Buck Rogers, Dangerous Davies

Sunday, January 4th, 1981

Buck Rogers @ 7pm
Dangerous Davies: The Last Detective @ 9pm

Buck Rogers. According to my TV Diary Buck Rogers 'began on RTE2' which comes as a shock to me as I had assumed the show was airing in Ireland before January 1981. According to Roger Fulton's Encyclopedia Of TV Science Fiction the show made it's ITV debut in August 1980 (a full year after first airing on NBC!). RTE2 obviously waited a while longer before jumping on the Buck bandwagon.

I wonder did the start with the first movie? ITV started with the second movie (because the first one had received a limited cinema release) so it was years before I saw Buck's first adventure in the 25th Century. Like many kids, I suppose, I assumed his first adventure was the one with Jack Palance and all those Slave Girls.

David Groh made a great impression on me, also. And I remember wishing (as a kid) that he had been part of the regular series. He and Buck were a good team, I felt, and it would have been fun to watch them squabble/compete on a weekly basis. I wonder did they ever consider having him in the regular cast?

I loved Twiki, of course and - strangely - had no strong feelings towards Erin Gray or Pamela Hensley. I spent the '70s having crushes on TV babes like Farrah Fawcett, so - I guess - the bar was set pretty high at an early age!!

Dangerous Davies. It's funny to re-read my TV diary and see shows that I have no memory of (Stainless Steel and Christmas Spirts) and then see one that I never forgot. This was a detective story unlike any detective story I had ever seen on TV and I absolutely loved it. I have remembered it fairly vividly over the past 28 years and I would love to see it again. It's amazing how some things make a great impression on you.

Bernard Cribbins is/was a great leading may and I remember the whole affair as being rather downbeat.