Day: January 17, 1969

Categories
Original Series Season 03 Star Trek

The Mark of Gideon

Star Trek ClassicStardate 5423.4: Kirk is planning to beam down to the overpopulated planet Gideon to meet with the leaders, but apparently arrives at the wrong place in a transporter malfunction (or so it seems to the Enterprise crew.) Kirk finds himself aboard the Enterprise, but cannot locate anyone else aboard except for Odona, who offers no answers to his bafflement at why no one is aboard the ship but him (or so he thinks). It turns out that the leaders of Gideon plan on using Odona – and now Kirk – as pawns in a horrific scheme to reduce the planet’s population…

Order this episode on DVDDownload this episode via Amazon's Unboxwritten by George F. Slavin and Stanley Adams
directed by Jud Taylor
music by Fred Steiner

Guest Cast: James Doohan (Mr. Scott), George Takei (Lt. Sulu), Nichelle Nichols (Lt. Uhura), Walter Koenig (Chekov), Sharon Acker (Odona), David Hurst (Hodin), Gene Dynarski (Krodak), Richard Derr (Admiral Fitzgerald)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Kolchak The Night Stalker Season 1

Primal Scream

Night StalkerA research scientist with an oil conglomerate is killed, his arm literally ripped from his body. The scientist’s project is wreathed in secrecy. Investigating further, Kolchak discovers that a number of earth samples were brought back from the Arctic by a company research team. The samples contained cellular organisms which, when accidentally thawed out, begin to reproduce at a rapid rate, growing into primate “missing link” creatures. There are several at large, attacking Chicago residents. Despite the ongoing cover-up by both the police and the conglomerate as they attempt to recover the primates, Kolchak tracks the remaining humanoid to its lair in the tunnels beneath the football stadium where the first atomic tests were conducted.

Order the DVDswritten by Bill S. Ballinger & David Chase
directed by Robert Scheerer
music by Gil Mille

Guest Cast: John Marley (Captain Molnar), Pat Harrington (Thomas Kitzmiller), Jamie Farr (Jack Burton), Katharine Woodville (Dr. Helen Lynch), Gary Baxley (the Primate)

Notes: There are a number of in-jokes in this story. One of the victims is named William Pratt (Boris Karloff’s real name). Another is watching The Mummy, a Universal picture, when he is killed. Universal, of course, was the series’ co-producer.

LogBook entry by Steve Crowe

Categories
Buck Rogers Season 1

A Blast For Buck

Buck Rogers In The 25th CenturyA mysterious object is transported directly into Doctor Huer’s office, putting the entire Earth Defense Directorate complex on alert and defying any attempts to scan its contents. When Buck touches the object, it transmits a vague but menacing riddle into Huer’s computer. Buck, Wilma and even Twiki take turns under Huer’s mind probe, trying to figure out who would have the resources to pull off such an elaborate scheme, and why such an entity wouldn’t simply attack Earth rather than sending a puzzle.

Order the DVDsteleplay by Richard Nelson
story by John Gaynor
directed by David Phinney
music by Stu Phillips

Cast: Gil Gerard (Buck Rogers), Erin Gray (Wilma Deering), Tim O’Connor (Doctor Huer), Patty Maloney (Twiki), Gary Coleman (Hieronymous Fox)

Appearing in footage from earlier episodes: Jack Palance (Kaleel), Peter Graves (Noah Cooper), Frank Gorshin (Kellogg), Pamela Hensley (Princess Ardala), Ray Walston (Roderick Zale), Buster Crabbe (Brigadier Gordon), Brianne Leary (Ryma), Pamela Susan Shoop (Tangie), Jamie Lee Curtis (Jen Burton)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Classic Season 20 Doctor Who

Snakedance

Doctor WhoHaving rejoined the TARDIS crew after their adventure with Omega in Amsterdam, Tegan begins experiencing recurring nightmares. The Doctor spots an even more pressing problem: someone has reset the TARDIS’ coordinates, and it can only have been Tegan. The time travelers arrive on the planet Manussa…the homeworld of the evil Mara influence which possessed Tegan on Deva Loka. In this point in Manussa’s history, the Mara has become a mere legend of an evil vanquished, and the cause for an annual celebration. But the Mara, now once again in control of Tegan’s body, intends to possess the minds of every Manussan during the height of the festivities – unless the Doctor can find a way to stop it.

