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Max Headroom Season 2 (US)

Deities

Max HeadroomTelevangelism is just as prevalent in the future as in the present, and nowhere is this as evident as with the Vu-Age Church, the first religious organization to operate primarily on TV. But Vu-Age’s promises of video resurrection have gotten Murray’s attention, and he assigns Edison to the story. But somewhat atypically, Edison shows little enthusiasm for the prospects of blowing a resurrection scam wide open. As it so happens, Edison’s lack of enthusiasm is centered more on Vu-Age’s high priestess, Vanna Smith, who is also an old flame of his. When Edison refutes her claims that video resurrection is a reality, Vanna Smith points out that Edison’s own alter-ego is proof to the contrary. When she and Edison start to rekindle their old relationship, Murray wonders if there’s less to the story than he imagined, or if Edison’s losing his edge.

written by Michael Cassutt
directed by Tom Wright
music by Chuck Wild

Guest Cast: Dayle Haddon (Vanna Smith), Hank Garrett (Network 23 Board Member), Lee Max HeadroomWilkof (Network 23 Board Member), Sharon Barr (Network 23 Board Member), Gregory Itzin (Vu-Age Salesman), Rosalind Chao (Angie Barry), Michael Margotta (Male producer), Peg Stewart (Female producer), Brenda Hayes (Jennifer Marks), Gary Ballard (Humphrey Marks), Clarence Brown (Vu-Age Client), Dale Raoul (Vu-Age Client), Ron Ray (?), Larry Spinak (?)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Max Headroom Season 2 (US)

Grossberg’s Return

Max HeadroomThe latest telelection is upon the public, and a vicious mudslinging war is being waged on the airwaves by incumbent Simon Peller and rival candidate Harriet Garth. Network 23 is squarely in Peller’s court, but Garth is being backed by Network 66 – where Ned Grossberg, the unscrupulous ex-Network 23 executive who was ousted after the Blipvert scandal, is slowly taking control. While Edison and Murray fight to keep 23’s coverage above the war of words, Grossberg is playing all sides against the middle, and his aim is to take over Network 66 from the inside, not to propel a particular candidate into office. And if that means engineering a political scandal that not only takes down Garth, but destroys the career of Edison Carter as well, Grossberg won’t hesitate to do it.

written by Steve Roberts
directed by Janet Greek
music by Michael Hoenig

Max HeadroomGuest Cast: Charles Rocket (Ned Grossberg), Caroline Kava (Harriet Garth), Hank Garrett (?), Lee Wilkoff (Pat Zein), Sharon Barr (?), Howard Sherman (Simon Peller), Rosalind Chao (Angie Barry), Andreas Katsulas (Bartlett), Brett Porter (?), Stephen Elliott (Thatcher), Karen Hensel (?), James F. Dean (?), John Hamelin (?), Donald Burda (?), Lisa Peders (?), Rachelle Ottley (?), Brian Little (?), J. Jay Smith (?), Saida Pagan (?)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Max Headroom Season 2 (US)

Dream Thieves

Max HeadroomEdison is doing an exposè on “dream houses” – a new industry in which people pay to experience the immersive, tactile sensations of others’ dreams – when he encounters an old rival and fellow report, Paddy Ashton. An articulate Irishman who seems out of place as a drifting blank, Paddy still harbors a bit of a grudge against Edison, but also still harbors a dream of being back in the news business. When Paddy turns up dead mere hours after Edison shares a drink with him, Edison latches on to something Paddy was trying to tell him about: dream donors. For some people to buy dreams, others must donate them, usually earning a pittance in the process. Paddy was managing to eke out an existence selling his dreams, but something was troubling him toward the end. Edison goes undercover, going into the dream house as a donor, where he finds that the dream house attendants have been forcing their donors to have more intense subconscious sensory experiences, even if it kills them with their own nightmares.

teleplay by Steve Roberts
story by Charles Grant Craig
directed by Todd Holland
music by Chuck Wild

