A 45-Year Old Series Finale Gave Us A Great Sci-Fi Twist
Buck Rogers was ahead of its time right up until time ran out.
Where does the future come from? For the last hundred years or so, the future has come from science fiction. Submarines, cell phones, tasers, and nuclear power all appeared in sci-fi before reality. Even the genre itself is full of tropes that are barely recognizable as creative decisions because they’re so ingrained in our expectations. Think aliens and laser guns are cool? Thank Buck Rogers! He was Han Solo before Han shot first.
Technically, you should thank Buck Rogers creator Philip Francis Nowlan and the artists and writers who managed Buck’s spacefaring adventures over a nearly 60-year comics run. This decades-long legacy culminated in the 1979 TV series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. Unfortunately, the show didn’t have the same impact as its print counterpart, ending in 1981. The final episode, “The Dorian Secret,” aired 45 years ago this week, but in true Buck Rogers fashion, it went out with a bang.
By the time Buck Rogers in the 25th Century reached “The Dorian Secret,” the show was already limping through a turbulent second season. Season 1 was set on Earth, in New Chicago specifically, and had what was known as the “disco sci-fi” vibe. Lots of glittery outfits and silly storylines driven by campy humor cast the show as a lighthearted good time.
But studio pressure and creative conflicts led to a monumental Season 2 overhaul. Gone were the glitz and glamour of frivolous New Chicago adventures. Instead, Buck and his crew spent the entire season on board his ship, The Searcher. Their adventures took on a much darker, more serious tone that felt like whiplash compared to the previously established whimsy.
Although unpopular at the time, the tonal shift was prescient. Season 2 was only a few years removed from the debut of Star Trek: The Next Generation, a (mostly) serious drama about a spacefaring captain and his crew. In fact, much of the popular sci-fi television of the late ‘80s and ‘90s would have been right at home on The Searcher, which is why “The Dorian Secret” stands out as ahead of its time.
Asteria takes a breather.
The episode’s conflict is a familiar one. The Searcher’s crew encounters Asteria, a runaway Dorian, at a space station while picking up a load of refugees fleeing a volcanic eruption on a different planet. Like all Dorians, she’s a self-identified mask-wearing mutant. She convinces Buck to give her safe passage aboard his ship, and of course, Buck has to fight off the masked Dorians chasing her. Asteria’s mask falls off during the scuffle, revealing a rather attractive human face underneath. Buck doesn’t get why she has a mask in the first place, but he lets her board with the other refugees.
Unfortunately, the Dorians aren’t giving up so easily. Their leader, Koldan, says she’s wanted for murdering his son, Chosan. His surviving son, Demeter, also demands justice. The Dorians have security footage supposedly showing her throwing Chosan off a cliff. They attack The Searcher by manipulating the onboard temperature, and threaten to destroy it unless Asteria is handed over. As the heat literally rises, so do tensions. It’s a classic paranoid witch hunt, with people arguing and the refugees trying to find the Dorian in their midst so they can kick her out.
Buck takes Asteria aside to get some answers, and she claims this is all a misunderstanding. She loved Chosan, and went to see him in the hills where they first met. But when she arrived, she found he’d been hurt, and then he lost his footing and fell off a cliff. She ran for help as others discovered Chosan's body, making her the prime suspect in his murder. Soon after this reveal, the passengers figure out her identity, and things really get interesting.
Accusations start to fly on The Searcher.
The passengers vote to kick Asteria off the ship. Buck talks to Koldar, only to find he’s resolute in his search for justice and wants her executed. Demeter seems assured of Asteria’s guilt, but the thought of executing her makes him squeamish. So Buck makes a risky decision. Instead of releasing Asteria to the Dorians, he suggests it would be easier to slay her on the spot. Suddenly, the tone shifts. The refugees get cold feet, but Koldar is unmoved. Demeter, however, finally breaks and reveals the big secret.
It turns out he had a violent confrontation with his brother and was responsible for Chosan’s injury. The reason? Chosan and Asteria were engaged in a maskless love affair! This is forbidden in Dorian society, where masks are central to their identity. But why? Demeter delivers a brief soliloquy declaring, “a race of people blindly subservient to a custom is not a race of people at all, but a race of slaves!” Mourning his brother’s senseless demise, he rips his mask off in defiance. His father, moved by the gesture, orders the rest of the soldiers to remove their masks too.
Plot twist! Everyone looks the same under the masks. The Dorians are essentially a race of clones, and the masks were meant to hide their shame. Asteria’s life is spared, and Buck returns to The Searcher, where he lectures the refugees about the dangers of mob mentality before the series ends for good.
“The Dorian Secret” serves as both a finale and a snapshot of a series caught between visions. Its central twist hints at the darker, stranger, more introspective show that Buck Rogers could have been, but the uneven execution of the final season leaves it an imperfect but fascinating closing chapter. In the end, with much of modern sci-fi now pursuing such introspection, Buck Rogers turned out to be the genre’s future once again.
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century is available on the Internet Archive.