Order the DVDwritten by Christopher Bailey
directed by Fiona Cumming
music by Peter Howell

Guest Cast: John Carson (Ambril), Colette O’ Neil (Tahna), Preston Lockwood (Dojjen), Martin Clunes (Lon), Brian Miller (Dugdale), Hilary Sesta (Fortune Teller), George Ballantine (Hawker), Jonathon Morris (Chela), Barry Smith (Puppeteer)

Broadcast from January 17 through 25, 1983

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Season 07 Star Trek The Next Generation

Homeward

Star Trek: The Next GenerationStardate 47423.9: Dr. Nikolai Rozhenko, Worf’s human foster brother, has sent a distress call from his hidden cultural observation post on Boral II, a planet whose atmosphere is going to break down in less than two days. Worf beams down, disguised as a Boralan, only to find that his brother has also been masquerading as a native and providing them with means of survival based on the technology of his observation post. Nikolai is admonished by Picard for his severe violation of the Prime Directive, but when the planet is within seconds of dying, commits an even greater breach by transporting a handful of Boralans into a holodeck simulation of the shelter on their world. The Enterprise crew – especially Worf – are now left with the dilemma of relocatintg the simplistic Boralans to a new world without revealing the true nature of their surroundings. Damage to the holodeck jeopardizes the mission.

Order the DVDsteleplay by Naren Shankar
television story by Spike Steingasser
based upon material by William N. Stape
directed by Alexander Singer
music by Dennis McCarthy

Guest Cast: Paul Sorvino (Nikolai Rozhenko), Penny Johnson (Dobara), Brian Markinson (Vorin), Edward Penn (Kateras), Susan Christy (Tarrana), Majel Barrett (Computer Voice)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Red Dwarf Season 07

Tikka To Ride

Red DwarfHaving survived a near-fatal encounter with their future selves, the crew of Starbug are faced with a far more serious scenario – the curry and lager stocks have been destroyed. Unable to come to terms with his grief, Lister is compelled to sabotage Kryten and reclaim the Time Drive. His plan? To pop back in time to an Indian take-away and order 500 curries. Unfortunately, the time device is a little bit rusty. Instead of depositing them within chomping distance of a chicken vindaloo, the wayward device places them in a certain book store depository in Dallas, on “the day that American King was shot.” After knocking Lee Harvey Oswald out the window, our intrepid curry-seekers inadvertently change history and prevent JFK’s assassination. To evade responsibility for Oswald’s demise, the Time Drive is once again activated and takes them to Dallas, 1966. The Starbug crew’s intervention in the natural flow of history has left America barren and deserted. With time enough to take stock of their situation, the foursome deduce that they must return back in time to intervene in their own intervention (obviously).

Season 7 Regular Cast: Chris Barrie (Rimmer), Craig Charles (Lister), Chloe Annett (Kochanski), Danny John-Jules (Cat), Robert Llewellyn (Kryten)

Order the DVDswritten by Doug Naylor
directed by Ed Bye
music by Howard Goodall

Guest Cast: Michael J. Shannon (John F. Kennedy), Toby Aspin (Lee Harvey Oswald), Peter Gaitens (FBI Agent), Peter Ashe (Cop)

LogBook entry by Mark Stevens

Categories
Cleopatra 2525 Season 1

Quest For Firepower

Cleopatra 2525Centuries before 2525 A.D., humanity was driven into vast networks of underground tunnels and chambers by flying mechanical aliens known as Bailies. Freedom fighters try to restore human control of Earth, but find themselves up against agents of the Bailies even underground. Hel and Sarge manage to reach the surface, a rarity for their generation of humans, only to find themselves in a firefight with a Bailey almost immediately. A third freedom fighter reveals himself to be a “traitor bot” – a mechanical assassin created by the Baileys to infiltrate and eliminate resistance cells. He injures Sarge, but fails to capture either Sarge or Hel.