Max HeadroomGuest Cast: W. Morgan Sheppard (Blank Reg), Mark Lindsay Chapman (Paddy Ashton), Jere Burns (Breughel), Concetta Tomei (Dominique), Jenette Goldstein (Velma), Ron Fassler (Mr. Grieg), Vernon Weddle (Mr. Finn), Robin Bach (Ticket booth man), Vince McKewin (Dream house attendant #1), Stephen Pershing (Dream house attendant #2), Ron Narita (Male interviewee), Steven Rotblatt (Blank), Timothy Dang (?), Peter De Anello (?), Patricia Veselich (Female interviewee), Gary Dean Sweeney (?), Dalton Younger (?), and Fang

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Max Headroom Season 2 (US)

Whacketts

Max HeadroomA huge residential building collapses, taking many of its residents with it. Edison is assigned to the story, and when he arrives at the scene of the disaster, he’s stunned to see the survivors rejoicing at the rescue of television sets instead of people. Despite the magnitude of the collapse and Edison’s live coverage, Big Time TV pulls ahead of Network 23 in the ratings with a mind-numbingly dumb game show – the same show being watched by all of the survivors of the building. A cop at the scene suspects something as up, but when he shares his suspicions with Edison, he’s found dead a while later. Despite Reg’s annoyance that his viewers want it run for the 11th time in a row, “Whacketts” even pulls ahead of Network 66. Edison and Bryce discover that a subliminal video signal is embedded into the one episode of “Whacketts” that keeps running, a signal that forces its viewers’ brains to produce an addictive stream of endorphins. The more people watch, the more hooked they become – and if Ned Grossberg succeeds in wooing Dominique into selling “Whacketts” to Network 66, the entire population could become addicted…just like Max.

teleplay by Arthur Sellers
story by Dennis Rolfe
directed by Victor Lobl
music by Michael Hoenig

Max HeadroomGuest Cast: W. Morgan Sheppard (Blank Reg), Charles Rocket (Ned Grossberg), Hank Garrett (?), Lee Wilkof (?), Sharon Barr (?), Concetta Tomei (Dominique), Bert Kramer (Biller), Bill Maher (Haskel), Andreas Katsulas (Bartlett), Richard Frank (Lt. Rico Ziskin), Lawrence Lott (Network 23 Anchor), James F. Dean (Chief Negotiator), Craig Schaefer (Cop #1), Morgan Walsh (Cop #2), Edward Beimfohr (?)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Probe

Computer Logic

ProbeEccentric, reclusive scientific genius Austin James is disturbed by the arrival of his new secretary, Michelle Castle, who has no idea what he’s working on. Austin’s name has come up in the investigation into the death of another self-styled inventor, a water department employee who was due for retirement and then died in a freak pedestrian traffic accident. He had discovered the first hint of something that eventually becomes a major mystery for Austin and Michelle: finding out whether CROSSOVER, an artificial intelligence created by Austin’s friend (and sometimes rival) John Blaine, is responsible for the death…and whether or not it’s now trying to kill Austin now that he suspects CROSSOVER has gone rogue.

Probewritten by Michael Wagner
directed by Sandor Stern
music by Sylvester LeVay

Cast: Parker Stevenson (Austin James), Ashley Crow (Michelle Castle), Jon Cypher (Mr. Millhouse), William Edward Phipps (Miles Smillanich), Andy Wood (John Blaine), Scott Feraco (William Stevens), Jan Sandwich (Maid), Ray Guth (Hotel Manager), Gene Johnson (Preacher), Judy Scovern (Personnel Manager), Diana Baynes (Secretary #1), Carol Weston (Secretary #2), Fred Schiwiller (Old Man), Sandy Elias (Customer), Bill Lane (Truck Driver), Gertrude Nicholls (Old Woman)

Notes: Probe was heavily promoted as being created by legendary SF author Isaac Asimov and Michael Wagner, though Wagner alone was responsible for writing the actual pilot script. The weekly episodes following this pilot movie were scheduled opposite The Cosby Show on NBC, which was a ratings behemoth at the time, ensuring that Probe died a fairly quick death.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Max Headroom Season 2 (US)

