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Classic Season 12 Doctor Who

Robot

Doctor WhoThe Doctor’s regeneration and recovery come at an inopportune time for the Brigadier, who has to try to solve a series of crimes related to the top-secret plans for a disintegrator gun. Sarah, researching a story about the equally top-secret Think Tank organization, is introduced to a gigantic robot which could be the perpetrator of the thefts and killings – despite the scientists’ horrifying demonstration that the robot could not kill Sarah. The Doctor, recovering slowly and aggravating the Brigadier with his unpredictable new personality, discovers that the Think Tank scientists are doing much more than research – they’re planning on taking over the world and culling the human herd of those not up to genius standards.

Season 12 Regular Cast: Tom Baker (The Doctor), Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), Ian Marter (Harry Sullivan)

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Terrance Dicks
directed by Christopher Barry
music by Dudley Simpson

Guest Cast: Nicholas Courtney (Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart), John Levene (RSM Benton), Edward Burnham (Professor Kettlewell), Alec Linstead (Jellicoe), Patricia Maynard (Miss Winters), Michael Kilgarriff (Robot), John Scott Martin (Guard), Timothy Craven (Short), Walter Goodman (Chambers)

Broadcast from December 28, 1974 through January 18, 1975

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Original Series 1 Survivors

Genesis

Survivors (1970s series)Awakened by the incongruous sound of a helicopter flying overhead, Abby tries to get the pilot’s attention, to no avail. The pilot, Greg Preston, stole the helicopter to rush home from Holland, only to find his wife dead of the plague. He sets out by car and happens upon a woman named Anne Tranter, who’s trying to flag down someone who can help her husband, trapped under a flipped tractor. Once Greg has helped to rescue Anne’s husband, however, he is stunned by her attitude – she’s more concerned with regaining some semblence of material wealth than with trying to rebuild society. Abby’s travels take her to a large country house where Arthur Wormley, a well-known union boss, has set up shop. At first, Wormley’s ideas are attractive: rebuilding society and restoring normalcy. But slowly, Abby realizes that Wormley’s rhetoric is merely a smokescreen to cover for his real motive – a grab for power, forming a new government with himself at the top. When he admits that the spacious house is something that he and his supporters “took over,” and decides that he has the authority to order the execution of anyone who tries to oppose his idea of law and order, Abby leaves quickly. Jenny Richards – still wandering – meets Preston, who is raiding a pharmacy for medicine for Anne Tranter’s husband. But as he races back to help, he finds Anne has already left her husband, claiming he is dead.

written by Terry Nation
directed by Gerald Blake
title music by Anthony Isaac

Cast: Carolyn Seymour (Abby Grant), Ian McCullouch (Greg Preston), Lucy Fleming (Jenny Richards), Talfryn Thomas (Tom Price), George Baker (Arthur Wormley), Myra Frances (Anne Tranter), Terry Scully (Vic Thatcher), Brian Peck (Dave Long), Edward Brooks (Colonel), Peter Jolley (First Man)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Season 2 Space: 1999

The Metamorph

Space: 1999In the wake of an encounter with another space warp, Moonbase Alpha is badly in need of titanium to repair the base’s life support systems. An Eagle is sent to do a mineral survey of the nearest planet, but after detecting titanium and heading back to the moon, the Eagle is intercepted by a glowing orb of light that originated from the planet’s surface. A being identifying himself as Mentor of the planet Psychon contacts Moonbase Alpha and offers peace, if Koenig can prove that his crew can be trusted. Koenig personally leads a second expedition to Psychon, but to his horror discovers that the first Eagle is not the only spacecraft to have come to a tragic end on the planet’s surface. He also finds that the crews of the other crashed ships have been reconditioned to serve as slave laborers for Mentor’s race of psychopaths, their stolen mental energy used to power the Psychons’ central computer. Koenig is forced to choose between his crew’s extinction or servitude, but he plays a card that Mentor doesn’t expect, setting into motion the destruction of Psychon itself. Maya survives the carnage, but can she ever trust Koenig and the other humans?

