Dang. I used to love watching that show as a kid. Most of the episodes were pretty cheesy and hokey, and I did like the original Battlestar Galactica and Space: 1999 better, but as a kid it was still great fun and seeing Wilma Deering (Erin Gray) in those tight spandex space uniforms was something for my middle-schooler eyes to behold. Gerard was perfectly cast as Buck - the stalwart space hero and ace fighter pilot saving Earth from all sorts of alien threats. Thanks for the childhood memories, Gil. RIP.
You and I are of similar ages. I was also very young when I watched those shows. I know I watched them in the afternoon so they had to be reruns. As a young kid enamored with Star Wars, I wanted to watch anything in the sci-fi genre that had to do with outer space.
That's the one I remember. He also played Tarzan in some of the early movies, iirc.
It is remarkable how much great science fiction came out of the early pulp books look like Amazing Stories.
When I was a young lad my buddies and I would go to our local theater to watch the feature Saturday matinee movie ( the scariest one I ever watched was ( "I Was a Teenage Werewolf " starring Michael Landon ) But before the feature the preview would be the latest Buck Rogers serial episode.
I remember the vampire episode well. I've seen it as an adult and it's really hokey, but as a kid it was pretty scary - the creepy space station and more and more of the crew getting turned into vampires, and finally Wilma became a vampire and went after Buck. And of course he found a way to kill the vampire (a "Vorvon" or something like that) and everybody returns to normal. Scary but fun stuff if you were a kid. I remember that Jack Palance was a villain in one episode (some kind of alien cult leader who wanted to lead his cult on an invasion of Earth), and did a pretty good job.
Jack Palance - Tar Heel
