Day: July 2, 1973

Categories
Classic Season 1 Tomorrow People

The Medusa Strain – Part 4

Tomorrow PeopleJedikiah is so obsessed with destroying the Tomorrow People that he turns against his allies. Despite this, he nearly succeeds in neutralizing their power. Only Carol and Peter can save their own kind (with some help from Ginge), and their best hope is to use Jedikiah’s newfound fixation of time travel against him.

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

Tomorrow PeopleCast: Sammie Winmill (Carol), Nicholas Young (John), Peter Vaughan-Clarke (Stephen), Stephen Salmon (Kenny), Roger Bizley (Jedikiah), Michael Standing (Ginge), Philip Gilbert (TIM), Roger Booth (Robowski), Richard Speight (Peter), Dave Prowse (Android), Norman McGlen (The Medusa)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Original Series 1 Survivors

Revenge

Survivors (1970s series)Having grown more isolated as the rest of the survivors work toward the harvest, Vic – confined by his crippled legs to a rolling office chair – attempts suicide. Greg and Paul continue searching through the rooms of the Grange, eventually finding a real wheelchair for Vic, as well as a wealth of books that could help to formalize Vic’s role as the settlement’s unofficial teacher. A tanker truck full of gasoline arrives, occupied by two more refugees from the more populated parts of England – one of whom is Anne, the woman who left Vic for dead at the first opportunity. She and Greg recognize each other on sight, and Greg informs her that Vic is still alive. When Vic learns of Anne’s return, he becomes obsessed with seeing her – but is he plotting revenge or rapproachment?

written by Jack Ronder
directed by Gerald Blake
music by Anthony Isaac

SurvivorsCast: Carolyn Seymour (Abby Grant), Ian McCulloch (Greg Preston), Lucy Fleming (Jenny Richards), Hugh Walters (Vic Thatcher), Myra Frances (Anne Tranter), Chris Tranchell (Paul Pitman), Hana-Maria Pravda (Emma Cohen), Eileen Helsby (Charmian Wentworth), Michael Gover (Arthur Russell), Tanya Ronder (Lizzie), Stephen Dudley (John), Robert Tayman (Donny)

Notes: Hugh Walters – known to Doctor Who fans as Time Lord roving reporter Runcible – takes over the part of Vic for the remainder of the character’s appearances.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Season 03 SG-1 Stargate

Seth

Stargate SG-1Jacob Carter visits the SGC on behalf of the Tok’ra, bearing a holographic projection identifying and ranking the Goa’uld System Lords. One of the symbols, representing a System Lord named Setesh – also known in ancient Egyptian mythology as Set or Sutekh, the god of chaos – and the Tok’ra believe Satesh is living incognito on Earth. Daniel finds a promising lead, a cult that has worhsipped Setesh down through the ages; the most recent derivative of that cult is now led by a man named Seth, who leads his followers from a heavily armed compound north of Seattle. According to ATF files on the cult, Seth is rumored to be able to make his eyes glow, and heal his followers (or kill his enemies) with a device worn on his hand – a description that seems to fit a rogue System Lord perfectly. It turns out that others are heavily armed as well – an ATF task force is setting up shop nearby, preparing to storm Seth’s compound, as O’Neill and the others discover when they conduct an initial survey. Though the ATF resists the idea of an Air Force presence in his operation, a phone call from the President puts O’Neill in charge of the mission. Teal’c and Jacob remain at the ATF command post, since Seth would quickly detect a Goa’uld host, but the rest of SG-1 is captured and become Seth’s disciples via an unusually persuasive method of Goa’uld mind control.

