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Astronauts Season 1

Episode 6

AstronautsOn the occasion of the crew’s 50th day in space, they’re annoyed to find that no one on the ground is marking the occasion with them, and they demand that Beadle secure some media coverage of this milestone. In the meantime, Ackroyd reveals that he’s turned the laboratory module into a still, and shares his home-brewed rum with Mattocks and Foster, and all three proceed to get sloppy drunk. It is naturally, at this time, that Beadle tells them they’ll be on the News at Ten mere minutes from now.

written by Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie
directed by Dick Clement

AstronautsCast: Christopher Godwin (Mattocks), Carmen Du Sautoy (Foster), Barrie Rutter (Ackroyd), Bruce Boa (Beadle), and Bimbo (himself)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Blake's 7 Season 4

Gold

Blake's 7An old acquaintance of Avon joins forces with the Scorpio crew to pull off an interstellar heist from a luxury ship whose undercover cargo is transmuted gold. They then go to have the gold re-transmuted for a bargain with Keiller’s employer – who turns out to be Servalan…and she has already made sure of her own wealth in the end.

written by Colin Davis
directed by Brian Lighthill
music by Dudley Simpson

Cast: Paul Darrow (Avon), Jacqueline Pearce (Servalan), Michael Keating (Vila), Steven Pacey (Tarrant), Josette Simon (Dayna), Glynis Barber (Soolin), Peter Tuddenham (Orac, Slave), Roy Kinnear (Keiller), Anthony Brown (Doctor), Dinah May (Woman Passenger), Norman Hartley (Pilot)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Season 01 Star Trek The Next Generation

Haven

Star Trek: The Next GenerationStardate 41294.5: Counselor Troi receives a premature wedding present from her mother and the Miller family, who, in Troi’s childhood, had promised their children to one another. Lwaxana Troi, the disoriented Millers, and their mysterious son Wyatt beam aboard, preparing for a wedding that is destined to be interrupted by a shipload of interstellar lepers approaching the planet Haven.

Order the DVDsteleplay by Tracy Torme’
story by Tracy Torme’ and Lan O’Kun
directed by Richard Compton
music by Dennis McCarthy

Guest Cast: Majel Barrett (Lwaxana Troi), Rob Knepper (Wyatt Miller), Nan Martin (Mrs. Miller), Robert Ellenstein (Mr. Miller), Carel Struycken (Mr. Homn), Anna Katarina (Valeda), Raye Birk (Wrenn), Danitza Kingsley (Ariana), Michael Rider (Transporter Chief), Armin Shimerman (The Box)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Season 2

The Long Dark

Babylon 5A sublight spacecraft carrying cryogenically frozen humans is discovered adrift in B5’s vicinity. The ship is secured and one of its occupants is found to have been killed during the vessel’s flight, which began from Earth over a century before. The surviving crew member – and wife of the deceased – has no memory of what happened to her husband. Her arrival coincides with a series of grisly murders and the emergence of a lurker named Amis who warns that there’s another passenger, an unwelcome one, on the sleeper ship.

Order now!Download this episodewritten by Scott Frost
directed by Mario Di Leo
music by
Christopher Franke

Cast: Bruce Boxleitner (Captain John Sheridan), Claudia Christian (Lt. Commander Ivanova), Jerry Doyle (Garibaldi), Mira Furlan (Delenn), Richard Biggs (Dr. Franklin), Andrea Thompson (Talia Winters), Stephen Furst (Vir), Bill Mumy (Lennier), Robert Rusler (Warren Keffer), Mary Kay Adams (Na’Toth), Andreas Katsulas (G’Kar), Peter Jurasik (Londo), Anne Marie Johnson (Mariah Cirrus), Dwight Schultz (Amis), Jennifer Anglin (Alien #1), Babylon 5Neil Bradley (Alien #2), James Kiriyama-Lem (Medlab Tech), Kim Strauss (Markab Ambassador), Warren Tabata (Guard)

