Season 1

BUSTER BACK IN THE SWIM

THE NEW series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, which starts on Saturday, marks the meeting of Buck Rogers of the Eighties, Gil Gerard (left), and the 1939 Buck Rogers, Buster Crabbe.

Crabbe plays Brigadier Gordon in the new series. He is now 73 but looks 10 years younger due, he says, to swimming regularly in the pool on his Arizona ranch. In fact he owes his career to swimming. He won a gold medal at the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles, breaking the previous world record held by Johnny Weissmuller and, like Weissmuller before him, he was offered the role of Tarzan.

"If I'd come second in the 400 metres I would never have been Tarzan," he says now. "Athletics was a way into films in the Thirties."

Providing the glamour in the series is Erin Gray, who plays Colonel Wilma Deering. Together with "Twiki" the robot, shown on our cover, Wilma helps space hero Buck out of some very sticky situations.

ITV aired this episode as the original feature length rather than in two parts as was common in syndication.

The week's edition of TV Times had an article about Erin Gray by Lesley Salisbury, titled The old-fashioned love story of the girl from the 25th century. There was also a Family Scene article written by Magnus Pyke: Fifty Years From Now: Is this The Way We'll Live? which is inspired by the new series and it being 50 years since author Philip Nowlan created his iconic comic strip character.

The series was once again the subject of a Family Scene article in TV Times. This time Lesley Salisbury talks to Gil Gerard in BUCK ROGERS - THE SPACE HERO WHO TAKES HIS CUE FROM CHILDREN in which he explains his realisation that children who see him playing a hero don't want to see him smoking or drinking, so he changed his habits for good.

TV Times again published an article inspired by the series. Kenneth Gatland writes in 50 YEARS ON about the advancement of gadgets and vehicles since Philip Nowlan created his famous character.

Buck is aboard a luxury space yacht. His mission-to save the genetically perfect Miss Cosmos from the clutches of a kidnapper with strange powers.

This two part story was shown as a feature-length episode on ITV.

Depite being the first episode, explaining how Buck finds himself in the future, it was not shown in British TV until 1988.