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Friday the 13th: The Series Season 1

The Inheritance

Friday The 13th: The SeriesLewis Vendredi, an antiques dealer, has a strange way of doing business: he insists nothing in his store is for sale, and yet the doors stay open and he’s able to pay his bills. He had made a pact with the devil, and when he tries to renege on the deal, the cursed items in his store turn on him and kill him.

Ryan Dallion and Michelle “Mickey” Foster, distant cousins who have never met, end up inheriting their uncle’s store upon his death. Both eager to return to their normal lives, they open the doors for one last sale, getting rid of everything they can. After spending only mere hours in the store, they’re already aware that the antiques there are out of the ordinary. They’re about to close up shop when an older man named Jack Marshak bursts in, claiming to be Uncle Lewis’ former partner. Jack is aware of Lewis’ deal with the devil, and reveals to Mickey and Ryan that every artifact in the store was cursed, imbued with evil powers – and every single item that they or Lewis ever sold must be recovered and put in a vault in the store’s basement.

The search starts with a porcelain doll sold to a family with a troubled little girl. By the time Ryan and Mickey track the family down, the doll has already started to claim the lives of everyone for whom the girl expresses a dislike. When Mickey tries to coax her into giving the doll up, she becomes the next target.

Download this episode via Amazonwritten by William Taub
directed by William Fruet
music by Fred Mollin

Cast: John D. LeMay (Ryan Dallion), Wendy Robey (Mickey Foster), Chris Wiggins (Jack Marshak), R.G. Armstrong (Uncle Lewis Vendredi), Sarah Polley (Mary), Friday The 13th: The SeriesLynne Cormack (Mrs. Simms), Michael Fletcher (Mr. Simms), Esther Hockin (Babysitter), Sean Fagan (Boy #1), Gordon Woolvett (Boy #2), Robyn Sheppard (Nurse), Barclay Hope (Lloyd)

Notes: Mere minutes into the episode, see if you can spot future Deepwater Black and Andromeda cast member Gordon Michael Woolvett – credited here without his middle name – as the quieter of two street hoodlums harrassing Mary (he’s the one who doesn’t get attacked by the doll).

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Friday the 13th: The Series Season 1

The Poison Pen

Friday The 13th: The SeriesAfter taking a vote among his fellow senior monks on whether or not to sell the property on which his order’s monastery sits, Abbot Capilano experiences a miracle, levitating off the ground and floating away from the monastery’s tower. He then plunges to his death.

Suspicious of newspaper reports about a monk with a disturbingly good track record of predicting people’s deaths, Ryan and Mickey poses as monks (with Mickey pretending to be a man) and gain entry to the monastery. It isn’t long before another prophecy of doom is made, this time about the abbot’s successor, who dies right on schedule. At the shop, Jack believes he’s tracked down which cursed artifact has found itself in the wrong hands at the monastery – a cursed quill pen whose writings are destined to come true. Now Ryan and Mickey have to find out which of the monks is dabbling in forces far beyond his control, though the grisly death of the man they believe is the prophet of doom throws them off their trail. But the real writer of the deadly predictions is still at large – and now he knows that the two young monks who have just arrived are a threat to his ambitions.

Download this episode via Amazonwritten by Dunford King
directed by Timothy Bond
music by Fred Mollin

Cast: John D. LeMay (Ryan Dallion), Wendy Robey (Mickey Foster), Chris Wiggins (Jack Marshak), Colin Fox (Le Croix), Larry Reynolds (Brother Currie), Alar Aedma (Brother Drake), Lewis Gordon (Abbot Capilano), Gillie Fenwick (Brother Arrupe), Jayne Heeley (Reporter #1), Les Niremberg (Reporter #2), Ron Gabriel (Marvin Green)

Friday The 13thNotes: This is the first of three Friday The 13th appearances by veteran Canadian actor Colin Fox. His other two appearances – each as a different character – are in the show’s second season. He would later become a regular on such series as Psi Factor, and guest starred in such series as Wonderfalls, The Dead Zone, Forever Knight, Goosebumps and Relic Hunter. He’s also racked up an impressive number of animation voice credits, notably as the voice of King Harkinian in the once-weekly animated Legend Of Zelda segments of the Super Mario Bros. Super Show. Director Timothy Bond is a mainstay behind the camera of many Canadian-made genre series, including further Friday episodes (one of which, Eye Of Death, he also wrote), War Of The Worlds, TekWar, Robocop: The Series, Forever Knight, The Outer Limits and Mutant X. Some of his directing assignments outside of Canada’s borders included two third season epiosdes of Star Trek: The Next Generation and a few episodes of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys.

