Fusion Patrol

This week’s episode under discussion: Space: Above and Beyond, S01E04 “Mutiny” by Stephen Zito. Directed by Stephen Cragg, which originally aired October 15, 1995. Hosts Kenneth and Eugene look at the Space Above and Beyond this unique episode where, surprise, it’s not the 58th who are the mutineers (mostly) and we question who draws up their stupid navigation plans. Mutiny Synopsis The Fightin’ 58th grapples with emotional challenges and moral quandaries aboard the MacArthur. Cooper, a tank, faces the loss of a comrade and confronts the dehumanization of tanks. Lt. Wang navigates a unique long-distance relationship. Tensions heighten during a revealing dinner discussion, leading to a crisis when the ship faces Chig threats. A mutiny unfolds over sacrificing tanks for human lives. Cooper grapples with moral complexities and ultimately complies, leading to a strategic victory. McQueen acknowledges Cooper’s sacrifice, offering a glimpse into his own sentiments, leaving Cooper to reflect on personal losses.

In this second of two parts, Simon and Eugene continue their chat about #TheGiggle and discuss what type of undershirt Tennant’s Doctor wears, will Donna spill coffee on the Vlinx and get fired from UNIT, and did RTD give us all a massive gift when he turned the Doctor’s history into a Toymaker-created puzzle?Come join the conversation.

In Part One of two episodes on The Giggle, Simon and Eugene consider if David Tennant’s Doctor is now a discarded snakeskin, is RTD actually the Toymaker, and if Steven Moffat can fix all this mess later.

Simon and Eugene ponder the Wild Blue Yonder and wonder what the US Air Force song tells us about nothing on a spaceship, how and when you need to get the supersonic screwdriver out of the way, and Eugene breaks into song.

Don’t think. The newly-minted 14th Doctor arrives in London just in time for an alien invasion and to meet an old friend.It’s the first of the three 60th Anniversary Doctor Who specials, The Star Beast.Episode Synopsis The newly-regenerated Doctor, suffering no obvious post-regenerative effects, arrives in London, where he almost immediately encounters Donna Noble, followed by her daughter Rose, and a crashing alien spacecraft. The Doctor also meets Donna’s husband, Sean, a taxi driver, and heads off to intercept the spacecraft. UNIT has descended on a steelworks where the craft has made a controlled landing. The Doctor chooses to keep out of sight of the UNIT troops, but he’s soon spotted by Shirley Bingham, UNIT’s current Scientific Advisor. The Doctor explains his dilemma.  For some reason, he’s got an old face back, and he’s been plunked down right next to Donna Noble, and there’s an alien invasion.  Something is up.  But if Donna ever remembers him, she will die. He also points out that the ship was damaged by weapons fire, which means there are two alien invaders. Rose has gone to see the escape pod, which landed near her house, and then, upon return to her shed, has found The Meep, a creature so cute you could sell them by the millions if you had a little shop.  (I love a little shop.) The Meep is afraid, for there are monsters pursuing the. UNIT has located the escape pod, and the Doctor hitches a lift to see it and realizes it is right near Donna’s house. (At least, I think that’s why he goes straight to Donna’s house.) At the spaceship, a squad of UNIT soldiers are taken over by the craft and proceed to search for the Meep. In Rose’s shed, Donna discovers the Meep, and a flap ensues.  Sylvia — Donna’s mother pretends like there’s nothing there because she knows if Donna remembers about her journeys through space and time, she’ll die.  The Doctor arrives and starts to try to deal with the Meep. The explain that the Wrath Warriors have hunted Meepkind to extinction, and the is the only one left. The possessed UNIT soldiers arrive at the front door, the Wrath Warriors arrive at the back door, and the shooting begins.  The Doctor gets them out of the house and into Sean’s taxi.  Along the way, the Doctor notices something curious.  They escape, but not before the Wrath Warriors notice them and open fire. In an empty car park, the Doctor stops and holds court, conveniently summoning two Wrath Warriors out of thin air.  The Doctor, as judge, presents the evidence that he has amassed. The Wrath Warriors are firing non-lethal weapons and are not killing the UNIT soldiers but instead stunning them.  (He fails to mention that they blew two walls out of Donna’s house with explosions that could have easily killed someone.) He also posits that the mind-controlled UNIT soldiers are actually under the Meep’s control and trying to rescue the. The Wrath Warriors explain the Meep is the last of the kind, a race of beings mutated into cruel, evil killers by their sun when it went mad.  The Meep responds by killing the Wrath Warriors with a concealed weapon, just as the possessed UNIT soldiers arrive.  The Doctor bluffs his way into getting himself and Donna’s family taken prisoner rather than killed outright. They are taken back to the Meep’s starship, which has been repaired by a team of more possessed workers. The starship uses a Dagger Drive, which will destroy and consume London upon takeoff. The Doctor and the gang are rescued by Shirley, and while Donna’s family tries to escape, the Doctor heads to disable the ship. Donna has been increasingly remembering the Doctor in an oblique way and, almost instinctively, follows him onto the starship.  They get sealed in before the Doctor can send her away. The engine compartment is split in two by the biggest plot contrivance in the history of television, and, with Donna’s consent, the Doctor must perform an undelete on the files in Donna’s head, even knowing that it is a certain death for Donna.  They stop the ship and — bonus — undo all the physical damage to London. Donna dies in the Doctor’s arms.  But the Meep is still at large and plans to destroy the ship.  This is where Rose comes to save the day, for she, too, has the mind of a Time Lord, passed down by Donna, which has split the meta-crisis between them, which also means Donna isn’t actually dead.  The Doctor then causes the Meep’s escape pod to eject, allowing the Wrath Warriors to apprehend the. The split meta-crisis only delays the inevitable, and now Donna and Rose are on a countdown to die.  Fear not; they’re women, and they can just let it go, thus ending the meta-crisis. (“Just let it go?” Clearly, Donna has never met Donna.) Later, Donna goes with the Doctor for one last trip — just to go see Wilf and let him know that everything has been resolved and Donna is safe; however, Donna spills coffee on the new TARDIS console, and they are off on an uncontrolled journey into time and space.

Sometimes events sweep you away a bit faster than you’d like. If you’re new to these “Patroling Beyond Fusion” segments, welcome. This one is a bit unplanned, and different because it contains a podcast attached. Things have changed, and hopefully, you won’t notice at all! Our podcast is hosted on two different services.  A “local*” hosting company that handles the fusionpatron.com frontend WordPress site, and Blubrry, which handles serving the podcasts into the feeds. But, and this is the important bit, they work in tandem with one another on scheduling and content. We’ve been having an increasing number of issues with the local host of the WordPress site and it all came to a head yesterday (November 30th) and I made the hasty, but also necessary, decision to migrate to a new host. Things were looking excellent, with a high probably of success, right up to the moment I switched the domain to point away from the old host and towards the new host.  In 25 years of dealing with domains and DNS and whatnot, this was the slowest, weirdest DNS change I’ve ever witnessed.  Oh, sure, they tell you it might take up to 72 hours, but I’ve never seen one take more than 2 hours — and that was really unusual. This one took about 22 hours (and maybe still counting,) and I’ve bitten my nails down to the quick.  I went to bed last night thinking today would be a very bad day going into the release of this week’s episode about Doctor Who: The Star Beast. When I woke up it seemed to me mostly working, but will it release a podcast? I have two choices: I wait until the Star Beast goes live tonight or release a test podcast. Welcome to that test podcast. But, I thought, why completely waste everyone’s time unless I can convey additional information? For those of you who listen to the podcast and never check out the website, I’ve started a series of weekly(ish) behind-the-scenes blog posts called “Patrolling Beyond Fusion,” where I try to keep you up-to-date on what’s happening and perhaps even give you the opportunity to give feedback before episodes are recorded. Once I get the hosting settled to my satisfaction, there’ll be more announcements, so for now, keep your eye out right here on the website for more details. *They were once local to me but have now been bought out by someone else.

David Tennant is back as the Doctor, and Simon and Eugene look at his first outing in this special episode of Fusion Patrol. Computer-generated Transcript. (Errors may exist) [00:00:10.01] Eugene: You're listening to Fusion Patrol, a Lister-supported podcast. Each week, we take a single episode of a science fiction TV series, movie, or audio, and overanalyze it to within an inch of its life. Welcome to the discussion. Hello and welcome to a special episode of Fusion Control, I'm Eugene. [00:00:39.15] Simon: And I'm Simon. [00:00:40.63] Eugene: And we are looking at the 2023 Children in Need Doctor Who special with David Tennant and David Tennant. I'm not even gonna give you a recap. It's on YouTube. Go look for it. The Doctor lands on Scarra right after being regenerated, meets the Mark III travel machine, and you can... So, what did you think of this interesting little special, Simon, that they put out? [00:01:09.05] Simon: I mean, I wasn't sure how seriously to take it, and I guess that you could accept this as part of Doctor Who continuity. It was quite fun. I mean, it was a comedy. Yes, and yet it was not. was also quite sort of, it was, you know, you had Davros on Skaro and all the rest of it. [00:01:33.71] Eugene: Nider's voice in the background there is portrayed by Nick Briggs. [00:01:39.15] Simon: Oh, I missed that. I saw a comment about... Right, okay, yeah, that makes sense. I need you to come and check something. [00:01:48.36] Eugene: Yes, it's not handcuffed. Peace. [00:01:50.62] Simon: Scott Hancock said that he thought that Briggs sounded like... Oh God, I've forgotten the name of the actor who played Nyder, but yeah. [00:01:57.32] Eugene: Yeah, I'll think that's what he was going for. [00:02:01.04] Simon: Who was the actor who played Davros? [00:02:05.67] Eugene: It's Davros. It is... Julian Bleach? Something like that? [00:02:11.14] Simon: Right, who played Davros in 2009. [00:02:16.24] Eugene: Yeah, all of the all of the new series. Yeah, uh, Capone era as well. [00:02:21.42] Simon: Yeah, fair enough. [00:02:22.49] Eugene: I'll fight with him, and that's why he sounded very much like him. [00:02:25.05] Simon: What I did, what I, yeah, except I'm not used to listening to him because when I'm listening to Davros, it's, it's... Oh, terribly. Roy because it's big finish. So even when I'm watching Genesis of the Dalek and it's Daleks and it's Michael Wisher I'm thinking it doesn't sound quite right because I've got so used to Terry Roy doing it. The thing that didn't seem to... me quite right was that they were at this point in the in the genesis of the dialect. Ass. Davros is not in his chair. [00:02:56.54] Eugene: Yes, yeah, yeah, um, yeah. That is RTD. It's 2023. We do not equate people in wheelchairs with evil, and if I ever have Davros, he will not-- the production crew all felt that Davros should no longer be in a wheelchair. [00:03:18.14] Simon: Okay, that's interesting. [00:03:19.87] Eugene: Though I applaud his, again, progressive representation and, you know, it is a negative stereotype. You put him in the wheelchair and you make him the villain. But it's not just that. I mean, the reason the Daleks look like the Daleks is because Davros is creating them image, in a way, and so why do they look like they do now? I don't know if that means he's actually ever going to have Davros in his episodes. Well, yes. If I ever do. [00:03:56.43] Simon: Guess he's just had it. never I mean I don't know ever again be. [00:04:01.87] Eugene: In a wheelchair. [00:04:02.81] Simon: I don't know how I feel about it. I've not read anything by any kind of wheelchair user or anyone in the disability rights activists saying that Davros was a problematic character from that point of view. I have seen stuff about the way in which Davros was dealt with in the Peter Capaldi episode. I forget its title. Something to do with a witch? [00:04:29.73] Eugene: Yeah. The magicians are present. [00:04:32.00] Simon: Well, the image-- practitioner's apprentice, whatever, anyway, whatever it was called, because there are scenes where he is thrown out or pulled out of his chair and the doctor sort of almost mocks him and that looks very problematic now, and I can't remember what we said about it at the time, but it surprises me that that wasn't a bigger issue then. Whereas simply the fact that someone who is in a wheelchair and who is a genius might also be evil. I mean I get it, it's like there are not that many people on TV who you see in a wheelchair. Yep. not a positive thing if a very high proportion of them are evil geniuses rather than either geniuses or just not evil. But yeah, I'm okay. I need to think about it. But I knew City-wise. [00:05:26.71] Eugene: It's a bit of a mess. I think if my memory serves correct, this is a Mark 3 travel machine, and I believe when Tom Baker gets here, they introduces the Mark 4 travel. I'll cut it. So this is earlier, um, I, it's a comedy. I was definitely amused by the whole thing where the doctor keeps saying things like giving them their name, saying Genesis of the Daleks. I exterminate you. Yeah, yeah, it was funny. So I enjoyed it and I hope it made a lot of money for children in need, which is its goal, and I think, you know, when we talk about whether or not this is canon, the curse of the fatal death is definitely not. [00:06:14.44] Simon: That was a new release though, wasn't it? I think the rule is children in need is bad and comic relief is not. [00:06:21.57] Eugene: Oh, was that a different one? I thought that was Children in Need. I don't know. Yeah. Well, there was Peter Davis and that was probably Children in Need. [00:06:30.17] Simon: I was chosen in India. Yep, time crash. Interesting. Oh that did have a title. [00:06:36.37] Eugene: Yeah, I did. because credits I've yet I don't remember this. I've heard somebody call this by a name. Something of the Daleks. Ha ha ha. Origin of the Daleks. I don't remember what it was, but I don't know if that was official and I don't recall seeing it on the screen. So, um, because I think they wanted to hold it off and not, uh, you know, not give it away. >> Before the doctor. arrives. You know, it's like, "Oh, that's, uh, oh, dear. That's a Dalek. Yeah. Um, anyway. I just, it, wanted to see if you were amused by it and what your thoughts were, but apparently you had not picked up on the, uh, because I, I did see an awful lot of people cheering the, the non-ableist viewpoint that RTD has put forward. on this and I thought I didn't get that when I watched it I just thought this was earlier before he had been damaged but but frankly even that doesn't make sense because you know we know so much about Davros from say Big Finish and Well... It's not new that he's in that wheelchair. [00:07:37.80] Simon: That's what I was trying to remember. Is there anything in Genesis that suggests a kind of timeline in terms of where the development of the Daleks was at the point where he was injured? Because a lot of my kind of backstory of Davros comes from the big Finnish audio play Davros and the extremely brilliant spin-off, Idav. which goes into all of this in quite a lot of detail, and I would say on the whole is it contains fewer laughs than the children in the She's fresh. but it will but it's [00:08:15.01] Eugene: I think Finish now have to change Davros from this point forward. [00:08:17.58] Simon: Good question. - Javros walks into the room. Well, this is just a quick thing 'cause we didn't want to let that bit of celebration go by without mentioning it. [00:08:26.39] Eugene: But do you have anything else on it? [00:08:28.91] Simon: No, I think we've talked for longer than you, probably twice as long as the episode went on now. [00:08:34.92] Eugene: I think so. Anyway, let's... we've done that before. Maybe... Maybe even about... Yes. Maybe even about the Starbeast. [00:08:43.20] Simon: That is true. [00:08:45.16] Eugene: Thank you. Simon, thank you for joining me. [00:08:47.60] Simon: It's a pleasure, as always. [00:08:49.43] Eugene: Listeners, I hope you'll join us all again next time on Fusion Patrol. You've been listening to Fusion Patrol, thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed this episode, we hope you'll consider supporting us at BuyMeACoffee.com/FusionPatrol or Patreon.com/FusionPatrol. For our monthly Patreon subscribers, we're currently running a special series on Babylon Come join the conversation in the comments section of this episode at FusionPatrol.com. You'll also find there over a decade of past episodes. You can find some of our other works at SoundCloud.com/FusionPatrol. Our music is "Fight the Future" by Amberwolf. This has been a Lone Locust production.

