Day: February 14, 1969

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Original Series Season 03 Star Trek

Requiem For Methuselah

Star Trek ClassicStardate 5843.7: On an urgent mission to procure the antidote to a serious plague which threatens the entire crew of the Enterprise, Kirk, Spock and McCoy beam down to Holberg 917-G to contact Flint in hopes of finding either the remedy or the raw material from which to extract it. Flint’s lovely female android, Rayna, begins to create a rivalry between Kirk, for whom she begins to feel true love, and Flint, who created Rayna to provide him with companionship. Spock discovers that Flint may be an immortal being who has influenced Earth’s history in the past, and McCoy finds that Flint is slowly dying. But Kirk may not resolve his argument with Flint in time to help Spock and McCoy save the crew of the Enterprise.

Order this episode on DVDDownload this episode via Amazon's Unboxwritten by Jerome Bixby
directed by Murray Golden
music by Fred Steiner
Brahms paraphrase by Ivan Ditmars

Guest Cast: James Doohan (Mr. Scott), George Takei (Lt. Sulu), Nichelle Nichols (Lt. Uhura), Walter Koenig (Chekov), James Daly (Flint), Louise Sorel (Rayna)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Kolchak The Night Stalker Season 1

Legacy Of Terror

Night StalkerA number of physically fit individuals (an Air Force pilot, a football player, a Green Beret, a policeman) are turning up dead. Among the similarities is the fact that their hearts have been cut out with a dull knife, they were overcome without a struggle, and that each victim is found on higher and higher flights of stairs. Kolchak arrives at the site of one murder, and witnesses a strange feathered figure making his escape. The feathers are from parrots found in the Southern hemisphere. Carl comes to believe that the murders are being committed by an Aztec cult devoted to resurrecting an ancient mummified warrior over a period of ten 52-year cycles. The mummy claims the hearts of the first four victims, but the fifth must be a willing sacrifice, a “Perfect Victim.” The willing sacrifice is Pepe, a box boy who has been given a year to have anything he wants to before being killed. Kolchak must convince Pepe that he should break his side of the bargain before the ninth cycle is completed.

Order the DVDswritten by Arthur Rowe
directed by Don McDougall
music by Gil Mille

Guest Cast: Erik Estrada (Pepe Torres), Pippa Scott (Tillie Jones), Victor Campos (Professor Jamie Rodriguez), Sorrell Booke (Mr. Eddy), Mickey Gilbert (The Mummy)

Notes: Available compiled with Demon In Lace as Demon And The Mummy. Actor Ramon Bieri plays Captain Webster in this episode, despite having appeared as Captain Baker in Bad Medicine.

LogBook entry by Steve Crowe

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Children Of The Stones

Squaring The Circle

Children Of The StonesMargaret and Sandra return from their dinner at Hendrick’s home – in reality, a temple fashioned to serve as the center of the circle in Millbury – completely changed. Adam and Matthew no longer have any allies in Millbury. Matthew sees Hendrick near the local church – a church which has supposedly been unoccupied by either priest or parishioners for years – and sneaks inside, finding cutting-edge computers… and Hendrick waiting for him. Hendrick returns Matthew home, but now Adam is certain that he and his son need to leave Millbury.

If, indeed, it’s actually possible for anyone to leave.

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), Peter Demin (Matthew), Veronica Strong (Margaret), Katharine Levy (Sandra), Ruth Dunning (Mrs. Crabtree), John Woodnutt (Link)

Notes: The notion that time is passing at a different rate outside Millbury than it is within the village – and that there’s only one point at which there’s an interface between the two – beats the acclaimed series Lost to one of its central twists by 30 years.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Supertrain

And A Cup Of Kindness Too

SupertrainAt Grand Central Station, a man collapses on the floor and no one stops to help him – no one, that is, until already-distracted Jack Nordoff helps him up. Jack is not there to catch a train, but to see off his soon-to-be-ex-wife before the divorce proceedings heat up. The man Jack helped, Waldo Chase, cracks a joke about needing a hit man instead of a lawyer, and then they part ways…until Jack calls his wife on the train, and discovers that Chase is also on the train, having followed here. Chase says he owes Jack a favor, and always pays his debts…and that all Jack’s troubles will soon be over. Jack now has to find a way to beat Supertrain to its Chicago stop to try to save his wife’s life…but who can outrun Supertrain?

