Day: March 18, 1974

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Classic Season 2 Tomorrow People

A Rift In Time – Part 2: Turn Of The Thumb

Tomorrow PeopleAccidentally whisked into the future by the telepathic time travel device, Stephen finds himself in a holding tube, with an angry Guardian on the other side. When Stephen mentions Peter, however, he is released and told that Peter has become marooned at some point in Earth’s past. Stephen returns to the Tomorrow People’s base to inform Elizabeth and John of what he has learned, and together with Chris they prepare to go into Earth’s past to save Peter. But once they are there, they discover that their powers have been sapped…and they’re now as helpless as Peter.

Download this episode via Amazonwritten by Roger Price
directed by Darrol Blake
music by Dudley Simpson

Tomorrow PeopleCast: Elizabeth Adare (Elizabeth), Nicholas Young (John), Peter Vaughan-Clarke (Stephen), Christopher Chittell (Chris), Philip Gilbert (TIM), Stanley Lebor (Gaius), Stephen Jack (Zenon), Richard Speight (Peter), Sylvia Coleridge (Prof. Freda Garner), Bryan Stanion (Prof. Cawston), Mike Lee Lane (Guthrun), Leonardo Pieroni (Lothar)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Battlestar Galactica (Classic Series) Season 1

Experiment In Terra

Battlestar Galactica (original)Apollo and Starbuck are sent on an urgent mission to recapture the Eastern Alliance escapees freed by Baltar, but before they can reach Terra, they are swept into yet another mission of mercy by the Seraphs – and this one is more potentially hazardous than the last, for the entire population of Terra could be wiped out. A peace accord between the Eastern Alliance and the Nationalists provides a perfect opportunity for both sides to lower their defenses – at which point the Alliance will strike. Adama is now faced with a difficult decision…should he allow events on Terra to unfold, or enforce peace by destroying the weapons poised in orbit of the planet, possibly leaving Terra defenseless as a consequence?

Order the DVDsDownload this episodewritten by Glen A. Larson
directed by Rod Holcomb
music by Stu Phillips

Guest Cast: Melody Anderson (Brenda Maxwell), Peter D. MacLean (President Arends), Edward Mulhare (John), Nehemiah Persoff (Eastern Alliance Leader), Logan Ramsey (Moore), Ken Swofford (Gen. Maxwell), Sidney Clute (Stone), Ken Lynch (Dr. Horning), Jordan Rhodes (Brace), John De Lancie (Officer), Russ Martin (Alliance member), Milt Janin (Alliance Leader)

Notes: This episode’s basic premise, of Apollo being sent to set history straight in a form where everyone sees him as another man, was later reused by Donald Bellisario as the basis for his own SF series, Quantum Leap.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Police Squad Season 1

The Butler Did It

Police SquadThe daughter of a wealthy businessman is kidnapped on her birthday, and Frank Drebin is there. Frank and Ed listen closely to the recording of the kidnappers’ demands, and find an excellent clue – the distinctively bloated and grumpy sounds of the tuba. (Though it could also be a ship’s horn.) When Police Squad tracks down the kidnapper, the ruthless crook fights back. And when someone opens fire on Police Squad, Police Squad looks for a hiding place as quickly as possible!

teleplay by Pat Proft
story by Deborah Hwang and Robert K. Weiss
directed by Georg Stanford Brown
music by Ira Newborn

Special Guest Star: Robert Goulet (as himself)

Guest Cast: Ed Williams (Mr. Olson), William Duell (Johnny), Peter Lupus (Norberg), Tommy LaSorda (himself), Nicolas Coster (Warner), Lilibet Stern (Terri), Byron Webster (Thames), Ken Michelman (Kingsley), Peter Elbing (Mime), K. Callan (Charlotte)

Alternate Title: A Bird In The Hand

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Season 04 Star Trek The Next Generation

Night Terrors

Star Trek: The Next GenerationStardate 44631.2: The missing starship Brittain is found by the Enterprise, but Riker and an away team find that the entire crew of the Brittain went berserk and murdered one another, leaving a single survivor – a Betazoid who can’t speak and whose telepathic “ramblings” to Troi are puzzling. When the Enterprise is immobilized by a dangerous natural phenomenon, no one suspects that the survivor’s riddles may have some meaning, and members of the crew begin hallucinating slowly edging toward the same kind of madness that drove the Brittain’s crew to kill themselves…

Order the DVDsteleplay by Pamela Douglas and Jeri Taylor
story by Shari Goodhartz
directed by Les Landau
music by Ron Jones

