Buck Rogers: "The Hand of Goral"

In “The Hand of the Goral,” a shuttle carrying Buck (Gil Gerard) and Hawk (Thom Christopher), and a Starfighter piloted by Colonel Deering (Erin Gray) explores a habitable planet.

On the surface of that mysterious planet, the crew finds the wreckage of a ship, and an injured survivor, named Reardon (Peter Kastner). 

Meanwhile, Dr. Goodfellow (Wilfrid Hyde-White) has discovered that the planet is called “Vordeeth,” meaning “The Planet of Death.”  

Ten thousand years ago, the world was inhabited by a race called the Goral, but they undertook a mass exodus, and the planet was abandoned.

Following some strange and inexplicable events on the planet surface, Hawk and Buck follow Wilma back to the Searcher. 

There, they find the crew-members strangely altered.  Admiral Asimov (Jay Garner) has become a raging tyrant, Crichton has become friendly and appreciative of humans, and Twiki is a grumbly, resentful sort.

With Asimov threatening to kill and torture crew members, Buck, Hawk and Wilma resolve to return to the planet and figure out what has happened, but their escape won’t be easy.  

Buck realizes that all the crew members are duplicates meant to trick them, and proceeds to the planet below, only to be confronted with a being (John Fujioka) who promises him great riches if he cans solve the riddle of the Goral.

Despite my review of "Shgoratchx!" yesterday, I suppose that I still tend to go easier on the second season of Buck Rogers than many fans did in the early 1980s.  The season is not as much fun as the first, but I like the addition of Hawk -- a solid “resident” alien character -- and feel that some of the stories were compelling.  I like “The Guardians,” in particular.

“The Hand of the Goral” is not without its problems, but it too would get ranked in the upper tier of second season installments. The idea of a duplicate Searcher, where characters possess altered personalities immediately puts one in mind of Star Trek episodes such as “Mirror, Mirror,” it’s true, but in this case, an alternate universe is not at work.

Rather, an alien games-player, or “tester,” the titular hand of the Goral, is responsible. He was left behind by his people to protect the planet from intruders, and determine their worthiness to receive the wisdom and riches of the Goral.  He refers to the strange duplicates as “simulacra,” and certainly his powers are fierce.

There have been many attempts in science fiction stories to tell stories in which protagonists encounter duplicate versions of the habitat, and must determine if it is real or not. On Star Trek, Kirk was confronted with a complete mock-up of the Enterprise in “The Mark of Gideon.”  The Alphans encountered a duplicate of their moon base in Space:1999’s “One Moment of Humanity,” and here Buck, Hawk and Wilma visit a duplicate Searcher, replete with a crew of simulacra. At least in this case, it is made clear that the hand of Goral possesses incredible powers and energy stores by which to create these settings and characters.

It’s intriguing to meet the Searcher crew recreated as “imperfect fakes.” Asimov is a dictator, Crichton is nice, and Wilma suddenly is all clingy and frightened.  It’s not they are “evil” parallel versions, just versions that are off, and require deciphering on Buck’s part.  

Overall “The Hand of the Goral” is tense, keeps one guessing, and doesn’t rely on a ridiculous premise (see: “The Golden Man”) to sell its story.  I love stories about mysterious planets, or planets “of death,” with their ancient, inscrutable mysteries. 

“The Hand of the Goral” may not be terribly original, but it possesses a creepy vibe, and a sense that an unseen force is manipulating reality itself.  In a not always successful second season, those qualities are enough to make the episode stand out from the pack.

Buck Rogers: "Shgoratchx!"

Aboard the Searcher, Buck (Gil Gerard) is exhausted, having worked for two days straight. However, when a derelict is discovered in Sector 5, drifting into the shipping lanes, he is awakened by Crichton and called upon to investigate.

Buck, Crichton and Hawk (Thom Christopher) discovers that the ancient ship is manned by seven diminutive Zirdonians, and is carrying as Caro several solar bombs. Worse, the solar bombs are degraded, and could poison this area of space for generations to come.

The troublesome Zirdonians return to the Searcher with Buck, as the ship tows the freighter to a star where the dangerous solar bombs can be dumped.  The Zirdonians -- who have never seen a human female before -- terrorize Wilma (Erin Gray), and also cause an accident with the Searcher's plasma drive. Crichton is badly injured in the accident, requiring repairs to his positron brain that only Twiki can assist with.  When the surgery threatens to go awry, the pesky Zirdonians attempt to help using their remarkable telepathic powers.

"Shgoratchx!" is the worst episode of the entire Buck Rogers catalog. It is sexist, and flat-out stupid.  The episode is a fifty-minute insult to the intelligence.  This episode, much like "The Golden Man," is one that I have not watched since the original airdate in 1981, nearly forty years ago.   Now I remember why I have avoided it like the plague.

Revisiting "Shgoratchx!" in 2020 was not pleasant.  I tried to explain it to my son as we began to watch "A group of little people, dressed like 18th century French generals, who have never seen a woman before, try to use their mental powers to see Wilma's bumps."  

And, sadly that description is pretty accurate.

Where can you begin with this one?  The episode treats Wilma in an absolutely offensive way. She is a Colonel in the military who has won space battles, battled deadly cult leaders, and rescued Buck's life on numerous occasions.  

But here, this dignified and experienced officer is subjected to repeated exposure to the "handsy" dwarves who wish only to disrobe her...so as to peek at her breasts.  I don't know what's worse, that Wilma doesn't just take these guys out herself with a well-placed laser blast, or that Buck treats the situation as if it were humorous. When Buck was treated as a sex object in the first season episode "Planet of the Amazon Women," he did not find it so amusing in the slightest. 

