddjob, or Jaws…a so-called soldier villain.  There’s nothing wrong with the climactic physical confrontation between Buck and Tigerman, except that Buck faces a different Tigerman here, not the one seen throughout the film.  This discontinuity is left unexplained, but Derek Butler plays the character throughout the film, and H.B. Haggerty (who returned to the role in “Escape from Wedded Bliss” and “Ardala Returns”) plays him for the fight sequence.  The two men are both imposing, but boast very different looks in terms of muscle-mass and body-type.  Honestly, I didn’t notice the substitution as a kid, but the switch is impossible to miss now.

Tigerman #1 (Derek Butler)

Tigerman #2 (H.B. Haggerty)

These last minute additions to the enterprise feel somewhat jarring, even if they add to the James Bond mystique of the thing.  A more significant problem, however, involves the thematic approach to the material.  Buck -- in both the film and the series – is raised up as some kind of paradigm for Earth’s future, the ideal man.  A professor and friend at Hampden-Sydney College called the idea “American Exceptionalism in Space,” and he was right. 

The only problem, of course, is that Buck is from the very age on Earth that brought about the devastating nuclear holocaust.  His generation, in essence, destroyed everything.  It seems strange and counter-intuitive, then, to deride the sincere 25^th Century folks -- just climbing out of a five hundred year economic and cultural hole, as it were – for depending on computers, since the episode makes plain the notion that ungoverned emotions and passions were what brought about the end of 20^th century mankind. These benevolent robots, acting dispassionately but helpfully, instead rely on logic and rationality.  As Dr. Huer notes, they saved the Earth from "certain doom" and have been "taking care of areas where we made mistakes, like the environment."

So…would you really want to go back to the approach that led to Earth’s ruin?  Would you life Buck up as a role model, or see him as a backward man from a much more primitive time?

It would be one thing if the movie noted that some balance between approaches -- logic and emotion -- needed to be struck.  But the 25^th century characters are treated, in broad strokes, as gullible fools who can’t even pilot their own star-fighters (even though those ships are built with very prominent joy-sticks designed for manual control).  

It’s all a little bit…incoherent.  Yet the film gets away with it because, again, of the James Bond comparison.  We all know that James Bond is irresistible to all women, best in a fight or shoot-out, and supreme exemplar of style and taste.  Nobody does it better, right?  Here, Buck Rogers seems to have the same magic touch.  We accept the premise, in short, because we recognize it from that other franchise.

Despite such flaws, the movie vets an intriguing premise involving the Draconian “stealth” attack (a kind of Trojan Horse in Space dynamic), and features at least one authentically great sequence set in Anarchia, or “Old Chicago.”  Here, Buck goes in search of his past, and finds it…in a grave-yard.  

This scene in Anarchia is particularly well-shot, acted, and scored, and adds a significant human dimension to the film’s tapestry.  We are reminded that Buck has lost everything.  Not just his family…but the world he knew.  Here, Buck Rogers harks back to a 1970s movie tradition earlier than Star Wars: the dystopia or post-apocalyptic setting of such efforts as The Omega Man, Logan's Run or Beneath the Planet of the Apes.  I’ve always wished that the ensuing TV series had followed up on this plot-line a little more sincerely.  There were many stories to be vetted in Anarchia, but in its two-year run, Buck never returned there (that we know of).

I should add, the special effects visualizations of New Chicago and Anarchia are nothing less-than-spectacular, even today.  Again, it’s difficult to reckon with just how cheaply this movie was made because it features extensive, highly-detailed matte paintings, numerous space dogfights, and huge sets (like Ardala’s throne room…replete with Olympic-size swimming pool).  

Finally, I would be remiss without mentioning Buck Rogers’ other great “visual.”  Vincent Canby writes: “Pamela Hensley is the film's most magnificent special effect as the wicked, lusty Princess Ardala, a tall, fantastically built woman who dresses in jewelry that functions as clothes and walks as if every floor were a burlesque runway.”

