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Classic Season 1 Mission Impossible

Pilot

Mission: ImpossibleWhen the United States government learns that an enemy superpower has given two nuclear warheads to a dictator in a small island country in the Caribbean for imminent use, Daniel Briggs and the Impossible Mission Force (IMF) are called into action. Briggs selects his team – electronics expert Barney Collier, master impersonator Rollin Hand, strongman Willy Armitage, the distractingly beautiful Cinnamon Carter, and Terry Targo, a safecracker with skills and a rap sheet to match – and hatches an elaborate plan: Hand will impersonate the dictator, derailing a public appearance, while Barney ensures that TV and radio coverage of that appearance never happen. Targo is smuggled into the same hotel vault as the warheads, and must assess the plan to steal them with limited oxygen, but his fingers are broken when the team rushes the dictator’s heavily guarded hotel room. Briggs, in the meantime, plans to interrogate the dictator for information on the warheads, which are contained in a safe of their own – and may explode if the safe is not opened properly. With Targo out of commission, it will now be Briggs who is smuggled back into the vault to steal the warheads. The dictator’s aide de camp, growing suspicious that a coup is imminent, begins tightening security, and Briggs must determine how to steal the nukes without also detonating them.

Download this episode via Amazonwritten by Bruce Geller
directed by Bernard L. Kowalski
music by Lalo Schifrin

Mission: ImpossibleCast: Steven Hill (Daniel Briggs), Barbara Bain (Cinnamon Carter), Greg Morris (Barney Collier), Peter Lupus (Willy Armitage), Martin Landau (Rollin Hand / Rio Dominguez), Wally Cox (Terry Targo), Harry Davis (Alisio), Paul Micale (Desk Clerk), Patrick Campbell (Day Vault Clerk), Fredric Villani (Night Vault Clerk), Joe Breen (Loft Manager)

Mission: ImpossibleNotes: When it sold successfully to CBS in 1966 at roughly the time that its Desilu Productions stablemate Star Trek sold to NBC, Mission: Impossible was part of a major turnaround for a studio that was otherwise known at the time for producing The Lucy Show. Peter Graves would not join the series until its second year on the air, and Martin Landau is credited as a guest star, a trend that would continue throughout the first season with a “special appearance by” credit, prior to his promotion to a series regular in season two.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Classic Series Prisoner, The

Arrival

The PrisonerAn agent of the British Foreign Office unexpectedly submits his resignation, setting into motion a chain of events that will forever change his life. A black car trails him to his home, and he is gassed. When he awakens, he is in the Village, a gaily-colored, self-contained community whose residents seem to know nothing beyond its boundaries, and seem to be unwilling to question that oddity. No one seems to know who he is, and no one knows his name. A man identifying himself as Number Two invites him to lunch, and it is a most revealing meal. The reason for the abduction and enforced exile of the newly-christened “Number Six” is revealed – certain unnamed parties are stopping at nothing to prevent his classified knowledge from falling into the wrong hands…or perhaps from reaching the right hands. Number Two makes it clear that no one leaves the Village – and Number Six suspects that the penalty for doing so would be death, especially when Number Two demonstrates a deadly security device called Rover. Despite the danger and the vaguely implied threats, Number Six mounts a valiant escape attempt, but he is captured by the Rover and taken to the Village’s hospital. When he awakens, he is sharing a hospital ward with a fellow agent named Cobb, who also doesn’t remember how he came to be in the Village. Not long afterward, Cobb is reported to have committed suicide, though Number Six immediately suspects something far more sinister. But even most macabre speculation is nowhere near the truth of what happened to his colleague…or what is happening to him now.

written by George Markstein and David Tomblin
directed by Don Chaffey
music by Ron Grainer and Albert Elms

Cast: Patrick McGoohan (Number Six), Virginia Maskell (The Woman), Guy Doleman (Number Two), Paul Eddington (Cobb), George Baker (The New Number Two), Angelo Muscat (The Butler), Barbara Yu Ling (Taxi Driver), Stephanie Randall (Maid), Jack Allen (Doctor), Fabia Drake (Welfare worker), Denis Shaw (Shopkeeper), Oliver MacGreevy (Gardener/Electrician), Frederick Piper (Ex-Admiral), Patsy Smart (Waitress), Christopher Benjamin (Labour Exchange Manager), Peter Swanwick (Supervisor), David Garfield (Hospital attendant), Peter Brace (1st Guardian), Keith Peacock (2nd Guardian)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Night Gallery Pilot Movie