Similarly, why would Admiral Asimov (Jay Garner) order Wilma to be the escort for these perverts around the ship after witnessing, on the Searcher bridge, how they treat her?  The whole situation is meant to be funny, but by today's standards -- or even standards of the 1950's -- this is just horribly wrong, and horribly unfunny.

Then again, what can one reasonably expect from a teleplay that lists one of the great catastrophes of the 20th century as "Women's Lib," and puts that beside the Holocaust for comparison?  Yes, because fighting for equal rights for women is an atrocity on the same level as destroying all human life in a planet-ending war. 

Once the viewer ties that remark about equal rights for women to Wilma's treatment in the episode, one senses why this episode of Buck Rogers plays more like it is set 500 years in the past than 500 years in the future. The mind-set behind this episode is, decidedly, Neanderthal.  I can imagine the pitch meeting.  Wouldn't it be cool if some aliens with telepathic powers started to unbutton Wilma's blouse with their minds, and she couldn't fight back?

The episode is a disaster for other reasons.  

The Zirdonians all possess, basically, endless mental abilities. They are immune to electric shocks. They can, by telekineses, conduct repairs of positronic brains, and remove blouses,

So, given such expansive mental abilities, why don't they simply repair their own ship, and the leaking Solar Bombs themselves?

If they had done that, of course, we would have all been spared this horrendous, backwards hour of television.

Once again, the Searcher seems to be the worst run ship in the galaxy again traveling, unprotected through an asteroid belt, and taking heavy damage. It seems as though so many of these second season stories depend on the Searcher being immobilized during a crisis.  Here, it gets trapped on a collision course with a sun, and desperately needs repairs. Unlike the Enterprise, or even Moonbase Alpha, however, the Searcher seems to possess no damage control or repair teams. Rather, Dr. Goodfellow, an elderly man, is tasked with repairing the ships systems by himself.  How much sense does that arrangement make?  The only person who can repair the ship is approximately 80 years old?  What if two systems break down at the same time?

The second season of Buck Rogers really could have worked well, even with its revamped premise.  "The Guardians," "Time of the Hawk," and "The Satyr" and others are respectable sci-fi dramas in the pattern of a Star Trek or a Space:1999.  But "Shgoratchx!" is an unmitigated disaster. 

When people complain about the second season of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, this is no doubt the story they are thinking of.

"Shgoratchx!" isn't the expletive I would use but it gets close to describing the quality of this episode. "Shit" comes closer to the mark.

Buck Rogers: "The Satyr"

"There are strange viruses here on this planet."

- Cyra (Anne E. Curry) warns Buck about the dangers of Arcanus in "The Satyr."

One of the real bright spots of Buck Rogers' abbreviated second season in 1981 remains the episode titled "The Satyr" written by Paul and Margaret Schneider and directed by Victor French.

On first glance, however, this development seems unexpected since the episode's storyline stems from a long-standing and ubiquitous sci-fi TV trope: "the single mother in jeopardy."

In this all-too-familiar genre TV chestnut, a series protagonist encounters a lovely single mother and her child (usually a son) who are being menaced by some malevolent outside force.  The series hero then becomes a stand-in husband/father to the duo, defeats the menace, and -- in a heartbreaking moment -- must say farewell to his new family so that he may continue his episodic adventures romantically unimpeded.

Examples of the "single mother in jeopardy" convention can be found on the original Battlestar Galactica (1978 - 1979) in "The Lost Warrior," where the convention is played well as a variation on Shane (1953) and as a commentary on gun control, in V: The Series as "The Wildcats" (wherein Marc Singer's Mike Donovan steps in to save a Mom and her daughter from the Visitors), and on MacGyver, "To Be a Man," which featured the late Persis Khambatta as Zia, the single mother in jeopardy from Russian military forces.

In Buck Rogers': "The Satyr," Captain Buck Rogers (Gil Gerard) explores the planet Arcanus, the site of a failed Earth colony while the star ship Searcher is away for ten days on a mission to "sweep" an asteroid belt.

On the planet surface, Buck soon meets Cyra (Anne E. Curry) and her son, Delph (Bobby Lane), the only two settlers who have remained behind on the planet.  Buck soon discovers that the duo is regularly harassed by Pangor (Dave Cass), a half-man/half-goat or "satyr" who seems obsessed with them.  Buck steps in to battle the violent Pangor, but is bitten by the satyr.

Over a period of days, Buck begins to transform into a satyr himself, a creature obsessed with women and wine...and little else.

After being bitten, Buck learns that Pangor is actually Jason Samos, the founder of the Arcanus colony and Cyra's much-mourned husband.  She has been unable to leave the planet behind because she still feels attached to him, despite Jason's transformation into a rampaging monster.

As I've noted above, the "single mother in jeopardy" cliche has been depicted on television many times, but "The Satyr" illustrates nicely how a science fiction program can explore contemporary issues that "regular" dramatic programs either cannot, or if they do seems too on the nose, like an Afterschool Special.

 Clearly, this episode of the series sub textually concerns alcoholism; and the effect of alcoholism upon the entire family unit.  This subtext and social commentary actually elevates "The Satyr" above its familiar and cliched premise and makes it one of Buck Rogers' finest hours.

In "The Satyr," Cyra and Delph live a relatively happy life, until Dad -- Pangor -- shows up at their home, demanding wine and violently threatening Mom. 

