Day: June 19, 1989

Categories
Season 02 Star Trek The Next Generation

Manhunt

Star Trek: The Next GenerationStardate 42859.2: The Enterprise crew welcomes some fishlike Antedian delegates to a peace summit and, on short notice, Troi’s bothersome mother. Mrs. Troi, now in a phase of increased sexual activity, has come to the Enterprise to “visit” Picard, which meets with disapproval from Counselor Troi and amusement from Riker – while the captain hides in the holodeck generated world of Dixon Hill once more.

Order the DVDswritten by Terry Devereaux (a.k.a. Tracy Tormè)
directed by Rob Bowman
music by Dennis McCarthy

Cast: Patrick Stewart (Captain Picard), Jonathan Frakes (Commander Riker), LeVar Burton (Lt. Geordi La Forge), Michael Dorn (Lt. Worf), Marina Sirtis (Counselor Troi), Brent Spiner (Lt. Commander Data), Wil Wheaton (Wesley Crusher), Diana Muldaur (Dr. Pulaski), Majel Barrett (Lwaxana Troi), Robert Costanzo (Slade Bender), Carel Struycken (Mr. Homn), Rod Arrants (Rex), Colm Meaney (Chief O’Brien), Robert O’Reilly (Client), Rhonda Aldrich (Madeline), Mick Fleetwood (Antedian Delegate), Wren T. Brown (Transport Pilot)

Notes: Tracy Torme used a pseudonym for this episode and The Royale, having since stated this his original scripts for both episodes were rewritten against his wishes.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Deep Space Nine Season 03 Star Trek

The Adversary

Star Trek: Deep Space NineStardate 48959.1: The party surrounding Sisko’s promotion to Captain is cut short when a Federation ambassador brings disturbing news regarding the Tzenkethi, former enemies of the Federation. According to the ambassador, a change of government within the Tzenkethi could spell trouble for Federation outposts along their border, and the Defiant is ordered to patrol that area to show the Federation flag. But en route, O’Brien finds that the Defiant has been sabotaged, and someone else has pointed the ship toward an attack on the Tzenkethi. The crew learn that their saboteur is a changeling on a mission to spark a war between the Federation and the Tzenkethi, thus keeping those two powers too busy fighting each other to defend against a Dominion invasion. Naturally, the task of tracking down and fighting the intruder falls to Odo, who will become the first changeling to break with a sacred tradition and harm one of his own kind.

Order the DVDsDownload this episode via Amazonwritten by Ira Steven Behr & Robert Hewitt Wolfe
directed by Alexander Singer
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), Kenneth Marshall (Eddington), Lawrence Pressman (Krajensky), Jeff Austin (Bolian), Dennis Madalone (Defiant Officer)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Season 1 Witchblade

Conundrum

WitchbladePezzini receives an anonymous tip – suspicious in itself – about a murder. When she and McCartey arrive on the scene, all they find are bleached bones. Clues lead Pez to a modeling agency run by Dominique Boucher. In the course of questioning the victim’s roommate, Pez stumbles upon a stunning discovery – a photograph of a woman, circa World War II, who looks exactly like her, and she appears to be wearing the Witchblade on her wrist. The evidence begins to point toward Ms. Boucher, who Pezzini discovers has had a torrid past with Kenneth Irons – and she also finds out, too late, that Boucher has also worn the Witchblade…and knows how to control it, even if someone else is now wearing it.

Order the DVDsDownload this episode via Amazonteleplay by Edithe Swensen
story by Ralph Hemecker & Richard C. Okie
directed by Neill Fearnley
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: Laila Robins (Dominique Boucher), Malin Ackerman (Karen Bronte), Kathryn Winslow (Vicki), Will Corno (Photographer), Quancita Hamilton (Gina Maris), Malcolm Xerxes (?), Martin Samuel (?), and Lazar

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Season 10 SG-1 Stargate

Dominion

  • By Dave
  • June 19, 2007

Stargate SG-1Adria finds Vala in a bar somewhere in the galaxy, trying to cheat her way to a cargo ship. Vala tells her that after information she provided about the possible location of the Ancient repository led SG-3 into a trap, the IOA decided she had been compromised. They planned to remove her from the team and imprison her to prevent her from divulging information about Earth’s defenses, but instead Vala stole a personal cloaking device and escape the SGC. Adria wants to follow the lead Vala has uncovered – but when they arrive on the world in question they find SG-1 waiting with the anti-Prior device. The tables are turned yet again when Ba’al’s Jaffa beam down to the site and take Adria for themselves.

