Tag: Season Premiere

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Time Tunnel

Rendezvous With Yesterday

The Time TunnelSenator Clark arrives to take stock of the top secret Project Tic-Toc, a staggeringly expensive, vast underground complex built around an experimental time travel device known simply as the Time Tunnel. The civilian manager of Project Tic-Toc, Doug Phillips, gives Senator Clark the guided tour, but Clark’s presence unnerves project scientst Dr. Tony Newman, who has poured his entire life into the project. Determined to prove that it does work, Newman appoints himself the first human time traveler and sends himself back into the past. Radiation imparted by the use of the Time Tunnel allows Project Tic-Toc technicians to track him back into the past, where they can see and hear that he has arrived on the ocean liner Titanic…mere hours before its destruction. Doug volunteers to travel back in time to help Tony escape, but the only way off the Titanic for the two men is a further trip via the Time Tunnel to a time and place they can’t predict.

Download this episode via Amazonteleplay by Harold Jack Bloom and Shimon Wincelberg
story by Irwin Allen, Shimon Wincelberg and Harold Jack Bloom
directed by Irwin Allen
music by Johnny Williams

The Time TunnelCast: James Darren (Tony Newman), Robert Colbert (Doug Phillips), Michael Rennie (Capt. Malcolm Smith), Susan Hampshire (Althea Hall), Gary Merrill (Senator Leroy Clark), Lee Meriwether (Dr. Ann McGregor), Wesley Lau (Master Sgt. Jiggs), John Zaremba (Dr. Raymond Swain), Whit Bissell (General Heywood Kirk), Don Knight (Grainger), Gerald Michenaud (Marcel), John Winston (The Guard), Brett Parker (Countdown Technician)

Notes: The latest of Irwin Allen’s 1960s science fiction series, The Time Tunnel premiered on ABC one day after the broadcast premiere of Star Trek on rival network NBC; it ran concurrently with the final seasons of Lost In Space and Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea. Though Allen’s big screen work is often synonymous with epic disaster scenarios, his treatment of the sinking of the Titanic is relatively tame, primarily for budgetary reasons; building the cavernous, The Time Tunnel$130,000 Time Tunnel set (or is it a giant prop?) consumed much of the pilot episode’s budget, forcing Allen to fall back on reusing footage from the 1939 film Titanic (which, handily enough, was also produced by 20th Century Fox). Ironically, co-star James Darren would, decades after his trips through the Time Tunnel ended, return to SF TV in another iteration of the Star Trek franchise, as holosuite Rat Pack crooner Vic Fontaine in the later seasons of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine; Darren also co-starred with William Shatner in T.J. Hooker at a point in his career where his focus was switching from acting to directing.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Classic Season 04 Doctor Who

The Smugglers

Doctor WhoThe Doctor is infuriated when Ben and Polly burst into his TARDIS just before he takes off; they were merely trying to return Dodo’s TARDIS key to the Doctor, but now find themselves on the coast in Cornwall in the 1600s. While the two were instrumental in helping the Doctor defeat the War Machines in 1966, they’re utterly lost in their first time trip – which is not a good thing when they find themselves in the midst of some pirates’ search for a lost treasure, and the pirates’ feud with contraband smugglers. The local church warden seems to know something about the whereabouts of the treasure, but he’s killed not long after divulging this secret to the Doctor, who now becomes the pirates’ target. It seems that everyone in this seemingly quiet seaside town is on the take somehow – but the time travelers simply want to get home.

Season 4 Regular Cast: William Hartnell (The Doctor), Patrick Troughton (The Doctor), Michael Craze (Ben), Anneke Wills (Polly), Frazer Hines (Jamie McCrimmon), Deborah Watling (Victoria Waterfield)

Order this story on audio CDwritten by Brian Hayles
directed by Julia Smith
music not credited

Guest Cast: Terence de Marney (Churchwarden), George A. Cooper (Cherub), David Blake Kelly (Jacob Kewper), Mike Lucas (Tom), Paul Whitsun-Jones (Squire), Derek Ware (Spaniard), Michael Godfrey (Pike), Elroy Josephs (Jamaica), John Ringham (Blake), Jack Bingh (Gaptooth)

Notes: The master tapes of this episode were destroyed by the BBC in the early 1970’s, and no video copies exist.

