Tag: Series Premiere

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Classic Season 01 Doctor Who

An Unearthly Child

Doctor WhoIn London, 1963, teachers Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright discuss their most problematic student at Coal Hill School, one Susan Foreman. Susan’s knowledge vastly exceeds that of her instructors in science, but she has also been known to challenge long-standing historical facts…yet she also has some things completely wrong, including one occasion where she notes that British currency isn’t on the decimal system “yet.” Ian and Barbara follow Susan discreetly when she walks home one night, and the teachers are puzzled when home seems to be a junkyard. When they follow her into the junkyard, Susan has disappeared, and the only place she could have gone is a police call box which is emitting a strange hum. Moments later, an elderly man appears, apparently determined to enter the police box himself. Ian and Barbara force their way in, along with the old man, and find that the police box is actually a time-space vehicle, bigger on the inside than out. They also discover that neither Susan nor her grandfather, a mysterious and irritable man known only as the Doctor, are human beings. The Doctor, worried that Ian and Barbara will draw unwelcome mass attention to the presence of his ship (called the TARDIS), hastily sets it into motion over everyone’s protests, and when Ian and Barbara next step out of the doors of the TARDIS, they are no longer on Earth as they know it.

Season 1 Regular Cast: William Hartnell (The Doctor), William Russell (Ian Chesterton), Jacqueline Hill (Barbara Wright), Carole Ann Ford (Susan Foreman)

written by Anthony Coburn
directed by Waris Hussein
music by Norman Kay

Guest Cast: Derek Newark (Za), Althea Charlton (Hur), Jeremy Young (Kal), Howard Lang (Horg), Eileen Way (Old Mother)

Broadcast from November 23 through December 14, 1963

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Lost In Space Season 1

The Reluctant Stowaway

Lost In SpaceOctober 16, 1997: with Earth suffering from extreme depletion of resources, the race is on to colonize planets in nearby star systems, starting with a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri. The Jupiter 2 is prepared for launch, to be crewed by the Robinson family – Dr. John Robinson, Dr. Maureen Robinson, and their children, Judy, Penny, and Will – and the pilot, Major Don West. With the stakes so high, sabotage is almost expected, and indeed a saboteur has snuck aboard the Jupiter 2, one Dr. Zachary Smith, who has programmed the robot to destroy the Jupiter 2 with all hands aboard at eight hours into the mission. But Smith is as inept as he is evil, and is stuck aboard the ship when it lifts off. While trying (and failing) to convincingly explain his presence to the Robinsons when the Jupiter 2 goes off course, Smith now has to undo his own act of sabotage…or become a victim of his own plot.

Download this episode via Amazonwritten by S. Bar-David
directed by Tony Leader
music by Johnny Williams

Lost In SpaceCast: Guy Williams (Dr. John Robinson), June Lockhart (Maureen Robinson), Mark Goddard (Don West), Marta Kristen (Judy Robinson), Billy Mumy (Will Robinson), Angela Cartwright (Penny Robinson), Jonathan Harris (Dr. Zachary Smith), Hoke Howell (Security Guard), Tom Allen (Inspector), Fred Crane (Alpha Control Technician), Don Forbes (TV Commentator), Bob May (Robot), Brett Parker (Security Guard), Ford Rainey (President), Hal Torey (General), Dick Tufeld (Robot voice / Narrator), Paul Zastupnevich (Bearded Foreign Correspondent)

Lost In SpaceNotes: None of the guest stars, except for Jonathan Harris (who is credited in every episode of the series as a “special guest star”), are credited on screen. Don’t let “received wisdom” convince you that Lost In Space is a giant ball of interstellar cheese; the show is actually quite forward-looking in some areas, including John Robinson’s use of a multi-directional jet gun during his spacewalk, very much like the one recently used by U.S. astronaut Ed White during the first NASA spacewalk earlier in 1965.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Out Of The Unknown Season 1