Back at Stargate Command, Vala learns that her memories of her dismissal from the team were a fake. When the team learned that Adria had returned to the Milky Way, Vala volunteered to have false memories implanted with the Galatan device in order to lure Adria into a trap. SGC’s plan was to try to convince her to order to Ori army home, but that quickly takes a back seat to retrieving her from Ba’al. SG-1 learns that the Ba’al clones are gathering for a summit – but when they arrive they find the clones and many Jaffa dead from symbiote poison. Ba’al has apparently decided to eliminate the competition, but one Jaffa who lacked a symbiote is able to give SG-1 Ba’al’s location.

The team is able to retrieve Adria – but not before Ba’al takes her as a host. SG-1 considers its options. One is to simply kill both adversaries on the spot. But the team decides to adopt a more ambitious plan: they enlist the Tok’ra to remove Ba’al and implant a Tok’ra into Adria, who will order the Ori army to leave the galaxy. But Ba’al is not interested in giving up his prize, and injects Adria with poison. The Tok’ra surgeon says that Adria is dying, but she has enough strength left to pursue a fallback option – one that could leave her even more powerful than before.

Order the DVDsDownload this episode via Amazon's Unboxstory by Alex Levine
teleplay by Alan McCullough
directed by William Waring
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: Morena Baccarin (Adria), Cliff Simon (Ba’al), Peter Flemming (Malcolm Barrett), Erik Breker (Col. Reynolds), Jonathan Walker (Ta’seem)

LogBook entry by Dave Thomer

Categories
Doctor Who New Series Season 05

The Pandorica Opens

Doctor WhoA series of events ripples through time and space upon the completion of Vincent Van Gogh‘s latest painting depicting the fiery destruction of the TARDIS. Many of the Doctor’s friends and allies encounter the painting through time, from Winston Churchill to Liz 10 to, finally, River Song. River draws the Doctor to Earth at the time of the Roman Empire to show him the painting, which she believes is a warning Van Gogh received in a vision. Within the painting itself is a time and a location, leading the Doctor, Amy and River to Stonehenge.

The Doctor finds a chamber beneath Stonehenge, containing a large, cubical object of alien origin: the Pandorica, something which River has mentioned before but the Doctor believed was a myth. But before the Doctor can investigate or open the Pandorica, dozens of alien ships descend into the sky over Stonehenge: many of the Doctor’s enemies have come to call. While he bluffs his would-be captors into leaving, River attempts to move the TARDIS closer to the Pandorica, but the timeship begins behaving erratically and is flung violently through the time vortex. It begins to seem as though the Doctor is destined not to be at the controls of the TARDIS when it suffers the fate forseen by Van Gogh.

The Doctor’s enemies return to Stonehenge, and only then does the Doctor realize the horrifying truth: the Daleks, Cybermen, Sontarans and many more have set aside their differences to conspire against their greatest enemy. With their combined forces against him, the Doctor may be doomed, and the universe along with him.

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Steven Moffat
directed by Toby Haynes
music by Murray Gold

Cast: Matt Smith (The Doctor), Karen Gillan (Amy Pond), Alex Kingston (River Song), Arthur Darvill (Rory), Tony Curran (Vincent), Bill Paterson (Bracewell), Ian McNeice (Winston Churchill), Sophie Okonedo (Liz Ten), Marcus O’Donovan (Claudio), Clive Wood (Commander), Christopher Ryan (Commander Stark), Ruari Mears (Cyber Leader), Paul Kasey (Judoon), Howard Lee (Doctor Gachet), Barnaby Edwards (Dalek), Simon Fisher Becker (Dorium), Joe Jacobs (Guard), Chrissie Cotterill (Madame Vernet), David Fynn (Marcellus), Nicholas Briggs (Dalek / Cyberman / Judoon voices)

The Pandorica OpensNotes: This marks the first time Daleks, Cybermen and Sontarans have all shared the screen in anything other than a flashback (if one wishes to count flashbacks, however, the first time would have been during the flashbacks experienced by the fourth Doctor at the end of part 4 of Logopolis). Classic Doctor Who aliens name-checked but not seen include Drahvins (Galaxy Four), Zygons (Terror Of The Zygons), and curiously, the Chelonians, a reptilian warrior race introduced in the New Adventures novels published in the 1990s (specifically, in “The Highest Science”). This marks the first time that an element specific to the New Adventures has been acknowledged by the new TV series. The Slitheen are also mentioned, but are not seen.

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green