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Season 05 Star Trek The Next Generation

Redemption II

Star Trek: The Next GenerationStardate 45020.4: War erupts between the forces of Gowron and those of the family of Duras. The forces of Duras are winning even after Gowron’s fleets destroy all of their possible supply bases. Picard plans to take starships the Klingon/Romulan border to act as a blockade against Romulan aid to the Duras followers. Various Enterprise officers are assigned to other ships, most notably Data as captain of the starship Sutherland, whose first officer, Hobson, objects to serving under an android commander. Commander Sela, half-human, half-Romulan daughter of Tasha Yar, demands that the Federation leave the border. Guinan reveals that Sela is the product of the Tasha Yar who was sent to the Enterprise-C by Picard. Gowron launches a surprise attack on their enemies. Lursa and B’etor send a plea for aid. Sela tries to slip past the Sutherland, but Data foils the plan and the Romulans are revealed and forced to retreat, leaving Lursa and B’etor helpless. They escape and abandon Toral, leaving him to Gowron. Gowron offers Worf a chance to slay Toral, but Worf chooses not to judge Toral by his father’s actions and rejoins the crew of the Enterprise. As later noted when they unexpectedly arrived at Deep Space Nine, the Duras sisters are listed by the Klingon government as renegades, but still remain at large with at least one ship of their own, trying to raise capital for a second grab at the throne of the Klingon Empire.

Order the DVDswritten by Ronald D. Moore
directed by David Carson
music by Dennis McCarthy

Cast: Patrick Stewart (Captain Picard), Jonathan Frakes (Commander Riker), LeVar Burton (Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge), Michael Dorn (Lt. Worf), Gates McFadden (Dr. Crusher), Marina Sirtis (Counselor Troi), Brent Spiner (Lt. Commander Data), Denise Crosby (Sela), Tony Todd (Kurn), Barbara March (Lursa), Gwynyth Walsh (B’etor), J.D. Cullum (Toral), Robert O’Reilly (Gowron), Michael G. Hagerty (Captain Larg), Fran Bennett (Admiral Shonti), Nicholas Kepros (Movar), Colm Meaney (O’Brien), Timothy Carhart (Lt. Commander Hobson), Whoopi Goldberg (Guinan), Jordan Lund (Kulge), Stephen James Carver (Helmsman), Majel Barrett (Computer Voice)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Red Dwarf Season 05

Holoship

Red DwarfOut and about in Starbug, the gang encounters a huge hologrammatic starship crewed by only the best and brightest holograms Space Corps has to offer. Needless to say, Rimmer’s in love. After a one-man boarding party from the holoship assesses that the rest of the Red Dwarf crew are useless, Rimmer is snatched away. Deciding that he too is among the best and brightest, Rimmer petitions for a berth aboard the holoship, an honor that will only be bestowed if he proves himself more useful than another member of the hologrammatic crew. Rimmer also meets a female member of that crew, whose members are accustomed to constant, commitment-free, meaningless, on-demand sex. Needless to say, Rimmer’s in love. Unfortunately, it is this very woman who he must challenge for a position – no pun intended – on the ship of his dreams. And she’s willing to give anything up so Rimmer can achieve his lifelong ambition to be a useful member of somebody’s crew. Needless to say, Rimmer’s in deep smegola when it comes time to make his decision.

Season 5 Regular Cast: Chris Barrie (Rimmer), Craig Charles (Lister), Danny John-Jules (Cat), Robert Llewellyn (Kryten), Hattie Hayridge (Holly)

Order the DVDswritten by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor
directed by Juliet May
music by Howard Goodall

Guest Cast: Jane Horrocks (Nirvanah Crane), Matthew Marsh (Captain Platini), Don Warrington (Commander Binks), Lucy Briers (Harrison), Simon Day (Number Two), Jane Montgomery (Number One)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Season 06 Star Trek The Next Generation

Time’s Arrow Part II

Star Trek: The Next GenerationStardate 46001.3: After Picard and the away team manage to find indigenous clothes and lodging, they begin a task which Data, separately, has pursued since arriving – attempting to track down the aliens. They find a couple, disguised as a doctor and nurse, who have been stealing neural energy and escaping unnoticed, and the deaths then are attributed to a cholera epidemic of the period. In the meantime, Data has enlisted the help of Guinan, but has run into some unwelcome curiosity from Samuel Clemens, who trails both Data and Guinan assuming that they’ve arrived from the future with evil intentions. Picard’s away team captures the key to the aliens’ neural energy-gathering trips but the aliens themselves escape. Picard’s party is rescued from arrest by Data, who then introduces Guinan to Picard for the first time in her life. They then travel to the cavern where Data’s head will be discovered in the 24th century, followed by Clemens. As Clemens pulls a gun on the travelers, the aliens return to retrieve their creature, but Data holds on to it, and one of the aliens escapes through a temporal rift. The energy surge causes Data to explode, and the alien nurse is left behind, dying. Riker, Crusher, Troi and Geordi return to the 24th century, taking Data’s decapitated body with them – and again, they are followed by Clemens. Picard remains to make sure Guinan is unharmed, while the crew, in the 24th century, tries to retrieve Picard, send Clemens back to his native time, and stop further alien intereference with Earth’s past.