No Place Like Earth

Out Of The UnknownEarth was destroyed 15 years ago, after the solar system had been colonized as far as the moons of Jupiter. Bert, one of the last people to leave Earth for Mars, became more or less stranded on Mars, traveling between Martian settlements and repairing things for the locals. When the call goes out for men to colonize Venus, Bert is torn between his peripatetic life on Mars, which affords him both a living and leisure time, and the urge to rebuild a new world in the image of Earth. But it is only when Bert arrives on Venus that he learns that all of human history will play out in the building of this new world – even the worst parts. And if he starts a revolution, he may not be long for this, or any other, world.

adapted by Stanley Miller
from a story by John Wyndham
directed by Peter Potter
music by Norman Kay

Out Of The UnknownCast: Terence Morgan (Bert), Jessica Dunning (Annika), Hannah Gordon (Zaylo), Joseph O’Conor (Freeman), Alan Tilvern (Blane), George Pastell (Major Khan), Jerry Stovin (Captain of Spaceship), Vernon Joyner (Carter), Bill Treacher (Harris), Geoffrey Palmer (Chief Officer), Roy Stewart (Security Guard)

Out Of The UnknownNotes: The works of writer John Wyndham would inspire many future genre productions, including the BBC’s adaptation of Day Of The Triffids and ITV’s Chocky series. Norman Kay also provided the incidental music for the first Doctor Who story, An Unearthly Child, in 1963.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Batman Season 1

Hi Diddle Riddle

BatmanAn exploding cake delivered to the Republic of Moldavia’s pavilion at the Gotham City World’s Fair signals the return of the Riddler, and the Gotham authorities call Batman into action. The Riddler leaves enough clues for the Dynamic Duo to find him at a prestigious art gallery, and when Batman and Robin arrive, they think they see the Riddler holding the gallery’s proprietor up at gunpoint. But it’s all a setup, and the Riddler sues Batman for assault and slander – but he’s not after the million dollars named in the lawsuit. The Riddler wants to force Batman to reveal his true identity to all. And just in case that part of his plan doesn’t work, the Riddler manages to drug Batman and kidnap Robin…

Download this episode via Amazonwritten by Lorenzo Semple, Jr.
directed by Robert Butler
music by Nelson Riddle / Batman theme by Neal Hefti

BatmanCast: Adam West (Batman), Burt Ward (Robin), Alan Napier (Alfred), Neil Hamilton (Commissioner Gordon), Stafford Repp (Chief O’Hara), Madge Blake (Mrs. Cooper), Jill St. John (Molly), Frank Gorshin (The Riddler), Allen Jaffe (Harry), Michael Fox (Inspector Basch), Damian O’Flynn (Gideon Peale), Ben Astar (The Moldavian Prime Minister), Jack Barry (Newscaster)

Notes: Though ’60s TV Batman tended not to dwell on the details of what happened to Bruce Wayne’s parents (as established in the comics), this episode makes a rare reference to Bruce’s parents being murdered, and states that this is his motivation to fight crime. Robert Butler had, over a year prior to Batman’s premiere on ABC, directed the rejected pilot episode of a series which would return to challenge Batman’s popularity in the fall of 1966.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Original Series Season 01 Star Trek

The Man Trap

Star Trek ClassicStardate 1531.1: Visiting Professor Crater and his wife (who, before marrying Crater, had a close relationship with McCoy), an Enterprise landing party starts to fall prey to an unknown assailant that seems to drain its victims of salt. Kirk is suspicious – and McCoy alarmed – when the Craters refuse, in spite of the threat, to evacuate their planet. The landing party returns to the Enterprise with an extra passenger – a shape shifter who can assume the shapes of Enterprise crewmembers and who has been living with Professor Crater in the guise of his late wife, whom the creature killed. The creature, in search of salt, sees the Enterprise as a promising hunting ground.

