Categories
Mandalorian, The Season 1

Chapter 5: The Gunslinger

Star Wars: The MandalorianThe Razor Crest comes out the worse for wear in a dogfight with another bounty hunter, forcing the Mandalorian down on the planet Tatooine’s infamous Mos Eisley spaceport with barely enough Imperial credits on him to rent a hangar, let alone cover the needed repairs. The Mandalorian looks for work in the local cantina, finding only a rookie bounty hunter named Toro Calican on his first job. The problem is that he’s chosen as his first quarry a skilled assassin named Fennec Shand, not an easy target for an inexperienced hunter. With the Mandalorian’s help – and the promise that the Mandalorian can keep the money while Calican gets the reputation points for the catch – they find and capture Shand, but not before she has destroyed one of their speeder bikes, forcing the Mandalorian to go and find another means of transporting Shand back to Mos Eisley. In his absence, Shand tells Calican about the Mandalorian’s own reputation – and the fact that he’s on the run from the Guild, and therefore a far more valuable target than she is. Blind ambition inspires an unwise decision that nevertheless puts the child traveling with the Mandalorian in great danger.

The Mandalorianwritten by Dave Filoni
directed by Dave Filoni
music by Ludwig Goransson

Cast: Pedro Pascal (The Mandalorian), Amy Sedaris (Peli Motto), Jake Cannavale (Toro Calican), Ming-Na Wen (Fennec Shand), Rio Hackford (Riot Mar), Troy Kotsur (Tusken Raider Scout #1), Steve Jay Blum (Spaceport Operator)

Notes: Time – and possibly Luke’s destruction of Jabba’s criminal empire in Return Of The Jedi – haven’t been particularly kind to Tatooine, and the Bounty Hunters’ Guild no longer even The Mandalorianoperates from there. Rusty pit droids dating back to the days of the Republic are still in common use, as are reprogrammed K-2 Imperial droids (K-2SO, seen in Rogue One, was something of a trailblazer in that respect – or maybe that model’s just easily hacked). Toro Calican thinks he’s worthy of holding down Han Solo’s old seat at the Mos Eisley Cantina (a booth where, it has to be said, there’s no evidence of Greedo getting a single shot off, maclunkey or otherwise). Tusken Raiders can apparently be negotiated with if you know their form of sign language (and have something of value to trade), and the Mandalorian acknowledges that the Tuskens are Tatooine’s indigenous life form, and not the vermin that many humanoids take them to be.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
For All Mankind Season 1

Rupture

For All Mankind1974: Ed Baldwin’s son, Shane, has been left brain-dead after being hit by a car while trying to ride his bicycle to a school basketball game. Ed’s wife, Karen, makes the decision to take the burden of decision-making about Shane onto herself and also insists that Ed – now the lone American on the moon – not be told about his son’s condition. Ed does have a full plate on the lunar surface, gathering increasing evidence that the Soviet crew of the Zvezda lunar station is encroaching on the vicinity of the Jamestown station, of which Ed is now the sole occupant. As the preparation for Apollo 24 continues to run into delays, Karen Baldwin must begin facing the possibility that her son will never recover…and that she will have to tell Ed that not only is all not wall at home, but that things are in fact catastrophically bad.

For All Mankindwritten by Nichole Beattie
directed by Meera Menon
music by Jeff Russo

Cast: Joel Kinnaman (Edward Baldwin), Michael Dorman (Gordo Stevens), Sarah Jones (Tracy Stevens), Shantel VanSanten (Karen Baldwin), Jodi Balfour (Ellen Waverly), Wrenn Schmidt (Margo Madison), Chris Bauer (Deke Slayton), Wallace Langham (Harold Weisner), Arturo Del Puerto (Octavio Rosales), Olivia Trujillo (Aleida Rosales), Krys Marshall (Danielle Poole), Rebecca Wisocky (Marge Slayton), Leonora Pitts (Irene Hendricks), Chris Agos (Buzz Aldrin), Stephen Oyoung (Harrison Liu), Noah Harpster (Bill Strausser), John Rubenstein (Doctor Marsten), Spencer Garrett (Roger Scott), Megan Dodds (Andrea Walters), David Gautreaux (Barry Newsome), Scott Alan Smith (Dr. David Josephson), Tait Blum (Shane Baldwin), Germain Arroyo (Anthony), Tracy Mulholland (Gloria Sedgewick), Dan Warner (General Arthur Weber), Brian D. Johnson (Grush), Jeff Denton (Pendle), Krystal Torres (Cata), Kevin Glikmann (Jerry Biddle), Jan Munroe (Dr. Weddle)

Notes: Deke Slayton requalifying himself for flight status isn’t science fiction; he did, in fact, do this, but in preparation for the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz Test Project flight, a joint rendezvous and docking mission with a Soviet Soyuz vehicle. As is also the case in For All Mankind’s fictional narrative, his requalification came after long-standing concerns about Slayton’s cardiovascular health (which had left him grounded since the Mercury program) were re-evaluated by NASA flight surgeons.

LogBook entry by Earl Green