Neurostim

Max HeadroomEdison tries to find out more about Zik Zak’s latest promotional gimmick, the free Neurostim bracelets given away with every Zik Zak burger pack. Whatever it’s doing, it’s certainly driven sales of the burgers sky-high. But Edison’s prying isn’t necessarily welcomed by Zik Zak, and since they’re Network 23’s corporate sponsors, they set out to derail his investigative report by making sure he receives a particularly addictive one. As Edison soon discovers for himself, Neurostim is a mental narcotic, granting its users any dream they wish, at least in their own minds. Bryce thinks the only way to help Edison shake off his Neurostim addiction is to restore his personality by patching Max through the bracelet…but Edison is tired of competing with Max for attention, even in his dreams.

written by Arthur Sellers and Michael Cassutt
directed by Maurice Phillips
music by Michael Hoenig

Max HeadroomGuest Cast: Sab Shimono (Pat Zein), Hank Garrett (?), Lee Wilkof (?), Sharon Barr (?), Jim Piddock (Mr. Kelly), Evan Kim (Mr. Chen), Jacque Lynn Colion (Burger Lady), Edward Wiley (Zik Zak Waiter), Michael Margotta (Sully), Martin Azarow (Punk), Billy Beck (Frank Knight), Roger Hampton (Sgt. Compton), Michael Strasser (Scumball Announcer), Joan Severance (Edison’s dream girl), Julie McCullough (?), Tom Dugan (?), Michael Dobo (?), Frank Kahlil Wheaton (?), Saida Pagan (?)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Land Of The Lost Remake Season 1

Tasha

Land Of The LostExploring while on vacation, the Porter family is deposited into another world after their truck plunges into a rift in the ground during a huge earthquake. The presence of three moons in the night sky is their first clue that they’re no longer on Earth, and yet the jungle world is populated by dinosaurs straight out of Earth’s prehistoric age.

The Porter family, safe in their newly built treehouse, is awakened by the sound of dinosaurs battling it out nearby. In the morning, Annie and Kevin go to collect water, finding a nest of destroyed dinosaur eggs, and a dead dinosaur – the mother who laid the eggs died trying to protect her young from a tyrannousaurus. Annie finds an intact egg in the nearby brush and they take it back to the treehouse. It hatches overnight, and Annie christens the baby dino Tasha: much to Kevin’s chagrin, Tasha is here to stay. When the same tyrannosaurus attacks the Porter family, they’ve got a defense plan inspired by Tasha… and no guarantee that it’ll work.

Land Of The Lostwritten by Len Janson & Chuck Menville
directed by Ernest Farino
music by Kevin Kiner

Cast: Timothy Bottoms (Tom Porter), Jennifer Drugan (Annie Porter), Robert Gavin (Kevin Porter), Ed Gale (Tasha), Danny Mann (voice of Tasha)

Notes: The baby dinosaur is named Natasha after the kids’ mother; it’s implied in dialogue that Natasha Porter is deceased. Composer Kevin Kiner would go on to co-compose the scores for several episodes of Stargate SG-1 and Star Trek: Enterprise with Dennis McCarthy, before moving on to the computer-animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Invasion

Pilot

InvasionA C-130 hurricane hunter plane flies into the eye of Hurricane Eve, hours before it’s due to make landfall near Miami, Florida. The crew realizes too late that something else is in the eye of the storm as well – something large, under the water, which then blasts the plane out of the sky with thousands of brilliant lights.

Park ranger Russell Varon battens down the hatches at work and then rushes home to find that his daughter Rose has disappeared while looking for her missing cat. Russell’s teenage son, Jesse, is boarding up the windows of their home, and both Russell and Jesse are annoyed when Russell’s ex-wife Mariel, now married to the sheriff of Dade County, makes an appearance to accuse Russell of not caring properly for their children. Jesse shuts his mother out of the house while Russell looks for Rose in the woods near the house.

Just before Russell finds her, Rose sees thousands of lights descending from the storm itself into the water. Trying to dodge a falling power line on the drive home, Russell rolls his truck over and he and Rose aren’t rescued until the next morning. When Russell returns home, he finds it’s a mess, but Jesse is unhurt, as are Russell’s new wife, reporter Larkin Groves, and her hard-drinking conspiracy-theorist brother Dave. But Mariel apparently never made it home after leaving Russell’s house, and Sheriff Underlay promptly makes an appearance to question Russell and Jesse. Underlay gets a call: Mariel’s car has been found in the Everglades, but she’s not in it. He, Russell and Jesse join the search parties, and find her naked, but otherwise unharmed, at the edge of the swamp. She doesn’t seem to recognize anyone except Underlay.

