theLogBook.com is a chronicle of how we used to imagine the future – an ever-expanding logbook of what our entertainment, our culture, and even our brightest minds thought would happen. It’s nostalgia – and some real history – that gives factual context to the fiction, cultural context to the factual, and always looks to the future.
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Welcome to Gene-ology, a podcast by Roddenberry Entertainment that dives deep into the early TV writing works of Gene Roddenberry. It features Lee Marvin in front of a high-tech viewscreen, but this is no starship – Gene-ology opens its investigation into a very unusual foray into "true crime" with Gene Roddenberry adapting the particulars of a notorious Seattle murder case into dramatic form. It's also a career milestone for Gene: the last script he would write for a show that he didn't also create. Hosted by Earl Green & Ashley Thomas About Gene-ology Gene-ology explores Gene Roddenberry's early television scripts, including his lesser-known works before Star Trek using the Mission Log format popularized by Roddenberry Podcasts. We analyze the themes, writing style, and cultural impact of his scripts, and we even unearth stories from the Roddenberry archives that were never produced. Join us as we trace the roots of Gene's creative genius. In This Episode A breakdown of key moments and themes in "Queen Anne Killer Unidentified: The Michael Olds Story". Exploring Gene Roddenberry's evolving style and storytelling. How this episode ties into the broader TV landscape of the time and reflects the early seeds of Roddenberry's visionary work. Guest stars and unique production elements that bring this episode to life. Join the Conversation What did you think of this episode? Share your thoughts, theories, and favorite moments in the comments or reach out to us on social media or email us at missionlog@roddenberry.com Did you know Roddenberry Podcasts is on YouTube? Find the video versions of your favorite shows like Mission Log: Prodigy, Mission Log: The Orville, as well as exclusive content only available on YouTube. Subscribe now! https://www.youtube.com/@RoddenberryEntertainment?sub_confirmation=1 Follow us on Social Media: INSTAGRAM https://www.instagram.com/roddenberrypodcasts BLUESKY https://bsky.app/profile/roddenberrypod.bsky.social THREADS https://www.threads.net/@roddenberrypodcasts FACEBOOK https://www.facebook.com/MissionLogPod Our shows are part of the Roddenberry Entertainment family. For more great shows and to learn how we live the legacy of Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, follow us here: RODDENBERRY PODCASTS https://www.instagram.com/RoddenberryPodcasts RODDENBERRY ENTERTAINMENT https://www.instagram.com/RoddenberryOfficial RODDENBERRY FOUNDATION https://www.instagram.com/TheRoddenberryFoundation Support the Show For as little as $1 a month, you can gain access to our Mission Log Discord Community! There, we continue the discussion with dedicated channels and a weekly video chat with the hosts. Become a member of our Patreon today! https://www.Patreon.com/MissionLog Subscribe and Stay Tuned Be sure to subscribe to Gene-ology for more deep dives into Gene Roddenberry's early works. New episodes are released regularly as we uncover more of Gene's television legacy. – Gene-ology is produced by Roddenberry Entertainment. Executive producer Eugene "Rod" Roddenberry. Visit https://Podcasts.Roddenberry.com for more great content. Edited by Earl Green.
The 45th episode of Arrow, a modern-day reboot of DC Comics’ Green Arrow superhero starring Stephen Amell, airs on the CW. John Barrowman (Torchwood, Doctor Who) and Caity Lotz (Mad Men, Legends Of Tomorrow) guest star.
Syfy airs the 68th episode of the science fiction series Eureka, starring Colin Ferguson, Salli Richardson-Whitfield, and Joe Morton. Tembi Locke (Sliders) and Wil Wheaton (Star Trek: The Next Generation) guest star.
The 48th episode of the Star Trek prequel spinoff Enterprise premieres on UPN. This episode marks Starfleet’s first chronological encounter with the Borg, though ironically, the Borg are left over from the events of the movie Star Trek: First Contact.
Last flown in the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz mission, the Apollo command/service module is – briefly – given strong consideration by NASA to serve as a “lifeboat” for the crew of the International Space Station, even to the point of conducting a study about un-mothballing the surviving unused Apollo hardware sitting in museums around the world. Part of the reason for this unusual study is that NASA’s budget has run out for finding a workable solution to keeping a “lifeboat” available to station astronauts in the anticipated long gap before the Space Shuttle’s return to service. Ultimately, even the seemingly unthinkable return of Apollo is nixed, since at least a Saturn IB booster would need to be similarly refitted – at huge expense – to lift a 30-year-old Apollo capsule into space.
The 119th episode of Joss Whedon’s supernatural series Buffy The Vampire Slayer, starring Sarah Michelle Gellar, airs on UPN. James Marsters and Alyson Hannigan also star.
