A ship called the Pluto 5 drifts toward the moon and draws the attention of the Star Cops. Theroux visits the ship up close and personal and discovers that its crew died quite some time ago. At the same time, Spring has to deal with the arrival of a new Japanese medic assigned to the Star Cops, but Krivenko abruptly pulls Spring off of the Pluto 5 investigation and asks him to check on a small orbiting station inhabited by one of Krivenko’s friends, who has cut off all contact abruptly. Spring is annoyed with being assigned this mundane task until he arrives at the station, discovering that Krivenko’s friend is dead. With the very green Dr. Shoun in tow, Kenzy and Theroux return to the Pluto 5 and discover that one member of the crew is unaccounted for. Spring discovers that Krivenko’s dead scientist friend and the crew of the Pluto 5 have a common denominator – research for the giant medical corporation Hanimed. Dr. Shoun also happens to be employed by Hanimed, making Spring immediately suspicious that she’s not there to lend her expertise to the Star Cops…but to hinder their investigation and cover up a fatal bio-engineering design error in a medication being used by millions of people.
written by John Collee
directed by Graeme Harper
music by Justin Hayward & Tony ViscontiCast: David Calder (Nathan Spring), Erick Ray Evans (David Theroux), Trevor Cooper (Colin Devis), Linda Newton (Pal Kenzy), Jonathan Adams (Alexander Krivenko), Sayo Inaba (Dr. Anna Shoun), Richard Rees (Richard Ho), Dawn Keeler (Christina Janssen), Susan Tan (Receptionist)
Original title: Trial By Murder
Notes: Star Cops creator Chris Boucher has said that the character of Dr. Shoun was not his own invention, but was instead inserted into the series’ final few episodes at the insistence of producer Evgeny Gridneff.
LogBook entry by Earl Green