The 446th episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1. Russell Hunter, David Bailie and Pamela Salem guest star.
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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The 447th episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1. Russell Hunter, David Bailie and Pamela Salem guest star.
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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The 448th episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1. John Bennett, Trevor Baxter and Christopher Benjamin guest star. 
At Anvil Studios in Denham, England, John Williams and the London Symphony Orchestra convene for the first recording session for the Star Wars soundtrack. Over the course of the next 11 days, and with director George Lucas in attendance in the recording booth, all of the music for Lucas’ movie is rehearsed and recorded. Williams and Lucas had been introduced by their mutual friend Steven Spielberg, with whom Williams had worked on 1975’s Jaws (whose score had gone on to win Williams his second Oscar); Lucas’ original plan was to “score” Star Wars entirely with classical pieces. The first scene scored by Williams and the LSO is the rapid-fire chase through the Death Star, culminating in Luke and Princess Leia swinging across a chasm; other pieces recorded on the first day include the death of Obi-Wan Kenobi and the iconic theme music.
The 449th episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1. John Bennett, Trevor Baxter and Christopher Benjamin guest star.
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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Marvel Comics begins shipping the first issue of its six-issue adaptation of George Lucas’ upcoming film Star Wars, with Lucas reaping the rewards of the licensing arrangement directly since 20th Century Fox has allowed him to keep all merchandising rights to the yet-to-premiere movie. Adapted from the screenplay and edited by Roy Thomas, with artwork by Howard Chaykin, lettering by Jim Novak and colors by Marie Severin, the first six issues offer an interesting visual take on a universe whose visuals were not finished enough for the artist to view ahead of time. After the six issue movie tie-in, Thomas and Chaykin would begin concocting the budding franchise’s first-ever non-film storylines. 
The 450th episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1. John Bennett, Trevor Baxter and Christopher Benjamin guest star.
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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Toho releases the 14th Godzilla movie, Godzilla Vs. MechaGodzilla.
The 451st episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1. John Bennett, Trevor Baxter and Christopher Benjamin guest star.
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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Toho releases the 15th Godzilla movie, Terror of MechaGodzilla.
The 452nd episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1. John Bennett, Trevor Baxter and Christopher Benjamin guest star.
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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The 453rd episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1. John Bennett, Trevor Baxter and Christopher Benjamin guest star. This episode brings Doctor Who’s 14th season to an end.
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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After spending months in development, the much-publicized big-screen relaunch of Star Trek is cancelled by Paramount. Unable to find a satisfactory script, and having great difficulty negotiating with the stars of the TV series, Star Trek: Planet Of The Titans is dumped by the studio, with no other plans to revive Star Trek in the works. Mere weeks later, a record-breaking movie not originating from Paramount convinces the studio to get back into the big-budget science fiction space race.
Boasting a story and characters with universal appeal, a magnificent soundtrack, and special effects unlike anything that had been seen before, George Lucas’ Star Wars arrives, changing the movie industry and geekdom forever. Word-of-mouth – to say nothing of lines of moviegoers winding around the block, eager to immediately see the movie again – spreads like wildfire, and suddenly it’s okay to be a science fiction fan.
RSO Records releases a double LP of John Williams’ soundtrack from Star Wars, coinciding with the movie’s release. A fold-out poster of publicity artwork of the climactic Death Star dogfight is included. The album becomes a chart-topper by the end of the year, and cover versions by other artists are released even before the year is out. Many listeners become lifelong film score fanatics on the spot.
The unexpected runaway success of a dark horse in the summer movie race makes for a mad dash for the toy rights. The winner of that race is Kenner Products, the toy division of cereal maker General Mills, and the prize is the exclusive license to market toys and other products based on Star Wars. Prior to the movie’s release, however, George Lucas has convinced 20th Century Fox to allow him to keep all toy licensing rights, meaning that ongoing licensing payments are made directly to Lucas, providing him with the lion’s share of his future wealth. Kenner executive Bernard Loomis finds himself fighting to convince his own sales team that this movie will attract more than a momentary audience. With the late start and the long lead time on design, tooling and manufacture, Loomis concocts an audacious marketing scheme involving an “empty box” available by Christmas.
