The Mark Lenard 2-parter had a really good subplot with the military tension between Lenard's people and the admiral on the Searcher. But the stuff on the planet was Lost in Space-level silliness.
Okay, I'll buy that.
It's so much easier to remember what didn't work.
I suspect maybe new showrunner John Mantley felt that since Twiki was designed to look like a young boy (basically a robotic version of Boxey from Battlestar Galactica, with the same bowl cut), he should sound childlike too. As for explaining the change, Mantley wanted to do a transitional episode explaining the overall change in status quo (though I don't know if Twiki's voice would've been addressed), but the network shot it down.
Yikes. That would explain a lot, though making the robot sound like a child is just 100% grade A pure cringe. 1980 was a fun year in some ways but television production and season continuity, especially for big changes, was not one of them.
Several points have already been addressed about the second season, so here are my two cents.
Has there ever been a more lackluster "bridge" for a fictional spaceship? There was just no cohesion to the layout, no consistent design. They appeared to have hauled out what the production considered interesting set pieces. In of themselves, okay, maybe they were, but nothing "blended". They didn't even have the theme of "scrounged" components from a scrapyard and assembled with "spit and baling wire". It was like, "Oh, here's this chrome circular desk; it can be the admiral's station. Oh, that missile launch system used by the space pirates, it can be our navigation console. Dryer tubes, can we get more dryer tubes to drape around the computer banks?" Yeah, I'm using what could be considered hyperbole because I haven't seen those episodes since they aired on NBC, so I'm sure my "details" are off. But you get the idea.
I just look at it and think "That's the offspring of Battlestar Galactica's bridge with Dr Huer's old office carved up, with a bottle of valium mixed in for good measure". I recognize a dozen generic props from the Universal backlot, too.
I don't remember "The Dorian Secret" off hand but I thought Hawk was super cool when I first watched as a pre-teen. Thom Christopher did a great job with what could've been an awful character, he somehow even made a feather wig work. Interesting thoughts on Galaxy Quest there.
"Dorian"'s message was lost on me as a kid but the general tone felt cool. A rewatch, a decade later, and it's surprisingly hefty, mature stuff.
Same for "Time of the Hawk", which for kids all they want are the cool spaceships - and Hawk's did look fairly nifty. During that same rewatch, it's very heavy material that stands up well.
Episodes between were hit or miss, often really miss, but the one with the box that altered time ("The Guardians"?) was another high point and really utilizing the horror genre to sell itself. The ending was a little cheesy, but acceptable given it's short. The episode's overall handling was great. "Satyr" was almost ahead of its time, I got the impression they wanted to do more but 1980 censorship standards would prevent it.
They touched on it in "The Guardian," but that was about it. The problem was that he wasn't originally meant to stay on past the opening episode, so the subsequent scripts didn't have much for him to do. It's a shame -- Hawk could've been one of the great SFTV characters if he'd lived up to this potential.
That's right! I forgot about that... and it makes perfect sense; being added on late in the day due to popularity but no time to redo existing episodes. And in a show that was deemed needing changes for the go-ahead to be given so they wouldn't do more than what they could. It is a big shame.
There's a plus side to all this: Thankfully his mind wasn't in the gutter when looking at Twiki and thinking what he looks like.