Broadcast from September 10 through October 1, 1966

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Classic Season 1 Mission Impossible

Pilot

Mission: ImpossibleWhen the United States government learns that an enemy superpower has given two nuclear warheads to a dictator in a small island country in the Caribbean for imminent use, Daniel Briggs and the Impossible Mission Force (IMF) are called into action. Briggs selects his team – electronics expert Barney Collier, master impersonator Rollin Hand, strongman Willy Armitage, the distractingly beautiful Cinnamon Carter, and Terry Targo, a safecracker with skills and a rap sheet to match – and hatches an elaborate plan: Hand will impersonate the dictator, derailing a public appearance, while Barney ensures that TV and radio coverage of that appearance never happen. Targo is smuggled into the same hotel vault as the warheads, and must assess the plan to steal them with limited oxygen, but his fingers are broken when the team rushes the dictator’s heavily guarded hotel room. Briggs, in the meantime, plans to interrogate the dictator for information on the warheads, which are contained in a safe of their own – and may explode if the safe is not opened properly. With Targo out of commission, it will now be Briggs who is smuggled back into the vault to steal the warheads. The dictator’s aide de camp, growing suspicious that a coup is imminent, begins tightening security, and Briggs must determine how to steal the nukes without also detonating them.

Download this episode via Amazonwritten by Bruce Geller
directed by Bernard L. Kowalski
music by Lalo Schifrin

Mission: ImpossibleCast: Steven Hill (Daniel Briggs), Barbara Bain (Cinnamon Carter), Greg Morris (Barney Collier), Peter Lupus (Willy Armitage), Martin Landau (Rollin Hand / Rio Dominguez), Wally Cox (Terry Targo), Harry Davis (Alisio), Paul Micale (Desk Clerk), Patrick Campbell (Day Vault Clerk), Fredric Villani (Night Vault Clerk), Joe Breen (Loft Manager)

Mission: ImpossibleNotes: When it sold successfully to CBS in 1966 at roughly the time that its Desilu Productions stablemate Star Trek sold to NBC, Mission: Impossible was part of a major turnaround for a studio that was otherwise known at the time for producing The Lucy Show. Peter Graves would not join the series until its second year on the air, and Martin Landau is credited as a guest star, a trend that would continue throughout the first season with a “special appearance by” credit, prior to his promotion to a series regular in season two.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Classic Season 05 Doctor Who

Tomb Of The Cybermen

Doctor WhoThe TARDIS brings the Doctor, Jamie and Victoria to the wasteland of the planet Telos, where they spot a human expedition on a journey to unearth the lost tombs of the Cybermen, a threat thought to be long extinct. Despite the Doctor’s vocal misgivings, Professor Parry and his fellow explorers insist on breaching the enormous doors and venturing into the apparently vacant tombs. But when automatic defense systems begin to pick off Parry’s team one by one, the expedition begins to look like a doomed one. When someone in the expedition reveals their true purpose – to reactivate and take control of the Cybermen – the entire galaxy begins to look doomed unless the Doctor can confine the Cybermen once more.

Order this story on DVDDownload this episodewritten by Kit Pedler & Gerry Davis
directed by Morris Barry
music not credited

Guest Cast: Roy Stewart (Toberman), Aubrey Richards (Professor Parry), Cyril Shaps (Viner), Clive Merrison (Callum), Shirley Cookin (Kaftan), George Rubicek (Hopper), George Pastell (Kleig), Alan Johns (Rogers), Bernard Holley (Haydon), Ray Grover (Crewman), Michael Kilgarriff (Cyber Controller), Hans De Vries (Cyberman), Tony Harwood (Cyberman), John Hogan (Cyberman), Richard Kerley (Cyberman), Ronald Lee (Cyberman), Charles Pemberton (Cyberman), Kenneth Seegr (Cyberman), Reg Whitehead (Cyberman), Peter Hawkins (Cybermen voices)

Broadcast from September 2 through 23, 1967

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Original Series Season 02 Star Trek

Amok Time

Star Trek ClassicStardate 3372.7: Spock begins acting strange – even violent – as, unknown to the rest of the crew, he enters the Vulcan mating phase that strikes adult male Vulcans every seven years. Kirk must divert the Enterprise from a tight schedule to return Spock to Vulcan so his mating ritual may be carried out. But on arriving, it is discovered that Spock must compete with a gladiator of his prospective mate’s choice – and that turns out, on the spur of the moment, to be Kirk.

