theLogBook.com is a chronicle of how we used to imagine the future – an ever-expanding
logbook of what our entertainment, our culture, and even our brightest minds thought would happen.
It’s nostalgia – and some real history – that gives factual context to the fiction, cultural
context to the factual, and always looks to the future.

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Published On: November 8, 2018

Star Trek: Short TreksStreaming service CBS All Access debuts the second episode of Short Treks, a series of 15-20 minute short stories set in the Star Trek universe (in this instance, aboard the U.S.S. Discovery from Star Trek: Discovery, though in this story significant time has passed sinece the events seen in the series to date). Aldis Hodge stars.

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Published On: November 8, 2014

Doctor WhoThe 814th episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1 (the 115th episode since the series’ revival), starring Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman. Michelle Gomez, Jemma Redgrave, and Ingrid Oliver guest star in the conclusion of the eighth season of the revived series.

This entry is forthcoming.

Published On: November 8, 2010

Silva Screen Records releases a 2-CD set of Murray Gold’s soundtrack music from the 2010 season of Doctor Who. This release continues the double-disc format of the 2009 specials soundtrack, and includes most of the music recorded for the entire fifth season. Read more

Published On: November 8, 1985

The Twilight ZoneCBS airs the seventh episode of a revival of Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone. Adrienne Barbeau and Danny Kaye star in an episode comprised of two short stories, including Harlan Ellison’s adaptation of his own short story, Paladin Of The Lost Hour.

This series is not fully chronicled in the LogBook. You could join theLogBook team and write this guide or support the webmaster’s efforts to expand the site.
More about The Twilight Zone in the LogBook and theLogBook.com Store

Published On: November 8, 1984

DiscoverySpace Shuttle Discovery takes off on a week-long satellite deployment mission, delivering a Canadian communications satellite and another American SYNCOM defense communications satellite into orbit. Using the MMU jet packs, Discovery’s crew retrieve two satellites placed into the wrong orbits by malfunctioning boosters after a shuttle mission earlier in the year, returning them to the cargo bay for return to Earth. Discovery’s crew consists of Commander Frederick Hauck, Pilot David Walker, and mission specialists Anna Fisher, Dale Gardner, and Joseph Allen.

Published On: November 8, 1974

Six Million Dollar ManThe 19th episode of The Six Million Dollar Man is broadcast on ABC, starring Lee Majors and Richard Anderson. Meg Foster guest stars in an episode written by D.C. Fontana (Star Trek).

More about The Six Million Dollar Man in the LogBook and theLogBook.com Store
This series is not fully chronicled in the LogBook. You could join theLogBook team and write this guide or support the webmaster’s efforts to expand the site.

Published On: November 8, 1972

HBOService Electric Cable, the local cable company in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, embarks on an ambitious experiment, launching a movie channel that only a few hundred of their subscribers pay extra to receive. The channel, Home Box Office, is the brainchild of a New York City broadcasting entrepreneur seeking a workaround for the tendency of the city’s own high-rise architecture to block over-the-air signals. Originally code-named the Green Channel (presumably for the cash it is hoped it will rake in), HBO begins life with a mix of movies and live sports events (such as pro hockey) with no commercial interruption. Within a year, HBO will be acquired by Time-Life, expanding to nine hours of programming every day. With HBO having proven that cable subscribers will pay extra for an ad-free movie and sports channel, competing pay cable networks such as Showtime will spring up in the years to come. HBO also pioneers the concept of broadcasting exclusively via satellite, years ahead of the broadcast networks.

Published On: November 8, 1969

Night GalleryNBC premieres Rod Serling’s Night Gallery, a TV movie anthology of three original Serling stories, each introduced by Serling himself and starring Joan Crawford, Roddy McDowall, Ossie Davis, Richard Kiley and Tom Bosley. A young Steven Spielberg directs one of the three segments, his second professional directorial credit. Night Gallery will become a series on NBC’s schedule in late 1970.

Read more Hear about it on the Sci-Fi 5 podcast

Published On: November 8, 1958

Pioneer 2NASA launches Pioneer 2, a near-identical twin to the failed lunar probe Pioneer 1 it launched a month earlier. Again, technical errors prevent the probe from entering lunar orbit or, for that matter, even reaching the moon – Pioneer 2 limps into a looping arc, barely a thousand miles from Earth, and returns home to burn up in the atmosphere.

Absolutely no generative AI was used in the creation of the content on this website.
It’s mostly just some guy named Earl.

EG