Day: May 28, 1966

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Classic Season 03 Doctor Who

The Savages

Doctor WhoThe Doctor brings the TARDIS in for a landing on a world whose inhabitants have, according to him, achieved peace and balance. As the Doctor surveys the planet, Steven grows impatient and goes to look for him, but he and Dodo run into stone-age primitives – hardly an advanced civilization. The TARDIS travelers are saved by the Elders, who welcome them to their city and offer the Doctor a seat among their most revered leaders. The Doctor is honored, but continues to ask questions about his hosts. But the more questions he asks, it becomes clearer that there’s trouble in paradise. The Elders and their guards capture the “Savages” and drag them into the city, where they are subjected to a process that extracts their life energy and transfers that vitality to recipients in the city. When Dodo discovers the process, the time travelers are suddenly less welcome, and instead of a place of honor, the Doctor becomes the next in line to
have his life force drained.

Order this story on audio CDwritten by Ian Stuart Black
directed by Christopher Barry
music by Raymond Jones

Guest Cast: Ewen Solon (Chal), Patrick Godfrey (Tor), Peter Thomas (Edal), Geoffrey Frederick (Exorse), Frederick Jaeger (Jano), Robert Sidaway (Avon), Kay Patrick (Flower), Clare Jenkins (Nanina), Norman Henry (Senta), Edward Caddick (Wylda), Andrew Lodge, Christopher Denham, Tony Holland (Assistants), John Dillon, John Raven (Savages), Tim Goodman (Guard)

Notes: The master tapes of this episode were destroyed by the BBC in the early 1970’s, and no video copies exist.

Broadcast from May 28 through June 18, 1966

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Classic Season 1 Tomorrow People

Slaves Of Jedikiah – Part 4

Tomorrow PeopleJohn and Carol have regained control of TIM and the base, and free Stephen from the silencing band that soaks up his telepathic ability, but Kenny has been abducted by Jedikiah. Jedikiah sheds his human disguise, revealing himself as a robot controlled by the alien Cyclops. Base at their base, John, Carol and Stephen discover that Cyclops is on a spacecraft, speeding toward Earth, where he expects to take control, somehow using their talents.

Download this episode via Amazonwritten by Brian Finch and Roger Price
directed by Paul Bernard
music by Dudley Simpson

Tomorrow PeopleCast: Sammie Winmill (Carol), Nicholas Young (John), Peter Vaughan-Clarke (Stephen), Stephen Salmon (Kenny), Francis de Wolff (Jedikiah), Michael Standing (Ginge), Derek Crewe (Lefty), Philip Gilbert (TIM), Robert Bridges (Cyclops)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
KTMA Season Mystery Science Theater 3000

Experiment K21: The “Legend Of Dinosaurs”

Mystery Science Theater 3000: The KTMA SeasonMST3K Story: The Mads have come up with a “Joel Is Dead” scheme that they hope will give a boost to the “marketing arm of Mystery Science Theater”. Joel doesn’t care for the idea, but the Mads really need the money to start their new theme park, Six Flags over Ten to the Twelfth Power. Joel has Cambot work up a special effect that makes Joel seem to be carried away by a small child. The Bots consider just how “special” the effect was. At the halfway point, it’s time for a foray into sit-com land, courtesy of Joel’s TV Sit-Com Simulator. Later, Joel shows the Bots how special effects can make a small model dinosaur look really huge. They seem more interested in whether it’s anatomically correct or not. Joel mentions that they are going on hiatus. During the break, Crow says he is going to space camp, while Servo is going to fill his head with Cocoa Butter and Surf ’til he drops. Joel will be working on his Bob Hope impression (which needs it). Joel takes time to thank all the fans and members of the fan club along with the folks at Channel 21 (KTMA). He asks everyone who enjoyed the show to write in before saying a big “Goodbye” for the summer.

