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TV Movies

Earth II

Earth IIAn Apollo spacecraft is launched – despite the attempted interference of a saboteur – with three astronauts and the initial modules of a massive new space station aboard. President Durant of the United States asks American citizens to vote on the founding of a new “nation in space” using this space station as its capitol, and the vote is overwhelmingly in favor of creating a new spacefaring country: Earth II. The station grows in both size and population, setting out to be a completely democratic society in which any citizen can bring an issue up for a vote. But the first real test of Earth II’s leadership arrives in the form of a Chinese orbital nuclear warhead. A team of astronauts from the station sets out to destroy it, but instead the warhead is left intact without the ability to receive commands from Earth. The ramifications of this event reveals a hawkish faction aboard Earth II, insisting that the weapon be kept for the station’s protection. An opposing faction wants the weapon destroyed completely, fearing it represents too much power for anyone to use ethically. And one person, ignoring the democratic process, takes it upon herself to take the action she fears no one else will take, with disastrous consequences.

Order the DVDwritten by William Read Woodfield & Allan Balter
directed by Tom Gries
music by Lalo Schifrin

Cast: Gary Lockwood (David Seville), Scott Hylands (Jim Capa), Hari Rhodes (Loren Huxley), Tony Franciosa Earth II(Frank Karger), Mariette Hartley (Lisa Karger), Gary Merrill (Walter Dietrich), Inga Swenson (Ilyana Kovalefskii), Edward Bell (Anton Kovalefskii), Lew Ayres (President Charles Carter Durant), Brian Dewey (Matt Karger), Diana Webster (Hannah Young), Bart Burns (Stiner), John Carter (Hazlitt), Herbert Nelson (Chairman), Serge Tschernisch (Russian), Vince Cannon (Technician), David Sachs (Surgeon), Bob Hoy (West)

LogBook entry and review by Earl Green

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Friday the 13th: The Series Season 1

Root Of All Evil

Friday The 13th: The SeriesA letter addressed to Uncle Lewis tips Jack off to the possible whereabouts of a cursed antique mulcher. The item is traced to the estate of a wealthy family, where there have been a few disappearances…and the previous owner/operator of the mulcher was eventually sent to a mental institution. Jack and Ryan have to go it alone this time, as Mickey’s life is turned upside-down by the arrival of her suspicious fiancee, who refuses to believer her when she tells him what Curious Goods does. The mulcher’s former owner discovered that, by putting a human being into it, the machine will crank out not mulch, but money, equivalent to the victim’s worth to society. The mulcher’s current owner, having set up shop at the estate, is perfectly positioned to soak up some very literal blood money unless he can be stopped.

Download this episode via Amazonwritten by Robert Hedden
directed by Allan King
music by Fred Mollin

Friday the 13thCast: John D. LeMay (Ryan Dallion), Wendy Robey (Mickey Foster), Chris Wiggins (Jack Marshak), Rico Colantoni (Adrian), Barclay Hope (Lloyd), Jack Mather (Smitty), Ian White (Charles), Kay Tremblay (Amanda), Tom Hauff (Harley O’Conner), Rita Tuckett (Mrs. O’Conner), George Buza (O’Conner’s Neighbor), Domenic Cuzzocrea (Vagrant)

Notes: Guest star Barclay Hope previously played Lloyd in the series’ premiere episode, whose haunted doll also puts in an appearance in the vault of cursed items, two rare callbacks. Friday the 13thBarclay Hope also played the recurring character of Col. Pendergast in later seasons of Stargate SG-1, but much earlier in his career, while working in the U.K., he also guest starred in the pivotal Doctor Who story The Tenth Planet, the final adventure for the first Doctor.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Season 02 Star Trek The Next Generation

Where Silence Has Lease

Star Trek: The Next GenerationStardate 42193.6: Picard is confronted by an invincible alien intelligence who can alter the crew’s very perceptions of reality, and is horrified to learn that the entity plans on using half of the humans on board as lab animals to determine how many ways humans can die, so the captain, after exhausting all the options, sets for self-destruct.

Order the DVDswritten by Jack B. Sowards
directed by Winrich Kolbe
music by Ron Jones

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), Earl Boen (Nagilum), Charles Douglass (Ensign Haskell), Colm Meaney (Transporter Chief)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Red Dwarf Season 03

Polymorph

Red DwarfA spacecraft tumbles through space adrfit, its cargo of highly dangerous life forms having escaped. The genetic mutant that has freed itself seeks out the mentally unstable and the flat-out-neurotic, so naturally it homes in on Red Dwarf in short order. It changes its shape to hide and then to paralyze its victims with fear while it drains their negative emotions. It manages to infiltrate Lister’s dinner, but it then induces paralyzing fear by turning into a monster which fits the rough identikit picture of Lister’s worst nightmare, and drains all the fear from him. Rimmer, Cat and Kryten, after subduing the now-fearless Lister, set out after the creature, but it manages to snare each of them, removing Kryten’s politeness, Cat’s sense of style, and Rimmer’s aggressiveness. Lister is left in a state of suicidal kamikaze bravado; Kryten is a tactless, insulting jerk; Cat has changed into some comfortable rags and gotten well sloshed; and Rimmer wants to try to negotiate with the alien, or, failing that, launch a ship-wide campaign to non-violently protest its presence.

