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Classic Season 06 Doctor Who

The Seeds Of Death

Doctor WhoIn the 21st century, mankind has given up rocket-based travel in favor of the T-mat teleportation system – even to the extent of not maintaining any space vehicles in case they’re needed. This almost turns into a fatal mistake when a vital T-mat installation based on the moon loses contact with Earth, after a terrified final message from one of the moonbase crew mentioning a takeover. Even when the T-mat administrators find a barely spaceworthy rocket in the workshop of a sentimental space travel hobbyist, they need one more thing – someone who has the experience necessary to fly the rocket. The Doctor, with Jamie and Zoe in tow, arrives just in time to take on the hazardous mission, discovering that the moonbase is just the first step in another Ice Warrior attempt to colonize Earth by brute force.

Download this episodewritten by Brian Hayles
directed by Michael Ferguson
music by Dudley Simpson

Guest Cast: Alan Bennion (Slaar), Steve Peters, Tony Harwood, Sonny Caldinez (Ice Warriors), Philip Ray (Eldred), Louise Pajo (Gia Kelly), John Witty (Computer voice), Ric Felgate (Brent), Harry Towb (Osgood), Ronald Leigh-Hunt (Radnor), Terry Scully (Fewsham), Christopher Coll (Phipps), Martin Cort (Locke), Derrick Slater (Guard), Graham Leaman (Marshal), Hugh Morton (Sir James Gregson), Peter Whittaker (Weather station operator)

Broadcast from January 25 through March 1, 1969

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Original Series Season 03 Star Trek

The Lights of Zetar

Star Trek ClassicStardate 5725.3: En route to Memory Alpha, the home of the Federation’s largest library/computer banks, the Enterprise is transferring Lt. Romaine to her next assignment, overseeing refits and new installations on Memory Alpha. A cloud of energy intercepts the ship and wreaks havoc with the Enterprise’s instruments and crew, affecting various crewmembers’ brains in different ways and causing Lt. Romaine to pass out. The cloud strikes Memory Alpha next, wiping out every living thing on the planetoid along with most of the library banks. Mira, who has been experiencing strange thoughts and visions since the cloud’s first sweep of the Enterprise, is suddenly able to predict the cloud is returning to the vicinity before the Enterprise’s sensors can. Kirk orders phasers fired to defend the ship, but every time the cloud is hit, it injures Lt. Romaine. McCoy determines that the energy beings in the cloud are now telepathically linked to her mind.

Order this episode on DVDDownload this episode via Amazon's Unboxwritten by Jeremy Tarcher and Shari Lewis
directed by Herb Kenwith
music by Alexander Courage

Guest Cast: James Doohan (Mr. Scott), George Takei (Lt. Sulu), Nichelle Nichols (Lt. Uhura), Walter Koenig (Chekov), Jan Shutan (Lt. Mira Romaine), Majel Barrett (Nurse Chapel), John Winston (Lt. Kyle), Libby Erwin (Technician)

Notes: This episode was co-written by Shari Lewis, better known for her puppeteering work and the character of Lambchop.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Original Series Season 03 Star Trek

Requiem For Methuselah

Star Trek ClassicStardate 5843.7: On an urgent mission to procure the antidote to a serious plague which threatens the entire crew of the Enterprise, Kirk, Spock and McCoy beam down to Holberg 917-G to contact Flint in hopes of finding either the remedy or the raw material from which to extract it. Flint’s lovely female android, Rayna, begins to create a rivalry between Kirk, for whom she begins to feel true love, and Flint, who created Rayna to provide him with companionship. Spock discovers that Flint may be an immortal being who has influenced Earth’s history in the past, and McCoy finds that Flint is slowly dying. But Kirk may not resolve his argument with Flint in time to help Spock and McCoy save the crew of the Enterprise.

