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Gatchaman Gatchaman I

The Monstrous Aircraft Carrier Appears

Kagaku Ninjatai GatchamanA space mission returning with orbital surveys of the world’s uranium and other precious minerals is snagged by a Galactor submarine moments after it splashes down in the Pacific. The Science Ninja Team is summoned by Dr. Nambu to battle Galactor’s latest scheme and rescue the two astronauts. Taking the God Phoenix underwater, the team discovers a huge undersea base of operations. Ken goes for a solo swim to infiltrate the Galactor base, discovering that the secret orbital mineral surveys have already been accessed – and the astronaut hostages have already been murdered by the same commander who piloted the Turtle King. Outnumbered and outgunned, Ken is captured by Galactor forces, and his only hope may be that one of his crew has disobeyed his strict orders to remain aboard the God Phoenix.

written by Jinzo Toriumi
directed by Hisayuki Toriumi
music by Bob Sakuma

Voice Cast: Katsuji Mori (Ken Washio), Isao Sasaki (Joe Asakura), Kazuko Sugiyama (Jun), Yoku Shioya (Jinpei), Shingo Kanemoto (Ryu), Toru Ohira (Kozaburo Nambu), Mikio Terashima (Berg Katse), Nobuo Tanaka (Sosai X)

GatchamanNote: With the last of the Apollo moon shots only two months away, this episode’s depictions of space travel circa 1972 is startlingly accurate from a visual standpoint – with the possible exception of the space capsule’s impossibly large interior (perhaps it doubles as a TARDIS). This synopsis is for the original Kagaku Ninjatai Gatchaman episode, and appears under its original Japanese premiere date. For the corresponding episode of Battle Of The Planets, click here.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Gatchaman Gatchaman I

The Giant Mummy That Summons Storms

Kagaku Ninjatai GatchamanA trans-Pacific jetliner returning to Japan encounters a strange cloud, blinding its instruments and buffeting the plane with severe turbulence. The pilot sends out an SOS and reports sighting something huge before the plane goes down. It’s not the only sighting, which means the Science Ninja Team is called into action. On this occasion, however, Ken takes it upon himself to investigate since he’s a skilled solo pilot with his own plane. Sure enough, Ken has his own sighting – a huge mummified hand that tries to swat his plane out of the sky. The sensors built into his plane (which also doubles as the G-1 jet fighter, part of the God Phoenix) detect a form of plutonium whose use is forbidden around the world – meaning that Galactor has acquired some of it. But when the downed plane’s pilot mysteriously reappears, Ken knows something is amiss – especially when he learns that the pilot’s brother helped Dr. Nambu develop the dangerous form of plutonium. When an enormous robotic mummy lands at the airport and begins wreaking havoc, there’s no question what Galactor wants the Gatchaman team to surrender.

written by Jinzo Toriumi
directed by Hisayuki Toriumi
music by Bob Sakuma

GatchamanVoice Cast: Katsuji Mori (Ken Washio), Isao Sasaki (Joe Asakura), Kazuko Sugiyama (Jun), Yoku Shioya (Jinpei), Shingo Kanemoto (Ryu), Toru Ohira (Kozaburo Nambu), Mikio Terashima (Berg Katse), Nobuo Tanaka (Sosai X), Teiji Omiya (Director Anderson)

Note: This synopsis is for the original Kagaku Ninjatai Gatchaman episode, and appears under its original Japanese premiere date. For the corresponding episode of Battle Of The Planets, click here. Makoto can sleep through anything.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Gatchaman Gatchaman I

Revenge Of The Mechadegon

Kagaku Ninjatai GatchamanThe world is plagued by earthquakes that accompany the sudden loss of precious resources from beneath the Earth, and Dr. Nambu is certain that Galactor is behind each incident. After another strike puts most of the world’s oil supplies in Galactor’s hands, Ken assembles the team, but seems determined to go this one alone after failing to save the life of one of the country’s leading seismologists. When the God Phoenix is finally called into action, Ken wants the seismologist’s orphaned daughter to have the honor of firing the bird missile that destroys Galactor’s “iron centipede”… but bringing her aboard compromises the secret identities of the Gatchaman team.

