March 31, 2009 – Page 2 – theLogBook.com Episode Guides

Orbis

By theLogBook.com
March 31, 2009

Doctor Who: Orbis Lucie has resumed her boring, pre-time-travel life in Blackpool; after all, there’s no way anyone the Doctor could’ve survived his battle with Morbius on Karn. But the Headhunter seems to disagree, strongly enough that she appears at Lucie’s door and shoots her. The Headhunter also has the TARDIS in her possession, and with Lucie aboard, sets the timeship on a course for the planet Orbis – a world where she says the Doctor is very much alive. Lucie finds the Doctor living among the Celtans, a jellyfish-like-race which exists in an uneasy truce with the warlike Molluscari…and she also finds that the Doctor has spent six centuries here and has completely forgotten her. Despite this, Lucie tries to help him save the Celtans from a new Molluscari attack. And in the background, the Headhunter is playing all sides against the middle, regardless of how many lives will be lost as a result.

written by Alan Barnes and Nicholas Briggs
directed by Nicholas Briggs
music by Andy Hardwick

Cast: Paul McGann (The Doctor), Sheridan Smith (Lucie Miller), Andrew Sachs (Crassostrea), Laura Solon (Selta), Katarina Olsson (Headhunter), Beth Chalmers (Saccostrea), Barry McCarthy (Yanos)

Notes: The “time bullets” used by the Headhunter seem to have a similar effect to the slow-motion gunshot wound suffered by Gwen in the Torchwood episode They Keep Killing Suzie. The Doctor admits here that he’s lost track of his own age, and in any case he’s guilty of rounding it up or down to account for relativistic time, which is a handy throwaway explanation for why the tenth Doctor is only 900 years old, while the seventh Doctor – in his first adventure – was 953 years old, and the third Doctor was “over a thousand years old”.

Timeline: after The Vengeance Of Morbius and before Hothouse

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

6th Doctor Doctor Who Lost Stories The Audio Dramas

Paradise 5

By theLogBook.com
March 31, 2010

After discovering that an old friend has mysteriously vanished, the Doctor is determined to track him down to an overhyped pleasure cruise, overseen by two men named Michael and Gabriel. Peri is pressed into service as a hostess on the cruise, while the Doctor, trying not to draw attention for once, tags along as a passenger. They both meet almost-must, infant-like creatures called Cherubs, one of whom gives the Doctor a warning: “Beware of the Elohim.” The Doctor is now more certain than ever that his old friend is in trouble, just as the space cruise ship’s officers are certain that their colorful new passenger spells trouble for them.

written by P.J. Hammond & Andy Lane
directed by Barnaby Edwards
music by Simon Robinson

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Nicola Bryant (Peri), Alex Macqueen (Gabriel), James D’Arcy (Michael), Helen Goldwyn (Stella / Bella), Andree Bernard (Lorelei), Teddy Kempner (Mr. Gelter / Mr. Bliss / Elohim voice), Claire Wyatt (Ms. Aht), Richard Earl (Mr. Tapp / Mr. Winterbourne)

Notes: P.J. Hammond is the creator of the cult classic fantasy series Sapphire & Steel, which intermittently presented Doctor Who with serious competition in the area of messing with timelines and established history. Hammond later went on to pen episodes of Torchwood (Small Worlds, From Out Of The Rain), but this was his first and only attempt to write for Doctor Who. The scripts for Paradise 5 were rejected, with some accounts claiming that John Nathan-Turner was particularly uncomfortable with the story. Paradise 5 was originally conceived as one of the segments of The Trial Of A Time Lord, possibly the first one to feature Melanie, and as the series was already an endangered species following its 18-month hiatus, JN-T may have felt that generating controversy via the use of Judeo-Christian imagery was an unnecessary risk.

Timeline: after The Hollows Of Time and before Point Of Entry

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

8th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

To The Death

By theLogBook.com
March 31, 2011

Doctor Who: To The Death The Doctor miraculously survives the destruction of the Dalek ship on which he’s being held prisoner, but his brief time among the Daleks leaves him riddled with guilt: the Dalek Time Controller, who he thought he had destroyed in the distant future, has traveled back in time to lead the Daleks’ second invasion of Earth. The Doctor learns that the Dalek Time Controller was sucked into the time vortex and had an eternity to observe history and concoct a plan to wipe out all non-Dalek life using a combination of potent viruses, spreading disease through the universe by using Earth as a mobile plague planet. The Doctor plans to take a nuclear bomb that the Monk has stashed away forward in time to correct his error and prevent this chain of events from happening, but Lucie insists on using the nuke in the present to wipe out the Dalek invasion force. For once, the Doctor is in no position to save the world, but he will witness the death of many dear friends and family members as they battle the Daleks without him.

