Day: September 27, 1968

Categories
Original Series Season 03 Star Trek

The Enterprise Incident

Star Trek ClassicStardate 5031.3: Captain Kirk, acting tense and irrational, orders the Enterprise straight into the Neutral Zone for no reason. Romulan warships (identical to Klingon ships due to sharing of technology) capture the Enterprise, and Kirk and Spock beam aboard the Romulan flagship. When Spock admits that Kirk may be unfit to command, the Captain lunges at Spock – and receives a “Vulcan death grip.” Kirk, actually alive, is beamed back to the Enterprise and reveals to McCoy and Scott that their actual mission is to steal one of the Romulans’ cloaking devices and escape intact.

Order this episode on DVDDownload this episode via Amazon's Unboxwritten by D.C. Fontana
directed by John Meredyth Lucas
music by Alexander Courage

Guest Cast: James Doohan (Mr. Scott), George Takei (Lt. Sulu), Nichelle Nichols (Lt. Uhura), Walter Koenig (Chekov), Joanna Linville (Romulan Commander), Jack Donner (Tal), Majel Barrett (Nurse Chapel), Richard Compton (Technical Officer), Robert Gentile (Technician), Mike Howden (Romulan Guard), Gordon Coffey (Romulan Soldier)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Phoenix Five

Dream On

Phoenix FiveA brief visit to a pastoral planet leaves Cadet Kulbrick wishing she could stay among nature for a bit, and Karl brings aboard some flowers, giving one of them to Kulbrick. The flower has psychoactive properties, however…and Platonus is in control of them, using them to lull the Phoenix Five crew, one by one, into a distracted dream state. Which would be only a minor problem without the asteroid field for which the ship is heading…

Phoenix Fivewritten by Peter Schreck
directed by David Cahill
music not credited

Cast: Mike Dorsey (Captain Roke), Damien Parker (Ensign Hargraves), Patsy Trench (Cadet Kulbrick), Owen Weingott (Platonus), Stuart Leslie (Karl), Peter Collingwood (Controller)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Search

Short Circuit

SearchThe enigmatic Dr. Carl Mowen, one of the architects of PROBE Control, goes rogue, taking with him an invention called Megatrans, which can shut down an entire national power grid with microwave radiation. Backup PROBE agent C.R. Grover is called into action to assist the agent already on the case, only to discover that the primary agent has died under mysterious circumstances: Grover is now the man on the spot. Mowen drops, via parachute, a Megatrans device which kills all electrical power at an entire airport, and promises that his next target is PROBE Control. Grover races to stop Mowen before he can get close to PROBE’s home base in the World Security Corporation building, but it’s inevitable that the desperate fight to save the lives of everyone in PROBE Control will be fought on home turf.

written by Leslie Stevens
directed by Allen Reisner
music by Dominic Frontiere

SearchCast: Doug McClure (C.R. Grover), Burgess Meredith (Cameron), Marianne Mobley (Lilia Mowen), Jeff Corey (Dr. Carl Mowen), Nate Esformes (Landis), Carol Jean Norman (Car Rental Girl), Read Morgan (Flight Officer), Ed Arnold (News Commentator), Barbara Rucker (Student), Suan Damante (Picnic Girl), Tony de Costa (Ramos), Amy Farrell (Murdock), Ginny Golden (Keach), Albert Popwell (Griffin), Keone Young (Nagada)

Notes: This episode introduces the third of Search’s three recurring agents in the form of Doug McClure (one of the stars of The Virginian); director Allen Reisner once directed McClure in an episode of The Twilight Zone (Mr. Denton On Doomsday). SearchJeff Corey (1914-2002) had already guest starred in Star Trek (The Cloud Minders), The Outer Limits (O.B.I.T.), and Night Gallery, in addition to dozens of movie roles, and would go on to guest on The Six Million Dollar Man, The Bionic Woman, Starman, Babylon 5, and Charmed.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Kolchak The Night Stalker Season 1

They Have Been, They Are, They Will Be

Night StalkerUnusual animal deaths at the Lincoln Park Zoo are the first sign that Chicago has a new resident. The killings spread to humans, with each of the victims having been drained of bone marrow. Kolchak and the police are witness to a strange invisible force that escapes with 10 tons of lead ingots, and leaves piles of black goo in its wake. The goo is composed of bone marrow and digestive acids. Combining this information with the widespread theft of electronic appliances, Kolchak comes to believe that an alien electromagnetic creature is on the loose. Using a compass, he tracks the being to a planetarium, where it is consulting star maps in an attempt to locate its position. Kolchak manages to drive the creature off with the high-pitched noise of his camera flash-recharger, and follows it to its spacecraft for a final confrontation.