The “Legend Of Dinosaurs” Story: A young girl falls into a deep cavern while walking near the base of Mount Fuji. There she sees what she believes to be a dinosaur egg and passes on her discovery before she dies. A young rock expert who learns of the woman is moved to seek out proof of the dinosaur egg’s existence. His father had theorized that dinosaur eggs were beneath Mt. Fuji, but had been rebuffed by the scientific community. His son has similar trouble, as his investigations stand in the way of the local “Dragon Festival”. Still, everything points to the existence of a Plesiosaur in the waters near Mt. Fuji. Mysterious deaths lead to a large-scale effort to find the monster, but it is abandoned when no evidence is found. Attacks in broad daylight eventually make it clear that there are two dinosaurs on the loose: a Plesiosaur and a Pterodactyl. The two prehistoric beasts wind up fighting each other. This activity causes Mt. Fuji to erupt, burying them both.

MST3K segments written by Joel Hodgson, Trace Beaulieu, Josh Weinstein, Jim Mallon & Kevin Murphy
additional writing by Brian Funk
MST3K segments directed by Vince Rodriguez
The “Legend Of Dinosaurs” written by Masaru Igami, Takeshi Matsumoto (as Isao Matsumoto) & Ichirô Ootsu (as Ichiro Otsu)
The “Legend Of Dinosaurs” directed by Junji Kurata
The “Legend Of Dinosaurs” music by Masao Yagi

MST3K Guest Cast: none

The “Legend Of Dinosaurs” Cast: Tsunehiko Watase, Nobiko Sawa, Shotako Hayashi, Tomoko Kiyoshima, Fuyukichi Maki, David Freedman, Maureen Peacock, Catharine Laub, Hiroshi Nawa, Ginji Nakamura (as Kinji Nakamura), Masataka Iwao, Goro Oki, Yusuke Tsukasa, Yukio Miyagi, Akira Moroguchi, Tetsuo Fujisawa, Mineko Maruhira, Satoru Nabe, Takashi Noguchi, Toshio Tomogane, Yoshiaki Yamashita

LogBook entry by Philip R. Frey

Categories
Season 03 Star Trek The Next Generation

Menage a Troi

Star Trek: The Next GenerationStardate 43930.7: Lwaxana Troi visits her daughter at the same time a trade conference is taking place. Ferengi DaiMon Tog decides that Mrs. Troi is the woman for him, and he kidnaps her along with Deanna and Riker. On the Enterprise, Wesley forgoes an opportunity to travel to the Academy to help locate the Ferengi ship and recover Riker, Deanna and Mrs. Troi. Picard rewards Wesley by promoting him from an acting ensign to a real Starfleet ensign.

Order the DVDswritten by Fred Bronson and Susan Sackett
directed by Robert Legato
music by Ron Jones

Guest Cast: Majel Barrett (Lwaxana Troi), Frank Corsentino (DaiMon Tog), Ethan Phillips (Dr. Farek), Peter Slutsker (Nibor), Rudolph Willrich (Reittan Grax), Carel Struycken (Mr. Homn)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Doctor Who Gallifrey

A Blind Eye

Gallifrey: A Blind EyeA most curious assortment of travelers boards a train bound from Munich to Switzerland in 1939. Romana and Leela are traveling incognito, but so is swindler and arms dealer Mephistopheles Arkadian, who Romana interrogated during the Gryben crisis. He promises to give her vital information regarding that incident if she and the Time Lords turn the other cheek for only three hours and let him have his way with history. Arkadian’s specific historical interest revolves around a young woman on the train, a Nazi sympathizer named Cecilia Pollard – the sister of Charlotte Pollard, the Doctor’s traveling companion when he was last seen before vanishing into the divergent universe. While Romana uneasily agrees to Arkadian’s terms, she can’t speak for the Time Lords’ Celestial Intervention Agency, and no sooner do Narvin and Torvald appear then things start to go disastrously wrong. Time itself jumps the tracks, creating two parallel timelines – and somehow Leela and Cecilia Pollard have become stranded in the newly created alternate history, along with a Time Lord who has his own murderous intentions. Romana and Narvin are left to wring information out of Arkadian – and hope that Leela can gain enough of an awareness of what’s happened to help them heal the timeline. But Leela is preoccupied with a problem of her own: she has found the man she believes to be responsible for her husband’s death, but at a point in his own timeline before he committed the murder. And if killing him now will prevent that from happening, Leela is prepared to do it – and history be damned.

