Category: Space Precinct

The death of an armed street thug draws the attention of Brogan and Haldane, especially since there are no signs of a struggle – indicating that telekinesis may be the murder weapon. After he’s questioned in the death, a rival thug and several of his cohorts are killed in the same way: their hearts – human or alien – are accelerated until they burst inside their chests. It soon becomes obvious that there’s a new face in charge of crime on the streets, and it’s not a human one. One alien offers to come forward with information, but he dies in a suspicious accident before he can talk. Brogan closes in on a likely suspect, but even under questioning, he won’t talk either – and he certainly isn’t talking about the mysterious (and conveniently mute) alien girl taking shelter in his apartment. Brogan is alarmed when his wife Sally offers to let the alien girl stay at their home, since nothing is known about her. Only too late, Brogan discovers that the missing murder weapon is in his own home with his wife and children.

written by Marc Scott Zicree
directed by Sidney Hayers
music by Crispin Merrell

Guest Cast: Andrew Tiernan (Andy Sturgeon), Jade Punt (Vala), Tom Radcliffe (Nick), Kazia Pelka (Madam), Nic Klein (Matt Brogan), Megan Olive (Liz Brogan), Richard James (Orrin), David Quilter (Fredo), Jerome Willis (Podly), Mary Woodvine (Took), Leigh Tinkler (Lurzan), Rob Thirtle (Trask), Andy Dawson (Skeevan), Gary Martin (voice of Slomo)

Notes: Apparently the police code for a shootout is “1701,” surely nothing to do with a certain other SF series for which Marc Scott Zicree had written in recent years. Zicree has also scripted episodes of Babylon 5 and The New Twilight Zone.

Brogan takes his son on a joy ride through an asteroid belt, but the father-and-son outing is cut short with the discovery of a crashed, but largely intact, derelict spacecraft. Its hull still holds a pressurized atmosphere, so Brogan lands to investigate, though he’s worried about his son’s safety. They find a badly decomposed body, but no other signs of life; the ship is intact enough for Brogan to launch it again. It’s identified as a 20 year old prototype vehicle built by the giant Humes Interspace corporation, whose representatives are a little less than helpful because of the potential bad publicity. But before the derelict can be brought back to the precinct, a self-destruct system activates, and Brogan and his son barely have time to escape in their own ship. The ship – with evidence of a murder aboard – is vaporized, and Haldane can’t help but notice that this only happened after Humes Interspace was notified that the prototype ship was still in one piece. Brogan has to plow through layers of bureaucracy – and Humes’ unhelpful assistant – to finally get an audience with the reclusive Humes himself, but after that first brief meeting yields little information, new evidence surfaces. DNA from the body abaord the prototype ship was left under the fingernails of Brogan’s son, and the DNA reveals the identity of the murder victim: spacecraft magnate Alden Humes. So who did Brogan and Haldane meet at Humes’ corporate headquarters… and who’s really in charge of Humes Interspace?

teleplay by Marc Scott Zicree
story by Mark Harris
directed by Sidney Hayers
music by Crispin Merrell

Guest Cast: Bob Sherman (Alden Humes), Nic Klein (Matt Brogan), Megan Olive (Liz Brogan), Jerome Willis (Podly), Richard James (Orrin), David Quilter (Fredo), Lou Hirsch (Romek), Mary Woodvine (Took), Leigh Tinkler (Forensic), Rob Thirtle (Jomore), Will Barton (Underling), Gary Martin (voice of Slomo)

Notes: With his reclusive nature, his obsessive avoidance of human contact, his aerospace company and, of course, his name, the character of Humes is obviously based on Howard Hughes (1905-1976). This episode of Space Precinct was the one distributed via VHS videotape to U.S. television stations as a “taster”; the tape was intended to impress program directors of independent stations enough to pick the show up from North American distributor Grove Television. Guest star Will Barton appeared in Survival, the final adventure of the original Doctor Who series’ last season, as a troubled youth exploited by the evil Master.