Order the DVDsteleplay by Jeri Taylor
story by Joe Menosky
directed by Les Landau
music by Dennis McCarthy

Cast: Patrick Stewart (Captain Picard), Jonathan Frakes (Commander Riker), LeVar Burton (Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge), Michael Dorn (Lt. Worf), Gates McFadden (Dr. Crusher), Marina Sirtis (Counselor Troi), Brent Spiner (Lt. Commander Data), Whoopi Goldberg (Guinan), Jerry Hardin (Samuel Clemens), Michael Aron (Jack the Bellboy), Alexander Enberg (Young Reporter), Van Epperson (Morgue Attendant), Pamela Kosh (Mrs. Carmichael), James Gleason (Dr. Appollinaire), Bill Cho Lee (Male Patient), William Boyett (Policeman), Mary Stein (Alien Nurse), Majel Barrett (Computer Voice)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Highlander Season 1

The Gathering

HighlanderA common thief named Richie Ryan breaks into an antiques store and soon finds himself in more trouble than he bargained for: a man wielding a sword appears to protect the shop, introducing himself as Duncan MacLeod. Richie’s predicment gets even stranger as two more men appear, each brandishing their own swords – one says he has come for Duncan’s head, and the other claims to be Connor MacLeod, a relative of Duncan’s. Richie uses the confusion of what appears to be an impending swordfight to sneak away; Duncan’s girlfriend Tessa watches the proceedings with alarm as Connor and the other swordsman leave.

The following day, Connor returns, as does the other swordsman, Slan Quince – harrassing Tessa and Duncan. Where Richie was terrified by the crossing of swords, Tessa has reluctantly become accustomed to it – Duncan is an Immortal, a human being both cursed and blessed with the ability to survive any injury, even a fatal one, except for decapitation. When one Immortal beheads another, he gains the fallen Immortal’s experience and power in an explosive transfer called the Quickening. Both Duncan and Connor try to lay claim to Slan Quince, but Connor knocks Duncan out and takes the initiative. He meets Slan on a bridge elsewhere in the city, and though he wins the swordfight, Connor finds out the hard way that Slan has a secret weapon: a gun built into the hilt of his sword. As Richie watches, Connor plunges into the river beneath the bridge – and Duncan appears, ready to take up the fight. But even if he survives, Duncan has already pledged not to put Tessa any further through the ordeal of his Immortal struggle.

Download this episode via Amazonwritten by Dan Gordon
directed by Thomas J. Wright
music by Roger Bellon

HighlanderCast: Adrian Paul (Duncan McLeod), Alexandra Vandernoort (Tessa), Stan Kirsch (Richie), Christopher Lambert (Connor MacLeod), Richard Moll (Slan Quince), Wendell Wright (Sgt. Powell)

Notes: Until the fourth Highlander theatrical movie, which brought Duncan and other TV characters into the movie mythology, Connor’s appearance in the Highlander series pilot was the only definitive connecting tissue between the original movies and the series. This was the only episode in which a cast member from the movies appeared, though careful examination of the opening credits in the first season reveal at least one shot of Connor – not Duncan – experiencing a quickening from the original Highlander film.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Deep Space Nine Season 01 Star Trek

Emissary

Star Trek: Deep Space NineStardate 46379.1: Commander Ben Sisko and his son Jake, both survivors of the Wolf 359 Borg massacre, arrive at the planet Bajor as part of a Starfleet team taking over the abandoned Cardassian space station Deep Space 9. The station, which was intentionally damaged by the Cardassians before they left it behind, is being pieced together by newly-transferred Operations Chief O’Brien from the Enterprise. Sisko also meets Major Kira, his Bajoran first officer who doubts the ability of the provisional government of Bajor to avert a civil war and trusts the Federation even less; Odo, a mysterious shapeshifter in charge of station security; and Quark, the suspicious Ferengi kingpin who’s eager to get out of town before the regulatory hand of the Federation clamps down on his shady “business” affairs.

Sisko is summoned to the Enterprise for a briefing with Captain Picard, whom he still remembers as the man responsible for the death of thousands, including Sisko’s wife, in the Borg invasion attempt. Picard gives Sisko the Federation’s orders regarding management of Deep Space 9 – to do everything, short of violating the prime directive, to get the struggling Bajora back on their feet so they can join the Federation. Sisko, however, is considering resigning from Starfleet to raise his son in a better environment. Soon afterward, the Enterprise departs to undertake other duties as the station’s new doctor, the brilliant but inexperienced Julian Bashir, and science officer Jadzia Dax arrive. Dax, a Trill who has lived in a number of bodies, is an old friend of Sisko’s. Sisko, at the suggestion of Kira, travels to Bajor and visits Bajoran spiritual leader Kai Opaka, who tells Sisko that he is to be the emissary of the people to the temple of their gods. Opaka reveals an Orb, a mystic object of a type which has appeared throughout Bajoran history. The Orb envelops Sisko in a brief recollection of his first meeting with his wife, and then releases him. Opaka gives him the Orb, and the news that Sisko – whether he likes it or not, whether he even knows it or not – will find the temple. He returns to Deep Space 9 and hands the Orb over to Dax for further study.