Night Gallery

Night GalleryThe Cemetery: Upon discovering that he is the sole heir in line to receive the inheritance of an elderly uncle he didn’t even know he had, Jeremy Evans wants to speed things up a bit, to the disgust of everyone in his uncle’s employ. Portifoy, the old man’s butler for 30 years, can barely keep himself from uttering his opinion of Jeremy out loud, but thinks better of it. When the old man dies (thanks, in no small part, to Jeremy’s intervention), Jeremy is adamant: he wants it all, and wants it all now. His uncle’s last painting, framed on the staircase of the house where Jeremy now lives, depicts a nearby cemetery…and Jeremy is certain that the painting is changing somehow. Is his uncle’s retribution at hand, or is someone else trying to drive him over the edge?

Eyes: Wealthy Miss Menlo is all but completely blind. She has located a living donor willing to give up his eyesight in exchange for enough money to clear his gambling debt and get loan sharks off his back, but in order to find a doctor willing to take the eyes from a living man, she has to resort to blackmail. Moments after she opens her new eyes for the first time, Miss Menlo is plunged into darkness, unaware that the city is in the grips of an electrical blackout. Convinced that she has been swindled, she vows to destroy the career of the surgeon who performed the transplant, but will her attitude toward him and everyone else in the world change with the rising sun?

Escape Route: A former Nazi war criminal goes into hiding in South America, and even so many years after the war he is paranoid about being seen and recognized. He becomes fixated on a painting in the local art gallery, one which appears to show him in a fishing boat; he also meets a man who claims to have survived Auschwitz, and thinks he looks familiar. Once recognized, he can either become the hunted, or fall back on his experiences as a concentration camp guard. He seeks an escape route, and while the one he gets may not be the one he wants, it may be what he deserves.

written by Rod Serling
The Cemetery directed by Gene Levitt
Eyes directed by Steven Spielberg
Escape Route directed by Barry Shear
music by Billy Goldenberg

Cast: Joan Crawford (Miss Claudia Menlo), Ossie Davis (Portifoy), Richard Kiley (Arndt / Josef Strobe), Roddy McDowall (Jeremy Evans), Barry Sullivan (Dr. Frank Heatherton), George Macready (William Hendricks), Sam Jaffe (Bleum), Norma Crane (Gretchen), Barry Atwater (Carson), George Murdock (1st Agent), Tom Bosley (Sidney Resnick), Tom Basham (Gibbons), Byron Morrow (George J. Packer), Garry Goodnow (Louis), Shannon Farnon (1st Nurse), Richard Hale (Doctor)

Notes: This was Steven Spielberg’s second television directing credit. He went on to direct an episode of Columbo and TV movies such as Duel before becoming one of the late 20th Night Gallerycentury’s most prolific movie directors (Jaws, Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, Raiders Of The Lost Ark and its sequels, E.T., The Color Purple, Jurassic Park, Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan, Minority Report, Lincoln, Ready Player One). Tom Bosley would go on to become one of the definitive TV dads of the 1970s as Howard Cunningham in Happy Days, a role he played from 1974 through 1984. Unlike the series proper, the Night Gallery pilot movie incorporates the painting representing each story into the stories themselves; when Night Gallery was picked up as a series, the paintings would only appear in Rod Serling’s introduction segments.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Doomwatch Season 1

The Plastic Eaters

DoomwatchAn airliner bound for San Pedro experiences serious problems during descent: something is eating away at controls, insulation on wiring, anything made of plastic. The pilot issues a mayday, but nothing can be done to save the plane or anyone on it.

