Watching Buck Rogers In The 25th Century

[Redfern]

Swinging back on topic, at least a little, was Kryton (however it's spelled) from the second season little more than a redress of a prop light/scanner fixture from the previous year? I don't mean "in story"; I mean did the staff grab a prop originally depicted as a futuristic lamp or scanning device to serve as the new robot's "head". BTW, talk about an ineffective design and an insufferable attitude! Wouldn't it have been better to continue using Theopolis? Nothing new to build and his was a far more affable personality.

 

[Christopher]

Swinging back on topic, at least a little, was Kryton (however it's spelled) from the second season little more than a redress of a prop light/scanner fixture from the previous year?

I know the prop you mean, and when I first saw I thought "Is that Crichton?", but it's just vaguely similar, not the same.

BTW, talk about an ineffective design and an insufferable attitude!

I thought Crichton's design was very effective at conveying his personality -- his arms were designed to go judgmentally akimbo, and his head and neck were designed so he could literally look down on people.

Wouldn't it have been better to continue using Theopolis? Nothing new to build and his was a far more affable personality.

No doubt they wanted a character who could generate more conflict and humor through his arrogance. There was a lot of potential there. An AI so egotistical that he can't believe he was built by lowly humans? That's a fun idea, especially when his actual builder is standing right next to him but is too affable (there ya go) to call him on it.

My one problem with the idea is that it contradicts the first season, which established that AIs were so advanced that they'd long since started designing and building each other. (Which basically means the Singularity leads to Twiki -- who saw that coming?)

 

[JD]

I just looked up a Hawk on the Buck Rogers wiki, and I'm assuming it's no coincidence that Birdperson from Rick and Morty looks just like him.

 

[Mr Awe]

No doubt they wanted a character who could generate more conflict and humor through his arrogance. There was a lot of potential there. An AI so egotistical that he can't believe he was built by lowly humans? That's a fun idea, especially when his actual builder is standing right next to him but is too affable (there ya go) to call him on it.

My one problem with the idea is that it contradicts the first season,

Oh my, that's your one problem with Kryton?! Absolutely horrible character that made me cringe every time he appeared. And, I wouldn't say his creator was "affable" , more too lethargic and dull to muster a response!!

No, not a "fun" idea. A boneheaded idea!

 

[Christopher]

I just looked up a Hawk on the Buck Rogers wiki, and I'm assuming it's no coincidence that Birdperson from Rick and Morty looks just like him.

I had to look up the Birdperson, but yeah, it does seem to be an homage.

 

[FormerLurker]

Whoever dictated his inclusion, Crichton was one of the mistakes of the second season. At least twice he gets handed his ass for being so insufferable that he makes stupid mistakes, and yet after the first he learns nothing. An AI that advanced should have shut itself down for maintenance and reprogramming so it doesn't make that kind of idiotic error in the future, and such a subplot had been almost a trope of science fiction for years by that point.

In fact, it would have made an interesting episode if Crichton shut himself down for just that reason only for them to need his computational skills to deal with a major problem. While that sounds like the climax to Shgoratch (or however it's spelled), they could have come up with some other crisis. Speaking of that episode, if it had been done earlier in the season, they could have used it as an excuse for Crichton's insufferability. He's rude and arrogant because he's suffered a closed head brain injury, and is granted some slack because of it.

 

[Christopher]

I didn't mind Crichton. There were far, far worse things in season 2.

 

[Damian]

Season 2 had an interesting premise. Had it incorporated some of what season 1 had, I think the basic idea could have worked. The Searcher looking for the lost tribes of humanity. But it lost that charm that made season 1 look like so much fun. In many ways season 1 reminded me of a comic strip adventure. It was fun sometimes, campy a lot, and never took itself too seriously. Season 2 took itself way too seriously, and yet it had some ridiculous episodes like Schgoratz (forgive the spelling if I misspelled it---I dislike that episode so much I can't be bothered to even check on it). And yes. Christopher's criticism about "The Satyr" has some validity. That episode is a bit ridiculous and made more so in how serious it was treated. Though unlike "Schgoratz" at least with "The Satyr" I was able to find some elements I could warm too.

Season 2 also had Hawk which I liked. I read somewhere Admiral Asimov was supposed to take the place of Dr. Huer. Personally I would have preferred they kept Huer. Asimov was ok, but I just found Huer to be a bit more likable. And yes, I think I would have preferred Theopolis over Crichton. I believe Dr Goodfellow was designed to take the place of Theo. But I sort of agree with Mr Awe. I didn't hate Goodfellow really, but I just think he could have been put to better use. A lot of the time he served to get into some sort of trouble either Hawk or Buck would need to get him out of. And yeah, I miss season 1 Wilma and I missed an Ardala appearance.

