Day: April 18, 1988

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Season 01 Star Trek The Next Generation

Symbiosis

Star Trek: The Next GenerationStardate not given: The Enterprise beams four passengers of a freighter aboard just before their vessel explodes in a planet’s atmosphere, but the two pairs of survivors can’t agree on who gets a barrel of felicium, an “elixir” which Dr. Crusher soon recognizes to be a narcotic – but the manufacturers of the drug soon see an opportunity to exploit their dependents by entangling Picard and Dr. Crusher in the prime directive.

Order the DVDsteleplay by Robert Lewin, Richard Manning and Hans Beimler
story by Robert Lewin
directed by Win Phelps
music by Dennis McCarthy

Guest Cast: Judson Scott (Sobi), Merritt Butrick (T’Jon), Richard Lineback (Romas), Kimberly Farr (Langor), Kenneth Tigar (Margan)

Notes: Judson Scott and Merritt Butrick were on opposite sides in Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan as well, with Butrick playing Kirk’s son David and Scott as one of Khan’s henchmen; this was one of Butrick’s last acting roles before dying of AIDS. Though it airs before Skin Of Evil, Symbiosis was produced after it, and you can see Denise Crosby’s true swan song here – look for her waving to the camera as the cargo bay doors close.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Deep Space Nine Season 02 Star Trek

The Maquis – Part I

Star Trek: Deep Space NineStardate not given: A Cardassian ship is destroyed moments after leaving dock at DS9, and evidence is discovered pointing to sabotage – committed not by Bajorans, but by someone in the Federation. Gul Dukat arrives on the station, telling Sisko that things are heating up along the recently realigned Cardassian/Federation border, along which a demilitarized zone has been erected. Also present on the station is the Federation attache’ to the Federation colonies on the border, Commander Hudson, who also happens to be an old friend of Sisko. Dukat and Sisko travel to one of the border colonies, witnessing a furious battle between Federation and Cardassian colonists’ vessels along the way. On arrival, they discover that the human responsible for the destruction of the Cardassian vessel has been captured on DS9, interrogated and then killed, enraging the human colonists. After returning to the station, Dukat is kidnapped and taken from the station. A message is received from a group who call themselves the Maquis, claiming responsibility for the abduction. Sisko, Kira and Bashir track down the ship that must have taken Dukat from the station, and Sisko discovers that Hudson, who has voiced sympathies for the displaced Federation colonists, is the leader of the colonists in their war against their Cardassian neighbors.

Order the DVDsDownload this episode via Amazonteleplay by James Crocker
story by Rick Berman & Michael Piller & Jeri Taylor and James Crocker
directed by David Livingston
music by Jay Chattaway

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), Bernie Casey (Commander Cal Hudson), Marc Alaimo (Gul Dukat), Tony Plana (Amaros), Bertila Damas (Sakonna), Richard Poe (Gul Evek), Michael A. Star Trek: Deep Space NineKrawic (Samuels), Amanda Carlin (Kobb), Michael Rose (Niles), Steven John Evans (Guard)

Notes: The colonists descended from Native Americans were established in the recent Next Generation episode Journey’s End; both that episode and this two-parter were laying the groundwork for Voyager’s half-Maquis crew and the character of Chakotay.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Lexx Season 1

I Worship His Shadow

LexxThe forces of His Divine Shadow and the warrior race of the Brunnen G clash near one of the Brunnen G’s worlds. The fight ends badly for the Brunnen G and their planet is destroyed. Kai, leader of the Brunnen G attack group, orders a last-ditch kamikaze dive into the control deck of the Shadow starships, but he is the only one who even gets that far. He slams into the ship’s bridge and survives the impact, only to be personally killed by His Divine Shadow itself. The last of the Brunnen G is dead. Two thousand years pass.

In the Cluster, the seat of His Divine Shadow’s government ruling over the league of 20,000 worlds, the clerics of the divine order are trying to figure out how to extend the life of His Divine Shadow. It passes from host brain to host brain, but its sheer power overwhelms each successive host. The spent host’s brain is preserved and kept alive to join His Divine Predecessors. The clerics also worry about a vague prophecy that His Divine Shadow’s forces will cut down the Brunnen G to the last man, but that His Shadow will be slain by a Brunnen G in the end – clearly impossible, since that race is now extinct. The Shadow’s order maintains control over thousands of planets through merciless rule, military might, and forcing the populations of those worlds to worship His Shadow.

