Day: September 28, 2005

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Invasion

Lights Out

InvasionRussell goes to check out his ranger station, and finds a man, near death, in a diving suit. Russell takes him to Homestead Hospital, and when the man’s perfectly intact diving suit is cut off, doctors discover a series of nearly symmetrical puncture wounds from his neck to his waist – roughly corresponding to the placement of the tendrils along the body Dave recovered from the swamp. Russell goes back to his station and finds military dog tags, but can’t seem to find out – even from Sheriff Underlay – anything about a U.S. Air Force diver named Paxton. Dave, still hospitalized for his injuries, goes to visit Paxton, who can only dazedly moan “Don’t let them in” while Dave tries to take pictures of his wounds – moments before Underlay appears out of nowhere to confiscate the camera. Larkin tracks Paxton’s wife down and goes around the sheriff’s road blocks to reach her, but she thinks her husband is on a mission overseas and refuses to say anything more. Larkin returns to work with what she’s found out, but is informed by her news director – one of the many like Dr. Mariel Underlay who were found naked after the storm – that Paxton has died, and that the story isn’t worth chasing. Jesse and Rose, staying with the Underlays, come back to Russell’s house; Rose is upset that her mother and stepfather were both gone overnight. In addition that, though, Russell and Dave are worried about another disappearance – the intertwined human and alien remains hidden away in the trunk of Dave’s car have vanished. But Russell does still have one alien souvenir – a spore-like object that Mariel pulled out of Paxton’s head.

Order this DVDwritten by Shaun Cassidy
directed by Lawrence Trilling
music by Jon Ehrlich & Jason Derlatka

Guest Cast: Holmes Osborne (Mayor Littles), Nick Cokas (Paxton), Veronica Cartwright (Valerie), Kimleigh Smith (Admitting Nurse), Michael Mitchell (Derek), Jake Richardson (Gage), Nathan Baesel (Deputy Lewis Sirk), Cirroc Lofton (Reed), Anne Dudek (Katie Paxton), Ivar Brogger (Father Jeffrey Scanlon), Reggie Jordan (Reporter #1), Elisa Llamido (Reporter #2), Ruth Silviera (Nurse Adrianne), Jennifer Wilkerson (Nurse)

Notes: Cirroc Lofton was a member of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s ensemble cast for all seven seasons, starring as Jake Sisko; he played Larkin’s co-worker and seems to have taken after his DS9 co-star and mentor Avery Brooks in shaving his head.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Lost Season 2

Adrift

  • By Dave
  • September 28, 2005

LostFlashback: Once out of the hospital following his injuries, Michael retains a lawyer to fight to keep Walt from leaving the country with his mother, Susan. Her lawyers challenge his lack of involvement in his son’s life; Susan appeals to Michael to think of Walt’s best interests. Finally, he reluctantly allows them to go. Michael meets with Walt for a few moments to say goodbye, offering him a stuffed polar bear and telling him that his father will always love him.

The Island: Prior to Jack’s discovery of Locke in the bunker – Locke follows Kate down the shaft. He finds her shortly before Desmond finds them. He asks Locke, “Are you him?” Locke tries to play along, but Desmond quickly realizes that whomever he’s waiting for, it’s not Locke. He orders Locke to tie Kate up and lock her in a food pantry; Locke smuggles a pocketknife into her waistband in the process. She cuts herself free and climbs into a ventilation duct. Desmond quizzes Locke about the survivors of the plane crash and asks how many of them have gotten sick. He seems surprised when Locke says that none of them have. The conversation is interrupted by a beeping and a countdown clock; Desmond frantically orders Locke to input a code into the terminal – the six-number sequence. The beeping stops and the countdown resets. Jack’s arrival leads Desmond to turn the music back on, which prevents Jack from hearing Kate when she shouts for him. Jack enters the bunker and discovers Locke and Desmond.

At sea, Sawyer helps Michael onto the remains of the raft and then yanks the bullet out of his own arm. The two men bicker over whose fault it was that they were attacked; a more pressing problem is the shark in the water. They find one of the raft’s pontoons and make it through the night; the current brings them back to the island. When they reach shore, they see Jin, arms tied behind his back, frantically running toward them. The Others have found them.

Order the DVDswritten by Steven Maeda & Leonard Dick
directed by Stephen Williams
music by Michael Giacchino

Guest Cast: Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Island Man), Henry Ian Cusick (Desmond), Tamara Taylor (Susan Lloyd), Saul Rubinek (Michael’s Attorney)

Notes: The events leading up to Michael giving up his parental rights were first shown in the season 1 episode Special. As of this episode, Malcolm David Kelley (Walt) is no longer listed in the opening credits.