The Cardassians return, ostensibly to make use of the station’s amenities. Dax discovers that reports of the Orbs’ appearances correspond to a certain area of space near Bajor. She and Sisko set out in a Federation Runabout to investigate, and stumble across a wormhole that shoots them 70,000 light years across the galaxy. Trying to return to the station, their ship is halted. Dax is taken back to the station by an Orb, while Sisko is kept and studied by noncorporeal beings who built the wormhole. These beings have no conception of linear time, existing simultaneously in the past, present and future, and they ask Sisko questions about the ephemeral nature of humans, which they do not comprehend. Dax, back on Deep Space 9, fills the crew in on details of the wormhole. Major Kira orders O’Brien to shift the station’s position so that it stands in front of the wormhole. A Cardassian ship, however, enters the wormhole, but is damaged by the wormhole life forms. When another Cardassian flotilla arrives and finds no sign of the missing ship, they threaten to open fire on Deep Space 9 unless Kira agrees to surrender the station. In the wormhole, the aliens’ study of Sisko reaches an end when they discover the human drive for knowledge, and they are puzzled by Sisko’s inability to get over the death of his wife.

At the station, Kira’s brinksmanship abilities and her feisty confrontations with the Cardassians result in a firefight, damaging the station heavily. The solution to the confrontation lies with Sisko, if he can overcome the wormhole beings’ manifestations of his inner barriers and escape from the wormhole.

Season 1 Regular Cast: Avery Brooks (Commander Benjamin Sisko), Rene Auberjonois (Odo), Siddig El Fadil (Dr. Julian Bashir), Terry Farrell (Lt. Jadzia Dax), Cirroc Lofton (Jake Sisko), Colm Meaney (Chief O’Brien), Armin Shimerman (Quark), Nana Visitor (Major Kira Nerys)

Order the DVDsDownload this episode via Amazonteleplay by Michael Piller
story by Rick Berman & Michael Piller
directed by David Carson
music by Dennis McCarthy

Guest Cast: Patrick Stewart (Captain Picard/Locutus of Borg), Camille Saviola (Kai Opaka), Felecia M. Bell (Jennifer Sisko), Marc Alaimo (Gul Dukat), Joel Swetow (Gul Jasad), Aron Eisenberg (Nog), Stephen Davies (Tactical Officer), Max Grodenchik (Ferengi Pit Boss), Steve Rankin (Cardassian Officer), Lily Mariye (Ops Officer), Cassandra Bryam (Conn Officer), John Noah Hertzler (Vulcan Captain), April Grace (Transporter Chief), Kevin McDermott (Alien Batter), Star Trek: Deep Space NineParker Whitman (Cardassian Officer), William Powell-Blair (Cardassian Officer), Frank Owen Smith (Curzon Dax), Lynnda Ferguson (Doran), Megan Butler (Lieutenant), Stephen Rowe (Chanting Monk), Thomas Hobson (young Jake), Donald Hotton (Monk #1), Gene Armor (Bajoran Bureaucrat), Diana Cignoni (Dabo Girl), Judi Durand (Computer Voice), Majel Barrett (Computer Voice)

Notes: John Noah Hertzler is also known as J.G. Hertzler, who would return later in the series in the role of General Martok.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Season 1 Time Trax

A Stranger In Time

Time TraxIn the year 2193, gifted and fiercely devoted Darien Lambert is one of the best law enforcement officers on Earth…until a string of suspects seem to disappear completely from view with no explanation, many of them on Lambert’s watch. Due to his outstanding service record, it is simply assumed that Lambert needs more of the latest crime fighting tools, and he is issued a portable artificial intelligence called Selma, who can appear visually to Lambert but can also communicate with him via audio only.

The theft of the firearm used by John Wilkes Booth to assassinate President Lincoln raises the alarm that something big is on the horizon, and Lambert feels certain that the weapon’s symbolic importance points to a high profile target: the president of the United Nations. Lambert’s hunch is correct, but his timing is off: he can’t prevent the assassination, but he does capture the assassin. However, that same assassin vanishes into thin air from the confines of a state-of-the-art maximum security prison cell. Lambert suspects matter transmission, either into an alternate universe or backward or forward in time.

