Day: January 24, 1969

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Original Series Season 03 Star Trek

That Which Survives

Star Trek ClassicStardate not given: Kirk leads a landing party to do a geological survey of an unexplored planet, but before they beam down, they see a woman appear out of nowhere in the transporter room and kill a crewman simply by touch, and then she disappears. Her appearance also affects the Enterprise, sending it well out of communications range, trapping Kirk and his team on the planet’s surface. The woman continues to appear, naming her victim on arrival and killing them by touch. Sulu is nearly killed by her, and the woman appears on the Enterprise as well, sabotaging the engines so the ship will never retrieve Kirk’s survey team, stranding them – as well as the crew of the Enterprise – with an unpredictable murderer.

Order this episode on DVDDownload this episode via Amazon's Unboxteleplay by John Meredyth Lucas
story by Michael Richards
directed by Herb Wallerstein
music by Fred Steiner

Star TrekGuest Cast: James Doohan (Mr. Scott), George Takei (Lt. Sulu), Nichelle Nichols (Lt. Uhura), Walter Koenig (Chekov), Lee Meriwether (Losira), Arthur Batanides (D’Amato), Naomi Pollack (Rahda), Booker Bradshaw (Dr. M’Benga), Brad Forrest (Ensign), Kenneth Washington (Watkins)

Notes: “Michael Richards” is a pseudonym used by writer D.C. Fontana.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Kolchak The Night Stalker Season 1

The Trevi Collection

Night StalkerKolchak is present at Madame Trevi’s fashion show to meet with an industrial spy who has garment union receipts he needs to write a story. The spy falls to his death. Examination of the man’s camera film shows that the mannequins at the studio he was in were moving. Other bizarre occurrences follow. One model is disfigured by a cat, while another is scalded to death in her temperature-controlled shower. When a driverless car attempts to run him over, Kolchak comes to believe that black witchcraft is being employed by the secretive Madame Trevi. A coven of witches tell him how to strip her of her powers. He does so, only to free the true witch from Trevi’s control. Armed with a mojo bag, Carl must publicly accuse the witch to strip her of her powers.

Order the DVDswritten by Rudolph Borchert
directed by Don Weis
music by Gil Mille

Guest Cast: Lara Parker (Madelaine), Nina Foch (Madame Trevi), Bernie Koppell (Doctor), Marvin Miller (Lecturer)

Notes: Lara Parker had played Angelique, a witch, on the Dark Shadows series.

LogBook entry by Steve Crowe

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Children Of The Stones

Serpent In The Circle

Children Of The StonesAs Matthew recovers from receiving a mysterious shock suffered by touching one of the stones, Brake meets Dai for the first time and learns that Matthew and a few other recently-arrived children in the Millbury school look up to the scruffy poacher. Dai lets the children draw a copy of a design on an ancient stone he keeps with him, bearing the image of a snake. Brake’s inquiries with his colleagues at the Mount Palomar observatory reveal an interesting fact: the point in Ursa Major at which the Millbury stone circle is aimed was the site of a supernova spotted near the beginning of recorded history, a place in the sky where modern astronomers now know a black hole exists. Brake isn’t the only man in Millbury who knows this, either: his landlord, Hendrick, is a retired astronomer renowned for researching the early accounts of the supernova. And more and more of Millbury’s new arrivals are falling under the town’s strange spell before Brake’s eyes.

written by Jeremy Burnham and Trevor Ray
directed by Peter Graham Scott
music by Sidney Sager

Children Of The StonesCast: Iain Cuthbertson (Hendrick), Gareth Thomas (Adam), Freddie Jones (Dai), Veronica Strong (Margaret), Ruth Dunning (Mrs. Crabtree), Peter Demin (Matthew), Katharine Levy (Sandra), Darren Hatch (Kevin), Jimmy Lock (Jimmo), Richard Matthews (Dr. Lyle), June Barrie (Mrs. Clegg), Hubert Tucker (Browning)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Buck Rogers Season 1