written by Nicholas Briggs
directed by Nicholas Briggs
music by Andy Hardwick

Cast: Paul McGann (The Doctor), Sheridan Smith (Lucie Miller), Niky Wardley (Tamsin Drew), Graeme Garden (The Monk), Carole Ann Ford (Susan Campbell), Jake McGann (Alex Campbell), Nicholas Briggs (The Daleks)

Timeline: between Lucie Miller and The Great War

Notes: This release wraps up the separate range of eighth Doctor audio stories that had been published by Big Finish since 2006, though the adventure would continue in a box set release also outside the main range, Dark Eyes, in 2012. The Doctor, then in his sixth incarnation (and traveling with the eighth Doctor’s former companion, Charley Pollard), encountered the Dalek Time Controller at Amethyst Station in Patient Zero. A sole Dalek plummeting through time (and driven insane as a result) would also prove to be a problem in the 2008 season finale The Stolen Earth / Journey’s End; Nicholas Briggs uses a similar voice treatment for both the Dalek Time Controller and Dalek Caan, which may indicate – without breaking Big Finish’s contractual obligation to avoid direct reference to the new series – that the two are intended to be the same character.

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Picard Season 2 Star Trek

Fly Me To The Moon

By theLogBook.com
March 31, 2022

The Borg Queen tries to summon a contemporary human whose body she can assimilate. Jurati shoots the Queen with a period firearm from the Picard estate, but then makes the mistake of allowing the Queen to slip into her mind. The watcher transports Picard back to her base of operations, an unassuming 21st century apartment, and introduces herself as Tallinn, a bit of a letdown to Picard since other than her ears, she looks just like Laris. She is a Supervisor, charged with safeguarding one critical person in Earth’s history, in this case Picard’s ancestor, astronaut Renee Picard, who is slated to be aboard the first crewed mission to Europa. That flight, to a moon of Jupiter conisdered a promising candidate for harboring life, will change history, and together, Tallinn and Picard discover that Q is pulling the strings, trying to get Renee dropped from the mission roster. Q is also meddling in the affairs of geneticist Adam Soong, whose funding has been cut due to fears that his research borders on eugenics, and that he is trying to weaponize genetic manipulation; this makes Soong vulnerable to blackmail, as he is also trying to cure his daughter, Kore, of a genetic condition he hasn’t been able to isolate. Meddling is an understatement when it comes to describing Seven and Raffi’s rescue of Rios from ICE. Meddling barely even begins to describe Picard’s plan to infiltrate an invitation-only gala event for the Europa mission’s crew to ensure Renee’s safety. The plan hinges on Jurati’s skills…but Jurati has a passenger in her mind whose help will come at a cost.

written by Cindy Appel
directed by Jonathan Frakes
music by Jeff Russo
additional music by Sam Lucas

Cast: Patrick Stewart (Jean-Luc Picard), Alison Pill (Dr. Agnes Jurati), Jeri Ryan (Seven of Nine), Michelle Hurd (Commander Raffi Musiker), Evan Evagora (Elnor), Orla Brady (Tallinn), Isa Briones (Kore Soong), Santiago Cabrera (Captain Cristobal Rios), Brent Spiner (Adam Soong), John de Lancie (Q), Annie Wersching (Borg Queen), Penelope Mitchell (Renee Picard), Lea Thompson (Dr. Diane Werner), Leif Gantvoort (ICE Officer #1), Jackie Geary (Mona), Ivo Nandi (LeClerc), Kay Bess (La Sirena Computer), Oscar Camacho (Pedro), Michelle Haro (Guard #1), Shaw Jones (Guard #2), Daniel Mooney (Young Man), Zach Sowers (Security Guard #1), Kareem Stroud (Security Guard #2)

Notes: Tailinn’s transporter “vault” technology is the same kind previously seen in use by Gary Seven (Assignment: Earth, 1968), and Picard is aware of Kirk’s crew’s interaction with him. This is but the first time that the writers of Star Trek: Picard associate the interval of seventeen seconds with fatherhood. After directing the previous two episodes, veteran cinematic time traveler Lea Thompson gets an on-screen cameo as the chairperson ot the committee ending Soong’s funding.