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1954-75: Showa Series Godzilla

Ghidrah, The Three Headed Monster

GodzillaAs a group of scientist and reporters watch the night skies for “flying saucer people,” several meteors come crashing to the ground. One slams into the foot of a mountain. Princess Salina Salno of the Himalayan country of Selgina is fleeing to Japan, under a threat of assassination. She is mesmerized by a bright light and hears a mysterious voice urging her to get off the plane. It explodes moments after she steps off.

A prophetess, claiming to be from Mars, appears to warn people of future trouble. She says Earth is the brink of destruction. Detective Shindou, who was assigned to protect the princess before her plane blew up, is alarmed when he notices the similarities between the Martian prophetess and Salno, and begins to guard her unofficially. Meanwhile, the assassins travel to Japan to determine whether the prophetess is the princess, and kill her if she is.

The prophetess warns visitors at a volcano that Rodan is buried beneath and they should leave immediately. They refuse to listen, and the pterodactyl-like creature breaks free. Later, she predicts that a ship about to set sail will be destroyed. She is taken off the ship by the sister of Detective Shindou, reporter Naoko Shindou. They are followed by the assassins to a hotel. Shortly afterwards, Godzilla destroys the ship.

Naoko leaves the prophetess in the room while she meets her brother in the lobby. The assassins break into the room get her to admit she is the princess. Just then, Shindou and and Naoko return. Shindou exchanges gunfire with the assassins, who escape. They take the princess to see a doctor.

Following Rodan, Godzilla walks ashore, destroying buildings as he continues his way inland. Scientists studying the meteor witness it growing and flashing from within. The rock cracks open and explodes revealing the flying three headed golden space beast, Ghidrah.

While undergoing psychological testing, the princess predicts that Ghidrah will destroy the Earth just as it did Mars thousands of years ago. Godzilla and Rodan are fighting nearby.

At a meeting with the Japanese Diet, the Fairy Twins of Infant Island suggest that Ghidrah could be defeated if Mothra, Godzilla, and Rodan joined forces. The meeting is interrupted when Ghidrah attacks. The monster spews lightning from each of his three mouths, ripping much of the city to shreds. The Twins sing out to the larval Mothra, who begins the trek to Japan.

Under hypnosis, the princess tells Shindou and the Doctor that several Martians escaped Ghidrah’s attack, and the descendents remain on Earth with only the power to foretell the future left from their advanced civilization. With the ongoing battle between Godzilla and Rodan approaching, the assassins break into the hospital. Shindou engages them in a gunfight, and they flee again. The princess and the hospital staff evacuate the building as the fight wages on.

Mothra arrives at the battlefield and debates the other two on whether they should combine forces to fight Ghidrah. The two creatures have had nothing but trouble with mankind, and refuse to help. The killers are careening down the highway to get away from Godzilla and Rodan, when they are caught in a rock slide created by Ghidrah. One assassin manages to escape the crushed vehicle, carrying a rifle.

Mothra fights Ghidrah alone, but is injured by one of the space monster’s lightning blasts. Godzilla, apparently have a change of heart, arrives and grapples with Ghidrah. He, too, is injured. Rodan flies in and taunts Ghidrah, drawing it away while Godzilla and Mothra recover.

With Rodan under assault, Godzilla and Mothra arrive to fight. The princess, who has slipped away from protection, is praying for Ghidrah to be defeated. The lone assassin finds her and shoots at her, causing her to fall onto a ledge. She regains her senses and is once more fully the princess, and no longer the prophetess. Shindou is again forced into a gunbattle with the assassin. He loses his gun, but tries to shield the princess. As the killer takes aim, Ghidrah blasts the top off the cliff, creating a rockslide that takes the assassin with the falling rocks.

Godzilla, Mothra, and Rodan triple-team Ghidrah. Mothra rides Rodan and sprays a cocooning spray on the the space monster, while Godzilla pulls its tail. Godzilla flings Ghidrah away, injuring the beast. Still covered in cocoon spray, Ghidrah gives up the fight and flies away.

