Industrial espionage is big business and sexy, too, but developing automated weapons of war is more profitable.  Between that and an unlicensed nuclear reactor, what could go wrong?  Simon and Eugene discuss the Bugs episode Stealth.

Episode Synopsis

Tronix, a company run by a charming chap named O’Neal,  is producing an introductory video for their new car, the Trancer.  It’s an advanced car with advanced technology that will revolutionize the automotive industry, but the are being rushed to introduce the vehicle to the world.  During a recent test track session,  industrial spies got pictures of the new vehicle and now Tronix must rush to stake their public claim to the design before a competitor makes it their own.

Things don’t go to plan when the models hired to add a bit of sex appeal to the presentation steal the car right during the video shoot.

Time to call in the Team Bugs for a security check.

The car stolen; however, was a mockup, and did not contain any of the revolutionary technology.  All of that is disguised in a very ordinary looking test car that allows them to test the car on the road in real world conditions without arousing attention.

While reviewing security of the facility, Ros gets trapped inside a deadly plasma cage, in an off-limits area.  There’s a very unpleasant Major from a foreign power that’s doing business with Tronix and it’s just best of they stay out of that area in their investigation.

Next day, Ed takes the test car out for its pre-planned test ride.  The technology in this car is amazing.  Not only does it start with Touch ID, but the rearview mirror using eye tracking to automatically adjust to the drivers line of vision.  This WILL turn the auto industry on its ear!

On a tea break, the industrial spies who stole the mockup car, have arranged an elaborate ambush.  One has obtained employment at the road ship tea shop and keeps an eye on Ed and Beckett, while the other artfully places a van partially obscuring the vehicle that that Ed and Beckett feel confident they have an eye on it, while at the same time granting her access to the rear window and a way to get inside and take pictures.

Back at facility, Ros sees that a person has entered the vehicle and alerts the boys, but they are stymied in the efforts to get outside, giving the spies the chance to escape on a motorbike with the pictures.

Ed pursues them in the test vehicle, driving like the madman he is, but another, apparently incidental piece of technology in the car kicks in:  Having detected reckless driving, it goes into fully-automatic driving mode, and slowly, and safely returns the vehicle to the facility.

They’re fired, but immediately re-hired when they point out that the culprits must have had inside information.

This time the really buckle down on the security and discover that someone has wired a cell phone into their email system, which explains how they were able to lay such an elaborate trap.  They use this information to lay a trap of their own.

That plan doesn’t go well, either.  This time the spies kidnap Ed and force him to drive the car to their HQ, where they disassemble the car, photograph the technology, then plant explosives.  And while Ros and Beckett are able to track them down, it’s too late, and the car, and their HQ are blown to pieces.

We do learn, though, that the spies, Serita and Davina, are the daughters of O’Neal’s former business partner, whom he ruined.  They’ve gotten into the industrial espionage game not just because it’s lucrative, but because it gives them a chance at revenge against O’Neal.

Ros doubles down again on security, but Ed is feeling very uncomfortable with O’Neal and especially the menacing Major that’s still prowling around.  While Ros and Beckett work on security, Ed does some industrial espionage himself, getting into O’Neal’s files and learning about the mysterious military vehicle O’Neal is working on for the Major.  But he’s caught by them.

Meanwhile, Team Girl Spy One have again bypassed all the security and gotten into the secure area, and have bypassed the cameras and the hi-tech handprint scanner.  The Major’s guard intervene semi-successfully.  Davina is captured, the other escapes with the military vehicle.

Ed and Davina are held as hostages in the plasma cage, with Ros and Beckett tasked with tracking down the vehicle.

Serita doesn’t understand that the vehicle is powered by an RTG – a Radioactive Thermal Generator – and contains a chunk of plutonium.  She begins to dismantle the vehicle to get some pictures, then packs it full of explosives.  She then offers to turn it over to the Major in exchange for her sister.

Team Bugs do manage to track her down first and he new HQ, and warn her of the danger.  If the bomb explodes, the plutonium will irradiate all of the UK.  Unfortunately, she secure it in place with super-duper-hyper-fast-acting, quick-quick-quick drying cement, making it impossible to remove the bomb. 

