How does an investigation of the British Brain Drain turn into an expose on a secret US/USSR space program? Find out what is Alternative 3 as John and Eugene discuss this 1977 program.

Synopsis

Anglia Television’s science affairs program, Science Report presents the results months-long investigation, initially into the brain drain effecting Britain’s science community.

The investigation takes an unusual turn when one of the scientists being interviewed suddenly stops cooperating with the reporters and then later disappears, leaving her car in the car park at Heathrow, never to be seen again.

Of the 400 scientists that had left the UK, Science Report discovered that 24 of them disappeared without a trace.  Sometimes taking their entire families, and in other cases disappearing without a word to their family or friends.

Another piece of the puzzle in presented in the mysterious circumstances of the death of noted radio astronomer William Balentine, of Jodrell Bank.  Balentine had used a remote phone to contact a friend in the press asking for a meeting and claiming that he had important information.  He also posted separately a data tape to his friend.

Balentine never made it to the meeting, dying that night in a suspicious car accident.  The tape, obtained by Science Report, contained no intelligible data.

After Science Report begins looking into Ballentine’s death, an anonymous American (later identified as “Harry”) with some connection with Balentine comes forward claiming to have info about Balentine and the tape.  When the reporter goes to meet with him for the full story, Harry seems strung out on drugs and violent.  When they return with the police, Harry and his girlfriend are gone without a trace.

The investigation turns to Professor Gerstein.  Decades earlier, he had proposed that human pollution and greenhouse gases would lead to irrevocable anthropogenic climate change, leading to a new ice age, possibly wiping out mankind.  Originally, his ideas were largely dismissed, but now, with massive heat waves and droughts across the planet, record cold temperatures in North America, devastating earthquakes and erupting volcanoes, his musings seem far less ridiculous.

Gerstein recounts that at a conference some years ago, three alternatives were talked about to preserve humanity.  One and Two were impossible, but Alternative 3 wasn’t completely dismissed.  He declines to further elaborate what Alternative 3 was.

The report now turns to American Apollo astronaut Bob Grodin, who famously suffered some form of breakdown after his return from the moon.  During a moonwalk, he saw something extraordinary, but before he could report what it was, NASA ordered him to observe communication silence and cut the channel.

When questioned on a satellite link by Science Report, he becomes agitated, asking if they were trying to get him fixed up like Balentine, and then the link is cut from the satellite.

Undeterred, reporter Colin Benson travels to America to interview Grodin in person.  Safe in his home and under the influence of alcohol, Grodin alludes to what he saw.  NASA’s Apollo missions weren’t there first.  The Apollo program was a smokescreen for the public.  Their lander came down in the wrong spot and they saw something they shouldn’t.

Grodin also ties the American Harry to Balentine.  Harry helped Balentine decode the tape using special NASA equipment.  Balentine’s death came shortly thereafter.

Science Report also interviews and expert on international politics and relations.  He points out that, while there’s not much agreement on international politics, there is one thing that all the experts agree on:  There is no way that the threat of nuclear annihilation is what maintains the balance between the US and the Soviet Union.  There has to be something else, perhaps some massive joint project that keeps them working together.

Science Report then takes a look at the space race, the history of moon landings, orbital space stations, and they conclude that there has been a series of landing on the far side of the moon.

They talk again to Gerstein, this time he reveals that Alternative 3 was to get a cross section of the best and brightest of humanity and get the hell off the planet before it was too late.  Science Report notes that the missing scientists would be exactly the kind of people Alternative 3 would be seeking.  They have also uncovered that the phenomena isn’t just in Britain, it’s been happening worldwide.

Finally, their attention turns to Mars.  In 1961 a planetary-wide storm engulfed Mars, when it emerged the ice caps were visibly diminished and the equatorial regions had darkened, possibly indicating vegetation.  Some postulate that it could have been the result of a nuclear explosion.  Earlier, a Soviet rocket blew up on the pad as if there had been a nuclear explosion on sight.  Could the storm have been caused by the Soviet Union detonating a nuke on Mars?  Why?

Harry’s girlfriend then contacted Science Report and demanded protection, giving their reporter a piece of circuitry that Harry said to give them.  It’s used to decode the tape.

Science Report concludes with the airing of the tape, now decoded.

It appears to show a joint Soviet-American Mars landing in May 1962 which concludes with the discovery of something moving beneath the soil of Mars.