In one well-staged scene, we watch with Delph through an exterior window as, inside the home, Pangor pushes Cyra onto her back (behind the kitchen table), and threatens physical violence.  He wants more wine, you see, even though, as Cyra tells him, "he drank it all the last time."  The subtext here isn't just violence, but sexual violence, at least in terms of the staging/blocking.

What we get in "The Satyr," particularly in this camera view from the outside-in, is the notion of a child dwelling in a terrifying household of alcoholism and domestic violence, and seeing/experiencing things that no child should.  Worse, the P.O.V. suggests isolation and helplessness.

At several points during the episode, Delph is also policed by his mother not to be too conspicuous, so as not to gain the attention of the alcoholic/Satyr.  At one point, Delph plays "flute grass" and at another point he calls out innocently for his Mom.  In both instances he is quickly "hushed" -- "Don't shout!" --  lest the angry man of the household focus his violent attention upon him.  Half the battle is staying off Pangor's radar as he pursues his vices.

Additionally, the boy, Delph, soon sees himself as his mother's defender, eventually fighting the angry Pangor and telling the beast to "leave my mother alone."   In the homes of many alcoholics, it is indeed the child who eventually becomes the protector of the Mom,or other siblings, and who stands-up to the offending drinker.

As for Cyra, she's dramatized in this episode as the traumatized, exhausted victim of sustained domestic abuse.  She hides bruises on her neck from Buck, and, quite understandably, doesn't like "to be touched."  

She also has much trouble letting go of the "good man" who was once her husband, clinging to old photo albums which reveal happier, more romantic days.  Much of the blocking depicts Cyra cowering or retreating.  She is someone who is used to being terrorized and fears being struck.

Cyra also maintains the family home on Arcanus -- despite the danger to herself and her son -- in the misguided belief that somehow Pangor can change.  In fact, Cyra spends her life appeasing the violent satyr.  "If he's supplied with enough [wine]," she informs Buck, "he's content" and leaves the family alone.

At the same time that she must handle Pangor, Cyra worries that the "virus" that affected her husband -- a metaphor for alcoholism -- could affect her son too "when he's a man."  In other words, the cycle of abuse and violence could continue to the next generation.  Yet by keeping Delph on Arcanus, in a terrorized home, Cyra makes it more likely that this will happen to Delph.

This social commentary in "The Satyr" is intriguing by itself, but the episode gains some real unexpected juice and power when Buck actually grows sick with "the virus "and quickly loses his status as the white knight.

Buck sets up house with Cyra and Delph (even teaching the boy to fly his shuttle craft) and then -- just when things are good -- succumbs to the same "virus' and begins to show signs of physical violence like Cyra's previous husband.   In one sequence, Buck tries to hide evidence of his transformation from Delph, ashamed to show his true nature as a "monster" to the boy he clearly cherishes.

Here, the subtext isn't about alcoholism so much as the nature of (some) men in general, and how some women seem to attract these monsters, one after the other. It's something in their individual nature and lack of self-esteem perhaps, and part of a deadly symbiosis involving abuser and victim. '

"The Satyr" tries to make viewers understand why Cyra stays on Arcanus, imperiled by one satyr after the other, and gives us some insight into the mentality of a perpetual victim.  In this case, Cyra just can't let go of the past and the (vain) dream that Pangor could again become the husband she once loved.

Of course, Buck -- as our stalwart series hero -- is able to kick the virus and save the day. Still,  it was pretty daring in terms of 1981-era television to create a metaphor for alcoholism and then see the likable series protagonist succumb to that  "disease."  In visual terms, Buck's horns literally start to come out, as he transforms from man to beast.

I am old enough to remember the promotional materials and interviews for the second season of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.  The overall promise by the producers was that Buck would become more recognizably and fallibly human, and less the quipping, boogeying, Burt Reynolds-in-space figure of the first season.

Whether or not that promise was fulfilled entirely is up for debate, but certainly "The Satyr" showcases Buck at his most human and interesting.  He exhibits real remorse when he believes he is responsible for the death of Cyra's husband, Jason, and then must battle his growing "dark side" as the satyr virus takes hold.

This episode is also intriguing for the way it ties the myth of the Satyr (a wine loving man/goat) to the alcoholism/domestic violence symbolism, and for the implicit "reason" behind alcoholism provided by the show.

Jason had the "pioneer spirit," you see, and had hoped to turn Arcanus into a "garden of Eden."  When that dream failed, he couldn't handle it...and that's when he first acquired "the virus."  Again, this idea fits our contemporary world well.

What leads people to drink?  Failure?  Tragedy?  Loss?  Desperation? 

All of my commentary on this episode no doubt suggests that "The Satyr" is some labored "message" show about an "important" life lesson (see: Star Trek: The Next Generation: "Symbiosis.")  But that's not actually the case at all.

Like the best social commentary in science fiction television (from The Twilight Zone to Star Trek to The X-Files to Buffy), this is an episode that plays ably on two levels.  You can watch it just as a gripping, good adventure, or as a story with a bit more relevance and meaning in our own world.

In other words, the metaphor for alcoholism holds powerfully (right down to the blocking of the actors), but you aren't hit over the head with a "lesson."

At the very least, "The Satyr" adds some much-needed depth to an old TV trope. In this Buck Rogers episode, the single mother was again in dire jeopardy, but it's the nature of  that jeopardy and the source of the jeopardy that make this installment meaningful and unique, even after four decades.

Buck Rogers: "The Crystals"

When the Searcher loses all engine power and requires new thurbidium crystals to restore power, Buck (Gil Gerard), Wilma (Erin Gray) and Hawk (Thom Christopher) explore the volcanic planet Phibocetes to collect them.  The world is believed to be much like Earth was before animal life developed there, and thought to be uninhabited.