Tobias Wren arrives to interview for a job at the recently formed Department of Scientific Work (informally called Doom Watch by those who work there), only to be given an immediate assignment by the Department’s director, Dr. Simon Quist: investigate the San Pedro plane crash. When Quist phones his government contacts to enquire about any experimental means of disposing of plastic, he’s given the cold shoulder, and sends Dr. John Ridge to dig deeper. Ridge finds reports pointing to a biological agent – “Variant 14” – that dissolves plastics. Ridge’s “research” draws the fury of a government minister, who intends to suspend both Quist and Doomwatch. In the meantime, Wren has obtained pieces of the wreckage and is flying back to London with them, completely unaware that the wreckage could introduce the hungry plastic-eating bacteriological agent to a new plane full of plastic…

written by Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis
directed by Paul Ciappessoni
music by Max Harris

DoomwatchCast: John Paul (Dr. Spencer Quist), Simon Oates (Dr. John Ridge), Robert Powell (Tobias Wren), Joby Blanshard (colin Bradley), Wendy Hall (Pat Hunnisett), John Barron (The Minister), Jennifer Wilson (Miss Wills), Kevin Stoney (Hal Symonds), Michael Hawkins (Jim Bennett), Tony Sibbald (First Airline Crew), Monty Brown (First Airline Crew), Gracie Luck (First Airline Crew), Richardson Morgan (First Airline Crew), John Lee (Second Airline Crew), Eric Corrie (Second Airline Crew), Pat Wallen (Second Airline Crew), Caroline Rogers (Second Airline Crew), Edward Dentith (Second Airline Crew), Christopher Hodge (Commissionaire), Andreas Malandrinos (Airline Passenger), Mike Lewin (Airline Passenger), Pat Beckett (Airline Passenger), Toba Laurence (Airline Passenger), Cynthia Bizeray (Airline Passenger), Peter Thompson (Airline Passenger), Michael Earl (Airline Passenger), Tony Haydon (Airline Passenger)

DoomwatchNotes: Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis are well known to fans of UK sci-fi fandom as the creators of the Cybermen, one of Doctor Who‘s most persistent enemies. Much as the Cybermen were the result of former Doctor Who script editor Davis and Dr. Pedler brainstorming about organ replacement gone berzerk, Doomwatch is the result of them continuing their brainstorming sessions about scenarios resulting from human technology and science growing faster than human wisdom. Of the 38 episodes of Doomwatch produced over three seasons (only 37 of which were shown, one being deemed too violent for the BBC), only 24 episodes are still known to exist, and those 24 have been released on DVD.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Phoenix Five

Zone Of Danger

Phoenix FiveAfter a death defying re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere with a deliberately weakened heat shield, Captain Roke and Ensign Adam Hargraves emerge alive and victorious…with Roke not even upset that the heat shield was sabotaged as a test of his flying skill. The Controller on Earth not only welcomes Roker and Hargraves back, but introduces them to their new navigator, Cadet Tina Kulbrick and shows the three around their new ship, the Phoenix Five, Earth’s most advanced spacecraft. Its onboard sick bay and garden impress Captain Roke, while Hargraves and Kulbrick are simply excited to be flying the state-of-the-art ship…and learning to deal with the fourth member of the crew, a walking robotic “computeroid” named Karl.

Phoenix Five’s first assignment is the inhospitable planet Zebula 9, where would-be space dictator Zodian was finally brought to justice. Five previous missions to try to stabilize the planet’s atmosphere crashed. Zodian is imprisoned at Earth control, with a retinue of Martian guards keeping an eye on him. But a seemingly harmless arts & crafts project Zodian is undertaking in his cell has deadly uses, and he breaks out of prison to hijack the Phoenix Five – even if it means killing its new crew – to return to Zebula 9 and reactivate his headquarters, complete with its twin computers, Alpha and Zeta. Cadet Kulbrick shows her resourcefulness by programming Karl by remote to bring the Phoenix Five in for a survivable rough landing on Zebula 9 – rough enough that it becomes useless to Zodian’s plans. But it turns out that Alpha and Zeta aren’t going to help Zodian’s plans either.

