The Web Planet

Doctor WhoAfter the TARDIS leaves Rome behind, it’s dragged off course to the planet Vortis, where some force keeps the time machine trapped. The Doctor’s attempts to take off again are futile, and he and Ian leave the TARDIS as Vicki recovers from hearing a strange noise that had an unusual effect on her. Aboard the TARDIS, Babara also experiences something odd, as though she’s being drawn out of the time machine and onto the planet’s surface. There, she encounters the butterfly-like Menoptera, who are desperately planning the last battle of a war against the ant-like Zarbi, who have the advantage in their sheer numbers. Controlled by a malevolent consciousness called the Animus, the Zarbi move the TARDIS from its landing site, capture the Doctor, Ian and Vicki, and make a deal with the Doctor: his friends’ lives will only be spared if he helps to defeat the Menoptera.

written by Bill Strutton
directed by Richard Martin / insect movement by Roslyn de Winter
music from stock music library

Guest Cast: Robert Jewell, Jack Pitt, Gerald Taylor, Hugh Lund, John Scott Martin, Kevin Manser (Zarbi), Roslyn de Winter (Vrestin), Arne Gordon (Hrostar), Arthur Blake (Hrhoonda), Jolyon Booth (Prapilius), Jocelyn Birdsall (Hlynia), Martin Jarvis (Captain Hilio), Ian Thompson (Hetra), Barbara Joss (Nemini), Catherine Fleming (voice of the Animus)

Broadcast from February 13 through March 20, 1965

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Invasion of the Dinosaurs

Doctor WhoThe Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith return from their medieval adventure, but when they arrive in modern-day London, the streets are bare, the people are nowhere to be seen, and dinosaurs stalk the streets. Like everyone else, the Brigadier and UNIT have gone underground, hiding from the enormous reptiles while they try to figure out what suddenly brought them to the present day. The Doctor and Sarah soon discover that it’s the product of an illegal time experiment designed to restore Earth to simpler, less polluted, less corrupt times – and it has come about thanks to a startling betrayal by one of the Brigadier’s most trusted officers.

written by Malcolm Hulke
directed by Paddy Russell
music by Dudley Simpson

Guest Cast: Nicholas Courtney (Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart), John Levene (Sergeant Benton), Richard Franklin (Captain Yates), Noel Johnson (Charles Grover), Peter Miles (Professor Whitaker), Martin Jarvis (Butler), Pat Gorman (UNIT Corporal), James Marcus (Peasant), Ben Aris (Shears), John Caesar (Soldier), Gordon Reid (Phillips), George Bryson (Ogden), Terry Walsh (Looter), John Bennett (General Finch), Martin Taylor (Corporal Norton), Dave Carter (Duffy), Terence Wilton (Mark), Brian Badcoe (Adam), Carmen Silvera (Ruth), Colin Bell (Bryson), Timothy Craven (Robinson), Trevor Lawrence (Lodge)

Broadcast from January 12 through February 16, 1974

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Radio Free Death Star: A Brief History of NPR’s Star Wars

Star WarsWith the advent of television in America, the radio drama – a staple of wartime and post-war American radio listening – gradually became all but extinct. Even if the audience hadn’t shifted toward TV, the talent behind radio was making a beeline for Hollywood to stake a claim on the new medium. Radio drama made a modest comeback in the 1970s via the newly-established National Public Radio, but never quite on the scale of radio drama’s heyday in the war years. Radio theater remained the domain of talented amateurs and occasional public broadcasting showcases. Even NPR found itself leaning heavily on the still-active radio drama scene in England – it was more financially expedient to buy rebroadcast rights to already-produced British radio shows such as The Lord Of The Rings and The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, which instantly gained avid American fan followings. Comedy fared better: Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion became a mainstay of NPR’s non-news-based offerings.

