Theme Song of the Week: Space Rangers (1993)

Theme Song of the Week: Hard Time on Planet Earth (1989)

CULT MOVIE REVIEW: Big Trouble in Little China (1986)

Last Friday, I wrote here about the controversial Dino De Laurentiis version of Flash Gordon (1980), a genre film concerning a dashing American hero uniting an alien world, Mongo and bringing justice to the oppressed citizens there.  

Another one of my all-time favorite cult movies is John Carpenter’s Big Trouble in Little China (1986), a film set entirely on Earth but which nonetheless shares some important qualities with Flash Gordon. 

Specifically, Big Trouble in Little China involves an American hero treading into a mysterious, non-Western world where he feels like an “outsider.”  That world, in this case, is not literally another planet, but rather the mystical and dangerous world of Chinese black magic. 

So once more, movie audiences get an on-screen representative of “us” countenancing a strange land and strange customs, but Big Trouble in Little Chinaleverages tremendous humor not only from the peculiarities of this culture clash, but from the rather dramatic presentation of the American hero in question.   

To wit, Kurt Russell’s truck-driving, self-important protagonist, Jack Burton, is a swaggering, blundering John Wayne-voiced blow-hard.   He’s Jack Blurtin’, so-to-speak.

And yet Jack also reveals (in the words of the screenplay) “great courage” under stress, and his heart is always (well, almost always…) in the right place.  I have always maintained that the accident-prone but intrinsically heroic Burton represents director Carpenter’s most positive silver screen depiction of American dominance upon the world stage, especially compared with the perspectives showcased in the dystopian Escape from New York (1981) and the 1980s social critique, They Live (1988).

I also wrote in my book The Films of John Carpenter that “it’s all in the reflexes,” to quote Jack. So Big Trouble in Little China serves as Carpenter’s almost reflexive tribute to the style of Chinese martial arts films.  Thus, this is a movie that rests largely on Carpenter’s unimpeachable film-making instincts, his fully-developed directorial muscle or chops.  The action sequences — particularly an early one set in a Chinatown alley — represent a visual tour de force.   The final battle in the film is one of the most giddy, over-the-top, visually-dynamic set-pieces put to celluloid in the 1980s, and a high point for the fantasy/action genre.

But here’s the big secret in Little China: the film is much more than action too.

What is Big Trouble in Little China, then?   Well, the film is one part culture clash, one part genre pastiche and all camp humor. Writing for the Village Voice, Scott Foundas suggested Big Trouble was a “far more enjoyable mash-up of classic Westerns, Saturday-morning serials, and Chinese wu xia than any of the Indiana Jones movies, with Kurt Russell in full bloom as Carpenter’s de rigueur hard-drinkin’, hard-gamblin’, wise-crackin’ loner hero—a bowling-alley John Wayne.”

And as critic Richard Corliss wrote in Time Magazine (“Everything New is Old Again”), Big Trouble in Little China“offers dollops of entertainment, but it is so stocked with canny references to other pictures that it suggests a master’s thesis that moves.”

And boy, how Big Trouble in Little China moves.  It never stops moving, in fact.

This is one frenetically-paced spectacular, and the feeling of unfettered delight Carpenter engenders simply from the film’s manic sense of speed is a remarkable thing.  One scene near the climax that begins with a close-up of a hammer pounding an alarm bell escalates to such intense velocity that your heart threatens to leap out of your chest.  And naturally,the moment ends on a joke.  After running a gauntlet of monsters, bullets, and opponents, Jack Burton is nearly undone…by a red traffic light.

Frankly, I’ve never understood why so many critics rejected this film upon its release in the summer of 1986, but as I always argue: don’t bet against John Carpenter in the long-run.  Big Trouble in Little China has ably survived the slings and arrows of bad reviews and stood the test of time to emerge one of the most beloved cult movies of the 1980s. 