Hel takes Sarge to an underground “body bank”, where they will have to barter for a new kidney to replace Sarge’s injured kidney. The shady characters operating the body bank have plenty of replacement organs to choose from, harvested from recently-recovered humans cryogenically frozen in the early 21st century, though they’re keeping one particularly attractive female intact for their own lascivious purposes. This woman awakens during Sarge’s operation and, having no knowledge of when or where she is, tries to escape, but when the traitor bot tracks Sarge down, all three women flee together. Sarge and Hel discover, much to their chagrin, that their new friend Cleopatra was what was known in the 21st century as an “exotic dancer”, and has no fighting experience whatsoever. But is there something she can contribute to the fight to save humanity?

teleplay by R.J. Stewart
story by Rob Tapert & R.J. Stewart
directed by Greg Yaitanes
music by Joseph Lo Duca

Cleopatra 2525Cast: Gina Torres (Hel), Victoria Pratt (Sarge), Jennifer Sky (Cleopatra), Patrick Kake (Mauser), David Press (Horst), Mark Williams (Cat Man), Elizabeth Hawthorne (Voice)

Notes: Airing as a CGI-heavy, half-hour action series in its first season, Cleopatra 2525 was hastily conceived as one of two shows to fill in the slot formerly occupied in the Universal Action Pack syndication package by Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, a show which had come to an abrupt end with the defection of its star, Kevin Sorbo, to Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda. (It shared Hercules’ former one-hour Cleopatra 2525time slot with the Bruce Campbell series Jack Of All Trades, which also clocked in at half an hour) All three of Cleopatra 2525’s leads had previously played roles on Hercules and Xena. American-born actress Jennifer Sky played Amarice in several Xena episodes, and would go on to make appearances in Charmed, CSI: Miami, and Fastlane. Canadian actress Victoria Pratt appeared as Cyane in the Xena two-parter Adventures In The Sin Trade, and immediately after Cleopatra 2525 moved on to the syndicated series Mutant X as one of its regulars; she has since appeared in Day Break, NCIS, and Cleopatra 2525Heartland. Gina Torres appeared as Nebula in several episodes of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, and after this series went on to the recurring role of Jasmine in the Buffy spinoff Angel, before taking the role of Zoe Washburne in Joss Whedon’s Firefly. She has since appeared in The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, 24, Alias, Standoff, Hannibal, and Suits, and has voiced characters in Justice League, Transformers Prime, and, most recently, Star Wars Rebels.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Season 5 Xena: Warrior Princess

Lyre, Lyre, Hearts On Fire

Xena: Warrior PrincessDraco and his men find one of Terpiscore’s golden lyres in the desert, but Amazons appear and claim that it belongs to them. As they are about to start fighting, Xena, Gabrielle and Joxer arrive. Xena takes the lyre and tells them that their dispute will be settled in a battle of the bands.

Order the DVDswritten by Adam Armus & Nora Kay Foster
directed by Mark Beesley
music by Joseph LoDuca

Guest Cast: Darien Takle (Cyrene), Ted Raimi (Joxer/Jace), Jay La’Gaia (Draco), Gillian Illiana Waters (Amoria), Susan Calloway and Susan Wood (Gabrielle vocals), Tony Bishop (Alabardus), Paul Norell (Falafel), Grant Bridger (Farmer Paxon), Jim Ngaata (Maximinimus), Christine Bartlett (Townsperson #2), Jeremy Birchall (double for Joxer/Jace), Stephen Butterworth (Small Guy), Geoff Dolan (Henchman #1), Latham Gaines (Rich Guy), Bruce Hopkins (Barkeep), Olaf John (Leader), Geoff Knight (Big Man), Ciaran Pennington (Young Man), Guy Ryan (Sex Symbol Guy), Clint Sharplin (Townsperson #1)

LogBook entry by Mary Terrell

Categories
Season 07 Star Trek Voyager

Shattered

Star Trek: VoyagerStardate not given: A temporal anomaly stops Voyager in its path, creating dangerous feedback in the warp core – which then lashes out into engineering and strikes Chakotay. The first officer is rushed to sick bay, only to wake up to find that the Doctor doesn’t know what a mobile emitter is. A visit to the bridge proves to be even more surprising – Captain Janeway orders him arrested as a Maquis fugitive, even though she’s surprised to see him since Voyager has yet to depart Deep Space Nine on the mission to retrieve the Maquis. The cargo bay is crawling with Borg drones, including a still fully assimilated Seven of Nine. The astrometrics lab is manned by Icheb and Naomi Wildman, both adults and running the ship since the death of the command crew. And in engineering, Seska and the Kazons have taken over the ship. Time has fractured Voyager into countless splinters of past and future – but the only one who can perceive this is Chakotay, so how can he prove it to anyone else and repair the timelines?