Order this episode on DVDDownload this episode via Amazon's Unboxwritten by Jerome Bixby
directed by Murray Golden
music by Fred Steiner
Brahms paraphrase by Ivan Ditmars

Guest Cast: James Doohan (Mr. Scott), George Takei (Lt. Sulu), Nichelle Nichols (Lt. Uhura), Walter Koenig (Chekov), James Daly (Flint), Louise Sorel (Rayna)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Original Series Season 03 Star Trek

The Way To Eden

Star Trek ClassicStardate 5832.3: Pursuing the USS Aurora, which has been stolen, Kirk beams the Aurora’s crew aboard the Enterprise when the sustained high-speed pursuit overloads the stolen vessel’s engines, destroying the ship. The thieves turn out to be a motley assortment of “hippies,” including noted scientist Dr. Sevrin. Another of the throwbacks is the son of a Federation ambassador, leading Starfleet Command to order Kirk to allow his new passengers to roam the Enterprise freely. Sevrin and his friends take advantage of their newfound freedom and decide to hijack the Enterprise so they may resume the interrupted mission for which they stole the Aurora – to find the mythical planet Eden, a gardenlike world on which they hope to find health, purity and happiness.

Order this episode on DVDDownload this episode via Amazon's Unboxteleplay by Arthur Heinemann
story by Michael Richards and Arthur Heinemann
directed by David Alexander
music by Fred Steiner

Guest Cast: James Doohan (Mr. Scott), George Takei (Lt. Sulu), Nichelle Nichols (Lt. Uhura), Walter Koenig (Chekov), Skip Homeier (Sevrin), Charles Napier (Adam), Mary-Linda Rapelye (Irina), Majel Barrett (Nurse Chapel), Victor Brandt (Tongo Rad), Elizabeth Rogers (Lt. Palmer), Deborah Downey (Girl #1), Phyllis Douglas (Girl #2)

Notes: The planet Eden is also mentioned in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, and although Sybok was obviously thinking about a different Eden when he and his followers took over the Enterprise for much the same purpose as Dr. Sevrin and company, Kirk – perhaps remembering this adventure – stated many times in that film that Eden, as a planet, is a myth.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Out Of The Unknown Season 3

The Little Black Bag

Out Of The UnknownDisgraced and discredited, Dr. Full was once a medical doctor, but is now a shambling alcoholic in possession of an oddly shaped bag of medical instruments. After a chance meeting in a bar with a woman named Angie, he is surprised to find that she has borrowed enough money for him to open a practice again, strictly for cosmetic surgical procedures…and she will be minding the till and calling the shows. Full discovers that what he has is no ordinary medical bag: it’s from the year 2160, and its instruments seem to provide their own treatment, miraculously curing any ill, not just cosmetic surgeries. The rush of resuming his calling as a healer thrills Dr. Full…but Angie sees only dollar signs, even over Full’s dead body.

written by C.M. Kornbluth
dramatized by Julian Bond
directed by Eric Hills
music by Don Harper

Out Of The UnknownCast: Emrys Jones (Dr. Roger Full), Geraldine Moffatt (Angie), Elizabeth Weaver (Edna Flannery), John Woodnutt (Kelland), Ian Frost (Johnny), Alan Downer (Mallinson), John Dunbar (Mr. Collins), Catherine Kessey (Receptionist), Honora Burke (Mrs. Coleman)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Original Series Season 03 Star Trek

The Cloudminders

Star Trek ClassicStardate 5818.4: Beaming down to pick up a consignment of zenite from the planet Ardana, the home of Stratos, a city that floats above the surface of the planet, Kirk and Spock, who are there to pick up a consignment of zenite, are ambushed by mineworkers known as Troglytes. The attack is cut short by the arrival of Plasus, a high advisor from Stratos, who says that a disruptive group of protesting Troglytes probably stole the zenite shipment, which was missing. On Stratos, which Plasus says is safe, there is also evidence of Troglyte terrorism. Kirk and Spock discover that the Stratos dwellers live an easy life thanks to their planet’s unique mineral resources at the expense of the Troglytes, who get no reward for extracting those resources. When McCoy finds that the raw zenite being mined by the Troglytes is having an adverse affect on their health, Kirk takes it upon himself to upset the balance in favor of equality.