However, the trio soon finds a strange mummified humanoid near the lava pools and brings it back to the shuttle for further examination. The mummy soon takes the crystals they have mined, and disappears.

On the Searcher, Crichton searches the archives and learns that a human colony left Earth and settled on Phibocetes some four hundred years ago. They also seem to have suffered from a strange lifecycle which saw the normal humans devolve into strange mummy creatures. All contact with the colony was lost three hundred years ago.

Meanwhile, n the planet, Buck befriends a young humanoid woman, whom he names Laura (Amanda Wyss). She has no memory of her past, and fears that she too, will devolve into a hideous monster. Buck tries to help Laura resolve her amnesia, without success.

As Buck and the other struggle to get the crystals to the Searcher, Crichton reports that he has made a mistake. He had the information from the archive backwards. The creatures on the planet actually evolve from mummy to humanoid, part of a deliberate, genetically-engineered life-cycle that would speed up colonization and remove such pesky human difficulties as pregnancy, infancy and childhod.  Now, Laura realizes she is kin with the mummy, and the he will soon be a fully-developed human male.

"The Crystals" is another decidedly mediocre second season entry of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979-1981). It's not one of the worst episodes by any means (see: "Shgoratchx!") but nor does it rank with "The Guardians" or "The Satyr" as one of the best.

It seems like the makers of the series were obsessed, at this point, with life-cycles moving in reverse. In the previous episode, "The Golden Man," Buck and the Searcher crew met aliens who aged backwards, from physical adults to children.  In "The Crystals," they meet beings who they believe, at least at first, devolve from human to Mummy.  

Alas, the actual Mummy costume featured in the episode is ill-fitting and very fake-looking, down to the rubber zipper on the back. Adding further cheapness to the endeavor, the video imagery of the Mummy's blood is actually stock footage of the microscopic alien "bug" from The Andromeda Strain (1972).

"The Crystals" also adds to the perception that the Searcher is the worst run ship in the galaxy. In "The Golden Man," the ship runs aground on an asteroid in a magnetic storm. Here, the ship's engines go dead as it runs of its needed power crystals.  Does the ship not have a re-supply schedule, or an itinerary to visit star bases or planets with the materials they need? It seems awfully inefficient that the ship should have to depend on (hopefully) finding an Earth-like planet somewhere nearby in space, and then mining crystals they find there.

Also, the ending of "The Crystals" didn't entirely cohere. The teleplay establishes that the crystals are needed on the planet to activate the life forces of Laura's people. That is why the mummy kept stealing them. The crystals required to spur the evolution process.  But the episode ends with Buck and his team packing up the crystals to take back to the Searcher.  Won't that prevent Laura's people from evolving?

I do like the idea of the Searcher's archives being highly imperfect, however. The Buck Rogers chronology has the Holocaust occurring in the 1980's, shortly after Buck left Earth on his ill-fated mission. One group of humans apparently remained on the planet, and tried to rebuild following the nuclear war.  These people became the founders of the Directorate.

But there was another branch of humanity, apparently, that left injured Mother Earth, the so-called "lost tribes" that went out into space to settle other worlds.  The colony featured in this story would be one example. I always wished that the series spent a little more time explaining this second branch of humanity, especially since it isn't clear how the humans who had Earth had the technology to explore distant worlds, in distant solar systems.

Again, "The Crystals" isn't terrible, it just isn't great.  It feels like a story that might have just barely passed muster on an average week of Star Trek, or Space:1999.

Buck Rogers: "The Golden Man"

In "The Golden Man," the Searcher explores the Alpha Centauri asteroid field, even as a powerful magnetic storm approaches. A life pod automatic distress signal is intercepted by Wilma (Erin Gray), and the Searcher brings a hibernation tube aboard.

Inside the tube is Velis (David Hollander), a golden-skinned alien who appears to be a child.  When awakened, he expresses concern that another of his kind, Relcos, is still missing. Before the Searcher can investigate further, the ship runs aground on an asteroid and becomes lodged there.  

Also, a beam from the control room's ceiling falls on Admiral Asimov (Jay Garner) during the accident. It cannot be moved until Velis changes the molecular structure of the ceiling beam, rendering it lighter. He reports that his people are capable of "subatomic oscillation," and that Relcos may be able to lighten the molecular weight of the Searcher, and free it from the asteroid.

Buck (Gil Gerard) and Velis head to the planet Iris 7, where Relcos' distress call has been detected.  They find it is a penal planet, and that the criminals living there covet the golden man, Relcos, for his ability to make them rich. After Buck and Velis are kidnapped, Hawk (Thom Christopher) goes in search of them, and masquerades as an interplanetary inspector general to rescue them.

Buck, Velis and Hawk manage to rescue Relcos and return to the Searcher, just as the magnetic storm threatens the ship.  As Relcos tries to change the Searcher's weight, Buck starts to realize that Relcos, who appears to be an adult, is actually a child, while Velis, appearing to be a child, is actually the boy's father.

Let me just say this to start: I strongly dislike this episode.  I'm sorry, I realize that isn't a very professional comment to make.  However, I still remember watching "The Golden Man" in 1981, and hating it, even as an eleven year old.  I didn't write a review of the episode last week, actually, because I didn't want to watch it again. How's that for avoiding?

Anyway, I buckled down, watched "The Golden Man" this weekend, for the first time in nearly forty years, and despised it every bit as much as I did all those years ago.  There may be worse episodes of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979-1981), but this one still has to be near the absolute bottom of the catalog.