While the Fightin’ 58th battle over a worthless rock in space, we wonder if the cockroaches were real, is it ironic or operatic that Tank is afraid of tanks, and if this episode is a senseless wreck or a key piece of groundwork for an epic 4th Season episode that never was. Kenneth and Eugene discuss The Enemy. *Note: In this episode, the Commodore has been inadvertently promoted to Admiral. The episode synopsis has been edited to reflect Commodore Ross’ correct rank. Episode Synopsis Colonel McQueen and Commodore Ross question members of the Fightin’ 58th to determine if Damp Mouse should be court-martialed for failure to follow orders in a combat situation. Through flashbacks, the story of a fateful mission to the planet called TaTARus unfolds. TaTArus is an inhospitable failed star of a planet with a lethal atmosphere and burning temperatures in excess of 60º.  The team discusses rumors about the planet – that it is a worthless planet with no strategic value, that 1,000s of lives have been lost fighting over the planet, that there are massive numbers of desertions and deaths by friendly fire – yet for some reason, the brass continues to pursue securing the planet. Landing on the planet, they soon come under nearby fire, and Marines from outside clamber desperately to get into the shuttle.  The weapons fire isn’t coming from the Chigs; it’s a Marine.  Tank wants to shoot him, but the others decide to try to capture him.  As they exit the vehicle, they find many more Marine bodies killed by the gunman. The crazed Marine runs out of bullets, and they try to talk him into putting his weapon down.  He cannot be reasoned with, and he says they should be afraid of him as he is of himself.  He steps on a Chig landmine and dies. As the team returns to the shuttle, a series of flashing lights, penetrating all the way to their skeletons, hits them, giving them radiation burns and headaches.  Damp Mouse is the first to manifest signs of madness, as she freaks out at the sight of her own blood.  As the others try to comfort her, Wang freaks out when he sees a cockroach; he chases and kills it with a knife.  Unfortunately, he also kills the transmitter at the same time.  Now they cannot call the Colonel for help. Damp Mouse has an idea.  Out amongst the corpses is a portable communications pack.  They could remove a part from it, and she could repair the radio.  It should be her job to go get the part, but she refuses a direct order because she will not put on her blood-stained suit. The others go out, but all are suffering from various forms of psychoses.  Killer is afraid of the dark, Tank is claustrophobic, and West keeps hearing a woman calling for help.  As the others get the part, West wanders off following the voice.  He comes to a Marine bunker and meets a Sgt. that tells him, in incoherent terms, that the light is their worst nightmares.  He disappears before the others arrive. Inside the bunker, all the Marines have murdered each other. West and Wang put the pieces together. The light is a Chig weapon that disrupts the amygdala – the part of the brain to regulates fear.  The fear ultimately causes everyone to turn on one another. They return to the ship, but along the way, Killer steps on a landmine.  Wang attempts to save her by using a mirror to deflect the lethal beam from the mine when he discovers a cockroach in his helmet and freaks out.  West steps in and saves Killer, but they are zapped again by the light, amplifying their fears. Inside the shuttle, Damp Mouse accidentally spilled some blood all over the floor, and she cannot move from her current location because she would have to cross the blood on the floor.  She will not let the others into the shuttle, and they have to hot-wire the airlock door.  Now that they have the part, she will not go to the radio. The team’s fears have all gotten them into a Mexican standoff – they will kill the others rather than face their fears.  Ultimately, Killer places the part and calls for help. McQueen received the distress call and landed 75 meters away, on the other side of the minefield.  Mustering their courage and a Marine Corps song, they make their way across the minefield to the waiting shuttle.  West wanders off again when he hears the woman’s voice, but Killer brings him back. After hearing the testimony, the Commodore and McQueen decide not to press charges. The following transcript is machine-generated and not 100% accurate. It has not been manually corrected. [00:00:01.17] Podcast: MUSIC PLAYING [00:00:12.07] Eugene: You're listening to Fusion Patrol, a listener-supported podcast. Each week we take a single episode of Science Fiction TV series movies, movie or audio and over-analyze it to within an inch of its life. Welcome to the discussion. [00:00:45.54] Eugene: Hello and welcome to another episode of Fusion Patrol. I'm Eugene. [00:00:48.33] Kenneth: And I am Kenneth. [00:00:49.58] Eugene: And tonight we're looking at "Space Above and Beyond" episode 7, "The Enemy." And before we start with this synopsis, I just want to say that when I saw the name "The Enemy" in the queue for the next episode, my brain instantly went to, "We have met the enemy, and he is us." [00:01:04.83] Kenneth: That's your right, and, uh... [00:01:06.17] Eugene: Maybe. We'll talk about that quote later, but I mean, that one, that would definitely just instantly popped into my head and I go, I, I don't see why I've made that connection. Maybe it's the fact that they use the word "the" and I don't know, but it just, it just popped. Anyway, episode synopsis. Colonel McQueen and Admiral Ross question members of the fighting 58th. to determine if Dampmouse should be court-martialed for failure to follow orders in a combat situation. Through flashbacks, the story of a fateful mission to the planet called Tataras unfolds. Tataras is an inhospitable failed star of a planet with a lethal atmosphere and burning temperatures in excess of 60 degrees Celsius. The team discusses rumors about the planet, that it is a worthless planet with no strategic value, that thousands of lives have been lost fighting over it, that there are massive numbers of desertions and deaths by friendly fire. Yet, for some reason, the Brass continue to pursue securing the planet. Landing on the planet, they soon come under nearby fire and marines from outside. clamber desperately to get into the shuttle. The weapon spire isn't coming from the Chigs. It's a Marine. Tank wants to shoot him, but the others decide to try to capture him. As they exit the vehicle, they find many more Marine bodies killed by the gunman. The crazed Marine runs out of bullets, and they try to talk him into putting his weapon down. He cannot be reasoned with. with, and he says that they should be afraid of him as he is of himself. He steps on a chigging landmine and dies. As the team return to the shuttle, a series of flashing lights penetrating all the way to their skeletons hits them, giving them radiation burns and headaches. Damp Mouse is the first to manifest signs of madness as she freaks out at the sight As the others try to comfort her, Wang freaks out when he sees a cockroach. He chases it, and he kills it with a knife. Fortunately, he also kills the transmitter at the same time. Now, they cannot call the colonel for help. Dantmouse has an idea. Out amongst the corpses is a portable communications pack. They could remove a part from it, and she could repair it. the radio. It should be her job to go out and get the part, but she refuses a direct order because she will not put on her bloodstained suit. The others go out, but all are suffering from various forms of psychoses. Killer is afraid of the dark, Tank is claustrophobic, and West keeps hearing a woman calling for help. As the others get the part, West wanders off following the voice. He comes to a marine bunker and he meets a sergeant that tells him, in incoherent terms, that the light is their worst nightmares. He disappears before the others arrive. Inside the bunker all the Marines have murdered each other. West and Wang put the pieces together. The light is a Chig weapon that disrupts the amygdala, part of the brain to regulate fear. ultimately causes everyone to turn on one another. They return to the ship, but along the way, Killer steps on a landmine. Wong attempts to save her by using a mirror to deflect the lethal beam from the mine, when he discovers a cockroach in his helmet, and he freaks out. Wes steps in and saves Killer, but they are zapped again by the light, amplifying their fears. Inside the shuttle, Dantmouth accidentally spilled blood all over the floor and she cannot move from her current location because she would have to cross the blood. She will not let the others into the shuttle and they have to hotwire the airlock door. Now that they have the part, she will not go to the radio. The team's fears have all gotten them into a Mexican standoff. They will kill each other rather than face their fears. Finally, Killer places the part and calls for help. McQueen receives a distress call and lands 75 meters away, on the other side of the minefield. Mustering their courage, and a Marine Corps song, they make their way across the minefield to the waiting shuttle. West wanders off again when he hears the woman's voice, but Killer brings him back. After hearing the testimony, the Admiral and McQueen decide not to press charges." Okay, well, you know, at least, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say, at least this was sort of a science fiction story, whereas last week's was more of just a political intrigue thing. So here, at least, we're trying to explore the idea of alternate forms of... weaponry in science fiction. [00:05:36.68] Kenneth: Yes. Yeah, good point. But I still, um, remembered the pit of, um, to use a term I once heard, "pseudo-profound bulls**t" at the end. (sobbing) when it was Vanson, Killer as you call her, who said that the enemy was on the planet, but the enemy was not the Chigs. [00:06:01.44] Eugene: I thought that was, um, I thought that was tank. Was it set up? it wasn't that it wasn't the Chigs. I think Vanson started it, and I think [00:06:10.32] Kenneth: Yeah, okay. [00:06:20.39] Eugene: Like that, yes [00:06:21.60] Kenneth: I found that far [00:06:22.51] Eugene: Too profound for him. [00:06:24.08] Kenneth: Yes, I found it to be rather evidence of an effort to make something profound out of a not-so-profound episode. [00:06:33.23] Eugene: I'm not going to disagree. Like I said, that quote hit me before this episode starts, and that means this is a very unsubtle attempt. [00:06:42.54] Kenneth: It must have been [00:06:44.30] Eugene: Really unsubtle, because it just... there it was. Let me... let me... I had to look this up, because I wanted to... I wanted to get it right, because I've heard that quote forever. "We have met the enemy, and he is us." [00:06:56.02] Kenneth: Isn't it pogo? [00:06:56.81] Eugene: Pogo, yes, that's right. It's Walt Kelly's Pogo. It first appeared April 22, 1970 for the first Earth Day. It is an indictment of who it is that is destroying the Earth. It is us. are the problem. Okay, fair enough. It's a play on Admiral Perry's 1813 commentary after the defeat of the British at Lake Erie We have met the enemy and they are ours. Now. I always actually thought that quote was From Admiral Perry the the they are us or he is us [00:07:29.21] Kenneth: I didn't mean I've just never bothered to think about it. The quote is so [00:07:33.83] Eugene: Famous, but it is the Pogo version that is far more famous, I think, because that's what I've heard. I think it, I think it plays into the zeitgeist a little bit better, right? There, there is... That's sort of, yeah. Yeah, we suck. We're humans, we suck. We've met the enemy and it's us. Yeah, and people just have taken that to heart. Unfortunately, the writers took that to heart. [00:08:00.30] Kenneth: >> The writers -- That's the writer were writers were Glenn Morgan and James Wong. [00:08:07.23] Eugene: Really, bye. Filling. They cranked out one full of plot holes like nobody's business. [00:08:12.86] Kenneth: Yes, the only positive statement I have for regarding this episode regards the direction. [00:08:23.55] Eugene: Okay, we're done. [00:08:24.42] Kenneth: I thought the directing was capable, and it was well done, and that part held my attention, but the story did not. [00:08:37.47] Eugene: Well, I will have to say that I think that some of the direction with regards to how landmines are placed did not hold up very well. Because... Because they're not hidden. (laughing) But they're, they're in play. Clean site. [00:08:53.12] Kenneth: But in their head the dark [00:08:54.38] Eugene: But unfortunately, they can't show us the dark. Like they would on the other side of the world. The X-Files, it's... Yeah. us to see it so yeah it kind of and and and you know using x-files as an example you know they were very good and it's a contemporary show and obviously there's some lineage here between the two they were very good at using very dark sets and very strong lights you know they had those xenon lights i think it was that and Scully would use that were ridiculously bright but that allowed them to you know drop that very dark moody which is good for a show about scary things but they should have used that technique here as well and I had been more convinced about killer having fear of the dark if it were a lot more dark or even the scene where they're in the shuttle when the lights are red Then she's like, "Oh, you gotta turn on the lights!" You didn't. They're wrong, they're just red lights. Yeah, I'd really like that. It's not dark in there. [00:09:54.04] Kenneth: BLANK Some The director was Michael Ketelman. comment. Watch him, Rob. He's been quite busy over the years in various genres of television. I did look up some genre credits. He directed Shadows, season one, episode six of The X-Files. [00:10:22.34] Eugene: Shadows that unfortunately x-files names are not always The rest is up to you. Uh, my brain says that's the werewolf one, but I don't think it is. [00:10:29.91] Kenneth: I can check, and "shadows" is... okay, the description here is "Mulder and Scully investigate the deaths of two men believed to have been killed by a powerful psychokinetic force." [00:10:44.00] Eugene: Okay, since that narrows it down to a few. [00:10:47.88] Kenneth: And let me see, yeah, but okay, he directed that one. to that one, and here we go. He directed the last episode of Steven Spielberg's "Taken" in 2008. [00:11:02.19] Kenneth: - Okay. [00:11:03.03] Kenneth: Okay And that was actually a fairly, it was a much better episode than the one we are discussing. [00:11:09.08] Eugene: Laughter Yeah, while we're on the direction, I mean, I think he did a... Okay, there are some issues that are out of his hands, so I'm not gonna... We're huge in time. OUT [00:11:24.27] Kenneth: Where the wither away wearing the same clothes and they're all [00:11:27.82] Eugene: That their heads and helmets were in the right place. Let's get started. [00:11:30.56] Kenneth: Oh, the other helmet, see, yeah, yeah, yeah, and, uh... So you can't always tell who's doing what. [00:11:35.78] Eugene: So for example, and I only watched this once. There were, I believe... three guys trying to get into the shuttle. Yes? [00:11:43.78] Kenneth: Yes, yes they were. [00:11:45.45] Eugene: One of them was killed, and I thought the other two got on board the shuttle. Whatever happened to them? [00:11:49.47] Kenneth: I do remember that, and I remember that that is unresolved. [00:11:54.59] Eugene: OK, good, because we never see them again. They're not in the team where they I don't think they're in the team when they go to the McQueen's shuttle at the end. No, I don't think so. Like they had any contribution to this. story when they were Mexican standoffing in the shuttle. It's just like, um, well, what happened? And maybe they were killed and I just somehow thought that they were on the shuttle and it was actually our guys because they were all wearing spacesuits and so [00:12:23.67] Kenneth: And of course the helmet that has the name, the last name across the top. [00:12:29.82] Eugene: Pretty prominent. [00:12:31.02] Kenneth: Yes, and sometimes reading that name was difficult. [00:12:35.05] Eugene: Yeah. Or, you know, if they're just not facing the camera. Right. So, yeah, it's just, so that's not their problem. Of course, they're in a dark, murky space, and they're all walking through a very classic Star Trek-style, styrofoam rocks. Yeah... Yeah, he's like, okay. Well, that's a group of people. Is that do we do we know who that is? I don't know I mean like I can't tell so, you know that that would work against him There were you know, there were times where I'm just all right I I'm not sure what's going on here because I don't think they can first off I don't think they know what's going on here, but second off And then they tell it through flashback, which is a terrible way already is already a strike against the story I know there are people who like flashback stories, but you know I think you have to be able to you have to do something with it and They didn't do anything with it In this case... different perspectives. [00:13:35.09] Kenneth: Well, they did something with it, but they didn't do what you're talking about here. They filled out the airtime of the episode with it. [00:13:43.25] Eugene: Okay, yes, they filled out some runtime with it. [00:13:46.87] Kenneth: That was it. [00:13:47.99] Eugene: I don't disagree there. [00:13:50.22] Kenneth: INTERPOSING VOICES [00:13:52.26] Eugene: END PLAYBACK [00:13:52.76] Kenneth: Watched this episode and took my notes, I went to a website that has reviews of all these episodes to see if I could learn something the episode did not tell me. [00:14:04.44] Eugene: (laughing) [00:14:06.68] Kenneth: And the movie blog is the name of the website, and I have the episode review up on my other computer screen here, and this is the opening line of the review. On paper, the enemy seems like a good idea. [00:14:24.96] Eugene: Laughter Okay, well I think I might argue with him in the first place, but okay. [00:14:31.35] Kenneth: And then it goes on. They might be wrong. on to say that the problem with the enemy is that it is just a clumsy mess of a script and one that stumbles over what should be a fairly robust setup. [00:14:46.01] Eugene: It could have been. It could have been good. I'm not going to argue there. There is potential for this to be a good story. Like I said, they've got a solid science fiction idea. I don't think that the fact that you are terrified of cockroaches leads inevitably to you killing all of your teammates, right? That, that. that doesn't work very well at all, and there's some enormous contrivances in it. Like, for example, let's talk about their phobias here real quickly. Yes. has a phobia of blood. any manifestation of that previously in the series, and there is a scene where a packet of blood falls out of the pouch on the descent, out of the medical kit, and she kind of gingerly pushes it back in there and slams the chart, but you couldn't, you couldn't figure out from that that she's supposed to have, she's supposed to be terrified of blood, and you'd think... being a Marine, maybe being terrified of blood might be a crippling problem. [00:15:52.35] Kenneth: Especially during wartime. [00:15:54.24] Eugene: Yeah, especially during wartime, but then let's follow that up with the incredible contrivance of managing to break the blood and spill it all over the floor in such a place where she can't frost it, which of course she ultimately does. So we've had no backstory on that. We go, "Tank is apparently concerned with enclosed spaces." Okay, there's a certain irony about it. guy who was raised in a tank being afraid of being in a tank but okay We've not seen that happen. before and yet prior to them zapping him with a light twice twice we saw him looking at the helmet before he put it on I know I'm just like Why? What what's and this is I don't think the director did a good job. It's like why is he doing that? What what is about the helmet? Does he see something? Is it I don't get it I mean, I I just didn't get it until later in the thing and suddenly he's got claustrophobia. It's like well that we didn't work Killer, okay. She has a back story. She's afraid of the dark because the night the AIs came and killed her parents, it was dark. Counterpoint to that, we have seen that scene, and guess what it wasn't? It wasn't dark! So, oop. [00:17:18.90] Kenneth: Oops, a needle. [00:17:20.35] Eugene: Now, Walner Wang is afraid of cockroaches. Now, those are, I believe, Madagascar cockroaches, [00:17:25.67] Kenneth: 'cause those are big and nasty looking. [00:17:27.74] Eugene: I can totally relate to him. I can totally relate to him. I'm sure I've probably told my "Land of the Bally [00:17:34.77] Kenneth: of the Dinosaurs" cockroach story. [00:17:36.58] Eugene: We had good-sized cockroaches in Tucson when I was a kid. One day, I was watching an episode of "Valley of the Dinosaurs." I don't know, six, seven, eight, something like that, and it was a story where the giant two-inch soldier ants were swarming the valley, you know, redoing that. Yeah. me at the moment and I'm sitting in the chair and I find that disturbing and I'm sitting in an armchair with my feet up holding my knees and I'm watching this thing and I'm thinking I get this creepy feeling that something is watching me from behind and I turn and look at the the headrest but you know the an armchair Armchair kind of comes around you Yes, up near There's a cockroach sitting there. staring at me, and I mean, I was like, through to the other side of the house screaming so fast, it's not funny, and on top of that, occasionally they'd be in my shoes. Yeah. I distinctly remember one day I was at school, probably in my third period in high school, and I kept thinking that my sock was bunched up under my foot and I I finally took the shoe off. to straighten, and a cockroach, still alive, leaps out and runs across the thing. I'm psyched. I still, to this day, tap my shoes before I put them on, and this is not because we have scorpions here either. This is because there are cockroaches in Arizona. There are cockroaches everywhere, and we have the big ones, big sewer roaches there, but they're not as big as those Madagascar ones, but they're close. So if I had a phobia like him, I would tap my helmet every single day. Take your time, boys. I ever put anything on like that and I can't buy that that was in his helmet because I know from personal experience that I would never put on a space helmet without especially when I'd already seen cockroaches earlier in the day and was freaking out about him there was no way that I wouldn't I used to sleep with my blanket over my head and I would tuck the blanket underneath my Right. [00:19:33.68] Kenneth: Because I was afraid the cockroaches would crawl. [00:19:35.74] Eugene: Or three in the night. I mean, I'm sure whoever wrote this has had that experience because his description was Exactly on the money. [00:19:47.40] Kenneth: OUT Oh, have we ever seen? Scenic cockroach on the space Yeah, yeah. [00:19:51.89] Eugene: Now, of course. [00:19:53.58] Kenneth: Actually, I wondered if he was imagining some of those. [00:19:59.35] Eugene: Well, we did see the other step on them. [00:20:00.93] Kenneth: Yeah, well, some of them. Maybe not all, but you know. [00:20:04.13] Eugene: I agree that that was the thought that crossed my mind. Is she imagining the cockroaches? I don't think he was. Well, when he pulled out the knife, there was a cockroach on it. [00:20:14.61] Kenneth: Yes. [00:20:15.49] Eugene: uh somebody else stepped on one and did it where he couldn't see i don't know about the one in his helmet but uh i i don't see how they could have stopped me from tearing that helmet off off in that deadly the atmosphere, you know, "Where the heck is he from? I'm not going back to that place. I'm not going... where is he from? Tucson?" I thought tank was the one [00:20:36.93] Kenneth: One from Detroit. Well, I don't know. I that didn't get anything about the geography, but I just thought maybe he grew up in some tenement. Maybe? [00:20:45.86] Eugene: I also I honestly don't know. I mean, it just was kind of, "I'm not going back to that place." I thought maybe he was in a prisoner of war camp, the way he was describing it, and then West, he has his fear of never finding his girlfriend. Is that really an amygdala-type fear? I thought we knew about it already. That's more of a, that's a more, that's not a fear. Really? I mean that's not, "Oh my god, I'm scared to death that I'll never find my girlfriend." You're not scared by that. You may be upset by it. You may be... Obsessed. Obsessed, but you do not... Yeah. Don't go your pants in terror like all the other people were doing, right? It's the wrong fear, and it just doesn't manifest well in this story. It's like, find something that would actually make him run away instead of making him run towards. It just didn't, and that's it. I've got more stories. [00:21:44.98] Kenneth: I noticed it too. I did notice a couple of other items here that made me [00:21:49.90] Eugene: Write arch an eyebrow and write a note [00:21:52.89] Kenneth: (laughing) Excellent. About 10 minutes in, Wang, or Wong, uses light year as a unit, a measure. Oh, yeah, tired [00:22:03.73] Eugene: Yeah Yeah, I saw, I got that. Okay, and... Our war is uh... [00:22:10.44] Kenneth: Yeah, the parsec thing. I didn't know if that was Okay in Star Wars. I could take it as being clever and maybe humor In this case, this is this dot one for humor. [00:22:23.75] Eugene: Nope, this is just a mistake. [00:22:25.42] Kenneth: Yes, and then, I'll just write, I'll read my note verbatim here. If disobeying a direct order were a serious offense in this series. (laughing) These theories would have concluded in the pilot episode. [00:22:40.61] Eugene: Yep, guess it would have. Yes, it would have. But we're at war. Yeah. Yeah. One of many. One of many. [00:22:50.40] Kenneth: I mean the McQueen is highly variable as to how much he cares about people disobeying orders. [00:23:08.15] Eugene: Very much so. Very much so. Depends on whether it works out for the best or not. I guess if it doesn't work out then you, uh, then you... Maybe that's what it is. This didn't work out well, right? Lots of dead marines, uh, the team, uh, I mean, it's trying to kill each other, and, uh, so now you disobeyed orders. We're going to take it seriously. But had they rescued, uh, you know, a thousand people, then they would have just ignored it. Which, you know, is probably not really the way it should go, but there you go. Got any more notes? There? [00:23:34.89] Kenneth: That is it on my notes and this one was, there was just, there wasn't a lot going on in this one. [00:23:41.57] Eugene: All right, well I'll hit my, uh... I'll get my mostly picky things. Dampmouse's suit was damaged. Did she not cut her suit? And that was part of Good job. [00:23:53.13] Kenneth: Would not go out onto the planet. yes [00:23:56.38] Eugene: But in the end, she had to put her suit on and go out onto the planet. [00:23:59.60] Kenneth: to get to the [00:24:00.79] Eugene: And it wasn't a damaged suit. So, okay. Killer had a light. She kept turning it on because she was like, "And tank is like..." [00:24:07.98] Kenneth: Brother, I don't need light! [00:24:09.98] Eugene: And he finally smashed the light? [00:24:12.30] Kenneth: People will see us trying to do this. in the dark and then [00:24:14.39] Eugene: Yeah. They had another light a few minutes later. [00:24:18.42] Kenneth: Mm-hmm. [00:24:19.75] Eugene: Wong was carrying it, or Wang was carrying it. I think they call him Wang. That bugs me because it should be Wong, and don't tell me about the computer company because they just got it wrong. But yeah, so that was weird. But again, it comes back to this story doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Like, where did those two guys go? So, we're split. Well, why did they have to go out and get the chip from the communications pack? Why couldn't they just, I don't know, get the communications pack? Bring it in. bring it in and then do the work instead of doing it in your spacesuit out in the thing. That didn't make any sense. When they got to this court-martial thing or this preliminary hearing to see if they should have a court-martial and they kept asking these questions, I kept saying to myself, "Why aren't they hooked up to a truth verifier?" [00:25:07.51] Kenneth: Those two exist. [00:25:08.79] Eugene: Yes, oddly enough, I do believe they do, in this very use... [00:25:11.29] Kenneth: We saw one in the previous episode. [00:25:13.73] Eugene: Yeah, exactly, exactly. I think the same thing about Star Trek, right? You've got Wolf of the Fold. You've got that. [00:25:22.71] Kenneth: You've got the truth thing, subject relaying. [00:25:25.08] Eugene: Accurate response. no physiological changes, over and over and over again, and they never use it again. They never use it in any court martial episode. They never use it. Indigo! Not even in the future. It's like, we just don't use it, and the funny thing is, of course, in real life, we do have lie detectors, and I will say this unequivocally to anyone who has any doubt, it is complete and absolute pseudoscience. It does not work, and the fact that it is admissible in courts in parts of this country is an absolute disgrace. [00:25:55.57] Kenneth: Exactly, and there are intelligence agents who are... Yes. to deceive them. [00:26:01.87] Eugene: And they don't work to start with, so... Yeah, it's like... Yeah, it's just not, uh, yeah. But anyway, but apparently in this universe, the Truth Verifier, which you're doing an eye thing, does work, and they use it in the government, so they should have been using it for proceedings like this, you would think. It's a good question. Let's, let's, because this is not a good episode, let's answer that question. If you had a device which would guarantee force someone to tell the truth or identify when they are lying, would it be appropriate to use it in a judicial system? When you swear them in on the stand and put them down on the device and say, "Okay, now tell us the truth." If you could prove it was accurate, truly accurate, would that be a good or a bad thing? [00:26:48.58] Kenneth: Or at least can you get you the truth. [00:26:50.82] Eugene: Which I think is what we're always after, but I don't know. [00:26:53.09] Kenneth: - Yes, yeah. [00:26:54.04] Eugene: He's just into getting his people off, you know? [00:26:58.14] Kenneth: Well, um... Well, Kerry Mason. usually got the innocent people as well with a show. [00:27:03.93] Eugene: Yeah, he did. At least on Saturday nights. Yeah, it's, yeah, but it just, it does raise [00:27:10.19] Kenneth: an interesting question whether or not you would, whether or not you would want, would people want that? I mean, and what good argument could you make against it? I guess, I guess [00:27:20.56] Eugene: You don't want people going on fishing expeditions, which I will say that is something Perry Mason time. He would cast a net during his interrogation of people or his questioning of people to try to get additional facts thrown in, and if you were on a truth verifier, how would you decide whether the question was appropriate to be asked so as to not reveal something that was not germane specifically to the case that might prejudice? I don't know. [00:27:46.42] Kenneth: Good question. [00:27:48.42] Eugene: Probably better minds than mine, or at least-- better legal minds that are mine. I would need to look it up, but hopefully we're nowhere. Would you need a trial? Did you commit the murder? No? Lie, lie, lie. [00:28:01.60] Kenneth: - There you go. - There we go. [00:28:02.38] Eugene: - Why have a trial? Why, why have a trial? Yeah. Again, predicated on the idea that it's infallible. [00:28:09.38] Kenneth: Just go straight to sentencing. Yep, there is a stupid line. Yes, yes, there is. I'm par- There are a few. [00:28:18.42] Eugene: If they can use fear as a weapon, then they must understand fear themselves. [00:28:25.67] Kenneth: Ah, that one. [00:28:27.74] Eugene: Is that true? Oh yes, is it true? [00:28:31.65] Kenneth: Second off, we already knew they feared things. We already know that a few things are right, but to get to your question, at least it tells me that they understand something of human physiology. Yes, that's it. That's the Sabbath saying, "They understand fear." [00:28:47.48] Eugene: They capture somebody, they probe their brains, one part of the brain causes the person to do something weird. They say, "Let's make a weapon to make them do something weird." It's all they need to do. You We don't need to understand it for yourself, but we think they do because they're apparently afraid of dead bodies. [00:29:02.88] Kenneth: We have established that. Yes, or at least that was the supposition as to why they avoid the dead bodies, but And to say that a member of a species understands fear is not exactly going out on a limb. [00:29:17.23] Eugene: No, not as we understand evolution, no. No. I mean, it's it's a it's a part of your flight or fight response, really. Yes. So, but I guess, yeah, it's possible that if you... I've read science fiction books where species grew up on a planet that had no predators, and so they have a completely different kind of fear reaction. But even still, you know, I'm afraid of a tree falling on me in a lightning storm. [00:29:47.88] Kenneth: Still. [00:29:48.88] Eugene: Should have something do we think Space suits really look suitable to go up to 60 degree Celsius temperatures? Because to me they look like fatigues with a silly helmet on and not pressure or heat protective. Yeah. (audio cuts out) [00:30:06.97] Kenneth: - Yeah, and it's like, or as long as there are safety issues, like I'm afraid to touch a hot stove, you know. But yeah, that's... [00:30:14.07] Eugene: Yeah, I- Yeah, I've got a pair of gloves. They're like, you know, you got all sorts of hot hot gloves, right? But I have I have a pair of like fireman gloves for working my Smoker grill, right? So I mean it can handle I think 600 Fahrenheit, but it is it's a fascinating material It's all that multi layers of weaving that they make for firefighter outfits and you're not running around like they are in those, of course 60 degrees Celsius is not that nowhere near that hot, but still just they don't seem air-conditioned. When they start the story they're talking about how this planet was a failed star. You failed star or has a surface. [00:30:59.73] Kenneth: I said, "Good question." I thought that made no sense to me. I mean, my granted amateur knowledge of astronomy tells me that if Jupiter were larger to some extent, it could become a star. But... new surface on Jupiter. [00:31:25.14] Eugene: Right, right, the gas giant, you need to be a gas giant to start with, and then, it's, you've got to be a bit bigger. I think Jupiter is considered to be a failed star. You just did not gather enough material to... to become a... to become a star so you know that's there's a fine line there but this does not give that impression at all second off what was wrong with Wang when he called the planet Tartarus the the place beyond hell it's like do you mean Tartarus look Yeah, what's the time? Why are you emphasiz- have you never heard that word spoken in your life before? And you just keep- *gibberish* *sniff* [00:32:07.20] Kenneth: Don't do not know it [00:32:09.45] Eugene: See you soon. [00:32:11.45] Kenneth: Not a pronunciation I would use. [00:32:13.19] Eugene: Um, I'm gonna come around to this one because it's actually the most important thing in this episode and I'll save it for the last. [00:32:20.43] Kenneth: You can get them. [00:32:21.42] Eugene: The skeleton effect was hilarious. [00:32:24.27] Kenneth: Yeah. [00:32:25.26] Eugene: That was like a Bugs Bunny cartoon. That was so bad. If if they got enough radiation for us to see their skeletons like that. [00:32:34.41] Kenneth: They're dead. [00:32:36.41] Eugene: They're dead. We don't need to worry about their amygdala's falling off. They're dead, and the radiation burns. I mean, they got instantly got radiation burns. Those people are dead. That also leads into that final point, so I'll just, I'll switch off to the Marine Song! Born in the woods, trained by bear, dollars on a set of dog teeth, triple coat of hair. Uh, I can't read the rest of it, depending on which version, uh... He's quite rebel. Yep. Um, but, uh, I mean, it involves brass and, uh, and cast iron, but I can't go any further. Good. Good to know that these tighter, worn, bold marine songs are still still going there for the, in the future. Okay. Why? This, this is the part that just bugs the heck out of me about this episode. There are. episodes of M*A*S*H, and I'll use M*A*S*H as an example because M*A*S*H is the ultimate military story ever told on television, in my humble opinion, and there are a lot of times in M*A*S*H where we get discussions about Hill 403, for example. They want Hill 403, we want Hill 403. 403, then we take it, then they take it, and we take it, and there's a push, they get back, and da-da-da-da-da-da, thousands of people were killed or harmed, battered all over the place, which is why they come into the MASH unit, and sometimes we're told that these hills are strategically important, and in other times they're kind of less strategically important, right? belittled as to how pointless it is that we keep trying to take this hill and then take it back or... [00:34:20.33] Kenneth: That is a plot point that comes up in a number of military stories. Yes. particular of Paths of Glory directed by Stanley Kubrick does that. [00:34:32.72] Eugene: But it comes up in this episode, and we are told explicitly that this is a worthless rock that isn't strategically significant, and yet they have lost thousands of lives. Their word, not mine. Why did they have to do that? But why have they lost so much weight? [00:34:47.62] Kenneth: One. [00:34:48.38] Eugene: Have they lost one? Why have we got all these MIAs? Why are there rumors that people are killed by friendly fire? If all of that is well known enough to have made it into the scuttlebutt that gets back to the grunts on this marine team, why has the brass still got people on that rock? There has to be something that we're not being told here. Because those people have been there for a while. There are loads of dead marines. We alone in just one little spot see a bunch of dead marines, and we see evidence of MIA, we see evidence of friendly fire, it's clear that this planet, that this rock is deadly, and it's clear that they're not being killed by the enemy either. So why is it that they keep sending people there? Why is it that they send a resupply team there? Unless this is like, oh... Tech would like us to secure this planet for some reason, which that is not in this episode. But that's the only thing I can think of, is that this is meant to make us ask the question, why aren't they trying to keep this rock? Because if it had been about an episode like in M*A*S*H, where they're talking about the futileness of it, they would have made a point of it, a much bigger point. point of it, but they didn't. They just mentioned it and then forgot it. [00:36:09.79] Kenneth: Yes, I can believe that in this series that Aerotech may be pulling a number of strings in the military. [00:36:19.53] Eugene: But we would still have to have a reason. Bye. of this rock. [00:36:25.06] Kenneth: Yes, military industrial complex, maybe there's something there. [00:36:29.11] Eugene: So that is an open-end question for us to say, you know, because how could the brass already know about this weapon? I believe centipede [00:36:40.27] Kenneth: They're not know about this if they Oh, we're off. Yeah, so, and I don't care whether or not Aerotech wants it, and we don't know if it's [00:36:49.14] Eugene: Aerotech or anything else, you don't keep sending people in to a zone that is universally lethal. [00:36:58.06] Kenneth: Even the Marines aren't that stupid. [00:37:01.56] Eugene: No, and if there is no hope of them surviving, and there's no evidence whatsoever that anybody knows how to counteract this weapon, so.., and I don't think our guys are so brilliant that they land there on the planet, and within an hour they've figured out that there's a secret Chig weapon that works on their amygdala. I find it hard to believe that there isn't somebody smarter than those... Melons. Yeah. Somewhere in the Marine Corps. So yeah, I that [00:37:31.45] Kenneth: That is the one thing that. [00:37:33.45] Eugene: I'm out of this, like it feels like it's setting something up. [00:37:35.35] Kenneth: Yes, and there are a few unknowns here, at least from my perspective. One is that this is episode 7 of 23. Yes, sir. be something coming up between 8 and 23 that maybe helps to explain some of this. Number two, this, the series creators had in mind a five season arc, and so they were Probably a little bit. laying down hints in Season 1 to pay off in Seasons 2 through 5, and so when I come across an unknown, unexplained issue, I wonder, "Is this something that they're going to pay off later, but never got the chance to do?" Maybe. Or maybe it was bad writing. [00:38:31.69] Eugene: Yeah, I don't know which it is, but I admit that my brain kind of says, "It's hard to believe the writing was that bad, therefore they must be setting this up." But on the other hand, looking at the rest of the episode, it's not hard to believe it's that bad. But it is Morgan and Wong, and... They are the architects, so you would think that their fingers would be in on the mythos [00:39:03.41] Kenneth: If you will. [00:39:05.41] Eugene: to use the X-Files term. So, I don't know. I guess we will find out, or we won't, because if it was in Season 4, we got a problem. Now they have a problem. We're going to have a problem. We would have a problem if there was a season four. No, I take it back that we wouldn't have a problem because if there was a season 4 we would not be looking at this show - That's right, that's right. That's all we would be saying. Oh, it all depends. I think that's everything I've got on this. [00:39:43.29] Kenneth: Okay, then I guess one thing left to say is that next we have a two-parter. Episode 8 is "Hostile Visit" and episode number 9 is "Choice or Chance." [00:39:57.72] Eugene: Well, we have a chance that they might be good. We will be doing the both as one podcast, so we shall see. Kenneth, thank you for joining me. [00:40:09.46] Kenneth: My pleasure. [00:40:11.46] Eugene: Blisterers! I hope you'll join us all again next time on Fusion Patrol. (upbeat music) [00:40:18.53] Eugene: You've been listening to Fusion Patrol. Thank you for listening. [00:40:22.74] Eugene: If you've enjoyed this episode we hope you'll consider supporting us at buymeacoffee.com/fusionpatrol or patreon.com/fusionpatrol. For our monthly Patreon Subscribers, we're currently running in a special series on Babylon 5. [00:40:45.29] Eugene: Come join the conversation in the comments section of this episode at fusionpatrol.com You'll also find there over a decade of past episodes. [00:40:55.70] Eugene: You can also find some of our other works at SoundCloud.com. [00:41:02.82] Eugene: Our music is Fight the Future, by Amberwolf. [00:41:07.03] Eugene: This has been a Lone Locust production.