Order this episode on DVDDownload this episode via Amazon's Unboxwritten by George Clayton Johnson
directed by Marc Daniels
music by Alexander Courage

Cast: William Shatner (Captain James T. Kirk), Leonard Nimoy (Mr. Spock), Jeanne Bal (Nancy Crater), Alfred Ryder (Professor Robert Crater), DeForest Star TrekKelley (Dr. Leonard McCoy), Grace Lee Whitney (Yeoman Janice Rand), George Takei (Sulu), Nichelle Nichols (Uhura), Bruce Watson (Green), Michael Zaslow (Darnell), Vince Howard (Crewman), Francine Pyne (Nancy III)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Green Hornet

The Silent Gun

The Green HornetAfter informing police that he knows something about his father’s death, a young man is murdered in plain sight before the eyes of 20 people, shot at point-blank range…and yet no one around him heard the shot fired or saw a muzzle flash. This catches the attention of Daily Sentinel publisher Britt Reid, who spends his off hours fighting crime in the guise of the Green Hornet, his faithful butler and martial arts expert Kato at his side. When another murder is committed, the Green Hornet and Kato begin closing in on likely suspects, including rival organized crime bosses. They both want a gun that can kill without being heard or seen…but only one of them has it. And they both have it in for the Green Hornet.

written by Ken Pettus
directed by Leslie H. Martinson
music by Billy May

Green HornetCast: Van Williams (The Green Hornet), Bruce Lee (Kato), Wende Wagner (Lenore Case), Lloyd Gough (Mike Axford), Walter Brooke (District Attorney Frank Scanlon), Lloyd Bochner (Dan Carley), Kelly Jean Peters (Jackie Cameron), Ed McCready (Detective Olson), Al McGranary (Minister), Breland Rice (Policeman), Charles Francisco (Al Trump)

Notes: Not so much a spinoff of Batman as a new show taking place in what may or may not be the same “universe”, The Green Hornet – based on a 1930s radio serial – was made by many of the same personnel as Batman, and was intended to be a bit more gritty and less campy than its superhero stablemate. If The Green Hornet is a spinoff of anything, it’s actually a spinoff of a fellow radio show, The Lone Ranger, as both were created by George W. Trendle, whose original radio scripts specified that Britt Reid is the son of Dan Reid, the Lone Ranger’s nephew.

Green HornetThis TV adaptation was also the western audience’s introduction to rising martial arts star Bruce Lee, who performed his own stunts (and, by many accounts, inadvertently but repeatedly injured stuntmen in fight scenes). By the end of the show’s single season on the air, the popularity of Lee and his character threatened to eclipse the show’s nominal star. Despite that popularity, since ABC scheduled it on Friday nights against the more established series The Wild Wild West, The Green Hornet was cancelled early in 1967.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Time Tunnel

Rendezvous With Yesterday

The Time TunnelSenator Clark arrives to take stock of the top secret Project Tic-Toc, a staggeringly expensive, vast underground complex built around an experimental time travel device known simply as the Time Tunnel. The civilian manager of Project Tic-Toc, Doug Phillips, gives Senator Clark the guided tour, but Clark’s presence unnerves project scientst Dr. Tony Newman, who has poured his entire life into the project. Determined to prove that it does work, Newman appoints himself the first human time traveler and sends himself back into the past. Radiation imparted by the use of the Time Tunnel allows Project Tic-Toc technicians to track him back into the past, where they can see and hear that he has arrived on the ocean liner Titanic…mere hours before its destruction. Doug volunteers to travel back in time to help Tony escape, but the only way off the Titanic for the two men is a further trip via the Time Tunnel to a time and place they can’t predict.

