Buck Rogers in the 25th Century Rewatch Part 11

A Dream of Jennifer

S1E19

While out on a shopping trip with Twiki Buck spots a familiar face from his past but that can not be, after all that was 500 years ago. He spots her again at a transit station and suspiciously gets her information from the check in desk and she is identified as Lela Markeson on route to City by the Sea which used to be New Orleans. It turns out that this Lela had being surgically altered to look like Buck's girl friend Jennifer as part of an overly complex plot to derail arms and supply shipments to the independent world Vega V by the Earth directorate. The Koven who are literally very red skinned have put a lot of effort into thwarting the efforts of the directorate but it's all for nought thanks to a few surprises onboard the supply freighter and of course Buck and Wilma doing their thing.

Anne Lockhart as Lela / Jennifer

So Buck is gathering supplies to build a hot tub, not quite sure how the human race lost interest in such things even after a nuclear war but hey it got the plot moving and set up the market scene with a lot of extras and of course the first look at Lela played by the gorgeous Anne Lockhart. In the flash back we even get a little side boob, it says a lot that despite the times that was quite surprising on the show and the notion that Buck was in a serious relationship prior to his mission back in the day. Later he again spotted the woman who looked like his Jennifer at a space port and hey I know that guy, yes Dennis Haysbert (The Unit, 24) is playing a guard and then over the public address system we hear "Captain Christopher Pike", I pissed myself laughing:)

The main plot I guess was the efforts of the Koven led by Commander Reeve (Paul Koslo) to prevent the Earth from supplying the planet Vega V with supplies and munitions to aid in their defence but the whole convoluted plot of altering a woman to look like Buck's long lost love and to then use her to force him to destroy the supply freighter seems way over the top. They said Buck had a photo of Jennifer and they used that to create the copy complete with voice and I guess all those little things which I'm not quite sure a 2D photo would be capable of showing. I felt a little let down that Buck rejected the flirting from the alien Nola, if nothing else wouldn't we all be curious if she was red all over but then again Lela was rocking the ridiculously tight blue spandex so it's all good apart from the end which wasn't but hey a last minute joke about Jaws so the show finished on a happy note.

Overall a pretty good episode mind you the bad guys plans were a little extreme but there were laughs and everyone looked good even when the alien of the week are guys painted a garish red.

IMDB

Space Rockers

S1E20

The galaxies most popular music is being used to subvert the young folk of thousands of worlds leading to rioting and civil unrest and Buck is sent to investigate because after all he was around when music was destroying civilisation back in the 20th century. The band Andromeda perform from a former military space station controlled by Lars Mangros (Jerry Orbach) and he splices a harmonic code into the music which effects the listeners, his goal to sew chaos and then extort power from the various worlds in turmoil.

Lars Mangros

Andromeda

This really wasn't a good episode after all the very idea of a music genre corrupting the young while still the mindset of some more fringe elements in society really belongs in a bygone age, I guess the idea of manipulating the music to cause a specific effect is scifi and that has some credibility but for half the episode that wasn't a known element. I didn't quite understand why the Earth directorate has no regulatory control over the former space station, it was in freaking orbit and even when it was known to be the source of a galaxy wind terrorist attack then sod the rules nuke it! It was also hilarious how old the youth of the Earth were, not exactly teenagers looking for direction and one thing we've seen is that the human society is pretty stable and we humans are not everywhere so why would this music effect the whole galaxy? Lets not get into how this concert was being transmitted galaxy wide or why Lars would even consider that one world wouldn't take very pro-active action to prevent their society.

You know the worst thing, the music wasn't that bad:)

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