Order this episode on DVDDownload this episode via Amazon's Unboxteleplay by Margaret Armen
story by David Gerrold and Oliver Crawford
directed by Jud Taylor
music by Fred Steiner

Guest Cast: James Doohan (Mr. Scott), George Takei (Lt. Sulu), Nichelle Nichols (Lt. Uhura), Walter Koenig (Chekov), Jeff Corey (Plasus), Diana Ewing (Droxine), Charlene Polite (Vanna), Kirk Raymone (Cloud Guard #1), Jimmy Fields (Cloud Guard #2), Ed Long (Midro), Fred Williamson (Anka), Garth Pillsbury (Prisoner), Harv Selsby (Guard)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Original Series Season 03 Star Trek

The Savage Curtain

Star Trek ClassicStardate 5906.4: Over the planet Excalbia, the Enterprise is intercepted by who appears to be Abraham Lincoln, floating through space. Beaming aboard, Lincoln is welcomed by Kirk, who is somewhat awed by the presence of one of his most revered figures of history. “Lincoln” extends an invitation to Kirk and Spock to visit the planet, whose normally lava-covered surface sprouts a zone of Earthlike safety just for the landing party. Kirk, Spock and Lincoln are joined on the surface by an image of Surak, who initiated the doctrine of emotional restraint on Vulcan. A rock-creature appears and introduces Kirk and Spock to four more illusionary figures from history, this time the fiercest conquerors, tyrants and villains of the past, from Earth’s Genghis Khan to Kahless the Unforgettable, who, as Surak did for Vulcan, set the standard of behavior for the Klingons. The creature pits the best and most noble – Kirk, Spock, Lincoln and Surak – against the most vile historical figures. The rewards for Kirk and Spock, should they survive, are their lives, and the lives of everyone aboard the Enterprise.

Order this episode on DVDDownload this episode via Amazon's Unboxteleplay by Gene Roddenberry and Arthur Heinemann
story by Gene Roddenberry
directed by Herschel Daugherty
music by Fred Steiner

Guest Cast: James Doohan (Mr. Scott), George Takei (Lt. Sulu), Nichelle Nichols (Lt. Uhura), Walter Koenig (Chekov), Lee Bergere (Abraham Lincoln), Barry Atwater (Surak), Phillip Pine (Colonel Green), Arell Blanton (Chief Security Guard), Carol Daniels DeMent (Zora), Robert Herron (Kahless), Nathan Jung (Ghengis Khan)

Notes: Colonel Green was seen again in one of the final installments of Star Trek: Enterprise, depicted as a xenophobic warmonger whose rants inspired John Paxton’s attempt to oust all alien influences and visitors from Earth a century before Kirk’s tour of duty on the Enterprise.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Classic Season 06 Doctor Who

The Space Pirates

Doctor WhoWith raids on defenseless cargo beacon stations on the rise in the intergalactic spaceway, the authorities and their minnow ships are placed on high alert. Caven and his motley crew of space pirates have been systematically stealing argonite and escaping aboard their sleek Beta Dart ship. General Hermack, aboard the V-Ship, lays a trap for Caven’s pirates by placing a full team of armed guards on the next cargo station…but to their surprise, their first visitors aren’t pirates, but three odd people who arrive in, of all things, an ancient police box. When the real pirates arrive and the shooting starts, the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe take shelter. Caven’s men slaughter the guards, take the argonie and follow their usual procedure of planting charges to blow the beacon’s wedge-shaped cargo containers apart from each other. Trapped in a different container from the one in which the TARDIS landed, and left with limited oxygen, the Doctor and his friends are rescued by crusty old-time space prospector Milo Clancey – who is unaware that he’s been assigned the rescue mission by Hermack, as a test to see if he is allied to Caven’s pirates.

Order this story on audio CDwritten by Robert Holmes
directed by Michael Hart
music by Dudley Simpson

Guest Cast: Briant Peck (Dervish), Dudley Foster (Caven), Jack May (Hermack), Donald Gee (Warne), George Layton (Penn), Nick Zaran (Sorba), Anthony Donovan (Guard), Gordon Gostelow (Milo Clancey), Lisa Daniely (Madeleine), Steve Peters (Guard), Esmond Knight (Dom Issigri)

Note: With the exception of episode 2, the master tapes of this story were destroyed by the BBC in the early 1970’s.

