Buck Rogers first hit the screens in 1939, by the 70s when rockets to the moon were no longer science fiction, it was time to re-imagine the series. The cold war was on and public fears of a nuclear holocaust were high, so the Buck Rogers plot was set against a backdrop of an earth that devastated itself in an atomic war. The story starts in 1987 when NASA launches a space shuttle, piloted alone by Captain Rogers, called Ranger 3. The ship encounters an unexpected phenomenon and Buck is frozen for 504 years.
It’s a classic story of good versus evil shown in the context of political subterfuge. Buck is first discovered drifting in space by an alien race known as the Draconians, he’s taken aboard their flagship, the Draconia commanded by Princess Ardala. These aliens are heading to Earth under the guise of a trade conference, whose mission is to combine forces against interstellar pirates. Buck Rogers is revived from his cryogenic stasis, and questioned before being drugged and sent ahead of the Draconian fleet. In his new environment, his cowboy antics and independence make him standout, and he is not entirely trusted by his new colleagues, who see his ways as being typical of a people, their barbaric ancestors, who almost annihilated humanity.
But it turns out that the Draconians are actually planning to conquer the Earth and the pirates were their first wave of attacks, a trick to force a treaty and gain access directly to the planet’s defense network. Buck is first to discover their intentions and must overcome prejudice to convince Earth’s military that he has their best interests.