Order this episode on DVDDownload this episode via Amazon's Unboxwritten by Theodore Sturgeon
directed by Joseph Pevney
music by Gerald Fried

Cast: William Shatner (Captain James T. Kirk), Leonard Nimoy (Mr. Spock), DeForest Kelley (Dr. Leonard McCoy), James Doohan (Mr. Scott), George Takei (Lt. Sulu), Nichelle Nichols (Lt. Uhura), Celia Lovsky (T’Pau), Arlene Martel (T’Pring), Lawrence Montaigne (Stonn), Majel Barrett (Christine Chapel), Byron Morrow (Admiral Komack)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Classic Season 06 Doctor Who

The Dominators

Doctor WhoThe TARDIS brings the Doctor, Zoe and Jamie to the planet Dulkis, which the Doctor knows as a peaceful world that has abandoned war. But the travelers find themselves on an island strewn with the remnants of an ancient war and contaminated with radiation – the legacy of nuclear weapons tests, according to a small number of researchers encountered by the Doctor. What the Time Lord doesn’t realize is that the native Dulcians are not the only people visiting the island. Another Dulcian expedition meets with disaster, its only survivor claiming that his shipmates were killed by well-armed robots. The Doctor and Jamie go to investigate these claims, and find themselves taken prisoner by a group of aggressive aliens who call themselves the Dominators. These would-be invaders, backed up by their powerful Quark robots, intend to mine the radioactive minerals on Dulkis to make their own nuclear weapons…and they also wish to use the pacifist Dulcians as their slaves. The Doctor scrambles to find a way to undermine the Dominators when it becomes obvious that the Dulcians are unwilling to rediscover the aggression necessary to protect themselves.

Season 6 Regular Cast: Patrick Troughton (The Doctor), Frazer Hines (Jamie), Wendy Padbury (Zoe)

written by Mervyn Haisman & Henry Lincoln
directed by Morris Barry
music not credited

Guest Cast: Ronald Allen (Rago), Kenneth Ives (Toba), Arthur Cox (Cully), Philip Voss (Wahed), Malcolm Terris (Etnin), Nicolette Pendrell (Tolata), Feliticy Gibson (Kando), Giles Block (Teel), Johnson Bayly (Balan), Walter Fitzgerald (Senex), Ronald Mansell, John Cross, Malcolm Watson, Aubrey Danvers Walker (Council Members), Alan Gerrard (Bovem), Brian Cant (Tensa), John Hicks, Gary Smith, Freddie Wilson (Quarks), Sheila Grant (Quark voices)

Broadcast from August 10 through September 7, 1968

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Original Series Season 03 Star Trek

Spock’s Brain

Star Trek ClassicStardate 5431.4: The Enterprise is intercepted by a starship of unknown design and a woman from the ship beams directly into the bridge and uses a device to render the Enterprise’s crew unconscious. She then walks over to Spock… When the crew awakens, McCoy summons Kirk to sick bay and informs him that the alien visitor apparently removed Spock’s entire brain without even performing surgery. After Spock’s body is fitted with a device that allows McCoy to control the Vulcan’s motor functions with a remote control, Kirk starts a search for Spock’s brain, hoping it can be recovered and somehow returned to Spock before his body decays.