Season Two Regular Cast: Martin Landau (Commander John Koenig), Barbara Bain (Dr. Helena Russell), Catherine Schell (Maya)

Order the DVDswritten by Johnny Byrne
directed by Charles Crichton
music by Derek Wadsworth

Guest Cast: Tony Anholt (Tony Verdeschi), Nick Tate (Alan Carter), Zienia Merton (Sandra Benes), Brian Blessed (Mentor), Anouska Hempel (Annette Fraser), John Hug (Bill Fraser), Gerard Paquis (Lew Picard), Peter Porteous (Petrov), Nick Brimble (Ray Torens), Anton Phillips (Dr. Mathias)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Classic Season 14 Doctor Who

The Face Of Evil

Doctor WhoThe Doctor arrives on a distant world populated by two tribes, the Sevateem and the Tesh. He quickly bumps into a Sevateem woman named Leela, who has been banished from her village for denying the existence of Xoanon – an entity whom the Sevateem worship as a god. The Doctor can only stand by helplessly as the Sevateem mount a suicidal attack upon the more advanced Tesh. The Doctor soon realizes that these primitives are the descendants of an interstellar exploration detail: the survey team and the technicians. Both tribes recognize and revere him as the Evil One…but despite the bloodshed, no one will allow him to go near Xoanon, a sentient computer whose tyrannical rule is a result of the Doctor’s past interference.

Download this episodewritten by Chris Boucher
directed by Pennant Roberts
music by Dudley Simpson

Guest Cast: Leslie Schofield (Calib), Victor Lucas (Andor), Brendan Price (Tomas), Colin Thomas (Sole), David Garfield (Neeva), Lloyd McGuire (Lugo), Tom Kelly, Brett Forrest (Guards), Leon Eagles (Jabel), Mike Elles (Gentek), Peter Baldock (Acolyte), Tom Baker, Rob Edwards, Pamela Salem, Anthony Frieze, Roy Herrick (voices of Xoanon)

Original title: The Day God Went Mad

Broadcast from January 1 through 22, 1977

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Fantastic Journey, The

Beyond The Mountain

The Fantastic JourneyVarian, Scott, Liana and Fred arrive in a windswept desert through the portal; shortly afterward, Sil-L, the cat with whom Liana shares a telepathic bond, arrives too. But they soon run into a new problem – a pulsating red cloud, not dissimilar from the green cloud that stranded them on the island. The men wind up in a swamp, surrounded by green-skinned people who seek help for their malaria-stricken leader, while Liana finds herself in a compound populated by attractive people in identical jumpsuits. She meets Professor Willaway, who seems to rule over these people, and he is instantly smitten with Liana, deciding that she must stay to marry him, whether she wants to or not. All of his “sons” and companions turn out to be androids, originally built by the species that has been forced into the swamp; Willaway, a radical scientist from 1963, reprogrammed all of the androids to serve him. But his desire for human companionship is driving him from radical to treacherous. When Fred, Varian and Scott leave the swamp and find their way to Willaway’s village, Varian quickly realizes that their inquiries about Liana’s whereabouts are being answered with lies. And no longer hampered by their leader’s health, the beings who created the androids are now returning to reclaim what is rightfully theirs, leaving Willaway to seek refuge with Varian’s group.

The Fantastic Journeywritten by Harold Livingston
directed by Irving J. Moore
music by Robert Prince

Cast: Jared Martin (Varian), Carl Franklin (Fred Walters), Ike Eisenmann (Scott Jordan), Katie Saylor (Liana), Roddy McDowall (Willaway), John David Carson (Cyrus), Marj Dusay (Rachel), Lester Fletcher (Chef), Frank Coresntino (Toren), Joseph Della Sorte (Aren), Ron Burke (Robert), Brian Patrick Clarke (Daniel), Bud Kenneally (Veteran), Crofton Hardester (Michael), The Felix Team (Sil-L)

The Fantastic JourneyNotes: Actor Brian Patrick Clarke is credited as “Brain.” Roddy McDowall joins the show in this episode, playing a part that was written specifically to attract him to the show. His genre credits already included the Planet Of The Apes films and their short-lived TV spinoff. Writer Harold Livingston also penned episodes of Mission: Impossible, Future Cop, The Six Million Dollar Man and the William Shatner series Barbary Coast, but his most famous genre gig was, of course, the unenviable job of coming up with a coherent script for Star Trek: The Motion Picture in 1979, a job Livingston didn’t relish as it put him into conflict with Gene Roddenberry (Livingston later claimed that his rewrites were being rewritten and sabotaged by Roddenberry). This episode is contains rare references to the pilot, with Fred comparing the red cloud to the green one in the Bermuda Triangle, and Varian noting that the traveling party is almost as large as the original group of shipwreck survivors. Sil-L conveniently hides for almost the entire duration of the episode, appearing only at the beginning and the end; presumably he was marking his territory in Willaway’s outdoor planters the rest of the time.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Classic Season 15 Doctor Who

