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Classic Season 02 Doctor Who

The Crusade

Doctor WhoThe TARDIS brings the Doctor and his friends to 12th century Palestine – the time of King Richard’s Crusade into the Muslim holy lands. Barbara is abducted by the Saracens and is held prisoner. The Doctor, Vicki and Ian fend off a Saracen attack are found by King Richard the Lionhearted and his men. Ian is infuriated when his request for help in rescuing Barbara is met with King Richard’s refusal, but the Doctor smoothes things over with the King and wind up becoming a member of the royal court, while Ian is knighted and sent on his way to save Barbara and the King’s brother – and to offer the hand of the King’s sister, Joanna, to Saladin in the hopes that their marriage would end the ongoing conflict. The Doctor and Vicki – the latter masquerading as a boy – try to keep their necks out of the court intrigue as they discover that King Richard has told his sister nothing of his plan for peace. In Saladin’s court, Barbara finds an ally who has his pledged vengeance upon the Emir…but this new ally leaves it to Barbara to carry out his murderous revenge for him.

written by David Whitaker
directed by Douglas Camfield
music by Dudley Simpson

Guest Cast: John Flint (William des Preaux), Walter Randall (El Akir), Julian Glover (Richard the Lionheart), David Anderson (Reynier de Marun), Bruce Wightman (William de Tornebu), Reg Pritchard (Ben Daheer), Tony Caunter (Thatcher), Roger Avon (Saphadin), Bernard Kay (Saladin), Derek Ware, Valentino Musetti, Anthony Colby (Saracen Warriors), Jean Marsh (Joanna), Robert Lankesheer (Chamberlain), Zohra Segal (Sheyrah), Gabor Baraker (Luigi Ferrigo), Chris Konyils, Raymond Novak (Saracen Guards), George Little (Haroun), Pera Markham (Safiya), John Bay (Earl of Leicester), Sandra Hampton (Maimuna), Viviane Sorrel (Fatima), Diane McKenzie (Hafsa), Tutte Lemkow (Ibrahim), Billy Cornelius (Soldier)

Notes: Guest star Jean Marsh would return in the following season, in the role of one-time TARDIS traveler Sara Kingdom in The Daleks’ Masterplan, and again as Morgaine in 1989’s Battlefield. Julian Glover would also appear in Doctor Who again, in the classic 1979 Tom Baker story City Of Death.

Broadcast from March 27 through April 17, 1965

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Blake's 7 Season 1

Orac

Blake's 7Gan, Avon, Vila and Jenna have fallen ill with potentially lethal radiation sickness after spending too much time on the irradiated surface of Cephlon. Their only hope is that the mysterious Ensor that Blake plans to contact on Aristo has a supply of drugs to cure the illness. On the surface, however, Travis and Servalan have arrived early and make their way slowly and clumsily to Ensor’s underground installation. Blake and Cally teleport to the surface as well and are accosted by a flying object that gives them precise instructions to reach a hidden lift leading directly to Ensor’s laboratory. They find old Ensor dying slowly – he needs the power cells his son was trying to deliver implanted soon. Blake and Cally take Ensor and his invention, Orac, through the tunnels to reach the surface, but a skirmish with Travis slows progress and Ensor dies of shock en route to the surface. Avon and Vila arrive to save Blake and Cally from Travis, and teleport back to the Liberator while Servalan vows to Travis that his career as Space Commander is finished. On the Liberator, Orac is activated and the crew discovers that Orac is actually an incredibly advanced computer capable of making short-term predictions. When asked to do so, Orac projects an image of the Liberator being destroyed in a huge fireball onto the screen…

written by Terry Nation
directed by Vere Lorrimer
music by Dudley Simpson

Cast: Gareth Thomas (Blake), Sally Knyvette (Jenna), Paul Darrow (Avon), Jan Chappell (Cally), Michael Keating (Vila), David Jackson (Gan), Peter Tuddenham (Zen), Derek Farr (Ensor / Orac), Stephen Grief (Travis), Jacqueline Pearce (Servalan), James Muir (Phibian), Paul Kidd (Phibian)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Blake's 7 Season 2