Phoenix Fivewritten by John Warwick
directed by David Cahill
music not credited

Cast: Mike Dorsey (Captain Roke), Damien Parker (Ensign Hargraves), Patsy Trench (Cadet Kulbrick), Redmond Phillips (Zodian), Stuart Leslie (Karl), Peter Collingwood (Controller), Martin Bright (Martian Guard), Paul Bright (Martian Guard)

Notes: Filmed in 1968 and 1969 in Australia, but not broadcast until May 1970, Phoenix Five is part of a continuum with two previous shows, The Interpretaris (1966) and Vega 4 (1968), though each iteration of the show is more or less a rehash of Phoenix Fivethe series before it. The series was shot on film, and the Australian special effects industry didn’t exist yet, forcing the makers of Phoenix Five to devise some ingenious solutions to showing futuristic gadgetry. This was the beginning of a ten-episode run for producer Peter Summerton, who died unexpectedly after the tenth episode. As much as certain visual elements – chiefly the uniforms – resemble those of Star Trek, cancelled in the U.S. less than a year earlier, and as much as Phoenix Five was regarded as a children’s show, it was actually scheduled opposite the Australian run of Star Trek and Land Of The Giants on a competing broadcaster. Though produced by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the commercial Seven Network had rights to repeats of the show.

The Controller says that the usefulness of the Phoenix Five’s sickbay will be up to Captain Roke’s “specialized medical knowledge” – in other words, the show’s budget isn’t enough to hire an additional actor to portray a ship’s doctor. The voice artist performing Alpha and Zeta is not credited.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
UFO

Identified

UFOWhen evidence of UFO visits and alien abductions becomes real, a top-secret international agency, SHADO (Supreme Headquarters Alien Defense Organization), is formed, under the direction of Commander Ed Straker. Housed in the underground levels beneath a film studio that hides its activities, SHADO is on the verge of a new detection technology that could turn the tide against future UFO incursions. But the aliens – as yet unidentified – are also aware of this development, and are already taking steps to stop that technology from being deployed. From submarines capable of launching jet fighters, to a moonbase capable of launching space planes, Straker puts all of SHADO’s resources on the highest alert. The prize: SHADO’s first captured alien…and only then does Straker realize that this is but the first volley in a much longer battle for the planet Earth.

Download this episode via Amazonwritten by Gerry Anderson & Sylvia Anderson with Tony Barwick
directed by Gerry Anderson
music by Barry Gray

UFOCast: Edward Bishop (Cmdr. Straker), George Sewell (Col. Freeman), Peter Gordeno (Capt. Carlin), Gabrielle Drake (Lt. Ellis), Grant Taylor (General Henderson), Basil Dignam (Cabinet Minister), Shane Rimmer (Seagull X-Ray Co-Pilot), Antonia Ellis (Joan Harrington), Gary Myers (Lew Waterman), Michael Mundell (Ken Matthews), Harry Baird (Mark Bradley), Keith Alexander (SHADO Radio Operator), Jon Kelley (Skydiver Engineer), Georgina Moon (Skydiver Operative), Dolores Martinez (Nina Barry), Jeremy Wilkin (Skydiver Navigator), Paul Gillard (Kurt Mahler), Wanda Ventham (Virginia Lake), Gary Files (Phil Wades), Matthew Roberton (Dr. Harris), Maxwell Shaw (Dr. Shroeder), Annette Kerr (Nurse)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Timeslip

The Wrong End Of Time – Part 1

TimeslipYoungsters Liz Skinner and Simon Randall, bored with the dull surroundings near the Skinners’ vacation spot, go exploring the surrounding countryside, finding a place near an abandoned naval station where they hear an unusual sound all around them. Venturing onward, they pass through some sort of portal, stepping into the same place, but a different time – World War II, to be precise. Shortly after they see men who they’re certain are speaking German, the two children are captured and taken to be questioned about what business they had near the naval station. When Liz recognizes their interrogator – from having met him in the future, later in his life – it only raises further suspicions. And then they meet a young sailor named Frank Skinner – Liz’s father, long before she was born. The older Frank Skinner claims he had a mental breakdown during the war and can’t remember what his role in it was…but his daughter is about to find out by being there.