In 1981, NPR affiliate station KUSC, based at George Lucas’ alma mater, the University of Southern California, hatched a bold plan to adapt Lucas’ Star Wars for radio. Easily the most visual film of the past decade, Star Wars as a listening experience seemed like an unlikely idea, but Lucas sold NPR and KUSC the rights to adapt the hit movie for one dollar, and opened the Lucasfilm vaults to the Star Warsshow’s producers: the Star Wars sound effects would be available to them in their raw form, along with every note of John Williams’ music, including selections that had yet to appear on an album. The somewhat unenviable task of translating a visual-effects-heavy blockbuster to the spoken word was given to writer Brian Daley, who had already produced some of the earliest official Star Wars print fiction that didn’t merely adapt the two movies so far (“Han Solo And The Lost Legacy,” “Han Solo At Stars’ End,” “Han Solo’s Revenge”).

Daley expanded slightly over two hours of movie into thirteen half-hours of radio, primarily by expanding on the events in the movie’s earliest scenes, going further back in time to give listeners Star Warsa “look” into Luke Skywalker’s dull Tatooine life (and constantly being teased by his friends for being a dreamer of far-fetched dreams), and his friendship with future Rebel pilot Biggs. Also explored was Princess Leia’s life on Alderaan with her father, Bail Organa, and their activities with the the Rebel Alliance leading up to the theft of the Death Star plans. If one can overlook a certain naivete on Bail Organa’s part when it comes to the Rebellion (in the prequel trilogy, Organa is shown to be one of the Rebellion’s founding fathers, not hesitating to rescue and shelter the last two Jedi Knights known to have survived the Emperor’s “Order 66”), the events portrayed actually track very well with the story revelations that came in the later movies.

Acting out Daley’s scripts in the KUSC recording studios would be a mixture of original Star Wars cast members, Hollywood veterans, actors who nearly had a shot at intergalactic Star Warsfame, and future TV and movie stars still in the early stages of their careers. Mark Hamill and Anthony Daniels reprised their roles of Luke Skywalker and C-3PO, while familiar sound effects eliminated the need to recast R2-D2 or Chewbacca. Though he lost the role to Harrison Ford on film, Perry King finally got his opportunity to play Han Solo on the radio. Brock Peters took over for James Earl Jones as the voice of Darth Vader. Other future “names” such as David Alan Grier, Jerry Hardin and Meschach Taylor joined Hamill and the others in donating their time for free in exchange for a unique experience: radio Star Wars would almost certainly be one of the most-listened-to NPR broadcasts ever, and might even lead to a resurgence in the medium of American-made radio drama. With such a high-visibility (audibility?) project and their future career profiles to consider, why not?

Star Wars debuted in late 1981 during one of NPR’s “pledge drive” periods, a time during which public radio and TV broadcasters in the U.S. roll out their juiciest offerings, often surrounded by pleas for the listener donations which would fund each station’s ability to afford the next round of nationally syndicated endeavours. To say that it was a hit would be an understatement; Star Wars pulled in impressive numbers of listeners, and resulted in a healthy donation drive. The 13 episodes would frequently reappear for several years, often – coincidentally enough – right around pledge time. (Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy radio series was another radio series one could expect to find repeating during pledge drives. Sci-fi was still hot, even if you couldn’t see it.)

Of course, by 1981, the second Star Wars movie had already premiered, and naturally there were expectations that it, too, would be adapted for radio. Lucasfilm was game for a radio rematch between the Rebels and the Empire, and again the rights Star Warsto adapt the movie script exchanged hands for a mere dollar, though the timing of The Empire Strikes Back would be part of Lucasfilm’s promotional push for Return Of The Jedi: the Empire radio series debuted early in 1983, with its ten half-hour episodes leading up to the premiere of the new movie. Hamill and Daniels were joined by Billy Dee Williams, reprising the role of Lando Calrissian, and John Lithgow joined the cast as Yoda.

