Day: March 8, 1968

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Original Series Season 02 Star Trek

The Ultimate Computer

Star Trek ClassicStardate 4729.4: Kirk is ordered to relinquish command of the Enterprise to Dr. Daystrom’s new M-5 computer, which, according to Daystrom, can make all the decisions that a starship captain would encounter correctly and more quickly than any human. The Enterprise, with Kirk and a few others aboard, is engaged in Starfleet wargames, but the M-5 begins to treat the other ships as a serious threat and retaliates with full salvos of phasers and photon torpedoes, destroying one ship. Believing Kirk may have lost his mind, Starfleet gives the remaining ships permission to destroy the Enterprise.

Order this episode on DVDDownload this episode via Amazon's Unboxteleplay by D.C. Fontana
story by Laurence N. Wolfe
directed by John Meredyth Lucas
music by Sol Kaplan and Fred Steiner

Star TrekCast: William Shatner (Captain James T. Kirk), Leonard Nimoy (Mr. Spock), DeForest Kelley (Dr. Leonard McCoy), James Doohan (Mr. Scott), George Takei (Lt. Sulu), Nichelle Nichols (Lt. Uhura), William Marshall (Dr. Daystrom), Sean Morgan (Harper), Barry Russo (Commodore Wesley)

Notes: Dr. Daystrom’s disastrous experiment with the M-5 didn’t completely tarnish his legacy; there are numerous references in Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager to the Federation’s Daystrom Institute of Technology.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Classic Season 06 Doctor Who

The Space Pirates

Doctor WhoWith raids on defenseless cargo beacon stations on the rise in the intergalactic spaceway, the authorities and their minnow ships are placed on high alert. Caven and his motley crew of space pirates have been systematically stealing argonite and escaping aboard their sleek Beta Dart ship. General Hermack, aboard the V-Ship, lays a trap for Caven’s pirates by placing a full team of armed guards on the next cargo station…but to their surprise, their first visitors aren’t pirates, but three odd people who arrive in, of all things, an ancient police box. When the real pirates arrive and the shooting starts, the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe take shelter. Caven’s men slaughter the guards, take the argonie and follow their usual procedure of planting charges to blow the beacon’s wedge-shaped cargo containers apart from each other. Trapped in a different container from the one in which the TARDIS landed, and left with limited oxygen, the Doctor and his friends are rescued by crusty old-time space prospector Milo Clancey – who is unaware that he’s been assigned the rescue mission by Hermack, as a test to see if he is allied to Caven’s pirates.

Order this story on audio CDwritten by Robert Holmes
directed by Michael Hart
music by Dudley Simpson

Guest Cast: Briant Peck (Dervish), Dudley Foster (Caven), Jack May (Hermack), Donald Gee (Warne), George Layton (Penn), Nick Zaran (Sorba), Anthony Donovan (Guard), Gordon Gostelow (Milo Clancey), Lisa Daniely (Madeleine), Steve Peters (Guard), Esmond Knight (Dom Issigri)

Note: With the exception of episode 2, the master tapes of this story were destroyed by the BBC in the early 1970’s.

Broadcast from March 8 through April 12, 1969

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Season 1 Six Million Dollar Man

Eyewitness To Murder

The Six Million Dollar ManWaiting for a taxi after dark, Steve is present when a shot rings out, killing a member of the legal team of a prosecutor who is mere hours away from seeking a grand jury indictment against a major criminal figure who no one has been able to prosecute. The OSI is brought in to help provide security for Sandusky, the prosecutor, and his surviving staff members. What Steve can’t divulge, however, is that he got a good look at the shooter with his bionic vision. When he spots the shooter again, Steve apprehends him, but under police interrogation the man seems to have an airtight alibi. How can the assassin have been in two places at the same time, and with his own credibility in question, how can Steve stop him from striking again?

written by William Driskill
directed by Alf Kjellin
music by Oliver Nelson

The Six Million Dollar ManCast: Lee Majors (Steve Austin), Richard Anderson (Oscar Goldman), Gary Lockwood (Hopper), William Schallert (Lorin Sandusky), Ivor Barry (Mr. Hanley), Regis J. Cordic (Host), Leonard Stone (Lt. Tanner), Allen Joseph (Dorsey), Lew Palter (Cab Driver), Donna Mantoan (Hotel Clerk), Al Dunlap (Doorman), Marilyn J. Hassett (Car Rental Girl)