Order the DVDswritten by Rudolph Borchert
from a story by Dennis Clark
directed by Allen Baron
music by Gil Mille

Guest Cast: Mary Wickes (Dr. Bess Winestock), James Gregory (Captain Quill), Dick Van Patten (Alfred Bindle)

Notes: X-Files creator Chris Carter has often credited The Night Stalker as his inspiration for his own series. This episode, with its presence of mysterious government agents and organized coverup, is very similar to several early X-Files/UFO episodes. The alien(s)’ invisible presence is effectively conveyed by first-person camera work, a blowing wind, and strange sound effects.

LogBook entry by Steve Crowe

Categories
Planet Of The Apes Season 1

The Trap

Planet Of The ApesGeneral Urko intensifies his search for Virdon, Burke and Galen – he’s taken it on as his personal mission. He pursues them into a territory stricken by frequent earthquakes…and a village known for sheltering humans on the run from their ape masters. Virdon is less interested in the earthquakes than he is in artifacts which are unknown to the humans of this era…but he recognizes them as pieces of a computer. Over Burke’s protests, Virdon and company set out to the ruins of a city where the pieces were found – a place which also happens to be the epicenter of the earthquakes. Urko and his troops follow, and just as Urko captures Burke, a violent quake sends both of them tumbling into an underground chamber which is then sealed off by debris. When Burke comes to, he recognizes it as a subway station. Burke does his best to convince Urko to let him stay alive: the ape doesn’t know enough about the “ancient” subway to find his way back to freedom, so he needs Burke’s help. But with the already-stale air running out underground, Urko’s patience is also running out…and with it, Burke’s time.

Order the DVDswritten by Edward J. Lasko
directed by Arnold Laven
music by Richard LaSalle

Guest Cast: Mark Lenard (Urko), Norm Alden (Zako), John Milford (Miller), Cindy Eilbacher (Lisa Miller), Mickey LeClair (Jick Miller), Wallace Earl (Mary Miller), Gail Bonney (Old Woman)

Notes: The BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) subway station pinpoints The Trap’s location as the ruins of San Francisco, but Burke is obviously from a more advanced future San Francisco: his talks about nuclear-powered subway trains, meals in a pill and replacement organs as commonplace items.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Isis Season 1

The Sound Of Silence

IsisA classroom demonstration of a portable force field powered by a uranium pellet impresses Andrea’s friends, and intrigues the troubled student Bill, whose failure to win a recent science fair has left him without the means to buy a car. Desperate to overcome this obstacle, Bill steals the force field and offers to sell it to a local criminal, but rather than buying it from Bill, that criminal wants to pay Bill to be the one to use it. Worse yet, Andrea finds that the uranium pellet powering the device is leaking. Whoever has the force field device is in danger of radioactive contamination…but can she walk through the field by changing into Isis?

Get this season on DVDDownload this episode via Amazon's Unboxwritten by Sid Morse
directed by Arnold Laven
music by Yvette Blais & Jeff Michael

Cast: Joanna Cameron (Andrea Thomas), Brian Cutler (Rick Mason), IsisJoanna Pang (Cindy Lee), Leigh McClocskey (Bill Cady), James Canning (B.J. Tanker), Philip Bruns (Jack Evans), Wayne Storm (Jocko), Albert Reed (Dr. Barnes)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Far-Out Space Nuts

Fantastic Journey

Far-Out Space NutsBarney and Junior are surrounded by mad scientists when one scientist, clearly a few test tubes short of a laboratory, asks for their help in finding another, who turns out to be just as insane. Can either one be trusted?

written by Buddy Atkinson & Dick Conway
directed by Claudio Guzman
Far-Out Space Nutsmusic by Michael Lloyd / arranged by Reg Powell

Cast: Bob Denver (Junior), Chuck McCann (Barney), Patty Maloney (Honk), Kay E. Kuter (Dr. Kala), Stanley Ralph Ross (Dr. Drone), Whitney Rydbeck (Prof. Rundspock)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Classic Season 13 Doctor Who

Planet of Evil

Doctor WhoOn the planet Zeta Minor, an expedition from a neighboring planet is doomed. Their ship is unable to lift off from the surface, and something is stalking and killing the crew one by one. The TARDIS arrives and the Doctor and Sarah offer their help, but they’re also suspected of causing the difficulties. The Doctor discovers that an attempt to bring a sample of antimatter back has attracted the unwelcome, but instinctively protective, attention of Zeta Minor’s native antimatter life forms. Worse yet, Professor Sorenson, hell-bent on keeping the sample aboard, continues his experiments with antimatter, slowly transforming himself into a hybrid matter-antimatter creature with no control over his actions.

