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Jason Of Star Command Season 1

The Haunted Planet

Jason Of Star CommandJason’s Starfire vehicle is in trouble: its atomic power source is seconds away from going critical. He’s forced to land on a nearby planet and abandon the Starfire before it explodes, unaware that someone on that planet is the cause of the problem. A hooded man named Bork emerges, informing Jason and friends that they are now prisoners of Queen Vanessa. And she seems to be in no hurry to let them go.

Order this series on DVDwritten by Ted Pedersen & Martha Humphreys
directed by Arthur H. Nadel
music by Yvette Blais & Jeff Michael and Horta-Mahana

Jason Of Star CommandCast: Craig Littler (Jason), Sid Haig (Dragos), Susan O’Hanlon (Capt. Nicole Davidoff), Charlie Dell (Prof. E.J. Parsafoot), James Doohan (Commander Canarvin), Julie Newmar (Queen Vanessa), Angelo Rossitto (Bork)

Notes: Julie Newmar had appeared in the 1960s Batman series as Catwoman, as well as guest starring in the original Star Trek.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Jason Of Star Command Season 1

Escape From Kesh

Jason Of Star CommandUpon learning that Queen Vanessa of Kesh has captured him on behalf of Dragos, Jason resorts to extreme measures to escape, including the use of a miniaturization device that’s almost more trouble than it’s worth. Once he masters its use, he breaks Nicole and Professor Parsifoot out as well, and to their amazement, an intact Starfire awaits them outside…all part of Queen Vanessa’s latest trap.

Order this series on DVDwritten by Chuck Menville
directed by Arthur H. Nadel
music by Yvette Blais & Jeff Michael and Horta-Mahana

Jason Of Star CommandCast: Craig Littler (Jason), Sid Haig (Dragos), Susan O’Hanlon (Capt. Nicole Davidoff), Charlie Dell (Prof. E.J. Parsafoot), James Doohan (Commander Canarvin), Julie Newmar (Queen Vanessa), Angelo Rossitto (Bork)

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Amazing Spider-Man Season 2

The Con Caper

Amazing Spider-Man (1970s series)Politician James Colbert is released from jail after serving time for violating campaign finance laws, and is greeted by his old friend (and campaign cohort) Rita Conway, who is now J. Jonah Jameson’s assistant at the Daily Bugle. She has managed to talk Jameson into meeting with Colbert, who has emerged from his sentence with a fresh zeal for prison reform, though Jameson is reluctant to give any preferential column space to Colbert’s new agenda. Almost immediately, however, a riot breaks out at the prison, and the convicts gain the upper hand over the guards. Colbert insists on negotiating with the two prisoners behind the riots, Kates and McTieg. He manages to bring the hostage situation to a bloodless end, but only after Spider-Man has already made his first appearance to capture one of the more violent prisoners trying to escape. Peter, assigned to cover the ongoing story, narrowly avoids an exploding bomb planted on the door of his apartment moments after Colbert calls to invite him to cover a concert given by Rita at the prison. Peter proceeds to the prison in the guide of Spider-Man, just in time to see Kates and McTieg escape under the cover of an explosion during the concert. Peter thinks that the escapes convicts and Colbert are plotting something that requires the three of them to be outside the prison walls – and whatever it is, Spider-Man will likely be the one who has to stop it.

teleplay by Gregory S. Dinallo
story by Brian McKay
directed by Tom Blank
music by Dana Kaproff

Amazing Spider-ManCast: Nicholas Hammond (Peter Parker / Spider-Man), Robert F. Simon (J. Jonah Jameson), Chip Fields (Rita Conway), Ellen Bry (Julie Masters), William Smithers (James Colbert), Ramon Bieri (Kates), Andrew Robinson (McTieg), W.T. Zacha (Big Time), Paul Wexler (Prison Guard), Pat Corley (IFMM Receptionist), Fred Downs (Warden Ford)

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Jason Of Star Command Season 1

Return Of The Creature

Jason Of Star CommandDelivered to Dragos by Queen Vanessa, Jason again makes escape and survival his first order of business. Unfortunately, Dragos has already extracted information on Star Command’s weaknesses from Peepo’s memory banks and has launched an attack, lowering Star Command’s shielding as a galactic typhoon approaches its position.

