Retrogram #2130: This & That Episode
theLogBook.com releases the 28th episode of the Retrogram podcast, hosted by Earl Green, covering upcoming classic genre TV DVD and Blu-Ray releases, upcoming audio dramas based on classic genre TV series, and other merchandise of interest.
Eureka: Up In The Air
Syfy airs the 57th episode of the science fiction series Eureka, starring Colin Ferguson, Salli Richardson-Whitfield, and Joe Morton. Wil Wheaton (Star Trek: The Next Generation), Debrah Farentino (Earth 2), Felicia Day (Mystery Science Theater 3000), and Tembi Locke (Sliders) guest star.
More about Eureka in the LogBook and theLogBook.com Store
Eureka now streaming on Amazon Prime
Eureka: Before I Forget
Sci-Fi Channel airs the third episode of the quirky modern-day science fiction series Eureka, starring Colin Ferguson, Salli Richardson, Debrah Farentino, Joe Morton, and Matt Frewer. (In the UK and elsewhere, this series is retitled A Town Called Eureka.) Tamlyn Tomita (Babylon 5, Star Trek: Picard) guest stars.
More about Eureka in the LogBook and theLogBook.com Store
Eureka now streaming on Amazon Prime
Arcade Fever
Running Press publishes John Sellers’ non-fictional recap of the video game industry’s early landmark titles, “Arcade Fever” (initially announced as “Arcade Planet”). Focusing almost entirely on coin-op games from the 1970s and 1980s, and illustrated with emulator screen shots and game cabinet artwork, the book is subtitled “The Fan’s Guide to the Golden Age of Video Games”. Its irreverent tone is less scholarly than some of the other books on the same topic published around this time.
Stargate SG-1: The Enemy Within
Pay cable channel Showtime premieres the second episode of Stargate SG-1.
More about Stargate SG-1 in the LogBook and theLogBook.com Store
Stargate SG-1 now streaming on Amazon Prime
Honor Harrington: In Enemy Hands
Baen Books publishes the seventh novel in the Honor Harrington series, “In Enemy Hands” by David Weber.
Soyuz TM-10
The Soviet Union launches Soyuz TM-10, carrying cosmonauts Gennadi Manakov and Gennady Strekalov to space station Mir for a long-duration stay in orbit. After a 130-day stay aboard Mir, the TM-10 crew returns, bringing with them Japanese TV reporter Toyohiro Akiyama, who would arrive aboard Mir via Soyuz TM-11 in December. Strekalov will return to serve another tour aboard Mir in the 1990s, becoming the first Russian cosmonaut to arrive in a Soyuz and return home in an American space shuttle.
Voyager 2 and the eight pixels
From within 500 million miles, cameras aboard NASA’s Voyager 2 unmanned space probe can now get a better look at planet Neptune than is possible with ground-based telescopes on Earth – even though, at present, that means a tiny disk only eight pixels across in images measuring 800 x 800 pixels. Voyager 2 is still over a year away from its closest encounter with Neptune, and even its own best photos don’t reveal any detail in the blue-green planet’s atmosphere. What is known is that, despite receiving less than half the sunlight and heat of the next innermost planet, Uranus, Neptune maintains the same temperature as Uranus. This means that Neptune is generating more heat than it receives from the sun.
Tales Of The Unexpected: In The Bag
ITV airs the 66th episode of the anthology series Tales Of The Unexpected. Edward Albert and Terry O’Quinn (Lost) guest star.
More about Tales Of The Unexpected in theLogBook.com Store
Tales Of The Unexpected now streaming on Amazon Prime
MTV
MTV (Music Television), a New York City-based cable channel, goes on the air at one minute after midnight, premiering with the Buggles’ music video “Video Killed The Radio Star”. This heralds the beginning of the dominance of music videos in the music industry, though at first MTV’s format is to concentrate heavily on mainstream rock, new wave and semi-obscure acts (Split Enz features twice within the first 30 videos played). MTV quickly comes in for criticism that black artists are sorely underrepresented in its rotation. In later years, MTV uses its influence with younger viewers to raise political awareness, though it will eventually replace much of its music-related programming with game shows, reality shows, and other programming, until the “music” of “Music Television” becomes somewhat misleading.
Armor… Attack
Cinematronics’ vector graphics arcade wargame Armor… Attack hits the market, pitting players against armed ground vehicles and enemy helicopters. (Of course, players have to insert their entire defense budget of 25 cents first, and even then, it’s still down to reflexes.)
Atari releases the arcade game The last of the Lunar Orbiters
NASA’s final Lunar Orbiter satellite is sent to the moon, with a goal of completing the mapping of the moon’s surface left unfinished by mechanical issues with its predecessor. Lunar Orbiter 5 completes the mapping of the lunar far side and helps engineers and scientists determine signal coverage from the Earth-based tracking stations that will help NASA stay in contact with future Apollo missions to the moon.
The Doctor, deleted
Though every episode of the series to date has been flagged for indefinite retention due to its popularity in foreign markets, for the first time, the BBC archive issues instructions to erase most of the first three seasons of Doctor Who. This covers every episode from An Unearthly Child through the final episode of The Gunfighters, and it is at this point that many complete stories are lost forever in video form (such as Marco Polo and The Massacre), and huge swaths of the series’ run are erased as well (much of the 12-part epic The Daleks’ Master Plan). The series thus far has been produced in 405 line PAL videotape, and a new 625 line standard will become the default recording/transmission option in 1968. Many of the erased episodes are recovered years later from the foreign markets to which they were sold, from Africa to the Middle East, but many are never seen again.
Doctor Who: A Desperate Venture
The 36th episode of Doctor Who airs on the BBC. This is part six of the story now collectively known as The Sensorites.
More about Doctor Who in the LogBook
Order VWORP!1 from theLogBook.com Store
Quatermass: Very Special Knowledge
The BBC airs the third episode of Nigel Kneale’s trend-setting science fiction series The Quatermass Experiment, starring Reginald Tate as Prof. Bernard Quatermass. This episode was not archived and does not exist in the BBC’s archives.
Tales Of Tomorrow: Sudden Darkness
The 42nd episode of ABC’s science fiction anthology series, Tales Of Tomorrow, airs on ABC, with each episode’s opening titles proclaiming that the series is produced “in cooperation with the Science-Fiction League of America”, a collective of sci-fi writers including Isaac Asimov and Theodore Sturgeon among its members. This episode is missing from the archives and may be lost.
This series is not yet chronicled in the LogBook. You could help change that.
The Atomic Energy Act of 1946
President Truman signs the Atomic Energy Act into law, laying the groundwork for both future military development of nuclear weapons and a civilian nuclear energy industry, though the latter will take time (and further amendments to the law) to develop. The primary development of the initial version of the law is the founding of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, a civilian agency intended to lead both areas of development (and intended to take over from the scientists who, up until now, had been operating in secret as part of the Manhattan Project). Over time, the Commission’s responsibilities will grow to include regulation, safety, and disposal of dangerous radioactive material. Major amendments will be made in 1954 under President Eisenhower to encourage the peacetime nuclear power industry to grow.