Day: February 26, 1972

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Classic Season 09 Doctor Who

The Sea Devils

Doctor WhoThe Doctor and Jo pay a visit to the Master, who has been languishing in an isolated top-security prison since he was arrested by U.N.I.T. But in reality, the Master has already gained control of his jailkeepers, and is simply biding his time as he constructs a device that will summon the Sea Devils, a species of bipedal Earth reptiles related to the Silurians, who once walked the Earth before man. The Sea Devils have already been attacking ships at sea, but the Master has promised them the means to revive all of their people and regain their position as the rulers of Earth – even if it means eliminating the human race. As the Doctor tries to intervene, suggesting a peace between man and reptile, he finds himself fighting not only the Master, but the warlike impulses of homo sapiens.

written by Malcolm Hulke
directed by Michael Briant
music by Malcolm Clarke

Guest Cast: Roger Delgado (The Master), Clive Morton (Trenchard), Royston Tickner (Robbins), Edwin Richfield (Hart), Alec Wallis (Bowman), Neil Seiler (Radio Operator), Terry Walsh (Barclay), Brian Justice (Wilson), June Murphy (Jane Blythe), Hugh Futcher (Hickman), Declan Mulholland (Clark), Pat Gorman, Brian Nolan, Steven Ismay, Frank Seton, Jeff Witherick (Sea Devils), Eric Mason (Smedley), Donald Sumpter (Ridgway), Stanley McGeagh (Drew), David Griffin (Mithcell), Christopher Wray (Lovell), Colin Bell (Summers), Brian Vaughn (Watts), Martin Boddey (Walker), Norman Atkyns (Rear Admiral), Rex Rowland (Girton), John Caesar (Myers), Peter Forbes-Robertson (Chief Sea Devil)

Broadcast from February 26 through April 1, 1972

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Classic Season 14 Doctor Who

The Talons of Weng-Chiang

Doctor WhoThe Doctor brings Leela to Victorian-era London to give her some exposure to what he considers civilization, though things quickly become less than civilized when a Chinese man makes an attempt on the Doctor’s life. Relations between the natives of London and the city’s growing Chinese population are equally strained elsewhere, as allegations of kidnapping surround stage magician Li H’sen Chang during his residence at a local theater, run by Henry Gordon Jago. Numerous men confront Chang with accusations that he hypnotized their wives and ladyfriends during his magic show – and every woman disappeared shortly afterward. The Doctor investigates Chang’s magic show and discovers that the magician is using more than sleight-of-hand to accomplish his amazing feats – he is receiving technological help too advanced for the Victorian era, in exchange for which Chang is performing murderous services for his master – from the future.

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Robert Holmes
directed by David Maloney
music by Dudley Simpson

Guest Cast: John Bennett (Li H’sen Chang), Deep Roy (Mr. Sin), Michael Spice (Weng-Chiang / Greel), Trevor Baxter (Professor Litefoot), Christopher Benjamin (Henry Gordon Jago), Tony Then (Lee), Alan Butler (Buller), Chris Gannon (Casey), John Wu (Coolie), Conrad Asquith (PC Quick), David McKail (Sergeant Kyle), Patsy Smart (Ghoul), Judith Lloyd (Teresa), Vaune Craig-Raymond (Cleaning Woman), Peggy Lister (Singer), Vincent Wong (Ho), Stuart Fell (Giant rat)

Original Title: The Talons Of Greel

Broadcast from February 26 through April 2, 1977

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Wizards & Warriors

The Unicorn Of Death

Wizards & WarriorsThe wizard Vector presents the evil Prince Blackpool with a gift: a sculpture of a unicorn made from a substance that, when activated, will create an explosion large enough to wipe out a country. Blackpool decides to use this terrible weapon to win the affections of Princess Ariel… by holding her father’s kingdom hostage with the threat of fiery destruction. But Ariel is betrothed to Prince Erik Greystone, who is immediately given the task of recovering the key that will deactivate the explosive. With his squire, Marko, Greystone convinces one of Blackpool’s flunkies to talk and makes his way toward Blackpool’s citadel.