I think this is likely so because of Jack Burton.  Other films have been set in distinctive “underworlds,” and many movies have been set against the backdrop of Chinese myth or legend.

But there is only one Jack Burton.

“Everybody relax. I’m here.”

When his friend, Wang Chi (Dennis Dun) is unable to re-pay a bet, surly truck driver Jack Burton (Russell) tags along to the airport to pick up Wang’s betrothed, Miao Yin (Suzee Pai).  Unfortunately, the green-eyed beauty is abducted right out from under the duo by a Chinese gang known as the “Lords of Death.”  Miao Yin is then delivered into the custody of an ancient warlord and cursed spirit called Lo Pan (James Hong).  Lo Pan believes that if he marries and sacrifices a green-eyed woman, he will be rendered flesh again, after two-thousand years as an insubstantial ghost.

Jack and Wang pursue the gang to Chinatown and become embroiled in an all-out gang war.  Jack’s parked truck is stolen from an alleyway, and the theft draws the skeptical American further into the realm of Chinese black magic.  Soon, Jack teams-up with an elder sorcerer, Egg Shen (Victor Wong) and a crusading lawyer, Gracie Law (Kim Cattrall) to stop Lo Pan and recover Wang’s would-be bride and his own ride.  This quest takes Jack deep underground, into the Hell of Upside Down Sinners, into Lo-Pan’s secret lair, and into fierce battle with monsters, warriors and ghosts of all shapes and sizes.

“May the wings of liberty never lose a feather.”

As the The Village Voice review notes, Big Trouble in Little China can be interpreted as an example of the Chinese literary and film form known as the Wu xia, or simply “wuxia.”  

In stories of this type, a young hero survives and overcomes tragedy in his life, undertakes a heroic quest, and ultimately emerges as a great fighter and an adult, all while maintaining a strict code of honorable behavior.  To state the matter broadly, “wuxia” is the Chinese equivalent of the western-based “heroic journey.”  It’s a rite-of-passage tale, and one that heavily features a romantic component.

Big Trouble in Little Chinaconforms with many details of the established wuxia formula if and only if the viewer considers Wang Chi the film’s prime hero figure.  Wang loses his bride-to-be, undertakes the quest to save her, and becomes – during the course of the film – a real hero.   Each time he fights, Wang becomes stronger until, by film’s end, he is actually an equal to Lo Pan’s invincible minions, the Storms.  

Of course, the quality that makes Big Trouble in Little China so unusual as wuxia and as action film is that the capable hero – the man on the quest and with all the heroic capabilities – is but a sidekick or second fiddle to the star, the bumbling, accident-prone Burton. 

Thus, in some significant but very funny and subversive way, Big Trouble in Little Chinaquestions and teases long-standing Hollywood assumptions that America and Americans must always stand at the center of the cinematic action, and must always play the “hero.”  This film suggests there’s another tradition and source of inspiration for cinematic adventure too.  

After all, George Lucas raided the film oeuvre of Akira Kurosawa to create Star Wars, so here John Carpenter pays tribute to Eastern-produced martial arts fantasies and their unique style of heroic storytelling. 

Again and again, then, Big Trouble in Little China invites us to view our “hero” Burton in distinctly funny and non-traditional terms.  He faces the implacable bad guys with bright red lip-stick marring his face, for example.  Far from striking fear in the heart of his enemies, Jack’s battle cry actually renders only himself unconscious.  At one point, we see Jack miss his intended target with a knife throw, and on several occasions he expresses fear and uncertainty about the creatures and world around him.

In spite of all this, Jack is certainly persistent and loyal and yes, heroic. So you get the feeling that, when held in contrast to the film’s Asian characters, Carpenter’s depiction of Jack charts an intriguing new global dynamic.  

Specifically, American might and bravery joins with Asian complexity for a great victory against evil.  Jack is a big and strong American, grounded in stereotypical western concepts, whereas the Asians are more introspective and ambivalent. In other words, Jack seems to live on the surface of reality; reality as his (limited) imagination weighs it. This quality enables him to see clearly “right” and “wrong.”  By comparison, the Chinese characters dwell in a more ambivalent, complicated self-doubting state; one where modernity requires them to eschew the beliefs they know to be true.

