Buck Rogers and Doctor Who--Contrasting Sci-Fi Heroes

Last Saturday two great sci-fi icons and figures from my past appeared on TV. Turner Classic Movies began running episodes from the 1938 Republic serial Buck Rogers. (They usually show movie serials on Sat. mornings, which is when they were shown in the movie theatres back when my father was a kid.) Most people now know Buck Rogers as a 1980s TV series, but the comic strip and serial were first. That night BBC America had the American premiere of the new series of Doctor Who.

These series both star time-travelling heroes, both vastly different in terms of their problem-solving techniques, and were big parts of my childhood and adoloscence. Buck Rogers was a comic strip started in the late 1920s about a daring pilot trapped in suspended animation for 500 years to emerge in the 25th century. He bravely fights against Killer Kane, a futuristic gangster who has taken over the world, a sort of combination of Hitler and Al Capone. Local Philadelphia station Channel 17 used to run episodes on weekday afternoons with a kiddie TV host named Wee Willie Webber. I remember my uncle Jim in Boston had a big book of the original strips that fascinated me and my parents later bought me a copy for Christmas.

I first encountered Doctor Who, the long-running British sci-fi series about a Time Lord and his companions roaming the universe in a time-space machine disguised as a police box, when Phila. public TV station Channel 12 showed episodes starring Tom Baker, the fourth actor to play the role. The trick of the series was that Time Lords can regenerate themselves into an entirely new body so a new actor would take over the role when the previous one was tired of it. That way the show continued for several decades. My relationship with the Doctor continued into my move to NYC when I left college and became an adult. I actually joined a Doctor Who fan club called UNYT--named after the military branch of the British government the Doctor was allied with.

I even attended a Doctor Who convention in Valley Forge, PA, and met Doctor Who number 3 Jon Pertwee and several Doctor Who companions. I remember they showed episodes all day long. There was a Doctor Who event in Brooklyn College when I lived near there and I got Tom Baker and Colin Baker (Doctor number 6)'s autograph. My ultimate Doctor Who experience was at Infinicon, a weird convention held in NYC at the Institute of Ethical Culture that UNYT pariticipated in. I served as guest escort for George Takei,Sulu of Star Trek, and met Patrick Troughton (Doctor number 2) and Peter Davison (Doctor number 5).

The main difference in these two is Buck Rogers uses his daring and muscle to get out of a situation and the Doctor uses his mind. Both are infinitely brave. The Doctor thinks nothing of facing Daleks, Cybermen, Ice Warriors, or other invincible foes as does Buck Rogers, but the Doctor doesn't even have a raygun like Rogers, just a sonic screwdriver.

The new Doctor Who with Matt Smith is really gripping. So far we've seen two episodes and there is a weird story arc involving the Doctor's death and a little girl inside an Apollo astronaut suit. Amy Pond may be pregnant and her husband Rory doesn't know if his wife loves him or the Doctor, plus maybe we'll finally discover who Dr. River Song is--I think she's Amy's baby grown up from the future. Buck Rogers is up to episode four at TCM and not quite as exciting. Buck is trapped in the open country between Killer Kane's city and the Hidden City where the forces of freedom are keeping themselves. He is protecting Prince Tallen, an emisary from Saturn.

Ready for the New Doctor

I finally caught up with Doctor Who, viewing the last David Tennant episode which was broadcast on BBC America over New Years weekend with a marathon of Tenant. I DVRed them and just watched the second installment of The End of Time. I am now ready for the new 11th Doctor and have seen almost every episode available in this country. My relationship with the Doctor is a long and twisted one with a major break-up, but now we are back together.

My first exposure to Doctor Who was via the Philadelphia public television station WHYY which showed Tom Baker episodes on Saturday afternoons. Howard Da Silva did voice-overs explaining what had happened in the previous segments. I was in high school and was immediately intrigued by the humor and infinite possibilties of a series which could go anywhere in time or space and a hero who could regenerate whenever the lead actor was tired of playing him. Baker was dryly funny and not your typical action hero--the Doctor used his brains rather than his muscles or martial arts.

