Earl Green is the creator, curator, and head writer of theLogBook.com.
theLogBook.com releases the 18th episode of the Retrogram podcast, hosted by Earl Green, covering the following shows from the week of September 24th, 1990:
Legendary Italian film composer Ennio Morricone dies at the age of 91. With over 500 film and TV credits to his name, he was one of the most prolific composers by either Hollywood or European standards, and his early partnership with director and college classmate Sergio Leone led to his first international success, the score from the 1966 spaghetti western The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly. That brought Morricone to Hollywood’s attention, and he went on to score such films as Once Upon A Time In The West, Two Mules For Sister Sara, Guns For San Sebastian, Duck You Sucker, Exorcist II, La Cage aux Folles, Orca, The Thing, Once Upon A Time In America, Red Sonja, The Untouchables, Bugsy, In The Line Of Fire, Mission To Mars, The Hateful Eight, and many others.
Grant Imahara, who played Lt. Sulu in the fan-made series Star Trek Continues but is probably better known for his part in the popular TV series Mythbusters, dies from a ruptured brain aneurysm at the age of 49. As a member of Mythbusters’ “Build Team”, he used his background in electrical engineering and robotic design to help create real-world proofs of the sometimes outlandish ideas being tested in the show. Prior to that, Imahara worked at Industrial Light & Magic, and had built and operated droids (including R2-D2) for the Star Wars prequel trilogy, as well as doing similar work for movies such as Galaxy Quest, AI, Terminator 3, and the Matrix trilogy. He had roles in Sharknado 3 and episodes of Eureka.
The United Arab Emirates launch their first uncrewed interplanetary mission, the Emirates Mars Mission, from Japan’s Tanegashima Space Center atop a Japanese H-IIA rocket. Expected to arrive at Mars in February 2021, the Hope orbiter will study Martian weather from orbit, not only serving as a true weather satellite for the red planet, but also gathering data on the factors leading to Martian atmosphere loss. The project, initiated in 2014, is intended not only to study Mars, but to attempt to gather a base of talent that could eventually build an Arab space industry.
China launches the uncrewed Tianwen-1 space probe atop a Long March 5 rocket from the launch facilities in Wenchang. Intended to achieve orbit around Mars in February 2021, the spacecraft includes an orbiter and a lander/rover; the orbiter will look for suitable landing sites for the lander/rover combo, which is not expected to be dropped off until April 2021. The rover has soil gathering and analysis capabilities, while the orbiter has ground-penetrating radar. Tianwen-1 is intended to take up the unfulfilled mission objectives of the Yinghuo-1 orbiter, which was launched as a payload on Russia’s failed Fobos-Grunt mission in 2011 (which fell back into Earth’s atmosphere).
Actor John Saxon, a frequent guest star in American TV and movies from the 1960s through the ’90s (and still actively working well into the 2010s), dies at the age of 83. He began appearing in movies in his late teens in the early 1950s, but became a frequent flyer on the small screen, with guest roles in such genre fare as The Time Tunnel, The Sixth Sense, Night Gallery, The Six Million Dollar Man, Wonder Woman, The Bionic Woman, The Fantastic Journey, Ray Bradbury Theater, and Masters Of Horror, with movie roles in Battle Beyond The Stars and the A Nightmare On Elm Street Series. In the early ’70s, he starred in two iterations of a Gene Roddenberry series pilot, Planet Earth and Strange New World, neither of which went to series.
The nominees for the 72nd annual Emmy Awards are announced, and genre shows are unusually well represented. HBO’s comics adaptation Watchmen raKes in 26 nominations, including Outstanding Limited Series and the best actor, actress, writing, directing, music, costuming, and design awards in the Limited Series category. The Mandalorian is nominated in 15 categories, including Best Drama Series, music, guest actor, voice-over performance, and visual effects; Westworld is nominated in 11 categories, The Handmaid’s Tale is nominated in ten (including Best Drama Series), Stranger Things nets eight nominations (including Best Drama Series), Star Trek: Picard is nominated in five categories, and Space Force is nominated in four. One nomination each goes to Star Trek: Short Treks, Star Wars: Resistance, Cosmos: Possible Worlds, Lost In Space, Dark Crystal: Age Of Resistance, Chasing The Moon, The Boys, Black Mirror, and the interactive feature Doctor Who: The Runaway. CNN’s Apollo 11 documentary is nominated in five categories.
NASA launches the Perseverance Rover on its way to the planet Mars atop an Atlas V rocket. Though built around an assembly of flight spares left over from the Curosity Rover, Perseverance (known more formally as the Mars 2020 Rover) carries new experiments, including an ability to gather soil samples and seal them for pickup and return to Earth by a later (as yet unannounced) mission, over 20 built-in cameras, and – in a first for planetary exploration – a microphone designed to record the sounds of the Martian environment. Also attached to Perseverance is a drone, Ingenuity, designed for independent flight in the Martian atmosphere. Perseverance is aimed at Jezero Crater, an environment where liquid surface water is believed to have existed in Mars’ distant past, with a February 2021 landing date. The vehicle alarms ground controllers by going into a “safe mode” after launch, but communications and telemetry resume shortly afterward.