No sooner has Paramount’s movie arm axed Star Trek‘s big screen comeback than the studio’s television division announces the unthinkable: Paramount will form its own network, to premiere in February 1978, taking on ABC, CBS, and NBC in prime time. Leading off the new network’s first night will be a two-hour, made-for-TV Star Trek movie starring William Shatner and most of the original cast (with Leonard Nimoy notable by his absence), who will then go on to star in a weekly series chronicling the further adventure of the Enterprise. Gene Roddenberry will return as the creator of the new series. But within just a few weeks, it becomes apparent that the “big three” networks are ready to play hardball to keep Paramount’s network off the air, from leaning on their advertisers to avoid buying ad time on the new network, to quietly threatening to stop picking up Paramount-produced series for their own fall schedules.
Casblanca Records releases the Meco album Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk, a disco interpretation of the soundtrack of Star Wars on one side, with original compositions on the second side. The single extracted from the Star Wars medley will reach the top of the charts.
20th Century Fox Records releases The Story Of Star Wars, a surprisingly literate adaptation on LP for younger listeners, recreating and encapsulating the movie’s story with narrated audio from the film.
At a meeting at Paramount, studio head Michael Eisner formally cancels plans for a Star Trek television series reuniting the original cast (a decision made easier by the other networks strong-arming potential advertisers into freezing out Paramount’s network startup attempt) and sets the wheels in motion to revamp the pilot script, Alan Dean Foster’s In Thy Image, into a feature film. Contracts for the series are renegotiated (or in some cases cancelled) for the movie, but scriptwriters and designers continue to work on Trek TV scripts just in case the movie leads to a small-screen resurgence. The impetus for finally getting the long-stalled Star Trek movie underway? 20th Century Fox’s runaway success with Star Wars.
The 454th episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1. The Rutans, shapeshifting mortal enemies of the Sontarans, appear for the first and only time in the original series. Doctor Who’s 15th season on the air begins with this episode.
The 455th episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1. The Rutans, shapeshifting mortal enemies of the Sontarans, appear for the first and only time in the original series.
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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The superhero TV movie-of-the-week Spider-Man airs on CBS, starring Nicholas Hammond (The Sound Of Music) and David White (Bewitched). Based on the Marvel comic of the same name, Spider-Man tells the origin story of Peter Parker, a young man who gains superpowers after being bitten by a radioactive spider. Heavily promoted at the height of the character’s comics popularity, the movie does well in the ratings, but due to its effects budget, CBS is only willing to approve a short run of hour-long episodes for the following year.
The 456th episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1. The Rutans, shapeshifting mortal enemies of the Sontarans, appear for the first and only time in the original series.
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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The 457th episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1. The Rutans, shapeshifting mortal enemies of the Sontarans, appear for the first and only time in the original series.
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!
Order Earl Green’s book VWORP!1 from theLogBook.com Store
Produced in the wake of Star Wars mania, Meco Menardo’s disco cover of John Williams’ music from Star Wars tops the Billboard Hot 100 chart for two weeks. A shortened, radio-friendly single is the song certified as #1, although the album version (titled Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk) is an extended suite lasting over 15 minutes and covering most of the movie’s major music themes. Meco would continue to ride the Star Wars train, disco-style, for years to come.
The 458th episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1. Michael Sheard (The Empire Strikes Back) and Frederick Jaeger guest star.
The 459th episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1. This episode introduces a character who becomes a major new addition to the show’s mythology, the robot dog K-9. With actor John Leeson lending his voice to the radio-control prop, it might seem as though Doctor Who is trying to steal some of Star Wars‘ droid mojo, but in fact the episode was filmed months before Star Wars premiered.
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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The 460th episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1. Michael Sheard (The Empire Strikes Back) and Frederick Jaeger guest star; John Leeson joins the cast as the voice of K-9.
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!
Order Earl Green’s book VWORP!1 from theLogBook.com Store
The 461st episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1. Michael Sheard (The Empire Strikes Back) and Frederick Jaeger guest star; John Leeson joins the cast as the voice of K-9.
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!
Order Earl Green’s book VWORP!1 from theLogBook.com Store