written by Bruce Stewart
directed by John Cooper
music not credited

TimeslipCast: Cheryl Burfield (Liz Skinner), Spencer Banks (Simon Randall), Denis Quilley (Commander Traynor), Iris Russell (Jean Skinner), Derek Benfield (Skinner), John Alkin (Frank), Sandor Eles (Gottfried), Paul Humpoletz (Graz), John Garrie (Arthur Griffiths), Royston Tickner (George Bradley), Peter Sproule (Ferris), John Abbott (Phipps), Kenneth Watson (Dr. Fordyce), Virginia Balfour (Alice Fortune), Sally Templer (Sarah), Hilary Minster (German Sailor)

TimeslipNotes: This episode is introduced by ITV’s then science reporter, Peter Fairley, introducing the series’ premise but cautioning that it is purely fiction. Eduard Salim Michael’s classical piece “Rite de la Terre” is used as the series’ theme song, but there is no incidental music during the story itself. Timeslip was originally recorded in full color, but only one episode remains in that format. The original color videotapes of the other episodes were wiped and reused (a common practice in the early 1970s), and we only have the remainder of the show to watch thanks to black & white film recordings created to sell the series overseas to broadcasters who were not yet transmitting in color.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Search

PROBE

SearchHugh Lockwood, code name “Probe One”, barely survives a high-risk operation in a foreign country, but he’s never quite alone – he can always hear the voice of his superior, Director Cameron, via an implant in his ear, while Cameron monitors his missions from the high-tech safety of PROBE Control, headquarters of a high security search operation. Lockwood doesn’t have much time to celebrate his victory, however, before another mission calls, this time a hunt for stolen jewels originally recovered from Nazi Germany. Things go awry quickly: the first lead Lockwood questions goes missing, and her daughter contacts him, certain that her mother has been kidnapped. It appears that Nazis who escaped the Nuremberg Trials may still be at large, trying to regain their fortune and regroup, unless Lockwood can stop them.

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

Wonder WomanCast: Hugh O’Brian (Hugh Lockwood), Elke Sommer (Uli Ullman), Burgess Meredith (Cameron), Lilia Skala (Frieda Ullman), Angel Tompkins (Gloria), Sir John Gielgud (Harold Streeter), Kent Smith (Dr. Laurent), Alfred Ryder (Cheyne), Ben Wright (Kurt van Niestat), Robert Boon (Felix Ernst), Albert Popwell (Dr. Griffin), A. Martinez (Carlos Lobos), Byron Chung (Kuroda), Ginny Golden (Miss Keach), Jules Maitland (Reinhardt Brugge)

Notes: Conceived as an action/spy series with ultra-futuristic (by 1972 standards) gadgetry, PROBE got a series greenlight, but only if it changed its name, as there was already a running PBS series of the same name on the air. PROBE would reappear later in 1972 with additional cast members under the name Search…but then had to be titled Search Control outside of the United States, so as not to conflict with an ongoing UK series called Search. The series was conceived by Leslie Stevens of The Outer Limits fame.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Ghost Story / Circle Of Fear

The New House

Ghost StoryAfter a brief stay at a posh hotel owned by the debonair Winston Essex, the Travises arrive at their new home on Pleasant Hill. Expecting their first child within a month, Eileen Travis is already a bundle of nerves, but nearly every night she thinks she hears something in the house late at night, and she dispatches John to check the house every time. Eileen hears, from various neighbors, that Pleasant Hill was once the site of a cemetery, or an 18th century gallows where a 19-year-old girl was hanged for stealing a loaf of bread. Many of Eileen’s frights involve a woman’s cackling laugh, and she begins to think that the hanged girl is haunting her home. But when her daughter is born, the strange nighttime noises seem to stop for a while…until the hanged girl’s ghost returns, with her eyes on the baby.

written by Richard Matheson
directed by John Llewellyn Moxey
music by Billy Goldenberg

Ghost StoryCast: Sebastian Cabot (Winston Essex), Barbara Parkins (Eileen Travis), David Birney (John Travis), Jeanette Nolan (Mrs. Ramsey), Sam Jaffe (De Witt), Allyn Ann McLerie (Miss Tate), Caitlin Wyles (Thomasina Barrows), Ivor Francis (Priest), John Garwood (Sgt. Booth)