Ardala Returns

Buck Rogers In The 25th CenturyOn a deep space patrol with Twiki, Buck is captured by the Draconian flagship. Princess Ardala and Kane have hatched a plan to replace Buck with a robot copy programmed to emulate Buck’s personality. The copy is armed with a bomb and sent back to Earth in a “stolen” Draconian fighter; when Wilma encounters the robot Buck, he tells her that he escaped in the Draconian fighter but Twiki didn’t make it. When the robot returns to Earth, it tries to detonate the bomb the first time it’s in the same room with Wilma, Dr. Huer and Dr. Theopolis – and only Wilma’s quick reflex to destroy the robot saves the day. In the meantime, aware that their plan has failed, Ardala and Kane set about trying to make a more accurate, undetectable copy of Buck. And Buck is unaware that his every cunning escape attempt is being studied to make his robot clones deadlier in a fight. Can Buck taint his robotic replicas by dulling his survival instincts?

Order the DVDswritten by Chris Bunch & Allan Cole
directed by Larry Stewart
music by Johnny Harris

Cast: Gil Gerard (Buck Rogers), Erin Gray (Wilma Deering), Tim O’Connor (Doctor Huer), Pamela Hensley (Princess Ardala), Michael Ansara (Kane), H.B. Haggerty (Tigerman), James Emery (Pilot), Betty Bridges (Technician), Bob Minor (Guard)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy Radio Series

Episode 11 (Fit The Eleventh)

Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy: Secondary PhaseMomentous events are afoot on Brontitall as Arthur and Lintilla (and a couple of her five billion or so clones) discover a layer of ancient shoes beneath the planet’s surface. This proves Lintilla’s theory that Brontitall may have once been a shoe-based economy, eschewing every other sector of commerce in favor of the production, marketing and sale of footwear. Meanwhile, Ford and Arthur have rather haphazardly made their way to the planet’s surface via bird, where they find a graveyard of spacecraft – including one which still seems to be in good working condition.

Order this CDwritten by Douglas Adams
directed by Alick Hale-Munro
music by Paddy Kingsland

Cast: Peter Jones (The Voice of the Book), Simon Jones (Arthur Dent), Geoffrey McGivern (Ford Prefect), Mark Wing-Davey (Zaphod Beeblebrox), Stephen Moore (Marvin / Pupil), David Tate (Eddie / Compu-Teach / Commentator), John Baddeley (Bird Two / Foot Warrior), Rula Lenska (Lintilla), Mark Smith (Hig Hurtenflurst)

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M.A.N.T.I.S.

M.A.N.T.I.S.

M.A.N.T.I.S.A well-organized and planned heist of a bank in Ocean City is cut short by the appearance of a silhouetted figure wearing a high-tech helmet. By the time the police arrive, the helmeted man is gone, but the robbers are still there, frozen in place. In one of the robbers’ mouths, police find a metal figurine of a praying mantis.

In the run-up to the 1994 election, which will decide the next Mayor of Ocean City, the race is down to two men – Ocean City’s Chief of Police, Frank Stark, and an incumbent, elder-statesman Mayor. Stark has attracted controversy by mandating violent “anti-riot” tactical training as the answer to gang activity, while claiming that the sitting Mayor is soft on crime, but most of Stark’s crime-fighting activity is focused squarely on the city’s African-American populace. When amateur videotape of the helmeted man lands in the hands of TV reporter Yuri Barnes, he suspects that the mystery vigilante – known on the street only as “Mantis” – is part of some undisclosed secret plan being hatched by Stark. Barnes’ girlfriend, Dr. Amy Ellis, is an examiner at the city coroner’s office, and says she’s heard nothing about this being part of a police operation.

It’s not long, however, before Dr. Ellis sees the masked man in action for herself, as he arrives in a flying car to break up a crime that uses a deliberate traffic jam to cover for a spree of robberies. The perpetrators are shot with some kind of dart that leaves them paralyzed, like the bank robbers, and then the helmeted man flies away with police helicopters in pursuit. The impossibly high-tech flying car dives into a tunnel, where it shimmers, emerging from the tunnel as an ordinary (if vintage) car. The frozen perpetrators are examined at police headquarters by biophysicist Dr. Miles Hawkins, who is unable to offer any conclusions. After seeing Antoine Pike, head of the Mayor’s anti-gang task force, in action, Dr. Ellis suspects that he may be “Mantis”, though Barnes dismisses that theory. Dr. Ellis has another theory: Dr. Hawkins’ attempts to determine what paralyzed the criminals may lead to Chief Stark having a powerful new weapon which she fears will be used predominantly on Ocean City’s African-American population.