LogBook entry by Dave Thomer

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Battlestar Galactica (New Series) Season 3 The Resistance Webisodes

The Resistance – Webisode 8

Battlestar Galactica (New Series)Jammer is surprised to find that what awaits him isn’t a violent interrogation, but rather a cozy chat with a human-form Cylon – a bit too cozy. And yet he finds the offered prospects of peaceful coexistence and a normal life to have some appeal.

written by Bradley Thompson & David Weddle
directed by Wayne Rose
music by Bear McCreary

Cast: Matthew Bennett (Doral), Dominic Zamprogna (Jammer)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Season 4 Stargate Stargate Atlantis

Adrift

Stargate AtlantisWith the city roaring through deep space after its escape from the ocean planet, Rodney races to shut down systems that aren’t helping Atlantis during flight – but are draining its power. The city’s new chief medical officer, Dr. Jennifer Keller, is fighting to save the life of Dr. Weir, critically injured during the city’s takeoff, but it quickly becomes clear that even if she’s kept alive, Dr. Weir may never be the same again. The Atlantis expedition and its commander are lost in deep space – and with an asteroid belt in the way and the city losing drive power, deep trouble too. Running out of medical solutions, Dr. Keller comes up with an idea to reactivate the nanites left in Weir’s body by the replicators, and Rodney thinks he can reprogram them to repair her injuries – but Sheppard refuses to okay the plan, worried that the replicators will be able to track the crippled city by detecting the nanites. Rodney and Keller implement the plan anyway, but even Weir herself isn’t thrilled with the results. And at the Midway space station connecting the Milky Way and Pegasus stargate networks, Colonel Samantha Carter receives word that contact has been lost with Atlantis. With Dr. Lee of the SGC, also at Midway, she begins trying to locate the wayward city…

Season 4 Regular Cast: Joe Flanigan (Major John Sheppard), Amanda Tapping (Colonel Samantha Carter), Rachel Luttrell (Teyla), Jason Momoa (Ronon Dex), David Hewlett (Dr. Rodney McKay)

Order the DVDswritten by Martin Gero
directed by Martin Wood
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: Torri Higginson (Dr. Elizabeth Weir), Jewel Staite (Dr. Keller), David Nykl (Dr. Zelenka), Michael Beach (Colonel Ellis), Bill Dow (Dr. Lee), Chuck Campbell (Technician),
Linda Ko (Head Nurse), Yee Jee Tso (Technician)

Notes: Rodney mentions that he was terrible at the video game Asteroids; obviously he can’t access Phosphor Dot Fossils from the Pegasus Galaxy, we would’ve been happy to help. Yee Jee Tso, the actor portraying the technician who alerts Sheppard to the asteroid belt, is best known in SF circles for his one-off stint as Chang Lee, one of the eighth Doctor Who‘s only TV companions.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Missions Season 1

Ulysse

Missions1967: The first Soyuz spacecraft, returning to Earth with cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov aboard, fails to deploy its parachute after re-entry – the last in a series of technical glitches that have plagued the mission. But history records that this is the fault that will doom Komarov to a fiery crash into the ground. The last thing he sees, however, is a blinding light streaming in through the capsule’s porthole…

2027: Just ten days away from launch, a multi-national mission to Mars is struck by tragedy, as the crew’s on-board psychologist dies in a helicopter crash en route to the launch site. Behavioral psychologist Jeanne Renoir is tapped to assume that position on the Argos mission. Ten months into the mission, as Argos approaches Mars, she has her doubts that the crew is capable of functioning as a team under the pressures of life on another planet. Matters aren’t helped by the fact that William Meyer, the financier of the mission, installed himself as a crewmember from the outset, and he’s not prepared to listen to Renoir’s recommendations. (The fact that Renoir herself has been having an affair with mission commander Martin Najac since leaving Earth – despite his wife’s presence as a fellow crewmember – may make her psychological assessments less than reliable.) Only 24 hours from landing, Meyer and Najac reveal to the rest of their crew that a nuclear-powered private American mission, Zillion-1, put a man on Mars ahead of Argos after only three weeks’ travel time from Earth – and that it sent only one message after landing, warning them that Mars is too dangerous to visit. When landing shuttle Ulysse fails to detach from Argos, Martin performs a spacewalk to manually release the latches, but the resulting movement when he does release them sends him tumbling into space, beyond his crew’s reach or their fuel capacity.