The Invisible Enemy

Doctor WhoThe TARDIS encounters a huge, fibrous mass in space, and as it attempts to pass through the obstruction, a violent discharge from the central console knocks the Doctor out. He manages to set a course for a medical outpost, the Bi-Al Foundation. Barely able to explain the Doctor’s predicament, Leela leaves the Time Lord in the capable hands of Dr. Marius, a brilliant but eccentric pathologist (he has fashioned his portable computer in the shape of a dog and christened it K-9). But whatever affected the Doctor soon spreads to others at Bi-Al, and the Doctor is now clearly the center of a hive mind directing the actions of the infected. The fight to save the doctors and nurses at Bi-Al is a losing battle; the Doctor and Leela must take the fight to the source of the problem: inside the Doctor’s own body!

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Bob Baker & Dave Martin
directed by Derrick Goodwin
music by Dudley Simpson

Guest Cast: Michael Sheard (Lowe), Frederick Jaeger (Professor Marius), Brian Grellis (Safran), Jay Neill (Silvey), Edmund Pegge (Meeker), Anthony Rowlands (Crewman), John Leeson (Nucleus voice), John Scott Martin (Nucleus operator), Neil Curran (Nurse), Jim McManus (Opthalmologist), Roderick Smith (Cruikshank), Kenneth Waller (Hedges), Elizabeth Norman (Marius’s Nurse), Roy Herrick (Parsons), Pat Gorman (Medic)

Broadcast from October 1 through 22, 1977

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Classic Season 16 Doctor Who

The Ribos Operation

.Doctor WhoThe Doctor’s TARDIS is diverted to an unknown place. Upon landing, the Doctor meets the White Guardian, a being more powerful than even the Time Lords, who has chosen the Doctor to retrieve the six missing segments of the Key To Time, which will supposedly restore time and space to a more balanced state. With a new version of K9 up and running, the Doctor is keen to undertake this adventure alone, but again, the Guardian chooses a new companion for the Doctor, a Time Lady named Romanadvortrelundar.

The search for the first of the Key To Time’s six segments leads the Doctor, K9 and Romana to an unlikely place for such an item: the backwards planet Ribos. The natives are wrapped up in superstition and tradition, and they’re largely unaware that their planet is being targeted for takeover by the mad exiled warlord Graff Vynda-K. But even the Graff is being targeted on Ribos by a pair of con men who hope he’ll pay handsomely for directions which will supposedly lead him to a lost mine containing enough of the mineral jethrik to fund his operation. And when everyone’s plans are exposed, they believe the Doctor and Romana are the responsible party.

Season 16 Regular Cast: Tom Baker (The Doctor), Mary Tamm (Romana), John Leeson (voice of K-9)

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Robert Holmes
directed by George Spenton-Foster
music by Dudley Simpson

Guest Cast: Iain Cuthbertson (Garron), Nigel Plaskitt (Unstoffe), Paul Seed (Graff Vynda-K), Robert Keegan (Sholakh), Prentis Hancock (Captain), Timothy Bateson (Binro), Ann Tirard (Seeker), Cyril Luckham (White Guardian)

Broadcast from September 2 through 23, 1978

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Supertrain

A Very Formal Heist

SupertrainIt’s Wayne Randall’s first day on the job as the assistant chief conductor aboard Supertrain…but when chief conductor Harry Flood comes down with the mumps and is confined to the isolation room in Dr. Lewis’ on-board clinic, Wayne finds himself in charge of the train. He tries to keep things running smoothly as new Supertrain social director Penny Whitaker puts the finishing touches on a major charity event…but then has to deal with a few minor problems, such as a would-be jewel thief…and an engine meltdown that could turn Supertrain into a fast-moving nuclear bomb with passengers.

