The week-long national syndication window opens for the 88th episode of George A. Romero’s Tales From The Darkside anthology series. Nile Lanning and Eric Jason guest star. 
Earl Green is the creator, curator, and head writer of theLogBook.com.
The week-long national syndication window opens for the 88th episode of George A. Romero’s Tales From The Darkside anthology series. Nile Lanning and Eric Jason guest star.
Having weathered the storm of the 1983 video game industry crash longer than most, Coleco Industries, maker of the early ’80s Colecovision video game system, files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. At the time of the filing, Coleco is America’s sixth largest toy company, but the video game industry isn’t its downfall. Overproduction of the company’s Cabbage Patch Kids toys has proven to be fatal, with two straight years of annual losses exceeding $100,000,000. The remains of Coleco are eventually bought up by rival toymaker Hasbro.
Dutton publishes the horror novel Demon Night by J. Michael Straczynski (The Twilight Zone, Babylon 5).
The Soviet Union launches the second of two unmanned Phobos space probes, designed to investigate the largest of Mars’ two asteroid-like moons and deliver a lander to analyze that moon’s surface. The Phobos program is intended to be the definitive Mars exploration program of the 1980s, as well as the debut of a new Soviet interplanetary vehicle to take over from the Zond/Venera design in use since the 1960s; only Phobos 2 will actually reach its target intact, but it will still fail to complete all of its mission objectives.
From within 500 million miles, cameras aboard NASA’s Voyager 2 unmanned space probe can now get a better look at planet Neptune than is possible with ground-based telescopes on Earth – even though, at present, that means a tiny disk only eight pixels across in images measuring 800 x 800 pixels. Voyager 2 is still over a year away from its closest encounter with Neptune, and even its own best photos don’t reveal any detail in the blue-green planet’s atmosphere. What is known is that, despite receiving less than half the sunlight and heat of the next innermost planet, Uranus, Neptune maintains the same temperature as Uranus. This means that Neptune is generating more heat than it receives from the sun.
The five-month-long strike of unionized Hollywood writers comes to an end, allowing numerous television series and movies to go back into pre-production. With the American television network schedule introducing new shows as early as September in many cases, the “new fall season” does not begin on time, and most series do not have new episodes on the air until the critical Nielsen TV ratings sweeps month of November.
GNP Crescendo Records releases the first CD of Star Trek: The Next Generation soundtrack music, containing Dennis McCarthy’s music from the pilot movie, Encounter At Farpoint.
The Soviet Union launches the Soyuz TM-6 mission to the Mir space station, with cosmonauts Vladimir Lyakhov, Valeri Polyakov and Abdul Ahad Mohmand aboard. Lyakhov and Mohmand remain aboard Mir for only a week, participating in experiments involving both crews, but Polyakov, a medical doctor, remains on Mir to monitor the Expedition 3 crew in the final months of their unprecedented one-year stay in orbit. This crew exchanges spacecraft with the station crew, returning home in the Soyuz TM-5 vehicle after a week on Mir, but their return is plagued by problems both technical and otherwise.
The Soviet Union loses contact with the Phobos 1 unmanned Mars probe during its interplanetary flight and is unable to re-establish contact. The cause of the vehicle’s loss is later traced to a typo in a single line of command code uplinked to its computer from the ground; this error changes a routine command to a command to shut down attitude control, leaving Phobos 1 tumbling through space, unable to point its antenna toward Earth. The mission is a complete loss.
Cosmonauts Vladimir Lyakhov and Abdul Ahad Mohmand, the first Afghan in space, undock from the Mir space station and prepare to return home, jettisoning the orbital module of their Soyuz TM-5 space capsule per standard procedure. But their descent module – the only part of a Soyuz that ever returns to Earth intact – experiences numerous technical glitches, and ground controllers in the Soviet Union order them to stay in orbit for an extra day. That’s easy enough for engineers on Earth to say: the abandoned orbital module contains the only toilet facilities on a Soyuz spacecraft, leaving the crew to hold everything until their return on September 7th; there is also no fresh water available. Needless to say, Soviet mission planners redraw the rules of future missions to keep the orbital module attached until the last possible moment with safety guidelines.
The seventh episode of the science fiction comedy Red Dwarf airs on BBC 2. This episode, the second season opener, introduces the character of Kryten, though Kryten doesn’t stay aboard Red Dwarf until his next appearance in the third season. This is the only episode in which Kryten is played by David Ross (Robert Llewellyn plays the role when Kryten becomes a regular fixture).
