Journey to Where?  Journey to Where.  Is it a question, or is it a statement?  What are the deep philosophical differences between those two interpretation?

You won’t find out in this episode, as Ben and Eugene ask the question, or respond to the statement, “journey to where(?/.)”

Synopsis

After being initially skeptical, Koenig is convinced they’re for real because of their knowledge of baseball trivia, so work on the teleportation device begins. Koenig wastes time on a test package, which goes flawlessly. Next, three humans get to return to Earth forever.

Who will it be?

Who WILL it be?

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Bye, Alpha, if all goes well we’ll literally never see you again!

Unfortunately, the one place on Earth where they can’t predict earthquakes just happens to be the same place they built the highly sensitive transporter system. And, wouldn’t you know it, an earthquake happens just as our intrepid heroes are leaving.

They arrive… somewhere. They’re journeyed somewhere. You might even ask, “A Journey to Where?”

I’ll tell you where: Scotland in 1339, actually, it might be 1340. Possible somewhere near, but probably not exactly December 31st.

Meanwhile, Maya helps the Earth people figure out what went wrong and where they are… or more appropriately, when.

On Earth, Helena succumbs to a cold and creeping pneumonia. Damn good thing they brought a doctor along to get sick! Our heroes are captured by Scotsmen and set to burn because they have the plague. The get a message with the time and date back to Alpha using their wristwatches that somehow transmit information through time and space, and they reverse the polarity of the neutron flow and everyone is back to Alpha and happy – as the galactic eclipse blocks Alpha from Earth for a century, or maybe only about 300 days, life returns to normal.

Life returning to normal means Tony’s beer is still so awful an Australian won’t drink it.[/expand]

Avon is courting the warlord, Zukan, to join his rebel alliance.  Tarrant is counting Zukan’s daughter, Zeona, to join Tarrant’s “alliance.”

How could this go wrong?

Ben and Eugene discuss the penultimate episode of Blakes 7, Warlord.

Synopsis

Avon attempts to build an alliance of border worlds in the hopes they can produce an antidote in quantity and hold back the Federation. There are lots of hard feelings amongst the members, especially towards the warlord Zukan, who has been attacking them all.

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When Zukan finds out, he is furious and demands that Ziona return to his world of Beta Thall on the Scorpio and that Avon, not Tarrant, pilot the ship. Soolin, who is sympathetic to Tarrant and Ziona goes along and then when Avon is out of the room, teleports Ziona black to Xenon base so that the lovers can be together.

Zukan; however, has laid a trap to destroy Xenon base and kill everyone inside her. After he leaves in his shuttle, the exits and teleport are destroyed by bombs and a deadly, radioactive virus is released into the air system

He goes to meet with his conspirator, Commissioner Sleer. She, of course, betrays Zuklan and puts a bomb on his ship.

Avon and Soolin escape the trap waiting for them on Beta Thall and head back to Xenon base. They cannot make it back before the air runs out. Zukan, drifting in space aboard his crippled ship, offers a solution but won’t tell what it is unless Avon rescues him first. Ziona pleads with him, revealing that she’s still on Xenon base, but he doesn’t believe it.

Avon reasons out how to save the crew and Zukan’s ship explodes. After they’ve been rescued, Avon hatches a risky plan to clear the base. Ziona volunteers to execute the plan, against Tarrant’s wishes.. When she doesn’t contact them, Tarrant and Dayna go down and discover the virus has been destroyed, but so, too has Ziona. She has taken her glove off and died from the virus before it was clear.

There’s a planet that has rocks on it.  Desirable rocks.  Koenig leads a highly-specialized team of crack rock collectors to the planet to get those rocks, but he soon learns that all that glisters is not Melganite.

Ben and Eugene discuss All That Glisters.

That was a stupid episode – James, age 12

Synopsis

They discover a rock that looks like Melganite, glows like Melganite and presumably sounds like melganite, but isn’t melanite.

After cutting a piece of the the rock off and returning to the Eagle, it kills Tony. The mystery deepens when Zombie Tony goes to collect more samples of the rock and then, the rock tries to take off with the Eagle, stranding our castaways, but it doesn’t because not all of the rock is onboard the eagle. yet.

Maya transforms into a rock and tries to talk to the other rock, unsuccessfully. It’s apparently like talking to a rock.

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Koenig figures out what happened. The rock duped the Alphans into coming to the planet so that it could catch a lift to somewhere with water. Maya reprograms a laser to dehydrate rocks but she feels bad about it. Bloody thirsty Koenig doesn’t though. and then Dave – oh, did I forget to mention Dave – Dave the Irish Cowboy is on the planet, too – Dave tries to attack the rock, but fails and is taken over like Tony.

Mayan transforms back into a rock and fools the real rock creature which apparently cannot recognize parts of itself.

Taken back to the Eagle, the rock tries to merge with Maya – I told you Maya sounds like she might be a lot of fun on a date – and her resistance give enough time for Koenig to dry out the rock.

They leave, just in the nick of time, and as they go, they make it rain as a consolation prize to the dying rock, which has now had it’s slow, lingering death by lack of water prolonged for a while longer.[/expand]

When you’re an outer space outlaw and revolutionary, it’s all about knowing who’s got you back.  This week, Vila learns who he can trust to keep him alive as he and Avon share an orbit.

Ben and Eugene discuss this, the 50th episode of Blakes 7, Robert Holmes’ Orbit!

Time for one of our rare “sidecar” episodes!  During our discussion of Star Trek Discovery, we turned our attention to the delivery mechanisms and the economics of the newest Star Trek series.