In terms of the film’s characters, the Americans in Big Trouble in Little Chinaare defined basically by what they look like and what they say.  Jack is a muscle-bound, athletic truck driver and looks every bit the traditional hero.  Gracie Law is a beautiful lawyer and simultaneously a walking parody of the old Hollywood film cliché: the lady crusader.  “I’m always poking my nose where it doesn’t belong,” she enthuses at one point, effectively defining her own purpose in the narrative.  Both Jack and Gracie boast an exaggerated sense of self-importance too.  At one point, Jack blusters into a room and says, flat-out, “Don’t worry, I’m here.”

The Eastern characters, by contrast, seemed defined…differently.  On the surface, Egg-Shen appears to be a little old man and bus driver, but in reality he is a powerful sorcerer.  Wang Chi is a skinny, diminutive man who works in his uncle’s Chinese restaurant, and yet is actually a warrior of superb skills.  The Chinese heroes seem to possess layers of self-awareness, modesty and contradiction that Jack and Gracie do not.

Kurt Russell does a mean John Wayne impersonation as Jack, and that choice underlines the film’s unique approach to heroism.  When we think of John Wayne, we think of the idealized American hero, a man from a time when “men were men” and  when morality was as plain as black and white.  But Jack Burton drives his truck into an alleyway in Chinatown in this film, and all bets are off.   Suddenly, he might as well be on another planet, just like Flash Gordon because he’s asked to countenance an ethnically diverse world where all the truths he holds dear about the nature of the universe may no longer apply.  Certainty is harder to come by.  

If John Wayne had met the moral ambiguity of the late 1970s or 1980s, perhaps he’d be Jack Burton. 

The front-and-center placement of the anachronistic John Wayne character in a drama about foreign mythology and spiritual is the very thing that makes Big Trouble in Little Chinamore than just your average adventure film, but rather a commentary on our shifting position in a globalized world.  In the 1980s, when it looked like the East (particularly Japan) was rising to eclipse America in terms of innovation and technology, along came Big Trouble in Little China to — with tongue-in-cheek — critique our place in the new world order.  

“I’m feeling a little like an outsider here,” says Jack.  “You are,” is the reply from the Chinese.  But then, as they must readily admit, the Chinese protagonists need Jack.  Their destiny rests in his “capable hands.”   He is the one they require (with his black and white views of the world?) to bring “order out of chaos.”

Jack has a lot of catching-up to do in the film in terms of understanding Chinese lore and mysticism, but in the final analysis, who ultimately takes out Lo Pan?

When Jack does save the day (because he was born ready, remember), he does so, literally, with time-worn reflexes.  Lo Pan tosses a knife at him, and Jack instinctively tosses it back, with fatal results.  When Jack states “it’s all in the reflexes”it’s a deliberate comment on America too.  Our reflex – our instinct – is to act heroically, even if we don’t always think our way fully through a problem before jumping in.  We may have to play catch up, like Jack, but when big trouble rears its head, the world counts on us to do something…and we invariably deliver.  

Moving with breathtaking speed and with ample good humor, Big Trouble in Little Chinais much smarter than it tends to get credit for.  It takes the long-standing cliché of American Exceptionalism — seen in more straightforward fashion in Flash Gordon — and both questions and re-affirms it for the age of globalism.   But if the delightful, one-of-a-kind Jack Burton – warts and all – is an insult to our traditional American images of strength and power as some film scholars insist, then, to quote the great man himself, “Go ahead…insult me.” 

Because when the “chips are down,” you can count on Jack Burton.  

(Not to mention John Carpenter).