Surrounded by a press gaggle, Princess Salno prepares to return home and thanks Shindou for saving her life. Godzilla and Rodan watch as Mothra swims off to return to Infant Island.

screenplay by Shinichi Sekizawa
directed by Inoshiro Honda
music by Akira Ifukube

Human Cast: Yosuke Natsuki (Shindou), Yuriko Hoshi (Naoko Shindou), Hiroshi Koizumi, Takashi Shimura, Emi Ito, Yumi Ito (The Peanuts), Eiko Wakabayashi (Princess Salno)

Monster Cast: Godzilla, Mothra, Rodan, Ghidrah (King Ghidorah)

Notes: This is the English language translation released in the U.S. The original Japanese language version is titled Ghidorah: The Three Headed Monster, and was released in 1964. In the original Japanese version, the prophetess was from Venus, not Mars. There is a short scene with a reporter talking to the Chief of Police Detectives at the beginning that is deleted from the U.S. version. Other than that, there are a few scenes that have been trimmed in the U.S. version, including the final monster battle which seems slightly shorter.

LogBook entry by Robert Parson

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Search

The Murrow Disappearance

SearchA high-ranking advisor to the Joint Chiefs of Staff goes missing, and PROBE is called in to find him, with a pre-mission briefing from an anonymous source code-named Saratoga. Lockwood is once again on the case, and the narrow trail of clues leads to an exclusive club for high-roller gamblers who happen to have high international security clearances. When Lockwood’s papers, identifying him as a UN official, are sniffed out as being forged documents, his cover is blown – and when the missing man turns up dead, the stakes have never been higher.

written by Leslie Stevens
directed by Russ Mayberry
music by Dominic Frontiere

SearchCast: Hugh O’Brian (Hugh Lockwood), Burgess Meredith (Cameron), Angel Tompkins (Gloria), Capucine (Silvana Tristano), Maurice Evans (Mr. White), David White (Mr. Llewellyn), Ted Hartley (Lee Cardiff), Ginny Golden (Miss Keach), Vernon Weddle (McEgan), Lawrence Cook (Compton), Richard Stahl (Dr. Behrens), Elven Havard (Ambulance Attendant), Loren James (Chauffeur), Melissa MacKay (The Singer), John Raynor (Pale Man), Jay MacIntosh (Adele Murrow)

SearchNotes: With PROBE having gone weekly (and having gone through a name change), Leslie Stevens called upon his old Outer Limits cohort Bob Justman (producer of Star Trek and, later, of the early first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation) to produce Search. Joining Justman on Search was fellow Trek veteran Fred Phillips, the makeup artist who devised Spock’s ears.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Planet Of The Apes Season 1

Escape From Tomorrow

Planet Of The ApesA human spacecraft launched in 1980 is captured in a time warp and thrown into the far future. It comes in for a landing on Earth again, over a millennium later in the year 3085; humanity has been reduced to frightened scavengers, with highly evolved apes as their overlords. Of the three crewmen aboard the vehicle, only astronauts Alan Virdon and Pete Burke survive, and they are moved to a place of safety by an old man named Farrow shortly before their ship is found by apes.

Virdon and Burke are captured and brought to trial before the apes’ high council, and while the apes’ leader, Dr. Zaius, believes they must be kept alive to learn the secrets of their technology. Urko, however, feels that the humans are a threat to the ape way of life and wants them executed now – and he demonstrates the use of a human-made grenade to make his point. But the humans’ scientific knowledge intrigues Zauis’ curious assistant, Galen. When he dares to speak on the humans’ behalf, Zaius silences him. Galen then learns that Urko is plotting to kill the humans regardless of Zaius’ wishes; when Galen goes to warn the humans, he winds up in a life-or-death struggle with one of Urko’s guards, and accidentally kills him. Galen is imprisoned, and is stunned when Virdon and Burke arrive to mount a jailbreak.

No longer welcome among his own kind, Galen tags along with the two humans as they try to get their ship ready for a relaunch. The arrival of Urko’s soldiers cuts the repairs short, and when Urko destroys the spaceship, Virdon and Burke are trapped in this time – with only Galen as their guide.