The week-long national syndication window opens for the 130th episode of Xena: Warrior Princess, starring Lucy Lawless and Renee O’Connor. Karl Urban and Ted Raimi guest star.
The 159th episode of Chris Carter’s modern-day science fiction series The X-Files airs on Fox, starring Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny. Kathy Griffin guest stars.
Sci-Fi Channel premieres the seventh episode of Farscape. (Early episodes of this series are aired out of the producers’ preferred story order or, for that matter, production order.)
Showtime airs the 98th episode of The Outer Limits, a revival of the 1960s science fiction anthology series. Cary Elwes (The Princess Bride, Twister) and David Warner guest star.
Before Episode I‘s theatrical premiere, the pre-production phase of Star Wars Episode II has already begun, with principal photography to commence toward the end of 1999. Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Ian McDiamid, Ahmed Best, and Anthony Daniels are all slated to reprise their roles, though it will be necessary to recast Anakin Skywalker, since the second film will take place at least a decade after the events of The Phantom Menace.
Previously distributed between computer bulletin board systems and FidoNet BBS nodes as a series of text files, theLogBook makes its debut on the world wide web, on a slice of web space borrowed from the University of Arkansas. In most cases, the episode guides previously distributed via BBS are simply the text files posted on the web, though conversion into HTML documents gradually takes place. The gigantic full-screen graphical menu overwhelms many a dial-up web surfer and is quickly replaced with a simpler, text-based menu.
NASA’s Clementine lunar orbiter, its moon mapping mission complete, is directed to fire its engines to put it on a trajectory for asteroid 1620 Geographos, a near-Earth asteroid named for the National Geographic Society (which sponsored a sky survey that led to its discovery). But one of Clementine’s thrusters stays on too long, firing for 11 minutes and revving the vehicle up to an unrecoverable spin of 80 revolutions per minute, exhausting its entire fuel supply in the process. Clementine’s secondary mission to Geographos is abandoned, and its batteries are exhausted a month later.
Space Shuttle Endeavour leaves Earth for the first time, carrying a crew of seven to orbit on the 47th shuttle mission. Over nearly nine days, three spacewalks are taken up with the tricky and dangerous task of capturing a four-and-a-half-ton communications satellite into Endeavour’s cargo bay to repair and relaunch it. (The satellite, Intelsat VI, had been stranded in the wrong orbit since its 1990 launch aboard a Titan rocket.) The record-setting spacewalks involved – each lasting over seven hours and marking the first time three astronauts have operated outside their vehicle – force NASA to cancel one of two experimental EVAs to test space station construction techniques. Endeavour’s first crew consists of Commander Daniel Brandenstein, pilot Kevin Chilton, and mission specialists Pierre Thuot, Kathryn Thornton, Richard Hieb, Thomas Akers and Bruce Melnick.
NBC premieres the second part of its continuation of Kenneth Johnson’s alien invasion epic, V: The Final Battle. The birth of Robin’s alien-hybrid children is one of the genre cliffhangers of the decade. This marks the science fiction soundtrack debut of Dennis McCarthy, who later goes on to score most of the Star Trek spinoffs of the next three decades; he is tapped at a very late stage (mere days prior to broadcast) to rescore the entire miniseries – so late, in fact, that it’s ultimately impossible for him to redo the music for the first night in the time allotted.
ITV airs the 74th episode of the anthology series Tales Of The Unexpected. David Cassidy (The Partridge Family) and Darren McGavin (Kolchak: The Night Stalker) guest star.
With the Jupiter encounter behind it, NASA’s Voyager 2 unmanned spacecraft is given a new backup mission plan, replacing the original Jupiter/Saturn backup plan implemented after a radio receiver failure befell the spacecraft in 1978. Intended to reap the minimum acceptable science observations (including photography) and transmit them to Earth should Voyager 2’s ability to receive new commands be lost, this new backup mission load now includes automated observation plans for Saturn and Uranus, the latter of which will not be reached until 1986.
The tenth episode of Harold Jack Bloom’s sci-fi series Project UFO airs on NBC, portraying fictionalized investigations into what the show claims are actual cases from the U.S. Air Force’s Project Blue Book investigations. William Jordan and Caskey Swaim star. Anthony Geary (General Hospital) and Dr. Joyce Brothers guest star.
NBC airs the pilot of Quark, a new series from Get Smart creator Buck Henry which marks an unlikely combination of science fiction and sitcom. The pilot broadcast gets enough attention to merit a series pickup, but within weeks, Henry’s writing staff is presented with a much meatier target for satire than Star Trek, which Quark originally sets out to parody.
NASA launches Explorer 53, renamed Small Astronomy Satellite C, from an Italian-owned offshore launch platform off the coast of Kenya. SAS-C is a smaller spacecraft than NASA’s larger Orbiting Astronomical Observatory (OAO) series, but can be aimed very precisely at any cosmic X-ray sources that it detects. One of SAS-C’s discoveries is MXB1730-33, a binary star giving off rapid X-ray bursts. SAS-C will remain in orbit and functional until it re-enters Earth’s atmosphere in 1979.
