Day: February 13, 1965

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Classic Season 02 Doctor Who

The Web Planet

Doctor WhoAfter the TARDIS leaves Rome behind, it’s dragged off course to the planet Vortis, where some force keeps the time machine trapped. The Doctor’s attempts to take off again are futile, and he and Ian leave the TARDIS as Vicki recovers from hearing a strange noise that had an unusual effect on her. Aboard the TARDIS, Babara also experiences something odd, as though she’s being drawn out of the time machine and onto the planet’s surface. There, she encounters the butterfly-like Menoptera, who are desperately planning the last battle of a war against the ant-like Zarbi, who have the advantage in their sheer numbers. Controlled by a malevolent consciousness called the Animus, the Zarbi move the TARDIS from its landing site, capture the Doctor, Ian and Vicki, and make a deal with the Doctor: his friends’ lives will only be spared if he helps to defeat the Menoptera.

written by Bill Strutton
directed by Richard Martin / insect movement by Roslyn de Winter
music from stock music library

Guest Cast: Robert Jewell, Jack Pitt, Gerald Taylor, Hugh Lund, John Scott Martin, Kevin Manser (Zarbi), Roslyn de Winter (Vrestin), Arne Gordon (Hrostar), Arthur Blake (Hrhoonda), Jolyon Booth (Prapilius), Jocelyn Birdsall (Hlynia), Martin Jarvis (Captain Hilio), Ian Thompson (Hetra), Barbara Joss (Nemini), Catherine Fleming (voice of the Animus)

Broadcast from February 13 through March 20, 1965

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Blake's 7 Season 1

Mission To Destiny

Blake's 7The Liberator stops to aid a damaged spacecraft whose crew is entirely asleep when Blake, Cally and Avon arrive. The ship’s guidance systems and life support system have been sabotaged. When Blake and Avon get the life support system back online, the crew has no idea what has happened. Kendall, the captain of the ship, reveals that he and his people are from the agricultural world Destiny, whose ecosphere has become unviable. The ship was dispatched to get the neutrotope, which would render Destiny fertile again, and with its damage, the ship has no hope of reaching Destiny in any time under five months, and that delay could set the planet’s harvest back by another year. Blake makes Kendall an offer: Avon and Cally will stay aboard to help repair the ship’s systems, and the neutrotope will reach Destiny in four days via the Liberator. Avon and Cally slowly unravel the mystery of numerous occurring murders on the ship and finally find that a message written by the dying pilot – 54124 – is actually the name of the murderer…

written by Terry Nation
directed by Pennant Roberts
music by Dudley Simpson

Cast: Gareth Thomas (Blake), Sally Knyvette (Jenna), Paul Darrow (Avon), Jan Chappell (Cally), Michael Keating (Vila), David Jackson (Gan), Peter Tuddenham (Zen), Barry Jackson (Kendall), Beth Morris (Sara), Stephen Tate (Mandrian), Nigel Humphreys (Sonheim), Kate Coleridge (Levett), Carl Forgione (Grovane), John Leeson (Pasco), Brian Caprion (Rafford), Stuart Fell (Dortmunn)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Blake's 7 Season 2

Trial

Blake's 7Overwhelmed with remorse for Gan’s death, Blake teleports himself down to an unidentified planet to serve his penance, leaving no clues for the crew to locate him. Meanwhile, Servalan has brought up a charge of mass murder to file against Travis to have him discharged from space service, and she has also seen to it that Travis has no chance of an innocent verdict or an appeal. Blake discovers that his planet is not as uninhabited as Zen has postulated and is forced to find his way back to the ship when the planet turns out to be a living organism – and a hungry one at that. Once back on the Liberator, Blake decides to attack Space Command Headquarters, and the attack is a devastating one with one oversight: the confusion of the attack allows Travis to escape with his own ship, now a renegade himself.

written by Chris Boucher
directed by Derek Martinus
music by Dudley Simpson

Cast: Gareth Thomas (Blake), Sally Knyvette (Jenna), Paul Darrow (Avon), Jan Chappell (Cally), Michael Keating (Vila), Peter Tuddenham (Zen, Orac), Jacqueline Pearce (Servalan), Brian Croucher (Travis), John Savident (Samor), John Bryans (Bercol), Peter Miles (Rontane), Victoria Fairbrother (Thania), Claire Lewis (Zil), Kevin Lloyd (Par), Graham Sinclair (Lye), Colin Dunn (Guard Commander)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
National Public Radio Star Wars

