Friday, September 14, 2012

Gil Gerard Dot Com


My husband and I came late to the Netflix party. By the time we signed up, it had split its streaming and mail service. We didn't think much of this and looked forward to conveniently enjoying new releases using streaming technology. We are, after all, in the 21st century.

To our dismay, we discovered a dearth of options. Sure there were old movies, esoteric documentaries and TV shows out the wazoo. But the latest blockbuster now available on DVD? Sorry, suckers. (That would be us.) It's not that we don't like revisiting classics, having our minds expanded or following a longer storyline. It's just that's not what we were looking for. So, we filled up our queue with a bunch of things that we never really felt like watching.

The only show we could agree on watching was Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. In our final days before my husband deploys, we've been watching a lot of Buck Rogers. Why would we waste our time with something so trivial before such a big event? There are only so many deep conversations a person can handle as the clock ticks down. Besides I anticipate that what I will miss most when my husband is gone are those quiet moments just sitting around on the couch… it's the little things. So, Buck it is.

Looking at the show now, it's very telling how producers envisioned life in the year 2487. They couldn't imagine a world without disco, so they re-imagined it to include disco with light-up ropes and roller skates. It's a thing to behold.

Just thirty years later, our current vision of the future is so different. Back then, producers created a trounced-up 1970s. Erin Gray had a multicolored wardrobe consisting of solely hot pants, while Gil's costumes revealed a robust carpet of chest hair in each episode. Sets were bare, yet clean, and made appearances in multiple shows barely masked as different planets. The fighting? Buck could incapacitate a group of 8 guards with a double kick and campy punch that clearly never makes contact. Sometimes he even stumbles. It's so different from the gritty, dark vision and slick moves of our Hunger Games / Batman / Matrix generation.

One night, after about 10 episodes of Buck, I thought to myself, "I wonder what Gil Gerard is up to these days?" and a quick Google search later, I was on his website. The fact that GilGerard.com exists tickles me immensely, so much that I have incorporated it into my lexicon. A heroically cheesy moment in the show will elicit a "Gil Gerard dot com!" One of my husband's zany jokes is likely to garner a "Gil Gerard dot com!" I love you? I'm going to miss you? Everything's going to be OK? "Gil Gerard dot com."

More than the nostalgia of my youth, I think this hilarious, yet hopeful portrayal is part of the draw. As my husband prepares to head to war, we'd like to hold onto that innocent vision from years ago: that the good guy always wins and every episode ends frozen on a smile.

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