Her tampering has activated the “drive safely to home” mode and the vehicle, a mobile time bomb, leaves without them.

Beckett uses the very important plot point that the vehicle will not run into cars or people to get it to pause long enough for him, and later Ros, to get onboard during the return journey.  The extract the plutonium and dump it on the street, but the vehicle – and the explosives – inexorably return to home – the plasma cage containing Ed and Davina.

The Major turns on O’Neal and leave him to die, but he recovers soon enough that he could let Ed and Davina out of the cage, but he chooses not to, instead deciding a scorched Earth policy will be good for his rebuilding his empire plans.

Apparently sensing O’Neal’s inherent evilness, the military vehicle overrides it’s own safety protocols and not only runs him over, but pushes him into the plasma cage, killing him, and creating a tunnel in which Ed and Davina can escape seconds before the explosion goes off, destroying the facility.

Also, somewhere along the line, we learned that Paul, a largely incidental character, was also a spy and he left the country undetected and unmolested by our heroes.

It’s alls well that ends well and Team Bugs even have a cool new toy in Ros’ home.  A race car set powered by the plutonium core of an RTG.  Without the actual RTG.

It’s a child, it’s a mermaid, it’s a siren, it’s a tool used by pirates – no matter what is it, it’s a problem for Mark Harris, the Man from Atlantis, as he tries to solve the mystery of a series of sunken ships.  John and Eugene discuss the Siren.

Episode Synopsis

Mark doesn’t know this, of course, as he only observes them momentarily from below the waves.  He’s searching for a ship killer, possibly in the form of a killer whale, and certainly not in the form of a submarine, which he completely misses.

He reports back to Jenny on the Cetacean.  Wait?  Who’s Jenny?

Jenny is Jenny Reynolds, who’s filling in for Elizabeth in the role of person that wrings her hands with worry while Mark is out of sight of the ship, and who acts as the person who asks Mark, “What’s going on?” and as the person who receives the inevitable reply of, “I do not have time to explain.”

Aboard the submarine, Capt Stringer, old-school pirate with a bandana, is plundering unsuspecting boats with his warship designed to sneak up and destroy ships.  But he’s not a conventional submarine pirate, oh no!  Capt. Stringer has a captured mermaid… errrr Siren aboard his ship.  He forces her to sing, and then, using an unwatered speaker, cranks her song up to 11, disabling the crews, and inducing mental breakdowns.  He attacks the Ambergris to capture Trevanean, but his attack also disables the Cetacean, and knocks Mark out.

Mark recognized the song and has an idea about what it might be.  Jenny poo poos the idea because a myth.  She says this with a straight face to man who breaths water.

He finds the Ambergris adrift, with a crazed Amanda aboard, and takes her to the hospital.  She will die, and later, Mark cures her by signing to her.

That night, Mark finds the submarine sheltering and break in, singing to the Siren to assure her.  He is captured attempting to rescue Trevalean, but uses his super Atlantean powers to play dead and escapes, with Trevalean.

The Cetacean, damaged again, rests on the bottom.  Now Stringer tries to depth charge them.  Mark goes outside the Cetacean and operates the emergency controls on the outside of the ship to reactivate everything.  Mark goes to Stringer’s sub and bends the loudspeaker back towards itself, he then calls Stringer and offers him a deal:  Let us go and we’ll let you go… although we will call the navy.  Sound fair?

“Sure,” says Stringer, “You have my word of honor.”

Mark orders the Cetacean to leave, and when Stringer goes back on his word, the blasts his own ship with the crippling Siren song.  Mark rescues the Siren and leaves her on some rocks.  The end.

In the wake of the recent disastrous BBC adaptation of War of the Worlds, we’ve decided to cleanse our pallet with a good version of War of the Worlds.  This is a special audio review episode as we look at Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of the War of the Worlds.