The arrival of a prison ship signals the end of the Divine Shadow’s order, though in the unlikeliest way. A heretic hero, Thodin, is among the ship’s prisoners, though he has allowed himself to be captured and brought to the Cluster so he can engineer the Shadow’s downfall. Also among the prisoners are a notorious female cannibal named Giggerota, and an overweight woman named Zev who faces a severe punishment for not fulfilling her “wifely duties.” Zev is sentenced to be reprogrammed into a senator’s love slave, her body altered accordingly to fit her future master’s desires.

Thodin’s plan misfires literally – a bomb goes off in the wrong place, releasing a pack of omnivorous Cluster Lizards into the general populace instead of the public arena where he faces a gladiatorial death sentence. One of the Cluster Lizards reaches the lab where Zev is being “reshaped,” and it falls into the body-shaping apparatus with her. When Zev emerges, she’s part human, part Cluster Lizard, with a fiercely independent spirit and now the strength and fighting instinct to match – as well as quite a healthy sexual appetite. She is spared the mental reprogramming part of the operation by grabbing the head of a robot destroyed by the Cluster Lizard and putting it into the apparatus. The robot, 790, instantly falls head over heels – well, perhaps just head over head – in love with her, and Zev only reluctantly brings it with her to open doors along the path of her escape.

Zev encounters low-ranking security guard Stanley Tweedle, who is on the run for questioning a high-ranking officer’s orders. Using 790, they manage to evade capture, and run into Thodin and his rebels as they try to board a new, insect-based organic warship developed by the Divine Order: the Lexx. Capable of obliterating a planet with a single shot, the Lexx is the most top-secret and heavily-guarded project in the entire Cluster, but His Shadow’s elite guards are conspicuous by their absence in the launch area.

The Lexx bonds to and takes orders from only one person, and when that person dies, the biometric key transfers itself to Stanley Tweedle – the only other human in the previous keyholder’s vicinity. Stanley, Zev, Giggerota and 790 board and launch the Lexx, but find it incapable of defending itself – it’s programmed not to fire on ships loyal to His Divine Shadow. Worse yet, they have company aboard – Kai, last of the Brunnen G, reanimated by His Divine Shadow and reprogrammed to serve as the Shadow’s personal assassin, boards the Lexx and disposes of Giggerota, holding the others at the mercy of his Brunnen G brace weapon. But when His Divine Shadow arrives to personally quash the rebellion and bring the Lexx home, Kai begins to regain the memory of his proud heritage – and his death – and becomes an instrument of prophecy.

Order the DVDswritten by Paul Donovan with Jeffrey Hirschfield and Lex Gigeroff
directed by Paul Donovan
music by Marty Simon

Cast: Brian Downey (Stanley Tweedle), Eva Habermann (Zev), Michael McManus (Kai), Barry Bostwick (Thodin), Ellen Dubin (Giggerota), Jeffrey Hirschfield (790), Lisa Hines (Zev of B3K), Gil Brenton (Tem), David Renton (Senior Cleric), Anna Cameron (Prophet), Bill Carr (Correction Centre Guard), Lionel Doucette (Holo Judge), Liz Richardson (Holo Prosecutor), Chris Rowntree (Holo Official), John Dartt (Holo Defense Lawyer), David McClelland (Holo Cleric), Jocelyn Cunningham (Cluster Major), Richard Donat (Megashadow Admiral), Chas Lawther (Video Customs Officer), Andrei Mahankov (Robot 2), Clive Sweeney (Megashadow Adjutant), Jeremy Akerman (Transport Major), Joseph Rutten (Slab Prisoner), Alan MacGillivray (Argon Protopi), Josh McDonald (Sergeant), Lex Gigeroff (Bound Man), Walter Borden (His Dying Shadow), John Dunsworth (Video Asteroid Commander), Jack Carr (Video Boy Cleric), Horst Ulan (Cluster General), Glen Wadman (Officer), Stephen Turnbull (Fore Shadow Officer), Jamie Bradley (Cleric 2), Andrew Smith (Cleric), Michael Petersen (Robot & Lizard), Janice Evens (Computer Voice), Tom Gallant (Lexx), Walter Borden (His Shadow), Marty Simon (Brain No. 14)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Season 07 Star Trek Voyager