Order the DVDsteleplay by Michael Taylor
story by Michael Sussman & Michael Taylor
directed by Terry Windell
music by

Guest Cast: Manu Intiraymi (Icheb), Martin Rayner (Dr. Chaotica), Martha Hackett (Seska), Scarlett Pomers (Naomi Wildman), Mark Bennington (adult Icheb), Vanessa Branch (adult Naomi), Terrell Clayton (Andrews)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
8th Doctor

Invaders From Mars

Invaders From MarsThe Doctor and Charley arrive in Manhattan just before Halloween, 1938. One of the first things Charley encounters upon her first visit to New York City is the body of a recently murdered private detective. When a woman arrives at the gumshoe’s office to hire him, the Doctor impersonates him and agrees to take on the case of her missing uncle (to Charley’s alarm). But things aren’t as they seem – Charley is kidnapped by mobsters, and even the Doctor’s new client isn’t who she seems. As Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater Players prepare to broadcast their infamous panic-inducing radio adaptation of “The War Of The Worlds”, a very real alien invasion is taking place – and the Doctor hopes to use one to fight the other.

Order this CDwritten by Mark Gatiss
directed by Mark Gatiss
music by Alistair Lock

Cast: Paul McGann (The Doctor), India Fisher (Charley), Ian Hallard (Mouse), Mark Benton (Ellis), Jonathan Rigby (John Houseman), David Benson (Orson Welles), Paul Putner (Bix Biro), Simon Pegg (Don Chaney), Jessica Stevenson (Glory Bee), John Arthur (Cosmo Devine)

Timeline: after Minuet In Hell and before The Chimes Of Midnight

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
Discovery Season 2 Star Trek

Brother

Star Trek: DiscoveryStardate not given: Moments after receiving a distress signal from the Enterprise, Discovery receives a request from Captain Christopher Pike to beam aboard. Crippled in space by an inexplicable system-wide failure, the Enterprise has suffered serious damage, and Pike has orders from Starfleet Command to temporarily assume command of Discovery due to an impending crisis. The crew is somewhat skeptical of the unscheduled change in command, given that their previous captain turned out to be a treacherous impostor from a parallel universe, but the emergency at hand – the sudden emergence of seven simultaneous signals in different parts of the galaxy, emitting a powerful signal – demands an extraordinary response.

The one signal out of seven that can be tracked leads Discovery into a dangerous field of asteroids and debris, with a crashed Starfleet medical ship at its epicenter. Pike and Burnham lead an extremely dangerous rescue mission to see if there are survivors aboard the ship, finding the haggard engineer Commander Reno in her tenth month of keeping critically wounded survivors of the Klingon war alive with nothing more than whatever is still working in her downed ship. Burnham is nearly stranded amid the wreckage ensuring the escape, but Pike refuses to leave her behind – and just before he arrives, she sees an inexplicable apparition in a red haze. Other asteroids in the vicinity are causing the spores grown for Discovery‘s now-disused spore drive to react, and Tilly decides a sample is needed…in the form of an entire small asteroid. The Enterprise‘s damage is determined to be severe enough for it to be towed back to spacedock, and Captain Pike is assigned to remain in command of Discovery. Burnham hopes there will be time for her to visit her brother, Spock, aboard the Enterprise… but Pike reveals that Spock hasn’t been aboard for quite some time.