Ghost StoryNotes: The executive producer of Ghost Story was schlock horror auteur William Castle, in the wake of his most high-profile credit as producer of the Roman Polanski-directed Rosemary’s Baby in 1968. Richard Matheson was already renowned for published works such as “I Am Legend” (which had, at this point, already been adapted for the big screen as The Omega Man) and numerous episodes of The Twilight Zone.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Gatchaman I

Gatchaman vs. Turtle King

Kagaku Ninjatai GatchamanAn enormous mechanical turtle rises from the ocean, attacking a uranium storage facility and stealing the radioactive material stored there. At a meeting of heads of state, Dr. Nambu of the International Science Organization reveals the identity of the culprit: the evil Galactor organization, bent on world domination. But it took the best intelligence agents in the world to discover even that morsel of information, so Nambu has assembled a team of young fighters and scientists to track down Galactor: Science Ninja Team Gatchaman. Each armed with incredible powers and specialized vehicles, these young warriors are all that stand between Galactor and control of the entire Earth. Aboard their powerful aircraft, the GodPhoenix, the team is dispatched to observe the huge machine without interfering, in the hopes that it can be tracked back to Galactor’s base. Team leader Ken intends to stick to Dr. Nambu’s orders, but his hot-headed second-in-command, Joe, is enraged by the huge loss of life that he is forced to helplessly watch during this surveillance mission. Joe intends to destroy the machine – alone if he has to, whether it contravenes his orders or not.

written by Jinzo Toriumi
directed by Hisayuki Toriumi
music by Bob Sakuma

Voice Cast: Katsuji Mori (Ken Washio), Isao Sasaki (Joe Asakura), Kazuko Sugiyama (Jun), Yoku Shioya (Jinpei), Shingo Kanemoto (Ryu), Toru Ohira (Dr. Kozaburo Nambu), Mikio Terashima (Berg Katse), Nobuo Tanaka (Sosai X), Teiji Omiya (Director Anderson)

Note: This synopsis is for the original Kagaku Ninjatai Gatchaman episode, and appears under its original Japanese premiere date. For the corresponding episode of Battle Of The Planets, click here.

GatchamanNot really a proper “origin” story for Gatchaman, this premiere episode raises some interesting questions. It seems that no one but Nambu is aware of Galactor’s existence until he reveals that information. It’s possible that seemingly random terrorist attacks had been carried out prior to these events, but no one had attributed them to a single group. In any case, given that the Science Ninja Team has practically been raised to fight Galactor, it seems likely that Dr. Nambu has been sitting on this information for quite some time. The plot setup of this and other early episodes owes a lot to Godzilla – with just a dash of James Bond in the mad scheme to steal uranium – but the characters and their relationships would take center stage in later episodes (but not at the expense of the mayhem and destruction which Tatsunoko Studios’ animators were so adept at depicting). Near the episode’s end, during the destruction of the Turtle King, an obviously non-animated, live-action scene of colorful smoke is seen for a few seconds.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Pilot Movies Six Million Dollar Man

The Six Million Dollar Man

The Six Million Dollar ManFormer lunar astronaut Steve Austin takes on the sometimes dangerous career of test piloting experimental aircraft after retiring from NASA. During one test flight, the experimental plane he’s flying crash-lands after a series of system failures. Austin loses both legs, his right arm, and his left eye in the resulting explosion. Dr. Rudy Wells, a former NASA doctor who followed Austin out of the space program, knows that bionic prosthetics could save Austin’s life and restore his mobility – and then some – but doesn’t have the budget for such an experimental procedure.