Author, Author

Star Trek: VoyagerStardate 54732.3: Thanks to Q’s reward to Janeway for taking care of his son, Voyager is now within shouting distance of home – or, at the very least, close enough to utilize Lt. Barclay’s latest innovation, a subspace signal bounced into the Alpha Quadrant, enabling real-time communications between Voyager and Starfleet. For the first time since Voyager became stranded in the Delta Quadrant, Harry Kim is able to see his parents, B’Elanna Torres sees her father for the first time in over twenty years, and the entire crew gets their first glimpse of Earth via a satellite transmission. And who has the Doctor been talking to? A Bolian publisher of holonovels, who has shown great interest in the hologram’s dramatization of the crew’s struggles over the past seven years. The Doctor’s crewmates learn about the negotiations for his literary work, but when they play the scenario themselves, they’re appalled to see how the Doctor has exaggerated their worst traits (not to mention his own struggle for equal rights as a member of the crew). The crew suggests more realistic revisions, which the Doctor implements without realizing that his unscrupulous publisher has already gone to “press” – with the wildly unflattering first draft. The crew’s families back home, after experiencing the holonovel, start asking questions about what has really happened to their loved ones in the Delta Quadrant. But when the Doctor tries to seek legal recourse for the unauthorized distribution of his work, the publisher falls back on the very point of the Doctor’s drama – holograms have no rights.

Order the DVDsteleplay by Phyllis Strong & Mike Sussman
story by Brannon Braga
directed by David Livingston
music by

Guest Cast: Dwight Schultz (Barclay), Richard Herd (Admiral Paris), Barry Gordon (Broht), Irene Tsu (Mary Kim), Joseph Campanella (Arbitrator), Lorinne Vozoff (Irene Hansen), Juan Garcia (John Torres), Robert Ito (John Kim)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Doctor Who Gallifrey

Square One

Gallifrey: Square OneA summit of the temporal superpowers is scheduled on a secluded artificial planetoid, and Coordinator Narvin is sent by President Romana to represent the Time Lords. Going with him, barely camouflaged, are Leela and K-9. But the out-of-place savage and her robotic dog aren’t there to protect Narvin; Romana has personally charged them with rooting out those responsible for an expected attempt to disrupt the conference. Leela does indeed find danger lurking, but all is not as it seems. Is someone sabotaging the summit to ensure its success?

Order this CDwritten by Stephen Cole
directed by Gary Russell
music by David Darlington

Cast: Lalla Ward (President Romana), Louise Jameson (Leela), John Leeson (K9), Miles Richardson (Cardinal Braxiatel), Sean Carlsen (Coordinator Narvin), Jane Goddard (Liaison Officer Hossak), Lucy Campbell (Baano), Daniel Hogarth (Flinkstab), Daniel Barzotti (V’rell)

Notes: The temporal superpower summit in this story refers back to the disastrous attempt at a similar meeting that was a plot point of the Doctor Who audio adventure The Apocalypse Element.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Lost Season 3

Catch-22

  • By Dave
  • April 18, 2007

LostFlashback: Desmond joins the novitiate of a monastery – a mere week before his wedding date with a girl named Ruth. Her brother tracks him down to the monastery and makes his point directly to Desmond’s nose. When he tries to explain himself to Ruth, she calls him a coward. That night, he drowns his sorrows in the monastery’s wine, and the monks decide that Desmond’s path leads elsewhere. As he’s leaving the monastery, he meets a young woman who has come to purchase several cases of wine . . . Penelope Widmore.

The Island: Jack spends time with Juliet as he adjusts to being back at the camp. Seeing this drives Kate back into Sawyer’s bed (metaphorically speaking, anyway). A conversation with Jack over a ping-pong match the next day leads Sawyer to understand the cause and effect relationship of those events, but he seems relatively untroubled by it.

Desmond has a series of precognitive flashes that end in Charlie’s death from one of Rousseau’s booby traps. But those flashes also hint that Penny is coming to the island in search of Desmond. Determined to ensure that the flashes hold true, Desmond convinces Hurley to help him find the cable into the jungle. He asks Jin and Charlie to accompany them as well, but offers as little information as possible. Desmond tries to tell himself that Charlie is destined to die anyway. But as the moment of truth nears, will he really be able to make that sacrifice?

