Doctor Who: Night Terrors
The 781st episode of Doctor Who (the 83rd since the series’ revival) airs on BBC1. Daniel Mays guest stars.
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Even Time Lords need a break
Hoping to stem endless press speculation, the BBC announces that Doctor Who will be taking a rest for much of 2009, with four specials keeping the series on the schedule rather than a full season. Fueling much of the speculation is the Royal Shakespeare Company’s announcement that David Tennant has been cast in an extended engagement as Hamlet, a production which will be mounted throughout 2009. The BBC reassures fans that Tennant will continue in the role, and that a full season will be seen again in 2010.
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The Outer Limits: Final Appeal
Showtime airs the 128th episode of The Outer Limits, a revival of the 1960s science fiction anthology series. Cicely Tyson, Robert Loggia, Hal Holbrook and Charlton Heston guest star in the sixth season finale. Showtime cancels the series, but it is picked up for a seventh and final season by the Sci-Fi Channel.
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Voyager: Scorpion, Part II
UPN airs the 68th episode of Star Trek: Voyager, beginning the fourth season. Jeri Ryan joins the cast as new series regular Seven of Nine, a woman rescued from years of Borg assimilation.
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Star Trek: Voyager now streaming on Paramount Plus
Soyuz TM-22
Russia launches the Soyuz TM-22 mission to space station Mir, carrying cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Avdeyev from Russia, and Thomas Reiter from Germany. The three space travelers settle in for a 179-day stay aboard Mir, from which they will return early in 1996.
Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.: The Orb Scholar
Fox airs the second episode of the sci-fi western, The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr., starring Bruce Campbell, Julius Carry, and Christian Clemenson. Billy Drago (The Untouchables) and Robert Picardo (Star Trek: Voyager) guest star.
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The Adventures Of Brisco County Jr. now streaming on Amazon Prime
Tales Of The Unexpected: The Turn Of The Tide
ITV airs the 84th episode of the anthology series Tales Of The Unexpected. Richard Basehart guest stars in the sixth season finale.
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Tales Of The Unexpected now streaming on Amazon Prime
Star Blazers
An English rewrite and dub of the 1974 anime series Space Battleship Yamato, titled Star Blazers, makes its syndication debut in the United States. The series’ first season chronicles a last-ditch mission to save Earth by retrieving alien technology from another planet within one year. In the English-speaking world, the series is “stripped” for daily broadcast (referring to airing the show almost like a daily comic strip, rather than any removal of show content).
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Hear about it on the Sci-Fi 5 podcast
Doctor Who: Horror Of Fang Rock, Part 1
The 454th episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1. The Rutans, shapeshifting mortal enemies of the Sontarans, appear for the first and only time in the original series. Doctor Who’s 15th season on the air begins with this episode.
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Viking 2 lands on Mars
NASA’s Viking 2 lander, launched from Earth almost exactly a year earlier touches down on Martian soil in the Utopia Planitia region. One of Viking 2’s three landing legs comes down on a rock, leaving the entire lander at an eight-degree angle to the ground. Identical to Viking 1, Viking 2 has its own soil sampling arm, though its series of tests for biological reactions within the soil produce inconclusive results (including at least one “positive” test for signs of life, later attributed to inorganic chemical reactions). Viking 2 will also later confirm that water exists, at least briefly, on the surface of Mars in the form of frost.
Science Fiction Theatre: Barrier Of Silence
The 19th episode of the syndicated science fiction Science Fiction Theatre airs on stations across the U.S. Hosted by Truman Bradley, the episode stars Warren Steves and Phyllis Coates.
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Operation Paperclip
President Truman, after months of weighing the pros and cons of offering amnesty to many of the German scientists involved in the V2 rocket program, signs off on Operation Paperclip, a project to repatriate those scientists to the United States. The initial estimate is that a thousand German scientists will be brought to the U.S., but over time the total will grow closer to 2,000, bringing well over 3,000 family members with them. Wernher von Braun and Hermann Oberth are among the scientists and engineers who accept the offer to work for the U.S., and their efforts, while they do have military value, will form the core of the nascent U.S. space program, with von Braun eventually designing the Saturn V rocket that will take future astronauts to the moon. The Soviet Union mounts a similar program in the weeks to come, attempting to repatriate German scientists and engineers to continue their rocketry research for the Soviets.