Gatchamanwritten by Jinzo Toriumi
directed by Hisayuki Toriumi
music by Bob Sakuma

Voice Cast: Katsuji Mori (Ken Washio), Isao Sasaki (Joe Asakura), Kazuko Sugiyama (Jun), Yoku Shioya (Jinpei), Shingo Kanemoto (Ryu), Toru Ohira (Kozaburo Nambu), Mikio Terashima (Berg Katse), Nobuo Tanaka (Sosai X), Teiji Omiya (Director Anderson)

Note: This synopsis is for the original Kagaku Ninjatai Gatchaman episode, and appears under its original Japanese premiere date. For the corresponding episode of Battle Of The Planets, click here.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Gatchaman Gatchaman I

Ghost Fleet From Hell

Kagaku Ninjatai GatchamanOne of the International Science Organization’s oceanfaring research chips is torpedoed by a “ghost ship” emerging from a thick fog near a fabled ship graveyard; there’s barely time to sent an SOS to the ISO before the ship sinks. Dr. Nambu deduces that the real target is the ISO’s “underwater farm,” an enormous manned oil refinery that’s been designed to withstand any kind of natural disaster that could possibly leak oil into the ocean. Nambu’s guess is correct: the farm is the next target, and an enormous oil spill is the result. The Gatchaman team is dispatched to investigate. They track a Galactor sub back to the ship graveyard, and then surface to find a huge fog-generating buoy deployed by Galactor. Joe’s immediate response is to fire Bird Missiles at every target within sight, but Ken insists on getting Nambu’s permission to do so. When he’s cleared to use the God Phoenix’s most formidable artillery, Joe goes overboard, emptying the ship of every bird missile on board – a bit of a miscalculation, since there are still plenty of Galactor fighters left. Only a miracle can save the team from Joe’s overzealous attack…

written by Jinzo Toriumi
directed by Hisayuki Toriumi
music by Bob Sakuma

GatchamanVoice Cast: Katsuji Mori (Ken Washio), Isao Sasaki (Joe Asakura), Kazuko Sugiyama (Jun), Yoku Shioya (Jinpei), Shingo Kanemoto (Ryu), Toru Ohira (Kozaburo Nambu), Mikio Terashima (Berg Katse), Nobuo Tanaka (Sosai X), Teiji Omiya (Director Anderson)

Note: This episode marks the first appearance of Red Impulse and his wingmen; only their fighters are seen here. And good thing too. This synopsis is for the original Kagaku Ninjatai Gatchaman episode, and appears under its original Japanese premiere date. For the corresponding episode of Battle Of The Planets, click here.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Gatchaman Gatchaman I

The Great Mini-Robot Operation

Kagaku Ninjatai GatchamanAn underground drill bursts through the floor of the World Bank, unleashing a deadly payload: Micros, knee-high robots armed to the teeth with lasers, sent by Galactor to steal every bar of gold and destabilize the world economy. Team Gatchaman is dispatched to retrieve the stolen gold from an unknown base somewhere in the Barelli Islands. The base is soon found, and Ken, Jun and, Jinpei visit the base’s island out of uniform to ensure that they’re captured and taken inside. Joe is left in charge of retrieving the gold, with strict orders from Dr. Nambu not to exceed those orders. But as he often does, Joe manages to do just that, leaving Ryu in the God Phoenix to doze off at the wheel. Joe’s intent is to rid the world of Galactor once and for all, and retrieve the gold. Again, his overzealous refusal to disobey his exact orders put the rest of the team in danger.

