Day: September 3, 1977

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Classic Season 15 Doctor Who

The Horror Of Fang Rock

Doctor WhoLeela is unimpressed when the TARDIS once again arrives on Earth, and on another foggy night to boot. But this time, she and the Doctor have landed near a lighthouse on a particularly treacherous rocky shoreline at the turn of the 20th century. The lighthouse’s three-man crew is having trouble keeping their beacon lit, which leads to a ship running aground shortly after the Doctor and Leela make their presence known. But something else has made its presence known to at least one of the men – by killing him and assuming his shape. The survivors of the shipwreck make their way to the lighthouse, each with their own agenda blinding them to what could be the beachhead of an alien invasion. By the time the Doctor reveals the true nature of the threat to them, the alien visitor has claimed more victims.

Season 15 Regular Cast: Tom Baker (The Doctor), Louise Jameson (Leela), John Leeson (voice of K9)

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Terrance Dicks
directed by Paddy Russell
music by Dudley Simpson

Guest Cast: Colin Douglas (Reuben / voice of the Rutan), John Abbott (Vince), Ralph Watson (Ben), Alan Rowe (Colonel Skinsale), Sean Caffrey (Lord Palmerdale), Annette Woollett (Adelaide), Rio Fanning (Harker)

Broadcast from September 3 through 24, 1977

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Season 04 Star Trek Voyager

Scorpion – Part II

Star Trek: VoyagerStardate not given: Janeway strikes a deal with the Borg to exchange the modified nanotechnology for a safe trip through Borg territory, but almost immediately things go wrong. The Borg attempt to force Janeway into a direct neural link to the Collective, but she instead demands that the Borg choose a single drone to facilitate verbal communication, and a female human Borg called Seven of Nine is appointed. An ambush by Species 8472 destroys the Borg cube containing Janeway, but she, Tuvok and a number of Borg safely transport back to Voyager. The Borg quickly assimilate the cargo bay which they have taken over, and Janeway must recover from injuries she sustained in the attack on the Borg ship. When Seven of Nine demands a change in the ship’s course taking it into the heart of Borg space, Chakotay decides to abort the newly-forged alliance with the Borg. Now the crew faces the prospect of a Borg invasion from within, or a violent death at the hands of Species 8472, unless Janeway and Chakotay can overcome their differences of opinion regarding cooperation with the Borg.

Season 4 Regular Cast: Kate Mulgrew (Captain Kathryn Janeway), Robert Beltran (Chakotay), Roxann Biggs-Dawson (B’Elanna Torres), Robert Duncan McNeill (Tom Paris), Ethan Phillips (Neelix), Robert Picardo (The Doctor), Jeri Ryan (Seven of Nine), Tim Russ (Tuvok), Garrett Wang (Ensign Harry Kim)

Order the DVDswritten by Brannon Braga & Joe Menosky
directed by Winrich Kolbe
music by Jay Chattaway

Guest Cast: Jennifer Lien (Kes), Majel Barrett (Narrator)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
4th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Hornets’ Nest Part 1: The Stuff Of Nightmares

Doctor Who and the Stuff Of NightmaresChristmas, 2009: retired UNIT Captain Mike Yates spots a classified ad seeking a retired Army captain with experience in dealing with alien threats. With an uneasy feeling that the ad was written specifically to catch his attention, Mike responds, visiting an isolated country cottage called the Nest. Here he finds a stern housekeeper, Mrs. Wibbsey, and the Doctor. The house is filled to the brim with examples of the art of taxidermy, but Mike is startled to learn that the dead animals return to life at night, ready to kill. Demanding an explanation from the Doctor, he learns that some force has reanimated the creatures to use them as pawns for a sinister plan. The Doctor, at great personal risk, has isolated all of the dead creatures in his cottage, using the TARDIS’ dimensional stabilizer to surround the house with a force field and using his own psychic abilities to keep the undead animals docile. But this has also trapped the mind behind the evil plan – a hive-mind swarm of alien hornets – near the house with him. And now Yates is trapped there as well…

Order this CDwritten by Paul Magrs
directed by Kate Thomas
music by Simon Power

Cast: Tom Baker (The Doctor), Richard Franklin (Mike Yates), Susan Jameson (Mrs. Wibbsey), Daniel Hill (Percy Noggins)

Notes: Early plans for the Hornets’ Nest stories apparently called for the team of the fourth Doctor and the retired Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, a part that Nicholas Courtney had reprised just a year prior to this story’s release in The Sarah Jane Adventures and in a short bonus featurette, “Liberty Hall”, filmed for the 2009 DVD release of Mawdryn Undead. Before production began, however, Courtney suffered a mild stroke in early 2009, and though he made a recovery, he was unavailable to reprise the role of the Brigadier for either Hornets’ Nest or for Sarah Jane Adventures (in which there were plans for him to become a recurring guest character). He died in February 2011.

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
Doctor Who New Series Season 06

Night Terrors

Doctor WhoThe Doctor receives an unlikely message – “save me from the monsters” – via his psychic paper, and follows it back to an apartment on present-day Earth, certain that it comes from someone very young. The source of the signal turns out to be a seemingly ordinary Earth boy named George, whose family situation, while loving, isn’t quite ideal. The Doctor convinces George’s father to let him find out what’s causing George’s monster nightmares, but this only reveals that George’s imagined monsters may be very real and very dangerous. Amy and Rory are sucked into the child’s nightmares, where they find other victims who have already fallen victim to the Dolls that stalk the darkest corners of George’s psyche. In the end, it’s not the Doctor, but George’s father, who holds the key to freeing everyone from this nightmare world.

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Mark Gatiss
directed by Richard Clark
music by Murray Gold

Cast: Matt Smith (The Doctor), Karen Gillan (Amy Pond), Arthur Darvill (Rory Williams), Daniel Mays (Alex), Jamie Oram (George), Emma Cunniffe (Claire), Andy Tiernan (Purcell), Leila Night TerrorsHoffman (Mrs. Rossiter), Sophie Cosson (Julie)

Notes: The Doctor’s mention of “Snow White and the Seven Keys To Doomsday” is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the 1974 stage play Doctor Who and the Seven Keys To Doomsday, which starred Trevor Martin as an alternative post-Pertwee Doctor fighting the Daleks; the play was written by ’70s Doctor Who script editor Terrance Dicks, and was more recently revived in audio form by Big Finish Productions.

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green