Intrigued by Rose’s mention of lights in the sky, Dave asks her to guide him to where she saw them land. Traveling through the swamp by boat, Dave finds a large piece of metal – and finds something else as well. He takes Rose back home and then goes back to retrieve what he saw: mangled human remains, enmeshed in the remains of some kind of creature he’s never seen, floating just under the surface of the water. Dave shares his terrifying find only with Russell, who refuses to share Dave’s belief that it’s evidence of an alien presence on Earth. Still skeptical, Russell agrees to accompany Dave back to the swamp that night. They see something glowing under the water, and when Dave tries to get a closer look, something grabs him and pulls him under the water. Russell dives in and brings him back to safety, but now Dave is more convinced than ever that he’s seen an alien life form. Russell takes Dave to the hospital where Mariel is one of the head doctors, and she seems dismissive of the idea that Dave has been attacked by anything other than an alligator.

Why are more people being found in circumstances just like Mariel’s – completely disoriented, unclothed, and then back on their feet and doing their jobs within hours? Why have Mariel and Sheriff Underlay agreed to quarantine Homestead despite Russell’s assurances that it’s not necessary? Why can’t Rose shake the feeling that something has changed about her mother? And why is Russell starting to find that he can’t completely discount Dave’s rantings about alien invaders?

Season 1 Regular Cast: William Fichtner (Sheriff Tom Underlay), Eddie Cibrian (Russell Varon), Lisa Sheridan (Larkin Groves), Kari Matchett (Dr. Mariel Underlay), Tyler Labine (Dave Groves), Evan Peters (Jesse Varon), Ariel Gade (Rose Varon), Alexis Dziena (Kira Underlay), Aisha Hinds (Mona Gomez)

Order this DVDwritten by Shaun Cassidy
directed by Thomas Schlamme
music by Jon Ehrlich & Jason Derlatka

Guest Cast: Jeannetta Arnette (Ruth), Frank Collison (Earl), Bryan Anthony (Guardsman), Ivar Brogger (Dazed man), Phe Caplan (Young woman), Holmes Osborne (Mayor Littles), Amy Watt (Ms. Gilroy), Scott Mercer (A.A. reporter), Rich Skidmore (Anchorman), Robert Standley (Pilot), Ryan Honey (Navigator), Gwen Mihok (Weather Officer), Mesan Richardson (Dropsonde operator), Juan Ramirez (Hispanic man,) Lorena Mena (Hispanic woman), Aramis Knight (Hispanic boy)

Notes: In reality, Homestead, Florida was nearly wiped off the map by Hurricane Andrew in 1992; the first two episodes allude to that real event. In an example of the worst possible timing, the pilot episode of Invasion aired mere weeks after Hurricane Katrina slammed into parts of Louisiana and Mississippi – and just days before Hurricane Rita struck Texas and the other end of the Louisiana coast. ABC quickly pulled promos and previews referencing the fictional hurricane in the wake of Katrina.
Kari Matchett was a recurring cast member on the posthumous Gene Roddenberry series Earth: Final Conflict, appearing throughout the series as the Taelon conspirator Zo’or. SF movie fans may remember William Fichtner as Kent, the blind colleague of Jodie Foster’s character in the feature film adaptation of Contact.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Lost Season 2

Man of Science, Man of Faith

  • By Dave
  • September 21, 2005

LostFlashback: Jack saves the life of a woman injured in a car accident, but when she wakes up, he has to deliver the bad news: there is extensive damage to her spinal column, and a good chance she will be paralyzed for life. Jack’s father thinks that he should stress the possibility of hope; the woman’s fiance seems troubled by the prospects of a lifetime of intense care and physical assistance. The woman’s determination inspires Jack to promise that he will fix her; that promise leads to an late night of running up and down stadium steps to expiate his guilt when he can’t fulfill it. A fellow runner introduces himself as Desmond and raises a question: what if Jack did fix her? He dismisses the idea… until the next day, when she wakes up and wiggles her toes.