teleplay by Jeff Wilhelm
story by Brad Radnitz and Robert Stambler and Jeff Wilhelm
directed by Dennis Donnelly
music by Bob Cobert

SupertrainCast: Edward Andrews (Harry Flood), Ilene Graff (Penny Whitaker), Harrison Page (George Boone), Robert Alda (Dr. Lewis), Joey Aresco (Wayne Randall), Zsa Zsa Gabor (Audrey), Lyle Waggoner (Peter Sebastian), Peter Lawford (Quentin Fuller), Abe Vigoda (Ray Yellburton), Sally Kirkland (Katherine Sully), Ted Gehring (Tex), Cameron Young (Partygoer), Dorothy Dells (Partygoer), Jack Heller (Chef), Gail Landry (Partygoer), Lou Felder (Ice Sculptor), Gordon Connell (Partygoer), Bob Basso (Partygoer), Kate Geer (Partygoer), Brenda King (Partygoer), Deborah Allison (Partygoer), Michael Feffer (Partygoer), Maggie Jean Smith (Mike)

SupertrainNotes: More big changes are afoot in this episode of Supertrain, with the addition of Ilene Graff and Joey Aresco as new regulars, along with a constellation of guest stars including Zsa Zsa Gabor, Lyle Waggoner (Wonder Woman), Peter Lawford (The Thin Man, Ocean’s 11), Abe Vigoda (Barney Miller), and Sally Kirkland. Herman Zimmerman – formerly of Far-Out Space Nuts, and later the architect of the Star Trek spinoffs‘ ship interiors – joins the show as production designer. Supertrain!

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Classic Season 17 Doctor Who

Destiny Of The Daleks

Doctor WhoThe TARDIS brings the Doctor and Romana to a desolate wasteland of a planet, one whose atmosphere is so radioactive that it can be toxic even to Time Lords without proper precautions – the post-atomic-war Skaro, home world of the Daleks. When the two are separated, Romana is trailed by a disheveled human. Convinced that he means her harm, she runs right into a barely-buried chute that deposits her underground in the waiting arms of the Daleks themselves. The Doctor meets the attractive humanoid crew of a nearby space vessel, who call themselves Movellans. At war with the spacefaring Daleks for centuries, the Movellans have followed their enemies back to Skaro to prevent them from unearthing a “secret weapon”: Davros, whose life support system was damaged but not disabled, has apparently survived in a dormant state. His more emotional, cunning strategies could give the Daleks the edge. The Movellans hope that the Doctor and Romana can give them the same edge – and worst of all, the two Time Lords aren’t exactly being given a choice about replacing the Movellans’ battle computers.

Season 17 Regular Cast: Tom Baker (The Doctor), Lalla Ward (Romana), David Brierly (voice of K9)

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Terry Nation
directed by Ken Grieve
music by Dudley Simpson

Guest Cast: Tim Barlow (Tyssan), Peter Straker (Commander Sharrel), Suzanne Danielle (Agella), Tony Osoba (Lan), David Gooderson (Davros), Roy Skelton, David Gooderson (Dalek voices), Cy Town, Mike Mungarvan, Toby Byrne, Tony Starr (Daleks), Penny Casdagla (Jall), David Yip (Veldan)

Broadcast from September 1 through 22, 1979

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Blake's 7 Season 3

Aftermath

Blake's 7The Liberator is damaged heavily in the ensuing war and starts away from the main battles. The life support system begins to fail and the crew must abandon ship. Avon is knocked out when debris from a hit near the life capsule launch area collapses on him, and Cally and Vila get him into a capsule. Landing on the planet Serran, Avon is saved from vicious natives by a young woman called Dayna, who takes him to her father’s underwater home base. On the way there, they encounter Servalan, who has deposed the High Council, declared herself President, and has topped all this by getting herself marooned. Servalan attempts to seduce Avon, but he resists and uses Orac to signal the Liberator. In an attempt to steal Orac and slip away, Servalan is stopped by Dayna’s blind father, who is killed by Servalan. Dayna vows vengeance and she and Avon set out to find Servalan. After “rescuing” Servalan from the restless natives, Avon recovers Orac, and with Dayna he returns to the Liberator when it arrives, while Servalan hides away in the undersea installation. On returning to the ship, Avon and Dayna find a full squad of Federation shock troops in control…

written by Terry Nation
directed by Vere Lorrimer
music by Dudley Simpson

Cast: Paul Darrow (Avon), Jacqueline Pearce (Servalan), Jan Chappell (Cally), Michael Keating (Vila), Peter Tuddenham (Zen, Orac), Josette Simon (Dayna), Cy Grant (Mellanby), Alan Lake (Chel), Sally Harrison (Lauren), Richard Franklin (Trooper), Michael Melia (Trooper), Steven Pacey (Tarrant)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Classic Season 18 Doctor Who