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Friday the 13th: The Series Season 1

Cupid’s Quiver

Friday The 13th: The SeriesThe brutal murder of a woman in a honeymoon suite repeats the pattern of a previous murder case, and Jack suspects that the common element may be a hideous Cupid statue that Uncle Lewis sold to another man four years ago – and that man, too, was convicted of murdering a woman after seducing her with the aid of a Cupid statue. Ryan and Mickey discover that the statue was taken by a member of a local college fraternity, and they try to track it down, finding that it’s changed hands again. The Cupid is now in the possession of a disturbed young man who is too socially awkward to form normal relationships, and becomes obsessed with women he meets on campus. Ryan and Mickey get themselves invited to the fraternity’s next party to recover the statue before another woman is killed.

Download this episode via Amazonwritten by Stephen Katz
directed by Atom Egoyan
music by Fred Mollin

Cast: John D. LeMay (Ryan Dallion), Wendy Robey (Mickey Foster), Chris Wiggins (Jack Marshak), Denis Forest (Eddie), Carolyn Dunn (Laurie), Kirsten Kieferle (Bar Girl), Ross Fraser (Hastings), Kevin Lund (Bowser), Dennis Fitzgerald (Harold), Joy Boushel (Redhead), Ardon Bess (Hotel Manager), Peter Faussett (Frat Member), Matt Trueman (Alex), Richard Alden (Security Guard), Patrick Tierney (Bartender), Victor Ertmanis (Jock)

Friday The 13thNotes: Mickey is still engaged to Lloyd (see The Inheritance). Denis Forest also made guest appearances on Nightmare Cafe, The Adventures Of Brisco County Jr., The X-Files, and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. He would become a regular in the second and final season of Friday The 13th’s syndicated Paramount stablemate, War Of The Worlds, as Malzor. He died in 2002 at the age of 41. He and guest star Carolyn Dunn both made several more appearances in Friday The 13th (as different characters). The episode featured several contemporary songs as source music (in soundtrack terms, background music which the characters can hear, such as from a radio): “Heart Like Mine” and “Try” by Blue Rodeo, “The Breakaway” by David Quinton, “Does It Matter To You” by David Quinton and Anton Evans, and “Do It All Night” and “Party Rock” by Stan Meisner.

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Friday the 13th: The Series Season 1

A Cup Of Time

Friday The 13th: The SeriesA homeless girl is offered a cup of tea by a stranger, a cup with a design of vines and leaves printed on its side. The vines seem to spring from the cup and strangle the girl to death…and then return to the cup.

This isn’t the first unexplained murder in the same general area, though, and the police have no clues. Mickey and Ryan pay a visit to the investigator following the case, but he’s less than receptive to “amateur” help. The only clue is an ivy leaf, which Jack is able to identify…and trace back to a cup sold by Uncle Louis. The cup is yet another cursed item, one which can transfer a victim’s youth and vitality to the person who holds the cup. Ryan is incredulous when the cup’s trail leads to Lady Die, a past-her-prime rock star trying desperately to return to the limelight. But Lady Die is recognized by Bertie, an older woman trying to catch Jack’s attention, as someone she knew when she was younger. Can they be the same person? Has Lady Die been trying to reclaim her youth for longer than any of them can imagine?