written by Jinzo Toriumi
directed by Hisayuki Toriumi
music by Bob Sakuma

GatchamanVoice Cast: Katsuji Mori (Ken Washio), Isao Sasaki (Joe Asakura), Kazuko Sugiyama (Jun), Yoku Shioya (Jinpei), Shingo Kanemoto (Ryu), Toru Ohira (Kozaburo Nambu), Mikio Terashima (Berg Katse), Nobuo Tanaka (Sosai X), Teiji Omiya (Director Anderson)

Note: It’s implied that Sosai X himself designed the Micros; they do seem a bit more reliable than most Galactor gadgets. This synopsis is for the original Kagaku Ninjatai Gatchaman episode, and appears under its original Japanese premiere date. For the corresponding episode of Battle Of The Planets, click here.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Gatchaman Gatchaman I

Galactor’s Giant Air Show

Kagaku Ninjatai GatchamanKen gets ready to take on his “day job” as a test pilot, flying Dr. Nambu’s experimental, non-polluting jet, when he sees an amazing sight. A skeletal figure standing on a biplane intercepts the jet and, with powerful metallic tentacles, takes it out of the sky, forcing Ken to eject. As he splashes down in the ocean, he’s powerless to do anything but watch as the biplane and its deadly pilot wipe out most of the other planes at the air show. The God Phoenix is launched immediately, but even Gatchaman’s ship suffers serious damage when it goes up against the mysterious biplane. Dr. Nambu studies the damage and finds proof that Galactor has perfected the process of making weapons from a stronger-than-steel metal called Whisker – a metal that Nambu himself hasn’t been able to duplicate. If Galactor is already producing weapons based on Whisker, even Gatchaman can’t stop them.

written by Jinzo Toriumi
directed by Hisayuki Toriumi
music by Bob Sakuma

GatchamanVoice Cast: Katsuji Mori (Ken Washio), Isao Sasaki (Joe Asakura), Kazuko Sugiyama (Jun), Yoku Shioya (Jinpei), Shingo Kanemoto (Ryu), Toru Ohira (Kozaburo Nambu), Mikio Terashima (Katsenberg), Kazuya Tatekabe (Captain), Mitsuo Yokoi (Captain), Hideo Kinoshita (Narrator)

Note: This synopsis is for the original Kagaku Ninjatai Gatchaman episode, and appears under its original Japanese premiere date. For the corresponding episode of Battle Of The Planets, click here.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Gatchaman Gatchaman I

The Secret Of Crescent Coral Reef

Kagaku Ninjatai GatchamanThe sinking of a World Science Organization sub, part of a huge construction effort to build a new underwater base for the Gatchaman team, is the first sign that Galactor is aware of the base. The Gatchaman team is called in to look for signs of Galactor activity on a nearby island, but Dr. Nambu warns Ken and his team not to fight Galactor unless necessary. Stung by a random encounter with a civilian who thinks every other member of the Gatchaman team is more impressive than he is, Jinpei is determined to take on Galactor single-handedly. Unfortunately, in the process of trying to fight them alone, Jinpei also leads Galactor straight to the new underwater base.

written by Jinzo Toriumi
directed by Hisayuki Toriumi
music by Bob Sakuma

GatchamanVoice Cast: Katsuji Mori (Ken Washio), Isao Sasaki (Joe Asakura), Kazuko Sugiyama (Jun), Yoku Shioya (Jinpei), Shingo Kanemoto (Ryu), Toru Ohira (Kozaburo Nambu), Mikio Terashima (Berg Katse), Nobuo Tanaka (Sosai X), Mitsuo Yokoi (Clerk in Charge), Hideo Kinoshita (Narrator)