Order this series on DVDwritten by Len Janson
directed by Arthur H. Nadel
music by Yvette Blais & Jeff Michael and Horta-Mahana

Jason Of Star CommandCast: Craig Littler (Jason), Sid Haig (Dragos), Susan O’Hanlon (Capt. Nicole Davidoff), Charlie Dell (Prof. E.J. Parsafoot), James Doohan (Commander Canarvin)

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Jason Of Star Command Season 1

Peepo On Trial

Jason Of Star CommandRocketing home to Star Command in the escape pod from his captured Starfire, Jason brings Peepo, Nicole and Professor Parsifoot yet. Jason and friends immediately set about solving the crisis at hand, of accelerating Star Command safely through the galactic typhoon, but no one is watching as Peepo – reprogrammed to continue obeying commands from Dragos – begins sabotaging Star Command.

Order this series on DVDwritten by Chuck Menville
directed by Arthur H. Nadel
music by Yvette Blais & Jeff Michael and Horta-Mahana

Jason Of Star CommandCast: Craig Littler (Jason), Sid Haig (Dragos), Susan O’Hanlon (Capt. Nicole Davidoff), Charlie Dell (Prof. E.J. Parsafoot), James Doohan (Commander Canarvin)

Notes: Commander Canarvin refers to Star Command and Space Academy interchangeably. After several tense minutes of preparing to break into the control room and then breaking into the control room, Commander Canarvin punches a button, calls the engine room, and orders the engines turned back on. (Couldn’t he have done that from any other communications terminal in Star Command?) The quality of the “galactic typhoon” effects are far above average for American television science fiction of this era.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Jason Of Star Command Season 1

The Trojan Horse

Jason Of Star CommandStar Command barely survived its passage through the galactic typhoon, but knowing that Dragos will be expecting to find debris, Jason plans to give the self-proclaimed master of the cosmos just what he wants: flotsam in which Jason is waiting to infiltrate Drago’s ship and take over. After capturing Dragos, Jason signals Star Command: Dragos’ reign of terror is over. But Dragos has another surprise up his sleeve, and Jason’s delcaration of victory is slightly premature.

Order this series on DVDwritten by Ted Pedersen & Martha Humphreys
directed by Arthur H. Nadel
music by Yvette Blais & Jeff Michael and Horta-Mahana

Jason Of Star CommandCast: Craig Littler (Jason), Sid Haig (Dragos), Susan O’Hanlon (Capt. Nicole Davidoff), Charlie Dell (Prof. E.J. Parsafoot), James Doohan (Commander Canarvin)

Notes: Spoiler alert – when the next episode is titled Victory Of Star Command, maybe a good idea would be not revealing that title in the trail for the next episode. Because now we know who wins.

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Jason Of Star Command Season 1

Victory Of Star Command

Jason Of Star CommandSurrounded by energy clones of Dragos, Jason and Nicole have to outthink their enemy. Dragos believes they’re both trying to escape, but Jason stays behind and hides to sabotage Dragos’ ship from within and face him in a final battle. Dragos’ unmanned drone ships launch an all-out attack on Star Command, and Star Command drains its energy reserves putting up a fierce fight. It’s now up to Jason to defeat Dragos before any further damage is inflicted, but Dragos isn’t giving up without an escape plan.

Order this series on DVDwritten by Don Heckman
directed by Arthur H. Nadel
music by Yvette Blais & Jeff Michael and Horta-Mahana

Jason Of Star CommandCast: Craig Littler (Jason), Sid Haig (Dragos), Susan O’Hanlon (Capt. Nicole Davidoff), Charlie Dell (Prof. E.J. Parsafoot), James Doohan (Commander Canarvin)

Notes: The fairly impressive space battle scenes reveal that Star Command/Space Academy can defend itself quite adequately. This brings the first season of Jason Of Star Command to a close. Where these short episodes, averaging 11 minutes each, shared a broadcast time slot with Tarzan and the Super 7, the next season would expand Jason’s adventures to a full half-hour time slot with new stories and new cast members. James Doohan would not return for that second season, returning instead to his post aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise for Star Trek: The Motion Picture (though he’d keep Commander Canarvin’s moustache even after re-enlisting with Starfleet).

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Captain America

Captain America

Captain AmericaRecently retired Marine Steve Rogers is celebrating civilian life on the road, until he receives a phone call summoning him to the lab of Dr. Simon Mills, who has taken up Steve’s father work on a super-strength hormone called FLAG (Full Latent Ability Gain). Steve’s father is the only person who has ever received FLAG without dying from the strength and abilities it imparts to any other test subject, and Dr. Mills hopes that Steve will submit to tests to see if he, too, can survive FLAG. He refuses, but when someone murders one of Steve’s late father’s colleagues, he realizes that others with less honorable intentions are also trying to discover what he knows about FLAG, and goes on the run. A crippling motorcycle “accident” arranged by his pursuers leaves Steve Rogers with no choice but to become a test subject for FLAG.