Any hopes for a Jedi radio show, however, were dashed for many years. This time, Lucasfilm expected KUSC to fork over more than a dollar for the trilogy’s closing act, and even the political climate provided the Rebel Alliance with a more formidable Star Warsopponent than the Empire. Even as Daley’s Empire adaptation unfolded on Sundays on NPR, President Ronald Reagan was making his first public announcements about a ballistic missile defense shield system that he would later call “Star Wars” (much to Lucas’ chagrin). The sway of Reagan’s conservative administration was at its strongest, and NPR suffered funding cuts perhaps due to its frequent perception as a broadcaster with a liberal bias and an umbilical cord of government funding. The cuts kept NPR or KUSC from spending a significant amount of money on more Star Wars. Jedi would have to wait, for a very long time; NPR’s core news, arts and public affairs programming would have to take priority over something that was already well-documented – and possibly “lowbrow” – pop culture.

One unusual Star Wars audio project that did take place in the interim, however, was the direct-to-retail release of an audio story written by Daley, Rebel Mission To Ord Mantell, bridging the gap between Star Wars and Empire. Released by Disney Star Warssubsidiary Buena Vista Records, Ord Mantell was billed as “A Story from the Star Wars saga,” and was done in a format very similar to the NPR episodic radio dramas. It is unknown if the project was ever considered for public radio, but it seems unlikely: the sound effects are not from the Lucasfilm archives, and the cast is obviously not the same cast that played the parts of Luke, Leia, Han, et al. for NPR. At the script stage, Ord Mantell might have been an attempt at a pilot for a series of between-movie audio stories, but if that’s the case, NPR declined, and it seems that Buena Vista Records had little interest in continuing beyond this single oddball adventure.

Just as the political climate was turning against public radio in the 1980s, the first steps toward completing the original Star Wars trilogy on audio were being taken at that time too, though no one realized it just yet. The Rebel Alliance would eventually be getting backup by way of Lake Wobegon.

In the early ’80s, Minnesota Public Radio started a for-profit offshoot company, Highbridge Audio, primarily to market recordings of the ever-popular Prairie Home Companion. Other NPR productions would be offered in recorded form by Highbridge, eventually including, in the 1990s, Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back, which became two of Highbridge’s perennial bestsellers. It didn’t take long for someone to consider the idea of completing the trilogy, this time as a for-profit project.

The for-profit nature of the Return Of The Jedi audio dramatization, however, had a domino effect on many aspects of the production. Where Mark Hamill had previously donated his time and talent, his schedule was now stacked with animation projects which were paying top dollar for his voice talent, and had Star Warsto be replaced by Joshua Fardon as the voice of Luke. Ever the droid trooper, Anthony Daniels returned as C-3PO, along with radio trilogy veterans Perry King, John Lithgow, Brock Peters, and Ann Sachs as Princess Leia. Billy Dee Williams was unavailable to reprise the role of Lando, and bizarrely the producers recast the part with a white actor. Yeardley Smith, best known as the voice of Bart Simpson, played what was virtually a bit part as one of Jabba’s palace droids. Ed Begley Jr. signed on to play Boba Fett, while veteran British stage and radio actor Martin Jarvis (Titanic, Doctor Who) took the part of one of Jabba’s strongarms. Nia Vardalos (still years away from My Big Fat Greek Wedding) played minor supporting roles. And in perhaps the strangest bit of casting, Ed Asner was cast as Jabba, repeating the Hutt’s alien language now without the benefit of subtitles.

Near the end of the recording sessions, Brian Daley, who had adapted all three of the movies for radio, died of pancreatic cancer. The cast had even recorded a get-well message for him in character; he never got to hear it. Minor rewrites had been carried out on Daley’s scripts by John Whitman, who had adapted audio versions of the Dark Empire comics for Highbridge in 1994. Whitman would continue working with Highbridge on later Star Wars audio plays, based on Dark Forces and Crimson Empire, following Jedi‘s release; these non-movie stories were being produced specifically for the retail market, and were generally made in a long-form format rather than an episodic format suitable for radio.