Download this episode via Amazonwritten by Barbara Sachs
directed by F. Harvey Frost
music by Fred Mollin

Cast: John D. LeMay (Ryan Dallion), Wendy Robey (Mickey Foster), Chris Wiggins (Jack Marshak), Hilary Shepard (Lady Die), Maxine Miller (Birdie), Lubomir Mykytiuk (Langley), Lisa Jakub (Kristen), Richard Fitzpatrick (Lt. Fishbein), Brian Young (Drifter), Ann Cornish (Sarah), Erica Wood (Runaway), Bruce Vavarina (Young Bum), Tim Burd (Teddy), Jan Fillips (David Kay), Walter Bolton (Coroner), Karen Hines (Punk)

Friday The 13thNotes: Hilary Shepard comes by her musical talent naturally – she’s as much a musician as she is an actress. She’d get to sing in another unlikely genre show, guest starring in two episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as the genetically augmented savant Lauren in Statistical Probabilities (1997) and Chrysalis (1998). She also played Divatox in Power Rangers Turbo and Power Rangers In Space.

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Friday the 13th: The Series Season 1

Hellowe’en

Friday The 13th: The SeriesTo help dispel the somewhat shady reputation of Curious Goods, Ryan invites friends to the store for a Halloween party. Mickey worries that their visitors might enter the vault of cursed objects, which does indeed happen; a crystal ball is disturbed and begins growing with a green light. Ryan evacuates the partygoers, and Jack tries to help a wayward trick-or-treater get home. A thick fog climbs the stairs from the vault, eventually forming the image of Uncle Lewis, claiming he wants to atone for his sins and be free of his pact with the devil. But it’s another trick: Lewis wants to return from the dead, even if it costs Mickey and Ryan their lives.

Download this episode via Amazonwritten by William Taub
directed by Timothy Bond
music by Fred Mollin

Cast: John D. LeMay (Ryan Dallion), Wendy Robey (Mickey Foster), Chris Wiggins (Jack Marshak), R.G. Armstrong (Uncle Lewis), Adrian Pocock (Greta), Victoria Deslaurier (Evil Greta), David Matheson (Larry), Alan Watt (Howard), Maxwell Moffatt (Old Man), Braun McAsh (B.T.), Tom Melissis (Erik), Ron Vanhart (Hearse Driver)

Friday The 13thNotes: Make the second of a handful of guest appearances as Uncle Lewis, R.G. Armstrong (1917-2012) had a long history of genre roles, from the original Twilight Zone to The Time Tunnel, The Invaders, Beauty And The Beast, Quantum Leap, and Millennium. His movie appearances included Predator, Dick Tracy, The Car, and Children Of The Corn, among many, many others.

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Friday the 13th: The Series Season 1

The Great Montarro

Friday The 13th: The SeriesA cursed cabinet called the Coffin of Blood had been handed from stage magician to stage magician, allowing them to perform a death-defying stunt safely at no risk to themselves…because a victim is selected, trapped in a second coffin, and is the unfortunate recipient of the cabinet’s deadly steel blades. Inevitably, the current owner of the Coffin of Doom – a cursed relic sold by Lewis Ventredi – meets with an unfortunate accident involving his own trick. But until then, lives are being claimed. Jack, Ryan and Mickey set out to recover the Coffin of Blood before it can kill again, only to find that it has fallen into the hands of yet another unscrupulous magician. When they draw attention to themselves by asking too many questions, the Great Montarro may give them a fatal role to play in the next act.

Download this episode via Amazonwritten by Durnford King
directed by Richard Friedman
music by Fred Mollin

Friday the 13thCast: John D. LeMay (Ryan Dallion), Wendy Robey (Mickey Foster), Chris Wiggins (Jack Marshak), Graeme Campbell (Montarro), Lesleh Donaldson (Lyla), August Schellenberg (Fahteem), Sylvie Garant (Collette), Martin Neufeld (Robert), Murray Westgate (Monte), Jefferson Mappin (Tommy), Ric Sarabia (Tony)

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Friday the 13th: The Series Season 1