Word reaches Hawkins that Pike’s much-touted truce between the city’s gangs is broken, “Mantis” swings into action to prevent a gang war that will give Stark an excuse to declare a war of his own, whether he does so as the Chief of Police or as the Mayor. But what no one realizes is that M.A.N.T.I.S. stands for Mechanically Augmented Neuro-Transmitter Interception System, a powered suit devised by Hawkins to allow him to move without his wheelchair. But the suit also gives him powers beyond walking, and he’ll need every one of them to stop Stark’s scheme to influence the election…and start a massacre.

Download this episode via Amazonteleplay by Sam Hamm
story by Sam Raimi & Sam Hamm
directed by Eric Laneuville
music by Joseph Lo Duca

M.A.N.T.I.S.Cast: Carl Lumbly (Dr. Miles Hawkins), Bobby Hosea (Yuri Barnes), Gina Torres (Dr. Amy Ellis), Steve James (Antoine Pike), Obba Babatunde (Cornell), Marcia Cross (Lila McEwan), Wendy Raquel Robinson (Hawkins’ Assistant), Christopher M. Brown (Hawkins’ Assistant), Phillip Baker Hall (Smitty), Yvonne Farrow (Magda), Francis X. McCarthy (Chief Stark), Alan Fudge (Captain), Grant Heslov (TV Crew), Louis Ramos (TV Cameraman), Billy Kane (DeCarlos), Jeremiah Birkett (Kid MG), Dex Elliot Sanders (L.T.), Theo Forsett (Jay), Jerry Black (Mayor Beane), Larron Tate (Day Day), Vicellous Reon Shannon (Ski), Tierre Turner (Rahsaan), Martin Davis (Todd), Kimble Jemison (Curtis), David Fresco (Motorist), Edwina Moore (Jay’s Mom), Charles Hoyes (Policeman Guard), Lucy Lin (Newswoman), Ossaun Elam (Gangbanger #1), Richard Jones (Gangbanger #2), Dane Winters (Interviewer), Nelson Parks (Office Worker), Martin Cassidy (Dispatcher), Steve Hom (Cop in Alley), Jermaine Shoulders (10K Member), Mark Phelan (Stark’s Handler), Gene Arrington (Reggie), Richard Zobel (Homeless Man), Mark Avery (Basketball Guard), Robair Sims (Thug), Craig Hosking (Pilot)

M.A.N.T.I.S.Notes: Created by future Hercules and Xena creators Sam Raimi and Robert Tapert with Batman and Batman Returns screenwriter Sam Hamm, M.A.N.T.I.S. was a made-for-TV superhero with an almost entirely African-American cast and no comic book antecedent. Fox made significant changes to the show’s casting and format before it returned in August as a weekly series; Carl Lumbly (as Hawkins/M.A.N.T.I.S.) was the only cast member or character to transition from the pilot to the series. Much was made of Hamm’s involvement at the time, as his scripts for the two Tim Burton Batman films were regarded as a revival for the character in film. The M.A.N.T.I.S. suit was designed by comics artist Denys Cowan and fabricated by KNB EFX Group (then known best for A Nightmare On Elm Street 5, Halloween 5, and Dances With Wolves).

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Deep Space Nine Season 02 Star Trek

Armageddon Game

Star Trek: Deep Space NineStardate not given: Bashir and O’Brien are on attachment to a research vessel in the Gamma Quadrant, attempting to help the Kelleruns and T’lani destroy their bumper crop of biological weapons known as Harvesters. Shortly after finally discovering a means of rendering the Harvesters inert, the scientists on the alien ship are stormed by a squadron of armed troops. Only Bashir and O’Brien escape, beaming down to nearby T’lani III when they are unable to contact their Runabout. O’Brien has been infected by material from a Harvester and will die within days if he doesn’t receive treatment that Bashir cannot provide without the station’s medical facilities. In the meantime, Sisko and the crew have been informed that Bashir and O’Brien died in an accident aboard the research ship – but unknown to the crew, those who Bashir and O’Brien were helping in good faith are deliberately responsible for the attack.