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Louis Marks
directed by David Maloney
music by Dudley Simpson

Guest Cast: Terence Brook (Braun), Tony McEwan (Baldwin), Frederick Jaeger (Sorenson), Ewen Solon (Vishinsky), Prentis Hancock (Salamar), Michael Wisher (Morelli / voice of Ranjit), Graham Weston (De Haan), Louis Mahoney (Ponti), Haydn Wood (O’Hara), Melvyn Bedford (Reig), Mike Lee Lane (Monster)

Broadcast from September 27 through October 18, 1975

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Buck Rogers Season 1

Planet of the Slave Girls

Buck Rogers In The 25th CenturyReturning from a routine flight, Buck and Wilma find a small group of Earth fighters in trouble, and help to wipe out the pirate fighter pursuing them. It turns out they’ve stumbled into a live-fire exercise, and the cadets being trained aren’t just ill-equipped for combat – they’re actually ill. Dr. Huer reveals that contamination of Earth’s supply of food discs has been detected, and deliberate poisoning is now considered the most likely explanation. Cadets and experienced pilots alike are grounded as an antidote is researched, leaving Earth wide open to attack. And an attack is indeed being planned by Kaleel, the charismatic slave of a planet on which Earth depends for its food supplies. He keeps his workers loyal through the fear of death by his merest touch, and plans to use that fear to turn them into a fighting force. Now Earth’s only line of defense is a handful of pilots, one of whom is already shaping up to be Buck’s rival for everything from the other pilots’ admiration to Wilma’s affection.

Order the DVDsteleplay by Steve Greenberg & Aubrey Solomon and Cory Applebaum
story by Steve Greenberg & Aubrey Solomon
directed by Michael Caffey
music by Johnny Harris

Cast: Gil Gerard (Buck Rogers), Erin Gray (Wilma Deering), Tim O’Connor (Doctor Huer), Buster Crabbe (Brigadier Gordon), Jack Palance (Kaleel), David Groh (Major Duke Danton), Roddy McDowell (Governor Saroyan), Brianne Leary (Ryma), Macdonald Carey (Dr. Mallory), Karen Carlson (Stella Warden), Michael Mullins (Regis Saroyan), Robert Dowdell (Galen), Sheila DeWindt (Major Fields), Don Marshall (Julio), Diane Markoff (Female Pilot), June Whitley Taylor (Woman), Borah Silver (Husband), Michael Masters (Worker), Don Maxwell (Guard), Nathanial Brian Wine (Technician)

Notes: Special guest star Larry “Buster” Crabbe was one of Hollywood’s first science fiction heroes, portraying the first film incarnation of Flash Gordon in an ongoing serial from 1936 to 1940 – and the first filmed version of Buck Rogers in 1939, which also featured Constance Moore as “Lt.” Wilma Deering, C. Montague Shaw as “Scientist General Professor Huer,” and Anthony Warde as “Killer” Kane. (That early version of Buck Rogers can be found at the DVD link above.)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Classic Season 18 Doctor Who

Meglos

Doctor WhoA power crisis in the underground habitat of the planet Tigella revives an age-old debate between science and religion. Tigella’s scientists want to examine their power source, the otherworldly Dodecahedron, more closely to see if it can help to avert the impending crisis that would force the Tigellans back to their planet’s uninhabitable surface. But the planet’s religious faction, led by Lexa, refuses to allow anyone access to the Dodecahedron, which they claim is a sacred relic. Zastor, Tigella’s leader, comes up with an unorthodox compromise: call for the Doctor’s help. But just as the TARDIS responds to the call, another plan is set into motion: Meglos, the last surviving member of the cactus-like Zolpha-Thuran race, has enlisted the aid of Gaztak pirates to take over the physical form of a hapless human. Once Meglos has this ability, he uses it to impersonate the Doctor, go to neighboring Tigella, and steal the Dodecahedron for himself. To ensure that the real Doctor doesn’t interfere with his plan, he traps the TARDIS in a chronic hysteresis – a time loop – from which the Doctor and Romana have to devise an ingenious escape. But by the time the real Time Lords arrive, the damage is done – the Dodecahedron is missing, and the Doctor is arrested for the gravest crime possible on Tigella.