As he weighs the decision of whether or not to assume the crime-fighting mantle of his father, who was jokingly known as “Captain America”, Steve finds that his pursuers will never give up until they kill him or he brings them to justice. But the man employing them has bigger ideas: detonating a neutron bomb in one of the most heavily populated parts of the United States. Armed with a bulletproof shield, a jet-powered motorcycle, and a special suit of armor, the new Captain America now has no choice but to swing into action.

Download this episode via Amazonteleplay by Don Ingalls
story by Don Ingalls and Chester Krumholz
directed by Rod Holcomb
music by Mike Post & Jeff Carpenter

Captain AmericaCast: Reb Brown (Steve Rogers / Captain America), Len Birman (Dr. Simon Mills), Heather Menzies (Dr. Wendy Day), Robin Mattson (Tina Haden), Joseph Ruskin (Rudy Sandrini), Lance LeGault (Harley), Frank Marth (Charles Barber), Steve Forrest (Lou Brackett), Chip Johnson (Jerry), James Ingersoll (Lester Wiant), Jim B. Smith (FBI Assistant), Jason Wingreen (Surgeon), June Dayton (Secretary), Diana Webster (Nurse), Dan Barton (Jeff Haden), Ken Chandler (1st Doctor), Buster Jones (Anesthetist)

Captain AmericaNotes: This was an attempt to pilot a Captain America series, the latest Marvel superhero to go to live-action TV after the short-lived Amazing Spider-Man series (1977-78) and the Incredible Hulk series launched the previous year; as with Amazing Spider-Man, Stan Lee is credited as a consultant. Having gone to the Marvel well once with underwhelming results with Amazing Spider-Man, CBS green-lit not a series, but a second (and final) TV movie based on the ratings achieved by this movie; no series resulted. Heather Menzies had previously starred in the TV adaptation of Logan’s Run in 1977, also on CBS.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Time Express

The Garbage Man and the Doctor’s Wife

SearchPassengers book tickets aboard a seemingly antique train called the Time Express, unsure of what to expect, arriving at a gate at a train station shrouded in mystery. An elderly couple, Jason and Maggie Winters, greet them aboard the train and remind them of the rules: they can relive the past, or even change it, but they must return to the present aboard the train at the end of their experience. Millionaire Edward Chernoff boards the train, not to change his fortune but to change how he used it, while a doctor whose young wife needs a bone marrow transplant must go back in time to find her birth family, as her adoptive parents don’t match her as donors.

written by Gerald Sanford
directed by Arnold Laven
music by Richard Hazard

Time ExpressCast: Vincent Price (Jason Winters), Coral Browne (Maggie Winters), Woodrow Palfrey (Ticket Agent), William Edward Phipps (E. Patrick Callahan), James Reynolds (R.J. Walker), James MacArthur (Dr. Mark Toland), Jerry Stiller (Edward Chernoff), Pamela Toll (Olivia Toland), Michael Conrad (Sullivan), Alan Sues (Bank Manager), Anne Meara (Gloria Chernoff), Doris Dowling (Sister Bertelli), John de Lancie (John Clayton), Eldon Quick (Niles), Jan Clayton (First Nun), Del Monroe (First Gangster), Richard Angarola (Mr. Durant), Don Keefer (Jim Fraser), Wallace Earl Laven (Virginia Fraser), Bob Delegall (Dr. Samuels), Gay Rowan (Sister Allison), Melvin F. Allen (Mel), Buck Young (Police Clerk), Michael Laurence (First Reporter), Charles Rowe (Second Reporter), John Berwick (Nick), Dar Robinson (Lou), Karen Fredrik (Debbie Clayton)

Time ExpressNotes: If NBC‘s Supertrain was “The Love Boat on a futuristic train”, Time Express on CBS was “Fantasy Island on a time-traveling train”. Veteran Hollywood writers Ivan Goff (1910-1999) and Ben Roberts (1916-1984), who had been working together since the 1940s, had written such screenplays as The Man Of A Thousand Faces and Portrait In Black, then went on to create the successful TV series Charlie’s Angels in 1976. CBS had previously tapped them as the head writers on the short-lived TV adaptation Logan’s Run. Time Express would last only four episodes on CBS’ schedule. John de Time ExpressLancie, long before he became Star Trek’s Q, had already appeared in The Six Million Dollar Man and Battlestar Galactica, among others, at this very early stage in his career, while Gay Rowan had been one of the “three young people” (according to the opening narration) trying to discover the destination of The Starlost in the early 1970s.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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TV Movies