Why do I react so strongly, and in such a negative fashion, to this episode?  There are multiple reasons, but all of them have to do with the utter absurdity of the story, and, by implication, the contempt the writers and producers must have felt for fans of the series to foist it upon them.

First, it is wonderful that the Searcher rescues young Velis. But the hibernation pod is brought aboard, and not held for decontamination. With no examination of the device, Buck just opens it.  Again, he does so without even consulting a physician, or an engineer for that matter.  The Searcher just pulls the tube in on a tractor beam, and Buck opens it. At this point, he doesn't even know if the gold alien possesses the same needs so far as an atmosphere that humans do.  What if Velis were a plague carrier? What if exposure to humans was lethal to him? Or vice versa?

 In the scene after this, Buck actually asks Doctor Goodfellow if Velis is made of real gold.

Ugh.

So, basically, Buck is portrayed here as an idiot. First he opens an alien hibernation tube without the simplest or most basic of precautions or expert back-up, and then he asks if a humanoid is actually made of gold.  

Then, just when the episode can't get any more dimwitted, the Searcher suddenly runs aground on an asteroid.  I mean, the ship just piles into a huge space rock.  Who is driving the ship?  How could this happen?  Earlier in the episode, Admiral Asimov orders the viewer closed, but presumably the ship can still be steered by scanner or computer, right? Aren't there some safeguards in place to prevent a vessel of this size and complexity from just plowing into an asteroid, head first?  

Probably these are the same safeguards to use when opening an alien hibernation tube, meaning they are non-existent.

Once on the planet, Relcos is captured and held in a wagon and cage.  The scene in which he is mobbed by denizens of the penal colony is clearly and crisply shot. We see Relcos cowering in the cage, transforming the molecular make-up of several items, including a ladle, and the cage bars.  But for some reason, seeing is not enough.  There is an ADR voice-over narration explaining everything he does, in extreme detail.  "He turned that ladle to pure silver! He's turned the bars to glass!"  This bizarre play-by-play goes on and on throughout the scene and is absolutely inexplicable. The images carry the scene just fine without the narration.

Then, there's the final twist in the tail that reveals Relcos, a fully-grown adult male, is actually a child.  And Relcos, physically about a 12-year old, is a parent.  The aliens, who hail from Vella 5, age in "reverse."  This means that Relcos is actually a 5-year old child.  No wonder Relcos' mother is never seen in the episode. She's likely in a hospital. Imagine what these golden women must go through, having the physical dimensions of children, but giving birth to full-grown adults. All joking aside, it seems a physical impossibility. This touch is meant to be a clever "sci-fi" plot twist, but upon any consideration is revealed to be ridiculous.

There are other issues with the episode too.  Why are the people of the penal colony obsessed with getting their hands on jewels and fine metals?  From what we see, the colony is incredibly small - the size of a Colonial town, perhaps. Jewels and such baubles would only be worth something in a functioning economy with different classes, including a wealthy class, and a professional class.  In other words, someone needs to buy those jewels, or trade for them.  Based on the poor, uneducated colonists depicted in "The Golden Man," there would be no one to buy those jewels, or to sell them, even though the mob leader offers to pay with "Gold Solaris" the location of the Golden Man.

And what are we to make of this penal colony and its presence anyway? The leaders of the colony realize Hawk is not an inspector general because he is not aware of the ship that crashed there, which the colonists are repurposing for escape.  According to the criminals, the authorities know about the crash.  Okay, so the intergalactic authorities are in the loop, even if they haven't acted to retrieve the ship.  If that's the case, how come Crichton, Goodfellow and the Searcher databanks don't have any knowledge of the people of Iris 7, or the planet's designation as a penal colony?  The authorities all know the planet is there, that it houses criminals, and that a she crashed.  But no one on Searcher knows any of these things.  "The Golden Man" just can't be bothered to keep its facts straight, apparently.

I may be biased. I admit it. As noted above, I found this episode terrible the first time I saw it, and revisiting it in 2020 did not change my mind. By 1981, and by the time I was eleven, I expected a top-of-the-line science fiction TV series such as this one not to talk down to me, and to tell stimulating, intelligent, internally-consistent stories.

"The Golden Man" fails to deliver anything that doesn't feel like an insult to the intelligence.

Buck Rogers: "Mark of the Saurian"

Just as an armistice has been declared between the Directorate and the Saurian Empire, a group of Saurian nationals masquerade in human form, as Ambassador Cabot (Linden Chiles) and his party.

Cabot and his team board the Searcher, and plot to take the exploratory ship into the “restricted zone” near the Delta Quadrant Defense Station.  The Saurian plan is to secretly seize control of that station, a weapon so powerful it caused their people to seek peace.

Buck (Gil Gerard), suffering from “Cygnus Fever,” is able to detect the Ambassador and his party as they really are: alien infiltrators.  

Although Wilma (Erin Gray) believes Buck’s story, the Searcher crew fears that Rogers is delusional, and even dangerous. They try to keep him in bed, and sedated, while the Saurians seek to stop him.

Meanwhile, Buck attempts to convince his friends that the Saurians are playing the crew for fools…

“Mark of the Saurian” is a solid episode of the second season Buck Rogers (1979-1981) format. Alas, the story also appears regurgitated, almost note for note, from another popular sci-fi series of the disco decade: Space: 1999 (1975-1977).

Fans of that series will certainly remember a Year Two story and two-part episode, called “The Bringers of Wonder.”  There, Commander John Koenig (Martin Landau) is injured during an eagle crash, and consigned to Medical Center. While there, he undergoes a head-injury treatment that alters his brainwaves.

