KOJAK YOUR ENTHUSIASM (12)

By: Tom Nealon
May 9, 2022

One in a series of 25 enthusiastic posts, contributed by 25 HILOBROW friends and regulars, on the topic of our favorite TV shows of the Seventies (1974–1983).

BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25TH CENTURY | 1979–1981

I fondly remember Buck Rogers as a confetti gun of ’70s sci-fi — lasers, spandex, space dogfights, silly robots, Erin Gray. On returning to it as an adult, I was surprised to learn that while at its core, the show is indeed a disco Star Wars, it’s set in a dystopia.

The back story — introduced in the first movie-length episode, then mostly ignored — is that humans nearly obliterated themselves through war, plague, famine, and environmental catastrophe. On the brink of extinction, they turned over most of their civilization to a group of self-programmed robots, the Computer Council. (In an Asimovian twist, after years of robots creating and programming one another, at least one robot — Crichton, season 2 — refuses to believe that humans had any part in fashioning him.) Composed of “quads,” electronic devices the size of a kitchen clock carried around by small “ambiquads” (see my post on TWIKI), the Council controls the economy, diplomacy, etc. — everything but planetary defense. As a result, everything is very… reasonable.

What makes Buck Rogers hold up so well is the nature of Buck’s super-powers: recklessness and hubris. The sorts of human qualities, that is, that had nearly brought about humanity’s end. This gives the show a weird (because muddled and self contradictory) emotional resonance. The quads — as well as Buck’s human companions, who have been acculturated by the quads, are constantly surprised by his maneuvers and strategies, which are based not on reason or planning but gut instinct and bravado. It’s not that Buck is really clever or competent; what makes him fascinating is his status as an avatar of the rotten Shatner-esque qualities that the quads have spent centuries eradicating. It’s Lem’s Return from the Stars, played for laughs.

I’d remembered Buck as a goofy sort of hero. Watching the show again as an adult, though — the first season, anyway, before they tried to turn it into a breezy Battlestar Galactica — I realize that the goofiness is a little tragic. More fit to destroy this future society than save it, Buck is cast as a hero while dressed as a Solid Gold dancer. As a result of this miscasting, he will never quite fit the 25th century. Even when he is infiltrating off-world prisons, flirting with the diabolical Princess Ardala, breaking the bank at an outer-space casino, fleeing from mutants in the contamination zone, or getting into a hilarious fist fight with planetary defense instructors, we’re never able to ignore the fact that Buck’s success is perpetually unearned and ridiculous. I’m here to report that the confused ambivalence I feel, rewatching this show, is surprisingly pleasant.

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KOJAK YOUR ENTHUSIASM (12)

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