The Island: Within a bunker, a man types commands on a old computer terminal, injects himself with some kind of chemical, and works out while listening to one of a large library of vinyl records. His routine is interrupted by a sudden tremor – the result of the dynamite blowing open the hatch. Jack, Kate, and Locke peer down into the hatch and see nothing but a broken ladder; the shaft goes down into the darkness. Jack realizes that the hatch will not provide a sanctuary and wants to head back to the caves immediately. Locke is more eager to explore, but ultimately concedes to Jack. On the way back, Hurley tells Jack about his previous experiences with the numbers.

At the caves, panic is starting to set in. Shannon sets out to find Walt’s dog Vincent, and Sayid accompanies her. They are briefly separated, and for a moment she sees Walt, soaking wet and whispering something. Sayid finds her and Walt disappears. Shortly afterward, Jack and the others return, and Jack reassures everyone that they’ll be fine, that the sun will come up in a few hours and they’ll see it together. But Locke is determined to go back to the hatch. Kate follows him in case he needs help. And Jack decides that he’s not going to let the two of them face the inside of the hatch alone.

Locke lowers Kate into the shaft. Before she hits bottom, some force pulls her down despite Locke’s attempts to brace himself and keep hold of the rope. A bright light shines out of the hatch, and Kate is gone. When Jack reaches the hatch, neither are there. He finds his way into the bunker and the music starts playing again; the room is filled with decades-old equipment. Jack reaches for the terminal, but Locke encourages him not to touch it. And whoever it is holding a gun to Locke’s head thinks that’s a pretty good idea too.

Order the DVDswritten by Damon Lindelof
directed by Jack Bender
music by Michael Giacchino

Season 2 Regular Cast: Naveen Andrews (Sayid), Emilie de Ravin (Claire), Matthew Fox (Jack), Jorge Garcia (Hurley), Maggie Grace (Shannon), Josh Holloway (Sawyer), Malcolm David Kelley (Walt), Daniel Dae Kim (Jin), Yunjin Kim (Sun), Evangeline Lilly (Kate), Dominic Monaghan (Charlie), Terry O’Quinn (Locke), Harold Perrineau (Michael), Michelle Rodriguez (Ana Lucia)

Guest Cast: John Terry (Shephard), Henry Ian Cusick (Desmond), Julie Bowen (Sarah), Anson Mount (Kevin), Ivana Michele Smith (N.D. survivor), Katie Doyle (EMT), Julius Ledda (EMT no. 2), Masayo Ford (Nurse), David Ely (Intern), Larry Wiss (Anesthesiologist)

LogBook entry by Dave Thomer

Categories
Invasion

Lights Out

InvasionRussell goes to check out his ranger station, and finds a man, near death, in a diving suit. Russell takes him to Homestead Hospital, and when the man’s perfectly intact diving suit is cut off, doctors discover a series of nearly symmetrical puncture wounds from his neck to his waist – roughly corresponding to the placement of the tendrils along the body Dave recovered from the swamp. Russell goes back to his station and finds military dog tags, but can’t seem to find out – even from Sheriff Underlay – anything about a U.S. Air Force diver named Paxton. Dave, still hospitalized for his injuries, goes to visit Paxton, who can only dazedly moan “Don’t let them in” while Dave tries to take pictures of his wounds – moments before Underlay appears out of nowhere to confiscate the camera. Larkin tracks Paxton’s wife down and goes around the sheriff’s road blocks to reach her, but she thinks her husband is on a mission overseas and refuses to say anything more. Larkin returns to work with what she’s found out, but is informed by her news director – one of the many like Dr. Mariel Underlay who were found naked after the storm – that Paxton has died, and that the story isn’t worth chasing. Jesse and Rose, staying with the Underlays, come back to Russell’s house; Rose is upset that her mother and stepfather were both gone overnight. In addition that, though, Russell and Dave are worried about another disappearance – the intertwined human and alien remains hidden away in the trunk of Dave’s car have vanished. But Russell does still have one alien souvenir – a spore-like object that Mariel pulled out of Paxton’s head.