Freedom’s Winter

The Empire Strikes Back NPR Radio DramaIn the wake of their successful mission to destroy the Death Star, the Rebel Alliance has stirred up an Imperial hornets’ nest. Driven from the relative safety of the Yavin system, the Rebels set up shop on an ice planet called Hoth, which is inhospitable bordering on unsurvivable. This distant outpost requires constant resupply of equipment (and soldiers) capable of surviving sub-freezing temperatures, but the Empire has been tightening the noose by blasting supply convoys out of space. Han and Luke are surveying Hoth’s surface to pinpoint the cause of unusual sensor readings when Luke heads out on his own to investigate what looks like a meteor impact. But before he can reach it, Luke is savagely attacked by a wampa, a vicious carnivore native to Hoth. He’s able to summon the power of the Force to help him escape the wampa’s lair, but even the Force can’t stretch the limits of human endurance – without backup or a way to get back to the Rebel base, Luke is stranded in the frozen wasteland overnight.

Order this CDwritten by Brian Daley
based on the screenplay Star Wars by George Lucas
directed by John Madden
music by John Williams

Cast: Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker), Perry King (Han Solo), Ann Sachs (Princess Leia Organa), Billy Dee Williams (Lando Calrissian), Brock Peters (Lord Darth Vader), John Lithgow (Yoda), Anthony Daniels (C-3PO), Bernard Behrens (Obi-Wan Kenobi), James Eckhouse (Beta), Peter Friedman (Dak), Ron Frazier (Deck Officer), Merwin Goldsmith (General Rieekan), Peter Michael Goetz (Ozzel), Gordon Gould (Veers), Paul Hecht (The Emperor), Russell Horton (2-1B), James Hurdle (Controller), Nicholas Kepros (Needa), David Rasche (Piett), Alan Rosenburg (Boba Fett), Jay Sanders (Imperial Pilot), Don Scarino (Wedge), Ken Hiller (Narrator)

Supporting Cast: David Alan Grier, Sam McMurray, Steven Markle, Stephen D. Newman, John Pielmeier, Geoffrey Pierson, Gary Tacon, Jerry Zaks

Categories
Blackadder Season 2

Beer

BlackadderEdmund challenges Lord Melchett to a drinking contest despite the fact that one drink causes Edmund to start singing “that song about the goblin.” Complicating matters is the fact that Edmund’s aunt and uncle, the puritanical Lord and Lady Whiteadder, are coming over for dinner to discuss his inheritance on the very same night…

Order the DVDswritten by Richard Curtis and Ben Elton
directed by Mandie Fletcher
music by Howard Goodall

Guest Cast: Miriam Margolyes (Lady Whiteadder), Hugh Laurie (Simon Partridge), Roger Blake (Geoffrey Piddle), William Hootkins (Monk), Daniel Thorndike (Lord Whiteadder)

Notes: Miriam Margolyes makes her second appearance here, following her work in The Black Adder (The Queen Of Spain’s Beard). She returns again in Blackadder’s Christmas Carol.

Hugh Laurie returns in the final episode of Blackadder II (Chains). He was a regular cast member of the remaining series. Laurie is perhaps best known for his portrayal of Bertie Wooster opposite Stephen Fry’s Jeeves in the TV series Jeeves and Wooster. He is also known for his appearances in the Stuart Little films as the human father of the little mouse, Stuart.

LogBook entry by Philip R. Frey

Categories
Season 02 Star Trek The Next Generation

The Measure Of A Man

Star Trek: The Next GenerationStardate 42523.7: When Data refuses to participate in a Starfleet scientist’s android experiments where he will serve not only as a blueprint but as a guinea pig and spare part supply, he is put on trial and Picard wrangles with the premise that Data is not a free agent but the property of Starfleet – and Captain Louvois assigns Riker to prosecute.