Album Synopsis:

Days later, the first of the cylinders arrives on Earth at Horsell Common.  They prove to be capsules containing Martians.  Unfriendly Martians who, from their crater, unleash a deadly Heat Ray, but life in England continues relatively unphased.

While the military tries to cordon off the cylinder, soon the Martians have build gigantic war machines which come forth and begin destroying wantonly.  The British military is no match for them.

Our narrator flees his home near Horsell Common and heads towards London to find his beloved.  He meets with a dispirited artilleryman whose unit has been wiped out in an instant.  They travel together and, along the way witness a battery of canon destroy a war machine.  The victory is all too brief as the Martians give a devastating Heat Ray response.  Our two travelers are separated and the narrator narrowly escapes in a scalding river.

Arriving at his beloved’s father’s home, they are gone and he is despondent.  He continues to the coast hoping to find passage out of England.  Civilization is being routed and there is a mass migration of six million people fleeing the cities hoping to escape.  At the coast, a steamer is just leaving and he catches a glimpse of his beloved on the steamer.

War Machines wade out into the water to intercept the craft, but they encounters the Royal Navy’s ironclad, the Thunder Child.  To the delight of the crowd, the Thunder Child scores a victory against a War Machine, but it’s comrades turn the Heat Ray on the Thunder Child, sending it to Davy Jones’ Locker.  The steamer has used the opportunity to escape to sea.

Red Martian vegetation is now overrunning the land and clogging the waterways and the landscape of the Earth is being changed.

Spying what he believes to be a dead Parson, the narrator stops to do the decent thing and bury him.  The Parson is not dead, and his wife soon joins them.  The Parson is descending into madness.  He sees the events as the biblical prophesies of Satan rising and he has given up.  His wife maintains her optimism, but she’s soon killed when another cylinder lands on the cottage they have taken refuge in.  

Here they witness another terrible Martian weapon, the black dust, which they spray from their war machines.  They also witness what the Martians are doing on Earth.  They are collecting and using humans as food.

The Parson’s madness turns to Messiahnistic zeal as he decides only his prayers can defeat the Martians.  His shouting attracts the attention of the Martians and the narrator knocks him unconscious; however, a Martian claw finds the unconscious body of the Parson and drags him away to be eaten.  After a time, the Martians leave and the narrator can continue his way.

He encounters once more the artilleryman, who is now a man with a plan.  In order for mankind to survive, they must build a new, better world, hidden from the Martians underground.

His vision is grand and sweeping, full of hope of retaking the planet… for those who are willing to see and implement his vision.  It soon become apparent to the narrator that he is long on vision, short on implementation, and is living in a dream world of his own imagination.  The narrator departs company and continues on his way back to London.

London lies in state, shrouded in the black dust, an abandoned, wrecked city, silent save for the plaintive wails of the Martians.  War Machines stand sentinel over the city.

When the wailing stops and the city falls silent, madness overcomes the narrator.  He decides to surrender himself to the Martians and get it over with, but when he approaches one of the War Machines, he realizes that the Martians are all dead – a victim of Earth’s bacteria.

Things return to normal, our narrator is reunited with his beloved as he ponders what, if anything, the Martians will do next.

Nearly a hunter years later, an American Mars probe awakens a new assault by the Martians.

The End

Watching Percy die is cathartic.  Seeing her resurrected, disheartening.  Kenneth and Eugene discuss the up again down again episode A Twist in Time.

Trailer: On the next cruel, cruel episode of Starhunter Redux, entitled A Twist in Time, my dreams are granted then brutally, callously, and painfully crushed repeatedly as Percy dies (yay) and is resurrected (boo) TWICE!

Episode Synopsis

Dante and the Gang are transporting a really, really heinous criminal back somewhere.  He’s so heinous the writers couldn’t even think of something horrible enough to tell us what it was, but it is HEINOUS!  And Percy is really interested in it… well, THAT’S not going to go smoothly, is it?

On the way; however, they are diverted to Triton and a secret research facility that has suffered an emergency in their graviton research.  Caravaggio helpfully explains that gravitons are thought to hold the secret of bubble universes and time travel.  The Trans-Utopian is responding because no one is closer Rudolfo thinks there’ll be big money in rescuing a bunch of well-heeled scientists or their secret papers.