Download this episode via Amazonteleplay by Harold Jack Bloom and Shimon Wincelberg
story by Irwin Allen, Shimon Wincelberg and Harold Jack Bloom
directed by Irwin Allen
music by Johnny Williams

The Time TunnelCast: James Darren (Tony Newman), Robert Colbert (Doug Phillips), Michael Rennie (Capt. Malcolm Smith), Susan Hampshire (Althea Hall), Gary Merrill (Senator Leroy Clark), Lee Meriwether (Dr. Ann McGregor), Wesley Lau (Master Sgt. Jiggs), John Zaremba (Dr. Raymond Swain), Whit Bissell (General Heywood Kirk), Don Knight (Grainger), Gerald Michenaud (Marcel), John Winston (The Guard), Brett Parker (Countdown Technician)

Notes: The latest of Irwin Allen’s 1960s science fiction series, The Time Tunnel premiered on ABC one day after the broadcast premiere of Star Trek on rival network NBC; it ran concurrently with the final seasons of Lost In Space and Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea. Though Allen’s big screen work is often synonymous with epic disaster scenarios, his treatment of the sinking of the Titanic is relatively tame, primarily for budgetary reasons; building the cavernous, The Time Tunnel$130,000 Time Tunnel set (or is it a giant prop?) consumed much of the pilot episode’s budget, forcing Allen to fall back on reusing footage from the 1939 film Titanic (which, handily enough, was also produced by 20th Century Fox). Ironically, co-star James Darren would, decades after his trips through the Time Tunnel ended, return to SF TV in another iteration of the Star Trek franchise, as holosuite Rat Pack crooner Vic Fontaine in the later seasons of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine; Darren also co-starred with William Shatner in T.J. Hooker at a point in his career where his focus was switching from acting to directing.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Classic Season 1 Mission Impossible

Pilot

Mission: ImpossibleWhen the United States government learns that an enemy superpower has given two nuclear warheads to a dictator in a small island country in the Caribbean for imminent use, Daniel Briggs and the Impossible Mission Force (IMF) are called into action. Briggs selects his team – electronics expert Barney Collier, master impersonator Rollin Hand, strongman Willy Armitage, the distractingly beautiful Cinnamon Carter, and Terry Targo, a safecracker with skills and a rap sheet to match – and hatches an elaborate plan: Hand will impersonate the dictator, derailing a public appearance, while Barney ensures that TV and radio coverage of that appearance never happen. Targo is smuggled into the same hotel vault as the warheads, and must assess the plan to steal them with limited oxygen, but his fingers are broken when the team rushes the dictator’s heavily guarded hotel room. Briggs, in the meantime, plans to interrogate the dictator for information on the warheads, which are contained in a safe of their own – and may explode if the safe is not opened properly. With Targo out of commission, it will now be Briggs who is smuggled back into the vault to steal the warheads. The dictator’s aide de camp, growing suspicious that a coup is imminent, begins tightening security, and Briggs must determine how to steal the nukes without also detonating them.

Download this episode via Amazonwritten by Bruce Geller
directed by Bernard L. Kowalski
music by Lalo Schifrin

Mission: ImpossibleCast: Steven Hill (Daniel Briggs), Barbara Bain (Cinnamon Carter), Greg Morris (Barney Collier), Peter Lupus (Willy Armitage), Martin Landau (Rollin Hand / Rio Dominguez), Wally Cox (Terry Targo), Harry Davis (Alisio), Paul Micale (Desk Clerk), Patrick Campbell (Day Vault Clerk), Fredric Villani (Night Vault Clerk), Joe Breen (Loft Manager)

Mission: ImpossibleNotes: When it sold successfully to CBS in 1966 at roughly the time that its Desilu Productions stablemate Star Trek sold to NBC, Mission: Impossible was part of a major turnaround for a studio that was otherwise known at the time for producing The Lucy Show. Peter Graves would not join the series until its second year on the air, and Martin Landau is credited as a guest star, a trend that would continue throughout the first season with a “special appearance by” credit, prior to his promotion to a series regular in season two.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Classic Series Prisoner, The

