Day: March 9, 1966

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Batman Season 1

True Or False Face

BatmanThe theft of foreign crown jewels from beneath the noses of Commissioner Gordon and Chief O’Hara signal the return of masked criminal mastermind False Face, who just as quickly gives Gotham’s finest the slip. Batman and Robin are summoned to ponder False Face’s latest cryptic clue, deducing that an armored car will be his next target, but it’s too late – False Face is already impersonating one of the truck’s guards, and escapes the hatch the next part of his scheme by kidnapping impersonating Chief O’Hara.

Download this episode via Amazonwritten by Stephen Kandel
directed by William Graham
music by Nelson Riddle / Batman theme by Neal Hefti

BatmanCast: Adam West (Batman), Burt Ward (Robin), Alan Napier (Alfred), Neil Hamilton (Commissioner Gordon), Stafford Repp (Chief O’Hara), Madge Blake (Mrs. Cooper), Malachi Throne (False Face), Myrna Fahey (Blaze), Billy Curtis (Midget), Joe Brooks (Fat Man), Chuck Fox (Thin Man), S. John Launder (Mr. Ladd), Patrick White (Curator)

Notes: Holy Star Trek personnel crossover, Batman! Writer Stephen Kandel was the creator of Harry Mudd, the original Star Trek‘s sole Batmanrecurring adversary, though he had already completed his work on the early Trek episode Mudd’s Women by the time this episode of Batman premiered. Special guest star Malachi Throne – credited simply as “?” here – was a fixture of 1960s and ’70s TV, and of genre TV in general, appearing in both Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation as well as Ark II and Babylon 5.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Original Series Season 01 Star Trek

Devil in the Dark

Star Trek ClassicStardate 3196.1: A mining colony reports a number of mysterious deaths just after they successfully dig to a lower level of a planetoid believed to be uninhabited. The Enterprise arrives, and Kirk, Spock and security officers from the ship begin a hunt for whoever or whatever is responsible for the growing body count. An amorphous creature capable of burning through the indigenous rock is found to be the cause of the deaths as well as a very well-thought out sabotage of the miners’ life support systems. Through a mind-meld, Spock communicates with the being – known as the Horta – and finds that it is the last of its kind, a mother laying eggs in the tunnels and caves it builds for itself. But the humans have been discovering and destroying the eggs, and if the Horta cannot bring herself to negotiate with the miners, one party or the other faces extinction.

Order this episode on DVDDownload this episode via Amazon's Unboxwritten by Gene L. Coon
directed by Joseph Pevney
music by Alexander Courage

Cast: 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), Ken Lynch (Vanderberg), Brad Weston (Appel), Biff Elliot (Schmitter), George E. Allen (Engineer #1), Jon Cavett (Guard), Barry Russo (Giotto)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Doomwatch Season 1

Project Sahara

DoomwatchTobias Wren and Dr. Stella Watson are informed by Spencer Quist that they’re suspended, effective immediately, moments after Quist receives a phone call from the Ministry. Suddenly out of work, Wren hits the bottle, as he is wont to do when the chips are down, and winds up confiding in the wrong person on the topic of Doomwatch. Dr. Watson also finds herself under scrutiny, to the point that she suspects her own boyfriend is spying on her. Furious, Quist descends upon the Ministry to demand explanations, discovering that the “preemptive firings” he’s been instructed to carry out are based on computer predictions of potential criminal behavior, rather than on past actions with any basis in fact.

writer not credited
(written by Gerry Davis with additional dialogue by N.J. Crisp)
directed by Jonathan Alwyn
music by Max Harris

DoomwatchCast: John Paul (Dr. Spencer Quist), Simon Oates (Dr. John Ridge), Robert Powell (Tobias Wren), Joby Blanshard (Colin Bradley), Wendy Hall (Pat Hunnisett), Nigel Stock (Keeping), Robert James (Barker), Hildegard Neil (Stella), Philip Brack (Jack), Erik Chitty (Old Man), John Linares (Young Man), Peter Hawkins (Computer Voice)

Notes: For a television show produced in 1970 (and likely written and filmed in late 1969), this episode does a remarkably good job of anticipating the “slow scan” loading of an interlaced JPG file at dialup internet speeds…even though neither JPG files nor the internet were in existence at the time. Also Doomwatchanticipated: the pieced-together-by-computer speech patterns of pre-recorded words and phenomes now commonly associated with “voice assistants” such as Siri (and even in early video game voice synthesizers like the Voice of Odyssey2). The writers of this episode are not credited on screen, a very rare occurrence. The story seems to have been inspired by elements of Philip K. Dick’s “Minority Report”, which was published in 1956.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Classic Season 11 Doctor Who

Death To The Daleks – Part 3

Doctor WhoAs the Doctor expects, the electronic “root” is deadly to touch. Elsewhere in the caverns, Sarah is cornered by an Exxilon…one who actually speaks English. His name is Bellal, and he means no harm; he’s a member of a small group of Exxilons who have chosen rationality over the religion based on worship of the city. Before any further introductions can be made, Sarah and Bellal have to hide from two Daleks, who then follow the Doctor further into the tunnels, where they too encounter the “root”…only to discover it’s dangerous to Daleks as well. The root is part of the city’s automated systems, and Bellal reveals that the city is the invention of the Exxilons themselves…and unless they destroy that invention, it will wipe them out. On the surface, the Daleks have subjugated the more primitive Exxilons, turning them into a slave labor force…with help from Galloway, to his crewmates’ disgust. The Doctor and Bellal go to the city to try to gain entry, finding that each successive entryway is locked, and can only be opened by solving logic puzzles…and failing any of these tests could be deadly.