The base on Triton is actually blowing dimensional bubbles like a child’s bubble gun and one of them strikes the Trans-Utopian, causing one of the reactors to explode and the other to go offline.

Percy, who we established just a couple episode ago, is the ship’s official engineer, wants the check and repair the damage, but Dante, the farmer come bounty hunter, forbids her from trying, opting to go himself instead.  This goes about as well as any order he’s ever given Percy, and she runs off to check the reactor anyway.

Lucretia is sent to escort the prisoner to the escape shuttle as it looks like it’s curtains for the Trans-Utopian as it plummets towards Triton.

Percy is injured in a secondary explosion, and cut off by a radiation leak, and bulkheads that are sealed because of pressure leaks.  As Caravaggio tries to guide her to temporary safety awaiting Dante’s rescue, she falls and injures herself further.  She crawls along the floor and with nary a whimper but with a great shout of jubilation from the audience, she dies.

Meanwhile, the prisoner helps waste Lucretia’s time.

Dante – ok, be fair, it’s really Caravaggio – gets the other reactor back online and they escape Triton.  As Dante rushes to try to don his radiation suit and save Percy, unaware that she is dead, dead, dead (bwahahahaha) Caravaggio seals the airtight compartment, ending any chance at rescue.  Dante runs off hoping to try something else, but he falls through a bubble fracture in space time and ends up on the bridge just moments after the first explosion and after Percy has already to inspect the reactor.

Being a lot sharper on the uptake than he usually is, Dante realizes that he can hurry up and save the ship and Percy.

He fails.  He cannot hurry up enough, and Percy dies – and the audience goes wild again!

Meanwhile, the prisoner helps waste Lucretia’s time.

Dante tries again.  This time he tries to retrieve Percy first.  

Meanwhile, the prisoner helps waste Lucretia’s time.

Dante succeeds in saving Percy, but Lucretia, having stowed the prisoner in the shuttle, steps in and assists, sans radiation suit, and dies.  The audience is not happy with that unfair trade-off.

Dante tries one more time.  

Remember what I said earlier about Dante being swifter on the uptake than usual?  Here’s where I take that all back.  It’s only on this, his fourth attempt, that he bother’s to call Lucretia to help him, despite the fact that, after the first attempt, he already knew the other reactor was going to come back online and they’d be safe – there was never any need for her to transport the prisoner to the shuttle.  And no need for the audience to have to watch the prisoner waste Lucretia’s time over and over.

Now, marshaling his personnel and working as a team, he sends Lucretia to save Percy and he attends to the trivial piece he needs to do to help Caravaggio complete the engine restart and everyone is saved.  

(Perhaps this a metaphor of what’s wrong with this show?  Or could this be Dante’s Groundhog Day?)

There’s an unusually long eating scene afterwards where they try to explain how weird what just happened was and then… Dante is back on the bridge.  It seems time and space aren’t unbroken yet.

The End – but you know it isn’t

Ross and the gang get embroiled in international political intrigue and assassinations when a guy who makes laser logos asks them to investigate industrial espionage.  Simon and Eugene discuss Shotgun Wedding.

Episode Synopsis:

As always, the free press dig deep for the hard-hitting questions: “When are you two lovebirds getting married?”  Anna playfully avoids answering the question by deflecting it with another, “why is it that the more we deny that we’re a couple, the more you press believe that we are?”

Meanwhile, an assassin is planting a bomb in Anna’s hotel room.  He’s interrupted by security forces, but he kills them.  He escapes and reports back to McKenzie, his contact person.

Meanwhile, Team Bugs are called in by William Swift, laser-logo maker.  He thinks he’s being bugged.  Team Bugs think he’s lying to them.  Beckett spots someone monitoring the place and trails them back to their base.  He’s caught, but it turns out they’re the good guys – the security forces protecting Anna.  They let him go.