Note: Jinpei is 18th successor to the Iga Ninja; presumably this means she is a practitioner of Iga-ryu ninjutsu, a real discipline which originated in Iga City, in Mie Prefecture, Japan. The existence of the Gatchaman team is apparently public knowledge, enough that children are aware of the individual team members’ “G numbers” and abilities. (Are there trading cards and action figures, one wonders? There should be.) Again, significant violence from this original episode is swapped out for an unusual number of 7-Zark-7 scenes in the Battle Of The Planets dub. Though the Crescent Coral Reef base is seen throughout Battle Of The Planets as “Center Neptune,” this is its first appearance in Gatchaman. This synopsis is for the original Kagaku Ninjatai Gatchaman episode, and appears under its original Japanese premiere date. For the corresponding episode of Battle Of The Planets, click here.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Gatchaman Gatchaman I

The Devil From The Moon

Kagaku Ninjatai GatchamanMeteorites begin raining down on heavily populated cities on Earth, wrecking havoc, death and destruction. The ISO analyzes samples of the meteorites and discovers that they originated as moon rocks. The God Phoenix is launched toward the moon, where it is discovered that Berg Katse and Sosai X control a huge, scorpion-like vehicle which mines moon rocks and then fires them at Earth. Gatchaman must destroy the mecha before it destroys Earth.

written by Jinzo Toriumi
directed by Hisayuki Toriumi
music by Bob Sakuma

GatchamanVoice Cast: Katsuji Mori (Ken Washio), Isao Sasaki (Joe Asakura), Kazuko Sugiyama (Jun), Yoku Shioya (Jinpei), Shingo Kanemoto (Ryu), Toru Ohira (Kozaburo Nambu), Mikio Terashima (Berg Katse), Nobuo Tanaka (Sosai X), Mitsuo Yokoi (Clerk in Charge), Hideo Kinoshita (Narrator)

Note: This is the first time, in Gatchaman, that we see the God Phoenix lift off into space. (By comparison, the Phoenix in Battle Of The Planets visits an alien world nearly every week.) For the corresponding episode of Battle Of The Planets, click here.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Night Gallery Season 3

Fright Night

Night GalleryTom and Leona Ogilvy have lucked out – or so they think. A cousin of Tom’s has willed his country house to him, which might be just the thing that a struggling writer like Tom needs to finish his next book in peace and quiet. There’s just one catch: in the attic office Tom claims as his study, a large chest sits in the floor – one which Zachariah Ogilvy’s dying wish was to be left alone, with the added promise that, at some point, someone will come to collect it. Tom and Leona begin experiencing unusual events: crickets and birds suddenly stop making any noise, and Tom sees the chest seem to hover in mid-air. Leona makes arrangements to have it removed from the house…but it seems the chest doesn’t want to leave. What’s in it…and what tricks will it play on their minds to draw their attention away from it?

Night Galleryteleplay by Robert Malcolm Young
story by Kurt van Elting
directed by Jeff Corey
music by Eddie Sauter / series theme by Gil Melle

Cast:
Stuart Whitman (Tom Ogilvy), Barbara Anderson (Leona Ogilvy), Ellen Corby (Miss Patience), Alan Napier (Cousin Zachariah), Larry Watson (Longhair), Michael Laird (1st Goblin), Glenna Sergent (2nd Goblin)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Season 2 Sixth Sense, The

Gallows In The Wind

The Sixth SenseA blustery coastal getaway for several vacationgoers becomes deadly when they’re trapped, along with Dr. Rhodes, at a boat rental store nearby – the only high ground available in an approaching hurricane. One of the tourists, Carey Evers, has been experiencing unusual visions since wandering into a nearby stone building dating back a hundred years, a vision of an executioner who wants her and everyone else in the house dead. While most of her housemates dismiss these visions as superstitious hallucinations, Rhodes believes they may be premonitions that add up to a warning of danger from the approaching storm. And then, in her latest vision, Carey sees Rhodes himself sinking into a watery grave…

written by Don Ingalls
directed by Alan Crosland
music by Billy Goldenberg

The Sixth SenseCast: Gary Collins (Dr. Michael Rhodes), Meg Foster (Carey Evers), R.G. Armstrong (Jack Preston), Richard Lawrence Hatch (Owen Preston), Gary Clarke (Mr. Sandifur), Virginia Gregg (Thelma), George Ives (Frank Young), Conlan Carter (Mack)