His suspicions lead him to a lab run by a beautiful scientist, whose work on an experimental time travel device called Trax is slowly being taken over by an obsessive Nobel Prize winning scientist, Dr. Mordecai Sahmbi. The use of Trax involves the injection of a drug that allows the human body to endure the rigors of time travel, but only twice; a way has not been found to make the third trip non-fatal. Lambert methodically gathers his evidence until he’s ready to launch a sting operation on the Trax lab to arrest Sahmbi for sending heinous criminals back in time, unleashing them on the primitive, unsuspecting world of 1990s Earth. Sahmbi himself escapes, and Lambert, with Selma, must subject himself to time travel via Trax in an attempt to stop history from being rewritten by an insane criminal.

written by Harve Bennett
directed by Lewis Teague
music by Garry McDonald and Laurie Stone

Time TraxCast: Dale Midkiff (Darien Lambert), Elizabeth Alexander (Selma), Mia Sara (Elyssa / Annie), Michael Warren (Frank), Henry Darrow (The Chief), Peter Donat (Sahmbi), Henk Johannes (Dietrich), Martin Maddell (Sergeant), Monroe Reimers (Duke), Peter Whittle (Wahlgren), David Franklin (Fredric), Rob Steele (Wilson), Lewis Fitz-Gerald (C.L. Burke), Michael Edward-Stevens (Art), Stephen Bergin (Grille Bar Waiter), Billy Sandy (U.N. President), Jimmy White (Reporter), Pamela Norman (Archive Clerk), Dave Robinson (Businessman), Ben Lawson (12 year old Darien)

Time TraxNotes: Add a dash of Quantum Leap to The Fugitive, and you have Time Trax. Created by Harve Bennett with Jeffrey Hayes (T.J. Hooker) and Grant Rosenberg (Lois & Clark), Time Trax was teased as a sci-fi cop show, though after the pilot strands Lambert in the past, the show happens almost entirely in the present day (of the 1990s, when the show was made). Time Trax was part of the short-lived, ill-fated Prime Time Entertainment Network (PTEN), an attempt by Warner Bros. and Chris-Craft Television to launch a fifth network in the same mold as the then-recent launch of the Fox network; other PTEN shows included Kung Fu: The Legend Continues and Babylon 5, the latter being the only PTEN series which actually outlasted PTEN.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Season 07 Star Trek The Next Generation

Descent Part II

Star Trek: The Next GenerationStardate 47025.4: Taken prisoner by Lore and the Borg while trying to locate the missing Data, an away team consisting of Picard, Troi and Geordi is trapped while the Enterprise is attacked in orbit by the Borg ship. Left in command by Picard, Beverly beams aboard as many of the Enterprise search parties from the planet below as she can and is forced to retreat. Riker and Worf, left behind, discover that Hugh is in hiding on the planet and is biding his time to wrest control of the newly-individualized Borg from Lore, who appealed to the disoriented members of the former collective to follow him to a state of completely non-organic immortality. In the meantime, Data has distanced himself from his past, showing cruelty and sadism toward his captured former comrades. Riker offers to help Hugh in his fight against Lore while hoping to free Picard and the others, as Beverly decides to turn the Enterprise around to retrieve the rest of the crew – but if Data continues to obey the dictates of Lore, there may be no members of the crew to retrieve.

Season 7 Regular Cast: Patrick Stewart (Captain Picard), Jonathan Frakes (Commander Riker), LeVar Burton (Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge), Michael Dorn (Lt. Worf), Gates McFadden (Dr. Crusher), Marina Sirtis (Counselor Troi), Brent Spiner (Lt. Commander Data)

Order the DVDswritten by Renè Echavarria
directed by Alexander Singer
music by Jay Chattaway

Guest Cast: Brent Spiner (Lore), Jonathan del Arco (Hugh), Alex Datcher (Taitt), James Horan (Barnaby), Brian J. Cousins (Crosis), Benito Martinez (Salazar), Michael Reilly Burke (Goval), and Spot

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Deep Space Nine Season 02 Star Trek

The Homecoming

Star Trek: Deep Space NineStardate not given: A visitor to DS9 gives Quark the earring of a legendary Bajoran POW, and Quark hands it over to Kira. Kira recognizes it as the one belonging to Li Nalas, the greatest freedom fighter in Bajoran history and legend. Kira convinces Sisko to loan her a Runabout – and Chief O’Brien as pilot – to travel to Cardassia IV. Recovering Li Nalas and a handful of other Bajorans from a forced-labor camp, Kira and O’Brien rush back to DS9. Though the Bajoran provisional government officially condemns Kira’s cabalier rescue operation, the Bajorans on the station and everywhere rejoice in Li’s return. Sisko hopes Li can reunite the gradually dissolving Bajoran government, which is splitting into many factions, including the extremist reactionary Circle, isolationists who mean to evict all non-Bajorans from Bajor or DS9. The Circle is, in fact, beginning to make its presence known aboard the station, as is Li Nalas, when he winds up replacing Kira as the Bajoran liaison officer on DS9.