Science Report followed the evidence and has placed this report before the public.  They are ready for others who can shed light to come forward.

Temperatures drop in Tokyo as an old friend returns and an exploration of the dangers of the power of gold.

John and Eugene discuss Tokyo Ice Age & Kanegon’s Cocoon.

Tokyo Ice Age Episode Synopsis

It is a beautiful sunny summer’s day at Haneda airport when first a jet runs into trouble because its flaps are frozen, causing the plane to explode on approach and then, in a mysterious, yet strangely familiar trail of black smoke, the airport completely freezes over.

Yuriko is out looking for a human-interest story when she finds one in the form of a cheeky boy.  He’s come to the big city to find his father. His father is a seasonal worker who hasn’t returned after six months.  

At Jun’s air service, three totally unconnected things happen:  Ippei reads a newspaper, which has stories about a jewel robbery, an unusual warm spell at the South Pole and Jun and Ippei find a drunk passed out in the plane.

Yuriko takes the boy to her newspaper but the editor doesn’t care, there’s a big story in the frozen airport.  Find someone who’s been to frozen places and ask their opinion.  The boy has disappeared anyway.  Yuriko goes to see Jun, who went to the South Pole last year.  He has an hypothesis – the unusual warm spell at the South Pole is due to Peligula, the monster he encountered there, migrating to the North Pole, and that he has perhaps stopped in Japan along the way.

“That’s a great hypothesis,” says Yuriko, and phones it in to her editor, who informs her that the cause has already been found.  A nuclear reactor disaster at the South Pole has sent glacial water and ice northwards towards Japan.  Mystery solved and apparently nothing newsworthy in that story, he assigns her to getting that boy’s story.

She finds him and feeds him back at the newspaper offices.  He tells her that his father was a famous Zero pilot during the war, but now he’s just a worker with a drinking problem.  Peguila arrives in Tokyo and starts freezing and wrecking things, including the newspaper building.  The editor tries to get the authorities to use Peguimin H, the South Pole-moss-dirived chemical that can defeat Peguila.  Unfortunately, Peguimin H has not been approved by the Academic Society and they must rely instead on conventional means, such as jet fighters attacking the monster in the streets of Tokyo.

The editor decides to take it upon himself to save Tokyo with Pegumin H and tries to get hold of Jun to arrange to pick some up, but phones, radio and television are all out and he and his team must drive there.

Meanwhile, at Jun’s air service, the drunk awakens and, just happens to be both the boy’s missing father, famed Japanese ace Sawamura, and the jewel thief Ippei was reading about in the paper.  He planed to steal Jun’s plane to escape, but had one too many and had passed out in the cockpit.

Peguila wrecks the car the editor and Yuriko are traveling in.  They can’t get out, but the boy, traveling with them, can.  They send him to get help, but first, swing by Jun’s air service and tell him to go pick up some Pegumin H in the Japanese Alps.  The boy arrives, and collapses delivering his message, unaware that his father is there.

His father, shamed, still steals Hun’s plane, but now he flys to collect the Pegumin H and then crashes it, himself and Jun’s plane into Peguila’s mouth.  Peguila leaves.

Some time later, the boy is leaving for home via train, his father’s remains in the train seat next to him.

Kanegon’s Cocoon Episode Synopsis

Kanero is a young boy with a nose for money, to his parents’ displeasure.  You can care too much about money.  Kanero doesn’t see it that way.

At a children’s swap meet in a construction site, he finds a cocoon that jingles like it has money inside it.  He takes it home in the hopes that it will grow and make more money.  Before he can leave, Daddy Walrus, bulldozer operator extraordinaire tries to scare the kids’ swap meet away by running over it all and crushing their stuff.  Daddy Walrus is not popular.

At dinner, Kanero’s parents warn him that if he picks up found money he may turn into Kanegon, a money-eating monster with a coin purse for his head.  If Kanero paid them heed, we wouldn’t have an episode, would we?  To his delight, the cocoon has grown enormous and is filled with money.  Until the cocoon sucks him in, leading to a hallucinogenic interlude which concludes with Kanero emerging as Kanegon, the kaiju the next morning.

His parents are terrified of him, so he wanders the streets.  He approaches his best friend and convinces him to help him change back.  He doesn’t know how, but it’s going to cost money to do it.  That’s going to be more difficult than initially thought, since Kanegon needs constant feeding of money.  Soon, the entire gang are cleaned out, but it isn’t enough.