Brogan and Haldane tail a crime lord back to his hideout, but when he and his henchmen are brutally murdered as the cops wait outside, they can find no suspect, and there’s only one survivor who seems to be little more than the dead criminal’s paramour. Traces of a life-extending drug are found, and that leads to an alien dealer who can only be identified by the woman who survived the massacre. When that criminal is also killed violently, uncomfortable questions surface: why is it that this is only happening to the suspects being tailed by Brogan and Haldane? The next move in their investigation might bring the killer right into the heart of the police headquarters.

written by J. Larry Carroll & David Bennett Carren
directed by Colin Bucksey
music by Crispin Merrell

Guest Cast: Nickolas Grace (Nissim), Lana Citron (Aleesha), Matyelok Gibbs (Bag Lady), Nic Klein (Matt Brogan), Megan Olive (Liz Brogan), Richard James (Orrin), David Quilter (Fredo), Jerome Willis (Podly), Mary Woodvine (Took), Idris Elba (Delivery Man), Nitzan Sharron (Inazy), Richard Ashton (Retainer #1), Leigh Tinkler (Alien Killer), Rob Thirtle (Torrance), Andy Dawson (Piru), Gary Martin (voice of Slomo)

Notes: The writing team of J. Larry Carroll and David Bennett Carren has also penned episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Stargate SG-1, among other series. On both Space Precinct and ST:TNG, the two served as story editors.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

A raid on a counterfeiting operation that Brogan and his team have been watching for a long time goes disastrously wrong. The counterfeiters are better armed than expected, and even after they’re disarmed, they have a doomsday weapon – an unstoppable cyborg whose armor isn’t even dented by concentrated firepower. Took is wounded in action, and a wet-behind-the-ears new counterfeiter is critically injured when he’s knocked into an acid vat. Both of them are hospitalized, but the cyborg makes another appearance, killing both survivors. Brogan makes the pursuit of the cyborg his personal crusade, but the pursuit becomes deadly to everyone around him: the cyborg blasts Brogan’s police cruiser, and Haldane’s ejection seat doesn’t work, forcing him to press Brogan’s ejection button; the senior cop is helpless to watch as Haldane dies trying to land the ship without causing any civilian casualties. The cyborg infiltrates the precinct itself, killing most of Brogan’s fellow space police, including Officer Castle. Brogan hustles his family into hiding and waits for the cyborg to come after him, only to find that incide the armored suit is a familiar face with a time-twisting tale.

written by Hans Beimler & Richard Manning
directed by Alan Birkinshaw
music by Crispin Merrell

Guest Cast: Stephen Billington (Ross), Nic Klein (Matt Brogan), Megan Olive (Liz Brogan), Nigel Gregory (Tamsin), Alison Rose (Dr. Grant), Glenn Marks (Cyborg), Jerome Willis (Podly), David Quilter (Fredo), Mary Woodvine (Took), Richard James (Orrin), Lou Hirsch (Romek), Rob Thirtle (Zipload), Will Barton (Drako), Gary Martin (voice of Slomo)

Notes: Hans Beimler and Richard Manning wrote, as a team, episodes of Fame, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Beyond Reality and TekWar, and were staff writers on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Beimler went on to produce series such as The Profiler, The Dresden Files and The Middleman, while Manning wrote several episodes of Farscape and became one of that show’s executive producers.

A stakeout turns into a high-speed, high-stakes chase when Brogan and Haldane pursue a fast-moving, unregistered air limo. It launches something that looks like a missile toward one of Demeter City’s major buildings, and Brogan uses his police cruiser to ram the projectile off-course. Both the missile and the police ship make rough unscheduled landings, but the surprises don’t stop there – there’s a dead body inside the projectile. Castle and Took lose track of the limo. With no ID on the body, all the unanswered questions are dead ends, until a connection is discovered to a suspicious organ replacement operation that was shut down months ago. Brogan and Haldane begin putting pressure on one of the doctors caught up in that scandal, and find that his organ replacement business is booming – and he’s never short of the right organs for the right species of his patients. But his paperwork reveals nothing shady, and citizens of Demeter City continue to go missing without a trace, vanishing into an operating room that no one can see, and yet is in plain sight.

written by David Bennett Carren & J. Larry Carroll
directed by
music by Crispin Merrell

Guest Cast: Steven Berkoff (Dr. Jorry), Truan Munro (Speedy), Nic Klein (Matt Brogan), Megan Olive (Liz Brogan), Jerome Willis (Podly), David Quilter (Fredo), Mary Woodvine (Took), Richard James (Orrin), Lou Hirsch (Romek), Ken Whitfield (Rik), Leigh Tinkler (Nurse), Joanna Berns (Patient), Alexa Rosewood (Receptionist), Rob Thirtle (Wirt), Will Barton (Prosperous Creon), Gary Martin (voice of Slomo)

Notes: This episode features a rare shot of Demeter City at daytime (the usual nighttime shots help to hide wires and mounts in the miniature models used). As proof that Space Precicnt, despite being made in the UK, was being aimed at the American syndication market, the emergency number in the future is seen to be 911, not its British equivalent (999). Steven Berkoff also appeared in the Business As Usual episode of Star Trek: Deep space Nine.

LogBook entry by Earl Green