Season 3 Regular Cast: William Shatner (Captain James T. Kirk), Leonard Nimoy (Mr. Spock), DeForest Kelley (Dr. Leonard McCoy)

Order this episode on DVDDownload this episode via Amazon's Unboxwritten by Lee Cronin
directed by Marc Daniels
music by Fred Steiner

Guest Cast: James Doohan (Mr. Scott), George Takei (Lt. Sulu), Nichelle Nichols (Lt. Uhura), Walter Koenig (Chekov), Marj Dusay (Kara), Majel Barrett (Nurse Chapel), James Daris (Creature), Sheila Leighton (Luma)

Notes: Generally considered the original Star Trek’s lowest ebb, Spock’s Brain – and every other third season episode attributed to “Lee Cronin” – actually came from the pen of Gene L. Coon, who has laid much of the series’ groundwork, including the Klingons and the Prime Directive.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Classic Season 07 Doctor Who

Spearhead From Space

Doctor WhoDr. Liz Shaw is uprooted from her research at Cambridge to serve as the scientific advisor for the recently formed United Nations Intelligence Taskforce, headed by Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. The Brigadier seeks Liz’s help in the investigation of two mysteriously precise meteor showers which could be signs of alien interference with Earth. But the Brigadier’s luck improves with the arrival of a police box in the midst of the most recent meteor shower, though its sole occupant is a man he’s never seen before. The Doctor, however, does recognize the Brigadier despite recovering from the trauma of his forced regeneration at the hands of the Time Lords, and the two join forces – with a somewhat bewildered Dr. Shaw in tow – to fight an alien menace which can inhabit and control one of the most common substances manufactured on Earth…plastic.

Download this episodewritten by Robert Holmes
directed by Derek Martinus
music by Dudley Simpson

Guest Cast: Hugh Burden (Channing), Neil Wilson (Seeley), John Breslin (Captain Munro), Antony Webb (Dr. Henderson), Helen Dorward (Nurse), Talfryn Thomas (Mullins), George Lee (Corporal Forbes), Iain Smith, Tessa Shaw, Ellis Jones (UNIT personnel), Allan Mitchell (Wagstaffe), Prentis Hancock (Reporter), Derek Smee (Ransome), John Woodnutt (Hibbert), Betty Bowden (Meg Seeley), Hamilton Dyce (Scobie), Henry McCarthy (Dr. Beavis), Clifford Cox (Soldier), Edmund Bailey (Waxworks Attendant)

Broadcast from January 3 through 24, 1970

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Doomwatch Season 1

The Plastic Eaters

DoomwatchAn airliner bound for San Pedro experiences serious problems during descent: something is eating away at controls, insulation on wiring, anything made of plastic. The pilot issues a mayday, but nothing can be done to save the plane or anyone on it.

Tobias Wren arrives to interview for a job at the recently formed Department of Scientific Work (informally called Doom Watch by those who work there), only to be given an immediate assignment by the Department’s director, Dr. Simon Quist: investigate the San Pedro plane crash. When Quist phones his government contacts to enquire about any experimental means of disposing of plastic, he’s given the cold shoulder, and sends Dr. John Ridge to dig deeper. Ridge finds reports pointing to a biological agent – “Variant 14” – that dissolves plastics. Ridge’s “research” draws the fury of a government minister, who intends to suspend both Quist and Doomwatch. In the meantime, Wren has obtained pieces of the wreckage and is flying back to London with them, completely unaware that the wreckage could introduce the hungry plastic-eating bacteriological agent to a new plane full of plastic…

written by Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis
directed by Paul Ciappessoni
music by Max Harris

DoomwatchCast: John Paul (Dr. Spencer Quist), Simon Oates (Dr. John Ridge), Robert Powell (Tobias Wren), Joby Blanshard (colin Bradley), Wendy Hall (Pat Hunnisett), John Barron (The Minister), Jennifer Wilson (Miss Wills), Kevin Stoney (Hal Symonds), Michael Hawkins (Jim Bennett), Tony Sibbald (First Airline Crew), Monty Brown (First Airline Crew), Gracie Luck (First Airline Crew), Richardson Morgan (First Airline Crew), John Lee (Second Airline Crew), Eric Corrie (Second Airline Crew), Pat Wallen (Second Airline Crew), Caroline Rogers (Second Airline Crew), Edward Dentith (Second Airline Crew), Christopher Hodge (Commissionaire), Andreas Malandrinos (Airline Passenger), Mike Lewin (Airline Passenger), Pat Beckett (Airline Passenger), Toba Laurence (Airline Passenger), Cynthia Bizeray (Airline Passenger), Peter Thompson (Airline Passenger), Michael Earl (Airline Passenger), Tony Haydon (Airline Passenger)