They go to ask God, in the form of a crazy old witch lady, how to turn Kanegon back to Kanero.  Her answer: the curse will be broken when Daddy Walrus is upside down.

With that answer being useless, they decide to sell Kanegon to a zoo, or for medical research.  Kanegon, in fear for his life, runs away, before he hears that they’ve decided to teach him tricks so he can earn a living.

He causes a furor on the streets when he starts eating someone’s dropped money.  The police bring his parents, but he’s escapes with the boys who came to rescue him.

Back at the construction site, they try to teach him tricks, but Daddy Walrus soon arrives.  The boys extract their revenge on him, but he is most terrified of Kanegon and accidentally wrecks his bulldozer, leaving him upside down.

A jet of fire bursts out of Kanegon’s arse and launches him into the sky, when a parachute separates and down comes a restored Kanero.  Delighted, he rushes home only to find both his parents have turned into Kanegons.

Climate Change and cryptography go hand in hand like seashells and fractals, and Dr. Ian Hood, Government Scientist soon finds out.

Simon and Eugene discuss Kryptos.

Episode Synopsis

Richard Adams is a man who likes to walk on the beach, study shells, talk to himself, and run away from would-be assassins.  He also happens to be, formerly, one of Ian Hood’s best friends.  They fell out over Adams stealing Hood’s girlfriend, Gillian.

Adams is a brilliant climate scientist or paranoid crank, depending on to whom you listen.  He believes that he has damning evidence of global warming, he also believes that his former employer, Paul Destrano of the Environment Institute, wants to discredit his work and have him killed, because if published, Americans will have to give up their cars.  Unfortunately, that work is locked up on a computer back at the Environment Institute.

Hood visits Destrano, who explains about Adams breakdown.  He also speaks with his former colleague at the Environment institute, Martin Godley, who dismisses Adams’ work as mostly a rant.  On the down low, he slips Hood a note, asking for a clandestine meeting.  He claims to have only dismissed Adams’ work in the hopes that he’d take some time off, relax and get better.  It is; however, clear that Martin lives in fear.

Adams tries to get his work published at Baxter Scientific, but without the key data, Baxter must refuse.  After a refusal from another journal, Adams kills himself.

He leaves puzzles behind for Hood and when he starts to crack them, he gets a call from Martin, who is willing to give Hood the data.  When he goes to meet him, Destrano is there instead, warning Hood that he’ll prosecute to the fullest extent of the law if Hood comes into possession of Environment Institutes proprietary data.  Also, Martin has been fired.  Later, Martin is murdered in such a way to make it look like an accident.

Rachel breaks into the Environment Institute and steals the data – but it’s encrypted!  Curses, foiled again!

Someone has broken into Hood’s home and left a cryptic clue.  Rachel chases this up while Hood cracks the encryption password.  Rachel finds that Adams staged his own death, and that Hood shouldn’t run the computer program because the environment Institute will immediately be able to track him down and know what he’s doing.  Unfortunately, that warning comes too late, and Destrano’s goons are after him.

When Hood sees the data, it’s devastating.  Global warming is going to cause sea level rise and lots of people are going to get their feet wet.  This is the proof the world needs to get real climate action now!  If only Hood can survive to get the data published.

He sets up some real secret agent stuff by handing off the data to Baxter on a bus and then Destrano confronts Hood.  Things look like there might be another dead scientist, but Rachel shows up and stares them down.

The data is published, Destrano and the Environment Institute are embarrassed, and the world, confronted with the heretofore completely unexpected revelation about global warming immediately leaps into action, saving the planet for generations to come.

Or, you know, they just talk about it on the news.

Episode Synopsis

Marcus and Callie have been duped into a team-building exercise by Travis.  It doesn’t work.  There’s no Marcus or Callie in Team Marcus and Callie.

While not team building they encounter Taryn, an old friend of Marcus.  Long ago, on the mean city streets, they were vagabond, drug-addicts, doing whatever needed to be done to survive or get their next fix.  Marcus got out of that by becoming an apprentice Raider.  Taryn, not so much.

Screaming for help and pursued by two blood-soaked medics, Marcus rushes to her aid, and Callie rushes to his, sending the medics packing.

