As much as I've fallen in love (or in love-hate) with hi-tech, my Dad completely despised it. If he was still alive today, no amount of coercion or trickery would get the man to so much as even touch a computer keyboard. However, the very current albeit slowly-building buzz over Buck Rogers' return to live-action as a new web-only series might just have been enough to change his mind.
Putting it that way, my dad really was a lot like Buck Rogers; he always was a man displaced in time. But while Dad grew up reading Philip Francis Nowlan and John F. Dille's 1928 serialized Buck Rogers comic strip and listed to his radio show exploits, my kid-self was thrilling to Glen A. Larson's prime-time sci-fi series, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.
It's kinda hard to imagine that was over thirty years ago. But just like bell-bottoms have returned to vogue, pop culture's going retro -- or Retro-Contemporary -- too. And Sci-Fi Retro -- a la Star Trek 2009-- is leading that charge.
He may not be J.J. Abrams, but in his own smaller-scoped, smaller-budgeted way, James Cawley's reaching into the past to shape the future of the Sci-Fi landscape every bit as much as the Star Trek and Lost producer. His Cawley Entertainment Company quietly secured rights in January 2009 to produce and distribute a whole new web series based on the 'Generation One' Buck Rogers franchise, and the company announced just this morning that they've begun principal photography on the show's pilot episode. Cawley's also the Executive Producer on the project, which has been dubbed 'Buck Rogers Begins' as the storyline's told from the perspective of a 22-year-old Buck, thrust from the horrors of World War One into the far-flung future of the year 2500.
But the pilot episode won't necessarily be exploring the future right off; early filming's focusing on Buck's life on his family's farm in 1920's America. It's a cool start for Buck's future, and it's getting noticed. In fact, the show's premise attracted former Buck Rogers Gil Gerard and Erin Gray (Wilma Deering) to return to the 25th Century after a 30-year hiatus to play Buck's parents.
Actor Bobby Quinn Rice will be portraying the young Buck himself, and the series will introduce several other characters that, while true to Buck's comic strip origins, won't be familiar to fans who remember Gerard's TV series or who, like myself, are enjoying Buck Rogers comic book revival, thanks to Dynamite Entertainment.
Buck Rogers Begins -- okay, let's call it by its real name, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century -- is anticipated to hit the internet by early September 2010. Cawley will just be wrapping up his first episode filming this February, but that doesn't mean he's been slacking with his visual teasing. Not one bit. Buck's first promo hit You Tube last week, and we've got it on abbracadabbling -- our first video on the comicsblog ever! Dad, this one's for you.
Follow Buck as his future unfolds in 2010 at Buck Rogers Begins - here. [Link]
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