Enter Oliver Spencer, director of the secret Office of Special Operations, who has a six million dollar budget to create the perfect secret agent. He originally envisioned a robot that could pass for human, but the time and money to create such a machine exceeds what the OSO has available. He offers to finances Austin’s recovery and Dr. Well’s highly unusual prosthetic surgery, but at a price: Steve Austin will become a government agent with strength and abilities beyond those of most men. His first assignment is to free a kidnapped hostage being held in a remote area of Saudi Arabia. Austin has the ability to save the hostage, but what he doesn’t have is the knowledge that the entire operation is a trap.

teleplay by Henri Simoun
based on the novel “Cyborg” by Martin Caidin
directed by Richard Irving
music by Gil Melle

The Six Million Dollar ManCast: Lee Majors (Steve Austin), Barbara Anderson (Jean Manners), Martin Balsam (Dr. Rudy Wells), Darren McGavin (Oliver Spencer), Dorothy Green (Mrs. McKay), Anne Whitfield (Young Woman), George Wallace (General), Robert Cornthwaite (Dr. AShburn), Olan Soule (Saltillo), Norma Storch (Woman), John Mark Robinson (Aide), Charles Knox Robinson (Prisoner), Ivor Barry (Geraldton), Maurice Sherbanee (Nudaylah)

The Six Million Dollar ManNotes: In syndicated rerun packages, this movie was split into two one-hour episodes titled The Moon And The Desert Part 1 and Part 2. Unlike the remainder of The Six Million Dollar Man on TV (and unlike the original 1972 novel “Cyborg”), Steve Austin is portrayed here as a civilian astronaut/test pilot with a disdain for the military; the next Six Million Dollar Man TV movie retcons him into an Air Force colonel. This is the only appearance of Darren McGavin as Oliver Spencer; the character was replaced with Oscar Goldman in the next movie, while Dr. Wells would be recast.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Classic Season 1 Tomorrow People

Slaves Of Jedikiah – Part 1

Tomorrow PeopleYoung Stephen Jameson walks through London, unaware that two very different groups of people are monitoring him closely. He suffers some sort of attack, crumples to the ground, and is rushed to a hospital. When he wakes up, he meets a young woman named Carol, one of his observers, who tells him that he has experienced his “breaking out” – the moment when he evolved from homo sapiens to homo superior, one of the Tomorrow People, the next stage in human evolution. He has mental powers beyond those of most people, and must learn to control those powers to serve a higher good. Two men dressed as doctors appear, but they’re not doctors – they’re members of the other faction watching Stephen’s progress. He is taken to their master, Jedikiah, who intends to harness Stephen’s powers for less noble purposes.

Download this episode via Amazonwritten by Brian Finch and Roger Price
directed by Paul Bernard
music by Dudley Simpson

Tomorrow PeopleCast: Sammie Winmill (Carol), Nicholas Young (John), Peter Vaughan-Clarke (Stephen), Stephen Salmon (Kenny), Francis de Wolff (Jedikiah), Michael Standing (Ginge), Derek Crewe (Lefty), Philip Gilbert (TIM), Patricia Denys (Mrs. Jameson), Peter Weston (Policeman), Neville Barber (Dr. Stewart), Christine Shaw (Staff Nurse)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Season 1 Super Friends

The Power Pirate

Super FriendsPower failures wreak havoc around the world, and Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and superheroes-in-training Marvin and Wendy (and their faithful pet Wonder Dog) gather at the Hall of Justice to try to keep on top of all of the incidents. Everything from electrical power to steam power is likely to fail, and nearly everywhere any of the Justice League members go, the dapper Sir Cedric Cedric of Scotland Yard is already on the case, investigating the power problems for himself. Or is he? Is his presence at almost every incident a mere coincidence…and is he even who he claims to be?

story by Fred Freiberger, Bernie Kahn, Ken Rotcop, Art Weiss, Willie Gilbert, Henry Sharp, and Marshall Williams
Super Friendsdirected by Charles A. Nicholas
music by Hoyt Curtin

Cast: Sherry Alberoni (Wendy), Norman Alden (Aquaman), Danny Dark (Superman), Shannon Farnon (Wonder Woman), Casey Kasem (Robin), Ted Knight (Narrator), Olan Soule (Batman), John Stephenson (Sir Cedric Cedric / Alien), Frank Welker (Marvin / Wonder Dog)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Original Series (Animated) Season 01 Star Trek

Beyond The Farthest Star

Star Trek ClassicStardate 5221.3: Near the edge of the galaxy, a powerful gravitational force has seized the Enterprise. Sulu is able to alter the ship’s course just enough to go into orbit around the dead stellar core which is the source of the gravity, rather than crashing into it. Also in orbit is a vessel of organic origins, with a structure that indicates two things – the ship was built by insectoid beings, and those beings appear to have destroyed themselves. A log entry recorded by one of the aliens warns of the presence of a malevolent life form, prompting Kirk and his landing party to return to the Enterprise – only to discover that whatever attacked the insectoids has now beamed aboard with them.