Star WarsThe Jedi adaptation was shorter than the previous radio series – only six half-hour episodes – and was offered to NPR by Highbridge after its retail release. Perhaps not coincidentally, it was timed to coincide with the resurgence in interest in the trilogy that came with the impending release of the restored/revised Special Editions of the movies in theaters, and the initial announcements that a new series of Star Wars movies was finally in the works.

Considering how much importance Lucasfilm places on the licensing of Star Wars, and the fact that the Jedi adaptation was eventually undertaken as just another licensed product instead of the non-profit aim of the Star Wars and Empire adaptations, there has unsurprisingly been no discussion of adapting The Phantom Menace, Attack Of The Clones or Revenge Of The Sith for radio. Even more visual and effects-dependent than the original trilogy, the prequel trilogy seems destined to remain in movie form only.


Star Wars: The NPR Radio Drama (1981)

  1. A Wind To Shake The Stars
  2. Points Of Origin
  3. Black Knight, White Princess, And Pawns
  4. While Giants Mark Time
  5. Jedi That Was, Jedi To Be
  6. The Millennium Falcon Deal
  7. The Han Solo Solution
  8. Death Star’s Transit
  9. Rogues, Rebels And Robots
  10. The Luke Skywalker Initiative
  11. The Jedi Nexus
  12. The Case For Rebellion
  13. Force And Counter Force

For The Record: Ord Mantell (1983)

The Empire Strikes Back: The NPR Radio Drama (1983)

  1. Freedom’s Winter
  2. The Coming Storm
  3. A Question Of Survival
  4. Fire And Ice
  5. The Millennium Falcon Pursuit
  6. Way Of The Jedi
  7. New Allies, New Enemy
  8. Dark Lord’s Fury
  9. Gambler’s Choice
  10. The Clash Of Lightsabers

Return Of The Jedi: The Radio Drama (1996)

  1. Tatooine Haunts
  2. Fast Friends
  3. Prophecies And Destinies
  4. Pattern And Web
  5. So Turns A Galaxy, So Turns A Wheel
  6. The Blood Of A Jedi

Comics Adaptations (1994-98)

(not produced for NPR)

  1. Dark Forces: Soldier For The Empire – Part I
  2. Dark Forces: Soldier For The Empire – Part II
  3. Dark Forces: Rebel Agent – Part I
  4. Dark Forces: Rebel Agent – Part II
  5. Dark Forces: Jedi Knight – Part I
  6. Dark Forces: Jedi Knight – Part II

Essay and LogBook entries by Earl Green
Episode synopses originally appeared in theLogBook.com’s TheatEar section.


Vengeance On Varos

Doctor WhoThe TARDIS stalls in deep space, drained of one of its power sources. The Doctor is able to nudge the TARDIS toward the planet Varos, the galaxy’s only known natural deposit of zeiton-7 ore. But the rightful governor of Varos is under the thumb of Sil, a sinister profitmongering alien who plans to take over Varos and strip-mine it dry with no regard for the natives of the planet. Life on Varos is so bleak that executions and elections are both broadcast publicly, and they’re not exactly two different things – anytime one of the governor’s referendums fails to meet with the approval of the public, the governor himself suffers at the mercy of a disintegration beam, and naturally it’s on the air. The Doctor and Peri arrive right in the middle of just such an execution, setting a condemned prisoner free and setting in motion a chain of events that could free Varos from Sil’s murderous business dealings.

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Philip Martin
directed by Ron Jones
music by Malcolm Clarke

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Nicola Bryant (Peri), Martin Jarvis (Governor), Nabil Shaban (Sil), Jason Connery (Jondar), Forbes Collins (Chief Officer), Stephen Yardley (Arak), Sheila Reid (Etta), Geraldine Alexander (Areta), Owen Teale (Maldak), Graham Cull (Bax), Nicholas Chagrin (Quillam), Hugh Martin (Priest), Keith Skinner (Rondel), Bob Tarff (Executioner), Jack McGuire, Alan Troy (Madmen)

Broadcast from January 19 through 26, 1985

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Pearly

Space: Above And BeyondUnder fire on the planet Minerva, the 58th take shelter in a tank dubbed “Pearly,” piloted by the only surviving member of its original crew. With the Chigs hot on their trail, the Marines’ only hope of survival is the well-worn tank. But a small group of AIs is also on Minerva, and they see Pearly’s power supply as their own salvation – and even if it means forcing the humans to sacrifice their own safety and their only means of defense, the AIs won’t hesitate to take it.