There’s probably a case to made that Hensley is one of the Best Bond Femme Fatales ever…except that she’s not technically in a Bond film, of course.  Still, the material is close enough, and boy does she have a sense of…presence.  I can't think of many actresses who could pull-off that "boogie" scene with Buck Rogers here.  But Hensley disco dances with the best of them, retains her character's regal sense of dignity, and is awfully sexy...

Pamela Hensley as Princess Ardala

I can’t really argue that Buck Rogers in the 25^th Century is in the same artistic class as contemporaries like Star Wars or Superman: The Movie.  But the movie is undeniably fun, and it sets up – with tremendous entertainment value -- the boundaries of Buck Roger’s new life in the 25^th Century.  In other words, it’s a pretty great TV pilot for 1979 even if -- blown-up to the silver screen – it all plays as a bit scattershot.

50 Years Ago on WPIX: Space:1999 "Matter of Life and Death"

An eagle returns from an apparently habitable planet that Computer has code-named Terra Nova: “New Earth.”  Before docking can occur, however, the pilots are rendered unconscious by an unknown force.

Upon boarding the landed Eagle Commander Koenig (Martin Landau), Professor Bergman (Barry Morse) and Dr. Helena Russell (Barbara Bain) are shocked to see a third person aboard the craft: Lee Russell (Richard Johnson).

Russell was believed to have died years earlier, when his Astro 7 mission became locked in tight orbit around Jupiter.

Koenig halts Exodus, the operation to abandon Moonbase Alpha for Terra Nova, fearing that Russell’s appearance signifies a mystery regarding the planet.  Lee Russell has no memory of being on the planet, or aboard the Eagle, but seems to draw his energy from Helena’s presence.  

Lee eventually warns Koenig not to go to Terra Nova, and then appears to die.  

Koenig authorizes a mission, though Bergman warns that Lee’s corpse is beginning to “reverse polarity,” starting the transformation process towards anti-matter.

On Terra Nova, Koenig’s landing party meets with disaster as the planet’s true nature -- anti-matter -- begins to impact the Eagle’s systems and machinery…

Historically, I have not been the biggest admirer of Space: 1999’s (1975-1977) second produced episode, “Matter of Life and Death.”  

I had the honor and privilege of talking to co-writer Johnny Byrne (1935-2008) about the episode many years back (in the year 2000), and this is how the conversation went:

BYRNE:	First I was asked to go to Pinewood Studios and see the series sets and the production.  When I first got there, they were in final preparations for the first episode, “Breakaway,” and there was a bit of a panic because there was no second script prepared.  I was shown two scripts and they were both completely un-filmable as far as I could see when I tried to marry them to the briefing notes I had received at the time.
MUIR:	So your job was to make one of them acceptable?
BYRNE	I was asked to rewrite one of them, and the Art Wallace script (“Matter of Life and Death”) was the one I suppose they had selected as easier to develop.
MUIR:	How did you feel about rewriting the teleplay of another artist?
BYRNE:	I would have preferred to write something from scratch, and I only had about two or three weeks to rewrite the script.  But I wrote it at Pinewood, and was taken on almost as a kind of staff writer.  Somehow or other, I revised the concept, and by the end of it, realized I should really claim sole credit.Still, it was more ethical to include Art Wallace’s name.  It wasn’t his fault the script was unusable because he was writing for a series that literally hadn’t been created yet.
MUIR:	The episode you revamped, “A Matter of Life and Death,” is a sort of problematic episode, and is not often considered one of the best of the series. The climax of the story, in which the Alphans die but are miraculously brought back to life, didn’t sit well with many critics.
BYRNE:	I wasn’t entirely happy about making it all come right at the end, either.  But you have to remember that at this time there was enormous pressure to get something done they could shoot.  I never felt during the writing of that episode that I was sailing in blue water.
MUIR:	Is Terra Nova in “Matter of Life and Death” really the planet Meta?
BYRNE:	No. They put all the Meta stuff into the first episode, “Breakaway,” which was being shot while I was writing “Matter of Life and Death.”
MUIR:	Was the intention ever that Terra Nova be Meta?
BYRNE:	No.  There was a strong pull to make each episode a stand-alone story because the series would have been selling in syndication, and we didn’t have a clue in what order the shows would be screened.  If I had been told to follow on with Meta, then I would have used Meta.  Instead, I created Terra Nova, and there seemed to be reason to do that, to actually get away from Meta. Had I been wrong to do that, Christopher Penfold or someone would have surely told me I was wrong.
MUIR:	What [else] do you remember about working on that particular story?
BYRNE:	I spent a long time with Charles Crichton putting this into a shooting-script in the most maddening form of detail.  It was kind of a primer in filmmaking, and if there had been flaws that kind of stood out, Charles would be the one to spot them.  I was really at the mercy of superior experience there.
MUIR:	Since this was a re-write of an Art Wallace script, can you recall what your contributions were?
BYRNE:	Looking back, I see the things that interested me.  I was very fascinated that Richard Johnson had been cast, and I liked the idea of someone being Helena’s husband.  I would have looked for a level of human story there, and seeded it into the script.  The problem was that nobody was sure who was having who, or who was supposed to be having whom.  At that time, Koenig was calling Helena “Dr. Russell,” and all sorts of things.  It was a bit formal.  Nobody had sat down and planned out in detail how it was going to develop.  That Lee Russell relationship made the show special for me.  I remember that.
MUIR:	[Personally speaking] I have a problem with the story in that everybody dies in the climax, and then is miraculously resurrected when Helena wishes it.  The same sort of “reboot” was used in “War Games” later in the season.
BYRNE:	If you kill off your main characters too often, you do have this terrible reality gap.  So you have to choose your moments very carefully.
MUIR:	I’m not a huge fan of “Matter of Life or Death,” but I think it only fair to mention that at least one critic (Dick Adler for the Los Angeles Times) noted you should be nominated for an Emmy Award for the script.
BYRNE:	There is a small band of people who like it.  I think Gerry is very keen indeed on waving a magic wand, and everything comes out all right in the end.  I’m not sure I would have worked it out in quite that way.

I featured that interview segment as a prologue to some of my comments about the episode.  

Basically, I am very much of two minds about the show.  Yet when I watched it in 2016 in preparation for this week, I liked “Matter of Life and Death” more than I ever had before.

What is my problem with it?

Well, in a nutshell, I feel that Commander Koenig is portrayed as a very weak character in this drama. All along, he seems to feel pressure from his subordinates (including Alan Carter, Paul Morrow and Sandra Benes) to commence Operation Exodus, and send an Eagle to Terra Nova. 

It is fine that this pressure exists, and that he feels it. This is realistic, and one of the reasons I love Space: 1999 is that it, despite its far-out premise, it attempts to showcase human beings in realistic rather than romanticized conditions.  

Koenig is a modern administrator, essentially, forced to become an ad hoc (and un-elected) governor. Unlike Captains in Starfleet, he has no hierarchy and no guiding regulations to consult on every decision. He is on his own.  He would feel such pressure to please those with whom he serves.

At first, Koenig resists the landing completely, noting that -- quite accurately -- the Alphans have not acquired enough information to mount a landing. There are too many questions marks, including Lee Russell’s presence on the Eagle, and the injuries of the Eagle pilots. 

For about roughly 50% of the narrative, Koenig is remarkably persuasive about the fact that a landing on Terra Nova represents a significant threat, and should be avoided, if further information is not gathered. 

But then, after Lee Russell’s death, Koenig flip-flops completely. He says things like “what’s going to stop us?” regarding the landing. 

Well, what should stop him is the same set of unresolved variables that made a landing unwise in the first place.  

Worse, Koenig receives additional and vital information from Victor that makes a successful exodus to the planet a less-likely, not more likely, possibility. Victor attempts to warn him on at least two occasions (once in his office; once when he is already in the Eagle cockpit) not to go to Terra Nova.

But now Koenig double-downs on his complete about-face, and won’t accept any information contrary to the decision to go. 

In real life, we would say he makes a catastrophic decision.  And indeed, it is. 