Download this episode via Amazonwritten by Julien Lacombe
directed by Julien Lacombe
music by Etienne Forget

MissionsCast: Hélène Viviès (Jeanne Renoir), Clément Aubert (Simon Gramat), Mathias Mlekuz (William Meyer), Jean-Toussaint Bernard (Yann Bellocq), Giorgia Sinicorni (Alessandra Najac), Côme Levin (Basile), Adrianna Gradziel (Eva Müller), Christophe Vandevelde (Martin Najac), Arben Bajraktaraj (Vladimir Komarov), Tiphaine Daviot (voice of Irene), Yasmin Bau (Jeanne’s assistant), David Clark (Astronaut 1), Menage Fleury (Sports Reporter), Nicolas Traino (News Reporter), Franka Koareau (voice of Russian Soyuz Operator)

MissionsNotes: Vladimir Komarov (1927-1967) was a real cosmonaut who not only flew solo aboard the real Soyuz 1 mission in 1967, but had previously commanded Voshkod 1, the first spaceflight with more than one crew member aboard, in 1964. In real life, the Soyuz 1 mission was rushed to launch in order to meet an artificial deadline, both to show up the American space program (which had suffered its own tragedy with the death of the Apollo 1 crew on the launch pad in January 1967) and to ensure the presence of a Soviet spaceflight in orbit during the celebrations of the anniversary of Vladimir Lenin’s birthday (April 22nd), despite many engineering problems persisting that should have kept the vehicle grounded until it was safer to fly. As depicted in this otherwise fictitious telling of events, Komarov did have significant problems orienting the MissionsSoyuz, exacerbated by the fact that its left solar “wing” never unfurled to provide the vehicle with sufficient power. (The opening scene of this episode shows the wing fully deployed, which never happened, an oddity since many of the major details of Komarov’s mission as used in this story are factually correct.)

Produced by and for French streaming service OCS (with “Martian” location filming in Morocco), Missions’ dialogue is entirely in French, with the exception of subtitled scenes involving Komarov (speaking Russian) and the distress call from the doomed American mission (speaking English). Series creators Henri Debeurme, Julien Lacombe and Ami Cohen were reportedly inspired by the ambiguous mystery storytelling and backstory-via-flashback structure of the American series Lost. The end credits show everyone who appears in the entire season; an attempt has been made with this guide to credit performers for their appearances in specific episodes. The Amazon streaming link included above is for the English-subtitled edition of the series.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Missions Season 1

Mars

MissionsUlysse has come down for a rough landing in the middle of a Martian dust storm, landing intact but instantly starved for power. The main battery is a casualty of the rough landing, and the the onboard computer, Irene, fails during descent. Emotionally stunted Basile, an awkward outsider among the crew whose only meaningful relationship during the trip to Mars has been Irene, is tasked with rebooting Irene in a power-saving safe mode; if he accidentally restarts her in a mode requiring full power, she’ll drain Ulysse’s power reserves almost instantly. Now in command of the mission, Simon Gramat assigns Renoir and geologist Eva Müller to accompany him to look for the wreckage of the doomed American mission, in the hope that batteries or solar panels can be salvaged and connected to Ulysse, but first, Meyer insists on documenting the first steps of humankind on Mars – his own. But during the search for the Z-1 wreckage, Gramat and his landing party discover that another man walked on Mars first…a man in a Soviet-era spacesuit that predates even the first robotic Mars missions. The man in the suit is still alive, and is rushed back to Ulysse. He identifies himself as 40-year-old Vladimir Komarov, cosmonaut, pilot of Soyuz 1, and when his photo is transmitted to Earth, his identity is confirmed…despite the fact that history recorded Komarov’s death in 1967…meaning he should be 90 years old.

Download this episode via Amazonwritten by Julien Lacombe
directed by Julien Lacombe
music by Etienne Forget

MissionsCast: Hélène Viviès (Jeanne Renoir), Clément Aubert (Simon Gramat), Mathias Mlekuz (William Meyer), Jean-Toussaint Bernard (Yann Bellocq), Giorgia Sinicorni (Alessandra Najac), Côme Levin (Basile), Adrianna Gradziel (Eva Müller), Arben Bajraktaraj (Vladimir Komarov), Vincent Londez (Ivan Goldstein), Tiphaine Daviot (voice of Irene), Avant Strangel (Scientist), Ian McCamy (Adjunct Scientist), Lan Hoang Xuan (Goldstein’s nurse)