Notes: Ivanova checks the flight path of the Copernicus after it was boarded by the alien presence, and at the time it’s intercepted near B5, it seems to be headed for eventual arrival at Z’ha’dum, the planet where G’Kar found the Shadows lurking in Revelations.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Big Finish Spinoffs Doctor Who Sarah Jane Smith The Audio Dramas

Mirror, Signal, Manoeuvre

Sarah Jane Smith: Mirror, Signal, ManoeuvreSarah leaves the country on assignment, ignoring frantic warnings from Natalie that a reporter from Sarah’s former employer, Planet 3, is tailing her. Even when those warnings become even more ominous ones that the Planet 3 reporter is not, in fact, a Planet 3 reporter, and even after Sarah has met the “reporter” and figured out that something doesn’t add up, she forges ahead with her story. Josh is at Sarah’s new home when the place is robbed, and even though the robbers rough Josh up, he sees them take the non-functional K-9. Natalie discovers more evidence about the “reporter” Sarah has befriended, discovering that she has a connection to a group whose former members could be out to destroy Sarah’s career, if not Sarah herself. But Sarah isn’t looking ahead for these signs anymore – only over her shoulder.

Order this CDwritten by Peter Anghelides
directed by Gary Russell
music by David Darlington

Cast: Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), Jeremy James (Josh Townsend), Patricia Maynard (Miss Winters), Sadie Miller (Natalie Redfern), Robin Bowerman (Harris), Louise Faulkner (Wendy Jennings), Peter Miles (Dr. Brandt), Toby Longworth (Taxi Driver), Mark Donovan (Taxi Driver)

Notes: Sarah ran afoul of Miss Winters in the first Tom Baker Doctor Who story, Robot, when she helped to expose the criminal activities of Maynard’s SRS organization. As with the Big Finish UNIT plays, this story dates Robot in the 1980s, rather than that story’s original mid-1970s airdate. Miss Winters and her cohorts steal K-9 to use his voice synthesizer to try to plant misleading evidence in Sarah’s own voice, though it’s implied that he had ceased to function before he was stolen. (This tallies, more or less, with Sarah’s account in the 2006 TV episode School Reunion, in which the tenth Doctor finally repairs him.)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Lost Season 2

What Kate Did

LostFlashback: When Kate’s stepfather Wayne comes home drunk, she helps put him to bed. Then she rides away on her motorcycle moments before the house explodes. She stops to see her mother before trying to get to Florida, to say goodbye and give her an insurance policy she had taken out on the house. The marshals catch her before she can get on a bus, but when a black horse crosses the path of the marshal’s car, he swerves and hits a pole. He’s disoriented just long enough for Kate to push him out of the car and drive away. She meets her father in the Army recruiting office where he works to tell him she knows the truth. He was in Korea until four months before she was born. Wayne is her biological father. She leaves the office after her father says he’ll have to call the police, but agrees to give her a head start. With a last hug, Kate walks out of the door.

The Island: While picking fruit, Kate sees a black horse. She volunteers to stay in the bunker and watch over Sawyer while Sayid and the others bury Shannon. Sawyer wakes up and grabs at Kate’s throat, asking, “What did you do?” When Jack and Locke return to the bunker, they find Kate gone, Sawyer sprawled on the ground, and the countdown with seconds to go. Locke gets the button pushed in time, and then shows the orientation film to Michael and Eko. Eko leaves immediately afterward. When he returns, he tells Locke the story of King Josiah and temple of Judea . . . and then shows him something the tail survivors found in the other Dharma bunker. It’s a piece of the filmstrip that had been cut out, a piece that warns against using the computer to try and contact anyone else.

Kate continues to see the horse, and fears she might be going crazy. She thinks there might somehow be a part of Wayne on the island, maybe even in Sawyer, and she tells him that knowing that Wayne was her father made her feel like she would never be good enough. Sawyer wakes up, and when Kate takes him outside for walk, they both see the horse.

While Locke and Eko are watching the missing part of the fimstrip, Michael examines the computers. The countdown clock stops at 51 minutes, and the computer beings beeping. “Hello?” it asks. Michael decides to reply . . . and gets what could be a message from another of the missing.