Order the DVDsDownload this episode via Amazonwritten by Morgan Gendel
directed by Winrich Kolbe
music by Jay Chattaway

Cast: Avery Brooks (Commander Benjamin Sisko), Rene Auberjonois (Odo), Siddig El Fadil (Dr. Julian Bashir), Terry Farrell (Lt. Jadzia Dax), Cirroc Lofton (Jake Sisko), Colm Meaney (Chief O’Brien), Armin Shimerman (Quark), Nana Visitor (Major Kira Nerys), Rosalind Chao (Keiko), Darleen Carr (E’tyshra), Peter White (Sharat), Larry Cedar (Nydrom), Bill Mondy (Jakin)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Red Dwarf Season 07

Stoke Me A Clipper

Red DwarfFresh from his latest round of heroic deeds, Ace Rimmer returns from the past, on a mission to find his counterpart on Starbug. Ace just isn’t the same Ace anyone remembers – in fact, Ace is now a hard-light hologram, having replaced the original Ace. The funny thing about all those heroics is that they seem to lead to a high death rate. And “Ace” is here to recruit Red Dwarf’s own resident smeghead as the universe’s next hero. But “Ace” can’t finish Rimmer’s training before his own light bee powers down for the last time.

The universe is in a hell of a lot of trouble.

Order the DVDswritten by Paul Alexander & Doug Naylor
directed by Ed Bye
music by Howard Goodall

Red DwarfGuest Cast: Brian Cox (The King), Ken Morley (Captain Voorhese), Sarah Alexander (Queen), John Thompson (Good Knight), Alison Senior (Princess Bonjella), Mark Carlisle (Lieutenant), Mark Lingwood (Gestapo Officer), Kai Maurer (Soldier), Stephan Grothgar (Soldier), Andy Gell (Soldier), Alison (Voorhese’s crocodile)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Season 5 Xena: Warrior Princess

Punch Lines

Xena: Warrior PrincessXena and Gabrielle are spending the night in one of Aphrodite’s temples. While the warrior is sleeping soundly, Gabrielle is trying to write a story about their latest adventure when Aphrodite appears. The goddess of love offers to help the bard get past her writer’s block by having Gabrielle talk about what happened earlier in the day, when the god of despair, Lachrymose, shrank Argo and how she had to try find away to restore the horse to her normal size before Xena found out.

Order the DVDswritten by George Strayton & Tom O’Neill
directed by Garth Maxwell
music by Joseph LoDuca

Guest Cast: Alexandra Tydings (Aphrodite), Ted Raimi (Joxer), Jon Gadsby (Lachrymose), Chris Ryan (Blutos), Tony Forster (Solemus), Bernard Moody (Drunk)

LogBook entry by Mary Terrell

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Season 07 Star Trek Voyager

Lineage

Star Trek: VoyagerStardate 54452.6: A nasty turn in engineering leads to a momentous announcement for B’Elanna Torres – she is pregnant. She and Tom try to digest the news in private, but aboard the confines of a starship word gets out, and B’Elanna’s crewmembers are bombarding her with everything from unsolicited parenting advice to requests to be godparents. B’Elanna, meanwhile, is suffering through her own private hell, fearful that – like her own father did when she was young – Tom was get fed up with the temperaments of a Klingon wife and daughter and abandon them both. But an unusual possibility presents itself when the Doctor uses genetic manipulation to correct a potential deformity – and B’Elanna sees a way to ensure that while Tom’s wife may be half-Klingon, further genetic alterations could give them a completely human child. Tom disagrees, but B’Elanna will go to any lengths to give the child what she thinks is a “normal” life.