Movie Trailer: Big Trouble in Little China (1986)

Theme Song of the Week: Something is Out There (1988)

Cult-TV Blogging: Otherworld: "The Zone Troopers Build Men" (February 5, 1985)

In the second episode of the short-lived 1985 cult series Otherworld, “The Zone Troopers Build Men,” young Trace Sterling (Tony O’Dell) is conscripted into the Zone Troopers, and sent off to basic training.  


His worried parents attempt to rescue him from a life-time of involuntary service, but Trace realizes something important about himself at the 13-week boot camp: the training he receives is valuable.  It changes him.

As the episode opens, Trace is failing at his new school in a small, out-of-the-way agricultural community.  He just can’t get very excited about a high-school exam concerning…corn.  Trace’s low grades result in a “yellow warning,” meaning that the Zone Troopers are free to break into the Sterling house and take away Trace in the thick of night.  

As Mr. Sterling insightfully notes “this culture is not as permissive regarding teens as 1980s America.”

Indeed.  

Soon, the sheltered Trace is undergoing rigorous training at the draconian hands (and torch…) of merciless Perel Sightings (Mark Lenard), the equivalent of a drill-sergeant.  But where this new Z.I.T. (Zone Trooper in Training) differs philosophically from his mentor is in weighing the importance of compassion and loyalty.  Perel sees such  qualities as weaknesses, but Trace knows they are strengths.   

On graduation day, Trace demonstrates his compassion – and independence from the Zone Troopers – by refusing to destroy several rebel encampments from the cockpit of his “vampire” air-craft.  He betrays Sightings, but Sightings allows Trace to escape, having learned, perhaps, to respect the young man.

In short, I’ve always considered “The Zone Troopers Build Men” to be one of Otherworld’s finest hours, in part because of the strong presence of Star Trek’s Mark Lenard in a significant role, but also because it offers a rather three-dimensional examination of the so-called military mentality.  

Military service is about being part of a hierarchy and following orders, but too often people forget true service is also about becoming a fully-realized, capable individual…one who knows when orders are wrong, and will do something about that fact.  


Trace clearly benefits from the skills he learns in the Zone Troopers, but that fact doesn’t change the truth that the organization – no matter its revered “Hall of Heroes” – takes its marching orders from a corrupt and cruel state.  Trace is able to separate the commendable ethos of the Zone Troopers (“proficiency, pride and prowess“) from the unfit command structure that deploys it.

This is undeniably Trace’s best episode in the series because the young man takes responsibility for his actions (and failures in school) and emerges “with a deeper understanding” of what it means to commit to something.  “The Zone Troopers Build Men” is about Trace finally growing up, and about Hal’s recognition of that fact about his son.  

Written by Coleman Luck and directed by Richard Compton, “The Zone Troopers Builds Men” also does a fine job of reminding viewers that “this is not the United States.  They don’t look at things the way we do,” as Hal Sterling comments.  

In other words, there is still enough alien about this world to distinguish it from home.  Like holographic tests in high school, and computerized lockers that “talk” to student.  Or a “combat” robot that nearly offs Trace (but which looks kind of ridiculous, and must be hidden with some manipulation of color in the frame.)

All that established, the budget is clearly stressed here.  The Zone Troopers drive contemporary mini-vans, and the vampire aircraft – designed for “psycho terror” campaigns – are clearly pretty flimsy little gliders.  You’d think this army would be better equipped.

On the creepy and oddball side, this episode features a wonderful and bizarre interlude in which Trace is led through a Zone Trooper museum, and there are all of these weird, totally-unexplained wax figures — heroes of the Unification Wars — displayed there.  


You get the feeling the creators of the series had some interesting history in mind there, and I love when Otherworld heads off on these unexplored weird tangents.

Next week: “Paradise Lost.” 

Movie Trailer: Flash Gordon (1980)

Collectible of the Week: Mad Scientist Dissect-an-Alien Kit (Mattel; 1986)

This Mattel toy from 1986 was my son Joel’s toy “pick” from The Mad Monster Party in Uptown Charlotte last weekend.  