Season 1 Regular Cast: Roddy McDowall (Galen), Ron Harper (Alan Virdon), James Naughton (Pete Burke)

Order the DVDswritten by Art Wallace
directed by Don Weis
music by Lalo Schifrin

Guest Cast: Royal Dano (Farrow), Woodrow Parfrey (Veska), Mark Lenard (Urko), Booth Colman (Zaius), Biff Elliot (Ullman), Bobby Porter (Arno), Jerome Thor (Proto), William Beckley (Grundig), Alvin Hammer (Man)

Notes: Where the TV series fits into the continuity of the films is uncertain; Zaius mentions a previous visit from human astronauts “10 years ago,” an adventure in which the astronauts were killed, almost certainly referring to the original film. However, since Beneath The Planet Of The Apes takes place immediately after that film, and ends with the destruction of all life on Earth, there are two possibilities: the nuclear holocaust from which Cornelius and Zira escapes in Escape From The Planet Of The Apes may have been overstated, or, as strongly hinted in Battle For The Planet Of The Apes, history has been changed as a result of Cornelius and Zira going into the past. This latter theory is strongly reinforced by the fact that humans have the power of speech and the English language has survived. While that is likely dictated by production realities – the series would’ve been boring at best if Virdon and Burke were the only humans capable of speaking – it would seem to indicate that, while the incident with Taylor did happen, it took place in a parallel timeline in which humans had retained their intelligence; as Zaius later says that the last human visitors didn’t live long enough for him to learn their names, it would seem that Taylor’s visit unfolded even more violently than chronicled in the first movie, again suggesting an alternate timeline.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Kolchak The Night Stalker Season 1

The Ripper

Night StalkerA serial killer is on the loose, leaving a trail of mutilated female corpses in his wake. Kolchak has been assigned to handle Miss Emily Fenwick’s letter column after irritating the police. The reporter can’t stay away, however, and is soon witness to a number of occurrences where the press-dubbed Ripper, seemingly immunity to gunfire and possessed of superhuman strength, escapes the police with ease on several occasions. Kolchak soon comes to believe that the murderer is the 19th century Jack the Ripper, gifted with immortality. Going back through the historical accounts, Carl discovers that the Ripper broke off his killings in New York with the invention of the electric chair. From this, he suspects that electricity may be the Ripper’s one weakness. Following up the lead of an elderly writer to the “Dear Emily” letter column, he tracks the Ripper to the abandoned house where he has made his lair.

Season 1 Regular Cast: Darren McGavin (Carl Kolchak), Simon Oakland (Tony Vincenzo), Jack Grinnage (Ron Updyke), Ruth McDevitt (Emily/Edith Fenwick/ Cowels/Cowles), John Fiedler (Gordan “Gordy the Ghoul” Spangler), Carole Anne Susi (Monique Marmelstein)

Order the DVDswritten by Rudolph Brochert
directed by Allen Baron
music by Gil Mille

Guest Cast: Beatrice Colen (Jane Plumm), Ken Lynch (Captain Warren), Mickey Gilbert (The Ripper), Ruth McDevitt (Elderly Woman)

Notes: Ironically, the premiere episode aired on Friday the 13th (9/13/74). Ruth McDevitt plays an elderly woman who writes to the “Dear Emily” letter column. A few episodes later, she plays Miss Emily. In this episode, Emily’s last name is Fenwick.

LogBook entry by Steve Crowe

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Land Of The Lost Original Season 2

The Zarn

Land Of The LostTaking shelter in a cave when they’re cornered by a dinosaur, Rick and Will find a vast cavern containing something that may or may not be a spaceship. They find another human being in a coffin-like container, and it turns out to be a woman from Rick’s home town, and they share many experiences and memories from years before he was marooned here. Rick invites her to join the Marshalls for dinner, though Will and Holly are suspicious of their guest, and how quickly she gains Rick’s trust. Is she too good to be true?