Order the DVDswritten by James Kahn
directed by Peter Lauritson
music by Dennis McCarthy

Guest Cast: Manu Intiraymi (Icheb), Juan Garcia (John Torres), Jessica Gaona (young B’Elanna), Javier Grajeda (Carl), Paul Robert Langdon (Dean), Nicole Sarah Fellows (Elizabeth), Gilbert R. Leal (Michael), Majel Barrett (Computer voice)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Dalek Empire Doctor Who

Dalek War Chapter I

Dalek War Chapter IThe war between the Daleks who have overrun Earth’s solar system and the Daleks from an alternate dimension has not gone well. Kalendorf has taken a position at the head of the combined human/alternate-Dalek fleet, fighting for the liberation of the galaxy. Alby Brook has sought isolation and oblivion, choosing to stay away from the main action as he mourns the fate of Suz Mendes. Suz is also the subject of an intensive search by the Daleks. And Mirana seems to have found her before the Daleks can – but in so doing has delayed a rendezvous with Alby, leaving him in a potentially precarious situation. But what has happened to Suz in the meantime? Is she still dedicated to the resistance…or is she in the thrall of the Daleks?

Order this CDwritten by Nicholas Briggs
directed by Nicholas Briggs
music by Nicholas Briggs

Cast: Gareth Thomas (Kalendorf), Mark McDonnell (Alby Brook), Sarah Mowat (Susan Mendes), Teresa Gallagher (Mirana), Steven Elder (Siy Tarkov), Karen Henson (Saloran Hardew), Ian Brooker (Marber / Drudger), Hannah Smith (The Mentor), Simon Bridge (Dr. Johnstone), Jeremy James (Herrick), Dannie Carr (Morli), Nicholas Briggs (Daleks)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Discovery Season 2 Star Trek

New Eden

Star Trek: DiscoveryStardate 1027.32: Burnham reveals Spock’s personal log entry – and its coded message – to Captain Pike. Spock not only knew of the signals, but of their locations, before any of them were detected by Starfleet. But Pike has more troubling news: Spock took a leave of absence to check himself into a psychiatric ward due to whatever was troubling him. Discovery is diverted to an unexplored planet in the Beta Quadrant which is the source of the newest signal, necessitating use of the spore drive. But despite an alarming distress signal, the planet is home to a peaceful, pastoral, and most importantly pre-warp human civilization. Pike, Burnham and ops officer Joann Owosekun beam down incognito to find out how a human settlement reached this far into deep space before the invention of warp drive. What they discover is a group of survivors of World War III who have no idea how they got there. A sudden displacement of radioactive particle from the planet’s rings threatens all on the surface – including the landing party – with extinction, but Pike’s absolute adherence to the Prime Directive forces a monumental decision: are Discovery and her new captain here to save a civilization, or witness its destruction without interference?

Order DVDsStream this episode via Amazonteleplay by Vaun Wilmott & Sean Cochran
story by Akiva Goldsman & Sean Cochran
directed by Jonathan Frakes
music by Jeff Russo

Star Trek DiscoveryCast: Sonequa Martin-Green (Commander Michael Burnham), Doug Jones (Lt. Commander Saru), Anthony Rapp (Lt. Paul Stamets), Mary Wiseman (Cadet Sylvia Tilly), Wilson Cruz (Dr. Hugh Culber), Anson Mount (Captain Christopher Pike), Sheila McCarthy (All-Mother), Andrew Moodie (Jacob), Bahia Watson (May Ahearn), Hannah Chessman (Lt. Commander Airiam), Emily Coutts (Lt. Keyla Detmer), Patrick Kwok-Choon (Lt. Gen Rhys), Oyin Oladejo (Lt. Joann Owosekun), Ronnie Rowe Jr. (Lt. R.A. Bryce), Raven Dauda (Dr. Tracy Pollard), Julianne Grossman (Discovery Computer), Noah Davis (Lieutenant in 2053), Kira Groulx (Rose), Claire Qute (Teen May Hologram)