Order the DVDswritten by Steven Maeda & Craig Wright
directed by Paul Edwards
music by Michael Giacchino

Guest Cast: L. Scott Caldwell (Rose), Sam Anderson (Bernard), Frederic Lane (Marshal), Beth Broderick (Diane), Lindsey Ginter (Austen), James Horan (Wayne), J. Edward Sclafani (Ticket Agent)

Notes: Locke first viewed the filmstrip in this season’s Orientation.

LogBook entry by Dave Thomer

Categories
Invasion

Origin Of Species

InvasionIn the wee hours of the morning, Dave is kidnapped dragged off to an unknown location; when his captors remove the hood from his head, Dave sees a man he’s never met before – and a woman who has repeatedly spoken to him about his blog at the local internet cafe’. Russell discovers that Dave is missing, and finds Dave’s tape recorder. Russell learns from the internet cafe’ owner that a woman has repeatedly asked Dave to accompany her to an abandoned shipyard, but Dave has never taken her up on her invitation. When Russell hears the sound of Dave’s kidnapping on the tape, he doubles back to check out the shipyard himself, and pulls a gun on Dave’s captors – only to be taken by surprise himself. The man, who calls himself Healey (but admits that’s not his real name), tells Russell and Dave about similar incidents in Central America and South America, usually after hurricanes, where people who survived under mysterious circumstances were never the same. And in those cases, Healey says, those survivors committed suicide or killed one another, and the attempt at an invasion never took hold – making it important to find out why the transformations seem to be relatively uneventful in Homestead. In the meantime, Deputy Lewis Sirk, Sheriff Underlay’s right hand man who lost his left arm while serving in the military, probes further into the mystery of the body found underwater by Mariel – and he discovers far too much for Underlay’s comfort. But Underlay’s discomfort is intensified even more when he tries to sacrifice Sirk to the underwater beings – and they return him not only possessed, but with a new arm.

Order this DVDwritten by Shaun Cassidy & Juan Carlos Coto
directed by Steve Shill
music by Jon Ehrlich & Jason Derlatka

Guest Cast: Nathan Baesel (Sirk), Ivar Brogger (Father Scanlon), Rocky Carroll (Healy), Meera Simhan (Pria), Robert Peters (Craig), Kamal Marayati (Pria’s husband)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
5th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Singularity

Doctor Who: SingularityA time displacement brings the TARDIS down for a hard landing in 21st century Moscow, stranding the Doctor and Turlough there until they can find the source of the distortion and put an end to it. While Turlough complains bitterly about the cold, the Doctor explores the enormous glass tower erected by the mysterious Somnus Foundation. Turlough hears a woman’s cries for help, and despite trying to talk himself out of it, runs to help her, finding that she’s looking for her brother, who has gone missing after joining the cult-like Foundation. The Doctor and Turlough help her get to safety, and become even more interested in her stories of the Somnus Foundation causing its enemies to “disappear.” The Foundation claims to be advancing human evolution, but the Doctor soon discovers that it’s something much more twisted than that – something that will bring power that the human race isn’t ready for.

Order this CDwritten by James Swallow
directed by Gary Russell
music by Steve Foxon

Doctor Who: SingularityCast: Peter Davison (The Doctor), Mark Strickson (Turlough), Eve Polycarpou (Qel), Maitland Chandler (Seo), Michael Cuckson (Cord), Natasha Radski (Lena Korolev), Oleg Mirochnikov (Alexi Korolev), Max Bollinger (Pavel Fedorin), Dominika Boon (Natalia Pushkin), Billy Miller (Tev), Marq English (Xen)

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
Big Finish Spinoffs Doctor Who Sarah Jane Smith The Audio Dramas