Koenig and the landing party die because of his choice. The eagle blows up. The moon (with all on Alpha…) explodes too.  Terra Nova is proven to be not merely dangerous, but catastrophically so.

Then, Lee shows up to talk to the surviving Helena, and tells her she can “wish” everything back to the way it was.  

In essence, the universe grants Koenig a mulligan, an extra shot at getting this (bad) decision right.

I am concerned about this turn of events for two reasons.  

First, Koenig is our central protagonist, and as viewers we should either have some confidence that in a situation like this, he will make a good decision.  Or contrarily that if he makes a bad decision, we should understand his motives for doing so.  I understand that, from a writing perspective, the Alphans had to overlook warnings and go to Terra Nova.  I accept that.  But If Koenig’s arguments were presented in a coherent, consistent fashion, we would understand his decision to go, and perhaps even support it.

Instead, Koenig spends half the episode being cautious, and half being incredibly impulsive.  I would have actually preferred it if he were impulsive all the way through.  The character could have taken the tack -- since this is early on in series continuity -- that the Alphans must seize this opportunity, questions and concerns, or not.  At least then, we would understand Koenig as a character, a leader, and a human being.

That’s my problem with “A Matter of Life and Death” in a nutshell. I feel that Koenig’s character is manipulated in terms of the writing, to achieve a particular end.  And that weakens the character, and our support for/belief in him. I love it when characters make mistakes in drama. But when the mistake is such that everybody dies a horrible death, and only divine intervention can save the them, there's a problem.

However, I do feel that what I have always failed to see, understand and appreciate about “Matter of Life and Death” is the nature (and indeed value) of the Helena/Lee story.  

Some may see it as a cold relationship, since the two hardly have the opportunity to speak with one another.  Indeed, I have often felt it was remote and distant, or Helena states about her feelings: “numb.”  

The relationship is not very warm for a husband and wife separated by tragedy.

But while watching "Matter of Life and Death" this time, I saw more plainly how the visuals carry the story, and symbolize the essence of the Lee Russell mystery so beautifully.  

As Victor’s thermal plates point out (in one of the episode’s best scenes…), Lee Russell only exists in the form he does -- as a human being -- because he is drawing energy from Helena, from the person he loved most in life.  

There is a beautifully-rendered scene, consisting of no dialogue, during which Lee wakes up in the Care Unit, and Helena sits up, in her quarters, some distance away.  They communicate, without words -- perhaps even without conscious thought -- establishing a link between the source of energy (Helena), which might even be termed imagination, and the product of that energy, which is Lee’s physical form.

This imageric meaning or approach is important, if subtle. 

If matter can be shaped by thought (such as Helena’s thoughts or memories), then, the ending of the episode with the “waving of a magic wand” is supported in some sense, and not the umotivated "divine intervention" I noted above.  

Helena creates the form of Lee Russell -- a voice of warning -- and later re-arranges the matter on Terra Nova, also to conform with her thoughts/desires, restoring life to all those who died. 

The episode’s ending, which I have, I admit, always considered a special effects showcase for special effects sake, is actually built in, and paid for, so-to-speak, by that scene of symbiosis. That moment wordlessly connects Helena’s thoughts to the manifestation of those thoughts: Lee in the flesh.  What I once called a “bankrupt” creative ending, I can now see is properly prepared for, and accounted for in the story’s structure and specifics.

Lee is only really “alive” and, indeed, Lee Russell, as Victor suggests, when in the presence of Helena, his personal battery/power source.  He cannot exist in that form when not in her presence.  It is his connection to her which permits him to warn the Alphans, and take that form.  His love for her, his connection to her, is what gives him dimension and life.  The "matter" of life and death of the episode's title may not be anti-matter, but the matter that results from thought; from love itself.

This is a fascinating and romantic notation, that love and the memory of love, can create new life, new forms. Some have seen the episode as a reflection of 1972’s Solaris, and certainly, I can see that connection, but don’t find it bothersome. In both stories, an alien world gives shape and breath to those who inhabit our memories.

I have always admired Lee's final speech to Helena, in which he notes that "matter never dies."  He might as well be saying, perhaps, "love never dies" as long there is thought and energy, and memory behind it. 