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Dick Morgan
directed by Bob Lally
music by Michael Lloyd

Cast: Spencer Milligan (Rick Marshall), Wesley Eure (Will Marshall), Kathy Coleman (Penny Marshall), Brooke Bundy (Sharon), Marvin Miller (Zarn voice), Van Snowden (Zarn)

Land Of The LostNotes: Brooke Bundy has played guest roles on Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea, Mission: Impossible, Circle Of Fear, Night Gallery, Search, Wonder Woman, and Starman, as well as being the first chief engineer of the new Enterprise in the second episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation (whose first season seemed to have a new chief engineer nearly every week). Marvin Miller would go on to be the omnipresent voice of the narrator throughout another Sid & Marty Krofft series, Electra Woman & Dyna Girl a year later.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Isis Season 1

Fool’s Dare

IsisA string of car thefts with no clues has the police puzzled. When her own car is stolen, Andrea is perplexed as well, though an oily rag left where her car was parked provides a clue. Cindy is challenged by two of her fellow students to climb into an abandoned junk lot, but sprains her ankle as she climbs down from the fence…and she’s sure she sees Andrea’s car getting a new paint job. Now she must alert Isis to the presence of the chop shop without blowing her cover.

Get this season on DVDDownload this episode via Amazon's Unboxwritten by David Dworski
directed by Hollingsworth Morse
music by Yvette Blais & Jeff Michael

Cast: Joanna Cameron (Andrea Thomas), Brian Cutler (Rick Mason), IsisJoanna Pang (Cindy Lee), Charles Cyphers (Sam Miles), Frank Whiteman (Cy Kahn), Joshua Albee (Ernie Rothchild), Jeffrey Tyler (Frank Iverson), Albert Reed (Dr. Barnes)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Far-Out Space Nuts

The Crystallites

Far-Out Space NutsAt their latest destination, Junior and Barney discover that they’re out of water. Junior and Honk go exploring to try to find a water source, but instead, Junior finds gourd-like fruit whose innards taste like chocolate. But he’s allergic to the fruit, and every time he sneezes, he turns into a giant green hairy beast without realizing it. But the locals aren’t worried about that…until they decide Junior is their next ruler.

written by Earle Doud & Chuck McCann
directed by Wes Kenney
Far-Out Space Nutsmusic by Michael Lloyd / arranged by Reg Powell

Cast: Bob Denver (Junior), Chuck McCann (Barney), Patty Maloney (Honk), John Carradine (Ruler)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Planet Of The Apes The Animated Series

Escape From Ape City

Planet Of The ApesBill has been captured by the apes and taken back to their city, where the ape scientists, Cornelius and Zira, express an interest in him. That interest keeps Bill from being subjected to brutal slave labor or taking part in ape war games, but when he learns that Zira and Cornelius plan to perform surgery on his brain, Bill voices his objections…which stuns his captors, who have never met a human intelligent enough to speak. Bill plots not only his own escape, but plans to free the rest of the humans captured by the apes.

Order the DVDswritten by Larry Spiegel
directed by Cullen Houghtaling
music by Dean Elliott

Voice Cast: Tom Williams (Bill Hudson), Claudette Nevins (Judy Franklin), Austin Stoker (Jeff Carter), Henry Corden (Dr. Cornelius), Tress MacNeille (Dr. Zira), Henry Corden (General Urko)

Return to The Planet Of The ApesNotes: The first few minutes of this episode basically repeat some of the major plot points of the original Planet Of The Apes movie; Bill is called “Blue Eyes” (as opposed to Taylor being called “Bright Eyes” in the film), and the revelation that he can speak plays out similarly to that of Taylor in the movie, again making it easier to regard this as a reboot from the ground up, rather than a part of the original film and TV continuity.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Knights Of God