written by Shimon Wincelberg
directed by Rod Amateau
music by Bob Cobert

SupertrainCast: Edward Andrews (Harry Flood), Patrick Collins (David Noonan), Harrison Page (George Boone), Robert Alda (Dr. Lewis), Nita Talbot (Rose Casey), Aarika Wells (Gilda), William Nuckols (Wally), Michael DeLano (Lou Atkins), Charlie Brill (Robert), Dick Van Dyke (Waldo Chase), Larry Linville (Jack Nordoff), Barbara Rhoades (Myra Nordoff), Keith Mitchell (Rodney), Rachel Jacobs (Daphne), Byron Morrow (Farrell), Lou Krugman (Cabbie), Valorie Armstrong (Airline Employee), Al Hansen (Motor Cop), Anthony Palmer (T.C. Baker), Cameron Young (Fenner), Frank McCarthy (Detective), Jack O’Leary (Salesman), Kenneth White (Tex), Casey Brown (Stewardess), Fritz Reed (The Maitre’d), Lee Stein (Young Man), Bill Smillie (Chicago Cabby), Mary Ellen O’Neill (Cleaning Lady), Don Delaney (Waiter), Alfred Mariorenzi (Desk Sergeant)

SupertrainNotes: The second episode is a marked improvement over the first, if only for the (guest) star power on display, and the fact that it’s only an hour long. Dick Van Dyke needed no introduction to TV audiences, having starred in his own sitcom, The Dick Van Dyke show, from 1961 through 1966. After several years of steady work, most recently (at the time) a stint on the Carol Burnett Show, he was exploring both comedic and dramatic guest roles in prime time, and this one was distinctly unnerving. Opposite Van Dyke is Larry Linville (1939-2000), one of the founding cast members of the long-running sitcom M*A*S*H, on which he played the uptight Major Frank Burns from 1972 through 1977. The episode’s title comes from the Anglicized lyrics to “Auld Lang Syne”. Supertrain!

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Buck Rogers Season 1

A Dream of Jennifer

Buck Rogers In The 25th CenturyWhile shopping with Twiki for the components of an authentic 20th century hot tub, Buck thinks he spots a familiar face. He tries to follow her, but loses track of her and then sees her again at a spaceport the next day. Buck’s friends grow concerned about his insistence on looking for the woman who resembles his 20th century girlfriend Jennifer, but they help him track her down to the city that Buck once knew as New Orleans. When Buck does finally have a change to talk to her, she warns Buck that someone is trying to harm him – moments before two masked attackers pull a gun on both of them. Buck learns that the woman he has been following was the bait in a trap laid especially for him by a group of aliens who want him to destroy a shipment of Earth weapons to an allied world – a world these aliens are at war with. They threaten the woman’s life if Buck doesn’t cooperate, so he reluctantly goes along with the plan – but what he doesn’t expect to find is that Dr. Huer has sent Wilma along with the arms shipment to ensure its safe arrival.

Order the DVDswritten by Michael Bryant
directed by David G. Phinney
music by John Cacavas

Cast: Gil Gerard (Buck Rogers), Erin Gray (Wilma Deering), Tim O’Connor (Doctor Huer), Paul Koslo (Commander Reeve), Gino Conforti (Sylvie), Mary Woronov (Nola), Anne Lockhart (Jennifer), Jessie Lawrence Ferguson (Lt. Hekoff), Cameron Young (Toby Kaplin), Shawn Michaels (Supervisor), Dennis Haysbert (Guard), Marsha Merchant (Clerk), Mitchell Young-Evans (Mime)

Notes: Anne Lockhart is the daughter of June Lockhart, who played the matriarch of the Robinson clan on Lost In Space. If you listen closely after Buck is turned away from the spaceport boarding gate, “Captain Christopher Pike” is paged on the P.A. system. Also, Dr. Huer reveals in this episode that he is a widower. Guest star Mary Woronov would later take over the role of Na’Toth – very briefly – in the second season of Babylon 5.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Red Dwarf Season 04

Camille

Red DwarfThe Old, Old Story: Lister tries once again to teach Kryten to rebel, with only momentary success, though it is promising. Kryten pilots Starbug as he and Rimmer go exploring. When a distress call arrives from someone on a doomed planet, Rimmer decides it’s too dangerous to investigate, but Kryten thinks better of it – and why not, he reflects, when Rimmer’s such a smee heee? Kryten finds a female mechanoid in a grounded spacecraft, and he’s instantly ass-over-nipple-nuts in love. Curiously, when Kryten brings Camille back to Starbug (which she warns him not to do), Rimmer sees a beautiful hologram who can actually stand to be stuck in the same ship with him. Naturally, when Camille is introduced to Lister on Red Dwarf, he sees Kochanski. Cat also sees Camille as a life form with the sexiest body he can imagine – his own. Camille is a pleasure GELF, a genetically engineered life-form who changes its form to please its users, and expects to earn the crew’s scorn. Kryten decides to still be Camille’s friend, despite her true amorphous appearance.