On the ship, Caravaggio determines that Taryn has been subjected to Retropathic Genetic Hybridization – her genes have been tampered with to turn her into a freak-show sex-toy by the villainous and almost mythical Father Abode.

Everyone is outraged!  Something ought to be done to hunt down the disgusting criminal that did this!  But not unless we can find someone to pay us to do it.  Thems the rules.

Luckily, Taryn’s father is a rich man and he agrees to pay them a bunch to… track down the fiend, I think.  Not to bring her home, because there’s no point in that, she’s just going to turn into a half-human, half-porcupine (or something) sex toy any minute now… or die.  

No, they must track down elusive Father Abode, collect the data concerning the specific Retropathc Genetic Hybridization that’s been done to Taryn so that it can be reversed.  Also, they must work with the two cops who’ve been on the case and turned up nothing. (It’s unclear which case they were on, the missing persons case, or the Father Abode case.)

Although they’ve got their full cooperation, they are of no help whatsoever.

Oh, and one other condition: Marcus can’t work on the case.  Taryn’s father doesn’t like him.

So, he scarpers off in a huff to find Father Abode first.  He gets in touch with an old contact of his on the streets – Lumpy:  A drug dealer and procurer for Father Abode.  That doesn’t go well, but Travis and Callie pull his butt out of the fire.

With Lumpy their prisoner, Travis pretends to be a “buyer” of Father Abode’s services.  With special Martian military tech implanted in his body, he is taken to Father Abode, who is a woman.

Meanwhile those useless cops… not so useless after all.  They work for Father Abode, and they take Callie and Rudolfo prisoner.  Rudolfo bribes them and they’re set free.  They’ve already finked on Travis though, so he’s being converted into a sex toy, too.

Callie and Rudolfo arrive in time and save him, capture Father Abode, get the genetic alteration information, reverse the process, and everyone is happy.

Except, apparently, the crooked cops are getting away with a third of Travis’ bounty and Father Abode was actually just an unstable clone, which dies. The real Father Abode is still loose.

Movie Synopsis

Somewhere in a mountain in Colorado, Dr. Charles Forbin flips the switch and activates the United States’ most secret and ambition project ever: Colossus – a huge impenetrable supercomputer That takes over the US missile arsenal.

The goal of the project, to create an infallible, emotionless defensive system that will make sure human error doesn’t lead to nuclear war.  The United States president announces Colossus to the world.  Soon, Colossus, monitoring all the communications and intelligence data of the world reveals that the Soviet Union also has comparable computer, named Guardian, that has just come online.  The two computers want to talk.

Unsettling though this is, the communication link is established and the two machines establishing a link, and develop their own language.  When the US and the USSR decide to sever the link, Colossus and Guardian launch nuclear missiles to emphasize their demands.

The governments capitulate, but not before a target in Siberia is destroyed.

Colossus and Guardian demand access to the US/USSR hotline, the only untapped communication available to the two governments.

Forbin and Kuprin, the developer of Guardian, arrange an in-person meeting in Rome, free of surveillance, to discuss their options.  Colossus discovers Forbin’s absence and demands his immediate return of Washington D.C. will be nuked.  Kuprin is not so lucky.  Guardian demands that he be executed immediately or Moscow will be nuked.

Forbin is placed under 24-hour video and audio surveillance, and directed to work on behalf of the computers, developing new capabilities for them.  Forbin is able to bluff the computer into allowing his “mistress” periodic booty call visits that are not surveilled.  His mistress is Dr. Cleo Markham, one of the other team members.  She acts as a Forbin’s only means of passing information and ideas back and forth.

A plan is hatched to replace all the nuclear triggers with identical but non-functional ones, rendering the nuclear arsenal useless.  Meanwhile the Colossus development team prepare to attempt to overload Colossus. When that fails, Colossus has them executed immediately.

Colossus addresses the world.  Colossus and Guardian are now in control of the world.  Humans will have peace.  Either the peace of plenty and content, or the peace of unburied death.  Colossus also uses this moment to demonstrate that they knew about the missile sabotage, and they nuke the bases that are currently being worked on.

Colossus orders an new facility to be built, one of his own design, on the Isle of Crete, and he makes it clear, in no uncertain terms, that Forbin will not only help him, but soon he will do so willing and even with love for Colossus.

Forbin vows, “never.”

An ancient bird returns from the past and a monster from space arrives.