Arrival

The PrisonerAn agent of the British Foreign Office unexpectedly submits his resignation, setting into motion a chain of events that will forever change his life. A black car trails him to his home, and he is gassed. When he awakens, he is in the Village, a gaily-colored, self-contained community whose residents seem to know nothing beyond its boundaries, and seem to be unwilling to question that oddity. No one seems to know who he is, and no one knows his name. A man identifying himself as Number Two invites him to lunch, and it is a most revealing meal. The reason for the abduction and enforced exile of the newly-christened “Number Six” is revealed – certain unnamed parties are stopping at nothing to prevent his classified knowledge from falling into the wrong hands…or perhaps from reaching the right hands. Number Two makes it clear that no one leaves the Village – and Number Six suspects that the penalty for doing so would be death, especially when Number Two demonstrates a deadly security device called Rover. Despite the danger and the vaguely implied threats, Number Six mounts a valiant escape attempt, but he is captured by the Rover and taken to the Village’s hospital. When he awakens, he is sharing a hospital ward with a fellow agent named Cobb, who also doesn’t remember how he came to be in the Village. Not long afterward, Cobb is reported to have committed suicide, though Number Six immediately suspects something far more sinister. But even most macabre speculation is nowhere near the truth of what happened to his colleague…or what is happening to him now.

written by George Markstein and David Tomblin
directed by Don Chaffey
music by Ron Grainer and Albert Elms

Cast: Patrick McGoohan (Number Six), Virginia Maskell (The Woman), Guy Doleman (Number Two), Paul Eddington (Cobb), George Baker (The New Number Two), Angelo Muscat (The Butler), Barbara Yu Ling (Taxi Driver), Stephanie Randall (Maid), Jack Allen (Doctor), Fabia Drake (Welfare worker), Denis Shaw (Shopkeeper), Oliver MacGreevy (Gardener/Electrician), Frederick Piper (Ex-Admiral), Patsy Smart (Waitress), Christopher Benjamin (Labour Exchange Manager), Peter Swanwick (Supervisor), David Garfield (Hospital attendant), Peter Brace (1st Guardian), Keith Peacock (2nd Guardian)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Phoenix Five

Zone Of Danger

Phoenix FiveAfter a death defying re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere with a deliberately weakened heat shield, Captain Roke and Ensign Adam Hargraves emerge alive and victorious…with Roke not even upset that the heat shield was sabotaged as a test of his flying skill. The Controller on Earth not only welcomes Roker and Hargraves back, but introduces them to their new navigator, Cadet Tina Kulbrick and shows the three around their new ship, the Phoenix Five, Earth’s most advanced spacecraft. Its onboard sick bay and garden impress Captain Roke, while Hargraves and Kulbrick are simply excited to be flying the state-of-the-art ship…and learning to deal with the fourth member of the crew, a walking robotic “computeroid” named Karl.

Phoenix Five’s first assignment is the inhospitable planet Zebula 9, where would-be space dictator Zodian was finally brought to justice. Five previous missions to try to stabilize the planet’s atmosphere crashed. Zodian is imprisoned at Earth control, with a retinue of Martian guards keeping an eye on him. But a seemingly harmless arts & crafts project Zodian is undertaking in his cell has deadly uses, and he breaks out of prison to hijack the Phoenix Five – even if it means killing its new crew – to return to Zebula 9 and reactivate his headquarters, complete with its twin computers, Alpha and Zeta. Cadet Kulbrick shows her resourcefulness by programming Karl by remote to bring the Phoenix Five in for a survivable rough landing on Zebula 9 – rough enough that it becomes useless to Zodian’s plans. But it turns out that Alpha and Zeta aren’t going to help Zodian’s plans either.