At the same time, a ship apparently from Earth, a super swift, nears Moonbase Alpha.  It is manned entirely by friends of the Alphans, including Dr. Shaw, Helena Russell’s (Barbara Bain) mentor.  

But when Koenig awakens, he doesn’t see human friends from Earth, he sees “monsters from another dimension” who are operating by their own malevolent agenda (a plot to detonate the nuclear waste domes on the moon).

Koenig attempts to convince his friends that he is not delusional or hallucinating, but they fear his injury is affecting his mind. He is out of his head, so-to-speak.

The points of similarity between the two stories are suspiciously numerous.

In both cases, we have the protagonist or hero of the show dealing with an injury/sickness. Koenig has a brain injury. Buck suffers from Cygnus Fever.  This is important, because this “condition” is the excuse by which his subordinates fail to heed his warning about enemy infiltrators.

In both cases, one of the key alien infiltrators is a doctor or physician, an individual with access to the sick bay/Medical Center, and so can therefore attempt to harm the sick protagonist.  It was Dr. Shaw in “Bringers of Wonder,” and Dr. Moray in “Mark of the Saurian” who commit this act.  They both seek to stop the one person who can see the invaders as they really are.

In both cases, a man whose word is absolutely dependable is easily questioned because of the prior incident (brain injury/Cygnus fever), leaving that man to have to act alone, without the support of his friends.

In both cases, the aliens with the secret agenda (to detonate the domes; or take over the Delta Quadrant Defense Station) are only outed when the protagonist manipulates an instrument in the control room to alter the conditions of that room and make the aliens visible to shocked co-workers.

In “Bringers of Wonder,” Koenig uses sonic manipulation in Command Center to allow the Alphans to see the “earthlings” as he sees them...as slimy aliens. 

In “Mark of the Saurian,” Buck adjusts the thermostat on the Searcher’s bridge, making it cold.  The Saurians -- who are cold-blooded -- collapse, and when unconscious, appear in their true, reptilian form.

In sci-fi TV, many stories are influenced by older stories.  Many series offer variations on a theme, or on a trope (like “the silicon based life form,” or the “fight to the death.”)  But “Mark of the Saurian” isn’t a variation on a theme so much as it is a straight-up regurgitation of “Bringers of Wonder.”  It is a point-by-point repeat.

That fact established, it’s not a bad episode in the scheme of things. Buck, feeling alone, discovers the two people he can truly count on in a crisis: Wilma and Hawk (Thom Christopher), and the episode helps us glean a sense of those friendships. 

On the other hand, some questions are indeed left unanswered.  

How do the Saurians trick Twiki and Crichton into seeing them as human beings? They are robots, after all, not susceptible to a disguise device that depends, apparently, on "body chemistry."

And since when has the Directorate been at war with the Saurians?  And if the Saurians broke the armistice, does that mean the war with the Saurians will resume?

Finally, why is Buck so mean and insulting to his doctor in this episode?  He is the worst patient, ever!

Despite such questions, I enjoy some of the call-backs to Season One in "Mark of the Saurian." These include the re-use of the space station miniature from “Space Vampire,” and the re-use of the Directorate dress uniforms, seen as far back as “Awakening.” Also, the Directorate gets a specific name-check.  

If only we heard a mention of Dr. Huer.

Fans of 1970s electronic toys will also note that Lakeside’s Computer Perfection makes an extended cameo as a view screen control panel in Searcher’s sick bay.  The unmistakable blue and white toy is seen several times at Buck’s bedside, and there are two close-ups of the game’s controls (under a blue hood).

Finally, one might wonder how I can enumerate all the similarities here to Space:1999 and yet still assess this Buck Rogers episode as one of the better second season shows.  

The answer is simple.  By comparison to efforts like “The Golden Man” or “Shgoratchx!"even a retread like “Mark of the Saurians” is a welcome relief.

Buck Rogers: "The Guardians"

The second season of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century is not generally high-regarded among fans. In its sophomore sortie, the Glen Larson series eliminated the characters of Dr. Huer, Dr. Theopolis and the Draconians, downplayed Buck’s (Gil Gerard) strong sense of fish-out-of-water humor, and moved Buck from sexy secret agent work on Earth to a deep space assignment aboard the Earth ship Searcher.

These format changes cast the new Buck Rogers rather firmly in the mold of Star Trek or Space: 1999 with the new series acting as a vehicle for “civilization of the week” stories. 

In that particular format, success or failure rests largely on how well interesting and likable main characters interact with intriguing or convincing alien cultures. The Fantastic Journey (1977), for example, got the former aspect of that alchemy right (the likable main characters), but had a difficult time coming up with good stories, and original alien cultures to explore.

In broad terms, this was the very problem with the second season of Buck Rogers. Episodes that involved mischievous dwarfs, (“Shgoratchx!), or backwards-aging men spray-painted gold (“The Golden Man”) failed to impress or persuade either mainstream audiences or die-hard sci-fi fans.

Some second season episodes were better, including the dynamic “The Satyr," a show that pinpointed a great “alien” metaphor for alcoholism and its impact on families.

The subject of this review “The Guardians” may not work as effectively as “The Satyr” -- at least on a metaphorical level -- but I still estimate it’s one of the best episodes of Buck Rogers’ second season, in part because it deploys a tried-and-true Star Trek technique for better developing the dramatis personae.

On Star Trek, an alien disease or weapon was often utilized to examine emotional aspects of the characters that they normally keep hidden. “The Naked Time” or “The Naked Now” are two such notable examples.