Notes: Future Battlestar Galactica star Richard Hatch (1945-2017) – billed as his full name, Richard Lawrence Hatch – appears here in one of his The Sixth Senseearliest screen roles, four years before joining the cast of The Streets Of San Francisco started building him up toward household name status. Meg Foster was similarly new to Hollywood, though she’d had a bit more experience than Hatch; in 1982 she would portray Christine Cagney in the brief (six episode) first season of Cagney & Lacey, though between seasons she was replaced by Sharon Gless in the role. Her genre credits include The Six Million Dollar Man, Ghost Story/Circle Of Fear, the 1980s Twilight Zone revival, the live-action Masters Of The Universe film, They Live, Quantum Leap, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Xena: Warrior Princess,

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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TV Movies

The Stone Tape

The Stone TapeAn abandoned pre-war building is taken over by Ryan Electronics to serve as the skunkworks for a crash program to find and develop the electronic recording medium that will supplant magnetic tape. With its wartime history as a command post for visiting American soldiers, and an even longer history as a haunted house stretching back into the late 1800s, the building isn’t anyone’s favorite place. Some members of the electronics R&D team refuse to work there, and a visit to the pub reveals that the locals believe that any new secret project there is military (and hazardous) in nature. The sole female member of the Ryan Electronics team, Jill, experiences a vision in a supply room formerly used by the U.S. Army, catching a fleeting glimpse of a screaming woman, and project director Peter isn’t convinced until he hears the screaming for himself. Determined to debunk the hauntings so his team can get down to their real work, Peter decides to throw the team’s resources at the problem, using every kind of sensing and recording equipment at their disposal and regarding the sightings as merely misinterpreted data. Even though sightings continue, none of the group’s equipment manages to record any of it. After several further sightings, Peter becomes convinced that the sightings are a message recorded in the very stones of the building itself, a “stone tape” recorded by a massive output of psychic energy, though the haunting nature of the repeated sightings gives his team the uncomfortable feeling that the burst of energy was provided by the moment of the screaming woman’s death. Gradually becoming unhinged by an obsessive belief that the “stone tape” represents exactly the kind of breakthrough recording medium his team was sent to discover, Peter begins probing the room with UV light, lasers, and blasts of high-frequency sound, and eventually the sightings stop: his team believed he’s “wiped the tape.”

At least until Jill begins to pick up on something else, another presence somehow recorded in the stone. Something older – almost unimaginably older – and far more dangerous than a screaming woman. Could it be that Peter has simply erased the most recent recording from the stone tape and revealed the original recording?

written by Nigel Kneale
directed by Peter Sasdy
special sound effects by Desmond Briscoe and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop

Cast: Michael Bryant (Peter), Jane Asher (Jill), Iain Cuthbertson (Collinson), Michael Bates (Eddie), Reginald Marsh (Crawshaw), The Stone TapeTom Chadbon (Hargrave), John Forgeham (Maudsley), Philip Trewinnard (Stewart), James Cosmo (Dow), Neil Wilson (Sergeant), Christopher Banks (Vicar), Michael Graham Cox (Alan), Hilda Fenemore (Bar Helper), Peggy Marshall (Bar Lady)

Notes: There is little music in The Stone Tape; instead of crediting a music composer, BBC Radiophonic Workshop co-founder Desmond Briscoe is billed as creating “special sound effects.” BBC graphics designer Bernard Lodge, responsible for many of the Doctor Who title sequences including the Tom Baker-era “time tunnel” graphics, created the title sequences for The Stone Tape. Louis Marks (Doctor Who: Day Of The Daleks) was the script editor, and the show was produced by late-Hartnell-era Doctor Who producer Innes Lloyd.