Phoenix Fivewritten by John Warwick
directed by David Cahill
music not credited

Cast: Mike Dorsey (Captain Roke), Damien Parker (Ensign Hargraves), Patsy Trench (Cadet Kulbrick), Redmond Phillips (Zodian), Stuart Leslie (Karl), Peter Collingwood (Controller), Martin Bright (Martian Guard), Paul Bright (Martian Guard)

Notes: Filmed in 1968 and 1969 in Australia, but not broadcast until May 1970, Phoenix Five is part of a continuum with two previous shows, The Interpretaris (1966) and Vega 4 (1968), though each iteration of the show is more or less a rehash of Phoenix Fivethe series before it. The series was shot on film, and the Australian special effects industry didn’t exist yet, forcing the makers of Phoenix Five to devise some ingenious solutions to showing futuristic gadgetry. This was the beginning of a ten-episode run for producer Peter Summerton, who died unexpectedly after the tenth episode. As much as certain visual elements – chiefly the uniforms – resemble those of Star Trek, cancelled in the U.S. less than a year earlier, and as much as Phoenix Five was regarded as a children’s show, it was actually scheduled opposite the Australian run of Star Trek and Land Of The Giants on a competing broadcaster. Though produced by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the commercial Seven Network had rights to repeats of the show.

The Controller says that the usefulness of the Phoenix Five’s sickbay will be up to Captain Roke’s “specialized medical knowledge” – in other words, the show’s budget isn’t enough to hire an additional actor to portray a ship’s doctor. The voice artist performing Alpha and Zeta is not credited.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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UFO

Identified

UFOWhen evidence of UFO visits and alien abductions becomes real, a top-secret international agency, SHADO (Supreme Headquarters Alien Defense Organization), is formed, under the direction of Commander Ed Straker. Housed in the underground levels beneath a film studio that hides its activities, SHADO is on the verge of a new detection technology that could turn the tide against future UFO incursions. But the aliens – as yet unidentified – are also aware of this development, and are already taking steps to stop that technology from being deployed. From submarines capable of launching jet fighters, to a moonbase capable of launching space planes, Straker puts all of SHADO’s resources on the highest alert. The prize: SHADO’s first captured alien…and only then does Straker realize that this is but the first volley in a much longer battle for the planet Earth.

Download this episode via Amazonwritten by Gerry Anderson & Sylvia Anderson with Tony Barwick
directed by Gerry Anderson
music by Barry Gray

UFOCast: Edward Bishop (Cmdr. Straker), George Sewell (Col. Freeman), Peter Gordeno (Capt. Carlin), Gabrielle Drake (Lt. Ellis), Grant Taylor (General Henderson), Basil Dignam (Cabinet Minister), Shane Rimmer (Seagull X-Ray Co-Pilot), Antonia Ellis (Joan Harrington), Gary Myers (Lew Waterman), Michael Mundell (Ken Matthews), Harry Baird (Mark Bradley), Keith Alexander (SHADO Radio Operator), Jon Kelley (Skydiver Engineer), Georgina Moon (Skydiver Operative), Dolores Martinez (Nina Barry), Jeremy Wilkin (Skydiver Navigator), Paul Gillard (Kurt Mahler), Wanda Ventham (Virginia Lake), Gary Files (Phil Wades), Matthew Roberton (Dr. Harris), Maxwell Shaw (Dr. Shroeder), Annette Kerr (Nurse)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Timeslip

The Wrong End Of Time – Part 1

TimeslipYoungsters Liz Skinner and Simon Randall, bored with the dull surroundings near the Skinners’ vacation spot, go exploring the surrounding countryside, finding a place near an abandoned naval station where they hear an unusual sound all around them. Venturing onward, they pass through some sort of portal, stepping into the same place, but a different time – World War II, to be precise. Shortly after they see men who they’re certain are speaking German, the two children are captured and taken to be questioned about what business they had near the naval station. When Liz recognizes their interrogator – from having met him in the future, later in his life – it only raises further suspicions. And then they meet a young sailor named Frank Skinner – Liz’s father, long before she was born. The older Frank Skinner claims he had a mental breakdown during the war and can’t remember what his role in it was…but his daughter is about to find out by being there.