Guest Cast: Rosalind Chao (Keiko), John Vickery (Andrus Hagan), Duke Moosekian (Lt. Gillespie), Craig Hurley (Ensign), Brian Tochi (Ensign Lin), Lanei Chapman (Ensign Rager), Colm Meaney (O’Brien), Whoopi Goldberg (Guinan), Deborah Taylor (Captain Zaheva)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Season 02 Star Trek Voyager

Deadlock

Star Trek: VoyagerStardate not given: The crew anticipates the arrival of Voyager’s first baby as Ensign Wildman goes into labor. But the expectations are marred when a flotilla of Vidiian ships is spotted ahead. Janeway orders a detour through a nebula, but that route causes severe damage to the ship. Voyager becomes stranded when its antimatter supply begins to drain with no explanation. Harry is killed when a hull breach opens beneath him and he falls into open space, and Kes vanishes through an unknown portal. The crew prepares to abandon ship, and Janeway finally decides to evacuate the bridge when
Stardate not given: Captain Janeway sees an image of herself on the bridge, battered, bleeding and running toward the turbolift. And for reasons no one can explain, a duplicate of Kes has suddenly appeared on board. After an investigation, it is revealed that the subspace anomalies within the nebula caused a quantum-level duplication of the ship and crew. Torres establishes communications with the other Voyager, but the two captains cannot find any course of action that won’t destroy one or both ships. When a Vidiian ship arrives and the organ harvesters board Voyager and begin wiping out the crew, only one option seems viable – setting Voyager to self-destruct. But without the crew’s help, the “other” crew could also perish.

Order the DVDswritten by Brannon Braga
directed by David Livingston
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), Nancy Hower (Ensign Wildman), Simon Billig (Hogan), Bob Clendenin (Vidiian Surgeon), Ray Proscia (Vidiian Commander), Keythe Farley (Vidiian #2), Chris Johnston (Vidiian #1), Majel Barrett (Computer Voice)

LogBook entry by Paul Campbell

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Babylon 5 / Crusade Season 5

In the Kingdom of the Blind

Babylon 5Londo returns to Centauri Prime with G’Kar serving as his bodyguard, causing a minor uproar in the royal court. The palace seems subdued but troubled, and one of Londo’s allies informs him of suspicious patterns in the distribution of Centauri resources – and turns up dead a short time later. Londo is correct in his fear that he may be the next target. On the station, Byron tries to force the Alliance to make reparations for the discovery that the Vorlons genetically engineered telepathy in the human race for use in the Shadow War – and threatens the security of the Alliance’s members if they do not meet his terms.

Order now!Download this episodewritten by J. Michael Straczynski
directed by David J. Eagle
music by Christopher Franke

Guest Cast: Robin Atkin Downes (Byron), Neil Hunt (Minister Vitari), Damian London (Regent), Victor Lowe (Telepath), Francis X. McCarthy (Minster Vole), Ian Ogilvy (Lord Jano), David Darling (Drazi)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Red Dwarf Season 08

Krytie TV

Red DwarfSince entertainment is hard to come by in the prison block, Lister is understandably overjoyed when Petersen mails his guitar to him – but due to prison regs involving suicides, the strings have been confiscated, somewhat limited Lister’s repertoire (but not by much). In lieu of that, it’s another night at the prison theater, whose usual diet of bad movies is interrupted by Kryten, initiating a live broadcast from the female prisoners’ shower room. Lister is at first appalled, and then rather fascinated, by this invasion of Kochanski’s privacy. But what he doesn’t know is that he is the next star of Kryten’s embarassing broadcast…

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

Guest Cast: Jake Wood (Kill Crazy), Graham McTavish (Ackerman), Mark Caven (Man in film), Sarah Wateridge (Woman in film), Clifford Barry (Guard)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Season 08 SG-1 Stargate

Moebius Part 1

Stargate SG-1An English teacher named Daniel Jackson – fallen from favor in his career as a linguist and archaeologist – is summoned to a top-secret facility at Cheyenne Mountain, as is a junior government aeronautics employee named Samantha Carter. Once they sign confidentiality agreements, a man named General Hammond finally reveals why they’ve been brought there: an archaeological expedition in Egypt made an unusual discovery – an intact camcorder containing an intact tape. The tape shows Jackson and Carter, but radically different from the sheltered, routine lives they live now. On the videotape, Daniel Jackson claims to be a member of an elite team called SG-1 which travels through a device called the stargate; he also says that a timeship carried them into Earth’s past on a risky mission recover an alien artifact called a zero point module. Also on the tape is Jack O’Neill, a retired Air Force general, and a hulking humanoid alien named Teal’c. Apparently, the taped message was left in the event that the mission failed, resulting in radical changes to the timeline. The expedition also uncovered the time travel vehicle mentioned in the tape, which O’Neill supposedly has a unique ability to control. With no experience, and highly skeptical of what they’ve been told, it’s now up to this unlikely handful of adventurers to restore what may – or may not be – Earth’s real history.

