In the year 1987, NASA launched space probe Ranger III, with astronaut William "Buck" Rogers, on a 5-month trip around the solar system. However, the craft runs into a meteor storm, which disrupts its life support system and sends it into a long elliptical orbit of the Earth. In the year 2491, Ranger III again approaches the Earth, and is intercepted by the alien flagship Draconia, which is on a peace mission to Earth. Aboard the Draconia, Buck is revived by Princess Ardala and her second-in-command, Kane, whose true plan is to attack and conquer Earth. Buck is sent to Earth with a hidden homing device, which is soon discovered by Earth's Defense Directorate. After Buck convinces the humans of his true identity -- a man from the past -- he helps them to repel the Draconians' attack, with the aid of the mechanoids Dr. Theopolis and Twiki.
Most of Earth's defense squadron becomes incapacitated after ingesting poisoned food discs. Buck travels to the planet of the food's origin, Vistula, with Wilma and flight instructor Duke Danton, an old boyfriend of Wilma's. On the planet, they trace the plot to a man named Kaleel who has been selling slaves to the planet's governor and secretly building an attack fleet. With so few fighter pilots, Earth's defense force is now outnumbered 10-to-1. Buck must rescue Wilma from Kaleel's mountain fortress and destroy the fleet before they can reach Earth. This episode was initially aired as a two hour special.
Most of Earth's defense squadron becomes incapacitated after ingesting poisoned food discs. Buck travels to the planet of the food's origin, Vistula, with Wilma and flight instructor Duke Danton (Groh), an old boyfriend of Wilma's. On the planet, they trace the plot to a man named Kaleel (Palance) who has been selling slaves to the planet's governor (McDowall) and secretly building an attack fleet. With so few fighter pilots, Earth's defense force is now outnumbered 10-to-1. Buck must rescue Wilma from Kaleel's mountain fortress and destroy the fleet before they can reach Earth. This episode was initially aired as
Buck is sent to the gambling city Sinaloa with Directorate special agent Marla Landers to rescue a young woman who has been kidnapped by the city's ruler, Velosi. Velosi plans to extract some information from the woman's mind in order to destroy one of his competitors. The information involves plans for the Draconian Hatchet fighters, which have been plaguing Earth's defense forces.
After a Defense Directorate agent kills a member of a group of interstellar assassins, they plot to take their revenge on the city of New Chicago. Buck masquerades as an assassin and joins the group, but is soon uncovered. He must now, not only escape from the assassins, but also stop them from detonating New Chicago's matter/antimatter energy plant.
Some time before Buck Roger's arrival, Col. Wilma Deering had set out to capture two interstellar gun runners. A fire in their spacecraft left them disfigured and they now set out to take their revenge on Wilma and Earth. Capturing a freighter with 20th Century chemical weapons, they plan to poison the planet's atmosphere. With the aid of retired members of the Earth Defense Directorate's 69th Squadron, Buck and Wilma attack the gun runners' base to destroy them and the chemical weapons.
Buck masquerades as a convict to break into a prison in an attempt to rescue Jen Burton, who took the blame for a murder her boyfriend, a shipping pirate, really committed. The Earth Defense Directorate believes that she can supply information to put the pirate in jail. Breaking out of the underground prison, Buck and the woman head for a nearby spaceport for return to Earth, but they are pursued by an indestructible android prison guard.
Kidnapped to the planet Zantia, Buck finds himself auctioned off to Ariela, the daughter of the planet's Prime Minister. Through her, Buck learns that the planet's male population are being held as prisoners of war of a people called the Ruathans. Buck agrees to help the women free their men in return for his own freedom.
Hieronymous Fox, an 11-year-old child genius from the 20th Century is kidnapped for ransom by the sinister Roderick Zale. The boy is the President of the planet Genesia and his bodyguard fears that he will be killed because they cannot meet the ransom demand. Buck, Wilma, and the bodyguard then make separate attempts to rescue the boy.
Princess Ardala returns to try to make Buck, who she considers the most genetically perfect male in the galaxy, her husband. With a powerful weapon poised in Earth orbit, she commands Earth's leaders to turn Buck Rogers over to her or else...