Streaming service CBS All Access premieres the first episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks, created by Mike McMahan (Rick & Morty) as the first ongoing animated Star Trek series since the early 1970s. Chronicling the voyages of a new set of characters aboard the 24th century U.S.S. Cerritos, Lower Decks stars Tawny Newsome (Space Force), Jack Quaid (The Boys), Noel Wells (Craig Of The Creek), Eugene Cordero (Other Space), Dawnn Lewis (A Different World, Futurama), and Jerry O’Connell (Sliders). 
Streaming service CBS All Access premieres the second episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks, created by Mike McMahan (Rick & Morty) and starring Tawny Newsome (Space Force), Jack Quaid (The Boys), Noel Wells (Craig Of The Creek), Eugene Cordero (Other Space), Dawnn Lewis (A Different World, Futurama), and Jerry O’Connell (Sliders). Jess Harnell (Animaniacs) guest stars.
Ace Records releases Bob Stanley presents ’76 In The Shade, a compilation album assembled by Saint Etienne’s Bob Stanley, representing his musical memories of British radio in the summer of 1976. The album includes songs by Jefferson Starship, 10cc, Cliff Richard, and Smokey Robinson.
Streaming service CBS All Access premieres the third episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks, created by Mike McMahan (Rick & Morty) and starring Tawny Newsome (Space Force), Jack Quaid (The Boys), Noel Wells (Craig Of The Creek), Eugene Cordero (Other Space), Dawnn Lewis (A Different World, Futurama), and Jerry O’Connell (Sliders). Neil Casey (Other Space, Avenue 5) guest stars.
Streaming service CBS All Access releases the fourth episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks, created by Mike McMahan (Rick & Morty) and starring Tawny Newsome (Space Force), Jack Quaid (The Boys), Noel Wells (Craig Of The Creek), Eugene Cordero (Other Space), Dawnn Lewis (A Different World, Futurama), and Jerry O’Connell (Sliders). Haley Joel Osment (The Sixth Sense) guest stars.
Streaming service CBS All Access releases the fifth episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks, created by Mike McMahan (Rick & Morty) and starring Tawny Newsome (Space Force), Jack Quaid (The Boys), Noel Wells (Craig Of The Creek), Eugene Cordero (Other Space), Dawnn Lewis (A Different World, Futurama), and Jerry O’Connell (Sliders).
Streaming service CBS All Access releases the sixth episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks, created by Mike McMahan (Rick & Morty) and starring Tawny Newsome (Space Force), Jack Quaid (The Boys), Noel Wells (Craig Of The Creek), Eugene Cordero (Other Space), Dawnn Lewis (A Different World, Futurama), and Jerry O’Connell (Sliders). Jack McBrayer and J.G. Hertzler (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) guest star.
Dragon’s Domain Records releases The Don Davis Collection, Volume 1 both digitally and on CD, containing Davis’ complete score from the 2004 BBC space mission mockumentary Voyage To The Planets (which aired in the U.S. as Space Odyssey: Voyage To The Planets).
Streaming service CBS All Access releases the 30th episode of Star Trek: Discovery, opening the series’ third season, which has been delayed for the better part of a year due to the COVID-19 outbreak forcing an unexpected switch to remote post-production. David Ajala (Doctor Who) joins the series’ regular cast for the third season, which takes place in a future centuries beyond what has previously been chronicled in any prior Star Trek series.
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx robotic spacecraft successfully gathers a generous sample of the surface regolith of asteroid 101955 Bennu on its first attempt, with some of the material estimated to originate from as deep as 49 centimeters beneath Bennu’s surface. (This result indicates that the asteroid’s surface is much softer and more pliable than expected.) The touchdown point was selected in conjunction with volunteer citizen scientists searching for safe places to gather a sample, and ruling out potential touchdown sites that appeared to be too hazardous. Intended to gather a minimum of 60 grams of material from Bennu, OSIRIS-REx is believed to have exceeded that minimum by a wide margin, and approval is given to stow the sample in its return container a week ahead of schedule. OSIRIS-REx will remain in Bennu’s orbit until March 2021, at which time it will fire its engines to begin its journey to return the samples of asteroid matter to Earth in September 2023.
Streaming service Disney+ premieres the the ninth episode of Jon Favreau’s The Mandalorian, the first live-action TV series set in the Star Wars universe, starring Pedro Pascal. Timothy Olyphant and Amy Sedaris guest star in the second season premiere.