Order the DVDswritten by Samuel A. Peeples
directed by Hal Sutherland
music by Yvette Blais & Jeff Michael

Cast: William Shatner (Captain Kirk), Leonard Nimoy (Mr. Spock), DeForest Kelley (Dr. McCoy), James Doohan (Mr. Scott / Alien Voice / Insectoid Captain / Transporter Chief), George Takei (Lt. Sulu), Nichelle Nichols (Lt. Uhura), James Doohan (Lt. Arrex), Majel Barrett (Nurse Chapel)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Moonbase 3

Departure And Arrival

Moonbase 3After a psychologically unstable pilot’s condition is quietly ignored by the crew of Moonbase 3, he commits suicide during a spacewalk, leaving Dr. Ransome, the Moonbase administrator, with only minimal astronautics training to fly his shuttle. The shuttle is destroyed when Ransome tries to pull off a daring maneuver that any trained pilot would never have even considered. The incident places the future of Moonbase 3 – considered by Earthbound authorities to be a costly “extravagance” – in jeopardy.

Dr. David Caulder is appointed to succeed Ransome as the administrator in charge of Moonbase 3, and Michel Lebrun – who thought he was next in line for the job – prepares to resign in protest. Caulder seems affable enough and eager to learn about life on a permanent outpost on the moon, but just as the crew warms to him, he begins a no-nonsense investigation into Ransome’s death, catching them off guard. Blame is placed and fingers are pointed, and Caulder finally reads his verdict to the three ranking officials on Moonbase 3: he holds them all personally responsible for the deadly incident, and will personally escort all of them home to face formal charges. But after their shuttle lifts off from the Moonbase, it becomes clear that someone aboard has taken steps to ensure that its passengers – and Caulder’s damning report – will never reach Earth…

written by Terrance Dicks and Barry Letts
directed by Ken Hannam
music by Dudley Simpson

Cast: Donald Houston (David Caulder), Ralph Bates (Michel Lebrun), Fiona Gaunt (Helen Smith), Barry Lowe (Tom Hill), Madhav Sharma (Rao), Michael Lees (Ransome), Michael Wisher (Sanders), Jonathan Sweet (Walters), Peter Bathurst (Director General), Robert La Brassiere (Bill Jackson), Patsy Trench (Jenny), Mary Ann Severne (Sandy), Christine Bradwell (Ingrid), Victor Beaumont (Franz Hauser), Elma Soiron (Madame Carnac), Peter Miles (Dr. Laubenthal)

Notes: Moonbase 3 (the fictional setting) is controlled by the “European Community,” lending Moonbase 3 (the show) an unusual bit of foresight in predicting the European Union. Moonbases 1 and 2 are controlled by, respectively, the United States and Russia (though not the Soviet Union, a body which most assuredly did exist at the time of Moonbase 3’s production – score another point for foresight), and Moonbase 4 is controlled by China. The series came about when BBC bosses asked Terrance Dicks and Barry Letts – the then-script editor and producer of Jon Pertwee-era Doctor Who – if they’d like to do an original SF series of their own to air during Doctor Who’s “off-season.” Moonbase 3 was the result, though both Dicks and Letts have said that there are things they would change about the show if they were to do it again, not the least of which is the show’s grim tone (which, to be fair, seems to be present in a great many SF TV series in the early 1970s). Moonbase 3 was mounted as an international co-production produced by the BBC with financial backing from ABC and 20th Century Fox on the American end of things, but it didn’t make a splash in the ratings on either side of the Atlantic. Ironically, the fact that the series was shown in America is the only reason it still exists today: as with many BBC series made in the 1960s and early ’70s, including many a classic episode of Doctor Who, Moonbase 3 was “purged” from the BBC archives and was only recoverable by way of the American master tapes.

LogBook entry by Earl Green