Murder and romance await Buck, Wilma, Theo and Twiki aboard the cruise ship Lyran Queen. Buck befriends a shy young girl (Beck) while investigating the attempted kidnapping of beauty queen Miss Cosmos (Stratten) by a woman (Noble) with superpowers. To his surprise, Buck learns the true identity of the mystery woman as he seeks the location of Miss Cosmos before a deadly dissection laser kills her.
No one believes that the Vorvon, who sneaks up on his victims and drains their living soul, is responsible for a series of deaths on Space Station Theta except Wilma -- his next intended victim.
It's Buck Roger's 534th birthday, and Wilma and Dr. Huer plan a surprise party to cheer up the homesick astronaut. Wilma arranges to get Buck "out of the way" by having him accompany Dr. Huer's assistant to New Detroit with the doctor's business schedule. Meanwhile, a man who is plotting revenge against Huer attempts to gain access to the schedule from the assistant so that he can ambush and kill Dr. Huer.
To discover the secret behind a terrifying riddle presented to him, Buck subjects himself to a mind probe in an attempt to find out who is responsible for the mysterious objects being transported into the Defense Directorate's building.
Princess Ardala returns with another plan to snare the man from the 20th Century. This time, she captures Buck by luring him aboard a phoney 20th Century spaceship like his Ranger III. Once aboard the flagship Draconia, Kane creates four duplicate androids of Buck in an attempt to have them pilot the Draconian Hatchet fighters in an attack against Earth.
Twiki is kidnapped by the evil ruler of a mining colony who, faced with an uprising of the mine workers, plans to make duplicates of the mechanoid to work the mines. While in the mines attempting to rescue Twiki, Buck discovers something that will help Earth destroy a 10-ton ice asteroid that is on a collision course with Earth.
Buck is invited to be the special guest of the 2492 Olympics. Shortly after arriving on the planet where they are being held, he is drawn into a game of political intrigue as an athlete from the planet Lozira attempts to defect to Earth.
Buck is haunted by the appearance of a young woman who bears a striking resemblance to Jennifer, a woman who Buck left behind when he was propelled into the 25th Century. He follows her and soon discovers that she was made to look like Jennifer in order to lure Buck into a trap set by an alien who wants Buck to stop a space freighter from delivering weapons to a planet his people hope to conquer.
The evil Lars Mangros plans to broadcast a subliminal signal during the next performance of the rock group Andromeda that will cause the youth of the galaxy to riot. Buck infiltrates Musicworld, where the broadcast will originate, in an attempt to stop the madman from destroying the galaxy's cities.
Buck attempts to free a peaceful planet from the powerful grip of an evil warlord known as the Trebor. He leads a band of men into Trebor's fortress in the hope of freeing the women the alien has kidnapped, but Trebor has a few special powers that may end Buck's career at any moment.
Buck journeys through a space warp into another universe, where he discovers that the peaceful planet Pendar is being threatened by the sinister war witch Zarina. The Pendarans enlist the aid of Buck and Princess Ardala, who had followed Buck through the space warp, and an unsteady alliance between the humans and Draconians is formed as Buck leads a combined fleet against Zarina's battlecruiser.
Buck, Wilma, and Twiki set off into deep space aboard the Searcher, a starship on a mission to find the lost tribes of Earth -- humans who fled to the stars after a nuclear holocaust that all but destroyed the planet. The Searcher encounters a severely-damaged spacecraft with one survivor, who tells them of a savage attack by a bird-man named Hawk. Searcher sets course for the planet where it is believed Hawk lives, and Buck soon becomes involved in a desperate battle of wits and piloting skills with Hawk. Hawk's mate, who was a passenger in Hawk's ship, is mortally wounded in the battle and Buck and Hawk form a shaky alliance to seek medical aid for her. Eventually, Hawk joins the crew of the Searcher, looking for others of his kind.