Order the DVDsDownload this episode via Amazonteleplay by Ira Steven Behr
story by Jeri Taylor and Ira Steven Behr
directed by Winrich Kolbe
music by Dennis McCarthy

Cast: Avery Brooks (Commander Benjamin Sisko), Rene Auberjonois (Odo), Siddig El Fadil (Dr. Julian Bashir), Terry Farrell (Lt. Jadzia Dax), Cirroc Lofton (Jake Sisko), Colm Meaney (Chief O’Brien), Armin Shimerman (Quark), Nana Visitor (Major Kira Nerys), Richard Beymer (Li Nalas), Max Grodenchik (Rom), Michael Bell (Borum), Marc Alaimo (Gul Dukat), Frank Langella (Minister Jaro), Leslie Bevis (Freighter Captain), Paul Nakauchi (Tygarian Officer)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Red Dwarf Season 06

Psirens

Red DwarfLister awakens after 500 years of hibernation, finding himself aboard Starbug with Cat and Kryten. Rimmer is rebooted, and Kryten brings everyone up to speed on events. Red Dwarf has been hijacked by an unknown party while Lister and the others were on board Starbug. Since the larger ship is now circumnavigating a large asteroid belt, the more maneuverable Starbug has an opportunity to hazard a journey through the asteroids and head Red Dwarf off at the pass. Upon entering the belt, Starbug enters a graveyard of ships. A scouter survey of one of the dead ships reveals a black box recording of a surviving astronaut being killed by a horrifying insect creature known as a Psiren – similar to a GELF, but instead of changing its shape to please those nearby, Psirens change shape to seduce their prey and then suck their brains out with metal straws. Granted, this may please somebody, but you’d have to be really deranged, or an extremist in the field of accupuncture. The Psirens try every tactic to snare individual members of the crew, and one Psiren manages to stow away aboard Starbug, where the crew are trapped with it…

Season 6 Regular Cast: Chris Barrie (Rimmer), Craig Charles (Lister), Danny John-Jules (Cat), Robert Llewellyn (Kryten)

Order the DVDswritten by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor
directed by Andy De Emmony
music by Howard Goodall

Guest Cast: Jenny Agutter (Professor Mamet), Samantha Robson (Pete Tranter’s Sister), Anita Dobson (Captain Tau), Richard Ridings (Crazed Astro), C.P. Grogan (Kochanski), Zoe Hilson (Temptress), Elizabeth Anson (Temptress)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Red Dwarf Season 06

Out Of Time

Red DwarfAll trace of Red Dwarf has been lost. In the meantime, Starbug has wandered into a stellar fog concealing a reality minefield, which is itself defending something deep within the center of the fog. After stumbling through a number of unreality pockets, they reach the center of the minefield and find a derelict 28th century spaceship capable of time travel. They steal the time drive and install it in Starbug. Not long after, they are contacted by another spacecraft – another Starbug, this one from the distant future, occupied by the gang in their later years, when they have been using the time drive for decades to live the high life, but their time drive has broken down and they want the present Starbug’s time drive. And they’re willing to engage their past selves in mortal combat to get it.

Order the DVDswritten by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor
directed by Andy De Emmony
music by Howard Goodall

Guest Cast: none

Original Title: Present From The Future

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Babylon 5 / Crusade Season 1

Midnight On The Firing Line

Babylon 5A surprise attack results in the capture of a Centauri agricultural colony on Ragesh 3; when he receives the word, Londo Mollari is up in arms. When careful examination of a visual record of the attack reveals Narn heavy fighters are responsible for the invasion, Londo and G’Kar take every opportunity to go for each others’ throats and war seems inevitable. As if trying to prevent a Narn-Centauri war isn’t enough to occupy his time, Sinclair is also troubled by recent attacks by space raiders on unarmed transport ships – the pirates are taking more drastic and violent measures than ever before. The Centauri government decides to take no action regarding Ragesh 3. Enraged, Londo conceals this fact and tries to see if he can encourage sanctions against the Narn Regime in a meeting of the council. When G’Kar claims that the Ragesh 3 colonists have allied themselves with the Narn to escape factional fighting and produces Londo’s colonist nephew as a witness to this claim, Londo decides to take matters into his own hands in a most undiplomatic manner…

Season 1 Regular Cast: Michael O’ Hare (Commander Jeffrey Sinclair), Claudia Christian (Lt. Commander Susan Ivanova), Jerry Doyle (Security Chief Michael Garibaldi), Mira Furlan (Ambassador Delenn), Richard Biggs (Dr. Stephen Franklin), Andrea Thompson (Talia Winters), Stephen Furst (Vir Koto), Bill Mumy (Lennier), Caitlin Brown (Na’Toth), Andreas Katsulas (Ambassador G’Kar), Peter Jurasik (Ambassador Londo Mollari)

Order now!Download this episodewritten by J. Michael Straczynski
directed by Richard Compton
music by Christopher Franke

Guest Cast: Peter Trencher (Carn Mollari), Paul Hampton (The Senator), Jeff Austin (Centauri #1), Ardwight Chamberlain (Kosh), Maggie Egan (Newsperson), Mark Hendrickson (Narn Captain), Douglas E. McCoy (Delta 7), Marianne Robertson (Tech #1)

Babylon 5Notes: The dream of which Londo speaks in this episode is later seen in The Coming of Shadows, and is explained in full in part two of War Without End. It comes to fruition in Hour of the Wolf.

