Big Finish Productions releases the first Doctor Who audio drama in the Thirteenth Doctor Adventures series, starring Jodie Whittaker and Mandip Gill. 
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Big Finish Productions releases the first Doctor Who audio drama in the Thirteenth Doctor Adventures series, starring Jodie Whittaker and Mandip Gill.
Streaming service Paramount Plus releases the 21st episode of the Star Trek prequel series Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, created by Akiva Goldsman, Alex Kurtzman, and Jenny Lumet. Melanie Scrofano (Wynonna Earp) guest stars in the third season premiere.
Streaming service Paramount Plus releases the 22nd episode of the Star Trek prequel series Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, created by Akiva Goldsman, Alex Kurtzman, and Jenny Lumet. Cillian O’Sullivan (Daredevil: Born Again, Then You Run), Rhys Darby (Flight Of The Conchords), and John de Lancie (Star Trek: The Next Generation) guest star.
Streaming service Paramount Plus releases the 23nd episode of the Star Trek prequel series Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, created by Akiva Goldsman, Alex Kurtzman, and Jenny Lumet. Christine Horn (Snowfall, BMF) guest stars.
Streaming service Paramount Plus releases the 24th episode of the Star Trek prequel series Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, created by Akiva Goldsman, Alex Kurtzman, and Jenny Lumet. Paul Wesley (The Vampire Diaries) guest stars.
Former test pilot, Gemini and Apollo astronaut Jim Lovell dies at the age of 97. A U.S. Navy pilot, Lovell had applied to join NASA during the agency’s initial search for the Mercury astronauts, but was sidelined from selection due to medical test results, only to be brought into the space program when new astronauts were recruited for the Gemini program. Lovell was the pilot of Gemini 7 (the first long-duration space mission, lasting two weeks), and commanded Gemini 12, the final flight of that program. On Apollo 8, the first crewed mission to orbit the moon, Lovell served as command module pilot, and was originally scheduled to command Apollo 14. A change in flight rotation moved Lovell and his crew up to Apollo 13. Faulty wiring in an oxygen tank caused an explosion in the command module, venting much of the vehicle’s oxygen supply into space and causing the cancellation of the intended third moon landing in favor of preserving resources to attempt to bring the crew home safely. After the harrowing journey, Lovell retired from NASA, and later co-wrote (with Jeffrey Kluger) the memoir Lost Moon, which was then optioned as the basis of the Ron Howard movie Apollo 13.
Roundel Books publishes the non-fiction book Go Figure by Richard Lloyd, a detailed chronicle of every figure released in Character Options’ two decades of producing Doctor Who action figures, initially for the BBC’s 21st century revival of the TV series but eventually adding many characters from the 20th century run as well.
CBS Studios releases the first episode of the scripted podcast Star Trek: Khan, a long-gestating project dating back to the early days of Star Trek: Discovery as a television proposal by Nicholas Meyer (Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan), finally produced in audio form. Naveen Andrews (Lost) stars as Khan.
Interscope Records releases the soundtrack to Tron Ares by Nine Inch Nails, inlcuding the single “As Alive As You Need Me To Be”, nearly a month before the movie itself debuts.
Disney releases Tron Ares, a sequel to both Tron and Tron Legacy, starring Jared Leto and Greta Lee, with Jeff Bridges again reprising the role of Flynn. Trent Reznor & Atticus provide the soundtrack (credited in studio publicity as Nine Inch Nails, but in the movie’s credits as themselves).
The British Stereo Collective / Federation collaborative EP Marked To Kill is released via Bandcamp, with lyrics (and a video) connecting the song to the BBC space opera Blake’s 7. The release of the single both digitally and on vinyl benefits charity.
Actor Nabil Shaban, who portrayed the slug-like alien capitalist Sil in late 1980s Doctor Who, dies at the age of 72. First appearing in 1985’s Vengeance On Varos, Sil was penciled in for a rematch against the Doctor in an episode that would’ve been titled Mission To Magnus, which was ultimately abandoned as the BBC demanded a rethink of the series’ 23rd season; despite this, Sil still make a comeback in parts five through eight of The Trial Of A Time Lord. Mission To Magnus would later be released as a novelization, and finally as a full-cast Big Finish audio drama, in which Shaban revived the role of Sil. (He appeared in another Big Finish audio, Antidote To Oblivion, in 2014, and revived Sil onscreen in the direct-to-video project Sil And The Devil Seeds Of Arodor. The character of Sil was popular enough to become an action figure.) Shaban turned his disability to his advantage in playing the part of the legless creature, but also advocated for other actors with disabilities throughout his career.
Actress June Lockhart, best known to genre fans for playing Dr. Maureen Robinson, mother figure of the Robinson family on Lost In Space, dies of natural causes at the age of 100. Prior to her three-season stint on Lost In Space, Ms. Lockhart was already a household name from an even longer run in a maternal role on Lassie. Big screen appearances included She-Wolf Of London, Strange Invaders, Troll, C.H.U.D. II, and a small part in the 1998 reboot Lost In Space. TV appearances included Science Fiction Theatre, Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea, Darkroom, Whiz Kids, Amazing Stories, Babylon 5, and even a voice role on the The Ren & Stimpy Show.