Episode 2

Knights Of GodAfter receiving terse last minute instructions – “live, boy!” – from his father, disguised as one of the Knights of God, Gervase is packed off to one of the Knights’ training camps under an assumed name. His first instinct is to engage in a protest of the Knights’ practices, but he soon learns that rebellion is a painful career choice. Gervase confides in a female inmate, telling her some (but not all) of his true identity. Prior Mordrin is facing the reality that the war is becoming too costly to fight, and seeks to end the fighting sooner rather than later. When he learns that the Welsh resistance leader Owen Edwards has a son who may be old enough to have been drafted into one of the Knights’ training camps, Mordrin is eager to find him and use him as a hostage. His desire to reveal his real name to one of his fellow prisoners may prove very costly to Gervase…

written by Richard Cooper
directed by Andrew Morgan
music by Christopher Gunning

Cast: Claire Parker (Julia), George Winter (Gervase), John Woodvine (Mordrin), Julian Fellowes (Hugo), Gareth Thomas (Owen), Patrick Troughton (Arthur), Michael Lees (Governor), Crispin de Nys (1st Knight), Lynn Webb-Turner (Wardress), Rosemary Smith (Barmaid), Owen Teale (Dai), Tenniel Evans (Dafydd), Zoe Nathenson (Kate)

Knights Of GodNotes: Much of the series’ backstory is revealed in this episode. The British civil war began in 2000, and it is now 2020. The war would seem to have erupted over different interpretations of Christian beliefs, with Prior Mordrin’s order aggressively pushing for a hardline ultraconservative stance at a time when a “weaker” form of religion was prevalent. Mordrin’s concerns that he cannot afford to wage war much longer would seem to indicate that the Knights of God have effectively been isolated since taking over the U.K., and are receiving no foreign aid or support.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Red Dwarf Season 02

Better Than Life

Red DwarfWhat Goes Down: Rimmer upon Red Dwarf’s wrestling champion Yvonne McGruder, or so he claims; however, let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. A mail pod arrives, containing all kinds of junk mail, a few Total Immersion Video Games (addictive virtual reality games that sense the player’s subconscious desires and brings them to life), Rimmer’s tax notification, and a letter from Rimmer’s mother which informs him that his father is dead. Despite Lister’s best efforts (and Cat’s worst) to cheer him up, Rimmer becomes very depressed. Lister and Cat talk Rimmer into joining them in a T.I.V. game known as “Better Than Life,” which was all the rage three million years ago in Earth’s solar system. They find themselves in a world where their innermost desires come true; Lister and Cat find a restaurant where they can at last order, respectively, a caviar vindaloo and a tank of live fish. Rimmer imagines McGruder, the victim/partner in the one and only sexual experience of his entire lifetime, and Cat imagines Marilyn Monroe as well as a mermaid whose body is fishlike on top and humanoid below the waist. But Lister and Cat haven’t counted on Rimmer’s self-abusive psyche…

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

Guest Cast: John Abineri (Rimmer’s Dad), Debbie Ash (Marilyn Monroe), Jeremy Austin (Rathbone), Nigel Carrivick (The Captain), Judy Hawkins (McGruder), Tony Hawks (The Guide), Tina Jenkins (The Newsreader), Ron Pember (The Taxman), Gordon Salkillo (Gordon)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Doctor Who Doctor Who Unbound

Deadline

Doctor Who Unbound: DeadlineMartin Bannister, in 1961, was voted one of the Times‘ ten most promising young writers for his innovative stage plays. But he tried to venture into television, and was recruited for a new BBC science fiction program called Doctor Who. Despite his extraordinary efforts to define the show’s characters, themes and parameters, Martin watched as Doctor Who made it as far as one failed pilot episode before being abandoned by the BBC. Now, 40 years later, Martin is confined to a nursing home, subjected to unsettling visits by his adult son, who’s still bitter that Martin divorced his mother when he was only six. Martin isn’t sure what is the truth and what isn’t from what his son tells him, and this isn’t the only place he’s having problems with reality – he imagines a burgeoning romance with a nurse, he imagines that he’s being tapped to write the celebratory 40th anniversary comeback of Doctor Who (but why celebrate a show that was never made?), and he imagines that he is the Doctor, that most mysterious traveler in time and space. Will Martin Bannister trade his unpromising reality for an unrealized fantasy?

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

Cast: Sir Derek Jacobi (Martin), Genevieve Swallow (Susan), Peter Forbes (Philip), Jacqueline King (Barbara), Ian Brooker (Sydney), Adam Manning (Tom)

Timeline: 40 years after Doctor Who was rejected by the BBC

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green