In this episode, we begin our look at the 2013 Japanese TV series Neo Ultra Q, which was intended as a second season of 1966’s Ultra Q. We’ll be looking at them two episodes at a time.In the first episode, Quo Vadis we are introduced to a world populated with kaiju, not all of them being overtly dangerous. Tensions run high between the anti-kaiju and the kaiju preservation factions as one kaiju inexorably makes its way through a city toward a sacred destination. Then, in Laundry Day, Mr. Brethren runs a laundry service and the quality of his work is legendary. Mr. Brethren is also a kindly, shy kaiju. What happens when the UN Secretary-General comes and asks for something really big to be cleaned?

Simon and Eugene discuss the evolution of Bugs into a slicker but more standard thriller, whether ministers in Bugs are dealt with any more consistently than in Doomwatch, and we reminisce about LaserDiscs.

Kenneth and Eugene ask the question, can writers wrap a conspiracy within a conspiracy within a conspiracy so deep that the whole thing vanishes up its own butt? Spoiler: Yes, they can. Episode Synopsis The Saratoga is putting in to Earth for some much needed R&R, but it is not to be.  The Secretary General of the Commonwealth of Earth is assassinated by an in-vitro, and everything goes into security lockdown. The 58th gets some much-needed replacements for their depleted squadron, in the form of Lts. Pisarek, Stone, and Swirko.  Swirko is just exactly the kind of egotistical, biggoted asshat you’d expect in the Space Jarheads and he wastes no time getting into a fight with Tank, which is broken up by the Colonel. On Earth, with the death of the Secretary General, Under-Secretary Chaput of France is currently in charge.  Chaput, like France, is ultra-right wing.  He has a controversial position on the escalation of the Chig War, and has vocally opposed in-vitro affirmative action programs.  There will be an election for the new Secretary General soon and Chaput is a top contender. His primary opponent is Diane Hayden, of the United States. She also holds controversial positions on the Chi War, in that she wants to open a dialog with the enemy, and she has been a long-standing supporter of in-vitro rights.  She also was formerly on the board of governors for Aerotech, which raises questions in West’s tiny little mind. Swirko, true to expected form, likes the cut of Chaput’s gib. The election of the new Secretary General will take place aboard the Saratoga, and the Ambassadors gather for the conference and election.  There’s one complication, due to the paranoia on the planet below, all in-vitros must undergo loyalty tests, including the two on the Saratoga, Colonel McQueen and Cooper Hawkes.  Commodore Ross warns McQueen and tries to send him and the 58th on a mission to get them out of sight for a while.  The tactic fails and McQueen and Tank are taken for questioning under a truth verifier. The 58th proceed with the mission, heading to the moon to pick up some cargo.  On the way, Swirko tries to spread more doubt about the in-vitros which seems to find fertile ground in West’s tiny little mind.  Their cargo turns out to be Diane Hayden, being shuttled to the Saratoga in secret. Not so big of a secret, though, as there is a bomb aboard the shuttle, but some quick thinking on Swirko’s part saves the shuttle and their VIP. Back on the Saratoga, McQueen refuses to proceed with the loyalty test when they ask him if he has ever betrayed his country.  They place him in detention and begin interrogating Tank.  Tank’s answers seem a little dodgy, but things get weirder when the machine surreptitiously administers and injection to Tank. Hayden and the 58th arrive on the Saratoga, but Hayden refuses bodyguards, and then proceeds to visit McQueen in detention.  She explains that she thinks this loyalty test is barbaric, but that she has to go along with it until she’s elected.  You have to stand up to to your opposition at the right time, and then you can’t let them know you’re doing it.  Pragmatic.  I believe that’s the charitable term for that form of politician. Chaput haș called for West to see him.  He likes the cut of West’s gib and so he decides to let him know a little secret.  Aerotech knew the aliens were out there and proceeded with the colonization program, anyway.  I’ll fight them, says Chaput, what about you? Chaput leaves and his aide asks for a favor for his boss.  Tonight, after the meeting, while you’re on watch, leave the doors unlocked so that Chaput and Hayden can have a private, off-the-books meeting. Tank visits the Colonel and begins babbling in the same way Fox Mulder used to, just without the intelligence behind his words.  McQueen, knowing something is wrong, demands to take the loyalty test. That night, West does leave the doors open, but he at least has the sense to sneak around to see what happens.  There is no meeting between Chaput and Hayden, but an armed Swirko shows up and tries to kill Chaput.  West thwarts the assassination attempt and Swirko is killed in his escape attempt. Having failed, Hayden’s agent activate their backup assassin, Tank. Chaput’s aide is getting Chaput off the carrier, and puts him on a shuttle, then leaves to go get some papers.  Inside the shuttle, Tank confronts Chaput, but a newly-released McQueen intercedes.  Recognizing that Tank is programmed to kill when he see’s Chaput’s tastefully French-styled Nazi badge, McQueen uses one to distract Tank long enough to disarm him and save Chaput’s life. Chaput’s aide is arrested, but before he is taken out, he chastises West, comparing Chaput to Hitler.  He should have stopped him before he seizes power. It seems that all of Hayden’s machinations have failed, as Chaput still lives, and will no doubt have more sympathy for having been an assassin’s target. Or Not.  It turns out all Hayden machinations were for nothing, because she wins the election and now governs Earth. During an award ceremony for West, he breaks protocol and refuses the medal, asking instead for the truth — did Aerotech know about the aliens beforehand?  Hayden walks away.

John and Eugene look back in time to 1976 for a peek at Irwin Allen’s prospective pilot for the Time Travelers. The story of scientists trying to solve a pandemic of the day using a pandemic of yesteryear.

Find out what happens when a production team looks at their series and says, “Hey, this just isn’t working,” when John and Eugene look at the Return of Starbuck. Episode Synopsis Dr. Z has a dream, and he comes to discuss it with Adama.  When Adama hears it is about a warrior named Starbuck, he’s all ears Yahrens ago, Starbuck and Boomer were in a battle with the Cylons.  Through fancy flying, as always, Starbuck defeats the Cylons, but his ship is critically damaged.  Boomer must abandon him, knowing there is no hope. Starbuck crashes on a barren, but vaguely habitable planet, which he names Starbuck.  He discovered the wrecked Cylon fighter, and in a fit of lonely madness, he rebuilds one of them, and convinces him not to kill him.  While Starbuck hopes he has a friend, the Cylon makes it clear they are not friends. They work together and begin to form a life together, but the Cylon, now called Cy, realizes Starbuck has gotten bored with him, and wishes to have a woman instead.  He goes out to get one and Starcuk realizes he cares what happens to Cy. Miraculously, literally, Cy finds a woman – and not just any woman, she’s beautiful and pregnant, but she does not talk. In the intervening days, Starbuck pours out his life story to the silent woman. Then she talks, asking if Starbuck would sacrifice his life for her and “their” baby.   “Hold on, what?” It’s your spiritual baby, Starbuck. Cy is, frankly jealous,, and this leads to constant sitcom bickering between Starbuck and him. Angela, as the woman is know, tells Starbuck that the Cylons are coming and he needs to build a spacecraft from the wrecked parts of the ships, which he does, with Cy’s help.  Angela is certain that Starbuck’s final judgment is coming. When the Cylons arrive, Starbuck places Angela and the newly-arrived baby into the ship and launches towards the fleet.  He goes to stand down the Cylons.  Cy, who had left earlier, returns and kills two of the approaching Cylons, before he is, in turn killed.  Starbuck finishes off the last one, and as Cy dies in his arms, he finally admits that he and Starbuck are friends. The ship arrived at the fleet, but on the baby was onboard, and that baby was Dr. Z.

Simon and Eugene discuss the emerging love polygon within the Bureau of Weapons Technology, why Beckett is being written as a bit of a jerk as well as a bad boss, and they speculate on the identity of the mole within the agency. Episode Synopsis Ed and Alex are out on the racetrack, about to test a device that shall henceforth be called, the Engine Killer.  Alex will shoot Ed’s bike’s engine while in motion to find out if it works.  Does it work?  We may never find out because two armed men storm the track, gas Alex, steal the device, and leave a couple signature-Bugs boom boom devices behind.  Ed charges in on his steed and rescues Alex. Back at the Bureau, Beckett is a bit of an A-hole to Ed about losing the device.  He accuses him of having his mind on Alex instead of the work — an allegation Ed denies.  Some people are not cut out to be supervisors. It’s time for Beckett’s weekly password change for the ominously-named Project Darkling, but before he can, he has to go to the front desk and pick up a very important package: A security card for Van Straaten.  The card is absolutely necessary for Beckett to even talk to Van Straaten, a diamond-industrialist-turned-peace-negotiator who is in town for a major peace accord.  What Beckett does not know is that the courier is none other than one of the two who stole the Engine Killer and that the card has a tracker on it. Van Straaten is a big deal, and Ros is a huge fan. Beckett is going to his exclusive reception and Ros is jealous.  Beckett lords it over Ros and smugly says, “there are some things money can’t buy.” Some people are not cut out to be supervisors. Beckett and Jan meet Van Straaten, and Van Straaten is placed in Beckett’s care, and they head off, surreptitiously in Beckett’s Jeep.  Meanwhile, Channing shows up with two tickets to Van Straaten’s exclusive reception, and all Ros has to do is go to Barbados with him for a technology expo and a spot of cricket in return.  It’s the cricket that cinches it, and she agrees. I knew I liked Ros for a reason. On the road, the baddies, Trozek and General Chenlov use the Engine Killer (I guess it works) on Beckett’s Jeep and kidnap both Van Straaten and Beckett.  Trozek, Chenlov, and Van Straaten are all acquainted with one another.  Van Straaten recently used information provided by the Bureau to humiliate Trozek and get him removed from the peace negotiations.  It looks like it might be pay-back time. Jan takes active control of the Bureau in Beckett’s absence and she is not a happy camper, they’ve lost the Engine Killer, Van Straaten, and Beckett.  It’s a trifecta of bad. Then the £10,000,000 ransom demand for Van Straaten comes in. Beckett and Van Straaten are being held in a mobile command and control van, moving around.  Beckett tells Trozek that the Bureau will never pay the ransom, but he reveals it’s not about the ransom.  It’s not even about Van Straaten.  They were kidnapping Beckett so that they could force him to give them the password to Project Darkling, a satellite-based missile deployment system that only Beckett can order to launch nuclear annihilation from.  They plan to use it to destroy the opposition, making the peace talks moot.  It takes very little persuasion to get the password from Beckett.   I bet that whole “you need to change your password weekly” thing will save the day this week! Alex and Ros figure out where the C&C van is and put Ed on its trail.  Meanwhile, Beckett uses Van Straaten’s cute little toy computer device to hack into the van and send Ros a warning that they’re really after Project Darkling. It turns out Beckett’s password works just fine.  Things are looking bad for the gang.  Working them against them: pretty much everything.  Working in their favor: the satellite can only be contacted every 90 minutes. Ed runs the C&C van off the road just as Beckett stages an escape with Van Straaten and the Engine Killer.  Things don’t go well.  The General retakes Van Straaten, and Beckett drops the Engine Killer.  In the end, the baddies escape with everything except Beckett and Ed. Beckett takes a few moments to exercise his supervisory skills by reminding Ed that it’s his fault the Engine Killer was taken. Some people are not cut out to be supervisors. The baddies did, however, miss the communication window and must wait 90 minutes to re-establish contact with Project Darkling. They changed the password, so Beckett is now completely locked out. They hatch a new plan.  Ros will pretend to be a high-tech thief and convince Trozek to use Van Straaten’s irises to rob his diamond business.  Chenlov doesn’t like the idea, he wishes to remain focused on his ideologically-motived need to slaughter people, but Trozek goes for the idea anyway. At Van Straatens business, Beckett has a cleverly designed plan.  Lock Trozek in a lift while Ed disables Project Darkling from the C&C van.  It doesn’t go well.  Alex is spotted by Chenlov and prevented from shutting down the lift, Trozek has actually transferred the firing controls to a remote device on his belt, and Ed is completely locked out of the controls in the van. Trozek is going back for the diamonds, but Chenlov has had enough of this distraction from the killing and pulls a gun on Trozek, who promptly kills him, and heads back to the lift. It’s Ed to the rescue; using the Engine Killer, he disables the lift, the power, the remote firing device, and, apparently, the manual lift emergency brakes because it plummets to the ground floor, killing Trozek. It’s all is well that ends well, and Ed and Beckett are mansion-sitting for Ros as she prepares to leave town for Barbados.  Ed mentions to Beckett that it’s pretty odd how well-informed Trozek and Chenlov were about all the Bureau’s security and top-secret projects and suggests a mole.  Beckett dismisses the idea out of hand.  Alex wouldn’t do it, and Beckett’s got Jan wrapped around his finger.  (Forgetting, apparently, how he got roped into this job in the first place.) Some people are not cut out to be supervisors. Ros is off with Channing, and Beckett is a sad little puppy.

Kenneth and Eugene discuss and ask how many people it is acceptable to kill to bury the already dead. Episode Synopsis An unidentified Marine ship approaches the Saratoga, ignores all attempts to communicate, and when docking permission is denied, it just overrides the Saratoga’s computers and docks anyway.  In the landing bay, the occupant, Lt. Colonel Raymond T. “Killer” Butts, is dead.  No, he’s not, and he beats up the entire hanger team single-handedly. Grilled about what’s going on by Colonel McQueen, Butts will only give name, rank, and serial number and refuses to cooperate, but he’s not under arrest — although, since he hacked the Saratoga’s computers, he should be.  Oh, and he’s a prejudiced asshat about tanks, too. The gang is trying to review Butts’ ship’s navigational logs, but Butts shows up and is really hurtful to them until he learns they’re the Fightin’ 58th.  He’s not impressed by them.In the Rec Area, Tank override’s the TV’s censor chip, and Butts comes in and gives them a dressing down.  Wang tries to stand up to him, but he ends up in a fight with all of them.  No ifs, ands, or buts: Butts is an unpleasant fellow. Colonel McQueen is not having any of this and will get Butts kicked on the Saratoga, so Butts pulls some top-secret orders out of his butt.  No only is he not leaving, he’s here on a mission, he’s taking command of the Fightin’ 58th for a special mission, and there’s nothing McQueen can do about it. The next day, he’s training the 58s by playing paintball with them without safety glasses, and he wipes them all over the floor and is a jerk while doing it. They bitch about him in front of McQueen, and so McQueen tells them to “suck it up, buttercups” and do the job – and look after each other in the process. Killer tries having a conversation with Butts but accomplishes nothing in the end. Save for a disquieting feeling that Butts is leading them on a suicide mission. The next day, they ship out to planet 20-63M, and Butts tells them the mission.  Recover some Hammerheads concealed on the planet’s surface.  It’s a Chig-occupied planet, so they’ll have to HALO jump in.  “But Colonel Butts,” they say, “we don’t know how to HALO jump.”   “It’s just like falling out a plane,” and then sends them out the door. On the surface, Butts changes his mind and says they’ve got a new mission, but the gang has had enough; they stand firm against Butts and demand he tell them what’s going on.  He capitulates and tells them to secure their stuff, and he’ll tell them afterward.  Instead, he runs off on his own. They find him burying the bodies of his previous squad. They disobeyed his orders on their last mission and died because of it.  He has brought a squad of living, breathing soldiers on a dangerous, covert, behind-the-lines operation just to bury a bunch of stiffs.  Butts’ sense of perspective is way out of whack. After giving a touching burial ceremony, Butts explains the escape plan, flying past a dangerous black hole, where there will be special Red Chig fighters that can take a shorter route around the black hole.  Some of you are going to die on this mission.  Say your goodbyes, and let’s hit space. On the flight back, they encounter the Chigs, and Butts plunges into the danger zone of the black hole to destroy the two Red Chig fighters, saving the 58th, but dying in the process.  Well, at least he doesn’t have to face a court martial.

John and Eugene look at the 1960 George Pal film, The Time Machine. John and Eugene discuss if eating Eloi is really such a bad thing, and what three books we’d take to start a new civilization. SynopsisIt is January 5th, 1900, and four men arrive at the home of their friend, George, for dinner, but George is not there.  Being busy industrialists on a Friday evening, they have more important things to do, like building weapons and putting down labor unrest.  Time is money, dammit, and he’s looking like he might almost be a minute late, and he left food for them – the bounder!Just as they sit down to each his food and bitch about his outrageous manners, George stumbles in the door, filthy and disheveled.  It’s just the sort of thing you’d expect from someone who had the gall to invite you to dinner and then be a minute late. He tells them a tale. A tale that started with this very same group of men a week before, December 31, 1899. George, an inventor, demonstrated to them what he claimed was a prototype time machine, which he launched into the future, never to be seen again. His friends, of course, completely dismissed the idea for two good reasons: (1) It’s absurd, and (2) What’s the point? You can’t fight wars with it, and nobody will buy something like that. Angered that their friend would confide in them such an obvious BS story, they all leave for their New Year’s plans… all but David Filby.  He’s worried about his friend.  What is this obsession about time? George explains: I don’t feel I belong in this time. There has to be a world where man isn’t spending all his effort on making new ways to kill. George tells Filby he has a full-sized version of the machine and plans to use it. Filby is even more worried now, but George tells him it’ll be alright, and arranges for dinner with the gang next Friday. After Filby leaves, so does George, but George leaves via the fourth dimension, traveling forward into the future with his machine. He arrives in 1917, where, outside, he encounters a new world and meets Filby, or at least he thinks he does, but it is Filby’s adult son, James. He learns that Britain is at war with Germany and that Filby Sr. was killed in the war last year. He leaves and travels further forward, but explosions impede his progress, stopping him in 1940, and they are at war again.  His house is destroyed as he travels further forward to 1966, where a strange sound causes him to stop. It is air raids sirens, and citizens are being evacuated to underground shelters.  Once again, he encounters Filby Jr., now an old man, who warns him to escape before the mushrooms bloom. He doesn’t heed that advice and the city is destroyed by atomic bombs him, then a volcano erupts, and he gets back in the machine just in time to be buried in the lava. Pushing forward in time, he must wait until the lava erodes. When it does, he arrives in a beautiful, Eden-like garden in the year 802,701, just next to a giant sphynx and a sealed metal door. No one seems to be at home, so he takes the car keys and explores. The world is lush, verdant, and bountiful but seemingly devoid of people. He finds a large building in disrepair, perhaps for centuries. Inside, it is empty, although the tables are set, and there is fruit aplenty in the serving bowls. Exploring further, he finally finds signs of life — a herd of beautiful young people, known as the Eloi, frolicking near the water’s edge.  One has fallen in and is drowning, but the others pay no attention. The Traveler rescues her. Her name is Weena, and she’s about as grateful as a wet sheep and walks away from him with the others. He follows them back to the building, where they all chow down. He tries asking many questions, but they’re sheep.  They have no curiosity, ambition, or concept of the past or future.The Traveler cannot believe he can learn nothing from them, but they admit to having books and take him to them.  They crumble to dust when he touches them. Angry at what the human race has become, he chastizes them and leaves, returning to his time machine, but it is gone. Dragged into the Sphynx and now sealed behind the metal doors. Weena arrives, having followed him, and warns him of the Morlocks. The Morlocks give them their food and clothes, and they follow their commands. The Morlocks come out at night and attack, but the Traveler fends them with matches. The following day, the Traveler is still unable to get into the sphynx, so he explores, discovering a series of silos leading underground and the sound of machinery coming from them. As he sets out to explore one, sirens emanate from the sphynx, and Weena and all the other Eloi walk, trancelike, into the sphynx.  The Traveler cannot stop her, and when he tries to get other Eloi to help, they say that no one ever returns.He climbs into the silo, and deep unground, he discovers the world of the Morlocks and their terrifying secret: They eat the Eloi. Using a torch, he tries to rescue Weena and the Eloi.  He is outnumbered and about to be killed when one Eloi, having witnessed the Traveler fighting with the Morlocks, makes a fist and clobbers one of the Morlocks. The Traveler starts a petroleum fire as the Eloi escape.  The Morlocks’ underground world is destroyed. Sometime later, the sphynx burns, and he can reach his time machine, but this is a trap by the Morlocks.  He starts the machine and returns to January 5, 1900, where he stumbles in the door, filthy and disheveled, to greet his waiting guests. They aren’t buying his story and leave, but Filby returns, and finds that he has left in his time machine, taking only three books with him.

It’s every bit as bad as you remember, and not nearly as bad as you think. John and Eugene look at Space Croppers. Episode SynopsisThe Cylon Imperious Leader is getting impatient.  The Colonials haven’t lead them to Earth so he’s decided to force their hand.  He orders a flight wing to destroy the Colonial Fleet’s agroships.  In the fight, two out of three of the ships are destroyed.  Without those ships, the Galactica will be unable to feed the fleet.  It’s a good thing the Cylons didn’t think of that plan 30 yahrens ago! Somehow Adam sees this as an opportunity.  They will now establish their first colony on Earth, one that will raise crops for the fleet.  Not only will this be their first foothold on Earth, but it will give a permanent home for the children that are already there. Troy and Dillion will return to Earth and partner with a local farmer to get things underway.  To do this, now that the fleet has ended running from the Cylons and are in orbit, they’ve had to use special fighter diversionary tactics to allow Troy and Dillion to make their trips to and from Earth undetected by the Cylons.  “D” Squadron, knows as the Daggits, are a bunch of hot-rod pilots who mod their vipers, and while they don’t have much to do in this episode, it’s clear they will be playing a much bigger role in future episodes. On Earth, the Tepid Duo buy a partnership in the troubled farm of Hector Alonso.  Hector and his family are good, hard-working salt of the Earth types.  They just have one problem, Hector is Hispanic and the major land baron in his area, John Steadman,  does not like Hispanic people.  As the largest landowner and loudest voice on the local valley growers association, Steadman has bullied his way into having the lion’s share of the water, and is actively trying to force Hector to sell out by cutting back on his water allotment. His ranch hands aren’t any better and they deliberately destroy all the seed Troy and Dillion purchased at the local seed store. Of course, Troy and Dillion know that they can reason with Steadman, so they go to talk to him like civilized people.  Surprisingly, that doesn’t go as badly as you’d think, because Steadman makes them a wager to ride his unrideable horse, Satan, and they win.  They get the horse, $1000, and restitution for the materials destroyed by the ranch hands. Things are pretty desperate back at the fleet, they’re going to need those crops right away, and they’ve apparently never heard of this thing called a “grocery store” on Earth.  They’ve gotta get that seed planted tonight so they can harvest it tomorrow. But everyone in the valley is afraid of Steadman, and no one will work for them.  Not to worry, we’ve got some space scouts, and between that, plowing the fields with their laser pistols, Dr. Z’s flying saucer making rain and adding a grow booster to it, they have a bumper crop by morning! But there’s more, Steadman was spying on them.  He saw the UFO and the Colonial farmers arrive, but when he tries to call in the law, everyone thinks he’s crazy, and the local growers association grows a pair and redoes the water allocation for the valley. The Galactica has its food, they have a colony on Earth, the kids have a permanent home, and Troy and Dillion needlessly fly off into the sunset awaiting their next adventure.