Season 4 Regular Cast: Chris Barrie (Rimmer), Craig Charles (Lister), Danny John-Jules (Cat), Robert Llewellyn (Kryten), Hattie Hayridge (Holly)

Order the DVDswritten by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor
directed by Ed Bye
music by Howard Goodall

Guest Cast: Judy Pascoe (Mechanoid Camille), Francesca Folan (Hologram Camille), Suzanne Rhatigan (Kochanski Camille), Rupert Bates (Hector Blob)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Season 07 Star Trek The Next Generation

Thine Own Self

Star Trek: The Next GenerationStardate 47611.2: Counselor Troi returns from her Academy class reunion to find Dr. Crusher in charge of the bridge, and begins wondering about the possibility of achieving her own position in the ship’s chain of command. Crusher, for her part, is on watch while Data is away in a shuttlecraft retrieving radioactive fragments of a destroyed space probe. Data’s shuttle crashes on a world inhabited by relatively primitive humanoids, and his radioactive cargo disrupts his ability to access his memory of who he is or where he is from. Data wanders into the nearest village carrying the case of hazardous materials, with which he unwittingly contaminates everyone. The only hope for the locals is for Data to restore his memory.

Order the DVDsteleplay by Ronald D. Moore
story by Christopher Hatton
directed by Winrich Kolbe
music by Dennis McCarthy

Guest Cast: Ronnie Claire Edwards (Talur), Michael Rothar (Garvin), Kimberly Cullum (Gia), Michael G. Hagerty (Skoran)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Deep Space Nine Season 02 Star Trek

Shadowplay

Star Trek: Deep Space NineStardate 47603.3: Detecting the emissions of a matter/antimatter reactor from an uncharted planet in the Gamma Quadrant, Dax and Odo beam down into a village whose simple inhabitants have been disappearing without a trace or any kind of explanation. At first the visitors from the Runabout are prime suspects, but once they prove that they have nothing to do with the series of disappearances, Dax and Odo are entrusted with the task of finding the guilty party. However, someone else in the village already knows the answer to the puzzle – the one person who is guaranteed not to vanish.

Order the DVDsDownload this episode via Amazonwritten by Robert Hewitt Wolfe
directed by Robert Scheerer
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), Philip Anglim (Vedek Bareil), Kenneth Mars (Colyus), Kenneth Tobey (Rurigan), Noley Thornton (Taya), Trula M. Marcus (Female Villager), Martin Cassidy (Male Villager)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Red Dwarf Season 07

Blue

Red DwarfLister’s overconfidence in flying the ship results in his almost destroying Starbug by driving through the tail of a comet, which for some reason leaves his fellow crewmembers rather upset. Perhaps it’s the general smegginess of the situation, perhaps it’s the atypical rush of bravado, or maybe it’s just insanity, but one visit to the supply room and one very disturbing dream later, Lister misses Rimmer. Fortunately, Kryten thinks he can help cure Lister of his loneliness, whether it takes hypnosis…or worse!

Order the DVDswritten by Kim Fuller & Doug Naylor
directed by Ed Bye
music by Howard Goodall

Guest Cast: none

Original title: Heartache

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Season 5 Xena: Warrior Princess

Amphipolis Under Siege

Xena: Warrior PrincessXena fights off a group of female warriors who attacked the guards on the road to Amphipolis. Her first thought is Ares, but after he appears she realizes that it was Athena who sent the warriors. When Xena and Gabrielle reach Amphipolis, the warrior tries to get her mother to leave, but she refuses. They gather the villagers to discuss the threat of Athena’s forces. The goddess appears and offers to leave the area – but only if Xena will give her Eve.