The fifth episode of the syndicated science fiction Science Fiction Theatre airs on stations across the U.S. Hosted by Truman Bradley, the episode stars Marshall Thompson and Dean Evans.
The A.C. Nielsen Company publishes its first-ever television ratings in the United States, compiling data collected over a “sweep month” running from early April through early May of 1950. The top TV program at the time, according to Nielsen’s data gathering, is Milton Berle’s Texaco Star Theater. The Nielsen ratings and data collection methodology will attract controversy for decades to come, and will spell doom for many shows with small but loyal followings.
Absolutely no generative AI was used in the creation of the content on this website. It’s mostly just some guy named Earl.
The CW airs the 112th episode of The Flash, a modern-day reboot of DC Comics’ superhero starring Grant Gustin.
The 45th episode of Arrow, a modern-day reboot of DC Comics’ Green Arrow superhero starring Stephen Amell, airs on the CW. John Barrowman (Torchwood, Doctor Who) and Caity Lotz (Mad Men, Legends Of Tomorrow) guest star.
Syfy airs the 68th episode of the science fiction series Eureka, starring Colin Ferguson, Salli Richardson-Whitfield, and Joe Morton. Tembi Locke (Sliders) and Wil Wheaton (Star Trek: The Next Generation) guest star.
The 775th episode of Doctor Who (the 77th since the series’ revival) airs on BBC1, guest starring Hugh Bonneville. 
The 705th episode of Doctor Who (the seventh since the series’ revival) airs on BBC1. Simon Pegg guest stars. 
The 48th episode of the Star Trek prequel spinoff Enterprise premieres on UPN. This episode marks Starfleet’s first chronological encounter with the Borg, though ironically, the Borg are left over from the events of the movie Star Trek: First Contact. 
Last flown in the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz mission, the Apollo command/service module is – briefly – given strong consideration by NASA to serve as a “lifeboat” for the crew of the International Space Station, even to the point of conducting a study about un-mothballing the surviving unused Apollo hardware sitting in museums around the world. Part of the reason for this unusual study is that NASA’s budget has run out for finding a workable solution to keeping a “lifeboat” available to station astronauts in the anticipated long gap before the Space Shuttle’s return to service. Ultimately, even the seemingly unthinkable return of Apollo is nixed, since at least a Saturn IB booster would need to be similarly refitted – at huge expense – to lift a 30-year-old Apollo capsule into space.
The 119th episode of Joss Whedon’s supernatural series Buffy The Vampire Slayer, starring Sarah Michelle Gellar, airs on UPN. James Marsters and Alyson Hannigan also star.
The week-long national syndication window opens for the 130th episode of Xena: Warrior Princess, starring Lucy Lawless and Renee O’Connor. Karl Urban and Ted Raimi guest star. 
The 87th episode of Gene Roddenberry’s Earth: Final Conflict, airs in syndication, starring Robert Leeshock, Jayne Heitmeyer, and Von Flores.
The 159th episode of Chris Carter’s modern-day science fiction series The X-Files airs on Fox, starring Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny. Kathy Griffin guest stars.
Sci-Fi Channel premieres the seventh episode of Farscape. (Early episodes of this series are aired out of the producers’ preferred story order or, for that matter, production order.) 
Showtime airs the 98th episode of The Outer Limits, a revival of the 1960s science fiction anthology series. Cary Elwes (The Princess Bride, Twister) and David Warner guest star.
Before Episode I‘s theatrical premiere, the pre-production phase of Star Wars Episode II has already begun, with principal photography to commence toward the end of 1999. Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Ian McDiamid, Ahmed Best, and Anthony Daniels are all slated to reprise their roles, though it will be necessary to recast Anakin Skywalker, since the second film will take place at least a decade after the events of The Phantom Menace.
UPN airs the 65th episode of Star Trek: Voyager. 
Previously distributed between computer bulletin board systems and FidoNet BBS nodes as a series of text files, theLogBook makes its debut on the world wide web, on a slice of web space borrowed from the University of Arkansas. In most cases, the episode guides previously distributed via BBS are simply the text files posted on the web, though conversion into HTML documents gradually takes place. The gigantic full-screen graphical menu overwhelms many a dial-up web surfer and is quickly replaced with a simpler, text-based menu.
NASA’s Clementine lunar orbiter, its moon mapping mission complete, is directed to fire its engines to put it on a trajectory for asteroid 1620 Geographos, a near-Earth asteroid named for the National Geographic Society (which sponsored a sky survey that led to its discovery). But one of Clementine’s thrusters stays on too long, firing for 11 minutes and revving the vehicle up to an unrecoverable spin of 80 revolutions per minute, exhausting its entire fuel supply in the process. Clementine’s secondary mission to Geographos is abandoned, and its batteries are exhausted a month later.
