"I must be won in order to be wed."
REVIEW: Princess Ardala is back! My memory of this show was that she was in it all the time, but it's not true. She only appeared in four stories across the first season and that's it. Which makes her every appearance all the more precious. Now, this isn't a perfect episode by any means - there's a lot of padding in the middle with an extended roller skate number and Buck driving around the California countryside looking for an ally we've never heard of, oh, and they've got to stop ending the show on a dumb cooking joke - but it has a lot going for it. Principally Ardala.
The episode opens on a strange glowing object attacking Earth - they call it a pyramid, but the effects aren't too sure about that - and as it turns out, it's an artifact found and hacked by the Draconians, impervious to Terran weapons and able to destroy as much or as little as they want of Earth's cities. The Emperor thinks victory is in the bag, but Ardala sees it as a chance to force Buck Rogers to marry her. It's not exactly going to be a great opportunity for HIM, as it doesn't exactly make him emperor once the old man dies or steps down (which the episode suggests is soon). Rather, he'd be a dog on a leash, the "wedding ring" a choker that Ardala could use at any time to pop his head off. That's why it could never work, even if there's chemistry between the two of them (which helps Buck put on an act, though he drugs her before they ever consummate, so finish your drink, friends!). Her culture is just too ruthless. We understand why she needs him - her mate needs to be the most genetically perfect human male she can find, and Buck's genome hasn't been weakened by a nuclear catastrophe like everyone else's in this century - but Pamela Hensley also slips in some quick moments of loneliness, making her too eager to trust Buck's seeming willingness.
They've recast Kane and I'm happy with the change. Michael Ansara's more virile performance makes him less of an uncle, and more of a rival for Ardala's affections, a man who could become head of the Draconian Empire and is rather content to see the wedding plans fall apart. He's the one who lets Buck go in the end because the princess is never going to be objective where he's concerned. Of course, the key moment is when Buck defeats but refuses to kill Tigerman. This is a necessary step in the marriage ceremony (the exact rules of which Ardala continually side-steps to get what she wants, so Kane is quite right about her), and Tigerman then owes his life to Buck. When our hero needs to escape after destroying the pyramid weapon, Tigerman turns on Ardala to repay it. I like the warrior's honor here, and it gives purpose to Buck's foray outside the city and the whole character of Garedon, a Draconian engineer Buck has apparently secreted into the wilderness who may or may not be of help in finding the weapon control room. It's a pattern of mercy with Buck. In any case, I like Buck's line to her that there'll be another time. That's a promise the show keeps.
The weapons plot is really the weak spot. We don't know where it is on a two-mile-long ship (but everything important is bunched together in the staging of it), and only this engineer living as a hermit knows. But doesn't. They extract the blueprints from his mind, but then one of the writers remembered the pyramid is new tech that he wouldn't know about. Then we're told maybe it could be worked out from power usage, but we don't have time, so Buck is gonna play it by ear. He only guesses where the control room is cuz there's a guard on it (it's the only guarded room on the entire ship?!), and maybe Garedon helped with the location after all, but it's never made clear. Throw in the bit where Buck must meet Garedon alone (he promised to keep his existence on Earth secret), but still lets Twiki guilt him into bringing him along. And Twiki's been bugged, which is how Terran (and also Draconian?!) forces track them. And even though Ardala wants Buck alive, the Drac tanks are shooting at him. Like I said, this part of the plot is quite poor.
A quick word on Wilma Deering... For someone who's seen to fall for Buck in the pilot movie, and who has A KEY TO HIS APARTMENT(!), she's been a real good sport about his dalliances up 'til now. He's brought her gifts and invited her to dinner, but the show plays it like they're just friends. I thought Ardala's return would once again inflame her jealousies, but she seems more concerned with the girls the maintenance android has been letting in from time to time. For such a horny show, it sure hates to keep on the proper side of television standards and practices.
SPACE DISCO: While I haven't necessarily mentioned it, the show often references hot tubs and saunas, which is a very 70s thing (my grandparents even built a small sauna in their house then). Ardala ramps things up with a light-show massage. Every reception thrown for Ardala must include a dance number, in this case, it's a roller skate act. America's love affair with motorcycle movies in the 70s translates to Buck having one refurbished and driving it through the wilderness. He also mentions OPEC, which would have been on everyone's mind during the gas shortage crisis, though for a man from 1987 less so. Twiki dances, but it's to Meatloaf.
STAR GAZING: Michael Ansara takes over from Henry Silva as Kane - genre fans best know him as the Klingon Kang. Alfred Ryder (Garedon) is also a TOS alumn; he loved a salt vampire in The Man Trap. The new Tigerman is H.B. Haggerty, a pro football player turned wrestler. He'd been in all sorts of projects that needed an imposing figure, from Foxy Brown to The Muppet Movie, even an early Jackie Chan flick, Battle Creek Brawl.
ALL THIS HAS HAPPENED BEFORE: Calling the weapon a "pyramid" evokes the original Battlestar, indeed from which were poached the hovercraft tanks. Is that weapons control chamber the same bit of set that was in the power plant in The Plot to Kill a City? In a bit of a reversal, Ansara's Kane looks a lot like Olmos's Admiral Adama on the new BSG.
REWATCHABILITY: Medium-High - Parts of it don't work, but the important parts (Ardala, Kane and Tigerman) give it a big bump.
Comments
The pyramid ship reminded me of the Tholian vessel from TOS; I kept expecting it to start forming a web around Earth.