Buried Secrets

Sarah Jane Smith: Buried SecretsTwo years after Hilda Winters’ attempt on her life, Sarah suddenly finds herself relieved of the obligation to testify about the incident – Winters herself is murdered while awaiting trial. Josh, still overprotective of Sarah, marks the occasion with a bitter “good riddance,” but when a letter from Winters arrives – apparently written before, and yet predicting, her death – Sarah is spooked. When Sarah shows up for a yearly rendezvous with her fellow former TARDIS traveler Harry Sullivan, Harry doesn’t show, but a man claiming to be his stepbrother, Will Sullivan, shows up instead. Due to leave for a 13-month stay at an Antarctic research base (which, coincidentally, happens to have been funded by Sarah herself with the money she inherited from her late Aunt Lavinia), Will is also looking for Harry. Sarah’s friend Natalie has moved on to become a research assistant to a prominent forensic scientist, though an excavation into a crypt that should contain a body thousands of years old turns out to hold the body of a very recent murder victim, and Nat herself becomes a suspect. When Sarah and Josh go to visit her in Italy, Sarah discovers that the Book of Tomorrows mentioned in Hilda Winters’ posthumously delivered letter is very real – and it belongs to a secret order that believes Sarah herself is playing her part in an ancient prophecy. And one member of that order wishes to help Sarah complete her prophetic role by killing her.

Order this CDwritten by David Bishop
directed by John Ainsworth
music by Steve Foxon

Cast: Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), Jeremy James (Josh), Sadie Miller (Nat), Tom Chadbon(Will Sullivan), Ivor Danvers (Professor Edmons), Daniel Barzotti (Luca), Shaun Ley (Newsreader), Jacqueline Pearce (The Keeper), David Gooderson (Dexter), Patricia Leventon (Maude Fletcher), Stephen Greif (Sir Donald Wakefield)

Notes: Tom Chadbon appeared twice in televised Doctor Who, as rough-and-tumble detective Duggan in City Of Death (1979) and Merdeen in the first four episodes of The Trial Of A Time Lord (1986). This second “season” of Sarah’s audio adventures also reunites the original pair of villains from Blake’s 7, Jacqueline “Servalan” Pearce and Stephen Greif, who originated the role of Travis in that show’s first season.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
7th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

No Man’s Land

Doctor Who: No Man's LandThe TARDIS deposits the Doctor, Ace and Hex in harm’s way on the front lines of World War I. After a close call with a German shell, they wind up in a makeshift military hospital, and as soon as the Doctor is fully recovered, he’s startled to find that there are orders awaiting him: they ask the British commanding officer to accord the Doctor and his associates full access to the hospital in order to investigate a murder that has yet to happen. Completely mystified, the Doctor begins investigating, but not before Hex warns him of one disturbing possibility: the future murder victim could be one of the time travelers. Hex discovers first-hand that horrifying experiments in mind control are taking place at this hospital, far ahead of their time, and crude – but effective. The Doctor and Ace find themselves on the receiving end of a none-too-subtle warning about poking around where they’re not welcome. They find an ally in a man who’s being kept off the front lines for fear that his pacifistic views will send him running into the arms of the enemy, but with the rest of the soldiers turned against him, he can’t offer the Doctor much help. When the murder finally takes place, however, it seems that the base commander has his own ideas as to who should face the music for the killing, whether his suspicions are founded in truth or not. But who knew about the murder ahead of time?

Order this CDwritten by Martin Day
directed by John Ainsworth
music by Simon Robinson

Cast: Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Sophie Aldred (Ace), Philip Olivier (Hex), Michael Cochrane (Lt. Col. Brook), Rob Dixon (Sgt. Wood), Rupert Wickham (Captain Dudgeon), Oliver Mellor (Private Taylor), Ian Hayles (Lance Corporal Burridge), Michael Adams (Private Dixon)

Timeline: between The Settling and Nocturne

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Review: A dark historical story with nary an alien influence anywhere, perhaps the only weakness of No Man’s Land is that – if you’re listening to the seventh Doctor audio adventures in their intended order – it follows on from another dark historical story with nary an alien influence anywhere (The Settling). The reality is that there were a few months between the two releases, but even the characters comment on the slight similarity – Ace warns Hex against causing another debacle like the one he precipitated in The Settling.

