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Welcome to Gene-ology, a podcast by Roddenberry Entertainment that dives deep into the early TV writing works of Gene Roddenberry. Is this the best television script Gene Roddenberry wrote prior to creating Star Trek? Gene's singular episode of the popular medical drama Dr. Kildare is a powerful story full of rich characters and raw emotions – the bedrock of great television drama. Hosted by Earl Green & Ashley Thomas About Gene-ology Gene-ology explores Gene Roddenberry's early television scripts, including his lesser-known works before Star Trek using the Mission Log format popularized by Roddenberry Podcasts. We analyze the themes, writing style, and cultural impact of his scripts, and we even unearth stories from the Roddenberry archives that were never produced. Join us as we trace the roots of Gene's creative genius. In This Episode A breakdown of key moments and themes in "A Distant Thunder". Exploring Gene Roddenberry's evolving style and storytelling. How this episode ties into the broader TV landscape of the time and reflects the early seeds of Roddenberry's visionary work. Guest stars and unique production elements that bring this episode to life. Special Segment: Dramatic Recreation Since this script is not available to the public, we've brought it to life with a dramatic recreation! Special guests Jeff Gauntt and Bonnie Gordon perform a key section of the script. Listen in as they bring the story to life in this exclusive performance. Join the Conversation What did you think of this episode? Share your thoughts, theories, and favorite moments in the comments or reach out to us on social media or email us at missionlog@roddenberry.com Did you know Roddenberry Podcasts is on YouTube? Find the video versions of your favorite shows like Mission Log: Prodigy, Mission Log: The Orville, as well as exclusive content only available on YouTube. Subscribe now! https://www.youtube.com/@RoddenberryEntertainment?sub_confirmation=1 Follow us on Social Media: INSTAGRAM https://www.instagram.com/roddenberrypodcasts BLUESKY https://bsky.app/profile/roddenberrypod.bsky.social THREADS https://www.threads.net/@roddenberrypodcasts FACEBOOK https://www.facebook.com/MissionLogPod Our shows are part of the Roddenberry Entertainment family. For more great shows and to learn how we live the legacy of Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, follow us here: RODDENBERRY PODCASTS https://www.instagram.com/RoddenberryPodcasts RODDENBERRY ENTERTAINMENT https://www.instagram.com/RoddenberryOfficial RODDENBERRY FOUNDATION https://www.instagram.com/TheRoddenberryFoundation Support the Show For as little as $1 a month, you can gain access to our Mission Log Discord Community! There, we continue the discussion with dedicated channels and a weekly video chat with the hosts. Become a member of our Patreon today! https://www.Patreon.com/MissionLog Subscribe and Stay Tuned Be sure to subscribe to Gene-ology for more deep dives into Gene Roddenberry's early works. New episodes are released regularly as we uncover more of Gene's television legacy. – Gene-ology is produced by Roddenberry Entertainment. Executive producer Eugene "Rod" Roddenberry. Visit https://Podcasts.Roddenberry.com for more great content. Edited by Earl Green.
The CW airs the fifth episode of Superman & Lois, starring Tyler Hoechlin, Elizabeth Tulloch, Jordan Elsass, and Alex Garfin. Michele Scarabelli (Alien Nation) guest stars.
Cable channel Disney XD premieres the 33rd episode of the series Star Wars: Rebels, a CGI animated storyline falling between the original and prequel trilogies of the Star Wars saga.
The 85th episode of Arrow, a modern-day reboot of DC Comics’ Green Arrow superhero starring Stephen Amell, airs on the CW. Neal McDonough (Boomtown) guest stars.
Sony Legacy Records releases, as part of a career-spanning box set of the Alan Parsons Project discography, the previously-unreleased, all-instrumental 1979 album of demos titled The Sicilian Defence, named after a chess strategem. The album was originally submitted to Arista Records in the late ’70s in attempt to fulfill a contractual clause that would allow the band to seek another label. (The album will later be released on its own after the box set goes out of print.)
Bridging the gap between Star Wars Episode II and Episode III, Cartoon Network airs the 23rd mini-episode of Genndy Tartakovsky’s The Clone Wars animated shorts.
Crown Books publishes Neal Thompson’s non-fictional biography, “Light This Candle: The Life & Times of Alan Shepard“, chronicling the life and career of Alan B. Shepard, the first of the Mercury astronauts to reach space, and the only veteran of the Mercury program to later walk on the moon despite medical issues that nearly ended his spaceflight career.
NASA scientists unveil new findings from the two Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity. While both rovers have found evidence of water erosion in rocks at their respective landing sites, the scientists now say that Opportunity’s landing site – a large crater – features rocks which show conclusive evidence of a large body of salt water, not unlike Earth’s oceans. While no definitive signs of life have been found by Opportunity or its identical twin, these findings continue to add up to a picture of Mars as a place where life once could have thrived.