Order this CDwritten by Alan Barnes
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), Andy Coleman (Commander Torvald), Hugo Myatt (Arkadian), India Fisher (Cecelia Pollard), Susan Engel (Ms. Joy), David Warwick (Erich), Daniel Hogarth (Waiter)

Notes: Guest star Susan Engel has met Romana before – well, sort of. As Vivien Fay, Engel appeared alongside the first Romana, played by Mary Tamm, in the 1978 story The Stones Of Blood. The events and explanations in this story lean heavily upon the Doctor Who audio stories Storm Warning, Neverland and Zagreus. The Doctor has apparently told Leela a great deal about Earth history where Hitler is concerned, as she recognizes the name immediately; she also recounts the history of her tribe, the Sevateem, and their mortal enemies the Tesh, as established on TV in her debut story, The Face Of Evil. The Celestial Intervention Agency, a sly satirical nod toward another secretive group whose acronym is CIA, was established in The Deadly Assassin, as were many other aspects of Time Lord society mentioned throughout the Gallifrey series.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Doctor Who New Series Season 01

The Doctor Dances

Doctor WhoCornered by gas-masked mutants all asking “Have you seen my mummy?”, the Doctor manages to bluff his way out of danger and, with the help of Rose and the still somewhat suspect Captain Jack, begins to learn the nature of the spreading plague. Jack’s stolen Chula ship carried a cargo of highly adaptable sentient nano-genes, capable of performing instant surgery on an injured person to heal their wounds at the genetic level. But the nano-genes’ first contact with a human – the dying little boy, mortally wounded in a bomb blast – left them with confused information as to what humans look like and how their bodies work. So now the genetic changes are remaking everyone in the dead boy’s image, from the gas masks to his frantic search for his mother…and the changes will spread across the entire Earth as an unstoppable plague, unless the Doctor can somehow provide the nano-genes with more accurate information.

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Steven Moffat
directed by James Hawes
music by Murray Gold

Guest Cast: Albert Valentine (The Child), Florence Hoath (Nancy), John Barrowman (Captain Jack Harkness), Luke Perry (Timothy Lloyd), Damian Samuels (Mr. Lloyd), Cheryl Fergison (Mrs. Lloyd), Joseph Tremain (Jim), Robert Hands (Algy), Jordan Murphy (Ernie), Brandon Miller (Alf), Richard Wilson (Dr. Constantine), Zoe Thorne (voice of the Empty Child), Dian Perry (Computer voice)

Note: Along with The Empty Child, The Doctor Dances won the Best Dramatic Presentation (Shortform) Hugo Award in 2006.

Reviews by Philip R. Frey & Earl Green
LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
6th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Assassin In The Limelight

Doctor Who: Assassin In The LimelightThe TARDIS unceremoniously deposits the Doctor and Evelyn in Ford’s Theatre in Washington D.C. on the eve of the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. Upon being told by the theatre’s manager that one Oscar Wilde is rehearsing a performance of “The Importance Of Being Earnest” – a play that hasn’t been written since the real Wilde is still a child – the Doctor barges in on that rehearsal to find an old enemy at work. The man he and Evelyn battled in Edinborough, “Dr. Robert Knox,” is at it again, changing history to suit his own agenda – and in this case, it seems that Knox has murdered John Wilkes Booth, just hours away from Booth’s date with destiny as Lincoln’s assassin. Though the Doctor feels certain that time itself will offer a mid-course correction – as there are certainly other armed men angry enough to take a shot at the President – he leaves nothing to chance and tries to discover what Knox is doing here. He’s horrified to discover that Knox has inadvertently left Earth vulnerable to an alien invasion in the 1800s.

