4. Buck Rogers In The 25th Century, William “Buck” Rogers

4. Buck Rogers In The 25th Century, William “Buck” Rogers

The character Buck Rogers has been around since the late 1920s, part of a lineage of sci-fi action heroes that includes his predecessor from the early ’10s, John Carter of Mars, and his funny-pages rival from the ’30s, Flash Gordon. All three heroes are tough-minded, indomitable he-men, but they’re also ordinary earthlings, drawn by strange phenomena into outer-space adventures. Their blandness by comparison with their surroundings is by design: They’re all wish-fulfillment avatars for readers and viewers, who are invited to imagine what it would be like to be make their own way through such colorful, outsized worlds of robots, monsters, and especially beautiful alien princesses. But the ’70s version of the character, in the TV series Buck Rogers In The 25th Century, goes much too far in making Buck a blank on which viewers can superimpose their own faces. As played by Gil Gerard, he’s a non-emotive slab of beef, a charisma vortex in a world where everything but him is exotic and intense: His partner is a bird-man from a nearly extinct race. His greatest enemy is one of those predatory alien princesses. His love interest is the vivacious Erin Gray as a skilled, high-ranking military pilot (less than 15 years after Star Trek tried to be inclusive about all races and nationalities, but couldn’t give women stronger roles than space-secretary or space-nurse). And his constant companion is a smart-ass, Mel Blanc-voiced robot who frequently carries an effete artificial-intelligence diplomat around his neck. But Buck isn’t just a straight man to all these citizens of a weird new future; he’s practically a mannequin, given how rarely he changes facial expressions. Whether he’s fighting, being sold as a slave, muddling through a hallucinatory space-fever, or just listening to a long-awaited tearful confession, he’s always the same.