Ros and Ed; however, not believing Swift, bug his office and find out he’s meeting a woman.  The assassin, Starkey, finds that out, too, and gets there first.   He plants a bomb under the ONLY PARK BENCH IN THE WHOLE PLACE.

Ed fails to take the assassin down, but Ros does manage to save the intended victims’ lives.  For that, they expect the truth.

Ok, here it is.  Swift and Anna are in love and going to get married someday, but the press are so in love with the idea of Anna and Alberto being in love, they are waiting until after the election before this info comes out… because they’re running on a platform of honesty.

The people bankrolling the killing give Starkey one more chance.  Little do they know that Team Bugs have set them up in a trap involving lasers.  The decoy works, but before Ed can take down Starkey, the real security forces take Starkey down, hard.  Like multiple gunshots to the body hard.

Ed stumbles across the killers’ getaway ride and bluffs his way into it by pretending to be Starkey.  Ed doesn’t know that the assassin’s employer was planning on killing Starkey.  

The person calling the hit it, of course, Alberto, who wants to ride into office on a tide of sympathy.  He is, of course, thoroughly corrupt and knows Anna would eventually find out.  This is why he has cultivated the image that they are lovers.

Ed manages to talk his way out of death, just as Anna and Swift pull one more fast one on everyone.  They’re getting married in the morning in a secret ceremony.  Not entirely secret, they want Alberto there, but they neglect to tell Team Bugs.

Ed is sent in to kill them, and as insurance, he’s wired up to a bomb vest that can be remote detonated, and also detonates if he tries to take it off, and he’s given a special wrist bomb that goes off in 15 minutes anyway.  The sniper rifle also has a camera on it, so they can make sure he’s really aiming at his intended target.

Beckett and Ros track him to the registrar’s office where, after a bit of a struggle, Beckett murders McKenzie and Ed murders Alberto.  The wedding concludes with two bodies lying on the floor.  It’s a happy ending for everyone!

We’re back to finish off the Man from Atlantis with this the first of the two episodes we’d previously skipped.  This week, Mark Harris travels to the depths of the ocean to discover… Southern California with mimes.  John and Eugene discuss Crystal Water, Sudden Death.

Episode Synopsis:

Schubert and his henchmen are searching for powerful undersea crystals to use in a plan to dominate the world.  In his vintage WWII submarine, he discovers an impenetrable undersea forcefield, so he does what any evil genius madman would do, he lures his arch-nemesis, Mark Harris to the force field with the idea that Mark will be able to penetrate it.

The US Government, concerned that Schubert has travelled to a place, which they have the coordinates of, where they think he wants to find something that will help him dominate the world by hatching a scheme to block out world broadcasts, asks the institute to check it out, rather than taking actions against Schubert themselves.

At the coordinates, the Cetacean  comes very close to hitting the force field, but doesn’t.  Mark swims through an opening in the force field and finds himself in Southern California, hereafter referred to as Killborough Deep.

Killborough Deep is populated entirely by mimes, who communicate through a series of clicks that Mark can understand, and later, in English, so the audience can understand.

Schubert, having been watching Mark penetrate the force field, follows along with his henchmen and, armed with a spiffy, scientifical flashlight, dominates the minds of the mimes, turning them into a will slave labor force to dig up their crystals.

The crystals supply the power to keep out the ocean overhead, and as Schubert has them dug up, the barrier becomes unstable.  Can Mark Harris save the day and rescue the mimes from certain death?

It’s laugh-a-minute slapstick comedy as Dante gets his crotch rubbed by his new boss’ wife.  Does the team of the Trans-Utopian have what it takes to be part of the Super Max corporate team?  Kenneth and Eugene discuss Super Max.

Episode Synopsis:

Before they can discuss Dante’s prospects they are called back to the ship by an alert.  There are unauthorized intruders on the ship.

Not really, though, it’s just the ship’s new owner, Max, and his work crew, who are installing new equipment on the ship.  

“New Owner?”  This is the first Dante’s heard of it and he’s not happy.