His eyes fell-upon this vintage toy, and he knew he had to have it.  

And what’s more, he knew his Dad would purchase it for him…

This strange 1980s-era toy encourages the intrepid young scientist to “yank out alien organs dripping in glowing ALIEN BLOOD!“  

The Mad Scientist Dissect-An-Alien Kit box also relates that inside the alien body there are “12 body organs” and “only one way they’ll fit together.”  In other words, “it’s the slimiest puzzle on Earth.”

The bug-eyed scientist featured on the box also opines “Yeech! What an oozy operation! Can you make all the organs fit inside the alien?” 

You know, it’s actually much harder than it looks…

The Mad Scientist Dissect-an-Alien Kit includes: “alien, 12 alien organs, Glow-in-the-dark Alien Blood compound, plastic scalpel, Operating Mat, Alien body bag, and a Journal of Mad Experiments with Instructions.“

The interesting thing about the Operating Mat is that the colorful background names all twelve of the alien’s unusual organs.  

You’ve got the “veinausea,” “heartipus,” “liverot,” “spleenius,” “mad bladder,” “stumuckus,” “blooblob,” “fleshonius,” “branium,” “gutball” and “lungross.” 

The toy also comes replete with a short comic-book describing the scientist’s discovery of the alien creature.

Joel and I have played with the toy a couple of times already (after washing it off, because, in my wife’s words, it was “mega-sticky”) and the best part, after inserting all the organs, is bandaging up the poor old alien with a giant plastic band-aid.  It’s ouchless.

Mattel, the makers of the Mad Scientist Dissect-an-Alien Kit also released (and sold separately) some Alien Blood Monster Kits (“Squeeze Em! Alien blood oozes from their eyes, mouth or nose!“)

Now where am I can going to find those for Joel?!

Starman TV series lands on DVD in one week…

Yesterday, I announced the impending arrival of a 1970s cult-tv series, Ghost Story,  on DVD and today I want to remind sci-fi fans that Starman: The Complete Series lands in the same format on April 3rd.  

Based on the 1984 film from  director John Carpenter and starring Jeff Bridges and Karen Allen, the TV spin-off of Starman starred Robert Hays as the titular alien.  His son, Scott, was played by Christopher Daniel Barnes, and Erin Gray assumed Allen’s role of Jenny Hayden for a special two-part episode entitled “Starscape.”

Starman aired on ABC in 1986 and 1987 for twenty-two episodes, and was a series squarely in the familiar mold of The Fugitive (1963 – 1967), The Incredible Hulk (1978 – 1981) or even The Phoenix (1982).

In other words, our heroes were on the run from a hapless/dogged pursuer, in this case government agent George Fox (Michael Cavanaugh), and each week Starman and his son would interface with normal Americans in need of help as they attempted to remain free.  In search of Jenny Hayden, Starman would not only help people in need with his unearthly powers, he also learned more of what it meant to be a human being.

I have not seen this TV series in 25 years, but I remember two things about it.  First, the format was absolutely uninspiring, as were the individual stories.  The science-fiction elements were pretty minimal, and the “man on the run” elements were primary.

But beyond that, the Starman series possessed an almost magical sweetness in terms of how it played, particularly in terms of Hays’ central performance.   I remember liking the show quite a bit, even though I hated to see yet another genre program in The Fugitive mode.  I definitely look forward to seeing the series again after a quarter century.

Here’s the link to buy Starman: The Complete Series on Amazon.

Cult-TV Flashback #151: Buck Rogers in the 25th Century: "The Guardians" (January 29, 1981)

The second season of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century is not generally high-regarded among fans. In its sophomore sortie, the Glen Larson series eliminated the characters of Dr. Huer, Dr. Theopolis and the Draconians, downplayed Buck’s (Gil Gerard) strong sense of fish-out-of-water humor, and moved Buck from sexy secret agent work on Earth to a deep space assignment aboard the Earth ship Searcher. These format changes cast the new Buck Rogers rather firmly in the mold of Star Trek or Space: 1999 with the new series acting as a vehicle for “civilization of the week” stories. 