written by Terry Nation
directed by Michael Bryant
music by Carey Blyton and played by the London Saxophone Quartet

Cast: Jon Pertwee (The Doctor), Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), Duncan Lamont (Dan Galloway), Julian Fox (Peter Hamilton), Joy Harrison (Jill Tarrant), Arnold Yarrow (Bellal), Roy Heymann (Gotal), Michael Wisher (Dalek voices), John Scott Martin (Dalek), Murphy Grumbar (Dalek), Cy Town (Dalek)

Notes: The Doctor claims he’s seen the symbols from the Exxilon city in a Peruvian temple, which means that before the fall of their civilization, they were themselves capable of interstellar travel.

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Season 1 Star Blazers

Finally Arrived: Crest Of The Magellanic Cloud’s Wave

Star BlazersD minus 165 days: The Argo reaches the Magellanic Cloud, and is greeted by a communication from Starsha of Iscandar – and a barrage of missiles from Gamilon which render the Argo’s navigational instruments useless. The crew begins to wonder if Starsha’s message was a fake, but this question is resolved by the discovery that Iscandar and Gamilon are a twin planetary system. Captain Avatar, wracked by the final stages of radiation poisoning, is bedridden, leaving Derek Wildstar in command. The Argo is magnetically forced down into Gamilon’s acidic sea, where it is trapped as the Gamilons launch their final attack.

Order the DVDswritten by Keisuke Fujikawa & Eiichi Yamamoto
directed by Leiji Matsumoto
music by Hiroshi Miyagawa

Season 1 Voice Cast: Kenneth Meseroll (Derek Wildstar), Tom Tweedy (Mark Venture), Amy Howard (Nova), Eddie Allen (Leader Desslok), Lydia Leeds (Starsha), other actors unknown

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Classic Season 22 Doctor Who

Timelash

Doctor WhoRebellion is in the air on Karfel, a planet whose native population is enslaved by the Borad – a being which used to be one of them, but has now become a horrible genetic mutant. Tyranny is not the Borad’s only gift to Karfel – he has also brought the Timelash, a device that allows political prisoners to be “executed” by dumping them into a time corridor. The Borad has also brought Karfel to the brink of war with the Bandrils, a race of peaceful hand puppets. In the midst of this bleak landscape, the Doctor and Peri arrive, and find themselves racing against time to save the Karfelons from their own esteemed leader.

Order the DVDwritten by Glen McCoy
directed by Pennant Roberts
music by Elizabeth Parker

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Nicola Bryant (Peri), JeanAnne Crowley (Vena), Eric Deacon (Mykros), Robert Ashby (The Borad), Paul Darrow (Tekker), David Chandler (Herbert), Denis Carey (Old Man), David Ashton (Kendron), Peter Robert Scott (Brunner), Dicken Ashworth (Sezom), Tracy Louise Ward (Katz), Christine Kavanaugh (Aram), Steven Mackintosh (Gazak), Dean Hollingsworth (Android), James Richardson (Guardolier), Martin Gower (Tyheer/Bandril Ambassador)

Broadcast from March 9 through 16, 1985

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Babylon 5 / Crusade Season 1

The War Prayer

Babylon 5Mayan, renowned Minbari poet and old friend of Delenn, is aboard the station to entertain the Minbari population and enlighten others of Minbari culture, when she is brutally attacked by masked members of the Home Guard, an isolationist terrorist group from Earth whose members seek to flush all alien influnces out of human society. Other violent attacks on non-humans concern and outrage the aliens aboard Babylon 5. One assault leaves Vir’s nephew in a coma. G’Kar stirs up trouble in the name of justice, trying to get the alien residents of Babylon 5 to rise up against their human neighbors, while uncomfortable questions about the influence of the Home Guard trouble Sinclair, who ultimately must take a direct hand in affairs.

Order now!Download this episodewritten by D.C. Fontana
directed by Richard Compton
music by Christopher Franke

Babylon 5Guest Cast: Tristan Rogers (Malcolm Biggs), Nancy Lee Grahn (Shaal Mayan), Michael Paul Chan (Roberts), Rodney Eastman (Kiron Maray), Danica McKellar (Aria Tensus), Diane Adair (Mila Shar), Richard Chaves (Alvares), Mark Hendrickson (Thegras), Chuck Butto (Security Officer #1), Ardwight Chamberlain (Kosh), Mike Gunther (Alien #1), Marianne Robertson (Dome Tech)

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Season 3 Xena: Warrior Princess

Forget Me Not

Xena: Warrior PrincessGabrielle is troubled by nightmares and decides to pay a visit to the temple of Mnemosyne. She asks the priestess to help her search her memories so that she might find a way to rid herself of the pain. But Joxer feels that he can help her and takes the bard away from the temple, even though she has already begun her quest to remember.

Order the DVDswritten by Hilary J. Bader
directed by Charlie Haskell
music by Joseph LoDuca

Guest Cast: Kevin Smith (Ares), Ted Raimi (Joxer), Jan Hellriegel (Preistess of Mnemosyne), Mark Webley (Guard), Lana Garland (Young Woman)

LogBook entry by Mary Terrell