Was watching Flight of the War Witch tonight. I think I see where the budget for season 2 went. All and all I've concluded no matter where your watching ends on Buck Rogers (some end at Season 1, some end at Season 2) the capstone, the end all is Flight of the War Witch. It is the only way it makes sense.

For me as a Buck Rogers fan well, if you did not grow up with the show or have listened to people over the years, it goes something like this: Season 1 was great, season 2 was terrible (to most). This is strange phenomenon that also afflicted the TV show made only a year prior, Battlestar Galactica which many props were recycled into Buck Rogers.

Ok, so your's truly had to come to a realization that no more of either show would be made. I could live with the facts of:
* Buck was on Earth for the first season and that was fun.
* Buck was in space on a ship with a downer last episode (and many things I wish they hadn't done, like change Twiki's voice, and opening narration.)

Over time I found a way to love the bomb that was second season by realizing there were good parts, like the fact they had Buck, Wilma, Twiki (originally voice was possible in the last half of the episodes) and the new characters like Hawk, Crichton, and... well, that is all I can think of. . Anyway, there was some good there. So I made my own fan edit, editing out the more cringy parts, editing back in William Conrad on the opening narration, swap the last two episodes in the watching order, and editing in some Mel Blanc lines over the Twiki in the first half of the series. It's effort but as someone (I believe it was Alan Sharkis) in the Atari retro community once said "Go with your bliss"


So what does this have to do with "Flight of the War Witch"? EVERYTHING.

Do we want to leave Buck Rogers on that ship Searcher? Well as true as that was the ending I replace your reality and insert my own! And so I say Flight of the War Witch... well ok, I highly recommend, that you watch this episode last because IT... IS... AWESOME!!!

And it really makes sense no other way. In this episode, no, it wasn't even an episode. This was a movie. It was actually originally intended as a TV movie and was turned into a two part episode. In this we have so much that season two ignored like the introduction of another dimension, and growth between Buck and Ardala. Why did season two ignore this? It was bad writing. AHEM. It hadn't happened yet! So OBVIOUSLY this takes place after season two.

And what fireworks! You have Julie Newmar playing an excellent villianess in a epically cool ship (that was actually upside down, but it looked SOOO much more epic that way so they kept it).

And where dogfight scenes were recyled photage in season 1, and mostly non-existant in Season 2, here it is all new photage for the most part.

Do yourself a favor: WATCH... THIS... LAST!

And one other perfect aspect is the crappy vocal version of the song, played originally in the pilot episode is played again here. Ok, most hate that, but for nostalgia I have a soft spot for that version. Yes, the voice singing it is terrible.



But again another reason this is a perfect last episode and just the way it all ends with a freeze frame on Buck's smile. Perfect.

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BONUS: A Fan Music Track using Flight of the War Witch dialogue.