DoomwatchNotes: Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis are well known to fans of UK sci-fi fandom as the creators of the Cybermen, one of Doctor Who‘s most persistent enemies. Much as the Cybermen were the result of former Doctor Who script editor Davis and Dr. Pedler brainstorming about organ replacement gone berzerk, Doomwatch is the result of them continuing their brainstorming sessions about scenarios resulting from human technology and science growing faster than human wisdom. Of the 38 episodes of Doomwatch produced over three seasons (only 37 of which were shown, one being deemed too violent for the BBC), only 24 episodes are still known to exist, and those 24 have been released on DVD.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Night Gallery Season 1

The Dead Man / The Housekeeper

Night GalleryThe Dead Man: Dr. Talmadge is summoned to the home of an old friend and colleague, Dr. Redford, who introduces him to a man named John Fearing. Fearing, just by thinking of a disease, can manifest the symptoms of that illness. Redford says that Fearing’s ability is hereditary, and he hopes to learn more about it and harness it to cure all disease. Over dinner, Talmadge notices that Redford’s wife can barely hide her attraction to Fearing, who appears as a perfect physical specimen when he concentrates on being well. In his next experiment with Fearing, Redford hypnotically conditions his human guinea pig to imagine himself dead. Is he taking his experiment to a new level…or eliminating a rival?

Download this episode via Amazonteleplay by Douglas Heyes
from a short story by Fritz Lieber
directed by Douglas Heyes
music by Robert Prince / series theme by Gil Melle

Cast: Carl Betz (Dr. Max Redford), Jeff Corey (Dr. Miles Talmadge), Louise Sorel (Velia Redford), Michael Blodgett (John Fearing), Glenn Dixon (Minister)

The Housekeeper: Miss Wattle applies for a housekeeping job with the wealthy but eccentric scientist Cedric Acton. His plans for here go beyond tidying up the house, though – Cedric feels his wife has become too entitled to be tolerable. He wants to transplant another woman’s personality into his wife’s admittedly attractive body, and tells Miss Wattle of the riches she’ll be “inheriting” as the new inhabitant of that body. She reluctantly goes along with it, but finds she has no interest in remaining part of this experiment. When she tries to leave her “husband”, she comes face to face with the new housekeeper…her own replacement.

Night Gallerywritten by Matthew Howard
directed by John Meredyth Lucas
music by Robert Prince

Cast: Larry Hagman (Cedric Acton), Suzy Parker (Carlotta Acton), Jeanette Nolan (Miss Wattle), Cathleen Cordell (Miss Beamish), Howard Morton (Headwaiter)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Classic Season 08 Doctor Who

Terror of the Autons

Doctor WhoAs the Doctor begins investigating the theft of the last remaining Nestene energy sphere (left behind in the previous Auton invasion) and the disappearance of a radio astronomer, a Time Lord appears and warns him that the Master – the Doctor’s arch rival Time Lord – has come to Earth. The Doctor deduces that the Master’s plan is to reawaken the Nestene Consciousness, giving it the opportunity to invade Earth once more. The Master has already set up production of the lethal plastic Autons at a nearby plastic factory – and knows exactly how he wants to rid the universe of the human race…and the Doctor.

Season 8 Regular Cast: Jon Pertwee (The Doctor), Roger Delgado (The Master), Katy Manning (Jo Grant), Nicholas Courtney (Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart)

written by Robert Holmes
directed by Barry Letts
music by Dudley Simpson

Guest Cast: John Levene (Sergeant Benton), Richard Franklin (Captain Yates), John Baskcomb (Rossini), Dave Carter (Museum Attendant), Christopher Burgess (Professor Phillips), Andrew Staine (Goodge), Frank Mills (Radiotelescope Director), David Garth (Time Lord), Michael Wisher (Rex Farrel), Harry Towb (McDermott), Barbara Leake (Mrs. Farrel), Stephen Jack (Rex Farrel Sr.), Roy Stewart (Strong Man), Terry Walsh, Pat Gorman (Autons), Haydn Jones (Auton voice), Dermot Tuohy (Brownrose), Norman Stanley (Telephone Man)