Notes: Guest star Gary Lockwood was one of the stars of 2001: a space odyssey, and prior to that, the star of The Lieutenant, the first television series created and The Six Million Dollar Manproduced by a rising young writer named Gene Roddenberry. Roddenberry cast Lockwood in the second Star Trek pilot, Where No Man Has Gone Before, a few years later. William Schallert also appeared in Star Trek, guest starring in two different incarnations of the franchise (TOS: The Trouble With Tribbles, DS9: Sanctuary).

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Classic Season 12 Doctor Who

Genesis of the Daleks

Doctor WhoThe Doctor, Sarah and Harry are waylaid by a secret arm of the Time Lords en route back to space station Nerva. A Time Lord has diverted them to Skaro, the Daleks’ homeworld, on the eve of their creation, and the Doctor is under orders to prevent the creation of the Daleks in order to avoid future in which they could conquer the entire universe. An atomic war between the Kaleds and the Thals has reduced both of Skaro’s superpowers from the nuclear age to the stone age, with the exception of the radiation-deformed Kaled genius Davros, who not only anticipates the mutation of his people that the war will cause, but embraces it as their future. Davros has devised armored life support systems to encase the shriveled mutants that the Kaleds will become after centuries of atomic bombardment – and he christens these devices Daleks. The Doctor, Harry and Sarah stumble into the Kaled city, and find that Davros has fanatical sympathizers as well as horrified opponents among his own people. And when the moment comes, despite the evil and hatred that Davros is preprogramming into his creations, the Doctor finds that there may be a just reason to allow the Daleks to run their destructive course through history.

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Terry Nation
directed by David Maloney
music by Dudley Simpson

Guest Cast: Michael Wisher (Davros), John Scott Martin, Max Faulkner, Keith Ashley, Cy Town (Daleks), Roy Skelton (Dalek voices), Peter Miles (Nyder), Guy Siner (Ravon), Dennis Chinnery (Gharman), Richard Reeves (Kaled Leader), John Franklyn-Robbins (Time Lord), Stephen Yardley (Sevrin), James Garbutt (Ronson), Drew Wood (Tane), Jeremy Chandler (Gerrill), Pat Gorman, Hilary Minster, John Gleeson (Thal soldiers), Andrew Johns (Kravos), Peter Mantle (Kaled guard), Harriet Philpin (Bettan), Max Faulkner (Thal guard), Michael Lynch (Thal politician), Ivor Roberts (Mogren), Tom Georgeson (Kavell)

Broadcast from March 8 through April 12, 1975

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy Radio Series

Episode 1 (Fit The First)

Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy: Primary PhaseArthur Dent’s having a more troublesome Thursday than usual. For one thing, the local council has decided to demolish his house and several others with as little warning as possible, all to make way for a new bypass. To protest this, Arthur lays down in front of a bulldozer which would, without his presence, destroy his home completely. And while that’s stressful enough, Arthur’s somewhat odd friend Ford Prefect chooses this very moment to come along and insist that Arhur must come to the pub with him and imbibe heavily, and somehow – according to Ford – the end of the world figures into the proceedings. Arthur reluctantly agrees, but regrets it soon afterward when he hears, from the cozy confines of the pub, the destruction of his house. But before Arthur can exact his revenge on the bureaucrats who made this all possible, he becomes one of the only surviving witnesses, from the not-so-cozy confines of a Vogon Constructor ship, to the destruction of the entire Earth – and the slightly bewildered recipient of a babel fish, courtesy of Ford. As it happens, Ford isn’t from Earth at all, and is a roving researcher for an encyclopedic electronic book known as the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The spaceship which Ford has managed to use to escape from Earth, with Arthur in tow, has a crew which isn’t from Earth either…and they’re none too pleased to discover that they have hitchhikers aboard.