Broadcast from March 8 through April 12, 1969

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Original Series Season 03 Star Trek

All Our Yesterdays

Star Trek ClassicStardate 5943.7: Arriving at the moon Sarpiedon, whose mother planet is due to explode in three hours, Kirk, Spock and McCoy find just what the ship’s sensors indicated on the surface – no life forms, though an advanced civilization obviously once existed. But they then find several copies of Sarpiedon’s librarian, Mr. Atoz. Some of the clones are helpful, others belligerent, but they all tell the landing party that all the people of Sarpiedon have already escaped to safety, and Atoz, thinking that Kirk and the others are natives who arrived late, advises them to do the same. The library turns out to be a file of “time periods” into which a device Atoz calls the atavachron can propel them, as it has already provided an escape for the rest of the moon’s inhabitants. Hearing a woman screaming, but not realizing that she is one the other side of tha atavachron’s time portal, Kirk leaps into a time period similar to the 1800s, and Spock and McCoy stumble into an ice age trying to retrieve him. All three must try to survive long enough in their respective environments for the time portal back to Sarpiedon to return – if that moon still exists in the 23rd century for them to return to.

Order this episode on DVDDownload this episode via Amazon's Unboxwritten by Jean Lisette Aroeste
directed by Marvin Chomsky
music by George Duning

Guest Cast: James Doohan (Mr. Scott), George Takei (Lt. Sulu), Nichelle Nichols (Lt. Uhura), Walter Koenig (Chekov), Mariette Hartley (Zarabeth), Ian Wolfe (Mr. Atoz), Kermit Murdock (The Prosecutor), Ed Bakey (First Fop), Anna Karen (Woman), Al Cavens (Second Fop), Stan Barrett (Jailer), Johnny Haymer (Constable)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Classic Season 06 Doctor Who

The War Games

Doctor WhoThe TARDIS brings the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe to a World War I battlefield, but upon closer examination they find that the battlegrounds have been recreated on an alien planet. For the next several episodes, the Doctor and company wander through various different simulated wars in Earth history, finally discovering the alien War Lords at the heart of a plot to create an all-powerful army from the most powerful ranks of Earth history’s greatest military forces. Left with the task of stopping the War Lords, as well as returning all of the abducted Earth soldiers to their native times and places, the Doctor reluctantly summons the help of his own people, the Time Lords – and in so doing draws their attention to him as well. After dealing with the War Lords, the Time Lords put the Doctor on trial, the verdict of which will cost him another of his precious lives.

Order this story on DVDwritten by Malcolm Hulke & Terrance Dicks
directed by David Maloney
music by Dudley Simpson

Guest Cast: Jane Sherwin (Lady Buckingham), David Savile (Carstairs), John Livesly, Bernard Davies (German Soldiers), Terence Bayler (Barrington), Brian Forster (Willis), Noel Coleman (General Smythe), Hubert Rees (Captain Ransom), Esmond Webb (Burns), Richard Steele (Gorton), Peter Stanton (Chauffeur), Pat Gorman (Policeman), Tony McEwan (Redcoat), David Valla (Crane), Gregg Palmer (Lucke), David Garfield (Von Weich), Edward Brayshaw (War Chief), Philip Madoc (War Lord), James Bree (Security Chief), Bill Hutchinson (Thompson), Terry Adams (Riley), Leslie Schofield (Leroy), Vernon Dobtcheff (Scientist), Rudolph Walker (Harper), John Atterbury, Charles Pemberton (Aliens), Michael Lynch (Spencer), Graham Weston (Russell), David Troughton (Moor), Peter Craze (Du Pont), Michael Napier-Brown (Villar), Stephen Hubay (Petrov), Bernard Horsfall, Trevor Martin, Clyde Pollitt (Time Lords), Clare Jenkins (Tanya), Freddie Wilson (Quark), John Levene (Yeti), Tony Harwood (Ice Warrior), Roy Pearce (Cyberman), Robert Jewell (Dalek)

Broadcast from April 19 through June 21, 1969

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Original Series Season 03 Star Trek