Order the DVDswritten by Jeff Pinkner & Brian K. Vaughan
directed by Stephen Williams
music by Michael Giacchino

Guest Cast: Sonia Walger (Penny Widmore), Jack Maxwell (Derek), Joanna Bool (Ruth), Andrew Connolly (Brother Campbell), Andrew Trask (Older Monk), Marsha Thomason (Parachutist)

LogBook entry by Dave Thomer

Categories
Battlestar Galactica (New Series) Season 4

The Ties That Bind

Battlestar GalacticaHaving hung up his flight suit for a law career, Apollo finds himself appointed to one of Caprica’s seats on the Quorum by President Roslin. But at the press conference to announce his appointment, reporters are more interested in the sudden reassignment of the Colonial freighter Demetrius, and the rumors that Adama put Starbuck in charge of it to find the way to Earth. Aboard the Demetrius, Starbuck is struggling to remember the signposts that might lead her back to Earth, but she’s rapidly losing the patience and loyalty of her crew. Loyalty and patience also seem to be running out between Tyrol and Cally, who is convinced that Tyrol is having an affair – a theory that seems much more plausible when she spots him in a bar with Tory. Cally’s attempts to find out what’s going on only expose her to the truth: she’s married to a Cylon. That knowledge makes her a target, but even if Tyrol isn’t willing to take drastic measures to ensure that Cally can’t tell anyone else, the others are more than willing.

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

Guest Cast: Michael Hogan (Colonel Tigh), Aaron Douglas (CPO Tyrol), Tahmoh Penikett (Helo), Michael Trucco (Anders), Nicki Clyne (Cally), Alessandro Juliani (Lt. Gaeta), Kandyse McClure (Dualla), Richard Hatch (Tom Zarek), Dean Stockwell (Brother Cavel), Donnelly Rhodes (Doc Cottle), Matthew Bennett (Doral), Rekha Sharma (Tory Foster), Jennifer Halley (Seelix), Christina Schild (Playa Palacios), Biski Gugushe (Sekou Hamilton), Finn R. Devitt (Baby Nicky), Donna Soares (Speaking Delegate #1), Andrew McIlroy (Jacob Cantrell), Judith Marie (Picon Delegate), Iris Paluly (Speaking Delegate #2), Marilyn Norry (Reza Chronides)

Notes: Given that Galactica showrunner Ronald D. Moore started his professional screenwriting career on Star Trek: The Next Generation, it’s surely just a coincidence that Tyrol, Tigh and Tory picked weapons locker 1701D for their latest clandestine meeting.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
K-9 Season 1

Dream-Eaters

K-9Starkey, Jorjie and Darius all experience vivid, disturbing dreams of being pursued by Jixen, of K-9 turning against them, being surrounded by sinister clowns, and of being captured and goaded by a strange creature. And they’re not alone: all of London is sleeping and having similar nightmares, but no one can wake up. Jorjie ventures out into the city and returns quickly when the creature about whom they’ve all dreamed appears. Gryffen confirms that this being is no hallucination: it’s very real. Is this a new alien attack that has overpowered the Department’s defenses, or is someone from the Department involved?

written by Jim Noble
Discuss it in our forumdirected by Daniel Nettheim
music by Christopher Elves

Guest Cast: Robyn Moore (Inspector June Turner), Connor Van Vuuren (Drake)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Orville, The Season 2

Tomorrow, And Tomorrow, And Tomorrow

The OrvilleAfter rebuffing another of Mercer’s suggestions that they should get back together, Commander Grayson visits the science lab, where Isaac is working on an experimental device that could make time travel possible. Moments after she leaves, a gravitational wave strikes the Orville, leaving little damage, but depositing an extra person on the ship – one Lt. Kelly Grayson, seven years younger, wondering what she’s doing in the science lab of a Union ship. Her identity is verified, and Commander Grayson is stunned to be dealing with a younger version of herself – as is Mercer. Mercer and Grayson decide to tell the younger Kelly, in very honest terms, what happened with their relationship over the past seven years, which stuns her, given that for her, that first date with Mercer happened just last night. In fact, she’s curious about a second date, but the gap in age and personal experience makes this a problematic idea. Isaac and LaMarr devise a possible way to send the younger Kelly back to her own time, and Dr. Finn suggests a memory wipe as well, to avoid making major changes to the timeline.

