Time of the Hawk

I just don't agree with the comment of "cosmowarriorzero". These episodes were totally boring with very slow actions and characters who are always speaking too much, it is like never ending!

Anyway, I can understand the comments and themes referred in these episodes can bring their emotional parts. But it is just too much!

Note : to see Hawk and Koori wearing that kind of helmet made with feathers is just really funny! Buck Rogers is a TV series which makes you feel nostalgia by the way the actors plays and the look (Erin Gray is particularly style). Buck Rogers is totally "vintage" today, that's why it has a cool potential.

I honestly think this is one of the best-written and -acted episodes in the series. Buck and Hawk forge a bond during their travel through harsh environment trying to save Koori. Hawk is sort of similar to an American Indian and has his own honor and nobility. Thom really owned the character and I have fond memories of watching the show back in the day. I can recommend checking out the blu-ray edition, it's remastered and pretty much movie-theater quality, well worth the investment. The show may benefit from a reboot at some point, but ZOMG Erin Gray is just ridiculously hot. It would be hard to find an actress that impresses me as much as she did unless they were able to get Vanessa Kirby for the role.

The half-bird Hawk returns home in planet Throm with his wife Koori and finds his family and friends slaughtered by human pirates and promises to his god that he will kill every human he finds. Meanwhile, Buck Rogers, Wilma Deering and Twiki leave Earth to work in the spaceship Searcher that is looking for people that left Earth before the nuclear holocaust. When they see a derelict freighter in the space, Buck and Wilma find all the crew dead and the captain tells them that Hawk was the attacker. Buck leaves the Searcher to seek out Hawk and bring him to human justice. But the proud Hawk does not recognize the human justice and has a showdown with Buck.

"Time of the Hawk" is the first episode of the Second Season of "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century". Now Buck, Wilma and Twiki left New Chicago; Dr. Huer and Dr. Theopolis left the show; and Twiki changed his voice and does not chirp anymore. New characters have joined the show, including the boring Dr. Goodfellow and the interesting Hawk. However, there are no beautiful guest starlets in this first episode. The plot of "Time of the Hawk" is good and Thom Christopher seems to be a good actor. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Time of the Hawk"

Buck and Wilma are crew members of The Searcher, a craft designed to travel the farthest reaches of space in order to look for the lost tribes of Earth (shades of Battlestar Galactica there, methinks).

Their first adventure aboard The Searcher begins when they discover a damaged freighter that has been attacked by a bird-man named Hawk, who has vowed to destroy all mankind after his people have been slaughtered by humans.

Buck is given the task of bringing Hawk to justice, but finds the bird-man a more than worthy opponent.

It is easy to see why Season 2 only lasted for 13 episodes: Buck (Gil Gerard) looks (even more) out of shape; there is much less in the way of camp humour and garish disco-fashion; the action has shifted from Earth to an exploratory deep-space craft (exploring strange new worlds, seeking out new life, new civilisations, and boldly going where no one has gone before!), which limits the variety between shows; there is an annoying new character in the form of Dr.Goodfellow (Wilfred Hyde White), a bumbling old fool, and creator of Crichton, the most annoying robot in TV history (with the possible exception of Metal Mickey); and worst of all, Twiki has been given a silly voice!!!

At least Erin Gray still looks stunning as Wilma Deering (wearing a nifty little sailor style dress that shows off her gorgeous pins), but even she is not enough to prevent the show from rapidly becoming rather stale.

That said, once it gets going, Time of the Hawk is a pretty decent adventure to start the second season, with some nice FX, a decent plot, and the introduction of Thom Christopher as Hawk, one of the shows finest characters. Christopher and Gerard make great adversaries, sharing some fun space action (with Hawk's memorable bird-ship attacking Buck's star-fighter), and also squaring off against a gang of silly criminals.

The episode is not that great. It was part of star Gil Gerard's desire to make the show less violent in its second season. He's still there, beauty Erin Gray returns as Wilma. There is now less violence ( no actually showing Hawk's kind getting killed or him killing others), less humor and Buck is now more accustomed to the 25th century-- he uses far less 20th century slang and makes fewer curious observations about life in century 25. Oh and the two characters are now on a giant ship cruising deep through space. They no longer fight space battles in one-man ships unlike the previous season.

About Hawk being dynamic-- in what way? He committed tremendous ( again unseen) acts of retaliatory violence. The actor ( with the weird spelling of Tom) is so pancake-flat in the part he brought the show down. He obviously did not want to play this silly looking deadly character and was bound by some, say, studio contract.

Beauty and sex symbol Barbara Luna is also in this but she horribly does not look that great here and she is wasted. She should have played an earth woman on the series. Would have been way greater.