Turnabout Intruder

Star Trek ClassicStardate 5298.5: Visiting Dr. Coleman and the ailing Dr. Lester, a colleague of Kirk’s from Starfleet Academy who has always envied him due to her inability to achieve a captaincy in a male-captains-only Starfleet, Kirk is rendered unconscious by Lester. It turns out to have been a trap, and Lester puts herself and Kirk into an unknown device that transfers their minds into one another’s bodies. Lester, in the form of Kirk, doesn’t have time to kill Kirk (now in the female body). Lester and Coleman make every attempt to leave Kirk on the planet, but must bring “her” aboard to save face. Kirk, still suffering a severe shock from the mind transfer, is unable to warn McCoy about Lester’s plan to command the Enterprise (especially when Lester keeps ordering Kirk sedated). Lester, however, is unable to conceal her lack of knowledge of command procedures and, more specifically, Kirk’s character, and when Spock learns the truth and attempts to help Kirk, Lester has him placed under arrest and tries to speed Spock’s court-martial toward a conclusion which would have Kirk and Spock executed.

Order this episode on DVDDownload this episode via Amazon's Unboxteleplay by Arthur H. Singer
story by Gene Roddenberry
directed by Herb Wallerstein
music by Fred Steiner

Guest Cast: James Doohan (Mr. Scott), George Takei (Lt. Sulu), Nichelle Nichols (Lt. Uhura), Walter Koenig (Chekov), Sandra Smith (Janice Lester), Harry Landers (Dr. Coleman), Majel Barrett (Nurse Chapel), Barbara Baldavin (Communications Officer), David L. Ross (Lt. Galoway), John Boyer (Guard)

Notes: Only 47 days after the final episode of Star Trek aired, Apollo 11 landed on the moon.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Land Of The Giants Season 2

Our Man O’Reilly

Land Of The GiantsThe Spindrift crew scatters when they almost find up underfoot as giants search for a wanted criminal – a man named O’Reilly who, unseen by his pursuers, trips, falls, and is knocked unconscious. When O’Reilly comes to, he sees the tiny members of the Spindrift crew, and Fitzhugh takes the initiative, convincing O’Reilly that they are nobles from the world of leprechauns. Fitzhugh continues the ruse, getting O’Reilly to do everything from bringing the crew beer to bringing them much-needed parts to repair the Spindrift. While this is a beneficial arrangement, O’Reilly has two dangerous wild cards: his own drinking habit, and the fact that he’s still very much a wanted man – two things which put the Spindrift crew, and especially Fitzhugh, in dire peril.

Download this episode via Amazonwritten by Jackson Gillis
directed by Sobey Martin
music by John Williams

Land Of The GiantsCast: Gary Conway (Steve), Don Matheson (Mark), Stefan Angrim (Barry), Don Marshall (Dan), Deanna Lund (Valerie), Heather Young (Betty), Kurt Kasznar (Fitzhugh), Alan Hale Jr. (O’Reilly), Alan Bergmann (Krenko), Billy Halop (Bartender Harry), Edward Marr (Peddler Brynie), Lindsay Workmann (Jeweler Cunningham), Michael J. Quinn (Watchman Jake), Dusty Cadis (Store Guard Warner Jr.)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Classic Season 4 Mission Impossible

The Amnesiac

Mission: ImpossibleThe theft of a sample of potent radioactive material from the United States, though it happened over two years ago, is now a current concern for the IMF. The theft, engineered by three members of an Eastern European government, turned into a web of double crossings and ended with one of the men murdered in secret by another, who then hid the radioactive material away for his own gain. Intelligence surfaces that the material is about to change hands, something which could alter the global balance of power and the delicate state of the Cold War. Phelps, Paris, Collier, Armitage, and a couple of new IMF recruits go overseas to set in motion an elaborate heist to retrieve the nuclear-weapons-grade material before it falls into even more dangerous hands. But to pull it off, Paris must give the performance of a lifetime, with Phelps as his “interrogator”. If either of them fails to be convincing in their roles, they may not make it home.