Order the DVDswritten by Melinda M. Snodgrass
directed by Robert Scheerer
music by Dennis McCarthy

Cast: Patrick Stewart (Captain Picard), Jonathan Frakes (Commander Riker), LeVar Burton (Lt. Geordi La Forge), Michael Dorn (Lt. Worf), Marina Sirtis (Counselor Troi), Brent Spiner (Lt. Commander Data), Wil Wheaton (Wesley Crusher), Diana Muldaur (Dr. Pulaski), Amanda McBroom (Captain Phillipa Louvois), Clyde Kusatsu (Admiral Nakamura), Brian Brophy (Commander Bruce Maddox), Whoopi Goldberg (Guinan), Colm Meaney (Chief O’Brien)

Notes: Bruce Maddox’s later attempts to recreate Data are a major plot point of the first season of Star Trek: Picard (2020), though the role of Maddox is recast.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Deep Space Nine Season 03 Star Trek

Destiny

Star Trek: Deep Space NineStardate 48543.2: The first joint scientific venture between Bajor and Cardassia is to be a communications relay satellite placed at the Gamma Quadrant end of the wormhole, and two Cardassian scientists – with an observer from the Obsidian Order not far behind – arrive on DS9 to deliver the payload. As if the unease about the new Bajoran-Cardassian peace accord isn’t enough, Vedek Yarka arrives from Bajor to inform Sisko – still regarded as the Emissary in Bajoran culture – that prophecy predicts the Cardassians’ presence will result in calamity, not the least of which will be the closure of the wormhole. As the mission progresses, it all starts adding up as prophesied, including the appearance of a comet which could damage or destroy the wormhole.

Order the DVDsDownload this episode via Amazonwritten by David S. Cohen & Martin A. Winer
directed by Les Landau
music by Dennis McCarthy

Cast: Avery Brooks (Commander Benjamin Sisko), Rene Auberjonois (Odo), Siddig El Fadil (Dr. Julian Bashir), Terry Farrell (Lt. Jadzia Dax), Cirroc Lofton (Jake Sisko), Colm Meaney (Chief O’Brien), Armin Shimerman (Quark), Nana Visitor (Major Kira Nerys), Tracy Scoggins (Gilora), Wendy Robie (Ulani), Erick Avari (Vedek Yarka), Jessica Hendra (Dejar)

Notes: A few years later, Tracy Scoggins would board another space station, appearing as Captain Lochley in the final season of Babylon 5.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Season 01 Star Trek Voyager

The Cloud

Star Trek: VoyagerStardate 48546.2: Investigating a nebula whose energy currents could replenish the ship’s engines and other systems, Voyager penetrates the gases of the nebula, which turns out to be a huge life form. The ship’s entry injures the creature, and Voyager barely makes it back into open space intact. Though it will further deplete the ship’s energy reserves, Janeway feels that the crew is obligated to return to the nebula-entity and repair the damage caused by Voyager’s intrusion.

Order the DVDsteleplay by Tom Szollosi & Michael Piller
story by Brannon Braga
directed by David Livingston
music by Jay Chattaway

Cast: Kate Mulgrew (Captain Kathryn Janeway), Robert Beltran (Chakotay), Roxann Biggs-Dawson (B’Elanna Torres), Jennifer Lien (Kes), Robert Duncan McNeill (Tom Paris), Ethan Phillips (Neelix), Robert Picardo (The Doctor), Tim Russ (Tuvok), Garrett Wang (Ensign Harry Kim), Angela Dohrman (Ricky), Judy Geeson (Sandrine), Larry A. Hankin (Gaunt Gary), Luigi Amodeo (The Gigolo)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Season 01 SG-1 Stargate

Tin Man

Stargate SG-1A visit to the planet PX-939 quickly becomes terrifying for SG-1. They are immobilized by an energy discharge near the stargate, awakening later in new uniforms. A man named Harlan claims to have made the team “better,” but when they insist on returning to Earth, Harlan tells them they’ll be back. During the routine post-mission medical exam, Dr. Fraiser discovers that all four of the members of SG-1 now appear to be robotic rather than human, despite having all of their memories intact. General Hammond has SG-1 confined until they begin to malfunction. SG-1 returns through the gate, where Harlan reveals that he, too, is a synthetic – and has been for 11,000 years. He has recreated SG-1 as synthetics to help him in the daunting task of maintaining the planet, and also to keep him company. But even as they learn the advantages and abilities of their new bodies, O’Neill and the others can’t help but wonder…what happened to their organic bodies?

