Ditto that. To me, Buck Rogers will always be Gil, and I greatly enjoyed his portrayal of the character over two seasons.
He will be missed.
News Gil Gerard (1943-2025)
- Thread starter Aragorn
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Ditto that. To me, Buck Rogers will always be Gil, and I greatly enjoyed his portrayal of the character over two seasons.
He will be missed.
The rest of the story is here: https://variety.com/2025/tv/obituar...d-buck-rogers-in-the-25th-century-1236610578/
Definitely iconic as Buck, more than Buster Crabbe (who held his own quite well), and showed how reboots started long before the 21st century.
Season 1, which took the theatrical movie and made slight tweaks, but also add in more humor, had started out fairly serious with some comedic elements that more often worked, but also used cheap titles to lure viewers. As the season progressed, it had ramped up campier attributes and stunt casting in attempts to gain viewers. (The Ardala stories got increasingly daft as well.) The show was decent in ratings, but not enough given the production cost so retooling was made... a retooling Gil definitely dived into as he often complained about how silly and kiddie-centric season 1 could be, wanting it to be more character-driven with more depth.
The season 2 promo picture is arguably fitting as Gil wanted the show to be more serious, which the show's retooling now provided, and it didn't help that there was a strike that clobbered season 2 as well, delaying it and likely compounding ratings as much as the culture shock of the retooling had. The retooling was a bit much in combining aspects of contemporary Battlestar Galactica and 1960s' Star Trek (TOS), and BR was generally about Buck ending up in future Earth to end up saving humanity, not exploring the galaxy to search(er) for human colonies that survived the great big war (which sorta fits, but everyone loved Dr Huer and Theopolis as foils, and note how the show expertly introduces Hawk but then does absolutely nothing with him, sigh...) That said, a lot of season 2 is very much underrated - though a couple of stories are cringe-inducing that don't do anyone any favors.
But I've found a surprising amount of enjoyment in rewatching both seasons.
Earth Force surely is early-90s (1991 or 92 at a quick guess based on the garish graphic design (which looks good but is definitely iconic early-90s!)) and I'd swear they're using the Video Toaster to render the opening credits with. Never saw the show, and it's a shame it was pulled so soon.
Yeah, paring down Wilma's character was easily the biggest mistake for the new season. She and Buck made a great double-act and complementary team in season 1 and she did not steal his thunder.
Almost as bad was replacing Twiki's voice actor, though this was due to Mel being ill and there was no other option but to replace the voice. Wish they had found someone to use a closer cadence, as the new voice felt misplaced and even more whiplash-inducing than the show's retooled tone!
That aside, "Testimony of a Traitor" is an outstanding episode that comes to mind, as was "The Guardians" as being an excellent outing. I recall mostly good things from "Mark of the Saurian", "The Crystals", "The Dorian Secret", "The Hand of Goral", and "The Satyr" as well. Can't forget "Time of the Hawk", the premiere that introduces the eponymous Hawk, which led to much unfulfilled potential (but a cool spaceship design). The others, now that I looked them up? Not so much...
Most egregious episode was the one with the mind control dwarves.
It was actually toned down from what they originally wanted. Yikes!
It was actually toned down from what they originally wanted. Yikes!
snip
As do I. MeTV will run it on Saturday night periodically and the whole thing is fun. Silly in the same way Knight Rider was, but we loved us our escapism nonetheless.
Sigh...Pamela Hensley
What, did they bite at you with razor teeth like the dolls in Barbarella?
No disrespect to Gerard, other than him wanting to sideline Erin Grey, but season 2 was a total misfire, and coming back after an extended hiatus due to the strike with an almost unrecognizable show didn't do anything to help them hold onto their existing audience, let alone expand it. For as much more "serious" it was supposed to be, it wasn't much, it was just less fun. And Hawk was utterly wasted after the first episode.
Too many cooks ruined the soup.
Too many cooks ruined the soup.
To me, Buster Crabbe remains the real Flash Gordon.
Yeah, the “off-think” scene was where I abandoned my series rewatch.
they used mind powers to remove Wilma's clothing and what they had originally planned was way more revealing than what we got
Very cringeworthy and easily the worst of both seasons, and then some. There's got to be a making-of somewhere that explains that episode. The three you missed out on after that episode are considerable improvements (Goral, Testimony, Dorian, with Testimony being the best of the three). But it's way too easy to understand why viewers walked out en masse with "off-think:", WTH...
^^this
BR79 had a style and could have built on that and, unlike the handful of shows that can change format and more likely remain successful (nods at Dr Who), changing the iconic style is very risky. Many kids would not have liked the changed content (as a kid, the changes were weird and I didn't understand it all at the time, but I stayed with it), and many adults simply may not have cared. The abandoning of Hawk (the show's new equivalent to Spock in some ways, but well-acted by Thom Christopher and made up for it) after the season 2 opener is just mindboggling, given the effort put into his premiere episode. Had there been more episodes, I'd like to think they would have returned to him but somehow I doubt it.
So many problems behind the camera and, yeah, season 1 - while not perfect - had an already iconic and unique feel and didn't need to be so fully retooled. (Now, I liked Hawk and Chrichton, but Wilma being sidelined and Huer removed in favor of Dr Goodfellow and Cmdr Asimov just didn't fully work and Wilma did not need to be sidelined.)
I did like that Dr. Theopolis in the 25th Century was in a clear perspex case made of TTL logic chips
Trying to think of other shows that had such drastic changes from one season to the next. Westworld.
There was a weird shift in the remaining USA Network shows when they stopped being "blue skies" and "characters welcome" and wanted to be more prestige. Suits became more serious (and by serious I mean everyone yells and swears), the main character on Covert Affairs went from being unarmed on spy missions relying on her brain to getting a gun and shooting everyone, good guys got their hands dirty by killing bad guys (instead of tricking other bad guys to kill them) on Burn Notice.
Designated Survivor was already silly but it become extremely stupid on Netflix with the nonsensical Pollyanna resolutions to everything. They also started swearing to sound more adult.
There was a weird shift in the remaining USA Network shows when they stopped being "blue skies" and "characters welcome" and wanted to be more prestige. Suits became more serious (and by serious I mean everyone yells and swears), the main character on Covert Affairs went from being unarmed on spy missions relying on her brain to getting a gun and shooting everyone, good guys got their hands dirty by killing bad guys (instead of tricking other bad guys to kill them) on Burn Notice.
Designated Survivor was already silly but it become extremely stupid on Netflix with the nonsensical Pollyanna resolutions to everything. They also started swearing to sound more adult.
I noticed that with Annie. I have the series set, but have never gotten that far into it. I stopped half way through season 1 and never picked it back up again. Set was bought for mum when she got sick