Starstruck

StarstruckThe final frontier is the new wild frontier. The exploration of space has given way to settlement and mining, and occasionally lawlessness. Ben McCallister runs a space station “halfway between Earth and Pluto” where he fixes and fuels patrons’ spacecraft as they enjoy the amenities on board before moving on to their next destination. His children are exposed to a wide and wild variety of aliens and humans alike, though he does his best to shield them from the seedier side of things, with the help of the housekeeping robots, “Mrs. Douglas” and “Mr. Hudson”. Talent agent Max, always trying to get McCallister to book his comedy and music acts, tries to get Ben to consider a singer named Amber LaRue, only to be turned down. In need of work, Amber offers to do odd jobs around the station, even if they don’t involve singing. Orthwaite Frodo, a dazzlingly rich space mining magnate, drops by with his handsome pilot, Chance, to sample the McCallisters’ legendary apple pie (using real Earth-grown apples), which leads him to offer to buy out Ben McCallister’s establishment. Ben politely refuses, but Amber lets him in on a secret: Orthwaite Frodo won’t take “no” for an answer, and has brought a hired assassin with him to eliminate any “no” that he might encounter.

written by Arthur Kopit
directed by Al Viola
music by Allan Alper / title song by Mitch Johnson, Kerry Chater & Patricia Goode

StarstruckCast: Beeson Carroll (Ben McCallister), Lynne Lipton (Amber LaRue), Guy Raymond (Ezra McCallister), Meegan King (Mark McCallister), Tania Myren (Kate McCallister), Elvia Allman (Abigail McCallister), Kevin Brando (Rupert McCallister), Robin Strand (Chance), Sarah Kennedy (Delight), Joe Silver (Max), Roy Brocksmith (Orthwaite Frodo), Herb Kaplowitz (Dart), Robert Short (Mr. Hudson), Buddy Douglas (Mrs. Douglas), J.C. Wells (Tashko), Cynthia Latham (Madame Dumont), Forrest J. Ackerman (Alien Astronaut), Jackie O’Brien (Waitress), Billy Scudder (Wolflike Alien)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Jason Of Star Command Season 2

Mission To The Stars

Jason Of Star CommandJason picks an inopportune time to kick the tires and light the fire on Professor Parsafoot’s new and improved Starfire: a new commander is arriving to take over Star Command, and he’s rumored to be strictly by-the-book. Commander Stone is less than impressed with Jason’s “antics”. A derelict spaceship with no life signs drifts into Star Command’s vicinity, but a robot probe sent to inspect it is blown out of the sky. Jason goes to investigate and finds a woman named Samantha frozen in suspended animation. She claims to be one of the last survivors of an invasion of her planet by Dragos. And while Jason is away, a distress call lures Star Command into a trap set by Dragos.

Order this series on DVDwritten by Ted Pedersen
directed by Arthur H. Nadel
music by Yvette Blais & Jeff Michael

Jason Of Star CommandCast: Craig Littler (Jason), Charlie Dell (Professor E.J. Parsafoot), John Russell (The Commander), Sid Haig (Dragos), Tamara Dobson (Samantha)

Notes: Drago has built a new Dragonship since his escape in season 1’s finale. Commander Stone is from a planet in the “Alpha Centauri cluster”. W1K1 now has a voice. In one of the first (and only) onscreen acknowledgement’s of season one’s voiceover description of Jason as a “soldier of fortune”, Jason points out that he is “not under the direct jurisdiction of Star Command”. Jason’s exact relationship to Star Command and/or Space Academy is left unclear.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Jason Of Star Command Season 2

Frozen In Space

Jason Of Star CommandAs Star Command slowly freezes in a temperature-lowering force field erected around it by Dragos, Jason and Samantha visit the source of that force field, meeting Drago’s savage new underlings in the process. But Samantha turns against Jason, claiming to be bringing him to Drago as a prisoner. As Star Command plunges toward a dwarf star, its controls frozen, Commander Stone and Professor Parsafoot are unable to help Jason.