Full Circle

Doctor WhoThe Doctor and Romana are en route back to Gallifrey when something strange happens to the TARDIS. Though it takes time for them to realize it, the TARDIS has fallen through a kind of wormhole into the alternate universe of E-space. Instead of Gallifrey, the Doctor has arrived on Alzarius, a planet whose small humanoid population is threatened by the onset of a deadly mist. During the time of mistfall, legend has it that spiders emerge from the indigenous fruit and deadly creatures appear. A troubled kid named Adric is trapped outside during mistfall, but stumbles into the TARDIS and befriends the Doctor and Romana. The Doctor soon finds that the horrific creatures that roam Alzarius during mistfall are more closely related to the besieged humanoids than either party realizes.

Download this episodewritten by Andrew Smith
directed by Peter Grimwade
music by Paddy Kingsland

Guest Cast: Richard Willis (Varsh), Bernard Padden (Tylos), June Page (Keara), James Bree (Nefred), Alan Rowe (Garif), Leonard Maguire (Draith), George Baker (Login), Tony Calvin (Dexeter), Norman Bacon (Marsh child), Andrew Forbes (Omril), Adrian Gibbs (Rysik), Barney Lawrence, Steve Kelly, Stephen Calcutt, Keith Guest, Graham Cole, James Jackson, Steven Watson (Marshmen)

Broadcast from October 25 through November 15, 1980

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Buck Rogers Season 2

Time Of The Hawk

Buck Rogers In The 25th CenturyBuck, Wilma and Twiki have been reassigned to the deep-space exploration ship Searcher on a mission to search for any colonies that may have been established by humans who escaped Earth around the time of the holocaust. Their first evidence of human colonists, however, is a primitive ship found adrift, its hull shattered and all but one of its crew dead. The lone survivors warns Buck with his last breath that someone called “Hawk” is on a mission to exterminate every human, every human ship, and every human colony he can find. The survivor gives them one tip about where Hawk might be found, and the Searcher changes its course so Buck can follow up on the lead. A neutral planet turns out to be the current lair of Hawk, and Buck asks Wilma to meet him there; against her better judgement, Wilma brings a passenger along: Dr. Goodfellow, the Searcher’s elderly but brilliant chief scientist.

Buck doesn’t find Hawk, but he does find Hawk’s mate, Koori, half-human and half-bird, and bets that if he takes Koori with him, Hawk will follow. Hawk does indeed catch up with Buck, grappling the earthman’s starfighter with the harpoon-like claws of his own ship – but impaling Koori in the process. Both ships land, and Buck helps Hawk take Koori to a healer who lives in a distant cave on the planet, both men postponing their fight until she can be saved. Hawk tells Buck that he and Koori are the last of their kind, hunted to extinction by humans, and that his fight is just. Buck tries to tell Hawk that the actions of human colonists don’t necessarily reflect the current state of humanity on Earth, but Hawk is not swayed – when Koori is either restored to health or laid to rest, Hawk and Buck will fight to the death.

Order the DVDswritten by Norman Hudis
directed by Vincent McEveety
music by Bruce Broughton

Cast: Gil Gerard (Buck Rogers), Erin Gray (Colonel Wilma Deering), Thom Christopher (Hawk), Jay Garner (Admiral Asimov), Wilfred Hyde-White (Dr. Goodfellow), Felix Silla (Twiki), Jeff David (voice of Crichton), Barbara Luna (Koori), Lance Le Gault (Flagg), David Opatoshu (Llamajuna), Sid Haig (Pratt), Kenneth O’Brien (Captain), Dennis Haysbert (Communication-Probe Officer), Lavelle Roby (Thromis), Michael Fox (High Judge), Andre Harvey (Thordis), J. Christopher O’Connor (Young Lieutenant), Tim O’Keefe (Bailiff), Ken Chandler (Court Clerk), Susan McIver (Simmons)