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), Bill Wallis (Prosser/Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz), Jo Kendall (Lady Cynthia Fitzmelon), David Gooderson (Barman)

Notes: If you can imagine David Gooderson quite a bit more angry and strident, and you happen to be a Doctor Who fan, you might remember him as Davros from the 1979 Doctor Who story Destiny Of The Daleks.

Categories
Classic Season 19 Doctor Who

Earthshock

Doctor WhoA 26th century geological expedition is ambushed underground, leaving only a single survivor. When she crawls her way back to the surface camp, she reports the massacre. A squadron of security troops arrives to investigate, but they also consider her a suspect. However, when the troops return to the subterranean caves to look for the evidence, they first find a pair of killer androids…and then they find four people claiming to be time travelers, who instantly become the prime suspects. But these travelers – the Doctor and his unharmonious trio of companions – are more of a threat to the plans of the Cybermen (once again wearing new suits of high-tech armor). It seems that, fearing an upcoming conference of interplanetary superpowers that could spell the end to the Cybermen’s war effort, the silver ones plan to slam a huge space freighter into the Earth, obliterating a large portion of the planet’s surface. But when Adric manages to thwart the Cybermen’s plans by accidentlly sending the freighter back in time (but still on the same trajectory), he’s either helping to prevent the human race from coming into existence…or ensuring that event.

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Eric Saward
directed by Peter Grimwade
music by Malcolm Clarke

Guest Cast: Beryl Reid (Briggs), James Warwick (Scott), Clare Clifford (Kyle), June Bland (Berger), David Banks (CyberLeader), Mark Hardy (Cyber Lieutenant), Steve Morley (Walters), Suzi Arden (Snyder), Ann Holloway (Mitchell), Anne Clements (Trooper Bane), Mark Straker (Trooper Carter), Alec Sabin (Ringway), Mark Fletcher (Crewmember Vance), Christopher Whittingham (Crewmember Carson), Carolyn Mary Simmonds, Barney Lawrence (Androids), Jeff Wayne, Steve Ismay, Peter Gates-Fleming, David Bache, Graham Cole, Norman Bradley, Michael Gordon Brown (Cybermen)

Broadcast from March 8 through 16, 1982

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Classic Season 21 Doctor Who

The Caves of Androzani

Doctor WhoThe Doctor and Peri find themselves on Androzani Major, a world embroiled in a bloody war over the drug spectrox, which prolongs the human life span. While exploring some seemingly uninhabited caves, the Doctor and Peri fall into a foreign substance which has the immediate effect of causing an unpleasant rash, and are then captured by a platoon of soldiers who accuse them of smuggling weapons. While awaiting summary execution for this crime, the Doctor and Peri are then rescued – or perhaps kidnapped – by Sharaz Jek, a disfigured madman who hoards the planet’s supply of spectrox and oversees the real weapons smugglers. The soldiers, Jek, the gun-runners and a treacherous corporate mogul with an eye on the presidency are all battling for control of the spectrox supply, and none of them will let anything stand in their way – especially not two innocent bystanders who are dying anyway.

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Robert Holmes
directed by Graeme Harper
music by Roger Limb

Cast: Peter Davison (The Doctor), Janet Fielding (Tegan), Mark Strickson (Turlough), Christopher Gable (Sharaz Jek), John Normington (Morgus), Robert Glenister (Salateen), Maurice Roeves (Stotz), Roy Holder (Krelper), Martin Cochrane (Chellak), Barbara Kinghorn (Timmin), David Neal (President), Ian Staples (Soldier), Colin Taylor (Magma creature), Keith Harvey, Andrew Smith, Stephen Smith (Androids), Anthony Ainley (The Master), Matthew Waterhouse (Adric), Sarah Sutton (Nyssa), Janet Fielding (Tegan), Mark Strickson (Turlough), Gerald Flood (voice of Kamelion)

Broadcast from March 8 through 16, 1984

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Deep Space Nine Season 01 Star Trek

Move Along Home

Star Trek: Deep Space NineStardate not given: A group of Gamma Quadrant aliens led by Falow makes first contact with the station, an event which Sisko intends to treat with the utmost seriousness and ceremony. Sisko is surprised, however, when Falow and his fellow travelers seem to be interested only in games. After Sisko leaves the proceedings out of boredom and mild disappointment, Quark cheats Falow in his casino, and Falow means to get even by introducing Quark to a game from the Gamma Quadrant. At the same time, Sisko, Dax, Major Kira and Dr. Bashir vanish from the station without a trace, finding themselves in a surreal maze occupied by images of Falow and others. As they try to work out the puzzle and help each other survive, Quark continues to play the game, only gradually becoming aware of who his pawns are.