The Keeper

Blake's 7Blake, Jenna and Vila visit Goth, leaving Avon and Cally on the ship. Cally detects a ship that is most likely Travis’s, so Avon sets off to destroy it, leaving Blake and the others in the lurch when savages attack them on the planet. Jenna is captured and betrothed to Gola, Charl of the Tents of Goth, while Vila becomes the court jester. Blake is almost not rescued from death by Avon on the Liberator’s return. He returns and encounters Rod, Gola’s brother and a prime contender to be Charl. Gola and his sister, both of royal blood, are checked by Jenna, and neither of them has the secret of Star One’s location. After a battle with Gola, Rod is killed, and Vila finds nothing on him. Gola is poisoned by his mystic sister and dies. She tells Blake and the others that the truest royal person on Goth is locked away in the dungeons below: Gola’s and Rod’s father, the deposed Charl. Blake goes to the dying old man, who passes away just after telling Blake “a fool knows everything and nothing.” Blake repeats the phrase to the dead king’s grieving jester, triggering a brain implant that gives them the coordinates of Star One.

written by Allan Prior
directed by Derek Martinus
music by Dudley Simpson

Cast: Gareth Thomas (Blake), Sally Knyvette (Jenna), Paul Darrow (Avon), Jan Chappell (Cally), Michael Keating (Vila), Peter Tuddenham (Zen, Orac), Jacqueline Pearce (Servalan), Brian Croucher (Travis), Bruce Purchase (Gola), Freda Jackson (Tara), Shawn Curry (Rod), Cengiz Saner (Fool), Arthur Hewlitt (The Old Man), Ron Tarr (Patrol Leader)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Buck Rogers Season 1

Flight of the War Witch, Part 1

Buck Rogers In The 25th CenturyReturning to New Chicago after a relaxing weekend with a ladyfriend, Buck spots a large metallic sphere in the desert and relays his findings to Dr. Huer, who immediately suspects a Draconian trap. Buck, Wilma, Huer and Twiki visit the unusual globe, and it extends an arm toward Buck, presenting him with a smaller globe. As soon as the smaller sphere is in Dr. Huer’s lab, the vehicle in the desert launches itself into deep space again. Huer decodes the globe’s contents to a precise set of coordinates which would take anyone following them into another universe, and there’s also a single word encoded into the sphere: “Pendar.” Draconian spies within the Earth Defense Directorate alert Princess Ardala to the alien visitation, and she sets her command ship on a course for Earth. Buck and Twiki follow the coordinates and pass through a turbulent vortex into another universe, where he is guided toward the planet Pendar. Dr. Huer and Wilma are invited aboard Ardala’s command ship, where they lodge a protest of her violation of Earth space, and wind up accompanying Ardala as she follows buck into Pendar’s universe. Locked in a war with another race led by a tactician known as Zarina the War Witch, Pendar needs tactical help – and they’ve decided to recruit Buck, whether he likes it or not.

Order the DVDsteleplay by Robert W. Gilmer & William Mageean
story by David Chomsky
directed by Larry Stewart
music by J.J. Johnson

Cast: Gil Gerard (Buck Rogers), Erin Gray (Wilma Deering), Tim O’Connor (Doctor Huer), Pamela Hensley (Princess Ardala), Kelley Miles (Shandar), Donald Petrie (Keeper), Sid Haig (Nero), Michael Ansara (Kane), Julie Newmar (Zarina), Vera Miles (Council Member), Sam Jaffe (Kodus)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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National Public Radio Star Wars

New Allies, New Enemy

The Empire Strikes Back NPR Radio DramaMaking a mad dash for safety through an asteroid belt, the Millennium Falcon sustains serious damage, disabling the hyperdrive. Han rushes a Star Destroyer head-on, tricking the Imperial ship’s crew by attaching the Falcon to its hull when the smaller ship is too close for sensors to detect it. When he admits that he lost track of the Falcon, Captain Needa is killed by Darth Vader, who then turns the hunt over to a motley gang of bounty hunters. Han manages to slip away from the Star Destroyer fleet by allowing the Falcon to drift away with garbage dumped before the fleet jumps to light speed, and then sets his course for Bespin and its floating Cloud City mining operation. Han believes his friend Lando Calrissian will help repair the Falcon and give the Rebels a temporary safe haven. But on Dagobah, while training with Yoda, Luke senses a darker turn of events on Cloud City – and abandons his Jedi training to save his friends, despite Yoda’s objections.