Order this DVDwritten by Shaun Cassidy
directed by Lawrence Trilling
music by Jon Ehrlich & Jason Derlatka

Guest Cast: Holmes Osborne (Mayor Littles), Nick Cokas (Paxton), Veronica Cartwright (Valerie), Kimleigh Smith (Admitting Nurse), Michael Mitchell (Derek), Jake Richardson (Gage), Nathan Baesel (Deputy Lewis Sirk), Cirroc Lofton (Reed), Anne Dudek (Katie Paxton), Ivar Brogger (Father Jeffrey Scanlon), Reggie Jordan (Reporter #1), Elisa Llamido (Reporter #2), Ruth Silviera (Nurse Adrianne), Jennifer Wilkerson (Nurse)

Notes: Cirroc Lofton was a member of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s ensemble cast for all seven seasons, starring as Jake Sisko; he played Larkin’s co-worker and seems to have taken after his DS9 co-star and mentor Avery Brooks in shaving his head.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Lost Season 2

Adrift

  • By Dave
  • September 28, 2005

LostFlashback: Once out of the hospital following his injuries, Michael retains a lawyer to fight to keep Walt from leaving the country with his mother, Susan. Her lawyers challenge his lack of involvement in his son’s life; Susan appeals to Michael to think of Walt’s best interests. Finally, he reluctantly allows them to go. Michael meets with Walt for a few moments to say goodbye, offering him a stuffed polar bear and telling him that his father will always love him.

The Island: Prior to Jack’s discovery of Locke in the bunker – Locke follows Kate down the shaft. He finds her shortly before Desmond finds them. He asks Locke, “Are you him?” Locke tries to play along, but Desmond quickly realizes that whomever he’s waiting for, it’s not Locke. He orders Locke to tie Kate up and lock her in a food pantry; Locke smuggles a pocketknife into her waistband in the process. She cuts herself free and climbs into a ventilation duct. Desmond quizzes Locke about the survivors of the plane crash and asks how many of them have gotten sick. He seems surprised when Locke says that none of them have. The conversation is interrupted by a beeping and a countdown clock; Desmond frantically orders Locke to input a code into the terminal – the six-number sequence. The beeping stops and the countdown resets. Jack’s arrival leads Desmond to turn the music back on, which prevents Jack from hearing Kate when she shouts for him. Jack enters the bunker and discovers Locke and Desmond.

At sea, Sawyer helps Michael onto the remains of the raft and then yanks the bullet out of his own arm. The two men bicker over whose fault it was that they were attacked; a more pressing problem is the shark in the water. They find one of the raft’s pontoons and make it through the night; the current brings them back to the island. When they reach shore, they see Jin, arms tied behind his back, frantically running toward them. The Others have found them.

Order the DVDswritten by Steven Maeda & Leonard Dick
directed by Stephen Williams
music by Michael Giacchino

Guest Cast: Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Island Man), Henry Ian Cusick (Desmond), Tamara Taylor (Susan Lloyd), Saul Rubinek (Michael’s Attorney)

Notes: The events leading up to Michael giving up his parental rights were first shown in the season 1 episode Special. As of this episode, Malcolm David Kelley (Walt) is no longer listed in the opening credits.

LogBook entry by Dave Thomer

Categories
Night Stalker

Pilot (Broadcast Version)

Night StalkerInvestigative reporter Carl Kolchak signs up with a Los Angeles newspaper to cover crime, and when his paper’s senior crime reporter, Perri Reed, arrives at the scene of a grisly murder after he does, his dismissive attitude automatically gets things off to a bad start. But even when the paper’s editor hands the story over to Perri, Kolchak refuses to end his own investigation. Perri is intrigued and more than a little disturbed when Kolchak seems to have solid information on the murder that comes from sources he can’t identify. Another attack leaves a woman near death and her young daughter goes missing, and again, Kolchak seems to know more than he’s letting on and won’t let go of the story.