Despite attempts in recent years to keep the station in orbit for commercial purposes, the Russian space station Mir – originally launched in 1986 by the Soviet Union – is brought out of orbit with a deorbit burn fired by the engines of an attached unmanned Progress cargo vehicle. The largest space vehicle ever to plunge through Earth’s atmosphere, Mir breaks up over the south Pacific, where any surviving debris is expected to sink harmlessly into the ocean east of New Zealand. The fifteen-year-old station, having been designed with a service life of five years in mind, had been the site of the first joint Russian-American manned space operations since 1975, and led directly to both the contractual agreements and design of the International Space Station.
Canadian broadcaster CHCH-TV airs the 11th episode of Art Monterastelli’s sci-fi series Total Recall 2070, starring Michael Easton and Cynthia Preston, very loosely based on the 1990 film Total Recall. The series will air on the American pay cable channel Showtime later in the year. David Warner (Time Bandits, Tron) guest stars.
The 91st episode of Chris Carter’s modern-day science fiction series The X-Files airs on Fox, starring Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny. Joe Spano guest stars.
ABC airs the fifth episode of Hypernauts, created by Christy Marx (Jem) and Ron Thornton (the visual effects artist behind the CGI of Babylon 5), and starring Marc Daniel (Fast Track) and Carrie Dobro (Crusade).
The 22nd episode of the science fiction crime drama Super Force is broadcast in syndication in North America, starring Ken Olandt, Larry B. Scott, and Patrick Macnee (The Avengers). Don Stroud and Marshall Teague guest star.
The German arm of CBS Records releases the album Fantasie by Münchener Freiheit. The same album, except with English lyrics, will be issued in North America and the UK later in the year.
The 640th episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1. Eleanor Bron, Alexei Sayle (The Young Ones), Trevor Cooper (Star Cops) and William Gaunt guest star; Terry Molloy reprises the role of Davros.
The ninth episode of Richard Carpenter’s fanciful retelling of the Robin Hood legend, Robin Of Sherwood, airs on ITV, starring Michael Praed, Mark Ryan, Judi Trott, and Nickolas Grace. Jeremy Bulloch (The Empire Strikes Back, Chocky) guest stars.
The 577th episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1. Anthony Ainley appears as the Master; Nigel Stock also guest stars in a story shot in and around a real Concorde supersonic jetliner.
The 34th episode of The Bionic Woman, starring Lindsay Wagner and Richard Anderson, airs on ABC. Jeff Corey (Star Trek, Babylon 5) and Gary Lockwood (The Lieutenant, 2001: a space odyssey) guest star.
ABC premieres the made-for-TV movie Strange New World, starring John Saxon, Keene Curtis, and Catherine Bach. Created by Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry (but heavily rewritten by writers hired by Warner Bros.), Strange New World is the third attempt to build a series pilot around the story of an astronaut frozen in suspended animation and reawakened only after the fall of human civilization. Again, there is no series pickup, though the concept will eventually form the basis of Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda, a syndicated series produced in the early 2000s after Roddenberry’s death.
The 33rd episode of The Six Million Dollar Man is broadcast on ABC, starring Lee Majors and Richard Anderson. Lindsay Wagner and Malachi Throne guest star. Although the character of Jaime Sommers is killed off in this episode, audience reaction is strong enough to merit not only a return appearance in the third season, but an entire spinoff series.
CBS premieres the made-for-TV movie Genesis II, starring Alex Cord, Mariette Hartley, Ted Cassidy, and Percy Rodrigues. Created and written by Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, Genesis II is clearly a series pilot, the first of several attempts by Roddenberry to chart a career beyond Star Trek. The story concerns an astronaut named Dylan Hunt who is frozen in suspended animation, only reawakening after the fall of human civilization; the pilot does not result in a series pickup, though the story of Dylan Hunt will form the basis of Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda, a syndicated series produced in the early 2000s after Roddenberry’s death.
ABC airs the 23rd episode of Irwin Allen’s sci-fi series Land Of The Giants, starring Gary Conway, Don Matheson, Deanna Lund, and Don Marshall. Lee Meriwether guest stars.
The 199th episode of Doctor Who airs on the BBC. This story sees the departure of Deborah Watling as the Doctor’s companion, Victoria Waterfield. This episode is now missing from the BBC’s archives.
The 21st episode of Batman airs on ABC. Burgess Meredith guest stars as the Penguin. (This is part one of a two-part story; each week’s story unfolds in two half-hour episodes on Monday and Tuesday.)