Are we fans of CBS All Access?  Find out on this new, bonus episode of Fusion Patrol.

Patreon Subscribers:  This is a free, bonus episode.

There’s a whole new world of Discovery out there – Star Trek Discovery, that is, and 70 million Star Trek podcasts are going to analyze it to death.

Ben and Eugene take a quick detour of discovery through the opening two-parter of Star Trek Discovery before we return to our standard programming.

Help, I’m trapped in a bottle being forced to watch episodes of Space: 1999, and they’ve put on One Moment of Humanity.

I’m afraid I might go out like a Christmas Light!

Oh, but I’m obligated to say…  Ben and Eugene discuss One Moment of Humanity.

Synopsis

A visitor from the planet Vega appears, she observes Tony and Helena in each others arms and has found what she wants. She releases the Alphans and informs them that they are going to take two Alphas for an experiment, in which they will not be harmed, for just 48 hours, and that Tony and Helena are the two she wants. Koenig doesn’t like it, but he can suck space dust because the vegan isn’t having any of this macho bravado

How do they get to Vega? All you have to do is wish and there they are, surrounded by the dullest orgy ever. At a meal, Masked automatons called “numbers” serve the Vegans, but one of them warns Helena not to react or get mad. The Vegans serve them bad food and then call them names like, hag and foul-mouthed lying cretin. To no avail, Helena and Tony keep their cool and don’t try to kill them. As punishment, they’re put in a cell, but they get to keep Tony’s laser, so they escape, meet the Numbers, who turn out to be the real humans, forced to serve the androids that they themselves created. They wear masks because the androids learn emotions by watching and if they ever learn anger, they’ll finally be able to kill all the humans, which is what they desire.

So naturally, Tony and Helena try to destroy the central computer. having failed that, they wish they way back to moonbase Alpha, which is empty.

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Returning to the real Alpha, the Vegans start reading Shakespeare and realize the play is the thing in which they’l catch the murderous rage of the king. Koenig corrects them, though. “Never happen, because Tony and Helena don’t love each other. You’re going to have to take Maya and me down to the planet” Somehow failing to realize he’s just put them one step closer to success.

On the planet, Maya (completely ignored by the Vegans) tries to destroy the computer.

Meanwhile a soulless, mechanical sex toy named Zarl dances the Vegan Tango with Doctor Russell and we are privileged to watch some of the Martin Landau’s Academy-Award Winning hand clenching acting as Koenig is literally unable to watch Doctor Russel dance with a machine without going into a murderous fury. Well, it is better to feel than to think, as John Koenig always says.

Maya has no luck. Disrupt the computer and the whole planet explodes. That’s enough for Koenig, time to punch that android in his smarmy little face for daring to touch his woman!

And the androids are so happy that one that got punched. Zarl felt something for Doctor Russel and that, just like Christmas lights, causes all the vegans to break down and stop functioning. And then he has his One Moment of Humanity before he, too, dies.[/expand]

There’s gold in them thar… umm… spaceships, and Avon and a “pal” have a plan to liberate all that lovely money for themselves.

But there’s someone else who has other plans for them.

Ben and Eugene discuss Gold.

A swarm of space bees arrives at Moonbase Alpha…  no wait, that was an episode of the Starlost, wasn’t it?

Some missiles attack Moonbase Alpha…  no, that’s not right.

Exiles arrive at Moonbase Alpha, and like immigrants from anywhere, John Koenig welcomes them with open arms and a concealed laser gun.

Ben and Eugene discuss the Exiles.

Synopsis

Koenig takes a hard line against them waking up. Alpha’s life support system cannot handle 50 more people, but Helena and Tony show John that if the human race were all like him, they don’t really deserve to live, so Koenig relents, but not before shooting Cantor with a laser to make sure their weapons will work on them. They do, so Koenig knows they’re safe.

Except they’re not. Cantor was playing stunned. Now, he and Zova modify Alpha’s recycling systems to make them more efficient – or so they claim. They’re really making a teleporter to take them, and Helena and Tony back to Golos, where 300 years has elapsed.

it turns out, the Golosians are really peaceful people, and Cantor can hold the entire planet hostage with just one Alpha laser weapon. He sends Zova back to revive the other pods, threatening to kill Helena if Keonig doesn’t comply. In a bit of patented oscar-award winning acting from Martin Landau, Koenig crumples like a cheap suit, and let’s them start the retrieval process.

Once in space, he murders Zova by tossing her into space. Back on Golos, Helena murders Cantor.

The grateful Golosians send Helena and Tony away from their perfect, peaceful world and return them to their barren, lifeless rock in space.

Sand, sand everywhere and not a drop to drink.

Tarrant finds himself stranded on a planet with a deadly life form AND there’s a lot of living sand around, too!

Ben and Eugene discuss Sand.

Synopsis

Meanwhile, the crew of the Scorpio have discovered that the Federation think the planet Vern has something important. If the Federation thinks it’s important, even though no one knows what it is, then Avon and the gang think it’s even more important that they get it first. The race is on.

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It even looks as though the might, but Sleer’s tears are lethal to the sand, which doesn’t help Tarrant and Steer much, but Avon also reasons it out and causes the Scorpio to start a rainstorm, killing the sand and allowing Tarrant and Sleer to escape, with just their tender memories.

Sleer watches the report from Vern, an expedition was dying 5 years ago. Something mysterious got the Federation to investigate.[/expand]