written by Bruce Stewart
directed by John Cooper
music not credited

TimeslipCast: Cheryl Burfield (Liz Skinner), Spencer Banks (Simon Randall), Denis Quilley (Commander Traynor), Iris Russell (Jean Skinner), Derek Benfield (Skinner), John Alkin (Frank), Sandor Eles (Gottfried), Paul Humpoletz (Graz), John Garrie (Arthur Griffiths), Royston Tickner (George Bradley), Peter Sproule (Ferris), John Abbott (Phipps), Kenneth Watson (Dr. Fordyce), Virginia Balfour (Alice Fortune), Sally Templer (Sarah), Hilary Minster (German Sailor)

TimeslipNotes: This episode is introduced by ITV’s then science reporter, Peter Fairley, introducing the series’ premise but cautioning that it is purely fiction. Eduard Salim Michael’s classical piece “Rite de la Terre” is used as the series’ theme song, but there is no incidental music during the story itself. Timeslip was originally recorded in full color, but only one episode remains in that format. The original color videotapes of the other episodes were wiped and reused (a common practice in the early 1970s), and we only have the remainder of the show to watch thanks to black & white film recordings created to sell the series overseas to broadcasters who were not yet transmitting in color.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Search

PROBE

SearchHugh Lockwood, code name “Probe One”, barely survives a high-risk operation in a foreign country, but he’s never quite alone – he can always hear the voice of his superior, Director Cameron, via an implant in his ear, while Cameron monitors his missions from the high-tech safety of PROBE Control, headquarters of a high security search operation. Lockwood doesn’t have much time to celebrate his victory, however, before another mission calls, this time a hunt for stolen jewels originally recovered from Nazi Germany. Things go awry quickly: the first lead Lockwood questions goes missing, and her daughter contacts him, certain that her mother has been kidnapped. It appears that Nazis who escaped the Nuremberg Trials may still be at large, trying to regain their fortune and regroup, unless Lockwood can stop them.

written by Leslie Stevens
directed by Russ Mayberry
music by Dominic Frontiere

Wonder WomanCast: Hugh O’Brian (Hugh Lockwood), Elke Sommer (Uli Ullman), Burgess Meredith (Cameron), Lilia Skala (Frieda Ullman), Angel Tompkins (Gloria), Sir John Gielgud (Harold Streeter), Kent Smith (Dr. Laurent), Alfred Ryder (Cheyne), Ben Wright (Kurt van Niestat), Robert Boon (Felix Ernst), Albert Popwell (Dr. Griffin), A. Martinez (Carlos Lobos), Byron Chung (Kuroda), Ginny Golden (Miss Keach), Jules Maitland (Reinhardt Brugge)

Notes: Conceived as an action/spy series with ultra-futuristic (by 1972 standards) gadgetry, PROBE got a series greenlight, but only if it changed its name, as there was already a running PBS series of the same name on the air. PROBE would reappear later in 1972 with additional cast members under the name Search…but then had to be titled Search Control outside of the United States, so as not to conflict with an ongoing UK series called Search. The series was conceived by Leslie Stevens of The Outer Limits fame.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Gatchaman I

Gatchaman vs. Turtle King

Kagaku Ninjatai GatchamanAn enormous mechanical turtle rises from the ocean, attacking a uranium storage facility and stealing the radioactive material stored there. At a meeting of heads of state, Dr. Nambu of the International Science Organization reveals the identity of the culprit: the evil Galactor organization, bent on world domination. But it took the best intelligence agents in the world to discover even that morsel of information, so Nambu has assembled a team of young fighters and scientists to track down Galactor: Science Ninja Team Gatchaman. Each armed with incredible powers and specialized vehicles, these young warriors are all that stand between Galactor and control of the entire Earth. Aboard their powerful aircraft, the GodPhoenix, the team is dispatched to observe the huge machine without interfering, in the hopes that it can be tracked back to Galactor’s base. Team leader Ken intends to stick to Dr. Nambu’s orders, but his hot-headed second-in-command, Joe, is enraged by the huge loss of life that he is forced to helplessly watch during this surveillance mission. Joe intends to destroy the machine – alone if he has to, whether it contravenes his orders or not.