Notes: As Missions debuted on a French streaming service, all ten episodes share the same “airdate” since they were dumped as a full season, Netflix-style. The Amazon streaming link included above is for the English-subtitled edition of the series.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Missions Season 1

Survivant

MissionsThe Ulysse crewmembers, their trust in each other stretched thin, debates over whether or not the spacesuited Russian they have found on the Martian surface can actually be cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov, believed to have perished in the cataclysmic impact of Soyuz 1 in 1967. The numerous emergencies since landing on Mars have left them in need of sleep, but when they awaken, the man claiming to be Komarov and his spacesuit are gone. Gramat, Renoir, Meyer, and contentious astronaut Yann Bellocq venture out in Ulysse‘s rover to track Komarov down. As they close in on his position, they are contacted by Earth: a blood sample taken from Komarov after he was found on Mars reveals that his DNA has a triple helix…meaning he’s either not human, or something more than human.

Download this episode via Amazonwritten by Julien Lacombe
directed by Julien Lacombe
music by Etienne Forget

MissionsCast: Hélène Viviès (Jeanne Renoir), Clément Aubert (Simon Gramat), Mathias Mlekuz (William Meyer), Jean-Toussaint Bernard (Yann Bellocq), Giorgia Sinicorni (Alessandra Najac), Côme Levin (Basile), Adrianna Gradziel (Eva Müller), Arben Bajraktaraj (Vladimir Komarov), Tiphaine Daviot (voice of Irene), Avant Strangel (Scientist),
Ian McCamy (Adjunct Scientist), Manon Giraud-Balasuriya (young Jeanne)

Notes: The Amazon streaming link included above is for the English-subtitled edition of the series.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Missions Season 1

Stone

MissionsAfter leading the expedition from the Ulysse to a stone artifact obviously constructed by someone, Komarov returns with the crew to their ship, just in time for them to see another spacecraft arriving on Mars. Much like Z-1, the new arrivals were launched by the private aerospace corporation Zillion with NASA, but unlike Z-1, the Americans who have just landed on Mars are belligerent – and armed. The mission commander, Edward Doisneau, reveals that Z-1 had a black box recording device…and that its transponder has led them to Ulysse. Meyer hands over a box that was found alongside Komarov, which seems to placate the American expedition; though they do not offer any help to the Ulysse crew (still stranded on Mars unless they receive additional fuel), they promise to return. Renoir proposes hypnotizing Komarov to regress through his memory and find out what happened between Soyuz 1’s fall to Earth and his discovery on Mars. Eva and Basile discover that the stone artifact contains design elements, heiroglyphics, and dimensions corresponding to Greek and Mayan architecture, and is composed mostly of a metal never before seen by humankind…as well as the same kind of DNA that makes up the third helix of Komarov’s DNA.

Download this episode via Amazonwritten by Julien Lacombe
directed by Julien Lacombe
music by Etienne Forget

MissionsCast: Hélène Viviès (Jeanne Renoir), Clément Aubert (Simon Gramat), Mathias Mlekuz (William Meyer), Jean-Toussaint Bernard (Yann Bellocq), Giorgia Sinicorni (Alessandra Najac), Côme Levin (Basile), Adrianna Gradziel (Eva Müller), Arben Bajraktaraj (Vladimir Komarov), Natasha Andrews (Gemma Williams), Nathan Willcocks (Edward Doisneau), Shane Woodward (Adam Wayne), Vincent Londez (Ivan Goldstein), Tiphaine Daviot (voice of Irene), Avant Strangel (Scientist), Ian McCamy (Adjunct Scientist)

Notes: The Amazon streaming link included above is for the English-subtitled edition of the series.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Missions Season 1

Alliance

MissionsAs Renoir hypnotizes Komarov, he returns the favor, regressing her to memories of her childhood home, and beginning to ask her questions about whether or not she believes humanity has a future at the rate it is consuming resources. As he continues questioning her, he reveals she has a destiny tied to both Earth and Mars. A visit from Meyer confirms this: Renoir’s own face is embedded in the rocks and soil of Mars, something which led him to recruit her for the mission. Meyer’s old nemesis (and Zillion founder Ivan Goldstein’s right-hand woman) Gemma Williams visits Ulysse, with engineer Allan Brody in tow, and Meyer’s crew debates over how much to tell her about what they’ve found on Mars. She quickly discovers that the DNA found in the stone altar is a storage medium. She also learns that the Ulysse crew is hiding something or someone who had previously been interrogated – violently – by the Z-1 crew…and she believes that Komarov killed them.