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

Guest Cast: Frances Barber (Genny), Simon Gaffney (Young Rimmer), Kalli Greenwood (Mrs. Rimmer)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Dark Season

Episode 3

Dark SeasonMere hours are left before Mr. Eldritch’s plan comes to fruition: the mass activation of the Abyss computers by their eager recipients will allow him to take over their minds. Eldritch kidnaps Mr. Polzinski and Reet and takes them to the Abyss computer factory, located in a secluded old castle, where he gloats that the former Professor Polzinski’s pioneering computer research has made this event possible. Marcie and Thomas convince their teacher to take them to the Abyss factory; even though she’s skeptical, she drops them off there before returning home. Marcie really has no idea how to stop Mr. Eldritch, but Professor Polzinski – who is not in the Abyss factory – does have a plan.

Dark Seasonwritten by Russell T. Davies
directed by Colin Cant
music by David Ferguson

Cast: Tim Barker (Dr. Osley), Samantha Cahill (Olivia), Ben Chandler (Thomas), Rosalie Critchley (Mrs. Polzinski), Brigit Forsyth (Miss Maitland), Victoria Lambert (Marcie), Roger Milner (Headmaster), Grant Parsons (Mr. Eldritch), Cyril Shaps (Mr. Polzinski), Kate Winslet (Reet)

Notes: Dark Season effectively tells two complete stories in its six-episode run, and this episode concludes the Eldritch/Abyss storyline, even though elements of it dovetail in the second story told in the final three episodes. The BBC was reportedly taken aback by the fact that the story seemed to wrap up three episodes into a six-episode run.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Deep Space Nine Season 03 Star Trek

Fascination

Star Trek: Deep Space NineStardate not given: The annual Bajoran Gratitude Festival brings mixed feelings for all. Jake’s girlfriend has given him up to enroll at a science academy, O’Brien is nervous about Keiko’s first visit to the station in two months, Kira eagerly awaits Bareil’s arrival, and Odo is filled with utter dread when Lwaxana Troi boards the station just to visit him. O’Brien’s situation worsens by the minute when Keiko just wants to rest, and Odo simply can’t escape Lwaxana. And neither can anyone else. Thanks to a slight telepathic ailment being suffered by the Betazoid ambassador, her feelings for Odo are projected onto others, amplifying some subconscious attractions. Jake tries to woo Kira, who is busy wondering why Bareil has apparently left her for Dax, who’s hot on Sisko’s trail…

Order the DVDsDownload this episode via Amazonteleplay by Philip Lazebnik
story by Ira Steven Behr & James Crocker
directed by Avery Brooks
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), Majel Barrett (Lwaxana Troi), Philip Anglim (Vedek Bareil), Rosalind Chao (Keiko), Hana Hatae (Molly)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Enterprise Season 01 Star Trek

Cold Front

Star Trek: EnterpriseThe Enterprise happens upon a ship carrying religious pilgrims en route to view an astronomical event in a stellar nursery – something they view as holy. During a tour of the ship, one of the pilgrims slips away in engineering and breaks an antimatter conduit – a bit of sabotage that becomes fortuitous when a plasma discharge from the nearby nebula ignites an antimatter cascade which would have destroyed the Enterprise had the conduit been in place. Shortly afterward, Captain Archer is approached by Crewman Daniels, one of the ship’s waiters, who tells the captain that he’s actually from the 31st century and is here to prevent Suliban interference in the timeline. Daniels also informs Archer that the visitor who broke the conduit was, in fact, none other than Silik – the Suliban with whom Archer barely survived a life-and-death struggle during the Klingon rescue incident. Daniels asks Archer to give him access to modify the Enterprise’s sensors so he can find and neutralize Silik, but when Silik later appears to Archer, the treacherous Suliban says that Daniels is the interloper out to derail Earth’s history.