Simon and Eugene discuss the difference between a sequel and the second of two parts, when heroes are allowed to commit manslaughter and how this differs on each side of The Pond, and the state of password security in the 1990s. Episode Synopsis The new, as-yet-apparently-unnamed Bureau of Weapons Technology is being assembled under Beckett’s supervision.  Ed is still in the hospital, and Ros is reluctant to relinquish her independence to join the bureau.  Director Jan wants the opportunity to talk with her to try to convince her.  Beckett promises he’ll try. In the hospital, Beckett and Ros visit Ed.  He’s depressed.  He’s badly hurt, full of metal pins holding him together, and he’ll be in physiotherapy for a long time. He’s got a shoulder/partial body cast filled with women’s names and phone numbers, though, so he’ll have something to do when he gets out of the hospital.  Ros and Beckett leave, but Beckett hangs back for a moment.  Ed is on board with joining the new bureau. he’s tired of working without a safety net but hasn’t spoken to Ros about it either.  Beckett plans to do so right now. That is postponed when he finds Ros outside crying, racked with guilt about what has happened to Ed. Kitty McHaig is still on the loose with her two henchmen, Ben and Zach.  She’s planning to disappear completely, and she’s cleaning up loose ends, which include collecting untraceable bearer bonds for her last exhibit, killing her agent and having Zach (reluctantly) dispose of the body, and preparing to murder and assume the identity of the Duchess of Fortezza. Step one: a bit of online banking. She has Zach create a new account at her existing bank under the Duchess’ name (which is apparently “Duchess”), then transfers all her money to the account.  Kitty is not entirely convinced that Zach has the stomach for all this and has had Ben bug him.  Smart move on her part, for when Kitty is out of sight, Zach changes her bank account’s passcode. Beckett goes to Ros’ home to meet about tracking down Kitty, but when he arrives, he sees Channing giving Ros a Ferrari. He gets all maudlin because he can’t give Ros a Ferrari, so he blows off the meeting, which is a shame because Channing actually had some information that might help them track Kitty.   Kitty is rich.  Filthy rich.  All that nonsense techno-destruction art that she created then got turned into lucrative secondary defense contracts.  If they could go after her money, they could find her.  One problem: Nobody knows where she banks. In the hospital, Zach, now clean-shaven, visits Ed and forcibly writes the passcode, which is a woman’s name and a number, on his cast.  Zach knows he’s been bugged, and he’s feeding information to Kitty to put them on Ed’s trail rather than his.  To access the bank, you must have both the account holder’s name and the passcode.  Kitty knows only the name, and Ed’s back contains only the passcode. Zach escapes, and Ed, knowing he’s in trouble, contrives to get his cast off immediately, sending the back piece off to Ros and Beckett with his doctor.  He tries to figure out the passcode first, but there’s one problem: The passcode is a woman’s name and 4-digit number, and his back is covered with women’s names and their, apparently, 4-digit phone numbers.  He tries memorizing them all and makes his escape.  He fails and is taken and imprisoned at the estate of the Duchess of Fortezza.  Kitty gives him a little time to tell her the passcode before she starts to have Ben work him over. Beckett and Ros want to cut Kitty off from her money, but the plethora of names and numbers also stymies them, and they do not know what bank she uses. Jan comes through for them after Ros agrees to join the bureau.  The official Red File contains her bank info, and the file clerk, Alex, quickly identifies which name and number is the passcode as being the only one that fits the input prompt.  Using that, they try to log in but fail because she’s changed account names.  There’s nothing for it but to break into the bank.  Their plan is to send Alex in with a scanner doohickey and then use the data for their assault, but when the scanner returns data that shows the bank is much more protected than expected, they have to fall back to a new plan.  Alex, who is still inside, decides to use her own initiative. At the Duchess’ estate, Ed finds a secret passage and tries to escape.  Unbeknownst to him, this is a trap laid by Kitty.  He still cannot escape the house, and she’s rigged the only phone to record the info Ed will surely try to tell his friends.  Then, she plans to hunt and kill him with a gun gizmo with explosive shells of her own design.  She sends Ben to intercept the Duchess, who is just arriving in the country, and kill her. Inside the bank, Alex impersonates Ros, a famously rich woman, and gets the bank manager to put her in front of his master terminal.  She tries to create an account using Kitty’s passcode, and the computer has a conniption fit.  The manager must type the name of the account holder to unlock things.  Alex observes the keys he types and escapes with the info. Ed finds the phone but figures it is a trap and returns to hiding.  Kitty is actively hunting him now.  Beckett rescues the Duchess at the airport, and they rush to her estate in Ros’ Ferrari.  When they arrive, Ed is in dire straits, trapped on the roof, still severely injured, with Kitty getting the upper hand in combat.  Using the Ferrari, they pull the door off the house without damaging the Ferrari and allowing Beckett to get inside and head to the roof.   Ed is about to fall to his death, and Kitty escapes because Beckett and Ros must save Ed. Kitty steals Ros’ Ferrari, and Ros decides to “shoot the tire out” with Kitty’s gun gizmo.  Only after she blows up the Ferrari and Kitty does she learn that the gun gizmo shoots exploding shells. The new bureau office is taking shape, and Ros’ new office has been outfitted to her satisfaction.  Now she has to explain to Channing what happened to the Ferrari he loaned her.

John and Eugene consider if constellations look the same “on the other side,” when Chekov’s gun misfires and do robots have murder/suicide pacts when we look at the Galactica 1980 episode, The Night the Cylons Landed. Episode SynopsisA routine viper patrol encounters an unusual Cylon vehicle, but their communications are jammed before they can warn the fleet.  Aboard the Cylon ship, in addition to the typical three centurions, are two new-model Cylons, named Andromus and Andromidus.  These Cylons look exactly like humans, a radical new design for the Cylons which will no doubt give them some enormous advantage in their single-minded, pathetic pursuit of the final dregs of humanity, although, honestly, I cannot see how. Unable to destroy the Cylon with their weapons, the Viper rams the Cylon, causing it to, somehow, be drawn inexorably towards Earth, a planet nowhere near them. Largely unaware of what’s happening, the Galactica is able to determine that a ship, which they think is the patrol viper, is going to crash on Earth.  Troy and Dillon are sent to recover it. Earth’s primitive tracking technology is no slouch, and they detect and plot the course of the incoming craft.  It’s heading for New York… and so is Colonel Briggs, a generic replacement for Colonel Sydell. Troy and Dillon, however, were at the Griffith Park observatory in California, giving the Galactican kids the opportunity to be obnoxious.  Jamie saddled with the kids again, warns Troy and Dillion from flying their Viper to New York because, you know, every time they do fly, Earth’s primitive tracking technology picks them up. They’ll have to fly to New York via a domestic air carrier. Just their luck, and ours, they happen to be on a flight that is hijacked to Cuba.  (Do you remember when people used to hijack planes to get somewhere instead of just to slaughter people?  I miss the old days.) Luckily, the Insipid Duo thwarts the hijacking with their plastic space guns.  They’re heroes, and the FBI will be waiting for them when they land in New York.  That would be problematic if they didn’t have invisibility fields. The Cylon craft crashes, destroying all but Andromus and one centurion.  They escape the craft and set the self-destruct.  Troy and Dillion arrive minutes later and, exploring the craft, realize it’s Cylon and also, with horror, discover the dead humanoid Cylon.  They escape the exploding ship, only to be caught by the police now arriving on the scene.  That would be problematic if they didn’t have stun guns and a track record of stealing police cars.  They pick up a low-power Cylon distress beacon and begin tracking it. Andromus has realized that they have found Earth.  If they can find a high-power booster, they can signal the Cylons and wipe out Earth.  He can pass as a human, but the appearance of the centurion is another matter.  It would be problematic if it didn’t just coincidently happen to be fracking Halloween!They’re picked up by Dark Shadows’ Angelique the witch, and Knight Rider’s Knight Industries Two Thousand, who happen to be heading to a Halloween party at a high-powered radio station… just the sort of thing two Cylons could use to begin the final annihilation of the lifeforms known as man. End of part One. Episode SynopsisThe Tepid Duo are being chased by the police in their stolen police car; then they run out of road at the docks, ditch the car in the water, and swim off, despite cops being on the scene – and no, they didn’t use their invisibility field. The two Cylons have been escorted to a Halloween party populated mainly by the employees and families of a local radio station; here, they hope to meet Wolfman Jack and hijack his radio station.  Now known as Andy and Centurie, they mingle like old pros. Cops chase Troy and Dillon again, so they slip into a kids’ stage show, steal some costumes, and put on a dance number before the cops arrive.  This would be problematic if they didn’t have invisibility fields that they can use on stage in front of a live audience while carrying another performer. Wolfman Jack arrives at the party and has a conversation with Andy.  He talks about radio transmissions and, in an obviously key point, explains how solar waves can interrupt radio transmissions. You have no doubt identified this conversation about “solar waves” to be Chekov’s Gun in the room, and if so, you would be completely wrong, for it plays no further part in this drama. Next, Troy and Dillan get mugged in Central Park.  This would be problematic if they didn’t have the ability to jump 20 feet into the air and into the trees. Back at the party, the station manager is getting nervous.  Those two stray, random hitchhikers they picked up and invited into someone’s home are asking a lot of questions about the security of the radio station; maybe it’s time to ask them to leave.  Just then, Centurie enters the kitchen and is incapacitated by the microwave oven.  Hooray!  Earth never needs to fear Cylons again!  We have invented the ultimate Anti-Cylon Weapon; every home in America has one!  If only the people of the twelve colonies had invented microwave ovens, the Cylons would have been wiped out centuries ago. The victory is short-lived, though. Andy comes in, and like the villain he is, he slays the valiant microwave, and Centurie recovers. A fire breaks out, and they must evacuate the building just as Troy and Dillon arrive.  Andy and Centurie take Wolfman Jack to the radio station while Troy runs into the burning apartment to rescue a child and his dog. Oh, and Colonel Briggs is in New York City, working with the NYPD to locate Troy and Dillon. At the station, the Cylons decide to use the Federal Emergency Broadcast System to transmit their signal into space.  For some reason, the equipment is on the roof and uses a little tiny 3’ transmitter dish.  While Andy tries to realign the dish to point it towards “the space,” Troy and Dillon must climb 40 floors in an elevator shaft.  This would be problematic if they couldn’t jump a floor at a time and have perfect aim and balance to land precisely on strangely incongruous girders in the elevator shaft. They reach the roof, have a gunfight with the Cylons, and, instead of killing the Cylons, the Centurion commits murder/suicide.   The cops and Col. Briggs have arrived, and Troy and Dillon are trapped on the roof.  This would be problematic if they didn’t have invisibility fields. Once again, the day is saved by the Tepid Duo.

John and Eugene try to figure out what science or religion brings to the fight in the War of the Worlds, George Pal’s 1953 extravaganza. Synopsis It’s just another quiet night in small town Linda Rosa California when a meteorite strikes nearby, igniting fires. After the danger from fires is quelled, the locals are pretty pleased that an intact meteor has landed nearby.  They’ll be able to turn it into a tourist trap. Nearby, a group of scientists from the Pacific Institute of Scientists and Technology (AKA PIST) are fishing, and the authorities ask them to have a look. Dr. Clayton Forrester investigates, but since it’s too hot to get close to at the moment, he goes into town and enjoys the local square dance with Sylvia Van Buren, a local citizen who also has a master’s degree in science. The power and phones go out during the dance, and everyone’s watch stops. Something begins to come out of the meteor, and the deputies left on guard are burned to a crisp by a heat ray. Returning to the crash site, Forrester sees the charred remains of the deputies, and another meteor comes down.  This is an invasion.  It’s time to call the military. As General Mann and troops arrive, reports are coming in from all over the world, meteors are landing everywhere, and soon thereafter, all communication is lost with the area.  They prepare to attack. At dawn, some form of flying machine rises from the crash site.  When Sylvia’s uncle, the local pastor, tries to go talk to the alien, they burn him down.  The military opens fire with everything they’ve got, including jets from overhead.  None works as the machines have protective bubbles around them, and the armed forces are wiped out. Forrester and Sylvia escape in a small plane, but Forrester crashes it because he’s flying too low in an effort to avoid detection.  After their crash, they find refuge in a farmhouse, but soon another meteor crashes into the farm, bringing the building down around them. They are right inside a nest of Martians and are found by a Martian camera device.  Forrester manages to chop the camera off, but then an actual Martian comes to investigate.  They scare it off with bright lights.  They make a break from the building moments before the heat rays destroy it. In Washington, with reports from around the world of the failures of the armies of all nations, the use of nuclear weapons is authorized.  They plan to bomb the Martians near Linda Rosa. Forrester and Sylvia make it back to PIST with the Martian camera and a sample of blood.  No real hurry to analyze the blood; there’ll be Martian blood aplenty after the nuke goes off.  They all make their way to the front to be observers. The A-Bomb is dropped, and the Martians are unphased.  Their protective bubbles are impervious to atomic weapons.  The military has failed; now it’s time for scientists to save the world. The PIST staff evacuate their facility in Los Angeles as the Martians advance on the city.  Their plan is to go to the Rockies and set up a new base of operations.  They don’t make it that far.  Sylvia, driving the school bus with all the other scientists, and Forrester, bringing up the rear with a truck full of equipment, are separated. Then, crowds of panicked people overwhelm Forrester’s truck, throwing him to the street and driving off.  He searches frantically for the bus and eventually finds his truck overturned and pieces of the school bus as the Martians begin to destroy L.A. All is lost, so he has nothing to do but search the streets for Sylvia.  He remembers a story she told him about her childhood where she sought refuge in a church, so he tries all the churches until he finds her. As they stand together, locked in an embrace, as the Martians attack the church they are in, suddenly it all goes quiet, and the Martian war machines collapse, their occupants dead — killed by the bacteria god used as a biological weapon against them.  Praise the lord, hallelujah.

Simon and Eugene discuss what kind of government department builds a ridiculous deadly weapons store under London, whether secret agents ever genuinely expect that “when they’re out, they’re out,” and when fictional spies become legends in their own fictional universe. Episode Synopsis Kitty McHaig, a techno-destruction artist, gets a birthday call – a day early – from her twin brother Christopher. After the usual pleasantries, they complain about their father.  Dad has forced his son into the family construction business, and he hates it, and he’s shut out his daughter, and he disapproves of her idiotic (albeit lucrative) art.  When the call ends, Christopher jumps from a construction crane to his death. Things are in flux for Team Bugs.  Ros has invented a video doohickey and is now filthy rich; Ed is test-racing high-tech bikes and gets in an accident, injuring himself; and Beckett is broke and has had all his assets frozen.  It is this team that is urgently called to McHaig Construction, where a dynamite truck nearly exploded in the tunnel they are constructing.  Ros has determined that a brilliantly-designed gizmo was the culprit.  This was a case of sabotage. Ed, asking questions about who might want to sabotage McHaig construction, meets Kitty at one of her art shows.  There’s a little mutual attraction in the air, but little useful information to be gleaned.  Ed does learn of Christopher’s recent suicide. At Ros’ new mansion, Ros and Beckett analyze the device, but Ros has to dash because she’s got a date. Ed arrives and starts to get a glimmer that Beckett’s got some troubles, but Beckett won’t talk about it.  He also learns that the gizmo was brilliantly designed from tech stuff, and he gets the idea to ask Kitty if she knows anyone who might build something like this. At the construction site, they find a wall where no wall should be, and behind it, they discover a single missile and a warning sign from the Bureau of Weapons Technology from 1953. Ed, Beckett, and Kitty meet, but the only person she knows who could build something diabolical like that is a woman named Ros Henderson.  Ed and Beckett rule her out of suspicion, for now.  Beckett is also served papers and has to confess to Ed that he’s done something stupid with his ex-fiancee, and now he’s on the hook for her massive debts. In the studio, Kitty learns of the missile from one of her agents at her dad’s company.  They go to the tunnel to look and find a much bigger storehouse of deadly chemical weapons. The next day, McHaig, who keeps this hush hush because he’s got deadlines, informs Team Bugs of the missile he knows about.  They arrange to do containment and remediation on it.  Meanwhile, Beckett goes to the Central Office of Records and Archives, hoping to find documentation from the now-defunct Bureau of Weapons Technology. He meets with the Director of Intelligence Coordination.  She shows him what’s left of the BWT, which is a sad little room with some file boxes and a low-level file clerk.  She also knows about his current financial situation and tries very, very hard to convince him to come to work for her and revive the Bureau.  She’s so well-informed, and the timing of a job offer is so fortuitous, that one could be forgiven for suspecting she arranged Beckett’s woes just to entrap him.  Beckett refuses the offer. In the end, she won’t allow him access to the files unless he takes the job.  He refuses again and makes up his mind to steal the information.   In the tunnel, Ros and Ed have secured the missile and are taking to an overpack container.  Unbeknownst to them, Kitty has installed another one of her gizmos in the loader that Ed will use to carry the missile. Beckett mostly fails at breaking into the BWT, when he is caught, first by the file clerk, and second by the Director of Intelligence Coordination.  Beckett has a long jail term in front of him, but he did at least get the information he needed.  The warehouse doesn’t just have one missile, it has a huge stockpile. The loader goes wrong, stopping, then beginning to crush the missile.  McHaig arrives, without chemical hazard suit to save the day with some bolt cutters, but not before he’s splashed with the nerve agent, killing him instantly. No, no, he’s not dead, and Ros rushes him to the convenient onsite hospital.  Ed, who has been further injured in the accident, remains behind and realizes the missile is not ticking.  That can’t be a good thing. In hospital, after Ros leaves, Kitty shows up and gives her villain speech to her father.  This apparently causes so much distress, he dies right on the spot. Now taking an active role in the company, Kitty takes command of the salvage operation away from Ros.  She sends in a robotic truck of her own design to rescue Ed and carry out the missile.  There’s just one problem, it doesn’t rescue Ed, it drives itself into the stockpile of weapons and waits for the explosion.  An explosion which will render the tunnel site completely unusable and ruin her father’s company.  Coincidentally, killing millions of Londoners in the process, but you’ve got to crack a few eggs to make an omelette. Ros figures out what’s happening and handcuffs herself to Kitty to force her to release the robotic truck or die along with everyone else. Beckett arrives along with the apparently-not-dead-but-just-resting McHaig.  Kitty relents and Ed is able to pilot the vehicle out, get the missile in the overpack container just in time for an explosion that is both a disappointment for Ed and the legions of Bugs fans who keep track of such things. Kitty still really wants to escape the tunnel and Beckett realizes she couldn’t have known about the exploding missile.  It is the truck that is packed with explosives.  Ed hops in and tries to drive the truck away while attempting to disarm it.  He fails but jumps from the truck at the last moment, and in the confusion, Kitty escapes.  He is seriously injured, but taken to hospital for surgery. And that’s then Team Bugs learn that Beckett has enslaved them as the new Bureau of Weapons Technology.

Kenneth and Eugene journey to the Dark Side of the Sun and raise questions about the notion of a deterministic universe, was the deck stacked against Tank, and in what ways the Silicates are just like Marty McFly from Back to the Future. Episode Synopsis Killer has got a problem. She’s got a recurring nightmare that starts with the exploding sun and ends with her reliving the death of her parents at the hands of the AI Rebels (AKA the Silicates.) But there’s no time for that; the Fightin’ 58s have got their marching orders.  Their mission: to guard a mine’s Helium-3 ore.  Compared to the war, the mine is downright close to home, just 215 mks outside the Kuiper Belt, on a dark and barren asteroid named Boonwell. There’s grumbling all around because this is boring work.  They want to be out shooting some Chigs. The Colonel assigns Killer as the commander of the mission, with Snot as her XO.  She balks at that and confides in the Colonel that she thinks it’s her destiny to die out there on this mission.  He poo-poos the concept of a deterministic universe and the concept of luck; “now get on that horse, soldier, and get the job done.” On the flight out, what appears to be a rouge asteroid is on a collision course, but it follows them.  move out of thewhen they try to.  They use their bang-bang-shoot’em ups to destroy it, but not before Killer overhears radio chatter that can only be Silicates.  This rattles Killer. On asteroid Boonwell, they set up their perimeter and begin guard duty.  Before long, they are under attack by Silicates, who have killed all the miners and are attempting to steal the ore. Killer is not up for the fight, and they retreat to their ship.  Snot favors an assault and takes Killer aside to see what’s her major malfunction.  She confides to him the story of her parents being killed and says they’re destined to kill her.  She’s waited her whole life for payback, but now she’s afraid. Meanwhile, Tank gets a history info dump on the Silicates.  They were built to be, effectively, a slave class designed to serve and fight, but when petty politics caused a rogue programmer to introduce a bug into the Silicates, they went on a genocidal war to eradicate man and be free. This introduced bug is nothing more than “take a chance,” but now the Silicates have turned gambling into a religion.  It’s a shame they didn’t adopt ABBA as their religion instead. Killer facing her fear is apparently enough, and they initiate the raid. It doesn’t go well.  Some members of the team are killed, while most are captured on the main assault.  Killer and Snot, on a side mission to turn life support back on, avoid capture, and even gain access to a damaged Silicate and try to use it to gather information on the others. The Silicates are also trying to gather information, but just before the torture starts, Tank tries to appeal to their better nature – he offers to gamble for the information.  Triggered by the phrase, “take a chance,” they can’t pass that up, so it’s one hand of blackjack, winner takes all – more or less.  Tank loses, but in the nick of time, Killer and Snot rescue them. Set free, they go on the offensive and are soon pinned down once more, this time without Killer, who has gone off to capture a Silicate so that she can force it to tell her why her family was singled out for killing.   She captures one with a whole can of whoop-ass on him, then tries to get him to talk.  She even offers him his life.  He knows it’s unlikely she’ll let him live, but he is compelled to make a stupid bet when she plays the “take a chance” trump card.  He tells her what she wanted to know – they picked her family on a coin toss.  She kills him. Things look bad for the rest of the team until Killer comes in and kills all the Silicates single-handedly.  All of them, that is, except the ones who escaped and are taking the ore.  She’s decided she’s going to blow them all up, too, while this time, Snot counsels caution.  She blows them up, anyway. That night, the dream about the sun is gone.  Replaced by a new nightmare when the Silicates are going to kill her and her sisters.

If you could throw a baseball 780 mph, would the US Air Force really be a problem? John and Eugene discuss Spaceball. Episode Synopsis Troy and Dillion leave the kids with Jamie when they’re called away for an important mission from Adama, relayed to them by Lt. Nash.  They will take a special viper into space, reach certain coordinates, and then play the top-secret encoded message.  They tell Nash how to contact Jamie and head off. Col. Sydell has been grounded.  His attempts to locate UFOs have been for naught, and then he hits upon the idea of tracking down Jamie again because he’d forgotten about her, and he desperately wants to pick up a lead.  He also heads out to find her. Jamie has taken the kids to her place of employment, the UBC, where, while she attends a staff meeting, the precocious children, led by Wellington, disassemble an $80,000 television camera to teach the younger kids about its workings.  This freaks out one of the camera techs, but luckily they put it back together before any real harm occurs. Jamie gets wind of a story about a baseball camp for kids and gets the assignment, planning to take the kids to keep them busy. It turns out Nash wasn’t Nash, it was Xavier, and this was a trap to dispose of Troy and Dillon and kidnap the kids.  Trapped in space with limited air, things are looking bad for the Tepid Duo. While the Galactica kids initially know nothing about baseball, a quick read of the rules and they’re ready to play – albeit lamely because they have to hide their superpowers. Like any good charity organization, this ball camp, run by former ball plater Billy Ayers, is just a hair’s breadth away from bankruptcy.  They plan to win the big final, which will bring in enough donations to keep their evil landlord at bay.  And then the kids on his team come down with the flu.  Financial ruin looms until Jamie gets an idea…. Send in the super scouts as the team. It could just work. Then Colonel Sydell and Xavier (still in the guise of Lt. Nash) turn up.  Xavier pretending to “help” and Sydell hoping to catch the kids in the act doing something extra-terrestrial. Plans change again, and the kids have to play like complete muscular disasters to avoid detection by Sydell.   The Space Scouts are taking a drubbing, and Jamie learns that Nash is Xavier and is planning on taking the kids after the game. Plans change again.  Go out there and use your superpowers to win – the crush of the press will keep both Sydell and Xavier at bay. Now the kids win, just in time for Troy and Dillon to return to Earth – oh, did I forget to mention? They got out of the trap in the nick of time.  Troy and Dillion turn up, they get into a gun battle with Xavier, and Sydell is hit in the crossfire.  Xavier escapes, and alls well that ends well.

John and Eugene look at 2022’s Shin Ultraman from the creatives that brought you Shin Godzilla. Synopsis In the 21st century, Japan has begun to come under attack by giant monsters, or kaiju.  Six kaiju have appeared so far; in each case, the creatures were either defeated or departed.  During this time, the SSSP was created – a special team dedicated to developing strategies and weapons to fight the kaiju. As the movie begins, the 7th monster, Neronga, an electricity-eating monster with the power of invisibility, attacks.  While the SSSP struggles to find an effective strategy against the rampaging kaiju, a child is spotted in the monster’s path.  SSSP agent Kaminaga rushes to get the child to safety. From space, an incoming object smashes into the Earth near Neronga.  Rising from the crash site is a giant, silver humanoid.  Confronting Neronga, the giant shrugs off Neronga’s beam attack. Then, with an incredibly-powerful energy beam of its own, the giant destroys Neronga and then flies off. Tasked with learning more about this giant, officially designated extraterrestrial entity 1, but popularly dubbed Ultraman, and assessing if he is friend or foe, the SSSP brings on a new team member, Hiroko Asami, a young woman formerly from the intelligence services.  She is partnered with Kaminaga, also formerly of some branch of intelligence.  Kaminaga is largely indifferent to her. The 8th kaiju, dubbed Gabora, appears. The SSSP notes that monsters 6-8, Pagos, Neronga, and Gabora appear to be the same basic body plan, with specialized modifications as if they are engineered biological weapons.  Gabora is a radioactive, subterranean boring monster that seems drawn to radiation.  It is making a B-line towards a nuclear waste dump. The SSSP’s efforts are hampered by the fact that if they blow up Gabora, it will spread radioactive waste everywhere.  All their efforts fail, including calling in the US military for a little transactional military assistance. Kaminaga slips away from the team and transforms into Ultraman, now red and silver.  He battles Gabora. Asami notices that Ultraman avoids using his beam weapon as if he understands the danger of exploding Gabora.  Instead, he endures Gabora’s beam attacks, turning from red to green in the process until he can get close enough to kill the monster with a physical blow.  He then picks up the radioactive corpse and flies it into space, disappearing again. The SSSP is now convinced that Ultraman is “on their side” in the fight against the kaiju.  Asami is increasingly curious about Kaminaga’s repeated absences from work, but her investigation doesn’t get very far when Extraterrestrial Entity 2 appears. He is Zarab and he’s come to warn Earth about Ultraman and to provide technical help and assistance.  The government of Japan is quick to secure an agreement before other powers, such as the US, try to take over. Zarab is, of course, actually evil and wishes to destroy the human race.  He causes it to be known that Kaminaga is actually bonded with Ultraman, and then he kidnaps Kaminaga and imprisons him.  He had hoped to obtain his Beta Capsule, but it is nowhere to be found. Zarab impersonates Ultraman and attacks the humans; then he submits a plan to help the humans destroy Ultraman.  Kaminaga was one step ahead, and sent the Beta Capsule to Asami, trusting her to rescue him, which she does.  Freed, Kaminaga transforms into Ultraman, battles, and destroys the fake Ultraman over Tokyo.  After the battle, Kaminaga goes back into hiding, but Asami goes missing, too. She turns up, most expectantly, as an Ultraman-sized Asami wandering the streets of Tokyo in a trance.  She smashes a building, then falls into the street and sleeps. Alien Mefilas appears, claiming to be Alien Entity 0 since he’s been on Earth since before Ultraman’s arrival.  He demonstrates the Beta Box, a larger, more primitive version of Ultraman’s Beta Capsule.  He has used this device to transform Asami into an indestructible weapon.  He reverts her to normal and quickly secures a deal with the Japanese government for the technology.  With this deal, he essentially owns the planet. He tries to reason with Kaminaga, whom the JSDF is still hunting.  The people of the Planet of Light have a code of noninterference, and since the people of Earth willingly signed over their sovereignty, he cannot interfere. But Mefilas used the kaiju to scare the humans, making the human part of Kaminaga angry enough to break the Planet of Light’s law and battle Mefilas if need be. With the help of the SSSP, Ultraman prevents Earth from taking possession of the Beta Box, and a battle between Ultraman and Mefilas begins.  It’s looking like Ultraman is going to lose when Mefilas spies another Ultra in the distance.  He immediately gives up, takes his Beta Box, and leaves, saying that the Earth is no longer worth it. The Ultra is Zoffy, freshly arrived from the Planet of Light.  Ultraman has broken the law and upon inspection of the planet, Zoffy has activated the ultimate weapon, Zetton, which will destroy the Earth and its entire solar system.  Ultraman chooses to stay and battle Zetton. Zetton is a giant space platform/weapon, and Ultraman is no match for it, even though it is still unfinished.  Unconscious and in hospital, Kaminaga has left behind math homework for the physics nerd on the SSSP.  With this information, and combined top brains of the world, they devise a strategy to defeat Zetton. Ultraman must attack Zetton, double-click his Beta Capsule, then punch Zetton into a parallel universe.  Easier said than done?  Not really, although Ultraman is also sucked into the parallel universe. Zoffy arrives to rescue him and take him back to the Planet of Light.  Instead, he asks that Zoffy separate him and Kaminaga, sacrificing his life so that Kaminaga may live. Kaminaga awakens with his friends from the SSSP surrounding him.