And part of what I didn't like season 2 is my continuity fetish. I know at that time continuity was a lot less important to shows, but other than a few characters, some props and tech here and there, season 2 reminded me very little of season 1. And the one time they had a chance to tie into season 1 in some fashion with ""Testimony of a Traitor" they don't mention a thing. Nothing. And even Twiki's manufacture number noted in "Schgoratz" is totally different from "Twiki is Missing" from season 1. They made zero effort at consistency, even in areas that it would have been very easy to do. It was basically a totally different show in season 2, and a much poorer version. Had they incorporated what made season 1 good into season 2 with the basic season 2 premise, keep Hawk, retain Theo and Huer from season 1 I think they would have fared a bit better (and throw in one or two Ardala episodes for good measure). And made more episodes like "the Dorian Secret", one of the lone exceptions in season 2---that was one episode that reminded me of the best parts about season 1.

 

[diankra]

As with 1999, they were probably thinking that if the revamp worked the first season would become a half forgotten 'season zero'.
Pretty much happened with Mission Impossible (the Steven Hill episodes were repeat rarities till the 90s), and later Cagney and Lacey.

 

[Christopher]

As with 1999, they were probably thinking that if the revamp worked the first season would become a half forgotten 'season zero'.
Pretty much happened with Mission Impossible (the Steven Hill episodes were repeat rarities till the 90s), and later Cagney and Lacey.

Good point. We forget these days how hard it could be to rewatch an old series back then. Unless someone put the episodes into rerun syndication, you were out of luck, and many shows left their early seasons out of syndication (especially shows that went from black & white to color in the late '60s). With a short-lived show like Battlestar Galactica or Planet of the Apes, your only way to see it again was with the pairs of episodes they stuck together and syndicated as TV movies, and those packages were never comprehensive. (It's odd that PotA only released five TV-movie compilations, when adding just two more would've completed the 14-episode series. I wonder if they were trying to match the length of the feature film series.)

 

[Damian]

(It's odd that PotA only released five TV-movie compilations, when adding just two more would've completed the 14-episode series. I wonder if they were trying to match the length of the feature film series.)

Could have been because they fit into a Monday-Friday schedule? Wikipedia says the telemovies were originally aired on ABC but they did not say exactly when they were aired. Only that they were part of ABC's then afternoon movie (The 4:30 Movie...was that a 5 day a week thing?).

As an aside it's interesting to read they had McDowall reprise his role as Galen for an intro-closing segment to each, though those segments have not been seen since the original telemovie airings (even when they have re-aired years later as telemovies). Too bad they didn't include those in the DVD collection as a special feature. Though I'm glad they packaged the DVD as the original episodes. It was my first chance to see non-movie included episodes like "The Deception" and "The Cure" (and even the non-aired "Liberator"). And I recall the telemovies didn't have a clean segue from one episode to the next (I guess because they had to omit the beginning credit segments of each episodes sometimes a segment would start already in progress).

 

[Christopher]

Could have been because they fit into a Monday-Friday schedule? Wikipedia says the telemovies were originally aired on ABC but they did not say exactly when they were aired. Only that they were part of ABC's then afternoon movie (The 4:30 Movie...was that a 5 day a week thing?).

Yeah, good point. When they were syndicated, they often were run in week-long blocks. So that's probably it.

And I recall the telemovies didn't have a clean segue from one episode to the next (I guess because they had to omit the beginning credit segments of each episodes sometimes a segment would start already in progress).

No, it was easy enough to re-edit without the opening credits, or rather, to put the credits for both hours at the beginning of the "movie." They did that all the time with these things. It's the reverse of the way 2-hour pilot movies would get recut into hourlong halves for syndication with the credits being added to the second half.

What you read probably just means that the PotA movies made no attempt to create any kind of bridging segment between the two halves to make them feel like a single story. Some of the movie recuts did that sort of thing. At least a couple of the Nicholas Hammond Spider-Man movies shot brief new scenes with the main actors doing a bit of transitional dialogue along the lines of "Well, I'm glad that problem's solved, but wait, here's a new story we should look into." They were really cheaply made in random locations with terrible audio, so you could tell they were tacked on after the fact. One Spidey movie compilation even started with a second-season episode and then did a transitional scene to lead into a first-season episode!

 

[Damian]

No, it was easy enough to re-edit without the opening credits, or rather, to put the credits for both hours at the beginning of the "movie." They did that all the time with these things. It's the reverse of the way 2-hour pilot movies would get recut into hourlong halves for syndication with the credits being added to the second half.