It never occurs to him that the key he’s risking life and limb to retrieve might be the wrong one.

written by Bill Richmond
directed by Bill Bixby
music by Lee Holdridge

Cast: Jeff Conaway (Prince Erik Greystone), Walter Olkewicz (Marko), Duncan Regehr (Prince Dirk Blackpool), Julia Duffy Wizards & Warriors(Princess Ariel), Clive Revill (Vector), Ian Wolfe (Wizard Traquill), Randi Brooks (Bethel), Tim Dunigan (Geoffrey Blackpool), Joseph Robert Sicari (Goz Dunder), Thomas Hill (King Baaldorf), Christine de Lisle (Belldonna), Phyllis Katz (Cassandra), Ken Hixon (Ariel’s Suitor), Brent Huff (Man in Bar), Lonnie Wun (Baaldorf’s Subject), Kathleen McIntyre (Lady In Waiting), Mark Douglas Sebastian, Steven Strong (Grox), Nancy Thiesen (Lady In Waiting)

Notes: Director Bill Bixby is the same actor who starred as the alter ego of The Incredible Hulk throughout that series’ run; even before he was Hulking out, Bixby was in demand as a director. He teamed up with Wizards & Warriors creator Don Reo on his later (and arguably more successful) series Blossom, directing 30 episodes (presumably Very Special ones) of that show. Bixby died in 1993 after a lengthy battle with prostate cancer.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Alien Nation Season 1

Crossing The Line

Alien NationSikes is preparing to take a well-earned vacation to Hawaii when a murder case sparks a memory of his early days in uniform. A young woman has been murdered after being injected with sodium pentathol – more commonly known as a “truth drug” – reminding Sikes of a serial killer who he failed to stop several years ago; trying to save the life of a hostage, Sikes laid his gun down, only to watch the helpless woman shot before his very eyes. What drives Sikes insane with anger is that sleazeball reporter Burns is playing into the killer’s hands: anonymous tips are leading Burns to grisly murder scenes and messages from the killer, all of which make it into the next morning’s paper without Burns providing any useful information to the police. Captain Grazer, worried about Sikes’ obsession with the case, has to order Sikes to take his vacation; instead, Sikes goes rogue, making good on his insistence that a case like this demands a bit of vigilante justice. But in the process of trying to exorcise the ghosts of his past, Sikes may be putting Burns in line to be the next victim.

Order this episode on DVDDownload this episodewritten by Steven Long Mitchell & Craig W. Van Sickle
directed by Gwen Arner
music by Steve Dorff & Larry Herbstritt

Guest Cast: Jenny Gago (Beatrice Zepeda), Tobin Bell (Brian Knox), Robert Alan Browne (Foreman), Ivory Ocean (Dutchman), Jeff Doucette (Burns), Michele Lamar Richards (Lois Allen), Robert Balderson (Wounded Officer), Heather McComb (Cyndy), Eva Von Widman (Nurse Adele)

Notes: Jeff Doucette is demoted to a guest star in this episode, having appeared in the opening credits – but very few episodes of the show itself – for virtually the entire season.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Babylon 5 / Crusade Season 3

Point Of No Return

  • By Dave
  • February 26, 1996

Babylon 5In the wake of the evidence implicating him in the death of President Santiago, and using the recent appearance of an unidentified alien ship near Jupiter as further justification, President Clark declares martial law throughout the Earth Alliance, forcing General Hague’s rebel forces into the open. The President also hands authority over to Night Watch members only, sending Garibaldi into a righteous fury when he is relieved of his position while Sheridan tries to find a way to keep his command without drawing suspision. G’Kar volunteers the help of the Narns, a timely offer when Sheridan is left with no choice but to arrest the Night Watch security officers. But very few notice the arrival of the Lady Morella, widow of the late Centauri emperor, and even fewer believe her prediction of the future occupants of the imperial throne.