Simon and Eugene discuss the effect of emotions on intelligence, taking out gods with technology, and they look back over a quarter of a century of poetry by Tarbolde from Canopius planet. Episode Synopsis The USS Enterprise is on a mission to become the first known Earth ship to explore beyond the edge of the galaxy.  As they approach, they discover and retrieve a ship’s recorder from the USS Valiant, a ship lost 200 years ago.  Could it be that another ship has previously left the galaxy? Second-in-command, Mr. Spock tries to decode the badly damaged ship’s recorder.  The Valiant was caught in a storm and swept past the edge of the galaxy.  When it returned, the ship received heavy damage, and several crew members were killed.  Through the garbled data, Spock gathers that they were frantically searching for information on ESP and then… could that be correct? Did he hear the Captain of the Valiant order their own destruction? Captain Kirk of the Enterprise gathers his division heads on the bridge, including newcomer psychiatrist Dr. Dehner, for one last consultation before they leave the galaxy.  With no hard data, and the need to learn what’s out there, Kirk orders the Enterprise to continue. The “edge” of the galaxy is a bit of a misnomer, for as they approach, they are confronted with an expansive energy field of some kind that defies analysis with their equipment, as they attempt to pass through it, the ship and members of the crew are subjected to wild electrical forces.  Heavily damaged Kirk orders the ship to exit the barrier.  Two of the bridge occupants have been knocked unconscious.  Dr. Dehner was mildy knocked down, but Helmsman Gary Mitchell took a strong shock.  He seems to be alright, but his eyes are glowing. The Enterprise is crippled, with their warp drive damaged, Earth bases are years away. Spock has found a connection between Mitchell, Dehner, and the nine crew who died in the barrier: They all had the highest ESP ratings on the ship – Mitchell’s highest of all.  Dr. Dehner argues that ESP is a largely ineffectual ability in humans and that there is no danger from it.  Spock argues that perhaps there are other forms of ESP that might be.  The crew of the Valiant was frantic for information about ESP. In Sickbay, Mitchell feels fine, and the readings confirm that.  They also cannot find a reason for the glowing eyes.  Mitchell is one of Kirk’s oldest friends and when he visits his friend is Sickbay, Mitchell knows it is Kirk even before he sees him.  Mitchell has been catching up on his reading, and while friendly, there’s an air of superiority as he chats with his old friend.  Kirk orders him to remain in sickbay for more tests.  Momentarily, Mitchell’s voice booms unnaturally. Spock is observing Mitchell from the bridge, he’s reading books at an incredible speed, and that speed increasing.  As they watch him on the monitor, Mitchell seems to turn to them and look back. Dehner is in Sickbay studying Mitchell. Mitchell jokes that maybe his medical reading should be abnormal, and suddenly they are.  He just thought about it and it happened.  Then, he makes himself die, and come back.  Mitchell tells Dehner that he’s gone through half the ship’s library in a day, and she asks if he remembers it all.  He does, in eidetic detail. Things are beginning to get a little intense between them when Navigator Lee Kelso arrives to check on his friend. Mitchell immediately tells him that the starboard impulse pack has almost burnt out and a skeptical Kelso beats a hasty retreat.  Mitchell tells Dehner that Kelso is a fool.  He’d seen the damage and didn’t notice it.  Mitchell saw the image still in his mind. At a staff meeting, Kelso is showing off the damaged part, exactly as Mitchell described it.  Dehener arrives late to the staff meeting and is critical of Kirk and Spock for treating Mitchell with suspicion.  Kirk asks if Mitchell has demonstrated any powers and Dehner downplays what’s she’s seen Engineer Scott reports that recently, the ships controls went crazy, as if they were operating themselves, and all the while, on the montitor, Mitchell was smiling. Kirk, again to Dehner, has he shown any powers like that?   “Well, yes.” “And you didn’t bother to report it?” Dehner argues that an improved human could be a good thing, the next step in human evolution. At his current exponential increase in power, soon the crew will be nothing but an annoyance to him. After the staff meeting is adjourned, Spock gives his recommendations to the reluctant Kirk.  Make course for the uninhabited planet Delta Vega, hope that we can use the mining equipment there to fix the ship, and strand Mitchell there before it’s too late.  The only alternative: Kill Mitchell now, while he still can.  Kirk orders a course for Delta Vega. When arrive at the planet, Kirk and Spock go to sickbay.  Not only does Mitchell know what they plan to do, he chides Kirk for not following Spock’s recommendation, “you should kill me while you have the chance.”  But it appears to be too late, Mitchell overcomes Kirk and Spock with lightning bolts. He doesn’t want to be stranded. Powerful, but not all powerful, Kirk gets a moment to knock Mitchell down and he is sedated.  They get him to the transporter and beam down to the planet, locking him in a makeshift cell. The equipment seems promising, and Kelso thinks he can repair the ship’s engines.  Kirk gives him one other task:  Rig up a self-destruct mechanism for the mining facility and, if Mitchell escapes, blow it up. In the cell, Mitchell has gone full-on megalomaniacal.  He tries to walk through the force field, but is repeatedly thrown backwards until his eyes return to normal.  Spock urges they kill him now. Mitchell pitifully calls to his friend Kirk but then the glowing eyes return before they can act.   In the control center, Kelso has just finished his repair job for the Enterprise, when cables slip around his throat, killing the man with his hand on the self-destruct button. In the cell, Mitchell mocks Kirk’s compassion, deactivates the field, stuns Kirk and Spock and takes Dr. Dehner in to look at her newly-glowing eyes. Later, Dr. Piper finds Kirk and revives him.  He saw Mitchell and Dehner head off.  Kirk follows with a phaser rifle. Mitchell now dares think of himself as a god.  He can create a paradise on this planet.  He tells Dehner she’ll enjoy being a god, she’s on the same path as him.  Mitchell detects Kirk, and he sends Dehner to talk to him, to see how insignificant humans are. Kirk makes his appeal to the psychiatrist in Dehner to help him.  Michelle has god-like powers with all his human frailties, all the ugly things that humans dare not let out.  Mitchell will dare. Mitchell arrives.  Kirk shoots him with the phaser rifle to no effect. Mitchell is going to kill his old friend, but he’s going to toy with him first, and make him pray to him.  Kirk makes his last appeal to Dehner.  “Above all else a god needs compassion.”  “Absolute power corrupting absolutely, and in the end, there will only be one of you left.” This strikes home, and Dehner attacks Mitchell with lightning bolts.  Caught off guard, Mitchell is weakened.  They trade lightning bolts and both collapse.  Mitchell’s eyes fade, and Kirk seizes his chance.  They fight, and when Kirk gets the upper hand and is in a position to kill Mitchell, he hesitates.  Too late, Mitchell’s eyes glow again, his strength returning. With time running out, Kirk manages to use the phaser rifle to drop a giant boulder on top of Mitchell, killing him.  Kirk goes to Dehner who apologizes but says you can’t know what its like to feel like a god, and she dies. The Enterprise, fully repaired, leaves orbit.  Kirk records both Dehner and Mitchell’s deaths as in the line of duty.

Kenneth and Eugene look at the episode where people should be court-martialed, but they aren’t. Episode Synopsis An Army team lands on the planet Tellus looking for survivors.  They come under heavy Chig attack and must evacuate, but not before they capture one survivor, who is rather unwilling to leave.  He madly raves about being “…the farthest man from home.” The Fightin’ 58th are awaiting their next mission.  Their current position is near Tellus, a planet West never thought he’d see. He’s wistful about his dead colonist girlfriend, Kylen, who was one of the colonists massacred on Tellus. West observes the Army shuttle return from Tellus and sees the survivor, in biohazard containment, placed into confinement.  That gives him an idea. Meanwhile, the survivor is questioned by Sewell, one of the Board of Directors of the Aerotech corporation.  The corporation that funded the Tellus colony project.  He’s in possession of information about the Chig that was recovered on Mars, and he wants the survivor to confirm what he knows.  He doesn’t, and Sewell warns that they’ll re-educate him and make him forget everything that happened on Tellus. The 58th are given their new assignment, they’ll be heading off to another star system, but West has other ideas.  He manages to contact the prisoner, asks about Kylen, and when he gives an obtuse answer, West decides to steal his Hammerhead and try to rescue her from the planet. Colonel McQueen notices his absence and promises to bust his butt.  Later.  As explained in the previous episode, McQueen will not tolerate any insubordination in his squadron. So, of course, Vansen and Tank immediately disobey orders and go after him. Tellus is what the Jarheads call a “hot” planet – that is, it’s under Chig control – and so, in very short order, West’s Hammerhead is shot down.  He survives the crash and begins searching.  He finds definitive signs that several humans survived the attack, and Kylen was among the survivors.  Following a needlessly obtuse clue, West tries looking in the hills, where he finds a cave with two human survivors, but neither is Kylen.  They have survived because the cave is a sacred burial area, and the Chigs will not enter.  There were other survivors, including Kylen, but they’ve all been captured and are undoubtedly dead by now. Undeterred, he goes to the place where the Chigs took the humans and oversees several prisoners being escorted somewhere in chains. Vansen and Tank are searching from orbit when they, too, come under Chig attack.  Tank is shot down and crashes conveniently near West.  Vansen flees and calls for help. West and Tank find each other but come under Chig ground assault.  Things are looking bad when the 58th, on McQueen’s orders, provides them with covering fire as an Army personnel carrier arrives to rescue them from the planet. Back on the carrier, it’s time for Commodore Ross to get some answers, as the cascading chain of idiots to explain and shoulder blame for everyone’s actions.  Obviously, they’re all for a court-martial, except they’re not.  “You will forget about this and not discuss it with anyone, dismissed.” McQueen speculates that somebody much higher up put the boot on Commodore Ross. So, alls’ well that ends well, right?  

John and Eugene look discuss The Super Scouts, where we learn that Galacticas are really from the planet Krypton, that television kids are stupid no matter what planet they come from, and why revolving doors aren’t nearly complicated as out space people think they are. Episode Synopsis Episode One Dr. Zee has had a facelift and a bright idea.  He’s worried about the children of the fleet. Despite the fact that the Cylons haven’t attacked in a generation, he’s worried that if the children are all killed, they’ll have no future.  He instructs Adama that the children should be prepared to be sent to Earth to assimilate into the population.  Damned good timing on that idea, too, for no sooner does the training of the children begin than the Cylons attack the school ship, destroying it. The children are all shuttled to safety, except for the final shuttle piloted by Troy and Dillon.  Having sustained damage, the ship cannot reach the fleet, but it can somehow reach the Earth with its cargo of twelve precocious kids. Their arrival on Earth does not go unnoticed, alerting Col. Sydell, the US Air Force’s UFO hunter. The Galacticans destroy the shuttle and begin preparations to blend in.  This may not be so easy because the kids from the Galactica are examples of the very worst misbehavior of children, plus they have superpowers because the fleet’s artificial gravity is higher than the Earth’s. Troy purchases disguises for the kids in the form of scout uniforms, while Dillon accidentally robs a bank while attempting to exchange gold for money. The Colonel is investigating the area, and Jamie arrives chasing the story, again meeting Troy and Dillon when the Colonel interviews the scout troop to see if they saw any UFOs last night.  Empty-handed, the Colonel leaves but decides to stay in the area and continue his investigations. That night, around the campfire, three of the kids become ill and must be taken to a nearby medical facility.  The children are dying from some form of poisoning. The three children “satisfied the thirst” from a local lake. A quick analysis reveals that it is filled with toxic substances, but the presence of the Galacticans draws the attention of a suspicious security officer.  The town doesn’t need any more long-haired hippie environmentalists trying to shut down the factory just because the lake is lethally toxic. They visit Mr. Stockton, manager of Standford Chemicals.  Why, he’s insulted by the very idea that his plant could be to blame, but he’ll look into it and get back to them.  He immediately calls the sheriff to help run these troublemakers out of town.  The town is still recovering from the last shutdown.  It cannot afford another. The sheriff discovers that the scout troop doesn’t exist, so he goes to arrest them.  Jamie is able to warn Troy and Dillon, and they fly off to try to get there first. Episode Two The dumbest cops on the planet meet the dumbest space children on Earth when they arrive at the campsite, which appears empty.  In fact, the invisible rapscallions are just hanging around in a tree, invisible, and throwing apples at the cops.  Then they steal the police cars and make their escape. At the medical center, the doctor discovered something weird about these so-called humans – they aren’t human.  But that’s not as important as saving their lives, so he takes Jamie out to see the real problem.  The ground is so polluted that throwing rocks can start fires.  Shoes are literally burned off the feet of the residents due to the massive contamination – and nobody wants to do anything about it because the plant is the life of the town. Aware that things are being stirred up again, plant workers show up to bully the doctor and Jamie.  Luckily, Troy and Dillion show up to throw them around a bit with their superpowers.  Stockton shows up and demands they all visit the sheriff, which they do until the doctor gets a call.  One of the children is worse…. ok, not worse, dead.  But not dead because Galactican technology can still save them.  Dillon places an emergency call to the Galactica. Dr. Zee and Adama fly to Earth in Dr. Zee’s patented anti-gravity spaceship, while Troy, Dillon, and Stockton take the kids to a remote place for a rendezvous.  Colonel Slydell and the Sherrif are hot on their tails. Dr. Zee uses his Ghost of Christmas Future computron to show Stockton that his son will die in 10 years if he doesn’t mend his ways.  A changed man, Stockton is the only one left when Slydell arrives.  Troy, Dillon, and the kids are still embedded on Earth, and now Jamie gets babysitter duty. The End

Simon and Eugene discuss why you can’t go back in time to before you went back in time, the possibilities for using a time machine for committing crimes rather than solving them, and the messages hidden in Crime Traveller, which prove the whole thing takes place in an alternate reality. Episode Synopsis Professor Hayward is found dead, murdered in his bathtub. Slade and Turner are on a date, having just seen a 50-year-old French film.  Turner thinks it’s a timeless classic; Slade, not so much. It has special significance for Turner; it’s the same film she went to on her very first date.  Slade hasn’t got much time to be nosy and/or jealous when Professor Chapman calls out to Turner but is run down in a hit-and-run.  Chapman desperately tries to tell Tuner something but can only point to her wrist before he dies.  For the first time in the series, Slade fails to get the license plate number of the car. Turner immediately tries using the time machine to find out what happened, but in this case, it only takes them back 3 minutes.  Just long enough for them to return to the present, and then the single most expensive piece of equipment, the crystal, breaks.  Without £20,000, the time machine is never working again. It turns out that both professors Chapman and Hayward worked for Web Biotech, and although Turner has never met either of them, both were known names to her as they worked in her father’s field.  She is assigned to work with Slade as he investigates their place of employment. They meet with the Technical Director, Steven Marlow, who, to no surprise to anyone that’s ever watched a movie or TV show, is the very same man with whom Turner went on her first date and was her boyfriend. Turner’s father previously tutored him.  Slade immediately suspects he’s involved in the murders, and it’s not at all because he’s jealous. Marlow takes them to meet Sebastian Webb, owner of the company, and he is none-too-complimentary about Hayward and Chapman’s work, which has overrun budgets and produced nothing. He strongly indicates that he thinks they, and perhaps Marlow, were up to something. In their lab, Slade notices and is curious about a locked room, but he’s assured it’s just a generator and storage. Turner is unhappy about Slade’s attitude to Marlow, and Slade asks if he knows about her father’s time machine.  She assures him that he doesn’t.  More inquiries reveal that Hayward and Marlow were anxious before their deaths – like they knew something. Slade, ever more suspicious and not-at-all jealous, intrudes on Turner and Marlow having a date. He makes it clear that Marlow is his suspect. Later, Slade receives a call from an anonymous caller claiming to have information about the murders.  A meeting is arranged, but it is a trap, as an unidentified assailant wearing a hat to conceal his curly hair takes a couple of shots at Slade.  Slade shoots him in the shoulder, but he escapes in the very car that ran down Chapman. That’s enough evidence for Slade, and he convinces Grissom to bring in Marlow for questioning. Slade’s case against him falls apart rapidly; first, it’s discovered that he hasn’t been shot in the shoulder.  This is followed by the verification of two iron-clad, if somewhat absurdly coincidental, alibis for the nights of the two murders.  Finally, the nail in the coffin of Slade’s case gets hammered in when it’s revealed that Marlow was with Turner when Slade was attacked. Marlow is released and promises to sue.  Marlow has been trying to get Turner to work for him, and Slade’s actions mortify Turner.  She decides to accept his offer and show him the time machine.  Police officer Frank overhears that they’re going to Turner’s flat. When she shows him the time machine, he figures out what it is and kisses her inappropriately.  They can change history with this! Morris mentions to Slade that his car electronics went wonky outside Webb Biotech during his surveillance, and Slade puts it all together.  There’s a time machine in operation at Webb Biotech.  He tries to track down Holly, but Marlow has already taken her away, ostensibly to go to a Webb Biotech facility to replace the broken crystal, but later, he holds her at gunpoint.  He intends to kill her, then will use the time machine to create another iron-clad alibi. Slade breaks into the locked room in Chapman and Hayward’s lab, and it turns out to be a DJ’s sound machine AND time machine and is considerably more hi-tech than Turner’s.  Nonetheless, Slade manages to go back in time two hours and tails Marlow and Holly.  He rescues her from being flash-frozen but only has 12 minutes to return to the time machine. When they arrive, Marlow is waiting with a gun, preventing Slade from returning.  It looks like it will be Jeff Slade and the Loop of Infinity, after all. Egomaniac that he is, Marlow tries to convince Turner to side with him, and she does, but only to get the jump on him, allowing Slade to enter the time machine, but not before a stray gunshot starts a fire inside it.  Slade “returns,” and Marlow, not understanding the laws of time, tries to use the machine to go back and prevent the machine from being damaged.  He disappears into… the Loop of Infinity? Jeff rushes into the burning machine to liberate a crystal of the type Turner needs to repair her time machine, but he holds out on her until she agrees to use the machine to fight crime.

John and Eugene look at George Pal’s 1950 Technicolor space extravaganza, Destination Moon. It’s the film about a plucky band of industrialists who shoot for the moon so they can save the U.S. Space Program by extracting massive government contracts. Synopsis At White Sands, Dr. Cargraves and General Thayer, Ret. are about to witness the culmination of two years of work.  Cargraves missile launches and then crashes.  Well, that’s the end of that project.  It was probably foreign sabotage, but this is peacetime, and the US Military hasn’t got enough money to fund weapons research – it looks like it was all for nothing. Darn, that peacetime military austerity! Cargraves may be resigned to returning to his much-neglected wife and kids, but General Thayer isn’t so easily dissuaded.  He’s already been run out of the military for his crusade for rockets, and no good crusaders quit till they’re dead. He goes to Jim Barnes, head of Barnes Aviation. He convinces him that the conquest of space is absolutely critical for American security and prosperity, that the US  is incapable of pursuing a space program, and that only a conglomerate of forward-thinking, high-minded industrialists have the money, brains, and resources to launch a rocket to the moon.  Plus, they’ll be able to force the government to pay them for the technology when push comes to shove. Forward-thinking, high-minded industrialists are hard to find unless you have a secret weapon to convince them, and Barnes has just that:  Woody Woodpecker! The rocket is built in the desert, but a well-funded, concerted effort to foment anti-rocket hysteria among the public is casting doubt on the success of the project.  When they are denied permission even to test their atomic motor, Barnes realizes they’ll never be given permission to launch.  Following the principle that it’s better to ask forgiveness than to ask permission, they decide to launch the untested rocket to the moon in 17 hours’ time. There are more snags, as the communications technician, Brown, gets appendicitis, and they must recruit Sweeney, a man who does not believe the rocket will ever leave the ground, to take his place. As a process server shows up at the gates to serve them a court-ordered cease and desist, they hastily launch. The flight is not without problems, for their antenna gets stuck, and they must spacewalk and make repairs.  Cargraves is separated from the ship and starts to float away, and Barnes must make a daring rescue to retrieve him. They arrive at the moon, but the landing is rough, and they burn too much fuel. Back on Earth, the world unites behind the heroes who took mankind to the stars, but on the moon, they must confront a horrifying truth: They must lighten their ship by over 3000 lbs. or they will never take off.   Stripping away everything that isn’t bolted down, and even even lots of things that are bolted and welded down, plus most of their oxygen, food, water, and the car keys in their pockets, they get within 110 lbs. of their goal – the weight of one person. Cargraves, Barnes, and Thayer all argue that they will be the person that stays behind, but Sweeny slips away and makes the sacrifice. When Cargraves can’t be the Big Damned Hero and sacrifice his own life, he comes up with a way to save Sweeney by jettisoning Sweeney’s spacesuit.  They take off for Earth.

This week Kenneth and Eugene begin looking at a new series, Jarheads in Space! Sometimes called Space Above and Beyond, the failed 1995 Fox space war series from two of the creatives behind the X-Files. First up is the pilot episode, known as Pilot. It’s the episode where a rag-tag group of new recruits learns to be pilots. Episode Synopsis In the middle decades of the 21st century, mankind established its first extra-solar colony, called Vesta, around Epsilon Erandi, a star 10.5 light years from Earth.   Having set foot on an alien world, mankind in all his hubris can safely declare that there is no life out in space.  This, no doubt, comes as a bit of a surprise to the aliens who wipe them out. Back on Earth, unaware yet that their colony has been lost, Tellus is prepping to launch a second colony ship to Vesta.  Onboard, two lovers, Nathan and Kylen, are preparing to spend the rest of their lives together in the stars.  With less than a day until launch, there is a snag. The subject of In Vitros – humans grown in tanks – has become a hot political topic.  Often referred to by the derogatory term “Tanks,” In Vitros are second-class citizens and discriminated against, and not everyone is on board with the idea that they’re fully human.  Nathan and Kylen being good and decent people, of course, think In Vitros deserve full human rights; however, when the government demands that a certain percentage of the colony be In Vitros, either Nathan or Kylen (but not both) will have to stay behind on Earth, Nathan gets a bit less kindly disposed towards them. Nathan was the kind of kid that thought he could hide under the coffee table in the living room and no one could see him, so Kylen goes on the mission, and Nathan tries stowing away.  His excess CO2 emissions are immediately noticed, and he is forcibly ejected from the craft before launch. Elsewhere, Cooper Hawke, an In Vitro, is about to be lynched.  He overpowers his captors and pursues the ringleader with murderous intent.  The police arrest him. With no other way to get into space, Nathan West joins the Marines.  He’s there with a motley crew that includes Cooper Hawke (who is not there voluntarily) and Shane Vansen, a woman trying to get away from responsibility after her parents were killed in the AI War and she had to raise her sisters.  There are others, too; it remains to be seen if they are important. You know the story – marine corps recruits, shouty-shouty drill sergeants, the abuse, the failures, the team building, the hot shot other Marines who are too big for their boots.  Just take that part as read. Still unaware of the fate of the Vesta colony, Kylen’s ship arrives and is immediately destroyed by the aliens.  Of course, you realize this means war, which we have been reliably told is what Marines pray for. The recruits are sent to Mars to repair a tracking drone.  It’s a BS job supporting critical infrastructure instead of being out there and getting killed.  To make matters more interesting, they get sent without leadership or command structure of any kind.  This is, of course, a clever ruse by the Corps to find out which one of them comes back holding the conch. Nonetheless, during their mission, an alien crashes on Mars near them, and they investigate. Team member Pags gets killed, which turns out he was kind of important because he was the only person who treated Hawke like a real person.  Hawke is upset by this. Eventually, the team captures the alien, and in an act of kindness, they shove a bottle into an unknown available orifice to give him water.  Killing him almost instantly.  It’s the first time humans have gotten their hands on an alien and a ship, so they leave the body behind on Mars because… they’re Marines and they’re not paid to think? Let’s call them Jarheads from this point forwards, shall we? Back on Earth, after Bags’ funeral, our trainees get their wings, but instead of immediately being shipped off to go get killed, they’re forced to take 48 hours leave.  They are disappointed Jarheads. During leave, the Marine Corps’ hottest squadron, the Angry Angels, get their butts handed to them on a plate and are, effectively, wiped out.  It’s time for the plucky newly-promoted recruits, now the 58th Squadron, to enter the fray. Now that the recruits are full-fledged Jarheads, they can be let in on the top-secret intel.  Earth is losing this war in a first-class fashion.  The aliens will attack Earth pretty soon; however, the big-brain boys have decoded the attack plans found on the wrecked ship on Mars and are laying a trap for the aliens. The 58th, an unseasoned squadron, will be somewhere in the back. Waiting in the asteroid belt, it becomes obvious that the aliens know about the trap and Earth must scramble to deal with a different strategy.  Hawkes, still trying to honor Pags’ memory, launches out to get the attention of the alien fleet – it succeeds, and the battle begins.  The 58th are outnumbered, but they comport themselves well, but it is just a matter of time till their inevitable defeat when backup forces suddenly arrive, save the day, and route the aliens. Back on Earth, they get medals, a graduation ceremony, and a new commanding officer, Lt. Col. T.C. McQueen, formerly of the Angry Angels.  He welcomes his new team with these encouraging words: “…if you ever pull anything like what you did out there under my command, the only medal you’ll be wearing is cuffs in the brig.”  This is kind of funny because “medal” and “metal” aren’t the same words, although medals are most often made of metal which may have led to his confusion.