Max, owner of the Super Max corporation, has bought the ship from Rudolfo and is converting it into a space prison barge.  Of course, there’s a place in the corporate structure for Dante and Lucretia, if they want it.  They do not, but a quick check with Rudolfo and review of the legal records proves that it is true.  The Trans-Utopian is now owned by Super Max.

Dante feels that he still has six months on his lease and they decide to take the ship and leave.  That doesn’t go well because this isn’t the 1880s and you can’t just leave space dock without proper clearances.

Dante and Lucretia hatch a difference plan, they decide to take Max up on his offer and join the Super Max team.  They even find a place for Percy, doing janitorial work.  In reality, under Dante’s plan, Percy has finally been put to work at the one thing she has proven an unfailing genius for: sabotaging the ship.  Super Max has a strict margin for profit that must be met and Dante hopes to bankrupt the company.

There’s just one more complication, Zelda, that woman with the hots for Dante from the beginning of the episode.  She’s Max’s wife, of course, and when she comes aboard, she really likes the look of Dante in a uniform.  Almost as much, she makes abundantly clear, as she’d like him out of the uniform.

They make way for the prisoner transfer station.

A celebratory diner that evening with the four of them is uncomfortable.  Not only are Zelda and Max constantly sniping at one another, Dante’s got a foot in his crotch.  He gets Lucretia to pretend to be “a couple” with him in the hopes of dissuading Zelda.  Why on Earth would he think that a woman openly trying to seduce him in front of her husband would care if he has a Plus One?

Lucretia has received word from the Orchard.  Super Max is over-extended financially.  They can’t afford any delays or cost overruns.

Percy’s genius for destruction shines, as she sabotages the reactor and they must return to Reno Seven for expensive repairs and delays.  While they’re there, Dante pads the repair bill even more.

Zelda puts a proposition to Dante.  Get rid of my husband and I’ll buy you this ship.  He asks her if she knew that Super Max (and therefore Max) was nearly bankrupt.  She didn’t know and she doesn’t believe.  Well, maybe a little.

Lucretia gets the Orchard to pressure Super Max’s bank to call in all the loans that are in arrears.  Pressure is mounting on Max, but, as they say, pressure makes diamonds.

Underway once more, more of Percy’s sabotage kicks in.  The security system starts to fail, causing the automatic prison security doors to fail.  With this failure, they don’t meet the requirements for handling prisoners and cannot take their contracted allotment.  Max ignores this presses ahead.  They just use manual security and won’t tell the prison authorities.

Zelda puts the hard move on Dante and, as he tries to resist her charms, Max comes storming in.  Zelda changes her tune immediately and accuses Dante of attempted rape.  Max has him locked up.  And Lucretia, too, just because.

Zelda wants more, she wants Dante dead.  If Max were more of a man, he’d kill Dante for what he tried to do to her.  And so he does; having one of his minions throw a gas canister into the lock up area so that Dante and Lucretia will die.

Zelda is appalled!  You idiot!  You’re not REALLY supposed to kill them.  Luckily, Percy arrives in time and gets them out.  They storm the bridge and rest control of the Trans-Utopian from its rightful owner and head merrily on their way back to Reno Seven.

John and Eugene close out Big Finish Productions’ Space: 1999 Volume One’s with Death’s Other Dominion, a reimagining of the original series’ episode, and Goldilocks, a new tale.

Death’s Other Dominion Synopsis

Moonbase Alpha is still struggling in the aftermath of the events of Breakaway. A section decompression kills Alphan Mary Page. And it is in this moment we learn two things simultaneously – (1) that regular character Kano is married, and (2) Mary Page is her wife.  Actually, make that three things.  We also learn Kano is now widowed.  Oh, Mary Page, we hardly knew you.

Koenig is trying to hold a staff meeting, but Space Commissioner Simmonds, who is technically Koenig’s boss on the Org Chart is insisting on being “in charge.”  Koenig humors him by letting him lead the meeting, but it is Koenig who is clearly in command.  Simmonds wants them to find a way to travel 5 light years back to Earth.  Koenig and the others favor exploring their realistic options.  One of those options is the planet Meta, which the moon is approaching.  Meta was the source of the signal that resulted in the moon leaving Earth’s orbit via wormhole.