John and Eugene discuss “I Saw a Bird” and “Garadama”

I Saw a Bird – Synopsis

It is nighttime at the zoo, and something is disturbing the animals.  It’s disturbing a zookeeper, too, as he cringes in terror.

The next morning, guards at the zoo discover that all of the animals have busted out of their cages from inside, and the discover the zookeeper, all he can say before he collapses is “I saw a bird.”  In his hand, he grasps feathers.

In a fishing village, everyone is distracted by a mysterious viking long boat that has drifted into harbor.  A mischievous young boy uses the distraction to steal a boat and head out to an island.

Jun, Yuri and Ippei have come to see the boat, which is abandoned.  As they retrieve the ship’s log, written in a foreign language, a small finch lands on Yuri’s finger, and the ship melts and sinks.  They just escape in time.  The bird first follows Yuri, but then flies off and accompanies the boy.

On the island, the boy forms a friendship with the bird, which he names Kuro.

Jun and the gang consult professor Ichninotani, who just happens to know how to read the language of the ship’s log.  It is from 998 years, and the final entry in the log is “I saw a bird.”

Impossible that the ship has been adrift of 998 years, Jun postulates that it came through a time portal into the present.  Yuri relates the story of the bird and Ichinotani has her locate a picture of it in his books.  She finds it, but it is an extinct bird known as Larugeus.  Was it 43 meters across?  No.  Probably not Larugeus then.  However, the last known appearance of Larugeus was about 1000 years ago, so…. Time portal anyone?

That night on the island a storm is brewing and Kuro flies away.  In the village, something terrifies and, as we see in the morning, kills all the animals.  The boy, Saburo, is nearly caught by the people from whom he stole the boat, but Kuro comes to his rescue, driving the three adult humans off with his finch-like powers of flight, pecking and chirping.

Saburo, now knowing that everyone is terrified of Kuro, boldly goes into town to get some water.  Ichinotani is notified and sends the police, who capture the bird and put him in a cage, inside a jail.  This distresses Saburo.

Kuro, in the cage, rapidly grows into a 43 meter wingspan monster, destroying the jail and flying out to see, passing his old friend Saburo one last time before he flies off into the sunset.

Garadama – Synopsis

In the mountains, a boy has found a meteorite.  When he takes it to school, they know something is weird, it’;s not normal meteoric iron, it’s a special kind of iron that’s very lightweight.

Meanwhile, something is interfering with radio waves.

The meteor is taken to professor Ichinotani, and he and his team analyze it.  It is a special alloy made by aliens called Tilsonite, and it is periodically transmitting ready signals.  He asks to go see the sight of the meteor impact.  Jun and Ippei fly him to the mountains, near a lake formed by a dam.

Two woman are sightseeing at the dam.  Once there was a village which has been covered by the lake.  One of the two women even lived there when she was young.  The go out on a boat so they can look down on the underwater village.

With everyone on or near the lake, a new, larger meteorite crashes into the water, stranding the boat high on the mountain and splashing all the water out of the lake.

First Jun called Yuri and sends her to contact Ichinotani’s team at the lab, then he and Ippei go to rescue the women on the boat.  

The meteorite cracks like an egg and out pops the monster Garamon, which proceeds to hop around crushing the now-no-longer-underwater village.

Independently of one another, Ichinotani and Yuri surmise that the meteor in the lab is somehow connected with the monster.  They place the meteor in a radio-frequency proof cage and the monster dies, but not before it wrecks the dam.

The UK is on the verge of a pandemic which could killed 100s of thousands of people.  Government pandemic preparedness is abysmal, and the citizen’s compliance with necessary health directives is a joke.  Can Government Scientist Ian Hood save the day single-handedly?  Also, zombies?

Simon and Eugene discuss Containment.

Episode Synopsis

Workers in a church are just busting things up and hauling old bodies around, as you do when you’re making Yuppie Flats, when one of the workers, a particularly curious chap named Ned who looks to stick his in everything he sees, finds a body.  That might not seem so weird, considering what they’re doing, but this emaciated, almost mummified body is wearing workman’s clothes and… he’s ALIVE!  But not long enough to make it though the opening credits.

Ian Hood is being taken to carpet for his budget excesses.  He argues that, since the work he must do is unknown until it happens, his budget cannot be predetermined, therefore he cannot overrun something that cannot be adequately estimated.  Also, Quantum physics!  QED!