In those episodes, a disease that mimicked alcohol intoxication “exposed” the underneath characteristics of our favorite Starfleet officers. The character revelations were sometimes funny, sometimes extremely moving. 

That general idea informs “The Guardians,” only an alien artifact is the catalyst for the character reveals.

Here, Buck and his new friend Hawk (Thom Christopher) investigate a “Terra Class satellite.” Although the exploration of the planet is supposedly “strictly routine,” Buck and Hawk soon hear a distant bell ringing over the wind's howl. They follow the noise and discover that the bell tolls for Janovus XXVI, an old man now on his death bed.

This ancient “Guardian” informs Buck that he has been waiting for Captain Rogers for over five hundred years. Now, he must pass on to Buck – “The Chosen One,” an ancient green Pandora’s Box. This jade artifact must be transported to the old man’s unnamed successor and only a person of both “the past and the present” (like Buck) can get it to its destination successfully. 

That night, Buck sleeps in proximity to the jade box and dreams of his life on Earth. In particular, he experiences a vision of his mother, one from the eve of his disastrous mission on Ranger 3. After the box is brought back to the Searcher, it begins to have strangely deleterious effects on the ship and crew. The ship inexplicably goes off course and makes a setting for the edge of the galaxy.

This trajectory especially concerns Lt. Devlin (Paul Carr), since he is due to be married on Lambda Colony in only a few days. 

When Admiral Asimov (Jay Garner) is exposed to the box, he imagines his crew…starving to death on the long journey in the void from the edge of the galaxy to Lambda.

When Wilma (Erin Gray) is affected by the box, she sees herself as a hopeless blind woman wandering the corridors of Searcher alone.

Then, in a matter of an hour, Wilma is blinded in real life, and realizes her vision was prophetic. Even Hawk is affected, and he experiences an emotional moment with his dead mate, Koori (Barbara Luna). 

As the Searcher reaches the edge of the galaxy, Buck realizes the box must be passed on to a Guardian, a “saintly figure” seen throughout many cultures and on many worlds. When a Guardian does not possess the box, chaos ensues, and that sense of chaos explains a lot of Earth’s violent history. Buck realizes that the Time Guardian is the very one that they now must seek… 

By and large, Buck Rogers is a pretty light show, a fact which distinguishes it from the original Battlestar Galactica or Space: 1999. There’s often a great deal of humor on Buck, and a tremendous amount of physical action too.

In some sense, “The Guardian” showcases how the series could have approached more serious sci-fi storytelling.

 This episode is not without flaws (and the ending looks cheap...), but the crew member visions of people starving to death and going blind are authentically disturbing. I remember watching the program for the first time in 1981 and feeling pretty jolted by Asimov’s vision of a crew dying from hunger…and looking like zombies.  This moment resonates, and is probably the strongest in the show, despite the fact that Gil Gerard, in the vision, hardly looks emaciated...

"The Guardian" also delves into some pretty dark territory regarding erstwhile Lt. Devlin. While Searcher is lost and heading to the edge of the galaxy, he learns that his fiancé on Lambda Colony has died.  She was killed while out searching for him and his lost ship. Again, this bit of drama is just a bit darker than the typical Buck Rogers show, and here it all works well.  A sense of panic and anxiety builds up as "The Guardian" reaches it final act.  

Frankly, the writing for the main characters here is also among the best in the series' second season. We learn how heavily Asimov carries the burden of command (imagining a future of starvation, in which he is incapable of helping his crew…), we come to understand Wilma’s fear of appearing vulnerable or being pitied. And we are reminded once more of Hawk’s utter isolation and alone-ness. 

Of all the phantasms featured in "The Guardians," Buck’s may be the least effective. It’s great to meet a Rogers family member, since we know very little of the astronaut’s family history, and yet Buck doesn’t really do or say anything important in this dream.  You’d think Buck might want to warn his Mom about the coming nuclear holocaust…tell her to go into hiding, or something. Instead, she’s the one worried about his mission. 

Buck’s dream is a bit off tonally, though it’s fun to see the special effects from “Awakening” recycled as a callback to the Buck Rogers pilot.

In toto, I would have preferred to see a dream in which Buck revealed some personal flaw, foible or fear.  Like the fact that he was afraid of never again making a meaningful connection with the world around him.  I don't know.  But something other than an idyllic dream of lemonade and small-town Americana.  This dream tells us where he came from, but in a sense, we already know that.  Better to explore how he feels about where he was, or where he is, or where he might be headed.

Like many cult-tv programs, “The Guardians” also imagines an external force as being the guarantor of peace or war in the galaxy.

On the original Twilight Zone, the great (and incredibly atmospheric) episode “The Howling Man” postulated that man would experience peace only during those intervals during which he held the Devil captive. Whenever the Devil escaped captivity, world war would occur.  

Likewise, in Star Trek’s “The Day of the Dove,” an alien monster that thrived on “hate” was believed responsible for the violent, war-like aspects of humankind’s long history. 

Here, the Guardians preserve galactic peace, but during the uncertain periods of succession, elements of the space-time continuum “jump” their tracks, and chaos is the result.  In all these situations, "fate" is determined specifically by some agency outside of man's dominion and yet he can  still struggle to rein the situation back in during each crisis.  

Probably the best aspect of “The Guardians” is simply the fact that the episode creates a sense of terror (especially in the scene wherein the box is jettisoned from the ship…but then re-appears aboard her…) without ever focusing on a humanoid villain. There are no bad guys to be found here, at all, only a strange alien artifact that the crew of Searcher, including Buck, doesn’t quite understand. 