Order DVDsDownload this episode via Amazon's Unboxwritten by Steve Beck & Tim Finch
directed by Robert Duncan McNeill
music by Jay Chattaway

Cast: Scott Bakula (Captain Jonathan Archer), Jolene Blalock (Subcommander T’Pol), John Billingsley (Dr. Phlox), Dominic Keating (Lt. Malcolm Reed), Anthony Montgomery (Ensign Travis Mayweather), Linda Park (Ensign Hoshi Sato), Connor Trinneer (Commander Charles “Trip” Tucker III), John Fleck (Silik), Matt Winston (Daniels), Michael O’Hagan (Captain Fraddock), Joseph Hindy (Prah Mantoos), Leonard Kelly-Young (Sonsorra), and Porthos

Note: Talk about man’s best friend – it’s strongly implied in one scene that an Earth dog can detect the presence of a cloaked individual (including a Suliban). And stellar nurseries aren’t just science fiction – the Hubble Space Telescope has observed several, including the spectacular Eagle Nebula (also known as M-16), whose triple-pillared stellar nursery clouds have been used as background in movies (Contact) and other science fiction shows (Babylon 5’s Into The Fire episode).

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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7th Doctor Doctor Who

Forty-Five

Doctor Who: Forty-FiveThe Doctor, Ace and Hex arrive just in time to see famed archaeologist Howard Carter unearth one of the more interesting Egyptian tombs he would excavate prior to discovering the tomb of Tutankhamun. But what Carter finds here startles the TARDIS crew: evidence that another time traveler may be nearby, altering the course of human history. A distress call then leads the Doctor and his friends to a remote laboratory where Dr. Verryman is trying to crack a genetic code that could lead to the mental improvement of the human race – whether the human race wants it or not. The code turns out to be a mathematical virus which infects the Doctor’s mind: kill and cure could be the same thing. The TARDIS next lands in England on V-E day, where a man from 1945 has procured alien technology allowing him to control others’ minds. The device has attracted the attention of not only the Doctor, but of the Forge as well, and the consequences hit close to home for both Ace and Hex. At a top secret base in Antarctica in 2012, the time travelers arrive just after a murder that should never have happened with the base’s tight security measures…and of course, this means the Doctor and his companions are now the prime suspects.

Order this CDwritten by Mark Morris (False Gods), Nick Scovell (Order Of Simplicity), Mark Michalowski (Casualties Of War), Steven Hall (The Word Lord)
directed by Ken Bentley
music by Richard Fox and Lauren Yason, Matthew Cochrane, and Steve Foxon

False Gods: Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Sophie Aldred (Ace), Philip Olivier (Hex), Benedict Cumberbatch (Howard Carter), Lucy Adams (Jane Templeton), Paul Lincoln (Robert Charles), Jon Glover (Creodont), Paul Lincoln (Robot)

Order of Simplicity: Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Sophie Aldred (Ace), Philip Olivier (Hex), Jon Glover (Dr. Verryman), Lucy Adams (Mrs Crisp), Benedict Cumberbatch (Thing 2), Paul Lincoln (Thing 1)

Casualties of War: Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Sophie Aldred (Ace), Philip Olivier (Hex), Paul Reynolds (Joey Carlisle), Linda Marlowe (May), Beth Chalmers (Audrey), Beth Chalmers (Miss Merchant), Andrew Dickens (PC Miller)

The Word Lord: Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Sophie Aldred (Ace), Philip Olivier (Hex), Linda Marlowe (Commander Claire Spencer), Paul Reynolds (Nobody No-One), Andrew Dickens (Captain James Hurst), Paul Lincoln (Private Fenton), Beth Chalmers (System)

Timeline: between The Dark Husband and The Magic Mousetrap

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

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Season 1 Walking Dead, The

Wildfire

The Walking DeadWith several dead from an attack by walkers, they realize the campsite is no longer safe. The group struggles over what to do about Jim, who was bitten by a walker and continues to sicken. Tension increases between Rick and Shane as Rick begins taking command, and Shane’s jealousy over the loss of Lori’s affections. Rick suggests the Centers For Disease Control in Atlanta would be a good move, since the CDC would be working toward a cure… but some choose not to go. Meanwhile, a scientist continues to work in isolation at the CDC lab…

The Walking Deadteleplay by Glen Mazzara
based on the graphic novel series by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore
and Charlie Adlard
directed by Ernest Dickerson
music by Bear McCreary

Cast: Andrew Lincoln (Rick Grimes), Jon Bernthal (Shane Walsh), Sarah Wayne Callies (Lori Grimes), Laurie Holden (Andrea), Steven Yeun (Glenn), Emma Bell (Amy), Chandler Riggs (Carl Grimes), Jeffrey DeMunn (Dale), Norman Reedus (Daryl), Andrew Rothenberg (Jim), Juan Pareja (Morales), Noah Emmerich (Dr. Edwin Jenner), Jeryl Prescott Sales (Jacqui), IronE Singleton (T-Dog), Melissa McBride (Carol)

LogBook entry by Robert Parson