Order the DVDswritten by Chris Black
directed by Mark Beesley
music by Joseph LoDuca

Guest Cast: Paris Jefferson (Athena), Darian Takle (Cyrene), Kevin Smith (Ares), Musetta Vander (Ilainus), Ben Brown (Villager #2), Douglas Kamo (Border Guard), Crawford Thomson (Villager), Stuart Thorpe (Infantry Commander)

LogBook entry by Mary Terrell

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Hyperdrive Season 1

Assessment

HyperdriveAs the crew is distracted by mandatory psychological assessment tests, the Camden Lock strays into contested space, where automatic defense systems wreak serious damage on Henderson’s ship. He is to submit to a Category “J” inspection in a week’s time, an inspection which has ended many a space captain’s career. Henderson retreats to his quarters and hands command over to York, who promises to have the ship running at peak efficiency before the inspector arrives, and demands unquestioning loyalty and obedience from the crew. The crew, however, has different ideas. In the meantime, pan-galactic beings are contacting Vine in his mind, offering knowledge beyond human comprehension.

Order the DVDsDownload this episode via Amazonwritten by Kevin Cecil & Andy Riley
directed by John Henderson
music by Mark Thomas

HyperdriveCast: Nick Frost (Henderson), Kevin Eldon (York / False York), Miranda Hart (Teal), Dan Antopolski (Jeffers), Stephen Evans (Vine), Petra Massey (Sandstrom), Paterson Joseph (Space Marshal), Wren Shepherd (Captain Helix), Stephanie Dooley (Beautiful Space Lady), Adam Payne (young Vine), Joe Marshall (Wade), Remi Wilson (Piretti), Chris Brailsford (Space Force Inspector), Sarah Solemani (Alien 1), Katy Brand (Alien 2), Morwenna Banks (Announcer), Maggie Service (Computer Voices), Ewan Bailey (Computer Voices)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Lost Season 3

Flashes Before Your Eyes

  • By Dave
  • February 14, 2007

LostFlashback: After turning the key and imploding the hatch, Desmond wakes up in his old apartment, having just fallen from a ladder. Penelope has just moved in, and Desmond is preparing to meet her father, Mr. Widmore. Their meeting does not go well, as Whitmore tells Desmond that he will never be good enough for Penny. As he storms from the meeting, Desmond sees a street musician playing for tips – Charlie. Desmond recognizes him, and remembers more of the island. He asks a physicist friend of his if time travel is possible, and the friend disbelieves Desmond’s story.

Desmond tries to convince himself that he’s not crazy, and that he can still get his life going the way that he wants. He goes to buy an engagement ring – but at the last moment the shop clerk refuses to sell it to him. She tells Desmond that being with Penny is not his path, that he is destined to go to the island, push the button, and turn the key – that it is the one great thing that he will do, and the universe has ways of correcting its course. Desmond tries, and meets with Penny. But before he proposes, they get their picture taken together. Desmond recognizes it as the picture that he carries with him on the island. Shaken up, he breaks up with Penny and returns to the pub. A soccer result confirms for him that his visions/memories are real, which gives him a renewed determination to try and change things. But before he can, a cricket bat to the head knocks him unconscious again – and he wakes up shortly after the implosion.

The Island: Desmond brings Charlie and Hurley to meet Sayid and Locke, who tells them of Eko’s death. Desmond suddenly runs back to the beach and dives into the water to pull Claire out of the ocean. Hurley tells Charlie that he believes Desmond can see the future, so they decide to get Desmond drunk. Charlie provokes a fight, and Desmond eventually reveals that when he turned the key, his life flashed before his eyes – and he’s still getting flashes. Those flashes tell him that someone on the island is going to die. And as much as Desmond might try to stop it, the universe has a way of correcting course.

Order the DVDswritten by Damon Lindelof & Drew Goddard
directed by Jack Bender
music by Michael Giacchino

Guest Cast: Sonya Walger (Penny Widmore), Alan Dale (Charles Widmore), Shishir Kurup (Donovan), Fionnula Flanagan (Ms. Hawking), Katie Doyle (Receptionist), Jeremy Colvin (delivery man), Michael Titterton (Bartender), David Cordell (Jimmy Lennon)

LogBook entry by Dave Thomer

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Stargate Stargate Origins

Part One

Stargate: Origins1928: A massive circular object, fashioned from stone and metal by advanced technology, is unearthed at an archaeological dig in Giza, Egypt, its purpose and origins unknown.