Order now!Download this episodewritten by J. Michael Straczynski
directed by Jim Johnston
music by Christopher Franke

Cast: Bruce Boxleitner (Captain John Sheridan), Claudia Christian (Commander Susan Ivanova), Jerry Doyle (Security Chief Michael Garibaldi), Mira Furlan (Delenn), Richard Biggs (Dr. Stephen Franklin), Bill Mumy (Lennier), Jason Carter (Marcus Cole), Stephen Furst (Vir), Jeff Conaway (Zack Allan), Peter Jurasik (Londo Mollari), Andreas Katsulas (G’Kar), Majel Barrett (Lady Morella), Marshall Teague (Ta’Lon), Vaughn Armstrong (Security Guard #1), Lewis Arquette (General Smits), Ed Trotta (Lt. General O’Reilly), Jonathan Chapman (Passing Minbari), Joshua Cox (Lt. Corwin), Maggie Egan (ISN Reporter #1), Milton James (Centauri Official), Gunther Jensen (Nightwatch Guard), Tony Rayner (Man)

LogBook entry by Dave Thomer

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Season 02 Star Trek Voyager

Lifesigns

Star Trek: VoyagerStardate not given: Voyager beams aboard a dying Vidiian woman. The Doctor creates an image of her from the transporter pattern buffer to stabilize her while he attempts a cure. She turns out to be a hematologist who was traveling to a distant colony to help combat the Phage. In curing her, the Doctor learns much about himself too.

Order the DVDswritten by Kenneth Biller
directed by Cliff Bole
music by Dennis McCarthy

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), Susan Diol (Danara Pel), Raphael Sbarge (Ensign Michael Jonas), Martha Hackett (Seska), Michael Spound (Jonas’ Kazon Handler)

LogBook entry by Paul Campbell

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Nowhere Man

Hidden Agenda

Nowhere ManIn Washington D.C., Tom receives a phone call from his nameless, faceless ally, proposing a face-to-face meeting to further their mutual aim of destroying the conspiracy. Over dinner, Tom’s ally asks the photographer to recount the story which led up to the much-hunted “Hidden Agenda”.

In 1993, on the insistence of his impulsive journalist friend Harrison, Tom once flew to Central America because Harrison was onto a potentially big story. Harrison’s lead is an inauspicious one – an American Army soldier gave a local prostitute his dog tags as payment for services rendered, and also told her that the U.S. Army was present in force to shut down a local rebel uprising. Venturing into the forests of the Andes, Tom and Harrison found that the Army was indeed present, and was indeed interfering in local politics, swelling its ranks by hiring off local men with cocaine. Veil and Harrison infiltrated the installation, discovering that they weren’t dealing with the Army, they weren’t dealing with any kind of normal military operation, and they were lucky to make it back to the U.S. alive with this knowledge.

And once he finishes telling the story of Hidden Agenda, Veil finds out that he’s being watched…and that the story he has just told isn’t necessarily the truth.

Order the DVDswritten by David Ehrman
directed by Michael Levine
music by Mark Snow

Cast: Bruce Greenwood (Thomas Veil), Dwight Schultz (Harrison Barton), Robin Sachs (Alexander Hale), Anthony Guzman (Luis Borjes), Tracy Conklin (Sgt. Rock), William Earl Ray (Lt. Anson), Geoff Prysirr (Shadow One), Allen Nause (Shadow Two), Christine Calfas (Yolanda), Olga Sanchez (Angela), Jim Garcia (Ringo), Mark Homayoun (Spanish Guard), Michael Blain-Rozgay (Waiter), Fulvio Cecere (Sgt. Dirksen), John Bebe (Young Guard #1), Tim McKellips (Young Guard #2), Erin Cecil (Sobbing Woman)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Season 03 Star Trek Voyager

Rise

Star Trek: VoyagerStardate not given: Neelix joins a crew attempting to help Nezu colonists survive a series of asteroid collisions. Voyager fails in its attempt to vaporize an incoming asteroid and discovers that they’re artificially guided. When Neelix and Tuvok are abandoned on the planet just before the next scheduled asteroid strike, they and some colonists use a maglift carriage to climb an orbital tether to a point where they can contact the ship. But one of the Nezu is determined to keep the others from passing on what they know. As the carriage rises into the thinning atmosphere, they discover what the real motivation behind both the asteroids and the surrounding secrecy is.