Although Ardwight Chamberlain is credited with the role of Kosh, he only provides the Vorlon ambassador’s enigmatic voice; production assistant Jeffrey Willerth was the actor underneath the bulky suit. Willerth later married series regular Patricia Tallman.

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M.A.N.T.I.S.

First Steps

M.A.N.T.I.S.Paralyzed after being shot while trying to rescue a child from an inner city riot, Dr. Miles Hawkins is roused from his recovery by a letter of resignation from John Stonebrake, a brilliant cyberneticist working at Hawkins Industries. Stonebrake has been working on a powered suit that could restore Hawkins’ mobility, and Hawkins demands to try it out, control helmet and all, with John following closely. During their test of the suit, Hawkins overhears a woman screaming, and races to intervene, discovering that he can hurl her attackers a great distance as a result of the suit’s superhuman strength. But after stopping the assault, a malfunction brings Hawkins to his knees and John rushes him back to the lab.

Hawkins is called in to offer his medical advice on what seems to be an outbreak of a fatal disease. Hawkins immediately recognizes the genetically engineered virus from its effects: it’s a biological weapon that he created. Despite the fact that he informs Lt. Leora Maxwell she is almost certainly infected from even a brief exposure, she breaks quarantine to try to find who’s responsible for spreading the virus. Hawkins also breaks quarantine to visit an old business partner of his, Solomon Box, who was ordered to destroy the virus. After his confrontation with Box, Hawkins survives an attempt on his life, and is then stunned when Taylor Savage, a witness to his foray in the suit has tracked him down and “wants in” on whatever Hawkins and John are up to. With his help, Hawkins discovers that Box plans to sell the virus to North Korean operatives, and the only solution may be to once again don the Mantis suit.

Download this episode via Amazonwritten by Bryce Zabel
directed by David Nutter
music by Christopher Franke

M.A.N.T.I.S.Cast: Carl Lumbly (Dr. Miles Hawkins), Roger Rees (John Stonebrake), Christopher Gartin (Taylor Savage), Galyn Gorg (Lt. Leora Maxwell), Kenneth Mars (Reese), Cordelia Gonzales (Dr. Rivera), Brion James (Solomon Box), Clabe Hartley (Tony), Lorena Gale (Lynette), Jerry Wasserman (Detective Paul Warren), Kevin McNulty (Fred Saxon), Ric Reid (Rex Hauck), Suki Kaiser (Ashley Williams), Martin Cummins (Dog Face), Cathy Weseluck (TV Interviewer), Robin Douglas (Manager), Madison Graie (Hassled Girl), Brock Johnson (Punk), Harvey Thomison (Dr. Zoom), Jason Lee (Korean Official)

Notes: M.A.N.T.I.S. has undergone a significant rethink to become a weekly series, walking back some elements of the pilot movie aired in January 1994. The fictional “Ocean City” setting is now “Port Columbia”, though it still has all the hallmarks of a major coastal California city. With the sole exception of M.A.N.T.I.S.Carl Lumbly as Dr. Miles Hawkins, the entire cast of the pilot, and their characters, have been jettisoned by the weekly series.

There’s strong evidence to suggest that the series and the pilot movie are not in the same “universe”. This episode seems to portray the first time Hawkins has tried on the M.A.N.T.I.S. suit, which he had already used prior to the pilot movie. Unlike the pilot’s plot point that Hawkins had worked with the city government of Ocean City, here he says that the investigation into the outbreak is the first time he’s consulted with the police since being paralyzed. In the pilot, M.A.N.T.I.S. is an acronym for the suit’s technology, whereas here it’s a term invented by Taylor Savage. It’s probably best to view the pilot movie and the series as two very different tellings of the same story.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Deep Space Nine Season 03 Star Trek

The Search – Part I

Star Trek: Deep Space NineStardate 48212.4: Preparations are being made aboard DS9 for an inevitable visit from the Dominion, but no one can escape the fact that the station would wither under an attack from the Jem’Hadar. Commander Sisko, having gone to Earth for Starfleet briefings on the threat from the Gamma Quadrant, arrives in the experimental Federation vessel Defiant, a small ship originally created to do battle with the Borg. Carrying more firepower than any other Starfleet ship and a cloaking device loaned by the Romulans, the Defiant is to go to the Dominion before the Dominion arrives in the Alpha Quadrant; if need be, the ship is also to take the fight to the other side of the galaxy. Another innovation brought about by Starfleet Command is the transfer of a Starfleet security officer to the station, relieving Odo of all but station-bound security matters. The shapeshifter withdraws in anger while Sisko assembles a crew for the Defiant’s mission to seek out the Dominion for negotiations, but joins the Defiant crew at the last minute. A trade contact of Quark’s offers some information but little help in the search for the Founders of the Dominion, but does point the crew out to a planet through which most Dominion communications pass. When the Defiant arrives there, Dax and O’Brien beam down and find the possible coordinates of the Dominion command center – and are captured by the Jem’Hadar, who have also arrived in force in orbit. The Defiant manages to take out only one Jem’Hadar ship and barely survives the withering assault of the remaining attackers. The Defiant is boarded and Kira is blasted unconscious in the ensuing melee. Odo takes her and evacuates in an escape shuttle, heading not back to the station, but to a planet in the Omarian Nebula with which he has been preoccupied since arriving in the Gamma Quadrant. The planet turns out to be the home of a race of life forms very like Odo himself, one of which welcomes him home.