Hawk's first mission among the humans is to join Buck, Wilma, and Dr. Goodfellow in escorting Ambassador Duvoe to a peace conference that could avert a terrible galactic war. Crisis strikes as their shuttle passes through an electric storm and crashes in the desert. With contact with Searcher impossible, the party must travel by foot to Oasis, encountering savage mutants and a mischievous gnome named ODX.
Buck finds himself entrusted with a bizarre glowing green box when he and Hawk find an old man near death on a remote planet. Back on the Searcher, the box creates a series of bizarre images in the minds of the crew members. In reality, the box has taken control of the Searcher and sent it at fantastic speeds toward an unknown destination.
The Saurians plot to destroy the Searcher and start a galactic war by infiltrating the starship and a space station in human disguise. Only Buck, who has contracted a strange virus, is able to see the true form of the Saurians, but no one believes him. When the Suarians realize that Buck is a threat to them, he becomes the target of their assassination attempts.
The Searcher rescues a gold-skinned boy from an escape capsule in an asteroid field. When the ship collides with one of the asteroids, the boy displays his powers of molecular alteration by rescuing Admiral Asimov from beneath a fallen girder. The boy assures the crew of the Searcher that, with the help of his companion, who is on a nearby planet, he can dislodge the ship from the asteroid. But when Buck and Hawk go to the planet to get the companion, they find that he is being held captive by a man who wants to use the boy's powers for his own greedy purposes.
Buck, Wilma, and Hawk are confronted with a bizarre riddle on an alien planet they are exploring for crystals to power the Searcher. Part of the riddle is the connection between a young woman and an eerie, mummy-like creature they encounter on the planet. Meanwhile, on the Searcher, the android Crichton believes he has discovered the link -- one that is crucial to the success of their mission.
Buck and Twiki come across the survivors of a failed colony, a young widow and her son. The woman tells Buck that the other colonists all fled the planet as the result of a plague. Buck is confused by the woman's refusal to leave the planet despite being repeatedly being menaced by a goat-man named Pangor; but he soon discovers the truth about the plague when he contracts it and begins to turn into a goat-man himself.
Buck is ordered to explore a derelict spaceship that the Searcher encounters, and finds it filled with solar bombs and crewed by seven little men. They are escorted back to the Searcher and Admiral Asimov takes their ship in tow to a place where the bombs can be safely detonated. Assuming the little men can cause no real harm, Buck places them in the care of Wilma; but the little men have never seen a woman before and are intent on finding out what all of the "funny little bumps" are.
Buck, Wilma, and Hawk explore a strange planet and come across the wreckage of a spacecraft and its lone survivor. He is taken back to the Searcher by Wilma, while Buck and Hawk continue to explore. After some unexplained happenings on the planet, they return to the Searcher, where they find that everyone has undergone personality changes -- becoming the opposite of their real selves. Buck soon learns that he can not even trust Wilma and Hawk to help him solve the mystery of what has happened.
An ancient videotape is discovered that proves that Buck was involved in the nuclear holocaust that nearly destroyed the Earth hundreds of years before. Commissioner Bergstrom convenes a war crimes trial aboard the Searcher and, if Buck is found guilty, faces a death sentence. In a desperate attempt to clear himself, Buck agrees to another mind probe, but his memories seem to confirm the charges.
In this Series Finale: Buck and Hawk are sent to pick up the survivors of a planetary disaster and transport them to a new home. Before departing, Buck rescues a young woman from a group of Dorian thugs. Later, while enroute to the planet, the Searcher is attacked by a Dorian craft, which demands that the woman be returned for the murder of a warlord's son. As the Dorians persist and subject the Searcher to a severe pounding, the refugees begin to rebel, insisting that the woman be turned over. Eventually, Buck discovers that truth about the woman and the startling reason why the Dorians always wear what at first appear to be merely ceremonial face masks.
In the year 1987, NASA launched the last of America's deep space probes. Aboard this compact starship a lone astronaut, Captain William "Buck" Rogers, was to experience cosmic forces beyond all comprehension. In a freak mishap, his life-support systems were frozen by temperatures beyond imagination. Ranger III was blown out of its plan trajectory into an orbit 1,000 times more vast, an orbit which was to return Buck Rogers to earth 500 years later.