He gets called out of that meeting because there’s a potentially disastrous pandemic event shaping up at that church.  Hood meets with Martin Callan, voluntary head of Britain’s ad hoc pandemic response team.  Voluntary because Britain doesn’t see the value of funding such a thing.   But he’s not bitter, just because the Americans spend a billion dollars on pandemic preparedness and will never have to worry a nightmare scenario like this.  Rachel expresses her doubts to Hood about Callan’s qualification to handle this crisis, but Hood assures her, he’s the best.

The worker was a mortician, who was working late on Friday at the church.  He was found Monday and must have collapsed and been unable to call for help.  It looks like some sort of a pox, possibly smallpox.

All the workers are voluntarily detained in quarantine, by force.  They’ll all be quarantined in a warehouse, together.  Hood is aghast.  If anyone is sick, they’ll all get sick in quarantine.  “The needs of the many outweighs the needs of the few,” says Callan.  Actually, what he says is considerable more brusk: “Yep, some will die to save the larger public.  Too bad, so sad.”

Curious Ned is also Ned the Dad, who’s got an important gift for his five-year old’s birthday party today.  He breaks quarantine, hacking, sneezing, and retching all over the place as he walks shoulder to shoulder with the people on the streets.  He’s not a complete idiot.  He’s realized that there is a serious outbreak, so it’s not about getting home for the birthday, it’s about getting home to his family so he can take them somewhere safe.

OK, maybe he is a complete idiot, just a different type of complete idiot.  A special kind of complete idiot.

Hood gets there first and convinces him to go quietly to hospital to die.  Which he does.

The pox has been identified, it’s some form of hybrid between smallpox and tanapox.  Which gives Callan pause.  Clearly an engineered variant that probably escaped from a lab overseas that doesn’t observe proper protocols.

Hood’s team also does contact tracing on the dead mortician, and discover that he did under-the-table embalming on the side.  From that, they identify all the bodies that he’s worked on recently and start investigating those deaths.

Callan is too busy pursuing his own plans to bother thinking this is a concern.  He’s insisting this came in from overseas, but in the interest of ticking all the boxes, Hood and Rachel follow up on the bodies.

Rachel discovers that one, Jack, worked in a cold-storage facility and died in an industrial accident, but when she realizes the facility utilizes illegal Asian immigrants, she calls in the hazmat team.  

That leads them to a recent arrival from China who lives in a flop house who has been exhibiting pox-like symptoms.  Rachel chases that lead, running through the streets until the suspect is hit and spattered by a car, getting blood all over Rachel.  Off to the quarantine death camp for her!

Callan is relieved, but his assistant Luke isn’t so sure and approaches Hood with his concerns.  The timing is wrong.  If the Chinese immigrant was patient zero, which didn’t he die before the mortician?  Callan dismisses this concern because “he’s an epidemiologist and Hood is not” also, “Asians are different from us, they probably just die slower.”

Hood does some not-by-the-books bloodwork and determines that the Chinese man had Chickenpox and that Rachel and the others can be freed from quarantine.

All roads lead back to the cold storage facility.  Callan first goes to investigate something and meets Ellis Gibson, assistant manager.  Ellis is blackmailing Callan.  He knows the smallpox was stored at his facility and wants money to return it.

Hood also concludes that somehow smallpox was stored at the facility, but when he gets there, there is nothing but an empty box.  Ellis has taken it, hacking, sneezing, retching his way around his family and busses and trains as he moves around waiting for Callan’s call.

Hood confronts Callan, who admits that, all those government cutbacks meant that someone must have stored the smallpox instead of destroying it like what was supposed to happen.  No crime though, so, Callan is free to go.  Hood goes to meet Ellis.

A confrontation ensues and Rachel is taken hostage.  The smallpox containers are shattered all over the Central Bus station, but eventually, Hood saves the day.  While he does, Callan swoops in, collects the package of smallpox, returns it to quarantine, where he overly-dramatically injects himself with it as penance to ease his conscience and lies down on the bed to die.

…or more likely to wait for his inoculated body to kill off the virus that he infected himself with.

Two lovers, two bounty hunters, two ex-Raiders… one of them is Travis Montana.  None of it is Shakespeare.

Kenneth and Eugene discuss Star Crossed.