Order the DVDsteleplay by Jospeh Mallozzi & Paul Mullie
story by Jospeh Mallozzi & Paul Mullie & Brad Wright & Robert C. Cooper
directed by Peter Deluise
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: David Hewlett (Rodney McKay), Don S. Davis (General Hammond), Robert Wisden (Major Samuels), Colin Cunningham (Major Davis), David Lewis (Cameron Balinsky), James Purcell (Dr. Hersfield), Alessandro Juliani (Katep), Georgia Craig (Sabrina), Jay Williams (Ra), Benjamin Easterday (Ra’s Jaffa Commander), Neil Schell (Mr. Crandall)

Notes: Though he has appeared in Stargate SG-1 before, this was guest star Alessandro Juliani’s first appearance in the series since becoming a regular on Sci-Fi Channel’s new version of Battlestar Galactica.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Season 1 Stargate Stargate Atlantis

The Siege Part I

Stargate AtlantisThe three Wraith hive ships detected on a direct course for Atlantis will meet only one obstacle before they reach the planet – a defense satellite built by the Ancients as Atlantis’ last line of defense. The good news is that the satellite is still intact, but the bad news is that its systems are completely dormant – and Dr. McKay is given mere hours to solve that problem. Meanwhile, Sheppard still holds Teyla in suspicion, worried that any preparations in her presence could be providing the Wraith with intelligence via her recently discovered telepathic connection to them, and Sheppard isn’t the only one who suspects her. Dr. Weir is equally worried that the Wraith intend to invade Earth’s galaxy via the stargate, and orders her team to look for an alpha site to which the crew can be evacuated so the city can be destroyed as a last defense. But it’s impossible to keep the Wraith out of Atlantis…because they’re already there.

Order the DVDsDownload this episode via Amazon's Unboxwritten by Martin Gero
directed by Martin Wood
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: David Nykl (Dr. Zelenka), Craig Veroni (Dr. Grodin), Paul McGillion (Dr. Beckett), Christopher Heyerdahl (Halling), Dean Marshall (Sgt. Bates), James Lafaznos (Wraith), Rob Avery (Miller), Craig Fraser (S.O.), Chuck Campbell (Technician)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Battlestar Galactica (New Series) Season 1

Colonial Day

Battlestar GalacticaRepresentatives from all twelve human colonies gather aboard the Cloud Nine to attempt to piece together a new, workable government for the surviving human race. Baltar winds up representing Caprica, and finds himself relieved to get out of the lab aboard Galactica. But Tom Zarek is also in attendance, and he has an agenda of his own, couched in a reasonable proposal to establish a clear line of succession by appointing a Vice President to take over should anything happen to President Roslin. Roslin’s aides, and Apollo, fear that the President’s days could be numbered even more than they already are if Zarek wins the vice presidency. Roslin appoints her own candidate, and a vote is to be held among the twelve colonies’ representatives. But Apollo and Starbuck find that Zarek, despite an attempt to create a new respectable image for himself, isn’t above using dirty – or deadly – tricks to secure his position of power. Determined to choose a successor she can trust, the President decides to engage in some political manipulation of her own, withdrawing her original choice and nominating Baltar for the job.

Order the DVDsDownload this episodewritten by Carla Robinson
directed by Jonas Pate
music by Bear McCreary

Guest Cast: Richard Hatch (Tom Zarek), Kate Vernon (Ellen Tigh), Robert Wisden (Wallace Gray), David Kaye (McManus), Alex Zahara (Valance), Michael Hogan (Colonel Tigh), Aaron Douglas (CPO Tyrol), Tahmoh Penikett (Helo), Kandyse McClure (Dualla), Paul Campbell (Billy Keikeya), Alessandro Juliani (Lt. Gaeta), Nicki Clyne (Cally), Cailin Stadnyk (Ensign Davis), Christina Schild (Playa Kohn), Biski Gugushe (Hamilton), James Ashcroft (Spectator #1), Patricia Idlette (Sarah Porter), Mario Battista (Gardner)

Notes: This episode’s cast was heavy with veterans of another SF series shot in Vancouver, Jeremiah; Robert Wisden played Jeremiah’s father (as well as frequently recurring as Lt. Col. Samuels on Stargate SG-1, also shot in Vancouver), while Alex Zahara played Jeremiah’s adopted brother and series regular Kandyse McClure was the ill-fated love interest of Kurdy (Malcolm Jamal-Warner). The design of the domed Cloud Nine vessel was another throwback to a model from the original series, a model which itself had previously served – in a slightly different form – as the main setting of the 70s cult SF film Silent Running.

