The 1980's Series

The Episodes

There were 31 separate installments of Buck Rogers, some of them split into 2 pieces for original transmission.

General information is gathered on this page, along with links to more detail for each episode.

The Pilot

  1. The Awakening

All of the main cast for the pilot continued into season one, except Henry Silva. Michael Ansara replaced him as Kane in season one.

Season One

  1. Planet of the Slave Girls
  2. Vegas in Space
  3. The Plot to Kill a City
  4. Return of the Fighting 69th
  5. Unchained Woman
  6. Planet of the Amazon Women
  7. Cosmic Wiz Kid
  8. Escape from Wedded Bliss
  9. Cruise Ship to the Stars
  10. Space Vampire
  11. Happy Birthday, Buck
  12. A Blast for Buck
  13. Ardala Returns
  14. Twiki Is Missing
  15. Olympiad
  16. A Dream of Jennifer
  17. Space Rockers
  18. Buck's Duel to the Death
  19. Flight of the War Witch

Season Two

  1. Time of the Hawk
  2. Journey to Oasis
  3. The Guardians
  4. Mark of the Saurian
  5. The Golden Man
  6. The Crystals
  7. The Satyr
  8. Shgorapchx
  9. The Hand of the Goral
  10. Testimony of a Traitor
  11. The Dorian Secret

The monologue at the start of each episode changed for the second season:

"In the year 1987, NASA launched the last of America's deep space probes. Aboard this compact starship a lone astronaut, Captain William 'Buck' Rogers, was to experience cosmic forces beyond all comprehension. In a freak mishap, his life support systems were frozen by temperatures beyond imagination. Ranger 3 was blown out of its planned trajectory into an orbit 1000 times more vast: an orbit which was to return Buck Rogers to Earth 500 years later."

This was only one of many changes. The second season dropped Dr Huer and Dr Theopolis as regular characters and transferred much of the action to the Explorer ship 'The Searcher'.

Additions to the regular cast were

Crew

Executive Producers: Glen A. Larsen (pilot and season one), John Mantley (season two)
Supervising Producer: Bruce Lansbury
Producers: Jock Gaynor, Medora Heilborn, David O'Connell, Tim King
Developed for TV by: Glen A. Larsen, Leslie Stevens
Story Consultant: Anne Collins
Story Editor: Alan Brennert
Music: Stu Phillips, Johnny Harris, Les Baxter
Theme: Glen A. Larsen, Stu Phillips
Special Effects Supervisors: Wayne Gerber, Dave Smith

Special effects were provided by Universal Hartland.

Production

Glen A. Larsen produced 'Buck Rogers in the 25th Century' as a TV show which ran for a season and a half, originally airing in 1979-1981. He composed the theme tune, "Suspension". You can hear it and many other themes at the TV Themes Home Page.

Glen A. Larsen produced many other shows including Battlestar Galactica and Knight Rider.

Part of Wilma and William, the TV subsite of Century 25.