Curious about her new colleague/competitor, Perri launches an investigation of her own, trying to found out more about Kolchak. The trail leads to Kolchak’s previous job as a crime reporter for a Las Vegas paper – and the still-unsolved murder of his wife in which he himself is still a suspect. A call to FBI Agent Fain has unexpected results – Fain arrives in L.A. to arrest Kolchak in connection with the very same murders he’s investigating. Even after Kolchak is set free again, Perri remains suspicious, especially when she learns that pursuing the grisliest, most bizarre crimes is a mission that Kolchak takes on even outside of work. He’s still trying to figure out who killed his wife, and why a red mark was left on her hand. The same mark has turned up on some, but not all, of the victims whose deaths Kolchak has investigated. Perri is sympathetic, but ultimately spooked, and tries to put as much distance as she can between herself and Kolchak – and when she’s about to become the next potential victim, that’s a decision she may not live to regret.

Season 1 Regular Cast: Stuart Townsend (Carl Kolchak), Gabrielle Union (Perri Reed), Eric Jungmann (Jain McManus), Cotter Smith (Tony Vincenzo)

written by Frank Spotnitz
directed by Dan Sackheim
music by Michael Wandmacher
series theme music by Philip Glass

Guest Cast: David Denman (Henry Gale), Ele Keats (Emily Gale), J. Marvin Campbell (Deputy), Timothy McNeil (Coroner), Clay Wilcox (Ed Medlock), Sarah LaFleur (Trish Medlock), Madeline Carroll (Julie Madlock), John Pyper-Ferguson (Agent Bernard Fain), Susan Misner (Irene)

The two KolchaksNotes: Roughly 20 minutes into the pilot episode, as an in-joke, Darren McGavin appears as another reporter in Kolchak’s office; McGavin appeared as the original Kolchak in two 1973 TV movies and all 20 episodes of the subsequent cult classic TV series. His image, isolated from the original negatives and digitally inserted into the scene, was taken from the first of those movies, The Night Stalker. Producer Frank Spotnitz was one of the guiding lights of The X-Files, a show whose creator, Chris Carter, readily admitted that the original Kolchak: The Night Stalker had been a key inspiration for his series.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Lost Season 2

Orientation

  • By Dave
  • October 5, 2005

Lost Flashback: Locke attends a support group meeting after his father abandoned him. He finds little comfort there; instead he lashes out at those complaining about problems that seem insignificant compared to his. The outburst attracts the attention of Helen, a member of the group, and the two begin seeing each other. Their relationship is complicated by Locke’s continued haunting of his father, driving through his neighborhood and parking in front of his own. His father tells Locke in no uncertain terms that he is not wanted. Helen does want Locke, though – but only if he lets go of his pain. She sets an ultimatum: Locke will have to take a leap of faith to keep their relationship alive.

The Island: As Desmond and Jack confront each other, Kate gets the drop on Desmond. An errant shot hits the computer, which sends Desmond into a panic. Kate returns to the caves to get Sayid to fix the machine while Desmond explains that he washed up on the island about three years ago. Another man found him and brought him into the bunker and told him that they had to enter the six-digit code into the terminal every 108 minutes or disaster would ensue. He shows Jack and Locke an orientation film made in 1980 by the Dharma Institute, an experimental research collaboration devoted to the physical and social sciences. The film narrator explains that something at this installation – The Swan – has gone wrong, and now the essential thing for Dharma staffers to do is to keep inputting the code. Two men are supposed to be assigned to the task, and replacements are supposed to arrive every few months. But Desmond has been on his own since his rescuer died.

Locke is eager to fix the terminal and continue the work, but Jack wants nothing to do with it, convinced that the whole thing is just some sort of behavioral experiment. Desmond decides to leave the bunker; Jack follows him. Desmond tells Jack the code and then finally remembers their previous meeting. He asks if Jack was able to fix the girl. An anguished Jack screams that he married her, before letting Desmond go and returning to the group. Sayid has fixed the computer, but Locke can’t remember the code, and Hurley is quite deliberately silent on that score. If they’re going to carry on Desmond’s mission, Jack is going to have to be part of the effort.

Elsewhere on the island, Sawyer, Michael and Jin are captured by the Others and thrown into a pit cage. They are soon joined by another prisoner, a woman who claims to have been on the back of Flight 815 when it crashed. Sawyer is determined to use what bullets he has left to try and get out, but their new colleague has plenty of questions and loyalties of her own.