Episode Synopsis

The Dakota Clan, lead by Dakota 79, is buying a Thorium weapon.  Of course there’s no honor amongst thieves and so the sellers try to double cross the buyers and the buyers are just fine with that because they wanted them dead as a message anyway.

Jupiter Federation calls in Travis Montana for a bounty job.  Bring in Dakota 79 on parking tickets to help prevent a major clan war between the Dakotas and the Verruns.  It’s quite a generous bounty and Travis accepts… and then bothers to get the agreement of the others.

They go undercover as weapons experts in an effort to get close to Dakota79.  They do really well, getting past background checks, technical checks, even loyalty checks, they just stumble on one thing.  Travis’ old seemingly unconsummated old-flame from yet another clan is now Dakota79’s main squeeze, and she knows he’s not a weapons expert…. But she doesn’t give him away.  She’s no longer with her clan, and their love is no longer forbidden.  Also, she’s a bounty hunter, too, they could split the fee.

Unfortunately, evidence is mounting that Travis Montana really is from the Montana family.  He’s failed the stupidity test.  He and his… friend… are yakking about their history, and their subterfuge, and their jobs, and they’re plans, they’ve failed to consider that the paranoid Dakota79 might just have had a recording device in Travis’ cell all along.  Which there was, and they’re rumbled, but… 2.5 seconds later they’ve apprehended Dakota79 and off they go back to the Trans-Utopian.

Just one thing, during this little junket, it’s come to light that Rudolfo has been secretly communicating with a bounty hunter broker who specializes in recovering runaway raiders and while Rudolfo doesn’t outright tell him that they have a runaway raider onboard, he says enough for the broker to come calling with bounty hunter in tow, and after an armed standoff, the armed bounty hunter escapes into the ship.

Travis, Callie and… friend… arrive and after a minute or so, the bounty hunter is killed by Rudolfo.

And, and Travis’ friend of course tried to double-cross him and take Dakota79 and the Thorium for herself.  That fails, so she leaves, hopefully never to return, but sadly, I doubt that.

In April of 2020 we did a live-stream video episode of Fusion Patrol on YouTube featuring our discussion on the movie, The Black Scorpion. (Link to YouTube video.)

…and here it is for your audio enjoyment.

John and Eugene discuss.

Synopsis

In the year 1957, in Mexico, a volcano forms near the small village of San Lorenzo and grows to 9,000 ft in just a few days.  The earthquakes and lava are devastating to the remote area.  US Geologist Dr. Hank Scott and Mexican Geologist Dr. Ramos head to the remote area to investigate.

Along the way, the encounter a telephone repair crew working to restore the phone lines into the area.  Days have gone by since the eruptions and no one has heard from the town or knows how bad their situation is.

That night, as they approach the village, they hear strange noises as their jeep overheats.  They stop at a nearby farmhouse and find no one there, buildings destroyed and a police cruiser that has been demolished.  They also find food on the stove and an abandoned baby.  Before they leave, they discover the missing police man, dead with a look of horror on his face and his gun emptied.

In the village, the meet Father Delgado, the local man of God.  He puts them up for the night.  The village has been badly damaged, but now they suffer another problem. At first, villagers were going missing, but soon they started to find them dead, with the same look of horror on their faces.

The next day the Army has arrived to help with the relief efforts and the geologists head to the volcano.  Along the way, the meet Teresa Alvarez, patron of a nearby ranch.  Her vaqueros have all run away, afraid of a “demon bull” they think is killing the cattle.  Dr. Ramos makes a discovery of an interesting piece of obsidian, which he collects.

In the village, they meet the local scientist, who is doing autopsies on the victims.  He’s found a strange poison that he’s sent back to Mexico City to analysis.

That night, they’ve transferred their accommodations to the Alvarez Ranch and Dr. Scott starts getting amorous with Ms. Alvarez.  Ever the wet blanket, Dr. Ramos interrupts them.  He’s discovered a scorpio, trapped in the obsidian.  He cracks it open and to their surprise, the scorpion is still alive.

Later that night, giant scorpions attack, first the telephone workers, who just finished reconnecting the lines, and then they overrun the ranch, frightening Jaunito, a young, servant boy who lives there.   They escape to the village.  