Order the DVDsDownload this episode via Amazonteleplay by Frederick Rappaport, Lisa Rich and Jeanne Carrigan-Fauci
story by Michael Piller
directed by David Carson
music by Dennis McCarthy

Guest Cast: Joel Brooks (Falow), James Lashly (Lt. Primmin), Clara Bryant (Chandra)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Season 06 Star Trek Voyager

Child’s Play

Star Trek: VoyagerStardate not given: The de-assimilated Borg children are settling into their life aboard Voyager, even participating in the ship’s science fair. Icheb comes up with a particularly promising device capable of dectecting and predicting wormholes – something which could be put to immediate use on Voyager’s journey back to the Alpha Quadrant. Captain Janeway has some other good news for Icheb – she has located his parents among the survivors of a race which has been ravaged by frequent visits from the Borg, and has set a course to take the boy home. Seven of Nine joins Icheb in resisting Janeway’s plan to return him to his home, especially when he and the last of his people could be assimilated or killed in the next Borg attack. But what Janeway doesn’t even consider for a moment is that Icheb’s own people could pose a deadlier risk to him than even the Borg…

Order the DVDsteleplay by Raf Green
story by Paul Brown
directed by Mike Vejar
music by

Guest Cast: Manu Intirayni (Icheb), Tracey Ellis (Icheb’s mother), Mark A. Sheppard (Icheb’s father), Scarlett Pomers (Naomi Wildman), Marley McClean (Mezoti), Kurt Wetherill (Azan), Cody Wetherill (Rebi), Eric Ritter (Yivel)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Invasion

The Fittest

InvasionDerek and Christina break into Russell’s park ranger station, but he isn’t there; they attack Mona Gomez, Russell’s fellow ranger, and steal her boat. When Russell arrives at the station, he learns who attacked Mona, but before he can call for backup to begin a search, Tom Underlay insists on the two of them searching alone. This means Russell will miss a meeting between Larkin, Mariel, and his children, a meeting where Mariel promises to answer their questions about Kira, and about what has happened to herself as well. The meeting doesn’t go as expected, and while Jesse and Rose are reassured that Kira has not become a hybrid, their faith in Mariel is shaken. Russell and Tom don’t find Derek and Christina, but they do find two groups of Honduran immigrants who are in the country illegally – some of them have become hybrids, but a few haven’t, and have been evicted from the hybrids’ camp. Finally, one of the men reveals that Derek and Christina have passed through, leading Russell and Tom to a camping cabin. But the two hyrbids get the drop on their would-be captors and escape, leaving death in their wake – including the only source of information on the hybrids that Russell had.

Order this DVDwritten by Juan Carlos Coto
directed by Fred Toye
music by Jon Ehrlich & Jason Derlatka

Guest Cast: James Frain (Andrew Dennison / Eli Szura), Elisabeth Moss (Christina), Michael Mitchell (Derek), Rocky Carroll (Healy), Matthew Ross (Vince), Jesus Mayorga (Oscar), Frank Merino (Hybrid migrant #1), Giovanni Martinez (Hybrid migrant #2)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Avenue 5 Season 1

This Is Physically Hurting Me

Avenue 5With Ames continuing to hound Judd, and with Judd’s knowledge that a supply shuttle is en route, the insanely rich owner of Avenue 5 starts making plans to be aboard that shuttle when it returns to Earth, even as passengers line up to ditch personal belongings to help lighten the ship for its accelerated return journey. Billie continues coaching Clark on how to manually dock the ship in a space-borne hanger for evacuation, but the fact that Clark isn’t a real spaceship captain now becomes glaringly obvious and important. Judd hears a rumor that Clark is on drugs and fires him in public, immediately regretting his mistake and backpedaling, but it’s too late – Clark quits. One of the passengers begins spreading the idea that the ship’s journey is a reality show with special effects, and that they’re all still on Earth. Astronaut Spike Martin, placed in command by Judd, announces his discovery that the bridge crew is staffed with actors, lending credence to the reality show theory. As the idea spreads among the rest of the passengers, some of them decide to take a chance and step out of an airlock, including Ames. Into this critical moment of crisis steps Matt, who, in every way imaginable, does not help at all…with fatal consequences.

