"Buck Rogers in the 25th Century"
Shgoratchx! (1981)

Director:

Vincent McEveety

Writers:

William Keys (writer)
Glen A. Larson (developer)

TV Series:

"Buck Rogers in the 25th Century" (1979)

Original Air Date:

19 March 1981 (Season 2, Episode 10)

Genre:

Adventure | Sci-Fi

Plot:

Buck and Hawk are ordered to explore an old derelict spaceship, where they find a hold full of solar bombs and a crew of seven dwarfs...

Plot Keywords:

Beautiful Woman | Buck Rogers | Spacecraft | Based On Comic Strip | Cult TV

Cast

Gil Gerard	...	Capt. William "Buck" Rogers
Erin Gray	...	Col. Wilma Deering
Thom Christopher	...	Hawk
Jay Garner	...	Admiral Asimov
Wilfrid Hyde-White	...	Dr. Goodfellow
Tommy Madden	...	General Xenos
Felix Silla	...	Twiki
Mel Blanc	...	Twiki (voice)
Alex Hyde-White	...	Ensign Moore
John Edward Allen	...	General Zoman
Tony Cox	...	Private Zedht
Billy Curtis	...	General Voomak
Harry Monty	...	General Sothoz
Spencer Russell	...	General Towtuk
Charles Secor	...	General Kuzan

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: When Crichton extends a probe from his hand into the control panel, the wire leading the probe out of his hand is plainly visible.

You just know that a series is on its last legs when they bring out the dwarfs.

Buck and Hawk explore an old derelict spacecraft that has drifted into busy space-lanes; there they find seven (yes... seven) dwarfs in charge of a cargo of dangerously deteriorating solar bombs. The little folk are transferred to The Searcher, which is used to tow the disabled craft to a safe destination where the unstable bombs can be detonated.

Once onboard The Searcher, however, the troublesome little folk cause all manner of problems, including accidentally damaging the ship's power supply, denting Crichton's positronic brain, and causing The Searcher to alter course and head straight for a star!

I've always been of the opinion that the inclusion of a dwarf can drastically improve almost any film or TV episode (particularly if the dwarf in question is adept at kung fu), but in this particular case, I think that it's a case of a few dwarfs too many. With their constant cheeky shenanigans and annoying mannerisms (all saying the same thing at the same time), I found this group of diminutive aliens irritating in the extreme—well, at least until they teamed together in an attempt to remove sexy Wilma Deering's sailor uniform.

After that, I kinda respected them a little more.

Off-think! Off-think! You know what, next time I meet Erin Gray, I might just give that a try.