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by John Flanagan & Andrew McCulloch
directed by Terence Dudley
music by Peter Howell and Paddy Kingsland

Guest Cast: Edward Underdown (Zastor), Jacqueline Hill (Lexa), Crawford Logan (Deedrix), Colette Gleeson (Caris), Bill Fraser (Grugger), Frederick Treves (Brotadac), Simon Shaw (Tigellan Guard), Christopher Owen (Earthling)

Notes: This marks the only time that a former companion has returned to televised Doctor Who in a completely different role. Jacqueline Hill was one of the three original TARDIS travelers, Barbara Wright, in the earliest seasons of the series. Guest star Bill Fraser made himself infamous by claiming, during the publicity for Meglos, that he only took the part of General Grugger on the condition that he would get to kick K-9 onscreen. Apparently he was such a good adversary for the robot dog that he took on K-9 without the Doctor around to stop him in K-9 & Company.

Original Title: The Last Zolfa-Thuran

Broadcast from September 27 through October 18, 1980

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
1980s Season 1 Twilight Zone

Shatterday / A Little Piece And Quiet

The Twilight ZoneShatterday: Peter Jay Novins, a businessman who is disgruntled with his lot in life, accidentally dials his own home phone number from a bar, and is stunned when he hears his own voice answering the phone. The man on the other end claims to be Peter Jay Novins – a man who is content with his lot in life. Stunned to his core, Peter leaves the bar, determined to take steps to starve his alter ego out of his life. But the harder Peter tries to force the “other” Peter away, the more he traps himself.

written by Alan Brennert
based on the short story by Harlan Ellison
directed by Wes Craven
music by Merl Saunders and Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir & Mickey Hart

Twilight ZoneCast: Bruce Willis (Peter), Dan Gilvezan (Bartender), Murukh (Woman at bank), John Carlyle (Clerk), Seth Isler (Alter Ego), Anthony Grumbach (Bellboy)

A Little Peace And Quiet: A harried suburban housewife working in her garden digs up a buried box containing a sundial-like pendant. Later, as her temper reaches a boiling point, she screams “Shut up!” – and time stops. The flow of time is resumed only when she says “start talking,” and only she can move or speak in the interim. Before long, she learns to use this talisman’s supernatural ability to her advantage, but when her world comes crashing down around her, she finds it necessary to stop the clock… and never start it again.

Twilight Zonewritten by James Crocker
directed by Wes Craven
music by Merl Saunders and The Grateful Dead

Cast: Melinda Dillon (Penny), Greg Mullavey (Russell), Virginia Keehne (Susan), Brittany Wilson (Janet), Joshua Harris (Russ Jr.), Judith Barsi (Bertie), Claire Nono (Newscaster), Elma Veronda Jackson (1st Shopper), Pamela Gordon (2nd Shopper), Laura Waterbury (3rd Shopper), Todd Allen (Preppy Man), Isabelle Walker (Preppy Woman)

Notes: Bruce Willis was already hot property at this point early in his career, with Moonlighting having premiered six months earlier; his breakout movie role in Die Hard was only three years away. Melinda Dillon’s other genre credits include the lead female role in 1977’s Close Encounters Of The Third Kind and the 1985 miniseries Space, a dramatized account of the American space program; she was also Ralphie’s mom in A Christmas Story (1983). Greg Mullavey had a regular role in the 1970s soap spoof Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. The marquee above the movie theater at the end of A Little Peace And Quiet name-checks two Cold War classics, Fail Safe and Dr. Strangelove.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Knights Of God

Episode 4

Knights Of GodGervase is taken back to Prior Mordrin’s compound for indoctrination into the Knights of God. But Mordrin has special plans for Gervase: not only will he begin training in the Knights’ officer corps, but he will be drugged and subjected to deep hypnosis to ensure his loyalty. Mordrin also takes the opportunity to plant another layer of orders in Gervase’s subconscious: he is to seek out and destroy the greatest threat to Mordrin’s reign of power at all costs, even his own life. In the prison camp, Julia is detained in the hut she hoped to escape from before, but her jailbreak doesn’t go quite as planned.

written by Richard Cooper
directed by Andrew Morgan
music by Christopher Gunning

Knights Of GodCast: John Woodvine (Mordrin), Julian Fellowes (Hugo), George Winter (Gervase), Nigel Stock (Simon), Gareth Thomas (Owen), Claire Parker (Julia), Michael Sheard (Doctor), Tenniel Evans (Dafydd), Lynn Webb-Turner (Wardress), Will Tacey (Bathroom Knight), Roy Evans (Photographer), Michael Lees (Governor), Christopher Bowen (Helicopter Pilot), Tony Guilfoyle (Sergeant), Spencer Leigh (Wilson)