Original UK Airdate: January 10, 2005

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Battlestar Galactica (New Series) Season 3

Crossroads – Part 1

Battlestar GalacticaThe trial of Gaius Baltar begins, with Apollo aiding the defense, even as his father sits on the panel of five judges. Tensions are running high all around, even among those who are on the same side – President Roslin can’t find a lawyer who can guarantee that a genocide charge against Baltar will stick. But it seems that everyone has underestimated Baltar’s attorney, who argues that had Roslin been president when the Cylons attacked New Caprica, she would have led the remnants of humanity into a fight that they couldn’t hope to win. Two more admissions also weigh in Baltar’s favor – Tigh’s public (and drunken) admission that he put his own wife to death, and Roslin’s confession that she has returned to using kamala root extract. Apollo forces the second revelation, but Roslin quietly turns it against him again with a revelation of her own – her cancer has returned with a vengeance. And all the while, a number of people, from Tigh to Roslin’s aide, hear something strange – something coming from Galactica herself.

written by Michael Taylor
directed by Michael Rymer
music by Bear McCreary

Guest Cast: Michael Hogan (Colonel Tigh), Aaron Douglas (CPO Tyrol), Nicki Clyne (Cally), Tahmoh Penikett (Helo), Alessandro Juliani (Gaeta), Kandyse McClure (Dualla), Michael Trucco (Sam Anders), Mark Sheppard (Romo Lampkin), Rekha Sharma (Tory Foster), Chelah Horsdal (Didi Cassidy), Ryan Robbins, Bodie Olmos (Hotdog), Leah Cairns (Racetrack), Jennifer Halley (Seelix), Colin Lawrence (Skulls), Alison Matthews (Falbrook)

Notes: This episode dispenses with the customary opening titles, instead running the names of the main cast and principal guest actors and crew over part of the story.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Doctor Who New Series Specials

Space / Time

Doctor WhoThe Doctor enlists Rory’s help in working on the TARDIS, but with Amy unwittingly providing a distraction, a near-disaster results: the TARDIS’ outer police box shell materializes inside its own control room, spelling certain doom for its occupants unless they can find a solution. Fortunately, one by one, the Doctor’s companions – from just a few moments into their own future – pop out of the police box to offer helpful suggestions. Unfortunately, the Doctor’s companions now have to remember what their future selves have just said so they can remember to say exactly the same thing in just a few moments’ time to save their own lives.

Order the DVDwritten by Steven Moffat
directed by Richard Senior
music by Murray Gold

Cast: Matt Smith (The Doctor), Karen Gillan (Amy Pond), Arthur Darvill (Rory)

Notes: This was the Doctor Who franchise’s contribution to the 2011 Comic Relief charity event; past Doctor Who and related Comic Relief appearances have included 2009’s Sarah Jane Adventures mini-episode, a 2007 Weakest Link special featuring David Tennant and other cast members, and the 1999 spoof The Curse Of Fatal Death, which was technically the first televised Doctor Who adventure for current showrunner Steven Moffat. This adventure was presented as two mini-episodes – neither of them topping four minutes – titled, respectively, Space and Time.

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Rebels Season 3 Star Wars

Twin Suns

Star Wars: RebelsEzra awakens to the sound of the holocron recording of the Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, and then has a vision of Maul bellowing Kenobi’s name. Ezra tries to convince the others that this must mean Kenobi is alive and in danger, but Hera isn’t convinced, and is more focused on preparing for an attack on Lothal. Ezra takes matters into his own hands, stealing an A-Wing and heading for Tatooine. Almost immediately upon landing, Ezra figures out that it’s a trap, but it’s too late – his fighter is attacked by Tusken Raiders and destroyed. The trap, however, has not been laid for Ezra; he’s merely the bait. Maul plans to use the wayward Jedi apprentice to lure Kenobi out into the open for a final duel. Kenobi does indeed help Ezra, but he has no intention of ending the rivalry with Maul on the disgraced Sith Lord’s terms.

Order the DVDsDownload this episode via Amazonwritten by Dave Filoni & Henry Gilroy
directed by Dave Filoni
music by Kevin Kiner
additional music by David Russell, Sean Kiner, and Dean Kiner
based on original themes and music by John Williams

RebelsCast: Taylor Gray (Ezra Bridger), Vanessa Marshall (Hera Syndulla), Freddie Prinze Jr. (Kanan Jarrus), Steve Blum (Zeb), James Arnold Taylor (Obi-Wan Kenobi hologram), Sam Witwer (Maul), Stephen Stanton (Ben Kenobi), Dee Bradley Baker (Rex / Rebel Crewman)

LogBook entry by Earl Green