Order the DVDsteleplay by Brannon Braga
story by Jimmy Diggs
directed by Robert Scheerer
music by Paul Baillargeon

Guest Cast: Alan Oppenheimer (Sklar), Lisa Kaminir (Lillias), Kelly Connell (Ambassador), Tom Towles (Hanjuam), Geof Prysirr (Dr. Vatm)

LogBook entry by Paul Campbell

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Season 02 SG-1 Stargate

Show And Tell

Stargate SG-1An unscheduled, unauthorized incoming wormhole puts the SGC on full alert. Despite every effort to close and lock down the iris, the gate remains open and a single small, cloaked humanoid emerges – a young boy with a shaven head. The first words out of the boy’s mouth are “I am here to warn you.” In the SGC infirmary, the boy says his mother told him to speak only to O’Neill – and then points to an empty bed. The boy claims his mother has observed SG-1’s activities and has determined the team to be honorable enough to help him. The boy not only knows who O’Neill is, but even knows about his son, and asks to be named after O’Neill’s son, Charlie. “Charlie” describes a Goa’uld attack on his people fairly accurately, and panics at the sight of Teal’c. Unusually, Teal’c has a strong reaction to Charlie as well – when he gets close to the boy to demonstrate he means no harm, a strange nauseous sensation overwhelms both Teal’c and his symbiote. When O’Neill and the others question Charlie, they learn that his mother is a survivor of the Re’tu race, whose more militant rebel faction has taken it upon itself to rid the galaxy of the Goa’uld by ridding the galaxy of every potential host life form. Carter calls her father, now fully integrated with the Tok’ra known as Selmak, to get the Tok’ra’s help. The Tok’ra know the Re’tu well, and even have weapons capable of detecting and elimintating them – and they quickly find that the boy’s “mother,” an insectoid Re’tu, is indeed in the SGC. Charlie gives O’Neill the coordinates to the rebels’ staging area, where SG-1 and SG-12 find the rebels preparing for a massed attack on Earth. O’Neill and his teams return to Earth, only to discover that they’ve brought their new enemy home with them.

Order the DVDswritten by Jonathan Glassner
directed by Peter DeLuise
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: Carmen Argenziano (Jacob Carter / Selmak), Jeff Gulka (Charlie), Teryl Rothery (Dr. Fraiser), Daniel Bacon (Technician)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Lexx Season 2

Norb

LexxNorb – a child space pilot rescued from the Guleen family by Kai – encounters a brightly-colored, candy cane-shaped space station which turns out to be an incredibly large number of Mantrid’s camouflaged drone arms. As the drones attach themselves to Norb’s ship, he ejects the pilot’s seat and sends a distress signal. Kai and Xev, in a moth, find Norb drifting alone in space and bring him back to the Lexx. Despite his rescue, Norb is neither friendly nor eager to answer anyone’s questions. After delivering a message – “let the contest begin” – from Mantrid, Norb reveals his true colors: he died in deep space, his body replaced or infested by the drone arms. Several arms manipulating what’s left of Norb’s body scatter inside the Lexx, and while Kai destroys some of them, others escape the reach of Lexx’s internal sensors. When Stan goes looking for the remaining drone, he finds it – and several identical drone arms that it has built in the short time that has passed. Even when Kai arrives to save Stan, it quickly becomes apparent that there are still more of Mantrid’s drones aboard, and they are replicating themselves by the hundred in short order, using Lexx’s own raw material. Stan, Xev and Kai evacuate Lexx in one of the moths as the drones overrun the ship – but now how will they get back into the Lexx?