Categories
Season 4 Stargate Stargate Atlantis

Miller’s Crossing

Stargate AtlantisStuck on a particularly problematic part of reprogramming the Replicators’ nanites, Rodney is left with only one solution – consult with someone at least as brilliant as he is. In this case, that means his sister. But shortly after Rodney’s sister Jeannie e-mails a solution back to Atlantis, she’s abducted on Earth. Rodney, Colonel Sheppard and Ronon return to Earth via stargate to take part in the investigation, but a strong lead in the case turns out to be a trap for Rodney, and he too is kidnapped. Rodney finds himself in the clutches of Henry Wallace, billionaire owner of a private medical technology company that has some very peripheral dealings with the Stargate program. But Wallace knows just enough to know that Rodney and Jeannie hold the key to the Replicator nanites, and may be able to save his dying daughter. But Rodney knows enough to know that even if they succeed, it won’t end there.

Order the DVDswritten by Martin Gero
directed by Andy Mikita
music by Joel Goldsmith and Neil Acree

Guest Cast: Kate Hewlett (Jeannie Miller), Christopher Heyerdahl (Wraith), Peter Flemming (Malcolm Barrett), Brendan Gall (Kaleb), Gary Jones (Walter Harriman), Stephen Culp (Henry Wallace), Madison Bell (Madison)

Notes: NID agent Malcolm Barrett first appeared in SG-1’s fifth season in Wormhole X-Treme!, and continued to make periodic appearances on SG-1; his first Atlantis appearance was in the episode Critical Mass.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Companion Chronicles Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Helicon Prime

Doctor Who: Helicon PrimeHaving long since been parted from the Doctor and Zoe, and back on Earth in the highlands of Scotland, Jamie McCrimmon recounts a story of a visit he and the Doctor once paid to an orbiting resort called Helicon Prime, located in an area of space whose tranquil properties soothe all the vacationers who visit there. But moments after the TARDIS brings them there, one of the resort’s clients is murdered. When the Doctor tries to find out why, he inadvertently brings himself to the attention of a highly-placed ambassador whose dealings on Helicon Prime are shrouded in mystery. When other vacationers die, one by one, the Doctor swings into action and makes himself – and Jamie – the next targets of the killer.

Order this CD written by Jake Elliott
directed by Nigel Fairs
music by David Darlington

Cast: Frazer Hines (Jamie McCrimmon), Suzanne Procter (Mindy Voir)

Timeline: sometime around The Two Doctors and before Spearhead From
Space
?

LogBook entry and review by Earl Green

Categories
5th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

The Eternal Summer

Doctor WhoThe Doctor and Nyssa are trapped aboard the Rutan ship, which has been set to apply all available power to the task of leaving Earth. Engine overload is imminent, and the ship explodes with the time travelers aboard.

The Doctor awakens to find that, somewhat inexplicably, he’s still alive, and still in Stockbridge. The townsfolk consider him to be the local doctor, even though no one can remember how he got there or when he arrived. Nyssa is also still in Stockbridge, and no one remembers her arrival. Many of Stockbridge’s residents remember some of their most emotional or traumatic moments, though – time keeps repeating itself, and they keep reliving those events. Only Maxwell Edison, Stockbridge’s resident UFO enthusiast, realizes that anything is amiss. The Doctor is horrified when he discovers the identity of the beings who have trapped Stockbridge and its residents on repeat play.

Order this CDwritten by Jonathan Morris
directed by Barnaby Edwards
music by Howard Carter

Cast: Peter Davison (The Doctor), Sarah Sutton (Nyssa), Mark Williams (Maxwell Edison), Pam Ferris (Lizzie Corrigan), Roger Hammond (Harold Withers), Susan Brown (Alice Withers), Nick Brimble (Dudley Jackson), Abigail Hollick (Jane Potter), Barnaby Edwards (Vicar), Nicholas Briggs (Geoff)

Notes: UFO enthusiast Maxwell Edison first appeared in the Doctor Who Monthly comic “Stars Fell On Stockbridge”, appearing originally in issues 68 and 69 in 1982; he went on to appear in comic form with the eighth and tenth Doctors as well. In this, his first audio appearance, Max is played by actor Mark Williams, who would later appear on the revived Doctor Who TV series as Rory’s dad, Brian (The Power Of Three).