I have met several of the doctors. There was a Baker-Baker event at Brooklyn College when I was living not far from there. Tom Baker and Colin Baker, the sixth doctor, appeared and signed autographs. I also attended a massive Doctor Who convention in Valley Forge, Pa. in the mid-80s which featured Jon Pertwee (second Doctor), and several companions. Continual episodes were shown all day. I got the closest to Peter Davison (fifth Doctor) and Patrick Troughton (second Doctor) at the convention in which I was a guest escort for George Takei of Star Trek (See previous blog where I encountered him again on the subway). I remember asking Troughton what it was like to act with Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh--he played in their productions of Antony and Cleopatra and Caesar and Cleopatra.

I blush to admit it but at one time I was actually a member of the UNYT, the NYC-based Doctor Who fan club.

Tom Baker was always my favorite, perhaps because he was my first doctor. But dreamboat David Tenant has taken his place in my nerdy heart. I look forward to seeing his Hamlet on TV.

I lost interest in the show when Slyvester McCoy took over. Nothing against McCoy who is a fine actor--I recently saw him play the fool opposite Sir Ian McKellen's King Lear at BAM. The scripts lacked tension and the whole series seemed tired. There was an attempt to bring it back with a pretty lame TV movie which I couldn't even watch all the way through. Then Russel T. Davis rejuvenated the series several years later and here we are.

Riding the Subway with Mr. Sulu

Friday morning I was riding the subway to work and George Takei, Mr. Sulu from the original Star Trek series got on at 42nd Street. I wasn't sure if it was him since he was wearing dark glasses, but as soon as he started talking to the man with him--I assume it was his partner whom he married in California before the hateful Prop. 8 was passed--I recognized his voice.

"We need to get off at 8th Street--NYU," he said. That was my stop. I figured I would say something to him when we all left the train so he wouldn't have to deal with all the people in the car who would recognize him.

I had a perfect reason to say hello other than just "I'm a big dorky Trekkie fan." About 23 years ago I was a volunteer guest escort--no, not that kind--at a sci-fi convention where Takei was a guest speaker. At the time I was a member of UNYT—The New York-based Doctor Who fan club. Yes, I admit it, God help me. I forget what the initials stood for, but it was a variation on UNIT, the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce that dealt with extraterrestrial stuff in the Doctor Who series. Anyway, the group was involved with organizing this event which took place at the Ethical Cultural Society on the Upper West Side. Also in attendance were the second Doctor Who (Patrick Troughton) and the fifth Doctor Who (Peter Davison) and some British horror movie queen named Caroline Munro.

I wound up serving as George’s guest escort when a friend of mine who was coordinating speaker relations grabbed me at the convention—it was called Infinicon—and told me Sulu’s original guest escort failed to pick him up at the hotel. It turned out the guy overslept. What would I have to do?, I asked. Here’s his schedule, she said, all you have to do is take him from event to event. First he gives his talk and question and answer session, then he signs autographs for an hour, then take him to lunch, there’s a talent show tonight, then tomorrow a special luncheon for people who have paid extra. So I said okay. He was a lot of fun and it was great to be with him as people on the street recognized him.

I haven’t been to one of these things in a long time. Comic Con and the other comic-book conventions I’ve been to aren’t really the same thing; they are too big or they don’t concentrate on intimate interaction between stars of old sci-fi shows and the fans. I used to go all the time. During the course of my convention-going, I met or saw most of the crew of the original Enterprise, most of the Doctor Whos, several of his companions, Jonathan Harris (Dr. Smith from Lost in Space) and Judy from the same show, Joyce Randolph from the Honeymooners, Dawn Wells from Gilligan’s Island, some cast members from V and Blake’s Seven, Adam West (the original Batman from the 1960s series which was my favorite TV show), and Chewbacca from Star Wars.

It would be fun now to go to one, but these days the cons are either enormous media whore shows like Comic Con with little interaction or they are rinky-dink things with D-List people like wrestling stars or Mason Reese (the former commercial child star who looked like a tiny old man) or Larry Storch or Bill Daly from I Dream of Jeannie, The Bob Newhart Show, and Match Game sitting at tables and selling their autographs from $10.

When the train got to 8th Street, Takei and his partner were not making to get up. But I had to in order to make it to work. Should I tell him “I was listening in and heard you say you should get off at this stop”? Instead I just shook his hand and said “George, I just wanted to say hi. Twenty years ago, I was your guest escort at a convention.” He smiled and said “Is that right?” The doors were opening and I said “It’s nice to see you” and left. He was still on the train. There’s wasn’t time for me to say “I thought you wanted to get off here.” So I am guilty of making George Takei miss his stop, I guess he wasn’t a very good helmsman. Get it?