Download this episode via Amazonteleplay by Robert Malcolm Young and Ken Pettus
story by Robert Malcolm Young
directed by Reza S. Badiyi
music by Lalo Schifrin

Mission: ImpossibleCast: Peter Graves (Jim Phelps), Leonard Nimoy (Paris), Greg Morris (Barney Collier), Peter Lupus (Willy Armitage), Julie Gregg (Monique), Anthony Zerbe (Colonel Varda), Steve Ihnat (Major Johan), Lisabeth Hush (Miss Ober), Tony Van Bridge (Poltzin), Bruce Kirby (TV Newsman), Kurt Grayson (First Guard), Philippe Nemonn (Second Guard), Victor Paul (Ashbough), Jerry Spicer (Black)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Classic Season 07 Doctor Who

Spearhead From Space

Doctor WhoDr. Liz Shaw is uprooted from her research at Cambridge to serve as the scientific advisor for the recently formed United Nations Intelligence Taskforce, headed by Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. The Brigadier seeks Liz’s help in the investigation of two mysteriously precise meteor showers which could be signs of alien interference with Earth. But the Brigadier’s luck improves with the arrival of a police box in the midst of the most recent meteor shower, though its sole occupant is a man he’s never seen before. The Doctor, however, does recognize the Brigadier despite recovering from the trauma of his forced regeneration at the hands of the Time Lords, and the two join forces – with a somewhat bewildered Dr. Shaw in tow – to fight an alien menace which can inhabit and control one of the most common substances manufactured on Earth…plastic.

Download this episodewritten by Robert Holmes
directed by Derek Martinus
music by Dudley Simpson

Guest Cast: Hugh Burden (Channing), Neil Wilson (Seeley), John Breslin (Captain Munro), Antony Webb (Dr. Henderson), Helen Dorward (Nurse), Talfryn Thomas (Mullins), George Lee (Corporal Forbes), Iain Smith, Tessa Shaw, Ellis Jones (UNIT personnel), Allan Mitchell (Wagstaffe), Prentis Hancock (Reporter), Derek Smee (Ransome), John Woodnutt (Hibbert), Betty Bowden (Meg Seeley), Hamilton Dyce (Scobie), Henry McCarthy (Dr. Beavis), Clifford Cox (Soldier), Edmund Bailey (Waxworks Attendant)

Broadcast from January 3 through 24, 1970

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Classic Season 07 Doctor Who

Doctor Who and the Silurians

Doctor WhoUNIT and the Doctor are summoned to a nuclear power research center located near a complex of caves; something has been slowly driving members of the center’s staff mad, one by one, and at least one spelunker has been killed in the caves. The Doctor investigates the caves for himself, uninterested in what initially seem like personnel problems at the center, and finds a living dinosaur inside them; he also discovers evidence of a bipedal reptile species, both in the caves and outside. The center’s director doesn’t believe the story he’s being told, but the Brigadier prepares UNIT to defend against a possible invasion. The Doctor is convinced that the reptile humanoids are Silurians, the original inhabitants of the Earth before a mass extinction wiped out most of the large reptile species and allowed humans to evolve and thrive. The few survivors of the event went into underground shelters, and the energy released by the research center is slowly awakening them. The Doctor is determined to contact them and try to talk them into coexisting peacefully with humans on the surface, only to find that warlike factions exist among the Silurians as well – and some of them will be satisfied with nothing less than wiping out humanity.

written by Malcolm Hulke
directed by Timothy Combe
music by Carey Blyton

Guest Cast: John Newman (Spencer), Bill Matthews (Davis), Peter Miles (Dr. Lawrence), Norman Jones (Baker), Thomasine Heiner (Miss Dawson), Fulton Mackay (Dr. Quinn), Roy Branigan (Roberts), Ian Cunningham (Dr. Meredith), Paul Darrow (Hawkins), Pat Gorman (Silurian Scientist), Dave Carter (Old Silurian), Nigel Johns (Young Silurian), Paul Barton, Simon Cain, John Churchill (Silurians), Peter Halliday (Silurian voice), Nancie Jackson (Doris Squire), Gordon Richardson (Squire), Richard Steele (Hart), Ian Talbot (Travis), Geoffrey Palmer (Masters), Harry Swift (Robins), Brendan Barry (Doctor), Derek Pollitt (Wright), Alan Mason (Corporal Nutting)

Broadcast from January 31 through March 14, 1970

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green