Broadcast from January 2 through January 23, 1971

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Ace Of Wands Season 2

Seven Serpents, Sulphur And Salt – Episode 1

Ace Of WandsMr. Christopher, an acquaintance of Mr. Sweet’s, rushes into Sweet’s bookstore while Lulli is watching the shop. He asks Lulli where Sweet can be reached, and then wants to call him, hiding a piece of paper in one of the books in the shop while Lulli looks for the phone number. But before much of a conversation can take place, a man named Luko appears out of thin air, killing Mr. Christopher and then looking for something until Lulli walks in. Luko vanishes again just as the door opens, leaving Lulli to find Mr. Christopher’s cobweb-covered corpse. Tarot, Sam and Mr. Sweet converge on the store, and Mr. Christopher’s walking stick, imbued with some kind of magical power, directs them to the paper – a scrap of 14th century paper with a drawing of a serpent. Mr. Sweet consults with the verger at a nearby church about the possible meaning and importance of the paper, only to be met with a horrified response. Tarot and Sam, expecting the killer to return to the bookstore in search of the paper, lay a trap, but this time Luko appears with his employer, the sinister Mr. Stabs, who seems to have considerable magical powers of his own – enough to stop Tarot in his tracks. Mr. Sweet and the church verger return with bad news: an exorcism, complete with chalk circles on the floor, will have to be performed on all who have touched the paper. During this ritual, the hand-drawn serpent becomes a real snake – and a terrified Lulli steps out of the protection of her circle.

written by Trevor Preston
directed by Pamela Lonsdale
music by Andrew Bown

Ace Of WandsCast: Michael Mackenzie (Tarot), Judy Loe (Lulli), Tony Selby (Sam), Donald Layne-Smith (Mr. Sweet), Russell Hunter (Mr. Stabs), Ian Trigger (Luko), Harriet Harper (Polandi), Llewellyn Rees (Mr. Christopher), Jack Woolgar (Charlie Postle)

Notes: This is the premiere of Ace Of Wands’ second season, but along with the rest of the second season, is missing due to ITV’s policy of erasing and reusing then-expensive videotape in the 1970s. This synopsis is based on the original scripts (included as bonus features on Network DVD’s box set release of the surviving third season) as well as very low-quality audio recordings of the episode in question.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Night Gallery Season 2

The Boy Who Predicted Earthquakes and other stories

Night GalleryThe Boy Who Predicted Earthquakes: TV executive Wellman is annoyed when one of his producers auditions a ten-year-old boy who supposedly has a spotless track record of predicting the future. When the child’s predictions start to come true, however, Wellman changes his mind, signing the boy (and his grandfather, who accompanies him) to a contract. One of his predictions is a big one – war and hunger will come to an end – but maybe that’s because people will also come to an end.

teleplay by Rod Serling
based upon the short story by Margaret St. Clair
directed by John Badham
music by Oliver Nelson / series theme by Gil Melle

Night GalleryCast:
Michael Constantine (Mr. Wellman), Clint Howard (Herbie), Bernie Kopell (Reed), Ellen Weston (Dr. Peterson), William Hansen (Godwin), Gene Tyburn (Floor Director), Rance Howard (Cameraman), Rosary Nix (Secretary), John Donald (Grip)

Miss Lovecraft Sent Me: A babysitter arrives for her first night of looking after her new charge in a castle-like mansion. She’s put off by the eccentricity of the child’s father, who apparently works nights. Now she wonders if she should stick around long enough to meet his child…

teleplay by Jack Laird
directed by Gene Kearney
music by Oliver Nelson

Cast: Joseph Campanella (Father), Sue Lyon (Betsy)

The Hand Of Borgus Weems: A man believes that one of his hands is under the control of some malevolent force, and is trying to commit murder. He demands that his doctor amputate the offending hand immediately…but his doctor’s hands may not be any more reliable than his own.

Night Galleryteleplay by Alvin Sapinsley
based upon the short story by George LAngelaan
directed by John Meredyth Lucas
music by Oliver Nelson

Cast: George Maharis (Peter Lacland), Ray Milland (Dr. Archibald Ravadon), Joan Huntington (Susan Douglas), Patricia Donahue (Dr. Innokenti), Peter Mamakos (Nico Kazanzakis), Robert Hoy (Everett Winterreich), William Mims (Brock Ramsey)

Phantom Of What Opera?: We all know the old story – the apparently dashing Phantom of the Opera is horribly disfigured beneath his mask. But what happens if the object of his affection and obsession isn’t much better off in the looks department?