Space Shuttle Endeavour leaves Earth for the first time, carrying a crew of seven to orbit on the 47th shuttle mission. Over nearly nine days, three spacewalks are taken up with the tricky and dangerous task of capturing a four-and-a-half-ton communications satellite into Endeavour’s cargo bay to repair and relaunch it. (The satellite, Intelsat VI, had been stranded in the wrong orbit since its 1990 launch aboard a Titan rocket.) The record-setting spacewalks involved – each lasting over seven hours and marking the first time three astronauts have operated outside their vehicle – force NASA to cancel one of two experimental EVAs to test space station construction techniques. Endeavour’s first crew consists of Commander Daniel Brandenstein, pilot Kevin Chilton, and mission specialists Pierre Thuot, Kathryn Thornton, Richard Hieb, Thomas Akers and Bruce Melnick.
The week-long national syndication window opens for the 69th episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Saul Rubinek (Warehouse 13) guest stars. 
The 18th episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 airs on KTMA, an independent TV station in Minneapolis, starring Joel Hodgson, Trace Beaulieu, and Josh Weinstein. 
NBC premieres the second part of its continuation of Kenneth Johnson’s alien invasion epic, V: The Final Battle. The birth of Robin’s alien-hybrid children is one of the genre cliffhangers of the decade. This marks the science fiction soundtrack debut of Dennis McCarthy, who later goes on to score most of the Star Trek spinoffs of the next three decades; he is tapped at a very late stage (mere days prior to broadcast) to rescore the entire miniseries – so late, in fact, that it’s ultimately impossible for him to redo the music for the first night in the time allotted. 
ITV airs the 74th episode of the anthology series Tales Of The Unexpected. David Cassidy (The Partridge Family) and Darren McGavin (Kolchak: The Night Stalker) guest star.
Atari releases the arcade video game Red Baron, a vector graphics game of first-person biplane dogfights. 
With the Jupiter encounter behind it, NASA’s Voyager 2 unmanned spacecraft is given a new backup mission plan, replacing the original Jupiter/Saturn backup plan implemented after a radio receiver failure befell the spacecraft in 1978. Intended to reap the minimum acceptable science observations (including photography) and transmit them to Earth should Voyager 2’s ability to receive new commands be lost, this new backup mission load now includes automated observation plans for Saturn and Uranus, the latter of which will not be reached until 1986.
The tenth episode of Harold Jack Bloom’s sci-fi series Project UFO airs on NBC, portraying fictionalized investigations into what the show claims are actual cases from the U.S. Air Force’s Project Blue Book investigations. William Jordan and Caskey Swaim star. Anthony Geary (General Hospital) and Dr. Joyce Brothers guest star.
NBC airs the pilot of Quark, a new series from Get Smart creator Buck Henry which marks an unlikely combination of science fiction and sitcom. The pilot broadcast gets enough attention to merit a series pickup, but within weeks, Henry’s writing staff is presented with a much meatier target for satire than Star Trek, which Quark originally sets out to parody. 
The science fiction TV movie-of-the-week Man From Atlantis II: The Death Scouts airs on NBC, starring Patrick Duffy and Belinda J. Montgomery. 
The fourth episode of Terry Nation’s post-apocalyptic series Survivors airs on BBC1. 
NASA launches Explorer 53, renamed Small Astronomy Satellite C, from an Italian-owned offshore launch platform off the coast of Kenya. SAS-C is a smaller spacecraft than NASA’s larger Orbiting Astronomical Observatory (OAO) series, but can be aimed very precisely at any cosmic X-ray sources that it detects. One of SAS-C’s discoveries is MXB1730-33, a binary star giving off rapid X-ray bursts. SAS-C will remain in orbit and functional until it re-enters Earth’s atmosphere in 1979.
The second episode of The Tomorrow People series premieres on ITV. Francis de Wolff guest stars. 
The 116th episode of Doctor Who airs on the BBC. This is part two of the story now collectively known as The Gunfighters.
The 55th episode of The Adventures Of Superman airs in syndication, starring George Reeves, Noel Neill, and Jack Larson. Harry Tyler guest stars.
The fifth episode of the syndicated science fiction Science Fiction Theatre airs on stations across the U.S. Hosted by Truman Bradley, the episode stars Marshall Thompson and Dean Evans.
The A.C. Nielsen Company publishes its first-ever television ratings in the United States, compiling data collected over a “sweep month” running from early April through early May of 1950. The top TV program at the time, according to Nielsen’s data gathering, is Milton Berle’s Texaco Star Theater. The Nielsen ratings and data collection methodology will attract controversy for decades to come, and will spell doom for many shows with small but loyal followings.