LogBook entry and review by Earl Green

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Classic Season 10 Doctor Who

The Three Doctors

Doctor WhoUNIT is called in by a radio astronomer whose studies have turned up distinctly unearthly results of late, but even the Doctor can’t imagine the magnitude of the threat. Somewhere within a black hole, a gateway to an antimatter universe, a malevolent being seeks one of his own race to assume his place as the master of a doomed world – and locates a fellow Time Lord on Earth. When the Doctor realizes the nature of the threat, he sends a distress call to the Time Lords, but their power source is also being drained by the black hole, and they can spare no help – aside from sending the Doctor’s earlier incarnations into his own present. The first Doctor is trapped in a time eddy, barely able to contact his future selves, who travel into the black hole – along with Jo, the Brigadier, and Sergeant Benton – to defy the wrath of Omega…the first Time Lord himself.

Season 10 Regular Cast: Jon Pertwee (The Doctor), Katy Manning (Jo Grant)

Download this episodewritten by Bob Baker & Dave Martin
directed by Lennie Mayne
music by Dudley Simpson

Guest Cast: Patrick Troughton (The Doctor), William Hartnell (The Doctor), Nicholas Courtney (Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart), John Levene (Sergeant Benton), Stephen Thorne (Omega), Graham Leaman, Tony Lang, Lincoln Wright, Richard Orme, Peter Evans (Time Lords), Clyde Pollitt (Chancellor), Roy Purcell (President), Laurie Webb (Ollis), Patricia Pryor (Mrs. Ollis), Rex Robinson (Dr. Tyler), Denys Palmer (Palmer), Alan Chuntz (Omega’s champion), Cy Town, Ricky Newby, John Scott Martin, Murphy Grumbar (Gell-guards)

Broadcast from December 30, 1972 through January 20, 1973

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Classic Season 10 Doctor Who

Carnival of Monsters

Doctor WhoInstead of arriving on the fabled blue planet, Metebelis 3, the Doctor and Jo materialize on board a ship in the Indian Ocean in what appears to be 1926. They soon discover, however, that they are in fact trapped in a “miniscope” – a transdimensional “ant farm” in which the humans are but one exhibit. The miniscope is the property of the rapscallion Vorg, a sort of cosmic carny from the planet Lurman who, with his assistant Shirna, is the first off-world visitor to the planet Inter Minor. He is not welcome there, as the local ruling class – officious, humorless bureaucrats – fail to find his portable zoo entertaining and fear that it may teem with germs and contagion. While Vorg awaits deportation and tries to rescue his “collection” (which include a few Ogrons and some nasty giant carnivorous worms called Drashigs), the Doctor finally emerges from the machine – inadvertently abetting the escape of the horrible Drashigs behind him.

Download this episodewritten by Robert Holmes
directed by Barry Letts
music by Dudley Simpson

Guest Cast: Stuart Fell (Functionary), Michael Wisher (Kalik), Terence Lodge (Orum), Cheryl Hall (Shirna), Leslie Dwyer (Vorg), Tenniel Evans (Major Daly), Andrew Staines (Captain), Ian Marter (Andrews), Jenny McCracken (Claire Daly), Peter Halliday (Pletrac)

Broadcast from January 27 through February 17, 1973

LogBook entry & review by Robert Seulowitz

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Classic Season 10 Doctor Who

Frontier in Space

Doctor WhoAfter months of seething suspicion, Earth and Draconia are on the brink of all-out war, with small skirmishes and raids already taking place. As the TARDIS brings the Doctor and Jo into the fray, they discover that those raids are not all that they seem; the attacks are being carried out by neither Earth nor Draconia, but a third party trying to force the two worlds closer to the beginning of war. The Doctor is outraged to discover that this third party is the Master, working with a hired band of Ogron mercenaries, but the Doctor’s attempts to warn both the president of Earth and the royal house on Draconia go largely unheeded – until it is too late. The Doctor, Jo, and several skeptical humans and Draconians track the Master down, discovering that the war is only part of his plan. For the Master has enlisted the help of his deadliest allies yet: the Daleks.

