Buck Rogers, Wilma Deering and Twiki have been assigned aboard the spaceship Searcher which is on a mission to explore the galaxy and contact lost tribes of men who left Earth after the apocalyptic war. Elsewhere, a humanoid bird-man named Hawk returns home and finds his people slaughtered by a band of human pirates and he angrily vows to kill all humans he encounters from then on. After Hawk attacks the crew of a freighter, Buck goes in search of him determined to put an end to his killing spree and bring him to justice. During his duel with Buck, Hawk's mate, Koori, is fatally injured and Buck helps Hawk get her to a healer. Although she dies, Hawk is impressed by the fact that Buck offered assistance to an enemy. Buck later defends Hawk at his trial and asks the human court for leniency. Having learned that not all humans are evil, Hawk joins the Searcher crew and accompanies Buck on many subsequent adventures.

Note: This was a two-hour episode, later syndicated as a two-part episode. Bob Elyea takes over as the voice of Twiki.

While delivering a mysterious head-removing ambassador to peace talks at the neutral city of Oasis, Buck's shuttle encounters a magnetic storm and crashes. Buck and Hawk must then escort the ambassador to the city on foot, with Colonel Deering and Dr. Goodfellow in tow, but the way is dangerous and only the riddles of a mysterious, little, blue-skinned alien may be the key of reaching the city alive. Buck also battles his feelings for Wilma when he learns the ambassador was a former love interest of hers and his return rekindles her affections.

Note: This was a two-hour episode, later syndicated as a two-part episode.

Life aboard the Searcher is turned upside down when Buck brings aboard a mysterious jade box entrusted to him by a dying man he encounters on an unexplored planet. The seemingly cursed box takes over the ship and torments the lives of the crew by filling their minds with terrible visions. Conflicts arise when members of the crew try to destroy the box, but Buck stops them believing it is leading them to its new keeper – a being only known as "The Guardian" – and he must fulfill his promise to the dying man.

While suffering from an alien fever, Buck insists that a visiting ambassador and his entourage are really reptilian beings in human guise, but only he can see through their illusion. While everyone else thinks Buck is hallucinating, the aliens try to kill him and Buck must prove what he sees is real before the aliens carry out their plot to infiltrate their enemy's defense station and destroy the Searcher.

After finding a lifepod containing a golden-skinned boy, the Searcher drifts into an asteroid field and becomes stuck against one of the rocks. The only way to free the ship may reside in the strange molecular-altering powers of the boy's companion, the "Golden Man", who is being held captive on a nearby planet inhabited by a penal colony. Once the criminals learn of the alien's powers, they force him to repair a makeshift spacecraft so they can escape. Buck and the golden boy must rescue the golden man from his captors before the Searcher is destroyed.

While exploring the planet Philoctetes for power crystals, Buck, Hawk and Wilma find the remains of a mummy, but unbeknown to them, the body comes to life and steals their crystals. While searching for the creature, Buck encounters a young girl with no memory of who she is or where she came from. After running a medical scan, Wilma learns that the girl has a genetic connection to the creature which begins stalking her. Fearful she will become a monster herself, Buck must help the girl find her true identity before the creature strikes again.

Note: Mel Blanc returns as the voice of Twiki.

While exploring the planet Arcadis for a lost human colony, Buck finds a boy and his mother, the last remaining colonists, and soon learns the family is being tormented by a satyr-like being. When Buck confronts the creature, he is bitten and soon begins transforming into a Satyr himself. After learning a strange affliction had turned all the men of the colony into the creatures, Buck tries to fight the transformation and helps the family escape the planet.

Note: Bruce Broughton won an Outstanding Achievement in Music Composition for a Series (Dramatic Underscore) Emmy Award for his music in this episode, the show's only Emmy win.

The Searcher finds a derelict Zardonian bomb disposal ship crewed by seven mischievous little men. Buck offers to help them finish their disposal mission, but the curious dwarves begin to wreak havoc aboard the Searcher and severely damage Crichton's positronic brain. With the ship out of control and heading toward a star, Twiki offers his own electronic brain to repair Crichton so he can initiate repairs to the ship. Once the dwarves realize the trouble they have caused, they offer to repair Crichton's brain with their telekinetic mental powers.

Buck, Hawk and Wilma rescue a downed pilot from a strange planet called Vordeeth. When they return to the Searcher, they find the crew's attitudes have changed – Admiral Asimov is paranoid of mutiny, Crichton acts nicely, and Twiki is belligerent. Buck also notices small physical differences to the layout of his quarters and he can only suspect the ship, and everyone aboard it, is an imperfect duplicate. Meanwhile, the real Searcher is caught in a trap set by a powerful being from the planet below who offers Buck wealth and power in exchange for the lives of the Searcher crew.

When the Searcher returns to Earth, Buck is immediately arrested on charges of high treason. He stands trial while his peers review a 500-year-old piece of evidence – a videotape from the 20th-Century unearthed from the ruins of an Air Force Base – which shows Buck working with treasonous military personnel who brought about World War III. Facing the death penalty, Buck must prove his innocence, but he has no memory of his involvement with any of the events. He then resorts to using Dr. Goodfellow's repressed memory probe, (which shows among other things, Rogers meeting with the President of the United States in a secret base inside Mount Rushmore), in hopes of finding the truth of what really happened before a final verdict is rendered.

Buck helps a young woman named Asteria escape from a group of masked men on a space station. He brings her to the Searcher, but soon the ship comes under attack by a Dorian warship whose masked leader, Koldar, demands the woman be brought to him. Buck initially refuses handing her over and the Dorians respond by randomly firing heat and freeze rays at the Searcher forcing the crew to endure continuously changing temperatures. Koldar finally reveals that Asteria is wanted for murder, but Buck does not believe the accusation and instead tries to learn a secret she is hiding. Meanwhile, the suffering passengers on the Searcher demand that Buck surrender the woman before they take drastic action themselves.