Order the DVDsDownload this episode via Amazonteleplay by Ronald D. Moore
story by Ira Steven Behr & Robert Hewitt Wolfe
directed by Kim Friedman
music by Jay Chattaway

Cast: Avery Brooks (Commander Benjamin Sisko), Rene Auberjonois (Odo), Siddig El Fadil (Dr. Julian Bashir), Terry Farrell (Lt. Jadzia Dax), Cirroc Lofton (Jake Sisko), Colm Meaney (Chief O’Brien), Armin Shimerman (Quark), Nana Visitor (Major Kira Nerys), Salome Jens (Female Shapeshifter), Martha Hackett (SubCommander T’rul), John Fleck (Karemma), Kenneth Star Trek: Deep Space NineMarshall (Lt. Commander Eddington)

Notes: Salome Jens had previously appeared in a very Odo-esque makeup in the sixth season Next Generation episode The Chase; no connection was intended between the two characters. Martha Hackett would later surface on Voyager in the recurring role of Seska. This episode introduces the Defiant to Deep Space Nine; the new ship was intended to convince disgruntled Next Generation fans that the series’ action wasn’t simply confined to the station.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Babylon 5 / Crusade Season 2

Points Of Departure

Babylon 5Within three days of the president’s assassination, Sinclair has been recalled to Earth. Captain John Sheridan of the starship Agamemnon is assigned to take command of B5, which is visited by Kalain, commander of the Minbari warship Trigati which has been missing since its crew defied the Grey Council’s sudden cease-fire order that ended the Earth-Minbari War over a decade before. The Minbari protest the choice of Sheridan to command the station due to his service in the war, and Grey Council envoy Hedronn warns Sheridan of Kalain’s presence and hostile intent. As it turns out, Kalain has made his way to Delenn’s quarters to kill the cocooned ambassador, but is apprehended before he can do any harm. Lennier reveals the reason for Sinclair’s recall and the end of the war: the Grey Council believes that the noblest souls of dead Minbari are now being reincarnated as the newest generations of humans, Sinclair included. The Trigati emerges through the jump gate, ready to attack if Kalain is not released from custody. Sheridan, who has been described by nearly every Minbari so far as a dark omen for the hope of peace, faces the prospect of renewed bloodshed on his hands.

Order now!Download this episode via Amazon's Unboxwritten by J. Michael Straczynski
directed by Janet Greek
music by Christopher Franke

Cast: Bruce Boxleitner (Captain John Sheridan), Claudia Christian (Lt. Commander Ivanova), Jerry Doyle (Garibaldi), Mira Furlan (Delenn), Richard Biggs (Dr. Franklin), Andrea Thompson (Talia Winters), Stephen Furst (Vir), Bill Mumy (Lennier), Robert Rusler (Warren Keffer), Mary Kay Adams (Na’Toth), Andreas Katsulas (G’Kar), Peter Jurasik (Londo), Richard Grove (Kalain), Robin Sachs (Hedronn), Robert Foxworth (General William Hague), Jennifer Anglin (Deeron), Jonathan Chapman (Ambassador #1), Joshua Cox (Tech #1), Kim Delgado (Dome Tech #3), Russ Fega (Merchant #1), Bennet Guillory (Merchant #2), Catherine Hader (Young Woman), Mark Hendrickson (Ambassador #2), Kristopher Logan (Ambassador #3), Michael McKenzie (Vastor), Debra Sharkey (Tech #2), Brian Starcher (Other Pilot), Kim Strauss (Ensign), Thomas Valinote (Security Guard #2), Greg Wrangler (Security Guard #1)