The episode provides no real scientific underpinning for any of this, and most of the talk of anti-matter seems murky, but I nonetheless appreciate that this episode, in the thoughtful words of Johnny Byrne, establishes the thesis, in essence, behind Year One of Space: 1999.  As Victor notes:

“We’re a long way from home, and we’re going to have to start thinking differently if we’re going to come to terms with space.”

When I wrote my first book, on Space: 1999, over 30 years ago, I understood this theory in principle. 

But it has taken me probably over a dozen re-watching of “Matter of Life and Death” to come to grips with the way this story conveys the “the terms” Space: 1999 negotiates as a work of art.

30 Years Ago: Godzilla vs. Destoroyah (1995)

To the uninitiated -- or perhaps the un-converted -- my next sentence may read as silly. But I’m writing it anyway.

Godzilla vs. Destoroyah (1995) is an emotional and heart-breaking film. 

The movie -- the last of the Godzilla Heisei run -- charts, in very stirring terms the final battle of the great green monster.   

But even as this battle occurs, Godzilla also grapples with his mortality in the form of his own bum ticker.  

His heart, much like a nuclear reactor is constantly threatening to melt-down.

His hours are numbered, and his body is coming apart, but before he dies, Godzilla gives it all up for his son, for his family.

If one goes back to Raymond Burr’s canny description of Godzilla as a “strangely” innocent and tragic creature, these circumstances take on a very human weight.  We all grapple with our mortality, and there is very little we wouldn’t do for our children.

Thus, Godzilla vs. Destoroyah suggests that Godzilla and humanity have much in common.

The final scene of the film, after Godzilla’s rage over the death of his son, sees the monster transferring his own mortal energy to his son’s broken body in a (successful) attempt resurrect his boy.  

And then, without pretense, Godzilla melts down. He dies. His reign is over.

Honestly, I haven’t had a lump in my throat this big since Spock died in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982).

“I can’t believe it! Now we have two monsters!”

Miki Saegusa (Megumi Odaka), who gained insight into the minds of Godzilla and his son during the Space Godzilla incident, returns to the monsters’ island to check on the family, but finds it missing…destroyed.   

Meanwhile, Godzilla comes ashore in Hong Kong in a strange condition, his body pocked with strange discolorations.  He doesn’t seem himself, and causes massive destruction to the city.

The grandson of Dr. Yamane, Kenichi (Yasufumi Hayashi ), is hired by the JSDF (Japanese Self Defense Force), and reports that Godzilla’s heart -- in essence a nuclear reactor -- is rapidly melting down. 

When the monster reaches a certain temperature threshold, his destruction will cause a shock wave that will rip apart the atmosphere of Earth, and destroy all life on the planet.  Kenichi does believe, however, it is possible to freeze Godzilla and thus forestall the meltdown.  To this end, the new Super X, mark III, is deployed.

Meanwhile, Miki searches for Little Godzilla and finds that the same force that destroyed the island and super-infused Godzilla’s heart has transformed the kindly kaiju into a young adult who more closely resembles his father.

Elsewhere in Japan, a terrifying side-effect of the Oxygen Destroyer’s use in 1954 is discovered. Strange, mutated Precambrian crabs unite to create a giant malevolent beast, dubbed “Destoroyah.”  

Because Destoroyah is born of the Oxygen Destroyer, Japanese authorities believe it can be used to destroy the rampaging Godzilla, and neutralize the threat of global annihilation.

In order to make Godzilla and Destoroyah fight, however, Little Godzilla must be utilized as a decoy, a tactic that Miki deeply disapproves of, but must take part in, nonetheless…

.

“I have a feeling this is going to be Godzilla’s last fight.”

In significant part, Godzilla vs. Destoroyah succeeds so ably because it is in equal parts uncompromising and sentimental.  

And no, that isn’t a paradox.

On one hand, the movie plays as a relentless ticking-clock or countdown movie.  

As time elapses for Godzilla, we are left with one foregone conclusion: he is going to die. When Godzilla first appears in the film, he is sick, “boiling over” from his nuclear reactor heart, and it’s just a matter of time before he expires.  

