Watching Buck Rogers In The 25th Century

It was par for the course for Irwin Allen shows to start out relatively smart and serious and get increasingly campy and silly. It happened to all four of his SF series.

 

Yeah I believe there was also a episode with a leprechaun! I haven’t seen that one but my brother said it was there. The first season was very serious and quite realistic. The second not bad also. I never reached the 3rd to find out how far it went into camp. But a leprechaun? Lol!

 

....ok...

 

Holy pointed leprechaun hats Batman!

Lol!!

 

This article affirms that

And a...
mummy?!?!

 

I have read the synopsis of the episode Doomsday, and I have to say that I would like to watch it.

I would be curious to know what the actors thought when they went from a serious episode about the Cold War paranoia to fighting werevolves...

 

I would be interested to see a comparison, adjusted for inflation, between the 60's shows and Buck Rogers.

And I wonder if Buck could.have benefited from repeat scenes, like Filmation's Flash Gordon (I.e. The stock shot of Hawkmen being vaporized or Ming's robots falling apart)

Are you talking about the melting pumpkinhead guy? Wasnt that used in at least 2 separate episodes?

 

Actually CBS (and Irwin Allan) wanted to do a Season 4 - but Guy Williams in particular balked and said no during contract negotiations because he was tired of being a background character to Dr. Smith (Johnathan Harris), Will (Bill Mumy) and the Robot for two of the 3 seasons of the show.

 

What was it David Gerrold stated in either "The Making of 'The Trouble with Tribbles'" or "The World of Star Trek"? "Concept begets format begets formula." That notion has stuck with me for some 45 years.

 

No the episode was about plants... It was titled "The Great Vegetable Rebellion"

See here, 2nd to last episode on the list. Junkyard In Space was the final episode.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Lost_in_Space_episodes#Season_3_(1967–68)

I don't blame him for feeling that way. I'd be bummed out as well and wanting to leave.

 

Wow, I was reading through the episode descriptions of the first and last seasons of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea on IMDB, and the difference is pretty remarkable.

 

Yep, Gerrold's point was that it takes a lot of effort to stop format becoming repetitive formula.

 

I think it was more that there's a temptation to get lazy and give into formula. It's not like it's some intense pressure you have to struggle against, more like it's what you'll end up settling for if you relax your standards or try to take the easy route.

 

Um. In other words, it takes a lot of effort to stop a format becoming repetitive formula?

 

Yep. If I had been one of the actors, I would have felt rather embarrassed...

History has told us the reactions of the protagonists of Lost in the Space about about the campiness of the later seasons, unfortunately the same has not happened for Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea...

 

Well be thankful modern movies didn't remake Land Of The Giants. One can only think what kind of content they would shove in.

Speaking of which look what someone did with some Legos. Amazing model.

http://www.moc-pages.com/moc.php/368784

 

Only because somebody remembered the square-cube law...

 

Probably they would say something like "they are made of dark matter!" or whatever

 

That is unlikely at best. Since so many of the main cast are deceased, unless their papers contain something, we'll never know.

 

Perhaps some old interview..?