A Show I Could Never Watch Again

I just found myself thinking about this venerable Glen A Larson show. I'd been following the career of actress Pamela Hensley, who'd turned up in a conversation about another series, Matt Houston, basically the predecessor of Walker, Texas Ranger. There'd been a shitload of American shows about that time, and they all worked for the police, solving crimes.

But this show was different. I remember being breathless with anticipation with each episode, mostly because I kind of fancied the female leads. I couldn't imagine what I'd do with them if they'd turned up on my doorstep, mind you, but it was a thing those days.

But when I thought back to the feature-length pilot, I found myself puzzled. I couldn't remember what happened in the show after a certain point.

Buck, played by the late Gil Gerard, had been covered in icing, then thawed out after a career of being a human bonbon for 500 years. All sweet and good.

But then it turned out that the world outside of his home city was not Earth. Not any more. It was a Cursed Earth. Nuked to death. Bit like Mega-City One from Judge Dredd, or that George Peppard movie Damnation Alley.

Chicago, his beloved home city, was a paradise for cannibalistic mutant chuds. A post-apocalyptic wasteland like all the other cities of Old Earth, where the Chicago Cubs' losing streak after 2016 had continued, and would continue, forever.

And then the people in white jumpsuits with colourful piping turned up, and the pretty one shot Buck.

And that was it. That was as far as I could remember of that show.

And I think I know why.

I don't think I could have watched the episode any further with great enthusiasm. The hero's world had already been destroyed. His new peers considered him to be a hostile alien. He'd been chased by Chicagoans who no longer knew the recipe for deep pan pizzas.

This was his Third Act Dark Night of The Soul.

Only, I don't think I ever left it.

I remember the other series, the one where they were on a ship, and there was an alien who was all feathers, and I'd never imagined that the voice of Mel Blanc could ever have been more irritating.

But this pilot sealed the fate of the show. The moment it went off the air, I forgot all but the vaguest impressions of what had happened in the series. I remember Buick fighting with some stripey guy twice his size, and white guy disco dancing with a redhead who barely fit into her sequin curtain dress, and Michael Ansara was there.

But yeah, that's all I remember - Erin Gray in a tight white jumpsuit, irritating Mel Blanc in a walking dustbin robot, space fight sound FX straight out of Battlestar Galactica.

It's not a guilty pleasure. Never has been. If I ever dream about living in such a world, I'd look at the hell they'd made of the Earth, curl up under my bunk and stop eating.