written by Malcolm Hulke
directed by Paul Bernard
music by Dudley Simpson

Guest Cast: Roger Delgado (The Master), John Rees (Hardy), James Culliford (Stewart), Roy Pattison (Draconian Pilot), Peter Birrel (Draconian Prince), Vera Fusek (President), Michael Hawkins (Williams), Louis Mahoney (Newscaster), Karol Hagar (Secretary), Ray Lonn Ashton (Kemp), Lawrence Davidson (Draconian First Secretary), Timothy Craven (Guard), Luan Peters (Sheila), Caroline Hunt (Technician), Madhav Sharma (Patel), Richard Shaw (Cross), Dennis Bowen (Governor), Harold Goldblatt (Professor Dale), Laurence Harrington (Guard), Bill Wilde (Draconian Captain), Stephen Thorne, Michael Kilgarriff, Rick Lester (Ogrons), John Woodnutt (Emperor), Ian Frost (Draconian Messenger), Clifford Elkin (Earth Cruiser Captain), Bill Mitchell (Newscaster), Ramsay Williams (Brook), Stanley Price (Pilot), John Scott Martin, Cy Town, Murphy Grumbar (Daleks), Michael Wisher (Dalek voices)

Broadcast from February 24 through March 31, 1973

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Pilot Movies Six Million Dollar Man

The Six Million Dollar Man

The Six Million Dollar ManFormer lunar astronaut Steve Austin takes on the sometimes dangerous career of test piloting experimental aircraft after retiring from NASA. During one test flight, the experimental plane he’s flying crash-lands after a series of system failures. Austin loses both legs, his right arm, and his left eye in the resulting explosion. Dr. Rudy Wells, a former NASA doctor who followed Austin out of the space program, knows that bionic prosthetics could save Austin’s life and restore his mobility – and then some – but doesn’t have the budget for such an experimental procedure.

Enter Oliver Spencer, director of the secret Office of Special Operations, who has a six million dollar budget to create the perfect secret agent. He originally envisioned a robot that could pass for human, but the time and money to create such a machine exceeds what the OSO has available. He offers to finances Austin’s recovery and Dr. Well’s highly unusual prosthetic surgery, but at a price: Steve Austin will become a government agent with strength and abilities beyond those of most men. His first assignment is to free a kidnapped hostage being held in a remote area of Saudi Arabia. Austin has the ability to save the hostage, but what he doesn’t have is the knowledge that the entire operation is a trap.

teleplay by Henri Simoun
based on the novel “Cyborg” by Martin Caidin
directed by Richard Irving
music by Gil Melle

The Six Million Dollar ManCast: Lee Majors (Steve Austin), Barbara Anderson (Jean Manners), Martin Balsam (Dr. Rudy Wells), Darren McGavin (Oliver Spencer), Dorothy Green (Mrs. McKay), Anne Whitfield (Young Woman), George Wallace (General), Robert Cornthwaite (Dr. AShburn), Olan Soule (Saltillo), Norma Storch (Woman), John Mark Robinson (Aide), Charles Knox Robinson (Prisoner), Ivor Barry (Geraldton), Maurice Sherbanee (Nudaylah)

The Six Million Dollar ManNotes: In syndicated rerun packages, this movie was split into two one-hour episodes titled The Moon And The Desert Part 1 and Part 2. Unlike the remainder of The Six Million Dollar Man on TV (and unlike the original 1972 novel “Cyborg”), Steve Austin is portrayed here as a civilian astronaut/test pilot with a disdain for the military; the next Six Million Dollar Man TV movie retcons him into an Air Force colonel. This is the only appearance of Darren McGavin as Oliver Spencer; the character was replaced with Oscar Goldman in the next movie, while Dr. Wells would be recast.

LogBook entry by Earl Green