Timeline: between Castle Of Fear and Plague Of The Daleks

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
Blake's 7 New Series - Early Years

The Dust Run / The Trial

Blake's 7: The Early Years - The Dust Run / The TrialThe Dust Run: Having grown up as a “spacer”, young Jenna Stannis considers piloting a spacecraft to be a pastime… and a profession. This brings her into conflict with a fellow hotshot pilot named Townsend, another spacer, who challenges her to the Dust Run: a hazardous race through a dense asteroid belt in which the pilot has no computer assistance. Jenna’s sure that Townsend just wants to get into her pants, but in fact he’s playing for much higher stakes.

The Trial: Jenna is in Federation custody after things go horribly wrong in a violent attempt to force transparency about the government’s overturning of the recent presidential election won by Roj Blake. Worse yet, her interrogator – and legal advocate – is Townsend, someone who she thought she knew… but also thought she knew he was dead. But everything she knew about Townsend was wrong, and Townsend tries to convince her that everything she knew about her own criminal activities was wrong. He convinces her to alter her story before her trial, and by the time her verdict is handed down, everything Jenna thought she knew about everyone may be wrong.

Order this story on CDwritten by Simon Guerrier
directed by Alistair Lock
music by Simon Russell

Cast: Carrie Dobro (Jenna Stannis), Benedict Cumberbatch (Townsend), Stephen Lord (Nick)

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
6th Doctor Doctor Who Lost Stories

The Nightmare Fair

Doctor Who: The Nightmare FairThe Doctor brings the TARDIS to a landing at Blackpool in 1986, promising Peri a relaxing getaway for once. But other alien forces have different plans for Blackpool: the Celestial Toymaker is play-testing a new arcade game there, one which burns out the minds of those players who prove to be very good at it. The two time-travelers are separated, and the Toymaker intends to use Peri as a pawn to secure the Doctor’s cooperation in his scheme to take over the world.

Order this CDoriginal script by Graham Williams
adapted for audio by John Ainsworth
directed by John Ainsworth
music by Jamie Robertson

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Nicola Bryant (Peri), David Bailie (Celestial Toymaker), Matthew Noble (Kevin), Andrew Fettes (Stefan), Louise Faulkner (Woman), William Whymper (Shardlow / Attendant), Toby Longworth (Yatsumoto/Truscott/Manager/Man), Duncan Wisbey (Humandroid/Security Man/Geoff/Guard)

Notes: This first entry in the Lost Stories range of sixth Doctor audios was originally written by former Doctor Who producer Graham Williams as the opening story of season 23; the last TV story of season 22, Revelation Of The Daleks, was actually intended to end with the Doctor promising to take Peri to Blackpool, as a lead-in to The Nightmare Fair. Of course, Doctor Who was taken off the air after season 22 by the then-controller of BBC1, Michael Grade, leading to one of the most controversial periods in the show’s history. The existing scripts for season 23 were scrapped and replaced by the Trial Of A Time Lord season. The Nightmare Fair joined two other abandoned season 23 scripts as novelizations, and was also adapted for audio as a charity fan-made project. David Bailie, who appeared in the classic Doctor Who story Robots Of Death, also plays the part of the Celestial Toymaker (originally played by the late Michael Gough) in the seventh Doctor audio story The Magic Mousetrap, as well as in a Companion Chronicles story featuring the eighth Doctor and Charley, Solitaire. The Nightmare Fair would have been a timely story in 1986, dealing with video games as a plot element, and several classic (if rather dated by 1986 standards) video game sounds are heard in the background of this story, most notably various Atari 2600 sound samples and, most prominently, the opening fanfare of Namco‘s Galaxian arcade game (1979). (The Doctor professes a liking for an even older game, Space Invaders, and who are we to argue?)

Timeline: after Revelation Of The Daleks and before Mission To Magnus

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green