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.

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.