Doctor Jack

Friday The 13th: The SeriesA seemingly random killing puts Ryan, Mickey and Jack on the trail of a possible cursed object – a scalpel believed to have been used by Jack the Ripper himself. Able to cut through nearly anything, it could be an incredible surgical tool…or a deadly weapon. The track the scalpel down to a Dr. Howard, who is rapidly gaining a reputation as a somewhat aloof, eccentric medical miracle worker. But the artifact hunters aren’t the only ones on his trail: a woman who has been trying to stalk Dr. Howard aims a gun at him in the hospital, but Ryan and Jack’s quick intervention make her only a would-be murderer. She has many clues about Howard’s past victims, but her obsession makes her almost as dangerous as Howard himself. AFter a scuffle with Howard, Jack is critically injured…and the man from whom he was trying to take the scalpel may now be his only hope of survival.

Download this episode via Amazonwritten by Marc Scott Zicree
directed by Richard Friedman
music by Fred Mollin

Friday the 13thCast: John D. LeMay (Ryan Dallion), Wendy Robey (Mickey Foster), Chris Wiggins (Jack Marshak), Cliff Gorman (Dr. Howard), Elva Mai Hoover (Jean Flappen), Doris Petrie (Dr. Price), Michael Copeman (Jim Bronson), Alan Rosenthal (Anaesthetist), Frank Perry (Flower Vendor), Vinetta Strombergs (Duty Nurse), Deborah Kimmett (Obs Room Nurse), Lynn Vogt (Psychiatric Nurse), Hal Eisen (Code Blue Doctor), Wendy Lum (Station Nurse), Peggy Francis (Surgical Nurse), Candace Jennings (Hooker), Susan Spencer (Emergency Nurse)

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Friday the 13th: The Series Season 1

Shadow Boxer

Friday The 13th: The SeriesThe widow of a gym manager calls upon Curious Goods to catalog her late husband’s collection of vintage boxing memorabilia. The item that catches Jack’s attention is a pair of boxing gloves belonging to an infamous fighter who accidentally killed his last opponent with a knockout punch in the 1940s…a pair of gloves that had briefly been in the Ventredi collection of cursed artifacts. Jack, Mickey and Ryan, posing as reporters, begin hanging around the gym and talking to the up-and-coming boxers training there, trying to get a fix on whether the cursed gloves are still in use by anyone there. The gloves summon forth the featureless shadow of a fighter, and the wearer can direct the shadow to kill its victim.

Download this episode via Amazonwritten by Joshua Daniel Miller
directed by Timothy Bond
music by Fred Mollin

Friday the 13thCast: John D. LeMay (Ryan Dallion), Wendy Robey (Mickey Foster), Chris Wiggins (Jack Marshak), David Ferry (Tommy Dunn), Jack Duffy (Manny King), Patricia Hamilton (Sadie King), Gerry Quigley (Doorman), Dennis Christensen (Pepper Boliski), Patsy Fern (Referee), Nicholas Pasco (Tony Terrific), Philip Akin (Kid Cornelius)

Notes: Guest star Philip Akin would go on to join Friday The 13th’s syndicated stablemate, War Of The Friday the 13thWorlds, in its second season as Norton Drake; he was also a regular in the second season of Highlander: The Series (which starred Akin’s fellow new recruit in the second and final season of War Of The Worlds, Adrian Paul). He went on to play guest roles in Psi Factor: Chronicles Of The Paranormal, Relic Hunter, Odyssey 5, Mutant X, Warehouse 13 and The Expanse, and has provided voices for many animated series, including the 1990s X-Men animated series and Tales From The Cryptkeeper.

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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.