Order the DVDswritten by Jonathan Glassner
directed by William Corcoran
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: Carmen Aregenziano (Jacob Carter / Selmak), Robert Duncan (Seth), Mitchell Kosterman (Special Agent Hamner), Stuart O’Connell (Tommy), Lucia Walter (Disciple), Greg Michaels (Joe Levinson), Rob Morton (Sheriff)

Notes: Sutekh is no stranger to science fiction – though not connected in any way to the Stargate saga, another being claiming to be the Egyptian god of chaos did battle with Doctor Who in the 1976 classic Pyramids Of Mars.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Audio Dramas Torchwood

Golden Age

Torchwood: Golden AgeJack, Gwen and Ianto leave the confines of Cardiff to investigate the disappearance of thousands of people in India. The trail leads to Delhi, where they witness one of the disappearances first-hand, as hapless dockworkers are consumed by some kind of energy net. But even more suspicious is some of the cargo that was being moved – cargo addressed to Captain Jack Harkness. It turns out that Delhi is one of Jack’s old stomping grounds, and the home of Torchwood India, which Jack shut down nearly a century ago. Jack pays a visit to the colonial gentlemen’s club which was once home to the local Torchwood group, and is stunned to find that it’s still in operation – and his old cohort the Duchess is still in charge and hasn’t aged a day. Despite that oddity, nothing immediately links Torchwood India to the mass disappearances in Delhi. But clearly the presence of the team from Cardiff has the Duchess’ staff and servants on edge – their answers are evasive at best. When Gwen and Ianto disappear without a trace, Jack discovers the terrifying truth: the Duchess is so obsessed with clinging to the British Empire’s past that she’ll sacrifice humanity’s future to preserve it.

Order the CDwritten by James Goss
directed by Kate McAll
music by Murray Gold

Cast: John Barrowman (Captain Jack Harkness), Eve Myles (Gwen Cooper), Gareth David-Lloyd (Ianto Jones), Jasmine Hyde (The Duchess), Amerjit Dew (Mr. Daz), Ravin J. Ganatra (Mahajan), Richard Mitchley (Gissing)

Notes: This made-for-audio Torchwood adventure was produced by BBC Radio 4 for broadcast on July 2nd, 2009, days before the premiere of Children Of Earth on BBC TV. Writer James Goss was previously in charge of bbc.co.uk’s FictionLab project, and one of his duties in that job was coordinating with Big Finish for the production of the animated webcast Real Time starring Colin Baker as the sixth Doctor. Torchwood India is said to have retrieved a Yeti sphere from the Himalayas (possibly left over from, or related to, the 1968 Doctor Who story The Abominable Snowmen). At the end of Golden Age, after Torchwood India vanishes, Ianto comments that there’s “nothing at the end of the lane” – an in-joke on the earliest working title for the very first episode of Doctor Who, which was eventually broadcast under the title An Unearthly Child.

Timeline: After the audio story Asylum, and before both the audio story The Dead Line and the Torchwood: Children Of Earth TV miniseries.

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Review: A rock-solid Torchwood adventure that would’ve done the TV series proud, Golden Age is a rare Torchwood gem: it exposes some of Jack’s past and actually pays it off within the same story in a way that’s integral to the narrative. It returns to the idea of Torchwood as a corrupted organization, long before the fall of the arrogant modern-day Torchwood at Canary Wharf (or, indeed, in Children Of Earth), and at the same time comments – uncompromisingly – on the subject of British imperial colonialism.

The guest cast is great across the board. At first I was a bit put off at the slightly dizzy reading of the Duchess character, until I finally realized that it was perfectly appropriate – the woman has completely flipped. Despite the fact that this is clearly Jack’s story, Golden Age has interesting moments for both Gwen and Ianto as well; the supporting characters are well fleshed-out too.

If there’s one gigantic glaring flaw to Golden Age, it’s this: the moment you realize the nature of the story’s big threat, you know exactly how it can be, if not defeated, then at least slowed down enough for a solution to be found. The story is resolved in a manner very similar to season 1’s End Of Days; the moment that anything that feeds on life itself is revealed to be the big bad, it’s a given that Captain Jack’s inexhaustible supply of life force will save the day. But aside from the painfully obvious resolution, Golden Age is one of the better Torchwood radio adventures.