Order this series on DVDwritten by Margaret Armen
directed by Arthur H. Nadel
music by Yvette Blais & Jeff Michael

Jason Of Star CommandCast: Craig Littler (Jason), Charlie Dell (Professor E.J. Parsafoot), John Russell (The Commander), Sid Haig (Dragos), Tamara Dobson (Samantha), John Berwick (Tehor)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Captain America

Captain America II: Death Too Soon

Captain AmericaSteve Rogers lives the life of a wayward artist, finding that his alter ego, Captain America, is still needed wherever he goes. The disappearance of a scientist known for his research into countering aging draws Steve to an out-of-the-way town, where he finds the locals tight-lipped or openly hostile. After she sees him single-handedly fight off a group of thugs, local ranch owner Helen Moore offers Steve shelter. When an international terrorist known only as Miguel claims to have the mission scientist, and threatens to use his research to age the population of a major city to death unless the U.S. government pays a massive ransom, it seems odd for Captain America to continue focusing all of his efforts on a small town, but he’s certain that the secrets behind Miguel’s grab for power and wealth are there.

written by Wilton Schiller and Patricia Payne
directed by Ivan Nagy
music by Mike Post & Pete Carpenter

Captain AmericaCast: Reb Brown (Steve Rogers / Captain America), Connie Sellecca (Dr. Wendy Day), Len Birman (Dr. Simon Mills), Christopher Lee (Miguel), Katherine Justice (Helen Moore), Christopher Cary (Professor Ilson), William Lucking (Stader), Stanley Kamel (Kramer), Ken Swofford (Everett Bliss), Lana Wood (Yolanda), Arthur Rosenberg (Doctor), Bill Mims (Dr. J. Brenner), Alex Hyde-White (Young Man), Lachelle Chamberlain (Young Girl), Susan French (Mrs. Shaw), John Waldron (Peter Moore)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Incredible Hulk Season 3

Broken Image

The Incredible HulkUnder the assumed name “David Bowman”, Banner takes up residence in an inner-city apartment, also taking a job there as the apartment’s janitor. But another resident there, a man named Mike Cassidy, bears a striking resemblence to Banner, and as Cassidy is already a con man, he sees an opportunity to use Banner as a decoy to throw off a group of men trying to recover thousands of dollars from him. When Banner is drawn into this sordid scheme and beaten up, the Hulk naturally emerges, complicating Cassidy’s plan (and Banner’s life). Worse yet, Jack McGee follows the latest reports of the Hulk’s appearance right to Banner’s apartment door.

Download this episode via Amazonwritten by Karen Harris & Jill Sherman
directed by John McPherson
music by Joe Harnell

Cast: Bill Bixby (David Bruce Banner), Jack Colvin (Jack McGee), Lou Ferrigno (The Hulk), Karen Carlson (Lorraine), John Reilly (Steve), Jed Mills (Teddy), Chris Wallace (Danny), Erica Yohn (Woman with dog), George Caldwell (Pete), Enrique Castillo (Larry), Donald W. Carter (Police Lieutenant), Al White (Police Sergeant), Sally Sommer (Miriam)

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Wizards & Warriors

The Unicorn Of Death

Wizards & WarriorsThe wizard Vector presents the evil Prince Blackpool with a gift: a sculpture of a unicorn made from a substance that, when activated, will create an explosion large enough to wipe out a country. Blackpool decides to use this terrible weapon to win the affections of Princess Ariel… by holding her father’s kingdom hostage with the threat of fiery destruction. But Ariel is betrothed to Prince Erik Greystone, who is immediately given the task of recovering the key that will deactivate the explosive. With his squire, Marko, Greystone convinces one of Blackpool’s flunkies to talk and makes his way toward Blackpool’s citadel.

It never occurs to him that the key he’s risking life and limb to retrieve might be the wrong one.

written by Bill Richmond
directed by Bill Bixby
music by Lee Holdridge

Cast: Jeff Conaway (Prince Erik Greystone), Walter Olkewicz (Marko), Duncan Regehr (Prince Dirk Blackpool), Julia Duffy Wizards & Warriors(Princess Ariel), Clive Revill (Vector), Ian Wolfe (Wizard Traquill), Randi Brooks (Bethel), Tim Dunigan (Geoffrey Blackpool), Joseph Robert Sicari (Goz Dunder), Thomas Hill (King Baaldorf), Christine de Lisle (Belldonna), Phyllis Katz (Cassandra), Ken Hixon (Ariel’s Suitor), Brent Huff (Man in Bar), Lonnie Wun (Baaldorf’s Subject), Kathleen McIntyre (Lady In Waiting), Mark Douglas Sebastian, Steven Strong (Grox), Nancy Thiesen (Lady In Waiting)

Notes: Director Bill Bixby is the same actor who starred as the alter ego of The Incredible Hulk throughout that series’ run; even before he was Hulking out, Bixby was in demand as a director. He teamed up with Wizards & Warriors creator Don Reo on his later (and arguably more successful) series Blossom, directing 30 episodes (presumably Very Special ones) of that show. Bixby died in 1993 after a lengthy battle with prostate cancer.

LogBook entry by Earl Green