An old friend of Kenzy’s – a journalist with a nose for both news and booze – arrives on the moonbase, and while their old rivalry survives intact, Kenzy grudgingly admits to her fellow Star Cops that he doesn’t show up without a solid story to chase. Spring doesn’t warm to this visitor at all, especially not when Krivenko is welcoming a visiting dignitary of such importance that he requires a cover story. The destruction of a supply shuttle and its pilot tips Spring’s team off to a drug smuggling operation that’s cooking its drugs on the moon and quietly shipping to Earth. And a momentous discovery on Mars has the entire scientific community on edge – have artifacts of an ancient civilization been discovered there, and is that discovery enough to make someone turn to murder?
In the meantime, everyone from the press to his own team is trying to find out what Nathan Spring’s next move is, as he prepares to set up a Martian bureau of the Star Cops – assuming he survives the increasingly dangerous case of the supposedly Martian artifact…
written by Chris Boucher
directed by Graeme Harper
music by Justin Hayward & Tony ViscontiCast: David Calder (Nathan Spring), Linda Newton (Pal Kenzy), Trevor Cooper (Colin Devis), Jonathan Adams (Alexander Krivenko), Sayo Inaba (Dr. Anna Shoun), Roy Holder (Daniel Larwood), Nigel Hughes (Andrew Philpot), Lachelle Carl (Susan Caxton), Wendy MacAdam (Operations Manager), Bridget Lynch-Blosse (Co-Pilot), Kenneth Lodge (Pilot), Peter Neathey (Customs Officer), Philip Rowlands (Outpost Controller), David Janes (Surveryor)
Original title: Information Received
Notes: Theroux is absent for this episode, as Erick Ray Evans was ill during filming. Actress Lachelle Carl, playing another reporter in this episode, later carved out quite the “fictional science fiction journalist” role for herself in the Doctor Who universe, playing an American anchorwoman in the revived Doctor Who series (starting with the early episode Aliens Of London), and then reprising the same character in spinoffs Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures. Bridget Lynch-Blosse also has a Doctor Who connection, though it predates Star Cops: she appeared in a guest starring role in 1985’s Revelation Of The Daleks, which was also directed by Graeme Harper. This was the final episode of Star Cops; though the build-up to the establishment of a Martian bureau was intended to lead into a second season, producer Evgeny Gridneff and series creator Chris Boucher had locked horns often enough over the course of the first season that Boucher raised few objections when the low-rated series came to an end.
LogBook entry by Earl Green