Before they can launch an exploration team, an emissary from the planet Pyrus arrives under the banner of peace.  Pyrus is the locals’ name for their own planet. Simmonds, talking on behalf of the Alphans greets Sazar, albeit with armed guards.  Simmonds favor the distrustful, show-of-force type of diplomacy.  

Sazar is the representative of Garadus, Pyrus’ leader.  Simmonds is so caught up in being the big man, he fails to find anything curious about the fact that Sazar speaks English, and he’s only a little curious when Koenig has Victor Bergman surreptitiously scan Sazar, only to discover that he is basically human, except that his heart isn’t beating.

While out of Simmonds earshot, Sazar meets with an Alphan who has been a spy for the Pyreans all along.  Between them, they engineer a scenario in which Sazar saves Simmonds’ life.  Sazar dies, but in his final selfless act, begins to earn Simmonds’ trust.

Garadus reaches out and invites them down to discuss the possibility of settling on the planet.  Koenig, Bergman, and Simmonds take an Eagle down.

On Alpha, Mary Page comes back to life and asks to be let out of the morgue.

On Pyrus, Koenig and Bergman remain suspicious, and when they get an inkling that the Meta Signal which drew them there may have been a lure, they sneak out to investigate. What they discover is macabre.  The basement is filled with cadavers on ice.

On Alpha, Mary Page turns out to be Sazar.  The Pyreans are non-corporeal being that inhabit corpses.  They have brought the Earth’s moon to Pyrus for a new supply of bodies.  Mary, an authorized engineer, sets about killing everyone on Alpha.  Helena, Kano, and Alan must stop her.

Simmonds overhears Garadus talking with Sazar and is taken for processing.  He overcomes his guard and escapes.  

Koenig and Bergman are also captured.  With Simmonds’ assistance, they escape back to their Eagle, but the Eagle has been disabled.  

In the nick of time, Paul Morrow arrives to take them home, and the Pyreans’ existing supply of bodies is destroyed by Koenig and Bergman’s mischief.

Goldilocks Synopsis

Moonbase Alpha is approaching a potentially habitable world in the Goldilocks zone.  Initial scans indicate a suitable atmosphere, water and vegetation.  A survey team travels to the planet.  Commissioner Simmonds decides to go along for the ride.

The landing site on the planet is a vast jungle, teaming with life.  Koenig and Bergman take the Eagle for an aerial survey while leaving behind the passenger module kitted out as a laboratory.  Helena remains behind with a team, including Simmonds and Alan Carter, to conduct the biological survey.

Soon they discover an area of geysers and caves.  As they start to investigate the caves, they spy a group of humanoids coming into the clearing, leading cattle of some form.  As they stake out the animals, Helena decides to contact them.

With a little indigenous telepathy, Allandra, leader of the party, learns to speak English from Helena’s mind.  She has a special powerful gift and is able to extend that knowledge to all people on her planet.

In the mountains, Eagle One comes upon a mountain fortress, they land and are beckoned to enter.  They meet Herris Stenbar, leader of the people who call themselves Valerians.  They are welcomed warmly, and while these people appear medieval, they know of other worlds and science and take it mostly in stride.  The fortress is called Haven, and soon after they arrive, an alarm is sounded.  This alarm is to warn everyone to return immediately to Haven for the night.

In the jungle, Allandra hears the call and insists that everyone come to haven for the night.  Simmonds is stubborn and wants to explore the caves, against Allandra’s strong warnings.  He’s nearly killed by a geyser, but Allandra saves him, but she is rendered unconscious in the act.

In Haven, Stenbar has “lost contact” with Allandra and turns unfriendly towards Koenig and Bergman, locking them up and taking away their comlocks and lasers.  He thinks Helena’s party have harmed Allandra.

Allandra is taken by Alan and Helena back to the lab, Simmonds and more of the survey team explore the caves.