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Friday the 13th: The Series Season 1

Tales Of The Undead

Friday The 13th: The SeriesRyan drops by his favorite comic store to pick up his pull list, and is shown a real treasure by the owner of the shop – a one-of-a-kind March 1947 issue of Jay Star’s Tales Of The Undead, signed by Star himself and acquired from an estate sale. It’s expected to go for five figures at auction…except that it’s attracted the attention of a petty thief. But the thief, once he breaks open the glass case set up to display the comic, assumes the guise of Ferrus, the robot-like armored villain of the comic, assaults the owner, and knocks Ryan aside. Mickey finds the comic in Uncle Lewis’ ledger…and discovers that Lewis bought it from Jay Star himself. Ryan visits Star’s address in the ledger and comes face to face with one of his idols…and Star soon sees through Ryan’s “starstruck fan” facade. When Ryan asks who would steal an issue of Star’s comic, Star reveals that his original characters and works were stolen by unscrupulous publishers. But when Ryan describes Ferrus’ attack, Star sets out to track down the thief and reclaim the stolen comic…not to stop the boy from killing again, but to use the powers of Ferrus for himself, avenging injustices that he felt ruined his life, and leaving a trail of bodies in his wake. Once Ryan discovers who now holds the power of Ferrus, he has to turn to the original comics to learn how to defeat him…which may mean killing his idol.

Download this episode via Amazonteleplay by Bill Taub and Marc Scott Zicree
story by Alfred Sole & Paul Monette
directed by Lyndon Chubbuck
music by Fred Mollin

Friday the 13thCast: John D. LeMay (Ryan Dallion), Wendy Robey (Mickey Foster), Chris Wiggins (Jack Marshak), Ray Walston (Jay Star), David Hewlett (Cal), Bob Aarrons (Charlie), Michelle George (Mrs. Forbes), Jennifer Griffin (Linda), David Clement (Carmine), Anthony Bekenn (Mrs. Briggs)

Notes: Ray Walston is, of course, best known for his starring role in the sitcom My Favorite Martian, though more recent sci-fi fans may know him primarily as Starfleet Academy groundskeeper Boothby, from episodes of both Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Voyager. His much younger co-star, David Hewlett, appears here in only his fourth screen credit at Friday the 13ththe age of 20; Hewlett would later become much better known as laconic Stargate project scientist Dr. Rodney McKay, a recurring guest so popular on Stargate SG-1 that he became a regular for the entire run of the spinoff series Stargate Atlantis. The character of Jay Star is based loosely on any number of comic creators – take your pick: Siegel & Schuster, Jack Kirby, and far too many others – whose creations were taken over by corporate interests with little interest in compensating them fairly for their creations.

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Friday the 13th: The Series Season 1

Pipe Dream

Friday The 13th: The SeriesAt a seminar for inventors, Ray Dallion is curious about a younger attendee’s invention, which turns out to be a powerful weapon that would be a hot ticket to instant wealth if sold to a defense contractor. Ray lights an ornate pipe in the shape of a devil’s head, and its thick smoke envelops the weapon’s inventor, killing him slowly, agonizingly, and ultimately without a trace. Ray takes the designs for the weapon, passes them off as his own, and lands a plum defense job…as well as winning a new rival at that job, whose weapon has just been left on the back burner in favor of Ray’s new invention.

Ryan gets a wedding invitation from his estranged father’s new address, sent by his fiancee. Ryan and Mikki accept the invitation and Ryan and Ray Dallion stand face to face for the first time in years. Ray takes Ryan to his new workplace to show off the invention that changed his fortunes; Ryan is less than impressed to learn that it’s a weapon. Mikki learns from Ray’s fiancee that Ray’s Uncle Lewis gave him a pipe, and Mikki suspects it’s one of Uncle Lewis’ cursed objects, though she can’t convince Ryan of that…until she sees Ray dispatch his rival co-worker with her own eyes, again using the pipe. But Ray also knows that she’s seen something, making her his next target.

Friday The 13thDownload this episode via Amazonwritten by Marc Scott Zicree
directed by Zale Dalen
music by Fred Mollin

Cast: John D. LeMay (Ryan Dallion), Wendy Robey (Mickey Foster), Chris Wiggins (Jack Marshak), Michael Constantine (Ray Dallion), Frank Canino (Esposito), David Christoffel (Nathan Fielding), Marion Gilsenan (Connie), James Kidnie (John York), Nick Nichols (Buck Clemens), Darryl Shuttleworth (Keith Fielding), Christian Vidosa (General Abelar)

LogBook entry by Earl Green