Scottish actor Sean Connery, forever associated with originating the character of super-spy James Bond on film (in 1962’s Dr. No), dies at the age of 90. He played the role of Bond in six films from 1962 through 1971, relinquishing the role to Roger Moore so he could try to expand his career beyond the Bond character and franchise, though he returned to the role for a one-off 1983 film, Never Say Never Again, which was produced outside of the “official” Bond continuity and dared to acknowledge the character’s (and actor’s) advancing age. In the meantime, he had amassed a number of appearances in movies both well-regarded and otherwise, including the bizarre post-apocalyptic sci-fi film Zardoz (1974) and the sci-fi crime drama Outland (1981). In 1986, his appearance in Highlander saw the beginning of a number of films in which he played the mentor of a given movie’s nominal star, including The Untouchables (1987) and Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989). His experiences in filming his final live-action film appearance, 2003’s League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, convinced him to retire from acting; family members said that he suffered from dementia in his final years.
The International Space Station reaches a major milestone, marking two decades of constant human presence in space. Despite close calls with space debris, reduced staffing in the months following the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, coolant leaks requiring spacewalks, and losses of resupply vehicles, the orbiting laboratory has maintained a steady human presence in space.
Streaming service Disney+ releases the the tenth episode of Jon Favreau’s The Mandalorian, starring Pedro Pascal. Amy Sedaris and Richard Ayoade (The IT Crowd, Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace) guest star.
The BBC premieres the first episode of Daleks!, an animated Doctor Who spinoff centered around that franchise’s most enduring villains, on YouTube, featuring the voices of Ayesha Antoine and Nicholas Briggs. This is part of the “Time Lord Victorious” alternate-timeline multimedia event.
Streaming service Disney+ releases the the 11th episode of Jon Favreau’s The Mandalorian, starring Pedro Pascal. Katee Sackhoff (Battlestar Galactica) guest stars.
Following the first crewed test flight earlier in the year, SpaceX launches the first operational Crew Dragon flight to the International Space Station, with astronauts Michael S. Hopkins, Victor J. Glover, Sôichi Noguchi, and Shannon Walker aboard. This is also the first long-duration mission for the Crew Dragon, which will see the spacecraft remain docked to the station for several months before returning to Earth.
The BBC releases the second episode of Daleks!, an animated Doctor Who spinoff centered around that franchise’s most enduring villains, on YouTube, featuring the voices of Joe Sugg and Nicholas Briggs. This is part of the “Time Lord Victorious” alternate-timeline multimedia event.
After being in operation for most of the past 57 years, the fate of the Arecibo Radio Telescope facility is sealed by the failure of two major tension cables suspending the 900-ton equipment platform over the dish carved into the Puerto Rican countryside. Engineering safety assessments reveal that other cables are on the verge of failure, which could lead to an “uncontrolled collapse” putting the lives of nearby researchers and engineers at risk. As a result, the Arecibo facility – originally a project of Cornell University but now managed by the University of Central Florida – is slated for demolition as soon as is safely possible, provided its aging superstructure doesn’t collapse under its own weight first. The observatory’s physical superstructure had been under close observation since suffering major damage from Hurricane Maria, which caused widespread destruction in Puerto Rico in 2017. The closure of the Arecibo facility marks the end of a significant era of radio astronomy.
Hired by Lucille Ball to help turn around the fortunes of Desilu Studios in the 1960s following her divorce from studio co-founder Desi Arnaz, producer and production executive Herbert F. Solow became known as “the man who sold Star Trek” – namely, he pitched the series to the networks, and finally made a sale to NBC, getting the storied science fiction series on the air at last. Solow also sold CBS on the spy-fi series Mission: Impossible at the same time, and later scored another major sale to CBS in the form of the detective series Mannix. He adapted (from a novel) and produced the early 1970s TV movie adaptation Killdozer, and co-created the late ’70s sci-fi series Man From Atlantis. He also went on to add “movie producer” to his resume; in later years, he looked back fondly upon his role in starting the Star Trek franchise with such biographical books as “Inside Star Trek: The Real Story“. Herb Solow died at the age of 89.
Streaming service Disney+ releases the the 12th episode of Jon Favreau’s The Mandalorian, starring Pedro Pascal. Gina Carano, Carl Weathers, and Giancarlo Esposito guest star in an episode directed by Weathers.
The BBC releases the third episode of Daleks!, an animated Doctor Who spinoff centered around that franchise’s most enduring villains, on YouTube, featuring the voices of Anjli Mohindra (The Sarah Jane Adventures), Ayesha Antoine, and Nicholas Briggs. This is part of the “Time Lord Victorious” alternate-timeline multimedia event, and marks the first on-screen appearance of the Mechanoids since their debut in a 1966 Doctor Who episode.