Order this CDwritten by Robert Ross
directed by Barnaby Edwards
music by Martin Johnson

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Maggie Stables (Evelyn Smythe), Leslie Phillips (Dr. Robert Knox), Lysette Anthony (Clara Harris), Eric Loren (John Parker), Madeleine Potter (Lizzie Williams), Alan Marriott (Henry Clay Ford), Paul DuBois (John Wilkes Booth), Mikey O’Connor (Thomas Eckert)

Timeline: After 100 and before

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
Doctor Who New Series Season 06

The Almost People

Doctor WhoTrapped in the castle with a group of hostile Gangers imitating the physical forms and personalities of the humans of whom they’re copies, the Doctor is now faced with a copy of himself, though the Doctor’s Ganger seems benign and helpful no matter how much suspicion he receives from the humans. An evacuation flight is dispatched to the castle, and the race is on to greet it when it lands. The Gangers, fighting for their right to continued existence rather than the inhumane “decommissioning” that usually awaits them, are content simply to wipe out their former masters. Despite the humans harboring much the same sentiment toward the Gangers, the Doctor – and his duplicate – try to maintain the possibility of a peaceful solution. But as the humans – even Amy – continue to ostracize the surplus Doctor, he begins to wonder if he’s on the right side. And the Doctor and Rory make the horrifying discovery that there’s one more Ganger in their midst than they realized.

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Matthew Graham
directed by Julian Simpson
music by Murray Gold

Cast: Matt Smith (The Doctor), Karen Gillan (Amy Pond), Arthur Darvill (Rory), Mark Bonnar (Jimmy), Marshall Lancaster (Buzzer), Sarah Smart (Jennifer), Raquel Cassidy (Cleaves), Leon Vickers (Dicken), Frances Barber (Eye Patch Lady), Edmond Moulton (Adam)

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Movies

Kung Fury

Kung FuryImbued with ancient knowledge of the martial arts, Kung Fury is the best beat cop on the streets, but refuses to take on a new partner because of the grisly fate that met his last partner. But when Adolf Hitler travels to 1985 to claim Kung Fury’s power for himself, hoping to become the Kung Fuhrer in the process, Kung Fury decides to return the favor. With the help of the world’s greatest hacker, Kung Fury travels back in time to stop Hitler from coming to the future. But even the best beat cop on the streets will have to meet a few powerful friends – and his maker – before he can take on the leader of the Third Reich.

See it now!screenplay by David Sanderson
directed by David Sanderson
music by Mitch Murder, Lost Years, Patrick Oberg, Christoffer Ling, Highway Superstar, Betamaxx, and David Hasselhoff

Cast: David Sanderson (Kung Fury), Jorma Taccone (Adolf Hitler), Steven Chew (Dragon), Leopold Nilsson (Hackerman), Andreas Cahling (Thor), Per-Henrik Arvidius (Chief / voice of Thor), Erik Hornqvist (Triceracop), Frank Sanderson (voice of Triceracop / Cobra / Dinomite), Eleni Young (Barbarianna), Helene Ahlson (Katana), Yasmina Suhonen (voice of Katana), Magnus Betner (Colonel Reichstache), Bjorn Gustafsson (Private Lahmstache), Eos Karlsson (Red Ninja), David Hasselhoff Kung Fury(HOFF 9000), Klas Trulsson (Police Officer), Mikael Liljeholm (Police Officer), Victor Lindgren (Police Officer), Mattias Andersson (Police Officer), Martin Gardenalm (Police Officer), David Sundqvist (Police Officer), Mattias Colin (Police Officer), Niklas Bjuhr (Police Officer), Hannes Sigrell (Police Officer), Marc Stromberg (Street Thug), Sebastian Sahin (Street Thug), Robin Arvidsson (Street Thug), Tobias Drews (Nazi Experimenter), Bepper Starbrink (Nazi Experimenter), Mats Mossing (Nazi Experimenter), Anette Bergstrom (Nazi Experimenter), Julian Maroda (Boombox Dude), Jason Blalock (Arcade Dude), Hjalmar Ekstrom (Arcade Dude), Joel Dunkels (Guy with Telephone), Sandra Nendos (Boombox Girl), Emilia Bystrom (Don’t Look Back At Explosions Boombox Walker)

LogBook entry and review by Earl Green