Order this CDwritten by Brian Daley
based on the screenplay Star Wars by George Lucas
directed by John Madden
music by John Williams

See the first episode for cast information.

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Season 02 Star Trek The Next Generation

The Royale

Star Trek: The Next GenerationStardate 42625.4: Riker, Worf and Data transport to the surface of what should be a poison-shrouded world after finding debris of a NASA space vessel, and discover a structure containing a reproduction of the literary Hotel and Casino Royale. Within the hotel lies the remains of the astronaut whose last possession was the cheap novel upon which the Royale was based. The Away Team’s only help is from the book itself as they read their lines – and between their lines.

Order the DVDswritten by Keith Mills (a.k.a. Tracy Torme)
directed by Cliff Bole
music by Ron Jones

Star Trek: TNGCast: Patrick Stewart (Captain Picard), Jonathan Frakes (Commander Riker), LeVar Burton (Lt. Geordi La Forge), Michael Dorn (Lt. Worf), Marina Sirtis (Counselor Troi), Brent Spiner (Lt. Commander Data), Wil Wheaton (Wesley Crusher), Diana Muldaur (Dr. Pulaski), Sam Anderson (The Assistant Manager), Jill Jacobson (Vanessa), Leo Garcia (The Bellboy), Noble Willingham (Texas), Colm Meaney (Chief O’Brien), Gregory Beecroft (“Mickey D”)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Enterprise Season 01 Star Trek

Acquisition

Star Trek: EnterpriseTrip is worried when Dr. Phlox fails to answer his requests to exit the decontamination chamber after returning from his latest mission. Trip manages to hotwire the door mechanism and escapes, discovering that the rest of the crew has been rendered unconscious and the ship has been boarded by a band of alien marauders. The large-headed, big-eared aliens are ransacking everything on the ship, from technology to food to female crewmembers. Trip manages to stay out of sight and watches as the aliens revive and interrogate Captain Archer. Trip manages to awaken T’Pol, and the three make preparations to take the Enterprise back. Archer tries to win the confidence of Krem, one of the aliens, while T’Pol and Trip sabotage the raiders’ efforts to steal anything else. Their resourcefulness will not only have to exceed the invaders’ greed, but play on it as well.

Order DVDsDownload this episode via Amazon's Unboxteleplay by Maria Jacquemetton & Andre Jacquemetton
story by Rick Berman & Brannon Braga
directed by James Whitmore, Jr.
music by Velton Ray Bunch

Cast: Scott Bakula (Captain Jonathan Archer), Jolene Blalock (Subcommander T’Pol), John Billingsley (Dr. Phlox), Dominic Keating (Lt. Malcolm Reed), Anthony Montgomery (Ensign Travis Mayweather), Linda Park (Ensign Hoshi Sato), Connor Trinneer (Commander Charles “Trip” Tucker III), Ethan Phillips (Ulis), Jeffrey Combs (Krem), Clint Howard (Muk), Matt Malloy (Grish) and Porthos

Notes: Several perennial Trek guest stars appear here, including Jeffrey Combs (once again playing more than one species in the same Trek spinoff), Ethan Phillips (who played Neelix for seven years on Star Trek: Voyager, but made his first Trek appearance as a Ferengi in 1990’s Next Generation episode Menage a Troi, and Clint Howard, younger brother of Oscar-winning director Ron Howard, who had a cameo in a Deep Space Nine episode but was also the childlike alien Balok in the third Classic Trek episode ever filmed, The Corbomite Maneuver. For the record, chronologically speaking, this is the Star Trek universe’s first sight of the Ferengi, but nowhere in the episode was the aliens’ race revealed, preserving The Last Outpost‘s assertion that first contact with the Ferengi didn’t occur until that first-season Next Generation episode; remember, Picard said that when The Battle of Maxia occurred several years before Next Generation’s first season, the Stargazer crew had no idea who their attackers were.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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8th Doctor