Order the DVDsDownload this episode via Amazon's Unboxwritten by Jeff King
directed by Jimmy Kaufman
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: Jay Brazeau (Harlan), Teryl Rothery (Dr. Fraiser), Dan Shea (O’Neill alternate)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Lexx Season 3

May

LexxConvinced by Xev that he is vital to controlling the Lexx, Prince releases Stan and tries to persuade him to hand over the ship’s key – but even with Xev trying to convince him, Stan isn’t sold on the idea. On the planet Water, Kai plummets out of the sky, having jumped off the hull of the Lexx through the two worlds’ connected atmosphere, and lands at an oceanside city. Here he meets May, a lovely woman who seems to be the only survivor of a recent battle. A balloon from Fire arrives, and Kai quickly dispatches its crew after they try to kill him. With May, he pilots the balloon through the atmosphere to Fire to search for Xev. Once near Prince’s palace, May avails herself of an opportunity to assassinate Fire’s leader, earning an instant grudge from the smitten Xev. They escape Fire and return, via balloon, to the Lexx. But having escaped Prince and his demands to use Lexx to destroy Water, Stan is now asked by May to destroy Fire…and Xev is outraged when he seriously considers it.

Order the DVDswritten by Paul Donovan
directed by Chris Bould
music by Marty Simon

Guest Cast: Nigel Bennett (Prince), Anna Kathrin Bleuler (May)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Season 07 Star Trek Voyager

The Void

Star Trek: VoyagerStardate 54553.4: Voyager is pulled off-course into an enclosed void littered with the debris of hundreds of dead ships. Once inside, new ships are immediately attacked by other ships, and Voyager quickly becomes the latest target. Though the crew is able to defend the ship, its supply of deuterium is stolen, leaving only very limited warp capability. Other assailants descend upon Voyager like vultures, each one stating that survival in the Void requires nothing more than strength and viciousness. After a one-shot attempt to escape fails, leaving Voyager dead in space and barely able to defend itself, Janeway hatches a plan to establish a new balance of power by forming mutually advantageous alliances with other ships and crews trapped in the Void…but no one seems eager to join Janeway’s Federation-in-miniature.

Order the DVDsteleplay by Raf Green & James Kahn
story by Raf Green & Kenneth Biller
directed by Mike Vejar
music by

Guest Cast: Robin Sachs (Valen), Paul Willson (Loquar), Scott Lawrence (Garon), Jonathan Del Arco (Fantome), Michael Shamus Wiles (Bosaal)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Enterprise Season 01 Star Trek

Shuttlepod One

Star Trek: EnterpriseTrip and Reed take a shuttlepod out to test a new systems modification which requires at least 20,000 kilometers’ distance from the Enterprise. At the same time, the Enterprise moves away from the rendezvous point to render aid to an alien ship in distress, but the rescue goes awry, leaving both vessels damaged. When the shuttlepod returns to the agreed-upon asteroid belt rendezvous, Trip and Reed see wreckage from the Enterprise – in reality debris from the recent accident – strewn across one of the asteroids, and they assume the worst: no one will arrive to pick them up, they have mere days of oxygen left, and they have no chance of reaching an inhabited world before then.

Order DVDsDownload this episode via Amazon's Unboxwritten by Rick Berman & Brannon Braga
directed by David Livingston
music by Jay Chattaway

Cast: Scott Bakula (Captain Jonathan Archer), Jolene Blalock (Subcommander T’Pol), John Billingsley (Dr. Phlox), Dominic Keating (Lt. Malcolm Reed), Anthony Montgomery (Ensign Travis Mayweather), Linda Park (Ensign Hoshi Sato), Connor Trinneer (Commander Charles “Trip” Tucker III)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Season 2 Torchwood

Adam

TorchwoodRhys helps make Gwen just a little bit late for work, and when she arrives, there’s an unfamiliar face at Torchwood – a man named Adam who everyone else already seems to know. When he puts his hand on her shoulder, however, Gwen remembers him instantly – of course, it’s Adam, a longtime member of the Torchwood team. But when Gwen gets home, she suddenly can’t remember Rhys and thinks he’s an intruder (despite everyone else in Torchwood knowing who he is). Everyone confides in Adam, and more importantly, everyone’s got nothing but good memories of working with Adam. But by chance, Ianto encounters evidence that Adam isn’t a part of Torchwood and never has been – and when he confronts Adam with this discovery, Adam threatens to reveal Ianto’s dark secret.