Streaming service Paramount Plus premieres the first episode of the Star Trek spinoff Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, created by Gaia Violo and set in the post-Discovery 31st century time frame. Holly Hunter stars, with Paul Giamatti guest starring and veterans of past Star Trek series (Robert Picardo and Oded Fehr) also joining the cast.
Streaming service Paramount Plus releases the second episode of the Star Trek spinoff Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, created by Gaia Violo and set in the post-Discovery 31st century time frame. Holly Hunter stars, with veterans of past Star Trek series (Robert Picardo, Tig Notaro and Oded Fehr) also joining the cast.
Lakeshore Records digitally releases Jeff Russo’s soundtrack from the first season of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, featuring the Rufus Wainwright cover of “San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Flowers In Your Hair)” featured in the first episode.
Streaming service Paramount Plus releases the third episode of the Star Trek spinoff Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, created by Gaia Violo and set in the post-Discovery 31st century time frame. Holly Hunter stars.
Streaming service Paramount Plus releases the fourth episode of the Star Trek spinoff Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, created by Gaia Violo and set in the post-Discovery 31st century time frame. Holly Hunter stars; Martin Roach (The Umbrella Academy, The Shape Of Water) guest stars.
Streaming service Paramount Plus releases the fifth episode of the Star Trek spinoff Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, created by Gaia Violo and set in the post-Discovery 31st century time frame. Holly Hunter stars; Cirroc Lofton (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) and Chiwitel Ejiofor (The Martian, The Life of Chuck) guest star.
Streaming service Paramount Plus releases the sixth episode of the Star Trek spinoff Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, created by Gaia Violo and set in the post-Discovery 31st century time frame. Holly Hunter stars; Paul Giamatti guest stars.
Writer Rob Grant, best known for creating the sci-fi sitcom Red Dwarf with his former writing partner Doug Naylor, dies at the age of 70. Embarking on a career writing comedy first for radio and then for TV in 1979, Grant and Naylor found an easy working rapport and, after a series of rejections, broke into radio comedy with the sketch series Son Of Cliche, which included a recurring comedic sci-fi storyline about a spaceman stranded with his talking computer. That idea, expanded greatly, became the unlikely pitch for Red Dwarf. Rejected at first by the BBC, Red Dwarf emerged as a fast favorite with audiences upon its premiere in 1988, by which time Grant and his collaborator were also the head writers on the puppet-based sketch satire Spitting Image. Grant remained with the show for its first six seasons, co-writing every episode with Naylor, until the working relationship deteriorated and Grant left the show. Grant had enough clout as co-creator of Red Dwarf to launch a few ventures of his own, including the 2000 sci-fi comedy The Strangerers, though his post-Red-Dwarf projects remained somewhat obscure. At the time of his death, he had completed a Red Dwarf prequel novel with Andrew Marshall, which was mere months away from being published.
Artemis 2 lifts off, carrying an astronaut crew of four (Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen) for the first mission around Earth’s moon in over half a century. The mission is slated to loop the crew of the Orion command module Intrepid around the moon’s far side at a greater distance from Earth than any previous human crew (a goal somewhat analogous to Apollo 8’s orbital-only mission in 1968).
Actor Michael Keating, best known for his four-year run on the BBC space opera Blake’s 7 from 1978 through 1981, dies at the age of 79. The only actor who appears in all 52 episodes of the series, Keating won the role on the recommendation of director Pennant Roberts, who had cast Keating in a major guest role in the 1977 Doctor Who story The Sun Makers. With his Blake’s 7 character’s wit echoing his own sense of humor, Keating became a favorite with both fans and fellow cast members, as stories persist of him visiting pubs near shooting locations with castmate Paul Darrow. Stage work and guest roles on television followed, including a lengthy stint on the primetime soap EastEnders, and a role in the 2009 docudrama Micro Men, charting the microcomputer industry in the UK. Keating reprised his Blake’s 7 character in audio form for Big Finish Productions until his retirement from acting.
The Alan Parsons Project releases Pyramid (Sessions), a comprehensive selection of session recordings and early versions of the songs that became the group’s 1978 album Pyramid. The material previously featured on a multi-disc physical release in 2024 and is now getting a separate digital release.
Developed in under a year to rendezvous, dock with, and boost the orbit of NASA’s aging Swift Space Telescope, Katalyst Space’s LINK spacecraft is launched. Riding a Pegasus XL rocket launched from an airborne aircraft, LINK arrives in orbit and passes its initial checkout phase, getting the greenlight to proceed to its rendezvous. The Swift Telescope was launched in 2004, and has proven to be one of NASA’s most productive orbiting observatories. In a scenario not unlike that which doomed the Skylab space station in 1979, solar flare activity has caused expansion of Earth’s atmosphere, increasing drag on the Swift spacecraft. Taking a month to reach Swift, LINK is expected to grapple onto the older spacecraft and fire its thrusters to push Swift into a higher orbit, where the otherwise perfectly functional telescope can continue its campaign of observations for years to come. (LINK’s mission also bears some resemblance to a proposed mission to boost Skylab’s orbit before it re-entered the atmosphere in 1979.) Left unchecked, Swift would re-enter the atmosphere in October. If LINK’s mission is successful, the Swift Telescope will be able to resume its observations in September 2026, and another LINK-style mission could be approved to boost the Hubble Space Telescope.