In that particular format, success or failure rests largely on how well interesting and likable main characters interact with intriguing or convincing alien cultures. The Fantastic Journey (1977), for example, got the former aspect of that alchemy right (the likable main characters), but had a difficult time coming up with good stories, and original alien cultures to explore. In broad terms, this was the very problem with the second season of Buck Rogers. Episodes that involved mischievous dwarves, (“Shgoratchx!), or backwards-aging men spray-painted gold (“The Golden Man”) failed to impress or persuade either mainstream audiences or die-hard sci-fi fans. Some second season episodes were better, including the dynamic “The Satyr” (reviewed here), a show that pinpointed a great “alien” metaphor for alcoholism and its impact on families. 

The subject of this cult-tv flashback, “The Guardians” may not work as effectively as “The Satyr” on a metaphorical level, but I still estimate it’s one of the best episodes of Buck Rogers’ second season, in part because it deploys a tried-and-true Star Trek technique for better developing the dramatis personae.

On Star Trek, an alien disease or weapon was often utilized to examine emotional aspects of the characters that they normally keep hidden. “The Naked Time” or “The Naked Now” are two such notable examples.  In those episodes, a disease that mimicked alcohol intoxication “exposed” the underneath characteristics of our favorite Starfleet officers. The character revelations were sometimes funny, sometimes extremely moving. 

That general idea informs “The Guardians,” only an alien artifact is the catalyst for the character reveals.

Here, Buck and his new friend Hawk (Thom Christopher) investigate a “Terra Class satellite.” Although the exploration of the planet is supposedly “strictly routine,” Buck and Hawk soon hear a distant bell ringing over the wind’s howl. They follow the noise and discover that the bell tolls for Janovus XXVI, an old man now on his death bed. This ancient “Guardian” informs Buck that he has been waiting for Captain Rogers for over five hundred years. Now, he must pass on to Buck – “The Chosen One,” an ancient green Pandora’s Box. This jade artifact must be transported to the old man’s unnamed successor and only a person of both “the past and the present” (like Buck) can get it to its destination successfully. 

That night, Buck sleeps in proximity to the jade box and dreams of his life on Earth. In particular, he experiences a vision of his mother, one from the eve of his disastrous mission on Ranger 3. After the box is brought back to the Searcher, it begins to have strangely deleterious effects on the ship and crew. The ship inexplicably goes off course and makes a setting for the edge of the galaxy.

 This trajectory especially concerns Lt. Devlin (Paul Carr), since he is due to be married on Lambda Colony in only a few days. 

When Admiral Asimov (Jay Garner) is exposed to the box, he imagines his crew…starving to death on the long journey in the void from the edge of the galaxy to Lambda. When Wilma (Erin Gray) is affected by the box, she sees herself as a hopeless blind woman wandering the corridors of Searcher alone. Then, in a matter of an hour, Wilma is blinded in real life, and realizes her vision was prophetic. Even Hawk is affected, and he experiences an emotional moment with his dead mate, Koori (Barbara Luna). 

As the Searcher reaches the edge of the galaxy, Buck realizes the box must be passed on to a Guardian, a “saintly figure” seen throughout many cultures and on many worlds. When a Guardian does not possess the box, chaos ensues, and that sense of chaos explains a lot of Earth’s violent history. Buck realizes that the Time Guardian is the very one that they now must seek… 

By and large, Buck Rogers is a pretty light show, a fact which distinguishes it from the original Battlestar Galactica or Space: 1999. There’s often a great deal of humor on Buck, and a tremendous amount of physical action too. In some sense, “The Guardian” showcases how the series could have approached more serious sci-fi storytelling.