Seasons Of Fear

Seasons Of FearAfter numerous misadventures, the TARDIS finally brings Charley to Singapore in 1930, right on time to make her appointment with a young man who she had originally stowed away aboard the R-101 to meet. While she is away, the Doctor meets a man named Sebastian Grayle – a man both blessed and cursed with immoirtality, a man who knows that the Doctor is a Time Lord, and a man who claims to have killed him some with the help of his masters at some point in the Doctor’s future. When Charlie returns, the Doctor once against whisks her away, urgently setting out to find out how Grayle came to be immortal, and who he serves who might want the Doctor dead. They travel back in time to the third century A.D. and meet Grayle in his original form: a naive priest who has made a tenuous pact with an alien power beyond his understanding. If the Doctor cannot stop Grayle from gaining immortality, his new nemesis will grow in power and cunning through the centuries until, at least, he does have the means to defeat a Time Lord.

Order this CDwritten by Paul Cornell and Caroline Symcox
directed by Gary Russell
music by Jane Elphinstone

Cast: Paul McGann (The Doctor), India Fisher (Charley), Stephen Perring (Sebastian Grayle), Stephen Fewell (Marcus), Robert Curbishley (Lucillius / Grayle’s Masters’ voices), Lennox Greaves (Edward), Sue Wallace (Edith), Stephen Fewell (Richard Martin), Justine Mitchell (Lucy Martin), Don Warrington (The Auditor)

Timeline: after The Chimes Of Midnight and before Embrace The Darkness

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
7th Doctor Doctor Who

The Dark Flame

Doctor Who: The Dark FlameHaving left Bernice on a research facility on Orbos to visit a colleague of hers, the Doctor and Ace are on their way back to Orbos when an unusually powerful distress call washes over the TARDIS’ telepathic circuits – powerful enough that even Ace picks up on it. The message, which the Doctor believes to come from his old friend Remnex, warns of the Dark Flame…and ends abruptly in a scream of agony. As it happens, Professor Remnex is also conducting research on Orbos, and the Doctor is relieved to find him in perfect health. Bernice, on the other hand, has waited two weeks for her colleague to arrive, to no avail, and no one can account for his whereabouts. The Doctor discovers that a pair of scientists on Orbos are planning to trigger a black light explosion in a nearby star, an ill-advised experiment that could have far-reaching consequences if not properly contained. Soon after his warnings about the impending experiment fall on deaf ears, the Doctor discovers that Remnex has been murdered, having sent his warning through time to the Doctor at the time of his death. The Doctor and Bernice recognize the hallmarks of the Cult of the Dark Flame, a group (thought to be extinct) which worships an energy being from a parallel, but dark, dimension. And if that cult gains control of Orbos and its black light experiment, the universe is in imminent danger. What the Doctor and his friends don’t know is that the cult is already in control.

written by Trevox Baxendale
directed by Jason Haigh-Ellery
music by Andy Hardwick

Cast: Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Sophie Aldred (Ace), Lisa Bowerman (Bernice), Michael Praed (Slyde), Steven Wickham (Victor / Joseph), Andrew Westfield (Remnex), Hannah Smith (Lomar), Toby Longworth (Broke)

Timeline: between the novels “The All-Consuming Fire” and “Blood Harvest”

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
Dalek Empire Doctor Who

Dalek War Chapter III

Dalek War Chapter IIISuz slowly recovers from her Dalek-inflicted ordeal, which reveals that she is indeed in possession of the Emperor Dalek’s consciousness. In Earth’s solar system, Kalendorf’s crew explores the terraformed Jupiter with disastrous results, and the Mentor – the leader of the alternate universe Daleks – strips him of his command. When his ship is attacked, Kalendorf takes advantage of the confusion to escape, and makes a beeline for Mirana’s ship, which is also returning to the solar system under Dalek control. When he reaches the ship and is reunited with Suz, Alby begins to suspect the same thing of which the Mentor has accused Kalendorf: the leader of the rebellion has switched sides.

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

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

LogBook entry by Earl Green