written by Jinzo Toriumi
directed by Hisayuki Toriumi
music by Bob Sakuma

Voice Cast: Katsuji Mori (Ken Washio), Isao Sasaki (Joe Asakura), Kazuko Sugiyama (Jun), Yoku Shioya (Jinpei), Shingo Kanemoto (Ryu), Toru Ohira (Dr. Kozaburo Nambu), Mikio Terashima (Berg Katse), Nobuo Tanaka (Sosai X), Teiji Omiya (Director Anderson)

Note: This synopsis is for the original Kagaku Ninjatai Gatchaman episode, and appears under its original Japanese premiere date. For the corresponding episode of Battle Of The Planets, click here.

GatchamanNot really a proper “origin” story for Gatchaman, this premiere episode raises some interesting questions. It seems that no one but Nambu is aware of Galactor’s existence until he reveals that information. It’s possible that seemingly random terrorist attacks had been carried out prior to these events, but no one had attributed them to a single group. In any case, given that the Science Ninja Team has practically been raised to fight Galactor, it seems likely that Dr. Nambu has been sitting on this information for quite some time. The plot setup of this and other early episodes owes a lot to Godzilla – with just a dash of James Bond in the mad scheme to steal uranium – but the characters and their relationships would take center stage in later episodes (but not at the expense of the mayhem and destruction which Tatsunoko Studios’ animators were so adept at depicting). Near the episode’s end, during the destruction of the Turtle King, an obviously non-animated, live-action scene of colorful smoke is seen for a few seconds.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Pilot Movies Six Million Dollar Man

The Six Million Dollar Man

The Six Million Dollar ManFormer lunar astronaut Steve Austin takes on the sometimes dangerous career of test piloting experimental aircraft after retiring from NASA. During one test flight, the experimental plane he’s flying crash-lands after a series of system failures. Austin loses both legs, his right arm, and his left eye in the resulting explosion. Dr. Rudy Wells, a former NASA doctor who followed Austin out of the space program, knows that bionic prosthetics could save Austin’s life and restore his mobility – and then some – but doesn’t have the budget for such an experimental procedure.

Enter Oliver Spencer, director of the secret Office of Special Operations, who has a six million dollar budget to create the perfect secret agent. He originally envisioned a robot that could pass for human, but the time and money to create such a machine exceeds what the OSO has available. He offers to finances Austin’s recovery and Dr. Well’s highly unusual prosthetic surgery, but at a price: Steve Austin will become a government agent with strength and abilities beyond those of most men. His first assignment is to free a kidnapped hostage being held in a remote area of Saudi Arabia. Austin has the ability to save the hostage, but what he doesn’t have is the knowledge that the entire operation is a trap.

teleplay by Henri Simoun
based on the novel “Cyborg” by Martin Caidin
directed by Richard Irving
music by Gil Melle

The Six Million Dollar ManCast: Lee Majors (Steve Austin), Barbara Anderson (Jean Manners), Martin Balsam (Dr. Rudy Wells), Darren McGavin (Oliver Spencer), Dorothy Green (Mrs. McKay), Anne Whitfield (Young Woman), George Wallace (General), Robert Cornthwaite (Dr. AShburn), Olan Soule (Saltillo), Norma Storch (Woman), John Mark Robinson (Aide), Charles Knox Robinson (Prisoner), Ivor Barry (Geraldton), Maurice Sherbanee (Nudaylah)

The Six Million Dollar ManNotes: In syndicated rerun packages, this movie was split into two one-hour episodes titled The Moon And The Desert Part 1 and Part 2. Unlike the remainder of The Six Million Dollar Man on TV (and unlike the original 1972 novel “Cyborg”), Steve Austin is portrayed here as a civilian astronaut/test pilot with a disdain for the military; the next Six Million Dollar Man TV movie retcons him into an Air Force colonel. This is the only appearance of Darren McGavin as Oliver Spencer; the character was replaced with Oscar Goldman in the next movie, while Dr. Wells would be recast.

LogBook entry by Earl Green