Buck Rogers first appearance was as Anthony Rogers in a short space drama, Armageddon - 2419 AD by Philip Francis Nowlan, in the August 1928 issue of Amazing Stories. It was sufficiently popular for a sequel - The Airlords of Han - which appeared in the March 1929 issue. The rest, as Anthony Clark reports, is history…

On March 30, 1979 a Buck Rogers movie appeared in cinemas across the US, a production that aired again on TV on September 20 as the pilot episode for an intended television series. Truth be told, the ensuing shows have not fared well - time has been especially harsh on some aspects of their production - but the basic premise is not without merit.

According to the show’s original ‘bible’ document: "The year is 1987 and NASA launches the last of America's deep space probes. In a freak mishap Ranger 3 and its pilot Captain William 'Buck' Rogers are blown out of their trajectory into an orbit which freezes his life support systems and returns Buck Rogers to Earth 500 years later."

And that’s what we got - in 1987 NASA launches a manned probe on a five month trip around the solar system - the pilot, Captain William ‘Buck’ Rogers. Something goes wrong freezing Buck's life support systems are he is propelled into deep space - when the spacecraft finally returns to Earth space the year is 2491.

Buck awakens from his cryogenic sleep to find an embattled Earth that has survived a 20th Century nuclear war. Because of his pilot skills Buck becomes a member of the Earth's Defence Directorate which is headed by Dr Elias Huer and soon he finds himself part of an elite fighter squadron, headed by Colonel Wilma Deering. Among his other compatriots are Twiki - a “cute” robot who becomes Buck's friend, and DR Theopolis, a mechanoid brain which is part of Earth's Computer Council. Cue lots of flying around in space…

In the show's second season, Buck, Wilma, and Twiki join the crew of the starship Searcher. The ship, commanded by Admiral Asimov, is on a mission to locate the lost tribes of Earth - humans who fled their homeworld after the nuclear holocaust. Also aboard the Searcher is scientist DR Goodfellow and Crichton, a snobbish robot which he built. The humans are joined by Hawk, a birdman (as if he could be anything else) whose people were almost hunted to extinction by a band of murderous humans.

In its defence the show was never conceived as high art, although it did mange to reach high camp with alarming alacrity, especially during its second season. But despite its obvious failing Buck Rogers’ 70s TV excursion has its fans. All you really need to enjoy the show today is a liking for big hair and tight satin…

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