Download this episode via Amazonwritten by Ami Cohen
directed by Julien Lacombe
music by Etienne Forget

MissionsCast: Hélène Viviès (Jeanne Renoir), Clément Aubert (Simon Gramat), Mathias Mlekuz (William Meyer), Jean-Toussaint Bernard (Yann Bellocq), Giorgia Sinicorni (Alessandra Najac), Côme Levin (Basile), Adrianna Gradziel (Eva Müller), Arben Bajraktaraj (Vladimir Komarov), Natasha Andrews (Gemma Williams), Ben Homewood (Allan Brody), Tiphaine Daviot (voice of Irene), David Clark (Astronaut 1), Etienne Guillou-Kervern (Astronaut 2)

Notes: The series creators tip their hand of their love for the American series Lost when Gemma Williams jokes that the data encoded in the stone altar’s DNA is “the numbers from Lost” (presumably referring to Hurley’s lottery numbers). The Amazon streaming link included above is for the English-subtitled edition of the series.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Orville, The Season 1

If The Stars Should Appear

The OrvilleA routine – actually, boring – star-mapping mission is interrupted by the discovery of a massive artificial structure in space, adrift but falling into the gravity well of a nearby star. Ed, Kelly, Dr. Finn, Alara and Isaac board the ship, and are left speechless by its sheer scale. Artificial walkways lead to a naturalistic setting with human inhabitants, and Ed quickly learns that they have no idea where they really are, or what fate awaits them. Word of the arrival of the strangely-dressed people from the Orville spreads, and Kelly and Alara are accosted by thuggish uniformed security guards; Kelly is taken into custody and interrogated, while Alara is shot and left for dead. Ed, Dr. Finn and Isaac are introduced to a group of quiet revolutionaries, who do believe that there’s more out there than the religious rule of law that keeps most of the humans from questioning anything about their existence. Ed is determined to reveal the truth to everyone, even if it means their primitive society will fall into disarray.

Order season 1 on DVD and Blu-RayDownload this episode via Amazonwritten by Seth MacFarlane
directed by James L. Conway
music by Joel McNeely

The OrvilleCast: Seth MacFarlane (Captain Ed Mercer), Adrianne Palicki (Commander Kelly Grayson), Penny Johnson Jerald (Dr. Claire Finn), Scott Grimes (Lt. Gordon Malloy), Peter Macon (Lt. Commander Bortus), Halston Sage (Lt. Alara Kitan), J Lee (Lt. John LaMarr), Mark Jackson (Isaac), Chad L. Coleman (Klyden), Larry Joe Campbell (Chief Newton), Robert Knepper (Hamelac), James Morrison (Kemka), Max Burkholder (Tomilin), Norm MacDonald (voice of Yaphit), Liam Neeson (Jahavus Dorahl), Rachael MacFarlane (Computer Voice), Julie Mitchell (Woman), Kane Lieu (Security Station Officer), Casey Sander (Druyan Captain), David Hutchison (Alien Man), Michael Duisenberg (Uniformed Man #1), Derek Graf (Uniformed Man #2), Eddie Davenport (Guard #1), Justice Hedenberg (Dissident)

The OrvilleNotes: This episode of The Orville, like most others, has just a few connections to classic sci-fi. Uncredited on screen but unmistakable once he begins speaking, Liam Neeson plays the generational ship’s captain. Though he’s now associated with present-day action thrillers, Neeson has played characters who, to cite just one example, tried to restore peace and justice to the galaxy. James L. Conway is a veteran director of the Star Trek franchise, with his work stretching from the first season of TNG to one of the final episodes of Enterprise, with frequent stops at Deep Space Nine and Voyager along the way. Robert Knepper also appeared on TNG as well as Voyager. James Morrison was a regular as Col. McQueen on Fox’s ’90s space opera Space: Above And Beyond. In homages more scientific than fictional, the colony ship Druyan is named after Ann Druyan, wife of the late Carl Sagan and co-writer of both the original and modern iterations of the TV series Cosmos. (Seth MacFarlane, incidentally, produced the 21st century revival; the original series premiered exactly 37 years to the day before this episode of The Orville.) And finally, the concept of a generational ship falling toward a star, its inhabitants blissfully unaware that they’re aboard a space vessel, complete with a religion that forbids knowledge of their true whereabouts, bears more than a passing resemblance to the plot of the pilot episode of Harlan Ellison’s brilliantly conceived (but crappily produced) early 1970s sci-fi series, The Starlost.

LogBook entry by Earl Green