What you read probably just means that the PotA movies made no attempt to create any kind of bridging segment between the two halves to make them feel like a single story.

Hmm, it just seemed with the telemovies the segue was very sloppy. They just cut the 2nd episode in after the episodic credits ended (what I meant there was the very beginning of the episode where they would show the name of the episode and the specific info related to that episode like the writer, director, etc.--not the actual show credits themselves).

Could they have removed the episodic credits--I mean nowadays that's probably easy, but back then were the credits for the specific episodes taped onto the film themselves that they could not be removed in post-production? That might explain the sloppy segue in the movies.

I mean I can understand that they couldn't really do a smooth transition (though I guess they could have had 'older' Galen due a transition maybe). But at least if they had been able to cut in the 2nd episode at the beginning instead of partway through the first scene as happened on most of the telemovies at least it would have been tidier.

I remember one of the movies in particular, cut into the 2nd episode with the music from the 1st still ending while the scene shows Urko talking to his lieutenant in his office in the 2nd but you can't hear what he's saying and they cut in partway while he's talking to his lieutenant. Very sloppy editing IMO.

 

[Christopher]

Could they have removed the episodic credits--I mean nowadays that's probably easy, but back then were the credits for the specific episodes taped onto the film themselves that they could not be removed in post-production? That might explain the sloppy segue in the movies.

As I said, it was routine even then to create different edits with different credit placements, like recutting a 2-hour pilot into two hourlong halves. Often, 1960s shows would be recut for overseas feature release with new credit sequences at the top in place of the individual episode credits. Just because they didn't have modern digital conveniences didn't mean they couldn't do something so simple. They did it all the time. As long as they had the original film masters, then it was a simple enough matter to recut the scene without the credits. For instance, look at any Batman '66 cliffhanger where the same footage is shown under the "Tune in next week" supertitles in the first part and under the episode credits in the second part.

So if the PotA TV movies did just lop off the opening scenes as you say, then that suggests a really cheap or slapdash recut -- not a matter of lack of technology, simply lack of effort, or maybe lack of access to the masters because the recuts were done by an outside syndicator or something.

 

[Damian]

So if the PotA TV movies did just lop off the opening scenes as you say, then that suggests a really cheap or slapdash recut -- not a matter of lack of technology, simply lack of effort, or maybe lack of access to the masters because the recuts were done by an outside syndicator or something.

I was kind of hoping that it was done that way because they had no choice. But it sounds more like lazy editing. They just didn't want to go to the trouble of removing the episodic credits from the film/tape to at least make a cleaner switch.

The only other thing I can think of is the original broadcast of the TV series was done on CBS and the telemovies edited for ABC. But I can't imagine that would be a reason they didn't have the original tapes. As far as I know 20th Century Fox has owned the TV series all along and it would have been up to them I guess to do the editing.

But I guess it's a moot issue since the entire TV series is available on DVD and has even been aired on TV in their original form since then. I'm not even sure if the telemovies have been aired recently. And I guess it's lucky PotA is popular enough that they even did a DVD release of the TV series. Sometimes short TV series like that are never heard from again.

 

[Christopher]

Editing was still done on film in those days. The titles were created optically, i.e. shot on film and matted in by overlaying and rephotographing strips of film in an optical printer, the same basic way that animated effects like phaser beams were done. There's a visible difference between the optically composited titles of the '70s and early '80s and the video titles they switched to later in the '80s, because the latter have more of an electronically generated, scan-lined look to them. For instance, the ST:TNG episode titles as opposed to the TOS titles. I think the '80s-style electronic titles were also more prone to just pop in and out, while earlier optical titles faded in and out.

 

[Mr Awe]

Whoever dictated his inclusion, Crichton was one of the mistakes of the second season. At least twice he gets handed his ass for being so insufferable that he makes stupid mistakes, and yet after the first he learns nothing.

Agreed. I find him to be entirely irritating. I think it was supposed to funny and cute, but he just didn't work.

I didn't mind Crichton. There were far, far worse things in season 2.

There's plenty to pick from in season 2 for bad things. But, Crichton and the Admiral are at the top! Now that I think about it, t's psychologically interesting that you find Crichton to be a "fun idea."

 

[Forbin]

That electronic slide-whistle sound effect to emphasize him extending his neck was the most obnoxious thing ever.

 

[diankra]

Barney Rosnweig says that Fred Freiberger was only on season one because he was available, and would never have been kept on.

 

[diankra]

General point: with hindsight we know that the revamp killed the series. But at the time it was the revamp that saved the series, and set up a long, budget-sane, run.