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

Guest Cast: Dieter Laser (Mantrid), Brandon McCarvell (Norb), Jeffrey Hirschfield (790), Tom Gallant (Lexx)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Enterprise Season 02 Star Trek

Canamar

Star Trek: EnterpriseThe Enterprise arrives at a rendezvous point to pick up a shuttlepod carrying Captain Archer and Trip, but the shuttle is empty. Signs of a struggle in the shuttle point to an abduction. T’Pol inquires with government officials on the last planet visited by Archer, discovering that he and Trip were captured and assumed to be smugglers, and are now in a prison transport bound for Canamar, a high-security penal colony. But just as the order comes through to release Archer and Trip from the brutal confines of the prison ship, a prisoner revolt thwarts their release – and suddenly they’re fighting for their lives and the lives of every other prisoner on board, trying to bluff their way into the ranks of the mutineers and hold out long enough for Enterprise to track them down.

Order DVDsDownload this episode via Amazon's Unboxwritten by John Shiban
directed by Allan Kroeker
music by Brian Tyler

Guest Cast: Mark Rolston (Kuroda), Sean Whalen (Zoumas), Michael McGrady (Nausicaan), Holmes R. Osborne (Enolian Official), Brian Morri (Enolian Guard), John Hansen (Prisoner)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Heroes Season 1

Company Man

HeroesThe Past: 15 years ago, Noah Bennet joined the Company and went undercover at the Primatech Paper plant in Odessa, Texas. He was assigned a partner, a Englishman named Claude who had the power to turn invisible. He was also given a baby, rescued from the burned-down home of a woman with pyrokinetic abilities, and instructions by his superior, Mr. Nakamura: if the child, the product of two parents with special abilities, manifests her own powers, the Company expects Bennet to turn her over to them for immediate study. Upon learning that Claude has been sheltering others with special powers rather than handing them over, the Company orders Bennet to execute his partner. After Claude is shot twice, he vanishes, and Bennet assumes he’s dead.

The Present: Originally setting out to comb Bennet’s home for evidence, Ted Sprague – with Parkman in tow – sees Bennet himself pull into the driveway, with his entire family. A break-in to find incriminating information becomes a hostage situation. Able to read Claire’s thoughts and discover her self-healing ability, Parkman shoots her to prove his ruthlessness. Sprague keeps Bennet’s wife and son hostage at the house while Parkman follows Bennet to the paper plant. Worried about Sprague’s ability to keep his nuclear temper down, Parkman helps Bennet, but even when they return to the house with the evidence, it may not be enough to satisfy Sprague. And if he goes nuclear, Claire may have to demonstrate her ability – with the Company watching closely – to save the day.

Order the DVDswritten by Bryan Fuller
directed by Allan Arkush
music by Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman / vocals by Shenkar

Guest Cast: Eric Roberts (Thompson), Ashley Crow (Sandra Bennet), Matthew John Armstrong (Ted Sprague), Missy Peregrym (Candice Wilmer), Jimmy Jean-Louis (The Haitian), George Takei (Kaito Nakamura), Christopher Eccleston (Claude)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Caprica

There Is Another Sky

CapricaIn the virtual world, Tamara Adams’ avatar is lost and looking for a way home. Her search lands her in the middle of an attempt to oust a power player in a multiplayer game; at first, Tamara and those around her are terrified by her inability to die at first, but eventually she learns to use it to her advantage. In the real world, Joseph Adama realizes that he is losing his grip on his son. Joseph’s brother Sam urges him to do something he’s been avoiding: perform a Tauron funeral rite to provide closure for both himself and William. In the corporate world, facing an ouster by Graystone Industries’ board of directors, the man who founded the company prepares a shocking demonstration of his vision of the future.

written by Kath Lingenfelter
directed by Michael Nankin
music by Bear McCreary

Guest Cast: Luciana Carro (Pyrah), Karen Elizabeth Austin (Ruth), Camille Mitchell (Vesta), Sina Najafi (William Adama), Hiro Kanagawa (Cyrus Xander), Genevieve Buechner (Tamara Adams), Julius Chapple (Larry), Richard Harmon (Heracles), A.C. Peterson (Chiron), Eve Harlow (Byan), Travis Turner (Ashok), Graham Chabot (Big Kid), Thomas Saunders (Jon Parker), Ian A. Wallace (Ferryman), Patti Allan (Tauron Rites Singer), Jim Ralph (Chiron’s Bank Guard), Charles Andre (Rail Thin Man), Zolton Crane (Man)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
4th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

