Author: theLogBook.com

As Devon, Rachel and Garth explore the unmanned bridge, the Ark’s computer alerts them to an emergency in the command medical center. When the three go to find this place, they discover something potentially even more terrifying than the Ark’s flight toward a star: they are not alone on the Ark. A group of vicious primitives attacks, accusing them of being thieves, and suddenly Devon and his friends are on the run. Garth stays behind to fend off the attackers, while Devon and Rachel find the medical center, where the computer directs them to activity in the cryonic “life suspension” chambers: several members of the Ark’s crew were cryogenically frozen and one of them is beginning to awaken. But the crewmember who is awakening, Dr. Aaron, was frozen because he had contracted a terminal disease – and it was hoped that medical science would have advanced enough to cure him in what little time he would have left upon awakening. With only two hours of life left unless he is refrozen, Dr. Aaron helps Devon and the others as best he can, but he’s only the ship’s communications engineer and can’t change the Ark’s course. And then there’s the question of making peace with the savages who roam the corridors and securing Garth’s safe return…

written by Douglas Hall and Don Wallace
directed by Leo Orenstein
music by Score Productions Ltd.

Guest Cast: Frank Converse (Dr. Gerald Aaron), Vivian Reis (Jane), William Osler (Computer Voice), Doug McGrath (Sergeant), Clive Endersby (1st Tube Dweller), Alan Bleviss (2nd Tube Dweller)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

When Devon and his friends emerge into another habitat dome on the Ark, Rachel is immediately revered as an object of worship – and all three of them notice that she seems to be the only woman present. The Governor of the Omicron dome introduces himself, and assumes that Rachel’s arrival is the prophesied coming of the goddess Calabra. He also seems to assume right away that she is here to becomg his bride, so he may ascend to godhood himself (and, in so doing, permanently consolidate his position of power). His leaps of faith are not shared, however, by the Shaliff, Omicron’s spiritual leader, who realizes that Rachel is telling the truth when she claims not to be a goddess. While she is held in high esteem by the Governor, Devon and Garth realize that they’re living on borrowed time and ask the Shaliff for asylum in his temple. While taking shelter with the Shaliff and his monks, Devon realizes that the “holy texts” store in the temple are, in fact, the technical manuals of the Ark, hinting at the existence of a backup to the destroyed bridge compartment, which may still be intact. But the leave the Omicron dome with that knowledge, Devon must interrupt the wedding of Rachel and the Governor, challenging Omicron’s leader to a duel to the death.

written by Martin Lager
from a story by Ursula K. LeGuin
directed by Harvey Hart
music by Score Productions Ltd.

Guest Cast: John Colicos (Governor), Barry Morse (Shaliff), Dominic Hogan (Priest), Michael Kirby (Captain), George Naklowyck (Deputy), Paul Geary (Guard), William Osler (Computer Voice)

Notes: This episode’s chief guest stars both have major SF television credits to their names; John Colicos was the first actor to portray a Klingon on the original Star Trek, and a few years after his Starlost appearance would go on to play another villain, the treacherous Baltar, in the original Battlestar Galactica. Barry Morse would go on to co-star as Professor Victor Bergman in the lavish international co-production Space: 1999, and would also appear in the BBC/Universal Studios miniseries dramatization of Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles. Though early plans for The Starlost called for Canadian writers to build scripts around advance science fiction concepts devised by some of the best novelists and thinkers in that field, this episode, based on a story by Ursula K. Le Guin, seems to be – aside from Harlan Ellison’s pilot – the only time in the series’ brief run that this promise was in any danger of being fulfilled.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

An alarm wakes Devon, Rachel and Garth, and they’re stunned to see a spaceship approaching the Ark and coming in for a landing. Out of the ship, called the Pisces, steps Colonel Garoway, who, along with his two-woman crew, insists that he left the Ark only ten years ago to scout ahead for habitable worlds. But since the Pisces’ engines accelerate the tiny ship close enough to light speed that its crew experiences a time dilation effect, and contact with the Ark was lost, Garoway is unaware that hundreds of years have passed. Worse yet, there’s a side effect for Garoway and his crew: the early onset of senility. Devon hopes he can convince Garoway and his crew to help change the Ark’s course to avert its eventual collision with a star, but the crew of the Pisces has other ideas.

written by Norman Klenman
directed by Leo Orenstein
music by Score Productions Ltd.

Guest Cast: Lloyd Bochner (Colonel Garoway), Carol Lazare (Teale), Diana Barrington (Janice), William Osler (Computer Voice), Ted Beatie (Old Man), Lillian Graham (Old Woman), Susan Fleming (Tech)

LogBook entry by Earl Green