The movie doesn’t play any games with that reality, or devise any last-minute Hollywood bullshit that saves his life.  

Instead Godzilla gets -- as I hope we all deserve -- a good death, and one in service of his beloved child, Little Godzilla.

Yet the movie also proves remarkably sentimental in the sense that we are asked to feel sympathy for Godzilla.  

He sees Destoroyah scoop up his child, carry him away, and drop the young one from a great height, breaking his back and killing him in the process. Godzilla roars with anger, and a human bystander seems to translate his emotional state.  

She says that Godzilla doesn’t understand why he has “lost his family.”

Death -- more than Biollante, Gigan, or Hedorah -- is the one force in the universe that none of us, not even Godzilla, can conquer, or undo. Seeing Godzilla cope with this tremendous loss, and choose his own death over his son’s death, reminds us of all that is good about humanity.  

The film also boasts a brilliant final shot that validates Godzilla’s selection.  Little Godzilla -- now fully grown and the spitting image of his Dad -- rises from the radioactive mists of Tokyo, and as the camera moves in, ever closer, we see that iconic, spiked silhouette more clearly, and hear that trademark roar bellow.

The torch has been passed.

Godzilla vs. Destoroyah also succeeds because Destoroyah is one malevolent son-of-a-bitch. Godzilla movies work best when the villain is memorable and distinctive. In this case, Godzilla battles a monster that was created, in essence, out of the original Godzilla’s destruction in 1954

Therefore, Destoroyah is the son of the Oxygen Destroyer much as Godzilla is the son of the atom bomb. It makes for an interesting, interconnected dynamic.  

But rather unlike Godzilla, Destoroyah is just a horribly evil creature.  He does seem to be Godzilla’s most menacing foe, historically speaking, and remains the one monster, I believe, that Godzilla has not defeated.  Instead, the Japanese Army and the Super X-3 finish the job, while Godzilla, on his last legs, watches.

I also appreciate the film because there is an atmosphere of life coming full circle in Godzilla vs. Destoroyah that implies finality, or perhaps winter coming.  

Not only does Tokyo suffer a literal nuclear winter at the film’s climax, but the reign of Godzilla ends.  At the same time, we meet Emiko Yamane (Monoko Kochi [1932 – 1998]) for the first time since Godzilla (1954), as she nears the end of her life, and wishes to pass on wisdom to the next generation about Serizawa and the Oxygen Destroyer. The re-appearance of this actress sort of closes a loop, or book-ends the Godzilla series (as of 1995…), as does the re-appearance of the Oxygen Destroyer and the unexpected reveal of that ultimate weapon’s “progeny.”

Even the film’s dialogue seems obsessed with endings as Godzilla battles his inevitable mortality. We are reminded that “Tokyo would have become a cemetery,” if not for the Oxygen Destroyer, for instance. 

Later a character notes, portentously, “I have a feeling that this is going to be Godzilla’s last fight.”

I don’t believe I can write objectively that the battle scenes between monsters are necessarily technically better in Godzilla vs. Destoroyah than in the other films of the franchise.  Yet I can note that they seem more effective and impactful because of the film’s clever set-up: Godzilla’s mortality, and his need to defend his son. 

There is some genuine tension here as the Japanese government uses Little Godzilla as a decoy to attract Destoroyah, and the young monster is left to fight the creature on his own.  Meanwhile, Dad approaches as quickly as he can, but ultimately, too late to help.

If you’re a parent, it would certainly be your worst fear to arrive too late to help your child in a crisis, and that’s Godzilla’s burden here. Failing in a parent’s most sacred task -- protecting your young -- is much worse than facing one’s own death, and reckoning with that truth is Godzilla’s final odyssey in the film.

Godzilla vs. Destoroyah ends the Heisei Era in fine, heart-breaking form, and thus succeeds as one of the very best Godzilla films ever made. This is the one Godzilla movie that my son, now 19, won't watch, because he simply can't stand to see Godzilla die like this.  I get it.