Plot; Buck attends the now galactic Olympics and gets caught up in the plot of two star-crossed lovers who plan to defect.
When you imagine what the Olympics will look like in the 25th century, I'm reasonably certain you don't see images of marginally athletic looking people in sparkly costumes all crammed into an audience-free arena the size of a high school gym. That, however, is exactly what we get here. Of course, that's just a product of limited resources and budget, but it's nonetheless amusing to see the galactic Olympics done on the scale of an average Dave & Buster's (but with far fewer patrons). Kudos though for the creativity shown in the various events, including boxing using sort of pulse gloves instead of actual contact, a virtual judo and high-high jumping. There are obvious influences from the era (1980, not 2492) with government controlled athletes, steroid use and defecting, but it's far from heavy handed and there's no ideological commentary.
We get to see some of the great staples of the show, including Gil Gerard (poured, as always, like 200lbs of cold mashed potatoes into a 150lb bag of a spandex suit) performing YMCA white belt level karate moves, the incomparably lovely Erin Grey faring far better in her getup (and getting to do some fun undercover work to boot), and the same redressed series of hallways and corridors from the previous episode.
But in the end it's a pretty fun episode. Veteran character actor Nicolas Coaster plays his usual slimy bad guy, and real life athletes like Elgin Baylor and Thomas "Hollywood" Henderson make appearances. When I first started chipping my way (randomly) through this first season I was sort of aghast at how poorly it held up vs. my fond childhood memories of it, but I'm starting to get my 80s bearings and I find that I'm actually enjoying it.
When you imagine what the Olympics will look like in the 25th century, I'm reasonably certain you don't see images of marginally athletic looking people in sparkly costumes all crammed into an audience-free arena the size of a high school gym. That, however, is exactly what we get here. Of course, that's just a product of limited resources and budget, but it's nonetheless amusing to see the galactic Olympics done on the scale of an average Dave & Buster's (but with far fewer patrons). Kudos though for the creativity shown in the various events, including boxing using sort of pulse gloves instead of actual contact, a virtual judo and high-high jumping. There are obvious influences from the era (1980, not 2492) with government controlled athletes, steroid use and defecting, but it's far from heavy handed and there's no ideological commentary.
We get to see some of the great staples of the show, including Gil Gerard (poured, as always, like 200lbs of cold mashed potatoes into a 150lb bag of a spandex suit) performing YMCA white belt level karate moves, the incomparably lovely Erin Grey faring far better in her getup (and getting to do some fun undercover work to boot), and the same redressed series of hallways and corridors from the previous episode.
But in the end it's a pretty fun episode. Veteran character actor Nicolas Coaster plays his usual slimy bad guy, and real life athletes like Elgin Baylor and Thomas "Hollywood" Henderson make appearances. When I first started chipping my way (randomly) through this first season I was sort of aghast at how poorly it held up vs. my fond childhood memories of it, but I'm starting to get my 80s bearings and I find that I'm actually enjoying it.
