Scientist and inventor Professor Parasfoot presents a small robot, W1K1, to Jason, one of Star Command’s most seasoned space adventurers. When Space Academy is attacked by an unknown ship, W1K1 immediately proves to be useful in sealing up a dangerous gas leak. Jason contacts Commander Canarvin, Star Command’s leader, only to see Canarvin disappear from the screen, only to appear on Space Academy’s detectors somewhere in deep space. Jason boards his spacecraft, the Starfire, to rescue Canarvin and investigate the Academy’s unidentified attacker, but he has a passenger he hadn’t counted on – Professor Parsafoot has stowed away, hoping to see some excitement. After Canarvin is recovered, alive and well thanks to his life support belt, a gigantic ship pursues the Starfire. Jason orders Canarvin and Parsafoot into the Starfire’s shuttle and launches them back to the safety of Space Academy. As they escape, the huge ship looms over the Starfire…
written by Samuel A. Peeples
directed by Arthur H. Nadel
music by Yvette Blais & Jeff Michael and Horta-Mahana
Cast: Craig Littler (Jason), Sid Haig (Dragos), Susan O’Hanlon (Capt. Nicole Davidoff), Charlie Dell (Prof. E.J. Parsafoot), James Doohan (Commander Canarvin)
Notes: Episodes of the first season of Jason Of Star Command were approximately 11 minutes in length, as the show shared a half-hour time slot with Filmation’s Saturday morning cartoon Tarzan And The Super 7. The opening titles describe Star Command as a “secret section” of Space Academy, so presumably Commander Gampu and his cadets are elsewhere on the Academy at the same time; as there’s virtually no crossover between the two shows other than the use of the same sets, costumes and models, the whereabouts of the Space Academy characters is unknown. After working on Jason Of Star Command, in-demand miniature model maker Ease Owyeung joined Industrial Light & Magic, where he built other instantly recognizable science fiction miniatures, including the refinery-like alien ships of Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, miniatures for The Empire Strikes Back,
Return Of The Jedi, Starman, E.T. and Innerspace, and later he supervised the construction of the original six-foot-long filming model of the Enterprise for Star Trek: The Next Generation. Although he is seen in the opening credits, Sid Haig only does a voice-over as Drago in this episode. The music from the animated Star Trek series continues to be used, as does that show’s concept of a “life support belt” which creates an invisible force field around its wearer (and prevents the costume department from having to make expensive spacesuits).
LogBook entry by Earl Green