BUCK ROGERS - The Lost TV Series

Believer probe design by Bob McCall

If you’re a regular reader of Space 1970  you’re already more than familiar with the 1979 television series, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. Produced by Universal Studios for NBC, and airing from the Fall of '79 through the Spring of 1981, Buck Rogers was a light, comic book-styled space adventure based on the classic 1930s newspaper adventure strip, and starred Gil Gerard and Erin Gray.  The show that aired on NBC that year originated with a pilot film (also released theatrically that Summer) produced by veteran TV producer Glen A. Larson – who had also created Universal’s previous television space opera, Battlestar Galactica.

Glen A. Larson

Larson – a tremendously successful producer, whose other credits include such favorites as Knight Rider, Magnum P.I. and The Fall Guy, as well as two of the three Six Million Dollar Man pilot telefilms – had a very specific idea of what made good TV: handsome, wisecracking heroes, lots of beautiful women wearing as little as possible, and simple, straight-forward and light-hearted stories that could entertain the whole family from junior to grandma. His version of Buck Rogers followed that well-tested formula precisely.

But Larson wasn’t originally supposed to produce Buck Rogers.

In fact, according to various reports in Starlog and other magazines between 1977 and '79,  when Universal and NBC first proposed a new Buck Rogers series in the late 1970s, they had a very different kind of futuristic adventure show in mind.

Originally, the NBC Buck Rogers show was going to be much more in the Star Trek vein, with more serious science fiction adventures and strongly character-driven stories. The show would take place almost exclusively in outer space, with 20th century Buck in command of the 25th Century Earth starship Constitution.

Various U.S.S. Constitution starship designs by Bob McCall

The executive producer was Andrew J. Fenady – a veteran film and televisions producer (mostly of Westerns) and probably best known as the author of The Man With Bogart’s Face. Samuel Peeples – who had written the second pilot for Star Trek – as well as plenty of Flash Gordon and Space Academy scripts for Filmation Studios, wrote the pilot film script.

David Gerrold

The science fiction author David Gerrold – best known for writing the "Trouble With Tribbles" for Star Trek, and who had recently been the story editor on the first season of the Peacock Network's own The Land of the Lost, was hired to oversee the writing on Buck Rogers.

Several scripts, with such intriguing titles as "The Guns of Babylon" and "Kill The Constitution," by sci-fi TV veterans D.C. Fontana (Star Trek, Logan's Run) and Dick Morgan (who had written for the 50s show Space Patrol, as well as Land of the Lost) were commissioned and written… but never filmed.

Acclaimed space artist Bob McCall, who had contributed concept and advertising art for Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey and Disney's The Black Hole, was hired to design the spaceships for the series, but his designs went unused. Some of his sketches did show up in an issue of Starlog, though (which is where I snagged the scans accompanying this post), and they exhibit a decidedly different aesthetic from the spacecraft seen on Larson’s version of the show.

More Believer probe ship/shuttle designs by Bob McCall

Apparently, someone, either at the studio or the network, decided that they wanted something lighter, so the project was turned over to Glen Larson and Bruce Lansbury (The Fantastic Journey, Wonder Woman), who handled the weekly series.

It’s too bad. As much as I enjoy the comic book tone of first season of Buck Rogers, a more serious, Trek-like version of the concept, with scripts by experienced science fiction writers, might have made a very memorable – and possibly more successful - series. I sure would have liked to have seen it.

Note: This article is based on a segment from my first - and thus far, only - Space: 1970 Podcast, newly expanded and illustrated for this blog post.