Order the DVDswritten by Javier Grillo-Marxuach & Craig Wright
directed by Jack Bender
music by Michael Giacchino

Guest Cast: Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Island Man), Henry Ian Cusick (Desmond), Kevin Tighe (Cooper), Curtis Jackson (Security Guard), Katey Sagal (Helen), Roxie Sarhangi (Francine), Jeanne Rogers (Moderator), Marvin Candle (himself), Michael Lanzo (Waiter)

Notes: Locke’s discovery of, and kidney donation to, his father were shown in season 1’s Deus Ex Machina.

LogBook entry by Dave Thomer

Categories
Invasion

Watershed

InvasionJesse and his stepsister, Sheriff Underlay’s daughter Kira, are walking home with containers of gasoline when they see an overturned RV trailer in the floodwater. They swim out to it to make sure no one is trapped, but while inside, Jesse sees something glowing in the water, and when he investigates closer, it lashes out at him, injuring him severely. Kira runs to get her father, but finds Russell at her house instead, babysitting Rose. Russell rushes back to the scene, recovers Jesse and takes him to the hospital, where Mariel hovers between parental concern and total disinterest in her son’s fate. She donates her own blood to Jesse, but instead of stabilizing him, it nearly kills him. Elsewhere, despite the five-mile quarantine radius around Homestead imposed by Sheriff Underlay, Larkin and her cameraman catch what looks like a military convoy going through town. When she confronts Underlay about it, Larkin gets a canned explanation and then demands the truth, which Underlay then tries to tell her involves the recovery of Airman Paxton’s helicopter. But when Larkin points out the radiation-suited hazmat teams near the crash site, it appears that even Sheriff Underlay doesn’t know the whole story. Nor can Russell explain why Mariel’s blood now resembles the blood of a marine animal more than it does that of a human being…

Order this DVDwritten by Becky Hartman Edwards
directed by Michael Dinner
music by Jon Ehrlich & Jason Derlatka

Guest Cast: Kimleigh Smith (Admitting Nurse), Melody Butiu (Nurse Karlen), Armin Shimerman (Josh Breims), Joshua Gomez (Scott), Ivar Brogger (Father Scanlon), Leslie Carrera (Mrs. Hernandez), Jean Sincere (Mrs. Lowell), Ewan Chang (Doctor), Barry Wiggins (General Turner), Joshua Harto (Greg Ogilvy)

Notes: Once again, a member of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s ensemble features in the guest cast, this time Armin “Quark” Shimerman as a cautious jewelry store owner.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Night Stalker

The Five People You Meet In Hell

Night StalkerPerri is mildly annoyed when Kolchak again barges into a police press conference she’s already covering, involving the inexplicable and brutal murder of a woman by her husband – who happened to be a prosecuting attorney. Kolchak is there to ask a question about supernatural involvement in the case, but his query goes unanswered. When another murder occurs – this time at the hands of a judge with no prior record – Kolchak and Perri begin to see a connection. Both the judge and prosecutor were involved in the trial of would-be serial killer Damon Caylor, who persuaded others to commit murders in his name. There’s another connection as well – in some capacity, the phrase “you know what you have to do” was heard or seen by the killers. Kolchak now focuses his attention on a detective also involved in Caylor’s trial and conviction, and sure enough, the detective tries to kill his wife, and is stopped only by Kolchak’s quick action. Now Kolchak’s concern turns to one other person instrumental in taking Caylor down – the reporter who covered his crimes: Perri Reed.

Order the DVDswritten by Thomas Schnauz
directed by Rob Bowman
music by Michael Wandmacher

Guest Cast: Tony Curran (Damon Caylor), Alex Carter (Detective Granoff), Robert Curtis Brown (Doug Linman), Colby Paul (Jeffrey Linman), Jessica Whitney Gould (Jane Linman), Art La Fleur (Detective Mitchell), Wylie Small (Amanda Daniels), David Dunard (Doug’s Dad), Tara Ciabattoni (Mary Granoff), John Wesley (Warden Blume), Darin Rossi (Umpire), Stephen W. Alvarez (Reporter), Susan Misner (Irene), Heather Kafka (Katrina Ortega)

LogBook entry by Earl Green