1938: Professor Paul Langford’s study of the unearthed artifact has run aground – he’s run out of funding, a German colleague has returned to Berlin without a word, and his daughter Catherine, who has been part of the study from its beginning, will soon return to the United States to take a job at a museum. Whatever the circular behemoth’s secrets are, there’s very little danger of them being found out with Langford’s project running out of steam. Just when it seems things can’t get any worse, agents of the German government arrive, claiming to know some of those secrets already.

Stargate Originswritten by Mark Ilvedson & Justin Michael Terry
directed by Mercedes Bryce Morgan
music by Robert Allaire

Cast: Ellie Gall (Catherine Langford), Aylam Orian (Wilhelm Brucke), Philip Alexander (James Beal), Sarah Navratil (Eva Reinhardt), Derek Chariton (Heinrich), Justin Michael Terry (Gunter), Lincoln Hoppe (Stefan), Connor Trinneer (Professor Paul Langford)

Stargate OriginsNotes: The cornerstone of the Stargate Command stream-on-demand service, Stargate Origins is a new web series derived from events recounted in The Tormant Of Tantalus, a first season episode of Stargate SG-1. Though that episode (and thus the character of Catherine Langford) was written by Robert C. Cooper, the credits of Stargate Origins indicate only that the series is based upon the original movie by Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich. This is the first new Stargate project to go into production since the 2011 conclusion of Stargate Universe. Connor Trinneer is no stranger to the Stargate franchise, having played a recurring villain in the Stargate Atlantis spinoff series; he’s probably better known for his role as Chief Engineer Charles “Trip” Tucker on Star Trek: Enterprise.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Stargate Stargate Origins

Part Two

Stargate: OriginsAs his guards hold the Langfords at gunpoint, Brucke orders the Stargate to be powered up, and the empty center of the circle erupts into a vortex of otherworldly energy. Brucke believes that unimaginable treasures and technologies are waiting for him on the other side, which he intends to claim and bring back for the glory of the Third Reich. Since there’s no guarantee of safety, he sends Professor Langford through first. Catherine realizes she’ll need help to retrieve her father…as soon as she can escape from the Nazis.

Stargate Originswritten by Mark Ilvedson & Justin Michael Terry
directed by Mercedes Bryce Morgan
music by Robert Allaire

Cast: Ellie Gall (Catherine Langford), Aylam Orian (Wilhelm Brucke), Philip Alexander (James Beal), Sarah Navratil (Eva Reinhardt), Shvan Aladdin (Wasif) Derek Chariton (Heinrich), Justin Michael Terry (Gunter), Lincoln Hoppe (Stefan), Connor Trinneer (Professor Paul Langford)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Discovery Season 2 Star Trek

Saints Of Imperfection

Star Trek: DiscoveryStardate not given: Anguished by Ensign Tilly’s disappearance into an organic alien coccoon, Stamets is refusing to give up on the idea of somehow retrieving her, believing that she has been transported into the mycelial network. Discovery is chasing a shuttle believed to be Spock’s, and disables it with a photon torpedo only to discover not Spock inside, but deposed Terran Emperor Philippa Georgiou (now an agent of Section 31) inside. After a terse exchange of information, Georgiou leaves, but not before leaving another Section 31 agent – the recently recruited Ash Tyler – aboard Discovery. Stamets devises a plan to perform a “partial jump” with Discovery’s spore drive to enter the mycelial network and recover Tilly, though at great risk to the ship. Inside the network, Tilly is surrounded by any number of things that could kill her…along with May, who says she is the avatar of a race called the Jah’Sepp, which lives in the network and tries to avoid a monster that is killing them. When Discovery slices into the network’s dimension, Burnham, Stamets and Tilly discover that the “monster” which needs to be removed is one of their own.

Order DVDsStream this episode via Amazonwritten by Kirsten Beyer
directed by David Barrett
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), Michelle Yeoh (Philippa Georgiou), Jayne Brook (Admiral Cornwell), Alan Van Sprang (Leland), Rachael Ancheril (Commander Nhan), 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), Julianne Grossman (Discovery Computer)

Star Trek DiscoveryNotes: The wearable communicator badge common throughout Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager apparently has its roots in Section 31 technology, though it’s clearly a shock to Captain Pike in the 23rd century. Given that Pike is in the dark about Georgiou’s origins in the mirror universe, it’s also likely that – despite whatever briefing he received (Brother) – he doesn’t know the full story about Captain Lorca.

LogBook entry by Earl Green