 This episode is not without flaws (and the ending looks cheap…), but the crew member visions of people starving to death and going blind are authentically disturbing. I remember watching the program for the first time in 1981 and feeling pretty jolted by Asimov’s vision of a crew dying from hunger…and looking like zombies.  This moment resonates, and is probably the strongest in the show, despite the fact that Gil Gerard, in the vision, hardly looks emaciated…

“The Guardian” also delves into some pretty dark territory regarding erstwhile Lt. Devlin. While Searcher is lost and heading to the edge of the galaxy, he learns that his fiancé on Lambda Colony has died.  She was killed while out searching for him and his lost ship. Again, this bit of drama is just a bit darker than the typical Buck Rogers show, and here it all works well.  A sense of panic and anxiety builds up as “The Guardian” reaches it final act.  

Frankly, the writing for the main characters here is also amongst the best in the series’ second season. We learn how heavily Asimov carries the burden of command (imagining a future of starvation, in which he is incapable of helping his crew…), we come to understand Wilma’s fear of appearing vulnerable or being pitied. And we are reminded once more of Hawk’s utter isolation and alone-ness. 

Of all the phantasms featured in “The Guardians,” Buck’s may be the least effective. It’s great to meet a Rogers family member, since we know very little of the astronaut’s family history, and yet Buck doesn’t really do or say anything important in this dream. You’d think Buck might want to warn his Mom about the coming nuclear holocaust…tell her to go into hiding, or something. Instead, she’s the one worried about his mission. 

Buck’s dream is a bit off tonally, though it’s fun to see the special effects from “Awakening” recycled as a callback to the Buck Rogers pilot.   In toto, I would have preferred to see a dream in which Buck revealed some personal flaw, foible or fear.  Like the fact that he was afraid of never again making a meaningful connection with the world around him.  I don’t know.  But something other than an idyllic dream of lemonade and small-town Americana.  This dream tells us where he came from, but in a sense, we already know that.  Better to explore how he feels about where he was, or where he is, or where he might be headed.

Like many cult-tv programs, “The Guardians” also imagines an external force as being the guarantor of peace or war in the galaxy. On the original Twilight Zone, the great (and incredibly atmospheric) episode “The Howling Man” postulated that man would experience peace only during those intervals during which he held the Devil captive. Whenever the Devil escaped captivity, world war would occur.  

Likewise, in Star Trek’s “The Day of the Dove,” an alien monster that thrived on “hate” was believed responsible for the violent, war-like aspects of humankind’s long history. 

Here, the Guardians preserve galactic peace, but during the uncertain periods of succession, elements of the space-time continuum “jump” their tracks, and chaos is the result.  In all these situations, “fate” is determined specifically by some agency outside of man’s dominion and yet he can  still struggle to rein the situation back in during each crisis.  

Probably the best aspect of “The Guardians” is simply the fact that the episode creates a sense of terror (especially in the scene wherein the box is jettisoned from the ship…but then re-appears aboard her…) without ever focusing on a humanoid villain. There are no bad guys to be found here, at all, only a strange alien artifact that the crew of Searcher, including Buck, doesn’t quite understand. 

This conceit was very much of the Space:1999 playbook: terror is forged because man doesn’t have all the answers, and his curiosity or other emotions only create more danger. It’s nice to see Buck Rogers operate on that more intellectual, spine-tingling level, at least for a short duration. Had later episodes followed this relatively intelligent formula, the second season might today be much better perceived.

I don’t often return to the second season of Buck Rogers today because of some of the really dreadful episodes, but “Time of the Hawk,” “The Satyr” and yes, “The Guardians” reveal how the changes from season one to season two could have truly created an interesting space opera and interesting, early 1980s alternative to Star Trek.   I don’t know if the second series was too rushed, it was difficult to find good writers, or there were problems elsewhere that needed to be addressed first, but at least for “The Guardians” everything seems to come together for Buck.    

In this case “opening up Pandora’s Box” gave the sci-fi series a pretty visceral and intriguing hour.