The first two-man American space crew lifts off in the first manned flight of NASA’s Gemini program. With a larger, more maneuverable spacecraft designed for longer stays in space, Gemini is intended to be a stepping stone on the path to the first lunar landing, allowing astronauts to practice rendezvous, docking, and orbital changes. Aboard the Gemini capsule are Mercury veteran Gus Grissom and rookie John Young; the capsule is unofficially nicknamed “Molly Brown” (a reference to Grissom’s sunken Mercury capsule). The flight lasts barely five hours and includes the first-ever orbital attitude changed made by a manned spacecraft.
British broadcaster ABC airs the 52nd episode of Sydney Newman’s spy series The Avengers, starring Patrick Macnee and Honor Blackman. This concludes the series’ second season.
The CW airs the 158th episode of The Flash, a modern-day reboot of DC Comics’ superhero starring Grant Gustin. 
The CW airs the fifth episode of Superman & Lois, starring Tyler Hoechlin, Elizabeth Tulloch, Jordan Elsass, and Alex Garfin. Michele Scarabelli (Alien Nation) guest stars.
Cable channel Disney XD premieres the 33rd episode of the series Star Wars: Rebels, a CGI animated storyline falling between the original and prequel trilogies of the Star Wars saga. 
The 85th episode of Arrow, a modern-day reboot of DC Comics’ Green Arrow superhero starring Stephen Amell, airs on the CW. Neal McDonough (Boomtown) guest stars.
Sony Legacy Records releases, as part of a career-spanning box set of the Alan Parsons Project discography, the previously-unreleased, all-instrumental 1979 album of demos titled The Sicilian Defence, named after a chess strategem. The album was originally submitted to Arista Records in the late ’70s in attempt to fulfill a contractual clause that would allow the band to seek another label. (The album will later be released on its own after the box set goes out of print.) 
BBC Video releases, as part of the DVD box set The Tripods: The Complete Series, Ken Freeman’s notional soundtrack for Tripods: The Pool Of Fire, the unmade third season of the BBC’s 1980s sci-fi series The Tripods. 
Bridging the gap between Star Wars Episode II and Episode III, Cartoon Network airs the 23rd mini-episode of Genndy Tartakovsky’s The Clone Wars animated shorts. 
The Levinhurst album Perfect Life is released, featuring the single “Hope”. 
Crown Books publishes Neal Thompson’s non-fictional biography, “Light This Candle: The Life & Times of Alan Shepard“, chronicling the life and career of Alan B. Shepard, the first of the Mercury astronauts to reach space, and the only veteran of the Mercury program to later walk on the moon despite medical issues that nearly ended his spaceflight career. 
NASA scientists unveil new findings from the two Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity. While both rovers have found evidence of water erosion in rocks at their respective landing sites, the scientists now say that Opportunity’s landing site – a large crater – features rocks which show conclusive evidence of a large body of salt water, not unlike Earth’s oceans. While no definitive signs of life have been found by Opportunity or its identical twin, these findings continue to add up to a picture of Mars as a place where life once could have thrived. 
Toho releases the 27th Godzilla movie, Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla. 
Sci-Fi Channel airs the 130th episode of The Outer Limits. Michael Rooker (Guardians Of The Galaxy) guest stars.
Despite attempts in recent years to keep the station in orbit for commercial purposes, the Russian space station Mir – originally launched in 1986 by the Soviet Union – is brought out of orbit with a deorbit burn fired by the engines of an attached unmanned Progress cargo vehicle. The largest space vehicle ever to plunge through Earth’s atmosphere, Mir breaks up over the south Pacific, where any surviving debris is expected to sink harmlessly into the ocean east of New Zealand. The fifteen-year-old station, having been designed with a service life of five years in mind, had been the site of the first joint Russian-American manned space operations since 1975, and led directly to both the contractual agreements and design of the International Space Station.
Canadian broadcaster CHCH-TV airs the 11th episode of Art Monterastelli’s sci-fi series Total Recall 2070, starring Michael Easton and Cynthia Preston, very loosely based on the 1990 film Total Recall. The series will air on the American pay cable channel Showtime later in the year. David Warner (Time Bandits, Tron) guest stars.
The 91st episode of Chris Carter’s modern-day science fiction series The X-Files airs on Fox, starring Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny. Joe Spano guest stars.
ABC airs the fifth episode of Hypernauts, created by Christy Marx (Jem) and Ron Thornton (the visual effects artist behind the CGI of Babylon 5), and starring Marc Daniel (Fast Track) and Carrie Dobro (Crusade).
The week-long national syndication window opens for the 117th episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Kelsey Grammer (Cheers) guest stars. 
The 22nd episode of the science fiction crime drama Super Force is broadcast in syndication in North America, starring Ken Olandt, Larry B. Scott, and Patrick Macnee (The Avengers). Don Stroud and Marshall Teague guest star.