Order the DVDwritten by Richard Whitley
directed by Charles Martin Smith
music by Shirley Walker

Guest Cast: Doug Hutchison (Elroy El), Martin Jarvis (Major Cyril MacKendrick), Adam Goldberg (Sgt. Louie Fox), Guy Garner (Marine), Kimberly Patton (Feliciti)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Tatooine Haunts

Return Of The Jedi NPR Radio DramaOn Tatooine, Luke Skywalker is occupying Ben Kenobi’s old desert hut, preparing a new lightsaber for himself – to be wielded in the artificial hand that has replaced the one Darth Vader cut off at Cloud City. A carefully orchestrated plan to rescue Han Solo from Jabba the Hutt is finally set into motion, despite Lando Calrissian and Chewbacca having seemingly vanished after coming to Tatooine themselves. Luke sends R2-D2 and C-3PO to Jabba, with orders for Artoo to play a message Luke has recorded for Jabba’s eyes only. But when Artoo plays that message, Threepio is horrified to hear Luke’s voice offering the droids to Jabba as a gift – as a token of his esteem in hopes that a deal regarding Han Solo can be worked out. Artoo is pressed into service as a waiter aboard Jabba’s sail barge, and Threepio is forced to serve as the sluglike ganglord’s interpreter. A new bounty hunter, Boussh, arrives – with Chewbacca in chains. Jabba is delighted by the new arrival and allows Boussh to stay in his palace, but the bounty hunter is not all that he – or she – appears.

Order this CDwritten by Brian Daley
additional material by John Whitman
based on the screenplay Return Of The Jedi by Lawrence Kasdan and George Lucas
directed by John Madden
music by John Williams

Season Three Cast: Joshua Fardon (Luke Skywalker), Perry King (Han Solo), Ann Sachs (Princess Leia Organa), Anthony Daniels (C-3PO), Bernard Behrens (Obi-Wan Kenobi), Ayre Gross (Lando Calrissian), Edward Asner (Jabba The Hutt), Paul Hecht (The Emperor), John Lithgow (Yoda), Brock Peters (Lord Darth Vader)

Season Three Supporting Cast: Ed Begley Jr. (Boba Fett), Samantha Bennett (Arica), David Birney (Anakin Skywalker), Peter Dennis (Moff Jerjerrod), David Dukes (Bib Fortuna), Peter Michael Goetz (General Madine), Ian Gomez (Salacious Crumb), Martin Jarvis (Barada), Jon Matthews (Wedge), Natalija Nogulich (Mon Mothma), Mark Adair Rios (Admiral Ackbar), Yeardley Smith (9D9), Tom Virtue (Major Derlin), Ken Hiller (Narrator), with Samantha Bennett, Rick Hall, Andrew Hawkes, Sherman Howard, Karl Johnson, John Kapelos, Ron Le Paz, Joe Liss, Paul Mercier, Steven Petrarca, Jonathan Penner, Gil Segel, Nia Vardalos and Ron West

Jubilee

Doctor Who: JubileeThe TARDIS makes a rough landing in what appears to be modern-day England, though a rip in the fabric of time traumatizes the Doctor by showing him events that he doesn’t remember – a bloody war. As he and Evelyn explore, they discover that they’ve somehow landed on an alternate Earth whose “English Empire” is about to celebrate a jubilee in recognition of their defeat of a Dalek invasion force in 1903 – a victory they attribute entirely to the Doctor, a figure they know as a military hero who led them in battle against the Daleks, while history records that the Doctor’s companion Evelyn was a casualty of that carnage. The highlight of the 100th anniversary celebration will be the very public execution of an unarmed Dalek, kept alive in captivity all these years. This time, are the Daleks the downtrodden underclass, waiting for the Doctor to free them from the tyrannical reign of the all-conquering, merciless human race?

