Buck Rogers: Awakening

"For 500 years Captain William "Buck" Rogers has been miraculously preserved, frozen by temperatures beyond imagination. Now in Earth year 2491 he is rudely awakened by the sinister forces of the Draconian realm."

- Narrator

"Awakening" is the pilot episode of the American science fiction television series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. The series is based on the original Buck Rogers comic strip created by Philip Francis Nolan. The episode was directed by Daniel Haller and written by Leslie Stevens and series developer Glen A. Larson. It first aired on ABC on Thursday, September 20th, 1979. The year is 1987, and NASA launches the last of America's deep space probes. In a freak mishap, Ranger III and its pilot, Captain William "Buck" Rogers, are blown out of their trajectory into an orbit which freezes his life support systems, and returns Buck Rogers to Earth, five-hundred years later. In the year 2491, Ranger III 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. Buck is placed on trial and found guilty of treason. He is sentenced to death, but at the last minute, a plan is devised to send Buck to infiltrate the Draconians in an effort to prove his innocence.