Star Trek DiscoveryNotes: The mention of a Third World War in Star Trek’s otherwise hopeful vision of the future first appeared in the first episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, with Picard’s identification of Q‘s kangaroo court based upon the near-anarchic state of law in the “post-atomic horror” of the 21st century (fortunately, if you’re reading this, you’re only in the pre-atomic horror). Later incarnations of Trek carried this idea forward, particularly the movie Star Trek: First Contact and numerous episodes of Star Trek: Enterprise. Even after Earth rebuilt itself following these events, there wasn’t a universal embracing of a technological lifestyle, as Lt. Owosekun is said to have grown up in “a Luddite collective”. No one in this episode ever refers to the Prime Directive, only Starfleet’s General Order One. The Beta Quadrant has long been known to be where portions of the Romulan and Klingon Empires are located, but the New Eden settlement is much further into the Beta Quadrant – 51,000 light years from Federation territory in the Alpha Quadrant, or, for comparison, roughly 2/3 of the distance that the U.S.S. Voyager would be flung into the Delta Quadrant in the 24th century. (Clearly, events yet unseen rule out further development or use of the spore drive technology by Voyager‘s time, otherwise the rescue of Captain Janeway’s crew would have been a simple matter.) The stardate for this episode is not given in the episode itself, but in the season finale, Such Sweet Sorrow Part 2.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Orville, The Season 2

All The World Is Birthday Cake

The OrvilleThe process of search for Alara’s replacement has finally settled on another Xelayan security officer, Lt. Talla Keyali, though Mercer still seems apprehensive about anyone stepping into Alara’s shoes. Commander Grayson and Bortus discuss holding a joint birthday party, an idea whose merits she seems unable to sell Bortus on. A radio signal from a distant planet – “is anyone out there?” – signals an imminent first-contact situation, but despite the initial introductions going smoothly, the Orville crew’s hosts suddenly hold them at gunpoint and have Grayson and Bortus sent to an internment camp, all because a casual mention of their imminent birthdays means that they fall into a star sign that this society’s astrologers consider extremely dangerous. Mercer and his new security chief try to parlay for their officers’ release, while Grayson and Bortus become resigned to the fact that any escape attempt will surely only prove that they are dangerous and violent.

Download this episode via Amazonwritten by Seth MacFarlane
directed by Robert Duncan McNeill
music by John Debney

The OrvilleCast: Seth MacFarlane (Captain Ed Mercer), Adrianne Palicki (Commander Kelly Grayson), Penny Johnson Jerald (Dr. Claire Finn), Scott Grimes (Lt. Gordon Malloy), Peter Macon (Lt. Commander Bortus), Jessica Szohr (Lt. Talla Keyali), J Lee (Lt. John LaMarr), Mark Jackson (Isaac), Chad L. Coleman (Klyden), Ted Danson (Admiral Perry), Chris Johnson (Cassius), Mike Henry (Dann), John Rubinstein (First Prefect), Niko Nicotera (Rokal ), Jennifer Landon (Ukania), Robert Curtis Brown (Chief Advisor Makkal), Heather Horton (Science Prefect), Marie-Francoise Theodore (Advisor #2), Gigi Hessamian (Physicist), Meredith Thomas (Nurse), Matthew Foster (Regorian Doctor), The OrvilleArriane Alexander (Regorian Doctor #2), Erica Shaffer (Obstetric Surgeon #1), Brandon Young (Obstetric Surgeon #2), Carlos E. Campos (Obstetric Surgeon #3), Carlos Arellano (Burly Man), Evan Angone (Cameraman), Chet Grissom (Aide), Julienne Irons (Prisoner), Blesson Yates (Topa), Kyra Santoro (Ensign Turco), Charles Maceo (Camp Guard #1), Cory Tucker (Camp Guard #2), Chad T. Wood (Warden), Jack Kennedy (Military Security Guard), Thai Edwards (Holding Cell Guard), Troy Vincent (Man in Lab Coat)

Notes: There’s in interesting Star Trek connection in this episode’s cast-of-almost-thousands: actress Julienne Irons played Lt. Uhura in the earliest episodes of the fan-made series Star Trek: New Voyages.

LogBook entry by Earl Green