Night Gallerywritten by Gene Kearney
directed by Gene Kearney
music by Oliver Nelson

Cast: Leslie Nielsen (Phantom), Mary Ann Beck (Beautiful Prisoner)

Notes: The cameraman in The Boy Who Predicted Earthquakes is called “Rance” on screen – the real name of the actor playing him, Rance Howard, whose sons happen to be Clint and Ron Howard. Rance Howard would make a handful of appearances in the ’90s space opera Babylon 5 as the father of Captain John Sheridan.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Classic Season 09 Doctor Who

Day Of The Daleks Part 1

Doctor WhoSir Reginald Styles, a diplomat whose efforts could keep the world away from the brink of war in the coming days, claims to have seen a ghost stalking Auderly House, his country mansion. U.N.I.T. troops search the nearby grounds and find a lone man in combat fatigues, carrying a weapon of a futuristic design and a crude time travel device. The Doctor and Jo spend a night in Auderly House, unaware that three others with similar clothes and weapons are watching the house. When one of them enters the house and accosts the Doctor in the morning, he’s horrified to learn that the Doctor has repaired his comrade’s time travel device.

Download this episode via Amazonwritten by Louis Marks
directed by Paul Bernard
music by Dudley Simpson

Doctor WhoCast: Jon Pertwee (The Doctor), Katy Manning (Jo Grant), Nicholas Courtney (Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart), John Levene (Sergeant Benton), Richard Franklin (Captain Yates), Jean McFarlane (Miss Paget), Wilfrid Carter (Sir Reginald Styles), Tim Condren (Guerilla), John Scott Martin (Chief Dalek), Oliver Gilbert, Peter Messaline (Dalek voices), Aubrey Woods (Controller), Deborah Brayshaw (Technician), Gypsie Kemp (Radio Operator), Anna Barry (Anat), Jimmy Winston (Shura), Scott Fredericks (Boaz), Valentine Palmer (Monia), Andrew Carr (Guard), Peter Hill (Manager), George Raistrick (Guard), Alex MacIntosh (TV Reporter), Rick Lester, Maurice Bush, Frank Menzies, Bruce Wells, Geoffrey Todd, David Joyce (Ogrons), Ricky Newby, Murphy Grumbar (Daleks)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Ace Of Wands Season 3

The Meddlers – Part 1

Ace Of WandsTarot visits a run-down street market, learning that unlucky accidents have been befalling the merchants there – a grocer whose goods go rotten, a bookseller whose cart catches on fire, and so on. A trio of wandering street musicians draw Tarot’s attention as well, particularly the somewhat threatening attitude of their spoon player. Tarot meets a photographer named Chas and his sister Mikki, discovering that he has a psychic link to Mikki similar to that which he once shared with Luli. Realizing that the stakes are becoming deadly, Tarot decides to stay and help revitalize that market, only to discover that someone doesn’t want his help…and intends to send that message forcefully.

written by P.J. Hammond
directed by John Russell
music by Andrew Bown

Ace Of WandsCast: Michael Mackenzie (Tarot), Petra Markham (Mikki), Roy Holder (Chas), Michael Standing (Spoon), Barry Linehan (Mockers), Paul Dawkins (Dove), Stefan Kalipha (Drum), Honora Burke (Madge), Neil Linden (Accordion Player)

Notes: This is the premiere of Ace Of Wands’ third season, the only season of the show left intact by ITV’s policy of erasing and reusing then-expensive videotape in the 1970s. While Doctor Who fans may feel Ace Of Wandsunlucky that so many 1960s episodes of that series are missing, Ace Of Wands was produced much more recently, and none of its first two seasons’ episodes now exist in the archives. Involving a crime-solving stage magician with mystic powers and ESP, the series introduced new characters in this episode, replacing the departed Roy (Tony Selby) and Luli (Judy Loe), who had been Tarot’s accomplices in the first two years of the show.

LogBook entry by Earl Green