For four years, our coverage has endured the wilderness of space. And now we near the end of one of our journey. The Galactica has, at last, found Earth. This week we begin our look at Battlestar Galactica Season 2, aka Galactica 1980, John and Eugene discuss the three-part pilot movie, Galactica Discover Earth. Episode Synopsis After 30 years in the wilderness of space, the Battlestar Galactica and its ragtag fleet of refuges find the long-sought-after planet Earth.  Sometimes, when you’ve spent a lifetime searching for something, and then you find it, you realize you didn’t know what you would do next.  And so it is with Earth. On Earth, it is the year 1980, cell phones aren’t a thing yet, and the primitive inhabitants still think digital watches are a pretty nifty idea.  Unfortunately, with all those things in the assets column, the Cylons will make short work of the Earth when they arrive. The Galactica’s cerebral mutant and benevolent overlord, Dr. Zee, assures Comdr. Adama that the Cylons are still right on their heels, and now they’ve led them to Earth.  D’oh!  But Dr. Zee has a plan: Teams of warriors will travel to the Earth and provide advanced technology to enlightened scientists, forcing Earth’s technology to advance as quickly as possible.  The Galactica and the fleet will head off into space and lure the Cylons away. One of those teams is Apollo and Starbuck – or their zero-calorie versions, Troy and Dillon.  Troy was once known as Boxey and is Adama’s adopted grandson, but that’s a story for another day.  Their mission is to find top nuclear scientist Dr. Mortonson and see if he’d like some help with his equations. But the path to scientific advancement never runs true, especially when two fish-out-of-water aliens try to pass for the inhabitants of Los Angeles.  Hilarity ensues as they run afoul of motorcycle gangs, telephones, security forces, and cops. They meet aspiring news reporter Jamie Hamilton, who doggedly pursues them in search of a story.  They get a message to Dr. Mortonson, but not before they’re arrested. Their ships, which have a temporary invisibility field, run out of power and are discovered by a young boy and his dog. Mortonson figures out who they are, but before he can get them out of jail, they escape using their invisibility fields.  They meet up with him, but the cops mistake it for kidnapping by dangerous terrorists and give chase. Back on the Galactica, a member of the Council of Twelve, Xavier pitches a “better” plan to Adama:  Use their time travel technology to go back to the Earth’s past, change the course of history, forcing Earth to advance faster and preparing them to defend against the Cylons.  Adama rejects the idea.  Xavier steals a ship and heads back in time.  Adama recalls all the teams from Earth. Leaving Mortonson in the lurch, Troy and Dillon escape to their ships just in time because the local sheriff has come to investigate the boy’s report.  Jamie forces them to take her along, or she’ll spill the beans on the spacemen. Aboard the Galactica, Jamie agrees to help Troy and Dillon as they travel back to 1944, where Xavier has gone.  His plan: Help the Nazis win the war with superior rocket technology. In 1944, they encounter an American spy planning to blow up the first V2 test, but first, they try to save a young girl from the holocaust.  Xavier has been helping the Nazis, and the V2 is about to launch to destroy London! Dillon blows up the V2 test as it takes off, probably ending the program forever, and they arrest Xavier. Afterward, they free a train full of Jews because, for some reason, that won’t change the time stream, as long as they don’t kill any Nazis.  Jamie knows that they stand a good chance of escape because it’s after midnight, and that makes it D-Day and that the Nazis have their hands full with their ultimate downfall.  The 1980 audience cheers because it’s the end for the Nazis!  Audiences post-2016 shake their heads and wonder how things have gone wrong again. Ready to take Xavier back, he gives them the slip.  Oops. Back in the present, they return Jamie, and while they do, that same damned kid finds the Vipers again; this time, he brings the Air Force. Needing to know where their ships were taken, Troy and Dillion allow that damned kid to use their invisibility technology to torment his tormentor at school.  His need for revenge sated; he divulges the ship’s whereabouts info. Xavier has returned to the present and is trying to meet Mortonson.  He succeeds and spins a yarn that Troy and Dillon are renegades trying to use time technology to change Earth’s history and set themselves up to rule the world. Through Jamie, Troy, and Dillion manage to warn Mortonson, but Xavier realizes what has happened and steals a history book from Mortonson and heads out to regain his ship, which the Air Force also captured. Troy Dillon and Jamie stage a raid on the base and recapture their vipers just after Xavier escapes in his.  As Xavier prepares to jump back in time once more, Troy shoots him badly because Xavier jumps back to 18th-century America. Back aboard the Galactica, Adama convinces Jamie to join Troy and Dillion’s little time team so that she can help them prevent Xavier from destroying Earth’s history. And with the time-traveling premise of the series established and cast in stone,  we come to a close on this story.  

Simon and Eugene discuss whether time is a sentient trickster, the ramifications for gambling laws when time travel is possible, and we reminisce about the era of fax machines when mobile phones were as common as jacuzzis. Episode Synopsis Jeff Slade, still in the doghouse with Holly Turner, has brought flowers to apologize.  Danny, the building super, stops him before he makes a minor faux pas.  He knows that Turner doesn’t like that particular type of flower and suggests an alternative.  He just happens to have some red roses that were delivered for a tenant currently out of the country.  Rather than let them go to waste, he gives them to Slade for Turner. Danny is the magic man because, very soon, Slade is more or less back in Turner’s good graces.  He’s still banned from using the time machine, of course, but he’s at least regained lap access, and like the tale of the camel and the tent, he’s got a plan to get his nose in further. Slade wants to solve Turner’s money problems by using the time machine to return in time and give Turner tonight’s lottery numbers.  Turner says, “You didn’t give me the numbers today, so this already hasn’t worked.”  Against her better judgment, she lets Slade try, sending him and the lottery numbers back in time. Slade’s working hypothesis is that he cannot buy the lottery tickets, nor can he return to the present with the ticket. Instead, he must give the information to someone currently existing in the past timeline, and they can buy the ticket.  As Slade has spent the entire day in a police training session, he was not in the office, did not interact with anyone, and has a free hand to move about without fear of encountering himself. First stop, Turner’s office, but she’s not there. He starts to leave a note on her whiteboard, but Grissom comes in, see’s Slade, and, since he’s in the office, puts him on an important case, not even giving him time to finish his note. It’s a big case. A notorious yet unprosecuted criminal mastermind has set his sights on a £3,000,000 gold shipment, and Grissom wants to use it as bait to arrest him.  Slade, Morris, and Nicky are put on surveillance duty across the street from the gold repository. Nicky has got just the thing Slade needs, one of those fancy new mobile phones, so he borrows it to call Turner, but the battery is dead.  Slade leaves the stakeout to use a nearby phone box, but a woman gets there first before he can make the call.  When he gets fed up and confiscates the phone for “police business,” the alarm at the gold repository goes off before he can connect with Turner, who has arrived at the office and already absent-mindedly erased the partial note Slade left her. Slade just can’t catch a break; it’s like something is working against him. The criminal gang has come in from below ground and has made off with the 750 lbs (by weight) of gold on foot.  Slade chases them through the underground tunnels but loses them when they reach the street.  He spots a woman carrying a similar bag to the one used by the gang, so on a long shot, he takes her license plate number down, but let’s face it, that’s a ridiculously long shot. Back at the repository, the manager is unhappy with the police and especially angered that Grissom used his gold as bait.  Heads will roll – specifically, Grissom’s – and she’s none too happy with Slade, either. He left his post during the stakeout, unmitigated by the fact that they could not have seen or prevented the crime from their stakeout point, nor that Slade was actually closer to the crime and was able to give pursuit because of it. Slade tries calling Turner from the repository, but the explosions have severed the phone lines, so Slade writes a note and sends it with a courier to hand-deliver to Turner.  Turner is out, however, and the note is left taped to her door. Nicky has replaced his mobile phone batteries, so Slade tries calling Turner again, this time on her car phone, unfortunately, she passes into a tunnel and loses reception just as they are about to connect. Slade and Nicky visit the young woman he saw carrying a bag.  It’s just a bag, and it hasn’t got gold in it, but Slade takes it as evidence, anyway.  He also uses their fax machine to send Turner a note, but Turner’s fax machine is out of paper.   Turner is giving a lecture, so Slade tries going there to give her the lottery numbers, but while he’s trying to locate her in the building, the fire alarm is triggered, and everyone evacuates the building.  Thwarted again.  Slade tries heading to Turner’s office.  She’s still not there, but he finds the note taped to the door and moves it to the desk. Minutes later, as Turner returns, an evidence tray is placed atop the letter, blocking it from her view. It’s just a few hours now until Grissom will be forced to resign over this bungled operation, and Slade and the boys are staking out the suspected criminal mastermind, hoping he’ll lead them to the gold.  Their subject has given them the slip, and with a flash of serendipitous inspiration, Slade figures out where the gold is.   They rush back to the repository, where the gold has been disguised as the masonry bricks that were taken down when the thieves broke in.  They capture the thieves in the act of removing the bricks under the guise of builders cleaning up the mess. Slade has very little time left and needs to get Grissom off the hook.  He tries one last time to call Holly, but she is in the shower, so in a final act of desperation, he gives Nicky the lottery numbers and asks him to buy him a ticket. Grissom’s career is saved, Slade makes it back to the time machine without drama, and upon returning to the police station, Slade and Turner are informed that Slade’s ticket is a winner! …but he’s only won £186 because the unique combination of numbers and Slade’s sloppy handwriting has caused Nicky to read the numbers upside down, resulting in only a four-number match instead of a six-number jackpot.  The winnings will almost pay for the part that broke when they used the machine this time.

John and Eugene look at the TV movie starring Andy Griffith that inspired countless school children to shoot for the moon: It’s 1979’s Salvage (sometimes referred to as Salvage-1), where the owner of a junkyard builds and launches a rocket ship. Its destination: The Moon. Synopsis Harry Broderick is a highly-successful scrap and salvage man with a dream.  He wants to build his own rocket, pilot it to the moon, and salvage the Apollo hardware left behind by the manned US moon landings. He’s been secretly planning this for some time, staffing his salvage yard with ex-NASA engineers with advanced degrees who could not find jobs after NASA layoffs at the end of the Apollo program, and He’s been aggressively pursuing salvage deals and building up his stockpile of cash. When he broaches the subject with his staff, at first, they think he’s kidding, but soon the ex-NASA staff come around to his way of thinking.  They get him in touch with Skip Carmichael, a used car salesman and former backup NASA astronaut, author of the Trans-Linear Vector Principle, and wild card maverick kind of guy with daredevil ideas about space travel.  Exactly the kind of guy that NASA keeps on the bench. Skip explains his Trans-Linear Vector Principle to Harry.  Trimming safety margins down from 100% to 85-90%, and using extremely powerful rocket fuel, they can make a single-stage Earth-to-Moon rocket that uses slow and steady constant acceleration to make the trip to the moon in 2 days, without orbiting and without problems with re-entry. It sounds like a great idea to Harry, but there is one catch:  The fuel doesn’t exist, but they can get around that by employing another Ex-NASA engineer now working as a pyrotechnician in Hollywood, Mel Slozar.  Mel can create the fuel, and after a mishap on the set, she’s in need of a new job. What Skip has not mentioned is that Mel and Skip used to be an item back at NASA. Construction of the rocket begins, as does the development of the fuel.  Using a highly explosive substance, mono-hydrazine, Mel can create a fuel many times more efficient than rocket fuel; however, there are some problems she’ll need to work out.  It’s extremely unstable at room temperature, and it gives off highly-toxic fumes. At the local FBI field office, Agent Jack Klinger is alerted to an unusual number of explosives purchases by Mel Slozar, and he goes to Jettison Salvage yard to ask her some questions.  She’s a fully licensed explosive handler, and she has the plausible explanation that the explosives were purchased for making movies, not being a terrorist, so Klinger leaves, but not before he gets suspicious about the thing being built behind a tent. Back at headquarters, Klinger sets up 24-hour surveillance on the salvage yard. The team also suspects that Klinger is suspicious, and they accelerate their launch plans. It becomes clear that they cannot launch the spacecraft without a flight computer, which they do not have, so they “steal” computer access, via modem, from Fleming Aeronautics in San Diego.   With a flight computer ready, they test the engines at full power, still behind the tent.  The rocket performs well until it doesn’t.  The fuel begins to overheat and must be shut down.  The test, however, is enough that the top of the rocket has peeped out over the tent, and the FBI have the proof they need to get a search warrant. Given advance warning about the warrant, they must launch tomorrow, something that will be impossible unless Mel takes Harry’s place on the flight.  She is the only one who can handle the fuel if it begins to heat again. The next morning, they start the launch as the FBI raid.  The computer link fails, and Harry calls to abort the mission, but Skip and Mel decide to proceed manually.  The launch isn’t going well, but they get into the air, and the flight computer comes back online. Broadcasting their peaceful, commercial, and downright plucky mission info to the entire world, the crew of the Vulture, as the rocket has been dubbed, captures the imagination of the world.  Although the FBI put them under house arrest, they cannot stop them. Confidentially, the FBI informs Klinger that congressmen and generals are praying for the mission to fail, but if it succeeds, there’s nothing they can do except grin and bear it and buy the salvage back from Harry. When the rocket arrives at the moon, an inconveniently timed system maintenance at Fleming Aeronautic – still unaware that their computer is being used for the mission – causes the connection to be lost and the flight computer software to be deleted.  Skip must land manually, which he does, but the rough landing damages one of the venturi – they will not be able to take off without the flight computer.  Nonetheless, they proceed to fill the hold with salvage. Harry has no choice and goes to Klinger, asking for access to NASA’s flight computers.  He bargains with a lowball price on the salvage but has a backup hardball game with an offer from the Russians to buy the salvage and provide the flight computer.  Klinger agrees. With NASA on the job, they’re soon able to take off, but a coolant leak soon causes the temperature of the mono-hydrazine fuel to rise dangerously.  Mel diverts their oxygen supply as a backup coolant, but they have very little left to breathe and soon pass out. On Earth, Klinger has learned that the ship is full of mono-hydrazine and heading straight for Los Angeles.  He calls in Air Defense to destroy the rocket if they cannot get in touch with the crew.  Using an uplink, Harry’s team blows open a vent cover when the ship reaches the atmosphere.  This wakes them but starts filling the cabin with toxic fumes.  The vent cover is resealed. Awake now, Skip manages to break open the window of the airlock, letting fresh air in.  Relieved, Klinger calls off the air attack with only seconds left.   Slightly off course and below the horizon from NASA’s telemetry, Skip must once again land the ship manually, this time in a busy downtown park.  With the world watching the Vulture and her crew triumphantly come home. Later that night, they are sad that it is over and contemplate going on with their lives apart from one another when a man from the government arrives with a proposal right up their alley.

This week it’s the moment we’ve all been looking forward to – the culmination of all the story-arc goodness when all the loose ends are tied up neatly with a bow in the two-part series finale of Starhunter Redux in Hyperspace parts I & II. Kenneth and Eugene discuss. Hyperspace I Episode Synopsis Marcus contemplates his recent almost-success at achieving hyperspace using negative energy in an anti-matter drive.  He finds an obscure scientific paper describing just that possible scenario published by Dr. Lanzig, a bit of an obscure crank. He wakes Travis from a sexy-time dream with Callie.  Well, technically, he wakes the entire crew from their sleep – although probably not all from sexy-time dreams about Callie – to impart this currently unactionable bit of information. Travis returns to sleep but this time dreams himself into hyperspace where he meets a woman who declares that he is the “The One” and that, now that he’s found her, he needs to go find her.  She doesn’t know where and provides no help.  Travis returns to the ship. Marcus’ further reading of Lanzig’s paper indicates that if you could calculate the pulse gap, you could achieve hyperspace, and to calculate the pulse gap, you need a Horizon Generator.  Thinking that they have a brand new pair of roller skates and Lanzig has the key, they decide to track him down. Meanwhile, the New Orchard is up to their old tricks.  Starchild Tristian Catchpole and his confederates inside the Orchard have plans for the human race, and they need more people who have activated the Second Divinity Cluster Gene.  He detects a disturbance in the Force when Montana meets the woman in hyperspace.  It’s not Montana, it’s the woman that’s activated the second gene, and they need to secure her.  They decide to let Montana track her down for them. Lanzig has gone off the grid, erasing all evidence of his existence, but not so his assistant, Dr. Xeylon.  They track her down, and she is the woman from hyperspace.  She recognizes Travis as “The One,” and they are attacked by Orchard’s Goon Squad.  Xeylon is taken, Travis is knocked unconscious, and Callie has a minor wound in her shoulder. Back on the Trans-Utopian, they track the clandestine Orchard ship back to Mars.  Also, Callie dies.  Apparently, the round she was hit with was poisoned, because…. reasons.  As she dies, she says the word “again,” and Travis phases into hyperspace, revisiting the moment she was shot. Thinking that if they could get into hyperspace, they might be able to go back and rescue Callie, they embark on a mission to retrieve Dr. Xeylon.  While they lost Dr. Xeylon, they did manage to secure her Horizon Generator.  Oh, by the way, Lanzig was a fictional character created as a front for Dr. Xeylon. A dangerous but short mission to Mars, and they recover her.  As the Orchard’s ship is about to capture the Trans-Utopian, they plug the Horizon Generator in, and the ship moves to hyperspace. Hyperspace II Episode Synopsis Percy, Marcus, and Rudolfo are each stuck on 3 different color-shifted alternate versions of the Trans-Utopian, which is still in Hyperspace. Caravaggio is missing, but the ship’s computer informs each of them they are both alone and not alone on board the ship.  Each detects the presence of another. Tristian Catchpole is there, too, trying to get the Horizon Generator, which he cannot until the three crew members manage to re-integrate the color-shifted versions of the Trans-Utopian into one ship.  Even if they do that, it’s still going to fall apart. Meanwhile, Travis and Dr. Xeylon are in a Hyperspace cloud.  She must train him to control – not check – his emotions by trying to… do something with his emotions.  This is the only way he can activate the second Divinity Cluster gene and the only way he can go back in time and rescue Callie. A desperate gamble aboard the Trans-Utopians and a last-ditch effort by Travis results in the timeline being altered and Callie surviving, and the Trans-Utopian re-integrated.   Catchpole steals the Horizon Generator and, with it, stages a coup at the Orchard.  He’s bringing those ancient aliens home to roost in the wasp’s egg’s food source which is humanity. Travis and Xeylon return to the ship, tech the tech, and attempt to leave hyperspace, although things aren’t looking good when the episode ends. Also, some idiot tacked on some really awful footage of Old Percy and Dante Montana doing really dumb stuff. The end and good riddance.

John and Eugene look at the final episode of Logan’s Run entitled Stargate. When aliens from another world invade Earth, Logan and Jessica are put on ice, figuratively, and Rem is just spare parts, literally. Episode Synopsis Driving through the countryside, Rem and his pets come across a seemingly-injured man who appears to be freezing, despite the weather being temperate enough for Jessica to get away with shat she’s wearing.  They take him back to his city, where his comrades invite the travelers back to enjoy their hospitality.  They’re all dressed in thermal-looking clothes. Inside, Logan and Jessica are drugged and interrogated.  Rem is discovered to be a highly-sophisticated android and taken away for parts.  Rem, being programmed not to resist humans, goes along more-or-less willingly. Logan and Jessica are left inside a very hot room without water, and Logan realizes that these people aren’t from Earth. Rem also comes to the conclusion that they’re not human beings, but apparently, that’s not enough to overcome his pre-programmed directive about resisting human beings, and they take him to be disassembled.  Parts is parts, and Rem’s part work just fine in the alien technology.  Rem surmises that the device is a beacon designed to call the aliens’ homeward. Logan and Jessica are rescued by Timon, the last human survivor of the city, who lives in the basement.  The aliens arrived a few years back when their spaceship crash-landed nearby.  They are strange, horrible creatures, but they soon began to adopt human form – by stealing the forms of the humans who lived in the city.  Everyone else was killed. Timon explains that the aliens are probably already creating duplicates of Logan and Jessica.  They go to find and destroy them. Rem’s parts have been used, but they’re not enough to make the alien doohickey go, so they need more parts to make it go.  They take more of Rem’s parts because parts is parts.  (The technobabble runs strong in this episode.) Logan and Jessica destroy their forming alien bodies, then track down Rem.  He’s in bits, but in the meantime, he’s been building an anti-alien-doohickey thingamajig.  Their conversation is interrupted because the alien return for more parts from Rem.  Parts is parts, and Rem has parts. With a gun that Timon was saving to kill himself, Logan takes command of the doohickey room, but, as always, he fails to take the weapons from the fallen aliens and give them to Jessica and Timon.  More aliens come, and they are taken prisoner and left in a swamp to die. I’ve lost track, but I’m pretty sure they needed more parts, so Rem is further disassembled.  We learn that the doohickey is not just a transmitter, it’s also a matter transporter, and if they get it going, an invasion army will arrive. In the swamp, which is full of horrible mutants that kill everything, Logan leads Jessica and Timon out of the swamp, which gives them the upper hand because the aliens most certainly think they are dead, but they are not. In a final assault, Jessica and Timon pump the doohickey room full of liquid oxygen, freezing the aliens to the point of hibernation.  Rem and Logan use Rem’s anti-alien-doohickey thingamajig to destroy the doohickey. With the aliens incapacitated and stranded from their homeward forever, Timon plans to lock up the creatures that killed everyone in this city, including his son and daughter.  Logan, however, has another suggestion.  “Why don’t you offer them the chance to live in peace with you?”  Yeah.  That’s going to happen. Rem’s got his parts back, and it’s off they go on their way for more adventures!

Simon and Eugene discuss whether the Uk government has a time machine, we talk about referencing the TARDIS and the Doctor Who theme, and we discuss the technical implications of “…if they’d had mobile phones in this show to time travel with.” Episode Synopsis A dangerous gang known as the Apostles is meticulously planning a bank heist, unbeknownst to them, Slade and Turner are watching them from above.  They return to the present in time for Grissom, Slade, and the team to thwart the crime like clockwork – mostly. Back in the office, Grissom ponders Slade’s incredible police record lately.  So much so that she details Morris to spy on Slade to find out how he’s doing it. Meanwhile, it looks like Slade won’t be doing it anytime soon.  Another piece of the time machine has broken, and Turner puts her foot down.  This machine wasn’t built for doing something productive like maintaining law and order, this machine was built for secret, dusty academic pursuits so that she could someday prove that her father was right about time travel being possible. Slade agrees to solve the next crime using good old-fashioned detective work. That next crime comes very soon when retired minister Sir Iain Hawkins is murdered in his home.  The case has all those weird hallmarks of a time Tavel intervention, too, like extra blood spots, strange calls to emergency services about a madman on the premises, and a mysterious, unidentified person running away. Even though retired, Hawkins was a Big Deal, and Grissom wants this solved posthaste.  Slade, under the watchful, if incompetent, eye of Morris, follows his leads.  First, he questions Kirby, Hawkins former driver, who has recently gone into business with Hawkins selling telephone boxes as art.  They reportedly had a fight the morning of the murder.  Kirby denies being the killer. While visiting Kirby’s Phone Box emporium, he spies a battered old Police Box amongst the collection, and he gets an idea.  He goes to Turner and tries to get her to let him use The Machine, but she steadfastly refuses, and when he tries to schmooze her with dinner, she turns him down because she’s attending a lecture this evening.  Slade also catches Morris acting suspiciously, perhaps listening in, outside Turner’s door. Slade uses Turner’s lecture appointment to break into her flat and use the machine himself.  He cannot possibly expect that to end well, can he?  Outside, Morris is distracted from observing Turner’s flat. Back in time, before the murder, Slade visits Hawkins, pretending to be the window cleaner who had mysteriously turned up 30 minutes early to the job that day.  Listening in, he overhears what Kirby and Hawkins argued about – it was just basically incompetence in business matters, and Kirby leaves, with Hawkins very much alive. Slade finally gets the chance to try something he’s really wanting to do.  He confronts Hawkins and tells him the truth: that he has traveled back in time via a Turner Time Machine to warn him that he is about to be killed.  Hawkins knows about Turner’s work with Einstein-Rosen Bridges from his days at the Ministry, and he seems to take Slade seriously until he clubs him unconscious and calls emergency services to report a madman, just as someone else shoots him dead. Slade awakens, gets the license number of a window cleaning truck leaving the premises, and as the police arrive, he hightails it on foot, chased by the police.  Unbeknownst to him, he loses the critical watch component of the time machine as he leaps over the wall. Slade heads to the station to run the license plate, where he bumps into Turner moments after she turned him down.  He uses the opportunity to warn her that Morris is spying on them.  He gets the name and address of Robert Mather owner of the truck and goes to investigate him.  As he’s leaving the station, Morris is witness to multiple instances of Slade being in the building at once. Nicky comes to Turner with a strange item he found in the grounds at the scene of the crime, and wants her opinion on what it might be.  It is the watch component of the time machine, and Turner knows exactly what that means.  She has to find Slade now before his time runs out. Slade meets Robert Mather, who basically confesses to killing Hawkins, his illegitimate father, for failing to save his mother’s life.  Slade tries to talk him into turning himself in, but when Slade finally notices the watch component of the time machine is missing, he gets too urgently insistent and Mather shoots him in the leg and ties him up. Turner and Nicky use good, old-fashion, TV-detective-style police work to chase and force Kirby to reveal that he was blackmailing Hawkins with knowledge of the affair Hawkins had, and his illegitimate adult son, who also happened to be the window cleaner.  Turner dumps Nicky and goes to find Mather. Mather is planning a huge gas explosion to kill Slade, but Turner rescues him, returning the the time machine with moments to spare – Turner distracting Morris so that Slade can enter undetected. Alls well that ends well, right?  But Turner doesn’t think so and is furious, kicking Slade out and swearing he will never use the time machine again.  Honestly, Slade, what did you think was going to happen when Turner found out? Back at the station, Morris gives his report to Grissom.  He has concluded that Slade and Turner are hooked up with a secret cabal of informers called The Machine, which is out of town, so that when Slade goes to get information from them, he uses a stand-in double at the station to conceal his absence.