The Renaissance Man

Doctor Who: Renaissance ManThe Doctor promises to show Leela a museum on another world, but the TARDIS lands at a destination that seems anything but otherworldly. A pleasant professor shows off her butterfly knowledge to the time travelers, but before long all three are drawn into the vast library of Harcourt, a man who claims to know a little of everything – and wants to know more. It’s something he wants so badly that he’s willing to take the knowledge from the minds of others by force. When he becomes intrigued by the Doctor, it’s a meeting of the minds that the Time Lord and his companion will be lucky to survive.

Order this CDwritten by Justin Richard
directed by Ken Bentley
music by Jamie Robertson

Cast: Tom Baker (The Doctor), Louise Jameson (Leela), Ian McNeice (Harcourt), Gareth Armstrong (Jephson), Anthony Howell (Edward), Daisy Ashford (Lizzie), Laura Molyneux (Beryl / Professor Hilda Lutterthwaite), John Dorney (Dr. Henry Carnforth)

Timeline: after The Talons Of Weng-Chiang; after Destination Nerva and before The Wrath Of The Iceni

Notes: Ian McNiece guest starred in the eleventh Doctor’s first television season as Winston Churchill. Gareth Armstrong guest-starred alongside Tom Baker in TV Doctor Who also, as Count Giuliano in 1976’s Masque Of Mandragora. Anthony Howell has also appeared in Big Finish’s fourth Doctor Lost Stories adventure The Valley Of Death, and the Blake’s 7 Liberator Chronicles audio story Solitary.

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

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Movies

The Farthest

The FarthestOriginally proposed in the late 1960s to take advantage of a rare planetary alignment in the 1970s, NASA’s Voyager missions are slated for launch in 1977, loaded with the best technology available in 1972. The Farthest chronicles the design and construction, the launch, the discoveries and the in-flight triumphs and travails of the twin Voyager spacecraft, as told by the scientists and engineers who sent them on their journey and waited eagerly for the data from planets that, in some cases, had never been seen as more than a pinprick of light in a telescope. The Voyagers continue onward into interstellar space, having completed their planetary explorations, each carrying gold-plated “Golden Records”, audiovisual time capsules of life on Earth in 1977 that may outlive the entire human race.

Order DVDs & Blu-RaysDownload this episodewritten by Emer Reynolds
directed by Emer Reynolds
music by Ray Harman

The FarthestAppearing as themselves: Fran Bagenal (Co-Investigator, Plasma Science), Jim Bell (Author, “The Interstellar Age”), John Casani (Voyager Project Manager), Timothy Ferris (Golden Record Producer), Suzanne Dodd (Current Voyager Project Manager), Don Gurnett (Principal Investigator, Plasma Wave Science), Heidi Hammel (Planetary Science), Candy Hansen-Koharcheck (Imaging Science Representative), Andrew Ingersoll (Atmospheric Science), Charley Kohlhase (Mission Design & Navigation), Lawrence Krauss (Theoretical Physicist & Cosmologist), Stamatios “Tom” Krimigis (Principal Investigator, Particle Science), Dave Linick (Sequence Team Chief), Frank Locatell (Project Engineer, Mechanical Systems), Jon Lomberg (Golden Record Design Director), Linda Morabito (Navigation Engineer), Carolyn Porco (Imaging Scientist), Nick Sagan (Author & Screenwriter), Brad Smith (Imaging Science Team Leader), Larry Soderblom (Imaging Science), Ed Stone (Voyager Chief Scientist), Linda Spilker (Infrared Science Representative), Janet Sternberg (Golden Record Greeting), Rich Terrile (Imaging Science)

LogBook entry and review by Earl Green