The Schnell Fenster album The Sound Of Trees is released in America by Atlantic Records (having already been issued by EMI in Australia and New Zealand). The band is formed around former members of Split Enz, including founding guitarist Phil Judd, percussionist Noel Crombie, ’80s bassist Nigel Griggs, and guitarist Michael den Elzen (the only member of the group not to have played for Split Enz, though he has been a session player on a Tim Finn solo album). The single “Whisper” fails to take off in the States and the band breaks up after running up significant debts trying to promote the album.
The eighth episode of the science fiction comedy Red Dwarf airs on BBC 2. John Abineri guest stars.
CBS premieres the first episode of the animated series Superman, starring the voices of Beau Weaver and Ginny McSwain, and comprised of two stories: Destroy The Defendroids and The Adoption.
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Superman now streaming on Amazon Prime
The ninth episode of the science fiction comedy Red Dwarf airs on BBC 2.
The 36th episode of a revival of Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone airs in syndication. Harry Morgan (M*A*S*H) stars in the third season premiere. The third season, still produced by CBS despite the cancellation of the series on the network’s schedule, is produced in Canada with the intention of increasing the number of episodes to make further syndication of the new Twilight Zone viable. The third season is overseen by Mark Shelmerdine (I, Claudius) and J. Michael Straczynski (Babylon 5, Jeremiah, Sense8), and is reformatted into single-story, half-hour episodes.
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
The Twilight Zone now streaming on Paramount Plus
CBS airs the second episode of the animated series Superman, starring the voices of Beau Weaver and Ginny McSwain, and comprised of two stories: Fugitive From Space and The Supermarket.
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Superman now streaming on Amazon Prime
Restless Records releases They Might Be Giants‘ second album, Lincoln, featuring the singles “Ana Ng” and “They’ll Need A Crane”.
The tenth episode of the science fiction comedy Red Dwarf airs on BBC 2. Mark Williams guest stars.
The first Space Shuttle launch in over two years since the Challenger accident, Discovery lifts off on a flight to test improved safety systems and procedures. The shuttle’s major payload is the second TDRS (Tracking & Data Relay Satellite) launched by NASA (an identical satellite was lost in the Challenger explosion in 1986), as well as numerous smaller experiments. Problems with Discovery’s environmental system cause the crew cabin to be warmer than usual. Discovery’s crew for this flight consists of Commander Fred Hauck, Pilot Richard Covey, and mission specialists John Lounge, George Nelson, and David Hilmers.
The 37th episode of a revival of Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone airs in syndication. Marc Singer (V) stars.
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
The Twilight Zone now streaming on Paramount Plus
CBS airs the third episode of the animated series Superman, starring the voices of Beau Weaver and Ginny McSwain, and comprised of two stories: By The Skin Of The Dragon’s Teeth and At The Babysitter’s.
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Superman now streaming on Amazon Prime
The 11th episode of the science fiction comedy Red Dwarf airs on BBC 2. Charles Augins guest stars. Stop shirkin’ and start workin’!
The 670th episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1. Michael Sheard, Simon Williams and Terry Molloy guest star in the opening story of the 25th season. The Daleks make their first appearance since 1985, and this is the final original series story to feature them.
The 38th episode of a revival of Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone airs in syndication. Ted Shackelford (Space Precinct) stars.
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
The Twilight Zone now streaming on Paramount Plus
CBS airs the fourth episode of the animated series Superman, starring the voices of Beau Weaver and Ginny McSwain, and comprised of two stories: Cybron Strikes and The First Day Of School.
This series is not yet chronicled in the LogBook. You could join theLogBook team and write this guide or support the webmaster’s efforts to expand the site.
Superman now streaming on Amazon Prime
The first episode of the syndicated Alexander and Ilya Salkind-produced Superboy series, starring John Haymes Newton and Stacy Haiduk, premieres. The premiere episode is written by Fred Freiberger, the producer behind Beyond Westworld and the final seasons of Star Trek and Space: 1999.
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The first episode of the horror anthology series Freddy’s Nightmares is broadcast in syndication in North America, hosted by Robert Englund in character as Freddy Krueger. The first episode, directed by Tobe Hooper, recounts the trial and execution of Krueger, as alluded to in the A Nightmare On Elm Street movie franchise.
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The 12th episode of the science fiction comedy Red Dwarf airs on BBC 2. Angela Bruce guest stars as the female Lister from the alternate universe, and Hattie Hayridge makes her debut as Hilly, an alternate female Holly (Hayridge joins the series full time in the third season). This is the final episode of Red Dwarf’s second season.
The 671st episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1. Michael Sheard, Simon Williams and Terry Molloy guest star in the opening story of the 25th season. The Daleks make their first appearance since 1985, and this is the final original series story to feature them. This episode also marks a major shift away from the comedy-oriented stories of the 1986 and 1987 seasons.
This timeline entry leads to an entry covering this entire Doctor Who serial; there are plans to write new episodic entries in the future. You can support this effort!
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