Order this CDwritten by Robert Shearman
directed by Nicholas Briggs & Robert Shearman
music by Nicholas Briggs

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Maggie Stables (Evelyn), Martin Jarvis (Nigel Rochester), Rosalind Ayres (Miriam Rochester), Nicholas Briggs (Dalek voices), Georgina Carter (Female movie star), Steven Elder (Farrow), Jack Galagher (Male movie star), Kai Simmons (Lamb)

Timeline: between The Sandman and Doctor Who And The Pirates

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

The Seer

Stargate AtlantisStill searching for the missing Athosians, Teyla decides to consult a man named Davos, hoping that rumors of his abilities as a seer are true. Indeed, when she joins Sheppard’s team to travel via stargate to meet Davos, his people are expecting the Atlantis team and already know them by name. But his daughter, leading the welcoming party, warns that Davos is very ill. In exchange for his help, the services of Atlantis’ infirmary are offered. Also arriving at Atlantis is Dr. Woolsey of the IOA, observing Colonel Carter’s command for a report back to Earth. When Davos begins to deliver visions of a climactic battle that doesn’t end well for the city, Sheppard, McKay and Carter begin second-guessing themselves as they try to determine how to use the information Davos has given them. And all the while, as predicted, the Wraith close in on Atlantis…

Order the DVDswritten by Alan McCullough
directed by Andy Mikita
music by Joel Goldsmith and Neil Acree

Guest Cast: Martin Jarvis (Davos), Christopher Heyerdahl (Wraith), Jewel Staite (Dr. Keller), Kimberley Warnat (Linara), Robert Picardo (Richard Woolsey)

Notes: British actor Martin Jarvis is a rarity in the Stargate universe – a guest star who has also appeared on Doctor Who. Mainstream audiences will also remember him from films such as Titanic. Sheppard’s fellow escapee, who happens to be a Wraith, appeared in Common Ground. Teyla’s pregnancy was written into the fourth season’s storyline to explain actress Rachel Luttrell’s real-life pregnancy.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Underworld

Doctor WhoThe Doctor and Leela find themselves at the edge of a galaxy, near an enormous nebula that could wreak untold damage on the TARDIS. To avoid this, the Doctor forces his ship to materialize on a nearby spacecraft. When he announces himself to the ship’s crew, they regard Leela as a threat (and harmlessly quell her bloodlust with their pacification beam), but they regard the Doctor as a god. He has come aboard a starship crewed by the last of the Minyans, a race who the Time Lords aided and augmented – and who then destroyed themselves with the aid of their new technology, the incident that caused the Time Lords to withdraw into their non-intervention policy. Unlike Time Lords, the Minyans can regenerate thousands of times, with enough control over the process that they seem to simply become younger again when their bodies wear out, and they’ve been on this flight for thousands of years. Their quest is to find the P7E, a lost Minyan sister ship whose cargo of genetic material could revitalize the species. Their obstacle is that they can’t seem to find the P7E, until the Doctor discovers that the missing ship is now the core of a forming planetoid – and that the descendants of its crew have taken on a new form entirely, a society that the Minyan searchers can’t even recognize – a society that could kill them all before they reach their goal.

Download this episodewritten by Bob Baker & Dave Martin
directed by Norman Stewart
music by Dudley Simpson

Guest Cast: James Maxwell (Jackson), Alan Lake (Herrick), Imogen Bickford-Smith (Tala), Jonathan Newth (Orfe), Jimmy Gardner (Idmon), Norman Tipton (Idas), Godfrey James (Tarn), James Marcus (Rask), Jay Neill (Klimt), Frank Jarvis (Ankh), Richard Shaw (Lakh), Stacey Tendeter (Naia), Christine Pollon (voice of the Oracle)

Broadcast from January 7 through 28, 1978

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green