Order the DVDsDownload this episodewritten by Catherine Tregenna
directed by Andy Goddard
music by Ben Foster

Guest Cast: Kai Owen (Rhys Williams), Bryan Dick (Adam), Demetri Goritsas (Jack’s Father), Lauren Ward (Jack’s Mother), Jack Montgomery (young Jack), Ethan Brooke (Gray), Rhys Myers (young Ethan), Paul Kasey (Weevil), Jo McLaren (Murdered Woman)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Season 2 Torchwood

Reset

TorchwoodA series of unexplained deaths attracts the attention of both Torchwood and UNIT, resulting in a rare collaboration. UNIT loans out its new medical officer, Dr. Martha Jones, to Torchwood – and the rest of Torchwood seems terribly surprised when Martha and Jack seem to go back a long way. But even more troubling is the evidence Martha finds during the autopsy of the latest victim – a needle mark in his eye, and a substance in his bloodstream that she thinks is erasing medical evidence. Another victim turns up, alive, but shortly before she dies, she tells Martha and Owen that she had previously had HIV, but that it was miraculously cured by a drug called Reset that she took as part of a clinical trial. When she dies, insects erupt from her open mouth, and then die just as suddenly. They turn out to be of alien origin, but the organization conducting human trials of Reset is keeping everything very hush-hush – and they’re aware of Torchwood’s investigation. Martha volunteers to pass herself off as a new clinical test subject, but even with Jack and his team backing her up, she may be in over her head – and getting her out of danger turns out to be a deadlier endeavour than usual.

Order the DVDsDownload this episodewritten by J.C. Wilsher
directed by Ashley Way
music by Ben Foster

Guest Cast: Freema Agyeman (Dr. Martha Jones), Alan Dale (Copley), Jacqueline Boatswain (Plummer), Jan Anderson (Marie), Rhodri Miles (Billy), Michael Sewell (Mike), John Samuel Worsey (Policeman)

Notes: The “mayfly”‘s method of incubating its larvae inside the human body have led some fans to draw the conclusion that the enormous insects are, or are related to, the Wirrn fought by the fourth Doctor in The Ark In Space, though there’s nothing in this episode to confirm that. Martha’s boyfriend is presumably Thomas Milligan, seen in Last Of The Time Lords. The Doctor apparently put in a good word for Martha after she left his company in that episode, leading to her UNIT recruitment.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
8th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Max Warp

Doctor Who: Max WarpThe Doctor and Lucie arrive at a live taping of the hit spacecraft hot-rodding show, Max Warp… just in time to see the show’s seasoned test driver plunge to his apparent death when he loses control of a Kith ship and it slams into a nearby moon. Immediately the Doctor is convinced that the ship was sabotaged, and its pilot murdered. He and Lucie split up to try to narrow down the list of suspects – and Lucie ends up with the unenviable task of going undercover as a new host of Max Warp, and while the regular hosts think she’s just providing something for the dads to watch, she’s trying to figure out of either of them is a killer. The Doctor focuses on the intrigue between the humans and the Kith, who exist in an uneasy truce, with some on both sides ready to resume a state of war. An assassination attempt on the contentious Kith ambassador may be the last straw before shots are fired… until the Doctor realizes that something else has been happening all along.

Order this CDwritten by Jonathan Morris
directed by Barnaby Edwards
music by ERS

Cast: Paul McGann (The Doctor), Sheridan Smith (Lucie Miller), Graeme Garden (Geoffrey Vantage), James Fleet (O’Reilley), Duncan James (Timbo), Nick Brimble (The Kith), Samantha Hughes (President Varlon), Katarina Olsson (Judd Gilbride)

Timeline: after Dead London and before Brave New Town

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green