Notes: Michael Sheard (1938-2005) was a well-known face in British SF, appearing in Doctor Who several times throughout that show’s history (The Ark, The Mind Of Evil, Pyramids Of Mars, The Invisible Enemy, Castrovalva, Remembrance Of The Daleks), Space: 1999, The Tomorrow People and Blake’s 7, though he may be better known for his much shorter-lived roles in The Empire Strikes Back as the ill-fated Admiral Ozzel and in an uncredited cameo as Hitler in Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade. The electronic alarm siren heard in the prison break scenes in this and the previous episode has been used before in episodes of both Doctor Who and Blake’s 7.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Red Dwarf Season 02

Stasis Leak

Red DwarfContents Of Rimmer’s Diary: After Lister discovers an unusual entry in the diary of the late Arnold J. Rimmer, a stasis leak is discovered on Red Dwarf which allows the guys to visit the past only a few weeks before the accident that killed the ship’s entire crew. The catch – they can’t bring anything or anyone back with them, since the time differential will reduce that person or object to a pile of albino mouse droppings. Lister and Rimmer each embark on a quest to convince someone from the past to go into stasis and thus join them in the future – Lister, of course, tries to find Kochanski. Rimmer also tries to deliver the message to the person he cares about most: himself. But they discover that smegging about with time can have truly bizarre results.

Order the DVDswritten by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor
directed by Ed Bye
music by Howard Goodall

Guest Cast: Morwenna Banks (The Lift Hostess), Sophie Doherty (Kochanski’s Roommate), C.P. Grogan (Kochanski), Richard Hainsworth (The Medical Orderly), Tony Hawks (The Suitcase), Mac McDonald (Captain Hollister), Mark Williams (Petersen)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Season 07 Star Trek The Next Generation

Liaisons

Star Trek: The Next GenerationStardate not given: An Iyaaran delegation visits the Enterprise for the first formal diplomatic function between Iyar and the Federation. Picard is scheduled to shuttle back to Iyar, while Iyaaran ambassadors Loquel and Byleth remain on the Enterprise. The Iyaaran shuttle taking Picard back to their homeworld crash-lands on a planet covered with violent electrical storms, one of whose plasma lightning bolts injures Picard when he leaves the shuttle to look for medical aid for the critically injured pilot. A woman named Anna, who has apparently been stranded alone on the planet for seven years, gets Picard to shelter inside a crashed freighter. On the Enterprise, ambassadors Loquel and Byleth test the patience of their respective hosts, Troi and Worf, while Picard has to contend with a woman whose isolation has driven her to try to keep him in the crashed vessel with her – but Picard learns that no survivors of the freighter’s complement or crew are actually still alive.

Order the DVDsteleplay by Jeanne Carrigan-Fauci and Lisa Rich
story by Roger Eschbacher & Jaq Greenspon
directed by Cliff Bole
music by Dennis McCarthy

Guest Cast: Barbara Williams (Anna), Eric Pierpoint (Voval), Paul Eiding (Loquel), Michael Harris (Byleth), Rickey D’Shon Collins (Eric)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Deep Space Nine Season 02 Star Trek

The Homecoming

Star Trek: Deep Space NineStardate not given: A visitor to DS9 gives Quark the earring of a legendary Bajoran POW, and Quark hands it over to Kira. Kira recognizes it as the one belonging to Li Nalas, the greatest freedom fighter in Bajoran history and legend. Kira convinces Sisko to loan her a Runabout – and Chief O’Brien as pilot – to travel to Cardassia IV. Recovering Li Nalas and a handful of other Bajorans from a forced-labor camp, Kira and O’Brien rush back to DS9. Though the Bajoran provisional government officially condemns Kira’s cabalier rescue operation, the Bajorans on the station and everywhere rejoice in Li’s return. Sisko hopes Li can reunite the gradually dissolving Bajoran government, which is splitting into many factions, including the extremist reactionary Circle, isolationists who mean to evict all non-Bajorans from Bajor or DS9. The Circle is, in fact, beginning to make its presence known aboard the station, as is Li Nalas, when he winds up replacing Kira as the Bajoran liaison officer on DS9.

Order the DVDsDownload this episode via Amazonteleplay by Ira Steven Behr
story by Jeri Taylor and Ira Steven Behr
directed by Winrich Kolbe
music by Dennis McCarthy

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), Richard Beymer (Li Nalas), Max Grodenchik (Rom), Michael Bell (Borum), Marc Alaimo (Gul Dukat), Frank Langella (Minister Jaro), Leslie Bevis (Freighter Captain), Paul Nakauchi (Tygarian Officer)

LogBook entry by Earl Green