Notes: Crichton admits, somewhat reluctantly, that he obeys Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics, and even more begrudgingly admits that an ancestor of Admiral Asimov wrote those laws. The Crichton prop first appeared early in the first season, but as a large clock instead of a robot. Twiki’s voice was replaced for part of this season as part of the sweeping changes introduced by new executive producer John Mantley, but eventually Mel Blanc was brought back to provide Twiki’s voice.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Classic Season 18 Doctor Who

The Keeper Of Traken

Doctor WhoThe dying Keeper of the harmonious Union of Traken summons the Doctor to help his world as his reign comes to a close. Normally the Keeper would never summon outside help, but in this case an otherworldly evil is slowly preparing to take control of the Union, and otherworldly help will be needed to defeat it. But as betrayals and complacency allow a malignant alien to assume the Keepership – and with it enormous power – the Doctor is slow to realize that this particular adversary is known to him personally. Though he is able to preserve Traken’s people, the Doctor is unaware that his greatest adversary has gained a new lease on life.

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Johnny Byrne
directed by John Black
music by Roger Limb

Guest Cast: Anthony Ainley (Tremas), Sarah Sutton (Nyssa), Sheila Ruskin (Kassia), Denis Carey (The Keeper), John Woodnutt (Seron), Margot Van De Burgh (Katura), Robin Soans (Luvic), Roland Oliver (Neman), Geoffrey Beevers (Melkur)

Broadcast from January 31 through February 21, 1981

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Classic Season 18 Doctor Who

Logopolis

Doctor WhoAfter he takes complete measurements of a British Police Box, the inspiration for the exterior appearance of the TARDIS, the Doctor plans to visit Logopolis to seek the help of the mathematical geniuses there, whose near-mystic incantations of intricate mathematical formulas actually keep the universe from dying a premature death. Thanks to the interference of the Master, the Doctor becomes trapped, and an Australian stewardess named Tegan wanders into the TARDIS, assuming it to be a real Police Box. The Doctor also receives a distress call from Nyssa, whose father has gone missing on Traken. A mysterious ghostly figure appears and disappears, but the Doctor remains silent as to its identity, and the Master finally emerges from the shadows on Logopolis, poised to destroy the universe by eliminating its guardians. All the while, the TARDIS cloister bell counts down last remaining hours of the Doctor’s fourth life.

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Christopher H. Bidmead
directed by Peter Grimwade
music by Paddy Kingsland

Guest Cast: Anthony Ainley (The Master), John Fraser (Monitor), Dolores Whiteman (Aunt Vanessa), Tom Georgeson (Detective Inspector), Christopher Hurst (Security Guard), Ray Knight, Peter Roy, Derek Suthern (Policemen), Robin Squire (Pharos technician)

Broadcast from February 28 through March 21, 1981

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Blake's 7 Season 4

Rescue

Blake's 7The survivors of the Liberator on Terminal begin to make horrible discoveries. First, Avon and Dayna discover that the escape craft Servalan left them was booby trapped as a native animal enters it and it explodes. That simultaneously detonates explosions in the control center underground on Terminal. Vila escapes after heroically rescuing Tarrant, but Cally is killed. The space vessel Scorpio arrives, with the enigmatic Dorian in charge. He takes the crew and Orac away from Terminal just as the planet begins to undergo a massive volcanic outbreak, but Avon takes him prisoner and hijacks the ship. Scorpio, however, is automatically set to take Dorian to his home base, where his gunhand and consort Soolin is waiting. It soon transpires that Dorian has been working on a teleportal and has also devised a near-perfect all-weather handgun. He also repairs Orac and reveals that he is over 200 years old. Dorian plans to sacrifice Avon and the others to a creature that renews Dorian when it is given fresh lives to feed on.

written by Chris Boucher
directed by Mary Ridge
music by Dudley Simpson

Cast: Paul Darrow (Avon), Michael Keating (Vila), Steven Pacey (Tarrant), Josette Simon (Dayna), Peter Tuddenham (Orac, Slave), Geoffrey Burridge (Dorian), Glynis Barber (Soolin), Rob Middleton (The Creature), Jan Chappell (voice of Cally)

LogBook entry by Earl Green