Original title: Chrysalis Part 2

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Season 01 Star Trek Voyager

Caretaker

Star Trek: VoyagerStardate 48315.6: A starship controlled by the Maquis mysteriously disappears in the Badlands, a charged energy field near the demilitarized zone, after being pursued by a Cardassian ship. U.S.S. Voyager, commanded by Captain Janeway, is dispatched from DS9 to the Badlands to find out where the Maquis ship went, especially since a Starfleet security operative, Vulcan Lt. Tuvok, was aboard. Arriving in the Badlands, the Voyager is scanned by an unknown presence and then ripped out of the Alpha Quadrant by a subspace phenomenon that causes heavy damage and kills many of the crew. Voyager ends up in an unexplored part of the galaxy where the first thing the crew sees is an enegry collection array. While repairs are being made, Janeway and her crew are kidnapped from the ship via transporter and deposited in a virtual reality, the inhabitants of which conduct experiments on the Alpha Quadrant visitors and then return them – minus helmsman Ensign Kim. Making contact with the Maquis crew commanded by Chakotay, Janeway discovers that the same tests were forced upon the renegades and that one of their number has also been abducted. A tenuous truce is arranged so that both crews can recover their missing comrades. Ensign Kim and Maquis engineer B’Elanna Torres, in the meantime, have been beamed to the planet Ocampa, a barren wasteland of a world whose short-lived inhabitants live underground. There they are attended to by the Ocampa, who have been instructed by the Caretaker to look after the two visitors since they have somehow become infected with a terminal illness. Voyager’s crew track their missing comrades to Ocampa and encounter the scavenger Neelix, who offers to be the crew’s guide through this part of space. His knowledge of the local area is invaluable, such as the revelation that water is a rarity and is valuable currency here. The crew is also introduced to the Kazons, who roam the surface of Ocampa foraging a meager existence. They hand over a captive Ocampa named Kes in exchange for some water from Voyager. Shortly after Kes leads the crew to Kim and Torres, the energy array shuts down after transmitting a final burst of power to Ocampa.

The Kazons make a gambit to claim the array for themselves, but Chakotay and Tom Paris, a dishonored former Maquis member aboard Voyager, battle the scavengers off with their respective starships as Janeway and Tuvok beam to the array and find the elderly and dying Caretaker, whose race accidentally destroyed the Ocampan ecosphere and then built the subterranean habitat and the power array so the Ocampa could survive. The Caretaker must be succeeded by another and has been trying to find a replacement for decades, but so far all of those tested for their suitability – such as Kim and Torres – have not proven adequate to the task. The Caretaker decides to set the array to self-destruct to avoid allowing the Ocampa to be enslaved by the Kazons. In the fierce battle with the Kazons, Chakotay’s Maquis ship is destroyed when he rams it into the lead Kazon ship, which then collides with the array, disabling the self-destruct sequence. Janeway beams back to the Voyager and destroys the array herself, though it could have sent her and her crew back to the Alpha Quadrant. The Kazons swear vengeance should they encounter Voyager again. With the surviving members of the Maquis and Starfleet crews both safely aboard Voyager – and with Kes and Neelix in tow – the ship sets a course back home, E.T.A.: 75 years…

Order the DVDsteleplay by Michael Piller & Jeri Taylor
story by Rick Berman & Michael Piller & Jeri Taylor
directed by Winrich Kolbe
music by Jay Chattaway
series theme by Jerry Goldsmith

Cast: Kate Mulgrew (Captain Kathryn Janeway), Robert Beltran (Chakotay), Roxann Biggs-Dawson (B’Elanna Torres), Jennifer Lien (Kes), Robert Duncan McNeill (Tom Paris), Ethan Phillips (Neelix), Robert Picardo (The Doctor), Tim Russ (Tuvok), Garrett Wang (Ensign Harry Kim), Basil Langton (The Caretaker), Gavin O’Herlihy (Jabin), Scott Jaeck (Commander Cavit), Angela Paton (Aunt Adah), Armin Shimerman (Quark), Alicia Coppola (Lieutenant Stadi), Bruce French (Ocampa Doctor), Jennifer Parsons (Ocampa Nurse), David Selburg (Toscat), Jeff McCarthy (Human Doctor), Stan Ivar (Mark), Scott MacDonald (Rollins), Josh Clark (Carey), Richard Poe (Gul Evek), Keely Sims (Farmer’s Daughter), Eric David Johnson (Daggin), Majel Barrett (Computer Voice)

Notes: This was easily the most troubled Star Trek series pilot since The Cage was rejected in 1965 by NBC. Internal problems in mounting Paramount’s new network made the show’s future uncertain as to whether it would be a network production or syndicated. (An earlier attempt to launch a Paramount network, with Star Trek: Phase II starring William Shatner and much of the original crew as the network’s cornerstone program, was aborted in the late 1970s.) Academy Award-winning French Canadian actress Genevieve Bujold then accepted the role of Janeway, only to resign from the show three days into filming due to the hectic pace of TV production and, according to some sources, a disagreement with director Winrich Kolbe. At this point, forces within Viacom tried to exert pressure to make Janeway a male character, having resisted the suggestion of a female lead all along. Other voices in the executive ranks suggested – since the other shows comprising Paramount’s new network were even further behind schedule than “Voyager” – that the ever more problematic gestation of the fifth network should be ended, lest the network take to the air and fail, taking dozens of new affiliate stations with it. In the space of a week, Kate Mulgrew was cast for the role as production continued with the cast and crew trying to maneuver around the lack of a captain in the meantime. The theme for the show’s opening titles was composed by Jerry Goldsmith, who had scored the first and fifth Trek movies, the theme from which was also adapted to serve as the score for Star Trek: The Next Generation. (Goldsmith’s latest entry into Trek’s otherwise drab musical canon later won the Emmy for main theme music in September 1995.) The show premiered on schedule on UPN.

LogBook entry by Earl Green