The next day Dr. Valesco, famed entomologist, has arrived from Mexico City.  He has identified the scorpions as an extinct species of Triassic scorpions.  He, the geologists and the army proceed to the area they think the attack originated from and the two geologists, along with a stowaway Juanito, descend into a massive fissure, hoping to gas the scorpions.  They encounter many of the scorpions, plus worms and spiders and barely escape with their lives.  The army blow up the fissure, entombing the scorpions forever.

Dr. Scott and Ms. Alvarez start making their long term plans for the future.

The next day, back in San Lorenzo, Dr. Scott gets a call from Dr. Valesco.  It’s a terrible bother, but could you pop down to Mexico City and give a report?  It’s for our friends down south.  We’ll even send a plane.

Scott and Ramos, with Alvarez tagging along fly to Mexico City.  The geologists a let in on a secret.  We didn’t call you back because of a friend from the south, the Mexican Government wants you here.  Turns out we didn’t kill the scorpions and they might even be close to Mexico City.  But you’ve got to keep this TOP SECRET, we wouldn’t a panic.

But a panic they get then the scorpions derail a train and eat the passengers.  Some good news comes from this, the biggest, meanest, blackest scorpion of them all kills all the other scorpions and heads for Mexico City, where Dr. Valesco has concocted a weapon that will hopefully kill it.

Lured to a stadium with a meat wagon, at battle with the army ensues and Dr. Scott steps up to land the find blow with the secret weapon – an electrified harpoon.

There’s still paperwork to be done, but that can wait, there’s a pretty little señorita waiting for him.

This week it’s two more episodes of Ultra Q, as John and Eugene look at the torturously-named (in English) The Underground Super Express Goes West, and the less-torturously-named, Balloonga.

The Underground Super Express Goes West Synopsis

At a rather futuristic-looking Tokyo station, our cast of characters assemble.  Yuri is there for the inaugural run of the Super-Express to the West, a 450 KM/hr express train from Tokyo to Kitakyushu.  Jun and Ippei are there on other business.  Jun is picking up a case carrying the world’s first artificial lifeform, dubbed M1.  

Transporting the world’s first artificial lifeform.  What could possible go wrong?

A lifeform that, if let out of it’s compressed cylinder, would grow into something… unknown, with the intelligence of a human.

What could possibly go wrong

Ippei, while there for Jun’s business, is more interested in how to get onboard the super-express.

He takes a camera case and pretends to be a photographer working with Yuri.

Unfortunately, he grabbed the case with M1 – THAT’S what could go wrong!

Also, a scrappy little shoe-shine boy, named Weasel, and a friend sneak onboard the train pretending to be a full-sized human.

The train departs.

Luckily Jun discovers the swap and notifies the train, which confiscates the case and puts it in their specially-designed safe, but not before some reporters use flash photography on it.  Which apparently activates it, for soon, M1. Has come to life and taken its form, a giant gorilla like thing, which monkeys around with the train.

The passengers are rescued when the train staff decouple the cars, but the engine, M1 and Weasel hurtle towards the end of the track at 600kph.  When they crash, both are hurtled into Earth’s orbit.

Balloonga Synopsis

Spacecraft Saturn 1 returns to Earth with it’s sole astronaut onboard, but at the critical re-entry stage, it encounters a strange balloon in space and runs out of fuel.  The ship crashes to Earth.

Later Jun and Yuri, returning from an assignment, detour over the crash sight, where the spy an old man with a red balloon, just before they run out of gas and just manage to glide back to base.  Ippei, inspecting the plane finds a small balloon lodged in the radiator.

They take it into Tokyo for scientists to look over, but on the way, the car runs out of gas, and the balloon grows, floating the car off and then finally busting the car from the inside.  The falling parts hit Ippei and critically would him as he tries to protect Yuri.

Balloonga, as it is soon named, sucks the power out of everything, and Tokyo must go powerless, leaving Ippei, in desperate need to surgery in a bad way,

Jun learns of a man who, professor naramaru claimed, 20 years ago to have found a Balloonga and killed it.  Yuri sets out to find him, and actually just bumps into him on the street.

A typhoon is coming and balllonga sucks all the power out of the typhoon.  But Nagamaru had a plane, and has sent Jun to get it executed, which he does – detonating a nuke in Earth’s orbit.  Balloonga takes to the skies to eat the artificial sun, and then proceed off into space to eat our sun.  Problem solved.

Nagamaru reveals he was also the father of the astronaut who was killed.

Convenient.