When Allandra awakes she wants they will be killed in the caves… at just the moment that Simmonds’ party is starting to be killed in the caves b y the Draki – man-sized lizard monsters with a taste for flesh.

With Allandra conscious again, Stenbar is a bit friendly towards Koenig, but only a bit.  He holds Bergman as hostage and demands that Koenig use the Eagle to seek out and kill all the Draki.  They embark on the mission.

In the caves, Helena,  Alan and Allandra rescue Simmonds, the only survivor, and using Allandra’s powers, they manages to slow the Draki long enough to slaughter them.

But that awakens the Kratus, a gigantic monster that the Draki attend.  It attacks the lab module, but Koenig manages to distract it.  His Eagle; however, is knocked out of the sky.  Stenbar tries to stand down the monster but is eaten.

Allandra then draws the Kratus back to the module, which explodes, killing it.

Having rid the world of the deadly monster, proven that Alphan technology is sufficient to defending themselves from and killing the monsters, and with the blessings and invitation of the Valerians for them to settle on their beautiful and abundant planet, the Alphans opt not to, because…. to hell if I understood their logic.

It’s a jolly tale of murder and intrigue on the high seas, or, at least, under them.

Simon and Eugene take a look at the Bugs episode, Down Among the Dead Men.

Episode Synopsis

Someone has been stealing Navy salvage parts and willing to murder to do it.

Through a not-adequately-explained coincidence, the Team Bugs is brought into a case by a bank. They’ve got their suspicions about an ex-employee, Brody, who was mucking about with computery stuff. Somehow he’s linked to the ex-Navy diver that’s been stealing the navy parts.

They distract the diver while Ed searches his home for the parts. The diver gets suspicious and rushes home and he might have discovered Ed, if not for Brody and his wife showing up to talk about his demand to re-negotiate their deal. No deal on that, and Brody’s wife kills him in cold blood. Ed escapes and manages to recover the parts.

Beckett and Ed pose as ex-Navy colleagues of the dead man and work their way into the deal. Brody takes them on, with the promise of riches if they finish the job. He takes them aboard his submarine, where Ros can no longer track them, so she bugs Brody’s wife instead and follows her. She leads her to a very prominent diamond merchant in the City.

She takes her info to the bank and they basically fire her. “We don’t do any business with that diamond merchant and there’s no way anybody could mess around with our computers,” says Mr. Hubris, one the high muckily-mucks of the company.

Brody’s plan is simplicity itself. Beckett and Ed are to use the parts to fix the pump on the submarine. This will allow them to open the lower hatch and snag the undersea phone cables. He will tap into the cables, intercept a routine £250,000 transfer from his bank, replicate that, send the replica to the diamond merchant where his wife is waiting to use that money to purchase an equivalent amount of, presumably untraceable, diamonds.

This all go pear-shaped when the arrive on the Dutch coast for a fuel-up. Ed tries to contact Ros and Brody finds out, killing Ed when he causes the fuel store to explode on the pier. He claps Beckett in irons, and the plan goes forward since Ed already did the important work of fixing the pump.

The security investigator that brought Team Bugs in is still, unofficially, helping Ros by allowing her some computer access so she can put the pieces together. Ed has actually escaped alive, and is now with the Dutch Navy searching for the sub.

The wire transfer fraud takes place, Brody scuttles the sub, with Beckett and the rent-a-crew onboard. Ros rushes to the diamond merchant and alerts them, but in doing so, Brody’s wife just goes homicidal, killing everyone in the room and taking the diamonds, and Ros as hostage in the process.

As the building security cuts in and locks down, she is cut off from her husband. She gives him the diamonds, but Ros sews a little marital discord, pointing out that he’ll just take the diamonds and leave her to her fate. It rings true and she kills him. Brody’s wife is taken down by security, and Ros uses Brody’s magic-like satellite navigation doohickey to radio Ed with the exact position of the sub. Ed saves Beckett just in the nick of time.

In the tag scene, Team Bugs shows once again that they’ll spare not opportunity to be juvenile asses to one another, by presenting Beckett with a fish.