Download this episode via Amazonteleplay by Georgia Pritchett & Will Smith
story by Armando Iannucci & Georgia Pritchett & Will Smith
directed by David Schneider
music by Adem Ilhan

Avenue 5Cast: Hugh Laurie (Captain Ryan Clark), Josh Gad (Herman Judd), Zach Woods (Matt Spencer), Rebecca Front (Karen Kelly), Suzy Nakamura (Iris Kimura), Lenora Crichlow (Billie McEvoy), Nikki Amuka-Bird (Rav Mulcair), Ethan Phillips (Spike Martin), Andy Buckley (Frank Kelly), Jessica St. Clair (Mia), Kyle Bornheimer (Doug), Neil Casey (Cyrus), Paterson Joseph (Harrison Ames), Julie Dray (Nadia), Adam Pålsson (Bridge Crew), Daisy May Cooper (Sarah – bridge crew), Ankur Bahl (Steward), Eugenia Caruso (Verity), John Finnemore (Shuttle Pilot), Rae Lim (Passenger), Joseph Balderrama (Tim), Sacharissa Claxton (Jaz), Rachel Handshaw (Teri), Maarten Dannenberg (Sean), Brigid Leahy (Ella), Kelly Coughlin (Jaden), Denis Khoroshko (Cam), Debbie Chazen (Passenger), Mark Heenehan (Passenger), Steve Brody (Mike), Elizabeth Moynihan (Passenger), Eben Young (Passenger)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Mandalorian, The Season 3

Chapter 18: The Mines Of Mandalore

Star Wars: The MandalorianThe Mandalorian visits Peli Motto on Tatooine to try to buy the parts needed to repair IG-11; instead she sells him R5-D4 at a reduced rate, over the droid’s objections. He needs a droid to sample atmospheric toxicity on Mandalore, scouting ahead to see if it’s safe to seek the living waters in the subsurface mines. But Mandalore is neither toxic nor uninhabited; R5 is sent back to wait with the ship while the Mandalorian and Grogu explore the former capitol city. A bio-robotic hunter captures the Mandalorian, and it’s up to Grogu to make his way back to the ship alone, get R5 to pilot the ship to Bo-Katan’s sacntuary, and seek her help. She returns with R5 and Grogu, freeing the Mandalorian with his own darksaber and leading him to the mines. Even bathing in the water in the mines is a treacherous thing to do, and Bo-Katan has to rescue him again, but beneath the water, she catches a glimpse of something alive – possibly the mythosaur at the heart of Mandalorian folklore.

The Mandalorianwritten by Jon Favreau
directed by Rachel Morrison
music by Joseph Shirley

Cast: Pedro Pascal (The Mandalorian), Katee Sackhoff (Bo-Katan Kryze), Amy Sedaris (Peli Motto), Brendan Wayne (Mandalorian Warrior), Lateef Crowder (Mandalorian Warrior), Dawn Dininger (Rodian Customer), Leilani Shiu (Jawa), Ariel Shiu (Jawa)

The MandalorianNotes: Peli claims that R5-D4 served the Rebellion during the galactic civil war and was then sold to her, possibly by Jawas. Despite R5’s nervous demeanor suggesting that he’s not made of the same tyranny-fighting stuff as R2-D2, this story of R5’s post-Tatooine exploits is given some confirmation a few episodes later. The Mandalorian’s visit to Tatooine falls on Boonta Eve, a major holiday on that planet (which also coincided with the podrace that young Anakin Skywalker won in Star Wars Episode I).

LogBook entry by Earl Green