John and Eugene look at George Pal’s 1951 end-of-the-world film When Worlds Collide and ask, “They really wouldn’t blow up the Earth, would they?” Synopsis Dr. Bronson, an astronomer at the Mount Kenna, South Africa Observatory, has made an unsettling discovery.  He calls in reliable freelance pilot and courier, Dave Randall, to delivery photographic observations and calculations to his colleague, Dr. Hendron, in the USA.  It’s all very top secret, and newspapers are trying very hard to get Randall to reveal what is in the courier case he carries halfway around the world. Randall doesn’t know what’s in the case, but when he arrives in New York, Dr. Hendron’s attractive daughter, Joyce, lets a bit slip. She’s frightened about the world coming to an end.  At her father’s office, Randall meets Dr. Tony Drake, Joyce’s fiancé, and Dr. Hendron.  When Joyce tells her father that Randall knows all about the contents of the case, he lets Randall stay for the briefing.  Dr. Bronson has discovered a star, Bellus, and Zyra, a planet orbiting it, that is approaching the Earth at a rapid speed.  In July of the next year, some eight months away, Zyra will pass close enough to the Earth to cause massive earthquakes and tsunamis.  Countless people will die, but a few may survive. But only for 19 more days because that’s when Bellus will collide with the Earth, destroying it completely. Dr, Bronson’s figures are checked and double-checked.  There is no mistake.  The Earth is doomed. Hendron takes the findings to the UN and proposes building spaceships.  The hope is that Zyra might support life, and if so, a few humans could start a new world.  When other prominent astronomers poo-poo Bronson and Hendron’s findings, the UN laughs them out of the building.  The US government doesn’t laugh him out the door, but they also won’t fund his work. A couple of humanitarian millionaires step up to fund Hendron’s plan to save some of humanity. Tony has asked Joyce to marry him right away, but she is hesitant.  She’s developed a thing for Randall and never was really on board with the idea of marrying Tony anyway.  She asks her father for advice, and, when it becomes clear she loves Randall, he father contrives a way for Randall to be on the project to build the spacecraft – the keep him close at hand. Millionaire Stanton arrives.  He’s an unpleasant man in a wheelchair.  He’ll fund the project, but the condition is that he gets to pick who goes to the new world.  Hendron will accept his money for a ticket for Stanton, but he will not allow Stanton to pick the other people who go.  It’s a take-it-or-leave-it offer, and there’s no other game in town, so Stanton takes it.  There is word that other countries are also trying to build spacecraft. A camp is built, staffed, and construction begins on the rocket.  Provisions, animals, microfilm of books, and any number of other things are prepared for the rocket.  There are over 600 people working on the project, but only 40 will be able to go. Less than four months out from the destruction of the Earth, the other astronomers come around to Hendron’s observations, and Stanton now predicts that the world will soon turn ugly as people will try to fight and kill their way onto the rocket.  Hendron disagrees and refuses to issue the rifles Stanton has bought.  The next day, the UN announces the end of the world, although it seems they may only be preparing for the flyby of Zyra. Martial law is declared, and coastal cities are evacuated when Zyra arrives, causing massive damage and flooding and nearly destroying the ship. In the aftermath, Randall and Tony, who aren’t getting along very well because of the simmering tension between them, go out to aid some survivors in need of medical equipment.  They drop some supplies off for some doomed survivors stranded on a small islet, then rescue a small boy floating on the roof of a house.  It looks for a moment that Tony thinks about leaving Randall behind to die, but he doesn’t.  After that, they’re the best of pals. Hendron has devised a secret lottery system to select the passengers, minus the six people he’s selected – Himself, Joyce, Tony, the rescued boy, Dr. Frye, the designer and pilot of the rocket, and Randall. Randall is outraged.  He doesn’t deserve a place on the ship, but Hendron says he’s doing it because he loves Joyce, and she wants it, and why not?  Randall refuses to go but tells Hendron not to tell Joyce. Time is running out, and they are behind schedule. Then, Tony drops a bombshell on Randall: Dr. Frye has a medical condition, he may not survive the launch, and if he doesn’t, or is incapacitated, there is no one else, apart from Randall, who can fly the rocket.  Randall is overjoyed.  At last, he has a legitimate reason to be on the rocket. The results of the lottery are announced, and two young lovers hoping for a place in the new world find out that only one of them can go.  Eddie, the one who got selected, gives up his place. This is just what Stanton wanted to hear.  He’s been lobbying to leave a few more people behind to decrease the weight and increase his chances of survival.  Stanton’s wheelchair-pusher, Ferris, uses this opportunity to pull a gun and demand that he go on the rocket.  Stanton kills him with a concealed pistol.  Hendron makes up his mind and decides that the two lovers can both go on the ship. Hendron continues to insist that people will not panic and that Stanton is wrong about his assessment of people – but Stanton is not wrong.  The 560 people who weren’t selected take Stanton’s rifles and storm the ship.  Hendron and Stanton are the last to board, but Hendron has one last trick up his sleeve.  They’re not going.  The new world is for the young, and he disengages the rocket’s moorings and starts the launch.  Hendron and Stanton will be the weight savings that will help the rocket make it to Zyra. The launch goes according to plan, and when Randall awakens from the blackout, Frye is already on the job.  Randall realizes he’s been conned.  There was nothing wrong with Frye.  Tony lied to him so he’d make the flight. The approach Zyra and things are OK, but they’re using too much fuel.  They run out on landing approach, and Randall brings the ship in for a rough but survivable landing.  Outside, a strange new world awaits them and their goats.

Kenneth and Eugene discuss two more episodes of Starhunter Reduc. In Negative Energy, they’ll follow the convoluted quest to get the Trans-Utopian’s engines up to speed, and in License to Fill, they’ll try to figure out how you review a clip show. Negative Energy Synopsis The Trans-Utopian fails to catch a bounty because they are not fast enough. Also, their bounty is one of the 5 or 6 ships in the system with an anti-matter drive.  The Trans-Utopian also happens to be one of the 5 or 6 ships with an anti-matter drive, but theirs doesn’t exactly work. Marcus pitches the plan of getting some Duranium-237 to use Negative Energy as a fuel source for the anti-matter drive.  If they can get the element, he’ll do the math, and if it’s certain that it will work, and only if he’s certain, they’ll give it a try. “Why has nobody done this before?” They ask. “I dunno” is the most coherent answer Marcus can muster. Rudolfo has a contact of a contact that might be able to help, and they pursue that avenue, meeting up with Karina, who is an old “friend” of Rudolfo’s.  She gets her in touch with Jay Becker, a dealer in questionable materials. Rudolfo sells out Marcus, who Jay has taken a shine to, in exchange for his life and the element.  Then he rescues Marcus. Meanwhile, in a lawless solar system full of violent crime, graft, and corruption, there is one thing you must do, and that is fill out paperwork to convert your anti-matter engine into… an alternate fuel source.  It’s not one you can skip, so Caravaggio fills out the paperwork. This draws the attention of a corrupt permit inspector who tells them if the ship isn’t 100% up to standard, will be impounded and scrapped.  Guess what?  It’s not up to standard, and the inspector is actually a crook who uses his position to obtain anti-matter drives for his friends at the Orchard. That fails when Travis learns that the permit request never reached the database.  With a battle raging aboard the ship and and Orchard vessel in hot pursuit, shooting holes in the Trans-Utopian, Marcus plugs the Negative Energy in, and away they go. Really fast.  But not as fast as Marcus expected. All’s well that ends well. License to Fill Synopsis Mars loves its red tape.  The good crew of the Trans-Utopian are 2 days late for renewing their bounty hunting license, and even though they’re not actually doing any work at the moment, they have people they call “clients,” and because of that, they’re practicing bounty hunting without a license, and that’s a serious crime. At least it is in the eyes of Senator Calder, recently appointed head of the people that stamp the documents and collect the fees.  He impounds the ship, and in collision with Senator Skaylon – a judge – they set the Trans-Utopian crew for a hard fall that will cost them their ship. They can’t afford council, but help arrives in the form of Senator Rendall, an old family friend of Callie.  He suspects Calder is up to something.  Rendall will defend them in court.  But remember, “Martian law is weird.” The “trial” consists mostly of asking Caravaggio questions.  He “testifies” to many things – including things he did not witness – but remember, Martian law is weird. The “evidence” against the crew of the Trans-Utopian is that Travis was once a Raider. The defense is that “he got better.” More “evidence” is that Rudolfo is a duplicitous jerk. The defense is that “he eventually comes through in the end” More “evidence” is that Marcus is a bit headstrong, inexperienced, and tries to do more than he’s qualified to do. The defense is that “he comes through in the end” Finally, the prosecution brings forth a surprise witness, Percy Montana, who testifies… um… that she owns the ship and that she makes bad decisions. The defense to that is, “What’s your point.” This final piece does seem to be the most damning – which I’ve said about Percy all along. Luckily the crew has discovered that Calder is actually buddies with the guy that shot Callie back in episode 4.  The case is dismissed, and Rendall promises to go after Senator Skaylon, too. It’s not all’s well that ends well with this episode, though, because Percy is back.

John and Eugene look at two more episodes of Logan’s Run. In Night Visitors, they contemplate the role of Satan in science fiction, and in Turnabout, they ask if the writer had an axe to grind about Saudi Arabia. Night Visitors Synopsis In an homage to Bulwer-Lytton, it was a dark and stormy night.  The solar car is running low, and Rem and his pets may have to spend the night in the car.  In the flashes of lightning, they think they see two people standing in the rain, but they disappear. Creeped out, they continue on until they find a beautiful old house.  They’re sure they see a light inside, but no one appears to be home.  Until the two people from the road show up.  They are Barton and Marianna. They’re creepy but accommodating.  Marianna is expecting Gavin to return this very night, but Barton thinks he will never be seen again. But he appears, not at the persistently knocking front door, but in the living room.  He, too, is Mr. Creepsville. Gavin asks them all if they believe in what is or what might be.  Logan and Rem come down solidly on the side of pragmatism.  Jessica, not so much.  Gavin likes her answer. They retire for the night and creepy things happen.  Rem postulates to Logan that these people are actually ghosts trapped in this haunted house. Jessica is spirited away by Gavin.  Logan is given a vision in a mirror and finds a key.  They use this information to track down Jessica. Gavin, Barton, and Marianna, plus a second woman, made a deal with the Prince of Darkness for power hundreds of years ago, but he holds the second woman – Gavin’s woman in a death-like state in a coffin, waiting for someone to willingly take her place. Gavin plans to convince Jessica to take her place – perhaps not entirely willing, either.  As the dead woman begins to arise, Logan and Rem arrive, Logan shoots the coffin, and the ghosts are all gone. Next morning, it’s a bright and beautiful day, and they leave.  Unbeknownst to them, the curtains in the upper window draw back as if someone is looking out at them. Turnabout Synopsis Crossing the same desert we’ve seen so many times before, Rem and his pets come across a woman lying on the ground.  She was collecting herbs and was overcome by the sun.  They save her, and she warns them to leave immediately Too late, Gera and his patrol show up and arrest them.  It is forbidden by law to cross the completely unmarked borders of Zidor.  Although it looks as if they might get away with leaving, when they reveal they are Runners they are taken for judgment. Francis, hot in pursuit, tries to intervene and take them, but to no avail.  They are condemned to death. Mia, the woman they rescued, contrives to recuse them, as does Francis.  The escape plans happen and cross wires a bit.  Rem and Mia escape, but Francis captures Logan and Jessica.  They make a run for the border sans Taco Bell. Gera pursues them and recaptures Francis.  Francis is condemned to death. Logan and Jessica return for Rem, but when Logan discovers Francis will be killed, he rescues him. Meanwhile, a quiet revolution has happened, and they’re all free to go – with a suitable head start for Rem and his pets.

Simon and Eugene discuss massively violating the chain of evidence, the well-known Stockholm Guidelines on hostage situations, and getting to the point where a show can’t be bothered with an in-show explanation for obvious plot contrivances. Episode Synopsis There’s a big deal on down at the station.  Det. Gareth Oldroyd has come to Chief Grissom with a potentially very high-profile arrest.  Lenny Gebler, a major fence from “up north,” is coming to London to purchase a £2,000,000 haul of stolen diamonds.  There’s just one problem, Slade is uncomfortable when he hears Oldroyd’s name, just as Oldroyd is similarly unsettled by Slade’s name. Oldroyd goes to Grissom and asks for Slade to be taken off the case, you know, because of what happened with his father. Grissom refuses because the sins of the father are NOT transferrable to the son. Oldroyd’s planned raid relies on Turner, a physicist, to validate the diamonds on the spot, which is… odd, but that’s apparently what police science officers are for. The raid goes a bit poorly, with Oldroyd being taken hostage, but Slade drives through the wall, saves the day, and recovers the diamonds.  Turner validates them, then Oldroyd tags them and puts them in an evidence bag.  No, strike that, wraps ‘em up in their pretty little velvet pouch and puts ‘em in his coat pocket. Later he hands a pretty little velvet pouch over to Grissom, who inspects them, tags them, and puts them in an evidence bag.  No, strike that; she just hangs on to the unopened pouch until she puts them in the evidence lockup back at the station.  No, strike that; she just puts them in her safe in her office. That night, having a couple of drinks with Turner, Slade cracks just a little.  Oldroyd was his father’s partner on the police force before his dad “retired,” but he’ll give no more information.  Turner also wonders why Lenny the fence didn’t bother to bring the money if he was planning on buying the diamonds.  Well, I guess that doesn’t matter; they caught him.  They part ways, and Slade is attacked when he gets home and drugged.  He is left on a park bench all night. The next morning, the diamonds are gone, and for some reason that’s not entirely clear, Slade is the number one suspect, but it must be a good reason because they get a magistrate to sign off on a warrant to search Slade’s house.  I mean, I assume they got a search warrant.  And rightfully so, too, because they find a token amount of the diamonds hidden inside an ice cube tray. When confronted with this “evidence,” Slade points out he couldn’t get into the safe because he doesn’t know the combination, but Grissom tries to prompt his memory by saying the combination out loud, which would only be useful at this point if he had a time machine! Just as he’s about to be arrested, the fire alarm conveniently goes off, Slade makes a break for it, and a convenient office trolley shoots out in front of Morris and Oldroyd, giving Slade some distance.  The officer in the evidence lockup is actually locked in, giving Slade an additional edge in his escape. Someone must be really watching over him because Morris’ car is sitting in the garage, doors unlocked and the motor already running.  What a lucky break, as Slade makes a clean getaway. He heads straight for Turner’s time machine, of course, as does Turner.  This is not lost on Morris, who has noticed those two spend a lot of time together.  He and Oldroyd follow Turner back to her place. In the nick of time, they go back in time, about a day.  They witness the raid, follow the diamonds, and spend the night in Grissom’s office waiting to see who really steals them, but when they get bored of that, Slade opens the safe – with the combination that Grissom tells him in the future – and finds they’re already gone.  They were never in the safe!  WTF?!  But how can that be? The chain of evidence is so solid and unbroken? Knowing that Slade has already been knocked unconscious and left in a park, they go to his flat and remove the incriminating diamonds from his ice cube tray.  No, strike that; they have a drink and talk about Slade’s father. He’s not exactly “retired” from the police force in the traditional sense; he’s actually in prison.  He was arrested for taking money from a bank robbery investigation and has intentionally estranged himself from Slade. The next morning, early, they visit Old Man Slade in prison and learn that not only are the circumstances of his arrest almost identical, but the players are also the same, too.  What an amazing coincidence.  Slade realizes that Gebler must be behind it.  He goes to the station and questions Gebler about the missing diamonds – before they’re actually discovered to be missing.  Time travel, remember?  The questioning fails to produce any results, but while there, Slade helps himself escape by activating the fire alarm and pushing the office trolley infant of Morris. Turner does her part by getting Morris’ car ready for Slade’s escape. Next, Turner anonymously calls Grissom and asks her to release Gebler, which she does. Turner and Slade follow Gebler, overhear a conversation that the real exchange happens that night at 7, and then hoof it back to the time machine just in the nick of time. While this is going on, Old Man Slade has an idea and wants to call his son.  The warden won’t let him, though, so he escapes from prison, as you do when they won’t let you make a phone call. As time is re-synchronized, Slade gives himself up, and in interrogation, he admits he did it and that he’ll turn over the diamonds at the appointed time and place of Gebler’s meeting.  Oldroyd thinks this is BS and refuses, but Grissom overrules him.  They go and watch, and when Gebler arrives, they send Oldroyd over to arrest him. The meeting goes like this: Oldroyd walks… oh god, I can’t even… no, I can do this.  I can do this. Right.  One more try. Oldroyd walks towards Gebler under the watchful eyes of Grissom, Morris, Turner, and Slade.  As he approaches Gebler he pulls a gun and shouts loudly at Gebler, “Freeze! Don’t move.  Police!  You’re under arrest!” No, one last time, strike that.  He walks quietly and slowly towards Gebler.  Gebler shouts at the top of his lungs, “we did it; we got away with the diamonds; I can’t believe they’re so stupid to fall for that again, yippy-doo-dah-day!  It’s the Bahamas for both of us, my faithful partner in crime, Detective Oldroyd!” Or something very much like that, and so they go to arrest them, but Oldroyd turns out to be a partner-double-crosser and escapes in Gebler’s car, only to have Old Man Slade, still on the run from prison, run him off the road. Everyone’s exonerated, and Turner and Slade have newly-released Old Man Slade over for dinner at Holly’s flat.  A good detective at all times, Old Man Slade can’t work out how they came to visit him about the crime while he was unconscious in a park before the robbery was discovered. And, Holly Turner… you’re the daughter of Fredrick Turner?  The guy who wrote a book in the prison library about Time Travel?  He might have to read that book someday.

Many people say Marcus is just a spare part, and this week that’s proven, and then it’s political hijinks on the High Seas – or the outer space equivalent thereof. Kenneth and Eugene discuss The Heir and the Spare & Just Politics. As we wind down our coverage of Starhunter Redux this week and for subsequent episodes, we’re covering two episodes at once. Of the remaining four episodes, one is a clip show, which we’ll cover with a companion episode, and the series finale is a two-parter. The Heir and the Spare Episode Synopsis Marcus is talking to Percy about getting the hyperspace drive working.  She doesn’t want to because… reasons.  Then she screws up a repair job to get out of the conversation, then fixes it somewhat.  She retreats to privacy mode in her cabin. They’re after a fugitive named Alex Aroyan, a con man who fleeces rich women.  Eva Halperin, a Martian police official, has commixed the crew of the Trans-Utopian to track him down and bring him to justice… and she’s really keen to see this happen sooner rather than later. Callie, in a dress, brings Aroyan to the yard and subsequently to capture.  Aboard the ship, Aroyan seems to recognize Marcus. Privately, Caravaggio informs Marcus that he is an identical genetic match for Aroyan.  They don’t look alike because Aroyan has had extensive plastic surgery.  Aroyan doesn’t really explain, but he says Marcus is in trouble and he should let him go. Two armed ships show up controlled by Jaten Sarat, the baddie, arrive and demand Aroyan.  Aroyan says that’s even worse news for you, Marcus, and he convinces him to take him to escape on a shuttle. Meanwhile, Percy is doing Percy things. Travis backs his friend and keeps the baddies off their backs, at least for a while, as they escape to Sin City.  There, the story is told to Marcus.  He’s the “son” of the former leader of Europa.  Twin sons were fashioned, one to be the heir and the other to be spare parts for the heir.  Marcus is, of course, the spare parts model.  When a violent man, the same one chasing them now, overthrew the government, the twins were spirited off in the hopes that one might survive. Sarat captures them, and when they fail to agree to be his figurehead, he gets ready to kill Aroyan, clone him, and grow a new heir while cutting Marcus’ brain out and keeping his body around for reasons that don’t hold up to much scrutiny. Travis arrives and threatens to kill them all if they don’t turn over Marcus and Aroyan, and they give them up.  Travis and the gang don’t bother to turn over Aroyan to the Martian authorities because “he’s family.” …and in the meantime, Percy has taken a shuttle and left the Trans-Utopian to do some thinking. Should they go after here?  Nah. Just Politics Episode Synopsis The Trans-Utopian has got troubling cargo, and Travis doesn’t like it.  They’re transporting Martian Trade Minister Kolzig on a secret mission.  It’s all very hush-hush and very high-paying.  Upon seeing him, Rudolfo is immediately disturbed. Gaynor Schon immediately establishes herself as a baddie by uploading a program to Caravaggio that causes him to see and identify her as the absent Percy Montana.  Schon now, effectively, has full control of the ship without anyone knowing it. Rudolfo struggles with identifying where he’s seen the Trade minister before, unaware that he’s being hampered by the tampering down to Caravaggio. At the same time, Marcus takes a shine to Jophie Henrik, the Minister’s aide.  Her dad was an engineer, and she flirts her way into Marcus’ heart and engines.  He keeps detecting problems with Caravaggio, but diagnostic after diagnostic shows him everything is operating normally. Dircott, the second member of the Minister’s security squad, breaks into someone’s quarters, and Caravaggio apologetically murders him.  His body is later found in his own quarters, dead of an apparent heart attack.  Caravaggio, of course, can find no other cause of death. Marcus and Jophie, who is sticking to him like suspicious glue, have discovered an anomaly in Caravaggio. When they go to the core of Caravaggio to investigate, they are zapped by Caravaggio’s defense systems, killing Jophie.  Travis is unhappy about all the deaths on his ship. They arrive at the destination, the Mannheim Asteroid Belt, where Kolzig conducts some not-at-all suspicious 30-second-long trade negotiations with Reasoner, a miner on one of the asteroids.  According to Kolzig, the negotiations failed.  So sad, but that’s the way it is in politics.  That was a long trip for nothing. Gaynor, however, bugged that conversation and has confirmed that Kolzig is actually conspiring against the Martian President in an effort to take over.  Reasoner is his confederate, and this was just the opportunity to transfer funds to Reasoner. Rudolfo remembers who Kolzig is…. He’s a bad guy, and he will take him to justice.  When Gaynor, with the tactic approval of the Martian president, destroys the asteroid and puts the Trans-Utopian on self-destruct. Locking the others out of the computer systems. As the clock winds down, Callie disables the shuttle that Gaynor is leaving on in the hopes she’ll stop the auto-destruct countdown.  She can’t, so she kills her in a fistfight. Marcus cannot override the damage done to Caravaggio so, finally, Travis talks Caravaggio out of destroying them. It’s alls-well-that-ends-well as the crew contemplates blackmailing the Martian president for their fee.

John and Eugene look at the 1955 George Pal classic movie Conquest of Space and its attempt at a realistic look at space exploration. We ask the questions, “is space for mankind or the exclusive domain of God?” and “will religion screw up space, too?”

John and Eugene look at two more episodes of Logan’s. First, it’s Futurepast, a story about androids in love, and then Carousel, the episode where Logan returns to the City of Domes to die. Futurepast Synopsis Two of Francis’ minions are hot on the tail of Rem and his pets, but through a bit of subterfuge, Logan stuns his pursuers, and Rem disables their vehicle. They proceed on until they find a fabulous Art Deco building and a beautiful caretaker, Ariana.  Rem sparks every time he’s near her. She leads Logan and Jessica to comfy beds, where they soon fall asleep and are connected to a dream analysis machine. Rem demands to know why and learns that, like himself, Arianna is an android, and her job is to put people into the dream analysis lab.  They cannot be awoken, or they will die.  They must let the dreams continue. Meanwhile, Francis camps impatiently for the night. Through a series of clips from previous episodes and newly shot footage played through prisms and repeats over and over, we are privy to Logan and Jessica’s dreams, but honestly, I don’t care.  They might die, blah blah blah. Rem and Arianna are falling in love, which is, of course, impossible Then they get into a lover’s tiff.  He shoots her, she threatens to shoot him back, he sweet talks his way out of it, and together they come up with a plan to save the sleepers Francis arrives and kills Arianna, and captures the newly-awakened Logan and Jessica.  Logan tries to convince Francis that the sleep analysis machine is actually the way to Sanctuary, and he falls for it! Rem and his pets escape once more, but not before repairing Arianna and making a tearful farewell. Carousel Synopsis Francis is hot on Rem and his pet’s tails when the solar vehicle stops operating.  Getting out to defend themselves, Logan is shot by locals with a dart, and Rem and Jessica are teleported into a very cost-effective holding area. They are told that the people who live in this area protect themselves by forcing erasing the memory of the last year from visitors’ minds and then sending them on their way.  Logan was carrying a weapon; therefore, they erased his memory immediately.  Rem and Jessica have been brought in to be told that their memory will be erased, and then they will be released.  Jessica pleads that erasing their memories will result in serious harm to them.  They deliberate. Meanwhile, Logan has recovered and cannot figure out where he is.  Francis comes along, and Logan is completely compliant and disbelieving that he could possibly be a Runner.  He agrees to return to the City of Domes for a truth scan. Rem and Jessica’s captures agree to release them unmolested, and they follow Logan back to the City of Domes. Breaking back in, Jessica meets up with the Underground Runner Railroad and explains what’s happening.  They agree to help because Logan, testifying at Carousel that Sanctuary doesn’t exist, would be a significant blow against their movement. Francis is happy that his old pal is back in the Sandman game, and they can continue to kill Runners together.  When they hunt their first Runner, Logan hesitates, and Francis must make the kill.  Logan reminds Francis that it was his turn to take the kill.  Francis buys this, but what does Logan actually think? The Runners must know what Logan knows, so Rem suggests Jessica seduce Logan, which she tries, but ultimately cannot because Logan is her friend.  Instead, she spills the beans that she is the Runner Jessica 6 and that they’ve been together outside.  Did I mention that Logan is in full-on Sandman mode right now?  It wasn’t Jessica’s best idea because Logan raises his gun to kill the Runner… but he cannot quite bring himself to do it and tells our hero to get out.  Heartbroken, Jessica returns to the Runners’ base and tells them the news. Here’s where it gets tricky.  Francis is happy to have his best friend back, but when the elders tell him that Logan must testify at assembly before Carousel, Francis worries that Logan will die in Carousel.  “Relax,” say the elders, we just need Logan to denounce Sanctuary, and then he can return to his former life.  Relieved, Francis believes them, but when he leaves the room, suddenly, it’s all, “oh, yeah, he’s going to die at Carousel.” The Runners know that Logan must be stopped, so they hatch a plan to capture him and hold him until the memory wipe fades. As Logan heads to Carousel, he leaves a message behind for Jessica.  His memory has returned, and he plans to announce that Carousel and Renewal are lies before the Assembly – knowing that this will get him killed. Jessica and her friends rescue Logan.  Francis cries, “curses, foiled again,” and Rem and his pets escape the City of Domes once more.