This conceit was very much of the Space:1999 playbook: terror is forged because man doesn’t have all the answers, and his curiosity or other emotions only create more danger.

It’s nice to see Buck Rogers operate on that more intellectual, spine-tingling level, at least for a short duration. Had later episodes followed this relatively intelligent formula, the second season might today be much better perceived.

I don’t often return to the second season of Buck Rogers today because of some of the really dreadful episodes, but “Time of the Hawk,” “The Satyr” and yes, “The Guardians” reveal how the changes from season one to season two could have truly created an interesting space opera and interesting, early 1980s alternative to Star Trek.  

I don't know if the second series was too rushed, it was difficult to find good writers, or there were problems elsewhere that needed to be addressed first, but at least for "The Guardians" everything seems to come together for Buck. 

In this case "opening up Pandora's Box" gave the sci-fi series a pretty visceral and intriguing hour.

Buck Rogers: "Journey to Oasis"

In "Journey to Oasis," the Earth is on the verge of war with the secretive Zikarians, a militaristic alien race with a dark secret. Specifically, the Zikarians are double or hybrid entities: they boast human-like heads attached to humanoid bodies, but each exists symbiotically.  In short, Zikarians and can remove their heads and their bodies still function on their own.

No one on the Searcher is aware of this strange fact, as Buck (Gil Gerard) and Wilma (Erin Gray) are assigned to transport the Zikarian Ambassador, Duvoe (Mark Lenard) to a peace conference in the city of Oasis on the planet R4. Unfortunately, all around Oasis is a wasteland, a "depository of failed experiments" and "genetic garbage dump" going back thousands of years.

Buck and Wilma's shuttle, with Duvoe and Dr. Goodfellow (Wilfred Hyde-White) and Hawk (Thom Christopher) aboard, goes down in the wasteland, and the crew must make for Oasis, and the peace conference, on foot.  The Zikarians will declare war, and destroy the Searcher, if Duvoe does not attend the conference on time.

On the planet surface, Buck and Duvoe clash, in part because Wilma knows him from a mission years earlier. She admires him, and is attracted to him, but Duvoe does not wish her to learn his secret.

The survivors of the shuttle crash make for Oasis, but must contend with a little blue imp, ODX (Felix Silla), and an invisible warlord who guards the only path to the city, and peace conference...

Stretched out to almost interminable length at two parts (or two hours), "Journey to Oasis" is a horribly sloppy episode of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1978-1981), and one that shows off the new format to poor effect. 

Where to begin on this one? 

Throughout the location shooting, it is abundantly plain that Wilfred Hyde-White's role of Dr. Goodfellow is being played by a double, one who doesn't very closely resemble him.  No doubt that this was an expedient because of the actor's advanced age, at this point.  But still...

Similarly, there's a strong disconnect, visually, between the location footage, and the footage shot with the primary actors on a sound-stage. The soundstage looks appropriate to Star Trek, circa its third season, in 1969, with its abundantly fake paper mâché rocks.  But this episode aired in 1981.

ODX's bight blue make-up, meanwhile, has visible edges where the paint  job just...stops. 

And Buck's final battle over the chasm, with the invisible warlord and his glow-in-the-dark sword, is rendered with fast motion photography. The result is that the final confrontation looks ridiculous. It doesn't help that the bridge Buck traverses  doesn't appear to be more than three or four feet off the ground, and it is very short in length. This episode clearly runs smack into budgetary problems that impacted the design and execution of the episode's major sets.

The shuttle in this episode, similarly, is from Battlestar Galactica (1978-1979), and doesn't look like a product of Earth technology.  It's a cheap leftover.  The Searcher shuttlecraft changes designs virtually every week in the second season.  Maybe the exploratory ship carried lots of different shuttle types?

Meanwhile, the script treats Wilma badly. When she sees that cannibals have decapitated their prey and jammed their heads on pikes, she screams at the top of her lungs like a child.  She's a colonel in the military, and has seen things, in many episodes, that are far more terrifying than severed heads.  The episode makes Wilma react in this unprofessional manner so that audiences will believe she would reject Duvoe, since he too has a severed head, or whatever.

I know, it's all ridiculous, and in the service of a thin plot: a trek across the desert to reach a peace conference in time.

On the other hand, one can see that the show was, at this point, at least still trying. There is an impressive miniature for the Zikarian ships on display and I applaud the effort to fill in Wilma's back history, even if it doesn't seem consistent of what we know of recent Earth history, from the series' first season.  

It is also nice that there is the idea, here, no matter how half-unearthed, that Buck may actually be jealous of Wilma's affection for Duvoe. Too often in the first season, the relationship between Buck and Wilma is undefined.  Here, we know that he possesses deep feelings for her.

Casting Mark Lenard as Duvoe is a good call, too, though he has played alien ambassadors before (Sarek), of course, and his role here is ridiculous, and made even more ridiculous by his bad, curly wig.  

Lenard plays an important scene with his "severed" head hoisted up between two hands (perhaps his own, perhaps not), and the effect is just silly beyond measure.  He is an actor of such dignity, and yet there is little dignified about the design of his character in "Journey to Oasis."  At one point, it's clear Lenard's head is jutting out from a large rock, while his actual body is hidden inside it.  He shouts orders at his headless body, which is walking around aimlessly.

Again, the mind boggles that anyone thought this was a good idea, or would have looked anything but silly.

All in all, one can't help but think that "Journey to Oasis" would have been a tighter, more effective story at just one hour in duration. A lot of the sloppy execution might have been featured less prominently or mitigated by breezing past it as fast possible.

Next week, a much better installment: "The Guardians."