The German arm of CBS Records releases the album Fantasie by Münchener Freiheit. The same album, except with English lyrics, will be issued in North America and the UK later in the year. 
The 640th episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1. Eleanor Bron, Alexei Sayle (The Young Ones), Trevor Cooper (Star Cops) and William Gaunt guest star; Terry Molloy reprises the role of Davros. 
The ninth episode of Richard Carpenter’s fanciful retelling of the Robin Hood legend, Robin Of Sherwood, airs on ITV, starring Michael Praed, Mark Ryan, Judi Trott, and Nickolas Grace. Jeremy Bulloch (The Empire Strikes Back, Chocky) guest stars.
The 626th episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1. This story introduces Colin Baker as the sixth Doctor; Maurice Denham guest stars.
The 577th episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1. Anthony Ainley appears as the Master; Nigel Stock also guest stars in a story shot in and around a real Concorde supersonic jetliner.
The fifth episode of a vastly retooled Battlestar Galactica (or, depending on how you look at it, the show’s 26th episode) premieres on ABC. 
The 34th episode of The Bionic Woman, starring Lindsay Wagner and Richard Anderson, airs on ABC. Jeff Corey (Star Trek, Babylon 5) and Gary Lockwood (The Lieutenant, 2001: a space odyssey) guest star.
ABC premieres the made-for-TV movie Strange New World, starring John Saxon, Keene Curtis, and Catherine Bach. Created by Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry (but heavily rewritten by writers hired by Warner Bros.), Strange New World is the third attempt to build a series pilot around the story of an astronaut frozen in suspended animation and reawakened only after the fall of human civilization. Again, there is no series pickup, though the concept will eventually form the basis of Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda, a syndicated series produced in the early 2000s after Roddenberry’s death. 
The 33rd episode of The Six Million Dollar Man is broadcast on ABC, starring Lee Majors and Richard Anderson. Lindsay Wagner and Malachi Throne guest star. Although the character of Jaime Sommers is killed off in this episode, audience reaction is strong enough to merit not only a return appearance in the third season, but an entire spinoff series.
The 370th episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1. This a sequel to 1972’s The Curse Of Peladon, with many cast members returning to reprise their roles. 
CBS premieres the made-for-TV movie Genesis II, starring Alex Cord, Mariette Hartley, Ted Cassidy, and Percy Rodrigues. Created and written by Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, Genesis II is clearly a series pilot, the first of several attempts by Roddenberry to chart a career beyond Star Trek. The story concerns an astronaut named Dylan Hunt who is frozen in suspended animation, only reawakening after the fall of human civilization; the pilot does not result in a series pickup, though the story of Dylan Hunt will form the basis of Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda, a syndicated series produced in the early 2000s after Roddenberry’s death. 
NBC airs the 22nd episode of the supernatural anthology series Circle Of Fear (previously known as Ghost Story). Tab Hunter and Louise Sorel star.
ABC airs the 23rd episode of Irwin Allen’s sci-fi series Land Of The Giants, starring Gary Conway, Don Matheson, Deanna Lund, and Don Marshall. Lee Meriwether guest stars.
The 199th episode of Doctor Who airs on the BBC. This story sees the departure of Deborah Watling as the Doctor’s companion, Victoria Waterfield. This episode is now missing from the BBC’s archives.
The 26th episode of Gene Roddenberry’s science fiction series Star Trek airs on NBC. John Colicos guest stars in the first Star Trek episode to introduce the Federation’s arch rivals, the Klingons. 
The 21st episode of Batman airs on ABC. Burgess Meredith guest stars as the Penguin. (This is part one of a two-part story; each week’s story unfolds in two half-hour episodes on Monday and Tuesday.) 
The first two-man American space crew lifts off in the first manned flight of NASA’s Gemini program. With a larger, more maneuverable spacecraft designed for longer stays in space, Gemini is intended to be a stepping stone on the path to the first lunar landing, allowing astronauts to practice rendezvous, docking, and orbital changes. Aboard the Gemini capsule are Mercury veteran Gus Grissom and rookie John Young; the capsule is unofficially nicknamed “Molly Brown” (a reference to Grissom’s sunken Mercury capsule). The flight lasts barely five hours and includes the first-ever orbital attitude changed made by a manned spacecraft.
ABC airs the 26th episode of Leslie Stevens’ anthology series The Outer Limits. Geoffrey Horne and Nellie Burt star.
British broadcaster ABC airs the 52nd episode of Sydney Newman’s spy series The Avengers, starring Patrick Macnee and Honor Blackman. This concludes the series’ second season.
The 92nd episode of Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone airs on CBS. Richard Long and Frank Silvera star.
The 24th episode of the science fiction drama series Men Into Space airs on CBS, starring William Lundigan.