Only the memory wipe doesn’t work, and young Kelly Grayson awakens in her own time with new ideas about her future.

Download this episode via Amazonwritten by Janet Lin
directed by Gary Rake
music by John Debney

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), Jessica Szohr (Lt. Talla Keyali), J Lee (Lt. John LaMarr), Mark Jackson (Isaac), Chad L. Coleman (Klyden), Will Sasso (Mooska), Norm MacDonald (Yaphit), Chase Kim (Officer)

Notes: LaMarr and Isaac’s experiment is derived from the time-shifting technology developed by Dr. Aronov in The Orville’s 2017 pilot episode, with clear implications that there is now far more to fear than the banana.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Discovery Season 2 Star Trek

Such Sweet Sorrow Part 2

Star Trek: DiscoveryStardate 1201.7: Surrounded by Leland’s Section 31 fleet – all under the thrall of Control – Enterprise and Discovery launch their full complement of shuttles (modified to serve as fighters) and prepare to cover for Burnham when the suit is ready to make the time jump. The Control AI proves to be equally useful in modifying its resources, literally carving up the hulls and other materials of Section 31’s armade to create a cloud of deadly drones, putting sheer numbers on Control’s side of the battle. Stamets is critically injured when Discovery takes a direct hit, and Culber, opting now to stay on Discovery with him, induces a coma to stabilize him. The suit is completed, but Burnham is unable to jump directly to the future without first going back in time to send the signals that Discovery‘s crew had already sighted and explored – each of which led to a change of events vital to the current battle. Klingons and Kelpiens, the latter flying commandeered Ba’ul fighters, join the battle, responding to a request for assistance transmitted by Tyler. Leland, no longer human but now the physical embodiment of Control, boards Discovery and begins desperately searching for the sphere data, and is instead repeatedly attacked by Georgiou and Nhan. A torpedo lodges into the Enterprise‘s saucer section without immediately exploding, though Admiral Cornwell finds that nothing can stop that eventuality, and sacrifices her life to close off the affected section to save the ship. Burnham completes sending the first five signals, and the suit’s control system now allows her to deliberately set a course for the future, which she does, sending the sixth signal as a signal flare for Discovery to follow and the heavily damaged Enterprise covers her escape. Discovery’s next stop is 930 years into the future: the 32nd century, and the last anyone in the 23rd century sees of it is a brilliant flash.

Order DVDsStream this episode via Amazonwritten by Michelle Paradise & Jenny Lumet & Alex Kurtzman
directed by Olatunde Osunsanmi
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), Jayne Brook (Admiral Cornwell), Mary Chieffo (Chancellor L’Rell), Yadira Guevara-Prip (Po), Mia Kershner (Amanda), Tig Notaro (Commander Jett Reno), Ethan Peck (Spock), Rebecca Romjin (Number One), Alan Van Sprang (Leland), Rachael Ancheril (Lt. Cmdr. Nhan), Emily Coutts (Lt. Keyla Detmer), Patrick Kwok-Choon (Lt. Gen Rhys), Oyin Oladejo (Lt. Joann Owosekun), Ronnie Rowe Jr. (Lt. R.A. Bryce), Sara Mitich (Lt. Nilsson), Raven Dauda (Dr. Tracy Pollard), Julianne Grossman (Discovery computer), Star Trek: DiscoveryZarrin Darnell-Martin (Nurse), Glenn Hetrick (K’Vort), Thom Marriott (Council Member), Hannah Spear (Siranna), Samora Smallwood (Lt. Amin), Hanneke Talbot (Lt. Mann), Kyana Teresa (Doctor), Chai Valladares (Lt. Nicola), Nicole Dickinson (Yeoman Colt)

Notes: Pike, Spock (who is finally seen clean-shaven and in uniform), Tyler, and Number One all recount to Starfleet incident investigators that Discovery exploded, and all knowledge of Discovery‘s existence, unusual technology, and crew is stricken from the official record, possibly in response to a steady stream of canon-fixated fans’ complaints about Discovery having “anachronistic” technology and other visual elements. (Some editorial thoughts on this development can be found here.)

LogBook entry by Earl Green