Order DVDsStream this episode via Amazonwritten by Ted Sullivan & Gretchen J. Berg & Aaron Harberts
directed by Alex Kurtzman
music by Jeff Russo

Star Trek DiscoveryCast: Sonequa Martin-Green (Commander Michael Burnham), Doug Jones (Lt. Commander Saru), Anthony Rapp (Lt. Paul Stamets), Mary Wiseman (Cadet Sylvia Tilly), Wilson Cruz (Dr. Hugh Culber), Anson Mount (Captain Christopher Pike), James Frain (Sarek), Mia Kershner (Amanda), Tig Notaro (Commander Jett Reno), Hannah Chessman (Lt. Commander Airiam), Emily Coutts (Lt. Keyla Detmer), Patrick Kwok-Choon (Lt. General Rhys), Oyin Oladejo (Lt. Joann Owosekun), Ronnie Rowe Jr. (Lt. R.A. Bryce), Ethan Peck (Spock), Sean Connolly Affleck (Lt. Connolly), Rachael Ancheril (Commander Nhan), Arista Arhin (young Burnham), Raven Dauda (Dr. Tracy Pollard), Julianne Grossman (Discovery Computer), Liam Hughes (young Spock), Sara Mitich (Lt. Nilsson), David Benjamin Tomlinson (Linus)

Star Trek DiscoveryNotes: Not to be confused with the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode Brothers (1990), Brother plunges head-first into the task of connecting the dots between Discovery and the rest of Star Trek continuity, including the revelation that the Enterprise’s five-year mission of exploration under Pike took it beyond the reach of the Klingon war depicted in the first season of Discovery. Stamets’ ethno-botanist former colleague aboard the Enterprise may or may not be one Hikaru Sulu, who didn’t appear in The Cage (set four years prior to this episode) but may well have been aboard. Saru’s sister Siranna (Short Treks: The Brightest Star) is mentioned as well. A transporter operator aboard Discovery appears to be wearing what may be a bulkier (primitive?) version of the VISOR worn by Geordi La Forge in The Next Generation. Commander Nhan, a member of Pike’s crew from the Enterprise, is a Barzan (TNG: The Price). Pike’s service record appears on Discovery‘s main viewscreen, allowing us to see that he took command of the Enterprise from its first commander, Captain Robert April (Star Trek: The Animated Series: The Counter-Clock Incident), and served under April prior to that.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Orville, The Season 2

Nothing Left On Earth Excepting Fishes

The OrvilleCaptain Mercer has been keeping a romantic relationship with the Orville’s new dark matter cartographer, Lt. Janel Tyler, hush-hush, but finally begins letting the word out ahead of a vacation shuttle trip with her. But as if often the case, Mercer can’t have nice things: a small group of Krill fighters seem to home in on the shuttle, even when it’s cloaked, until it is captured by a larger Krill ship. The Krill separate the two and demand Mercer’s command codes, and it is only then that he learns that Lt. Janel Tyler is Telaya, a Krill who Mercer met which disguised as a Trill himself. Acting as a surgically-altered Krill deep-cover agent, Telaya is returning the favor, but a surprise attack by another enemy of the Krill forces the two into an escape pod which sets down on a planet inhospitable to Telaya, who, like all Krill, cannot survive direct exposure to sunlight. With the Krill’s enemies hunting them down, Mercer has to find a way to signal the Orville…and protect a woman who’s holding him at gunpoint.

Download this episode via Amazonwritten by Brannon Braga & Andre Bormanis
directed by Jon Cassar
music by Joel McNeely

The OrvilleCast: Seth MacFarlane (Captain Ed Mercer), Adrianne Palicki (Commander Kelly Grayson), Penny Johnson Jerald (Dr. Claire Finn), Scott Grimes (Lt. Gordon Malloy), Peter Macon (Lt. Commander Bortus), J Lee (Lt. John LaMarr), Mark Jackson (Isaac), Chad Coleman (Klyden), Michaela McManus (Telaya / Lt. Janel Tyler), Patrick Warburton (Lt. Tharl), Chris Johnson (Cassius), Michael Traynor (Krill Captain), Nathan Dana Aldrich (Krill Officer), Greta Jung (Comm Officer), Giovanni Bejarano (Security Officer), Michele Boyd (Lieutenant Dorsett), Fred Tatasciore (Krill voice)

The OrvilleNotes: Mercer and Gordon met Telaya in season one’s Krill, while “Lt. Tyler” boarded the Orville at the beginning of season two (Ja’loja), though Michaela McManus was not credited in that episode, presumably to avoid tipping the hand of this episode’s plot developments (and perhaps to confuse speculation as to who would replace Halston Sage as a series regular).

LogBook entry by Earl Green