Simon and Eugene discuss whether and when the show needs to break its own temporal formula, what the advantage might be of having supper in Holly’s time machine, and the effect of temporal physics on the doctrine of act and omission. Episode Synopsis Holly Turner is giving a speech at the Institute of Time where she is discussing The Chronology Protection Hypothesis first put forward by Stephen Hawking.  Holly maintains that the hypothesis is correct: You can’t rewrite history.  Not one line! Her speech is well-received, but of course, it’s all nonsense because time travel isn’t possible, despite the amazing work her father did in the past. And then she sees the news.  Jeff Slade has been shot by a man named Crowley and is in critical condition awaiting emergency surgery.  She finds out when he was shot and uses the time machine to go back and, presumably, prevent Slade from being shot.  It’s her day off to be at the Institute of Time, so it doesn’t raise too many eyebrows when she arrives looking for Slade. Slade has been assigned to a high-profile murder of a famous artist.  The only two immediate suspects are the artist’s ex-wife, currently embroiled in an acrimonious legal battle for money, and his art dealer, Levenson. Holly shows up and wants to tag along, but when she refuses to let Slade use the time machine, he grows suspicious, but he allows her to accompany him anyway. They visit the ex-wife, and she claims not to have killed him, pointing a finger at Levenson.  Holly questions her about Crowley, a name unassociated with this case and unknown to Slade, his suspicions are aroused even further.  Slade spots the time watch on Holly’s wrist and calls the Institute of Time, learning that she’s still there.  He confronts her, and eventually, she tells him he’ll be shot at 6:00 PM today by Crowley. They visit Levenson, who claims to have no further stake in the artist, and he, too, has never heard of Crowley.   Outside the store, Holly spots Crowley from the mug shot shown on TV.  Slade gives chase, but he escapes. Now, Slade is going after Crowley.  First, he breaks into his apartment but finds nothing connecting him to the murdered artist.  Crowley returns, so Slade arrests him.  He can have him held for 24 hours without charging him, that will keep Slade safe, and time will be changed. Morris and the Chief Inspector have had a break in the case.  They found threatening letters from the ex-wife, and a search of her place finds blood-stained clothing and a painting stolen from the crime scene.  They arrest her, but when they find Slade has arrested someone else with no apparent cause, they let him loose. Crowley, a career criminal and not the brightest firefly in the swarm, immediately proceeds with his completely unrelated plan to rob a jeweler that just happens to be next door to Levenson’s art dealership.  Slade and Holly, also nearby, hear gunshots and rush to the scene just as Crowley tries to escape into Levenson’s shop, taking him and a family hostage. Seeing Slade outside, he demands that Slade be the officer that comes in to negotiate… as the clock ticks inexorably toward 6:00 PM.  Slade cannot refuse, and he sends Holly back to the time machine. Inside, Slade gets the jump on Crowley, killing him, only to have Levenson shoot Slade because it’s been exposed that he’s hiding the artist’s painting, which have vastly increased in value now that Levenson murdered him. Holly synchronizes with the present and rushes to the hospital just in time to see Levenson trying to finish off Slade.  Slade, however, isn’t actually hurt and jumps Levenson, subduing him. It was all a ruse to get hard evidence on Levenson… I mean, apart from the hard evidence of actually telling Slade, a police officer, that he did the murder and had the paintings, and then shot said police officer to cover it up, thinking him dead, but he was wrong, then lying about what happened to a police investigation. The Chronology Protection Hypothesis has been proven once again.

Travis just isn’t scratching Callie’s itch, so she’s off with another band of plucky corporate bounty hunters. Will Travis find his scratcher in time? Kenneth and Eugene discuss Rivals. Episode Synopsis Callie is having a bad day.  Not only are the rolling blackouts and malfunctions of the Trans-utopian getting her down, but she’s got a troublesome prisoner that’s managed to steal her key – unbeknownst to her, of course. There are no solutions to their overall problems anytime soon.  They’re not making enough money to keep the ship fully powered on, nor to perform needed repairs.  As Callie tries to spill her soul to an unlistening Travis, word that the prisoner has escaped has reached them.  They need to take him alive to collect their bounty, and rather than logically applying a stun gun at the first opportunity, instead, Callie roundhouse kicks him into electrical equipment, nearly killing the prisoner and completely disabling the Trans-Utopian just as a giant asteroid bears down on them. They are rescued when Capt. Christoper Judson of the ship Seattle blasts the asteroid into millions of even tinier, more dangerous pieces. But let’s ignore that. The Seattle is a slick ship owned by the Fugitive Containment Systems Corporation, it’s a Martian military design and well-equipped and crewed.  They’re the future of bounty hunting, and Capt. Judson likes the cut of Callie’s jib, and since Travis isn’t doing anything for her jib, she’s sorely tempted by what she sees.  When she tries to bring up her jib with Travis, he seems oblivious that we’re talking about jibs [wink wink nudge nudge say no more!].  Travis fumes as only Travis can. A pre-emptive bounty comes in.  That’s a high-priced bounty to arrest someone before they commit a crime.  There are a couple of minor complications – the target is a highly-trained, ex-military assassin.  He’s committed multiple successful assassinations.  He’s escaped multiple high-security prisons.  Nobody knows what he looks like, and they have no clue whom he plans to kill. The Seattle makes way, covering their tracks so the Trans-Utopian won’t follow them. Via encrypted transmission, Capt. Judson offers Callie a job, and when she finds out Travis and Rudolfo tracked the transmission in hopes of getting intel on the Seattle’s destination, she decides enough is enough and accepts their offer of a commission. After some setbacks, the Trans-Utopian tracked the Seattle to Clark Station, and they also go in search of the assassin.  The Seattle get to the fugitive first, or so they think.  Callie warns that something is wrong, but they ignore the junior recruit.  They should have listened, their entire team is terminated in a trap, save for Callie, who was guarding the hallway. She warns Travis that the target is extremely dangerous, plus, you know, she just likes the sound of his voice, and she’s mad at Capt. Judson for filling out the paperwork on his dead crew before getting into the action himself. As things unfold, it is Capt. Judson that is the actual intended victim, and Callie and Travis save him and kill the assassin, bringing in a hefty bounty for Team Trans-Utopian, and returning Callie to the fold; however, jibs have not been resolved.

Take a journey with us as we visit the past future history of Everytown, as John and Eugene look at H.G. Wells’ Things to Come. Synopsis It is Christmastime in 1940 Everytown.  Life at this joyous time of year goes on as it always has, with people laughing, shopping, enjoying the panto, and being with their family and friends, but there is an ever-present reminder that Europe is re-arming and that war seems on the horizon. At the home of John Cabal, he, his wife, their three children, grandfather, and friends Harding and Passworthy,  the celebrations are first ruffled by Cabal’s pessimistic musing about mankind’s inevitable march towards war.  Passworthy, the optimist, assures him there will be no war, and even if there were a war, war is not the end of progress; war spurs progress and innovation.  The second interruption in the war which starts that very night with a sneak attack, bombing, and later gassing of the city. Cabal and Passworthy are called into military service.  Cabal leaves his wife and children, while his wife wonders if it is fair that they brought their children into the world. The war drags on, and, true to Passworthy’s words, weapons technology, such as tanks and planes, are spurred forward. In a dogfight, Cabal shoots down an enemy aviator.  Cabal lands to rescue the downed pilot, but his plane is full of lethal gas, and it’s leaking out.  The two pilots both have gas masks, but when an unprotected child arrives, the enemy gives up his mask for the child.  Cabal rescues the child and leaves the enemy a gun so that he may kill himself rather than succumb to the gas.  Before he performs the final act, he sees the joke that he was trying to gas that child and her family in the first place and that maybe he’s already killed her family, and yet he sacrificed his life to save her. The war continues, and now civilization begins to decline.  In 1966, after 26 years of war, a new pestilence struck, a plague called the Wandering Sickness.  It is highly contagious and 100% fatal.  Victims, just before they die, get up and start wandering, sending the other survivors running away in terror. Harding, a research doctor, tries to find a cure, but he lacks the equipment to succeed.  One man, Rudolph, has a plan; he orders people to shoot the plague victims on sight.  By 1970, half the population has died from the Wandering Sickness, but the disease has finally burned itself out – perhaps because of the culling, perhaps not. Richard Gordon is what’s left of Everytown’s Air Force.  They have a dozen planes that will not fly because they do not have the knowledge or equipment to repair them, nor have the fuel to fly them. That’s not good enough for The Boss, Rudolph, now the warlord chieftain of Everytown and wager of perpetual war against their mortal enemies, the Hill People.  He wants his planes, and he wants them now, and he doesn’t like Gordon telling him it’s impossible with the resources they have. And then a plane appears in the sky.  Not an old, falling apart bucket, but a new design.  Aboard is an aged John Cabal.  He is arrested but generally doesn’t fuss about that.  He goes to see his old friend Harding and meets Gordon.  He tells them that he is with a group of what’s left of the engineers.  A brotherhood of efficiency, the freemasonry of science.  Harding and Gordon like the sound of that. The Boss is less thrilled with what he perceives as a threat.  Cabal as much as tells him that his organization, Wings over the World, is building a new world order of builders, but they will not abide by war and warriors, and they will clean up the world. The Boss puts him under arrest as a hostage so that his people won’t attack. The Boss is sick of technology; he feels that it has brought the world no good, though he does still covet having a working Air Force so he can destroy the Hill People.  He demands that Gordon get the planes working.  Gordon makes the case that, with Cabal’s and Harding’s help, he might be able to get the planes working.  The Boss allows it, but when Gordon gets a plane aloft, he flies it straight to Basra, were Cabal’s base is. Wings Over the World launch an aerial attack on Everytown.  The bombard the town with “peace bombs” which puts everyone to sleep, and then they send in the paratroopers.  The only casualty: The Boss, who dies with his way of life. Back at Basra, Cabal gives his plan for the world: Aggressive peace, excavating the eternal wealth of the Earth, and the fruits of science. Time moves on, and great engineering feats vacuum the mineral wealth of the planet, fabricate, and build massive cities for the new world.  One such city is Everytown, now the seat of world power. The 2036 and a descendant of John Cabal, Oswald Cabal is the leader of the world.  He pursues a restless, never-ending pursuit of progress for mankind. But, like all periods of human history, there are those that oppose progress.  In 2036 it is Theotocopulos, an artisan who wants progress to stop now.  The current symbol of that progress is the giant space gun being built to launch two people into space.  The two volunteers are Cabal’s own daughter and the son of a descendent of Passworthy.  Passworthy also thinks this is madness and does not want his son to go.  He is somewhat sympathetic to Tehotocopulos’ arguments. Theotocopulos goes on worldwide radio and tries to rally the masses into a rebellion.  He succeeds, and they sort towards the space gun.  In a race against time, Cabal gets the two astronauts to the gun and launches them into space. Cabal and Passworthy watch the ship fly on. Cabal explains that mankind can go on always progressing, always striving, and always exploring forever, and ever or he is just an animal that lives and dies without meaning.

This week John and Eugene look at two more episodes of Logan’s Run. First up, Fear Factor, the episode where Rem and his pets visit an upscale sanitarium thriving in a post-apocalyptic world, and we ask, “who thought that the first order of reestablishing a post-apocalyptic world was to set up an insane asylum?” Then we look at the Judas Goat, the episode featuring the Amazing Spider-Man’s Nicholas Hammond, and we ask, “just how many people know about the City of Domes’ Council of Old White Guys?” Fear Factor Synopsis Rem and his pets come across a 20th-century mansion “far away from everything.”  As they approach, they find a terrified woman trying to escape.  Her handler soon arrives and takes the gang to meet Dr. Rowan, the facility director, and his right-hand man, Dr. Paulson. This convalescent sanitarium survived the nuclear holocaust untouched because they were “far away from everything.”  They’ll all hospitable, but Jessica doesn’t really like the answers Rowan is (or isn’t) giving about the woman.  She stays to talk with him as Logan and Rem are taken to their rooms. Rem discovers they are being monitored, so he uses the in-room computer console to monitor the rest of the facility.  They watch as Rowan explains to Jessica how they like to strip the brains of emotion and higher thinking functions and replace them with their own thoughts and emotions.  She does not like what she hears. Neither do Logan or Rem, and they discover they are locked in.  But Paulson lets them out when they knock politely.  They force past him and head to find Jessica.  Unbeknownst to them, Paulson pulls a gun on them but decides not to shoot them. They find Rowan in his office, just Jessica is not with him.  At gunpoint, he leads them to Jessica, but it is a trap.  Logan and Rem are tested by being subjected to strong winds and 1950s B-movie flaming meteoroids.  Then they’re gassed. When Logan awakens, he is taken to the Inner Circle, the ruling council that oversees this society.  The Inner Circle appears to consist of Dr. Rowan, and he explains the situation: They burn out the brains of the menials and make them afraid and obedient.  They similarly control, to a lesser degree, the guards.  This process makes them cowards, averse to any form of anxiety.  They’ve got army-building technology, but none of their people can fight. Logan is just the man to help them breed a whole new race of fearless soldiers.  He refuses without even bothering to look at the harem of women he’d be servicing. Rowan has a counteroffer:  Agree, or we’ll burn out Jessica’s brain, and we’re already deprogramming Rem.  At this moment, Rem, who is too sophisticated to be deprogrammed by 1970’s cheesy SciFi blinky lights computer prop, leaps into action and starts to strangle Rowan. Paulson has had misgivings, and he assists them in getting to Jessica.  She’s already hooked up, and while Logan can subdue two of the technicians, the third hides behind a Sandman Gun-proof piece of plastic and takes control of Jessica’s mind. Rem grabs a control unit, and they fight it out through Jessica’s brain.  Logan tires of this and blows up the machinery. The guards and menials put up a very lackadaisical pursuit, and his own guards kill Rowan.  Now Paulson is in charge, and he lets the gang leave.  He stays to help rehabilitate his society. The Judas Goat Synopsis In the City of Domes, Hal 14 makes his run.  Hot on his trail is Sandman Joseph 8.  Hal makes it to the secret doorway, opens the door, and then pauses momentarily to allow Joseph to catch up and terminate him.  The Runner’s secret exit is wide open, exposed for the Sandman to destroy! But the Council that rules the City of Domes has a different idea.  Joseph 8 is taken and, without consent, surgically modified to look like Hal 14 and given a copy of Hal’s memories.  For all intents and purposes, Joseph 8 is now Hal 14, except that he is actually a Sandman dedicated to terminating Runners. Taken before the Counsel of Old White Dudes, like Francis 7 before him, they offer him a place on the Counsel if he can bring Logan and Jessica back alive. Hal-Not-Hal easily locates Logan and pretends to be a terrified Runner, scared of the mean old Sandman.  In an effort to reassure him, Logan chases him down just like in the good old days, although he doesn’t terminate him. Hal was known to Jessica – “you remember, I was that guy you bumped into once at Carousel spouting off about not believing.” “Oh, yeah, I remember, Hal, right?” Hal-Not-Hal, having escaped the City of Domes and meeting the famous Sandman-turned-Runner Logan, immediately wants to go back to the City and start a revolution with Logan as the figurehead. Rem thinks it’s a bad idea.  Logan kinda digs the idea of saving all the people in the City of Domes. Before they can return, they are captured by a bunch of simpletons with guns and a lethal force field.  Hal-Not-Hal wants Logan to kill them all so they can get on their way back to the City of Domes.  Instead, they are taken to the Provider, the man who takes care of the simpletons and uses them effectively for slave labor. The Provider is actually Matthew 12, the very first Runner.  He is also known to Jessica and was the man who encouraged her to get involved in the Underground Runner Road. The gang hatched the ludicrous idea that Matthew could go back, too.  He’s a legend.  Matthew, however, isn’t as stupid as our heroes and realizes what a bad idea it is.  Also, he realizes that if they get caught, they’ll be brain scanned, and he’ll be hunted down.  That’s a big no-go.  Also, I can’t let you leave now. Hal-Not-Hal tries to steal guns in his endearing, single-minded way and escape, so they can return to the City of Domes and start a revolution.  That doesn’t work, and Matthew locks them up when they try an escape plan. Hal-Not-Hal has a better idea…. If Rem stays behind to fix the Provider’s computers, maybe Matthew can let the others go.  For some dumb reason, Matthew goes along with this, and for even dumber reasons, Logan, Jessica, and Hal-Not-Hal think he’s going to let them go. They leave, and Matthew tries to kill them.  Rem, fearful for his friends’ lives, reverses the polarity of the neutron flow, which kills Matthew.  Rem has done an AI boo-boo.  He’s violated the first law. Don’t worry, say Logan and Jessica, you did it for a good cause – saving our butts. “Well, that’s great and all, but hadn’t we better be getting back to the City of Domes?” Gosh, if you want to get back there so badly, why’d you ever leave? Says no one, not even Rem. As they approach the City of Domes, Logan gets suspicious when Hal-Not-Hal leads them to the same exit they used.  Logan notes that there’s no way Francis would have left that escape route open.  Hal-Not-Hal jumps for Logan’s gun, but Logan gets the better of him. Hal-Not-Hal runs away, again with Logan in hot pursuit. Two Sandmen on routine patrol…. Wait? Two Sandmen on routine patrol outside the city walls spy a fellow Sandman chasing a Runner and terminate Hal-Not-Hal.  Logan stuns them both, and the gang skedaddles back into the trackless wastelands.

Simon and Eugene discuss the “Big Lie” in fiction, the Oscar-winning music of Anne Dudley, the difference between train length in the UK and the US, and how foreknowledge might affect your behavior in a time paradox. Episode Synopsis Fashion designer Sonia Duval is being interviewed about her upcoming show and about negative feelings about her in the fashion industry.  About this time, the world’s absolute worst assassin takes a series of wildly accurate potshots at her that never seem to hit the target, despite her cool-under-fire sloth-like reactions. The next day at cop headquarters Chief Inspector Grisham takes this seriously.  Diana, Princess of Wales, has some of Sonia Duval’s fashions, plus somebody was shooting a gun.  It’s all hands on deck to protect Sonia’s life at her upcoming fashion show. The all-hands-on-deck call includes Holly Turner, Chief Science Officer, who also happens to be a girl and, therefore, can go undercover as a seamstress.  Turner isn’t happy about this.  Slade has the plumb assignment: He’s personally guarding the beautiful Sonia. During preparations for the show, it becomes obvious why someone wants to kill Sonia – she’s not a nice person to anyone, including her sister, Linda, who also works for Sonia as a seamstress. It’s not strictly true that she is awful to everyone – she’s taken quite a shine to Slade, and Turner doesn’t like it one bit.  When Slade leaves with Sonia after another death threat, Turner seethes even more, but she also discovers that Linda Duval seems to have plans to get out of her sister’s shadow.  Could she be planning a murder? The next day and it seems Slade may have succumbed to Ms. Duval’s attentions and spent the night out.  Slade, ever the brilliant detective, has picked up on Turner’s particularly chilly mood towards him, but before he can find out more, a new lead comes in. Clifford James, Sonia’s partner, recently took out a £3,000,000 corporate insurance policy on Sonia, perhaps without her knowledge, naming himself as the sole beneficiary. It’s almost time for the show, and a stupid argument causes Linda to quit.  James takes her aside to the office to try to calm her down.  Meanwhile, Slade is attacked in the car park, rendered unconscious, and placed in the boot of a burning car – which he manages to just escape from because it’s somehow unlocked.  Now he must get back to the show before it is too late. It’s too late.  As the show ends, the sound of gunshots ring out, and Sonia falls to the floor.  Morris and the other cops espy someone with a rifle in the chapel and give chase, but ultimately lose him on foot.  As Turner, who has some medical training, attempts to examine Sonia, a convenient doctor appears from the crowd pushing her out of the way.  Taking Sonia into the office to examine her, he soon pronounces her dead. Linda is missing, and her clothes are all gone; plus, Turner finds her fingerprint on the rifle.  It’s an open and shut case, and one that doesn’t even require the use of a time machine to solve; however, we wouldn’t have a show if they didn’t use the time machine, and so they do, traveling back in time 20 hours. First, they investigate the venue and the chapel where the alleged shooter was seen.  Luckily, the security guard on duty is incompetent and doesn’t spot them.  There’s not much they can do until tomorrow, so they’ve got to find a place to sleep.  Turner’s flat is not an option, since she’s there right now sleeping.  They don’t have money for a hotel, but luckily Slade didn’t spend the night at home last night, so his place is available. Turner is really digging his flat, which is well beyond his means, and his cooking skills, and she’s really getting into a nice evening with Slade until she comes to the realization that Slade isn’t home tonight because he’s sleeping elsewhere with Sonia. And so the green-eyed monster rears its ugly head again, and they end the evening in a snit. In the morning, the snit continues, and Turner won’t hear a word of explanation from Slade.  They get on with the job.  First, they surreptitiously check out Linda’s flat and discover she hasn’t packed up her clothes yet, despite having left already for the fateful show.  Sonia catches them, but they talk their way out of it.  Slade also tries to warn her not to go out on the catwalk during the show.  It is advice she obviously ignored. Turner watches to see who attacked Slade, and Slade watches to see who shot Sonia. The convenient doctor in the crowd was Slade’s attempted murderer.  Turner follows them, and when she realizes Slade cannot escape the burning car without help, she unlocks the car, which allows him to escape. At the show, concealed in the chapel, Slade witnesses a man enter and leave the rifle on the floor and leave.  He picks up and examines the rifle as the sound of gunshots ring out, and Sonia falls to the floor.  Morris and the other cops espy Slade with a rifle in the chapel and give chase, but ultimately lose him on foot without ever properly seeing his face. Soon thereafter, Turner witnesses the convenient doctor pick up someone from the office and drive off.  Could that have been Linda?  She snaps photos.  When she shows them to Slade, he knows what happened. Returning to the present with no drama whatsoever this week, Slade arranges a stakeout, and when the suspects start to move, they arrest Clifford James, the convenient doctor (whose name is Hopkins), and Sonia Duval.  They staged the entire thing as insurance fraud, with poor murdered Linda standing in for her sister’s corpse. Back at Slade’s swinging bachelor pad, he finally explains to Turner that he did not spend the night with Sonia, he spent the night at the venue, and he was the incompetent security guard that didn’t spot them that night. Also, he’s laid on wine and clean glasses, all for Turner’s benefit.

Caravaggio is damaged, and Percy replaces him with Kate, the crew’s new holographic pal that’s fun to play with, designed by Percy. Would could possibly go wrong? Find out as Kenneth and Eugene look at the Starhunter Redux episode: Kate. Episode Synopsis Percy is having a conniption fit.  She wanted to use some hot water during the routine water maintenance period and somehow blames Caravaggio for not anticipating her desire and postponing the maintenance period because she was doing some dirty maintenance elsewhere. At least, I think that’s what happened. Marcus, always the enlightened gentleman, explains to Caravaggio that his problem is that he’s male, and women expect men to read their minds.  Percy, alternatively, explains that Caravaggio should be more empathetic, something he apparently cannot do because he doesn’t have breasts – or at the very least because he wasn’t designed by someone with breasts. About this time, a space mine locks onto and blows a hole in the Trans-Utopian, damaging various bits of the ship.  Engines, attitude adjustment, weapons, and, perhaps most critically, Caravaggio, who is operating well below normal utility. Percy seizes this opportunity, rather than fix Caravaggio, a critical piece of equipment, in an emergency situation, to replace him with a new AI of her own design, Katherine. Travis immediately decides to diminish her status by calling her Kate instead, and she’s a bit of a hottie.  Some much so, it looks like Marcus isn’t going to be able to keep his mind off her and on the job.   Callie even points out that’s a flaw with Kate, ‘cause, you know, it’s ALWAYS the woman’s fault if men do something bad because the woman is sexy.   Travis, our hero, knows that sexist argument is BS and dismisses this as a case of Callie being jealous of the hottie.   Meow!  Is everyone on this ship trying to up their game to be as big a sexist pig as Rudolfo this week?  Apparently so. Still heavily damaged and days away from the nearest station, they collect bits of the mine and discover the bad news.  It’s a classic Martian design, and it no doubt sent data back to the mine’s owner.  They can expect possibly hostile visitors soon. And then life support goes out, and Kate can’t figure out why.  The crew can’t figure it out, either.  Everything seems to be in working order; it just isn’t working.  Callie is the first to get suspicious that Kate might be behind this, but shockingly, Percy isn’t too far behind on that realization.  She figures it out when Kate is more interested in how long Travis and Callie have been a couple than she is in repairing the life-threatening systems’ failures. Kate pops up on the bridge to tell Travis that Callie isn’t “right” for him.  Travis is more interested in saving their lives than in talking about Callie.  He finds her priorities to be a bit wonky, but Kate assures him, “I’d do anything I can to save you.” Travis goes to visit Percy to ask about this new AI, and it’s at this point, she reveals that she tried to restore Caravaggio but couldn’t because he’d been sabotaged.  Percy being Percy, Travis doesn’t even bother asking, “You didn’t think we needed to know about that sooner?!” Travis returns to the bridge as armed pirate ships are approaching.  Kate is, unfortunately, unable to provide much information about the attackers because not only did Percy choose the worst possible time to be doing a major computer system upgrade, but she also didn’t have the new system finished yet.  Kate cannot interface with technology that is not part of the Trans-Utopian.   As they go into battle, Kate takes control of the ship, in direct defiance of Travis’ orders, and destroys one of the attacking pirates.  This blows the ship’s weapons out and the other pirate begins the process of boarding the Trans-Utopian. Percy gets mad at Kate, and Kate shoots her – because, apparently, that’s a thing AIs can do now. Kate confesses her love for Travis and convinces him to give them a moment alone.  When the others leave the bridge, she locks him in and begins pumping the air out of the rest of the ship.  The others must get breathers, fight off the pirates and get Percy to the sick bay. Travis explains to Kate that “if you love something, you have to let it go,” and so she does, but doesn’t turn the air on for him.  He fights more pirates, finds a breather, then takes the pirates’ ship.  Stealing their ship’s little black oxygen box. Confronting Kate on the bridge, Travis tries to insert the little black oxygen box into the Trans-Utopian’s little black oxygen box slot, but Kate is really upset at Travis’ rejection of her, and she shoots him a bunch. Callie comes in, distracting Kate and giving Travis time to insert the little black oxygen box into the little black oxygen box slot.  Kate can’t turn it off, either, because it’s technology from another ship, making this Chekov’s Technological Little Black Oxygen Box inserted into Chekov’s Technological Little Black Oxygen Box Slot.   Having done that, Travis calmly walks over to Kate’s off switch and deactivates her.  If only anyone had thought of that earlier. Caravaggio is back and thinks he’s had a dream of love.   No, Caravaggio, you’ve had a misogynistic nightmare.