Saturday Morning Cult-TV Blogging: Jason of Star Command: "Chapter 14: Peepo on Trial" (December 9, 1978)

In “Peepo on Trial,” Space Academy/Star Command falls into a Galactic Typhoon, while Peepo – under the sway of Dragos (Sid Haig) sabotages the planetoid’s engines at a critical moment.

Jason (Craig Littler) uses W1k1 to stop Peepo, and Professor Parsafoot (Charlie Dell) attempts to undo Drago’s reprogramming.  The poor bot has had his “circuits poisoned,” according to Parsafoot.

Meanwhile, The Academy must attempt a risky move, going to extreme speed in hopes of blasting through the typhoon. The maneuver is attempted, and Space Academy survives the danger!

We get more derring-do and cliff-hanging excitement in this installment of Jason of Star Command (1978-1980), but not much else. W1k1 again saves the day and -- title aside -- there’s no actual trial here for Peepo.

The most memorable aspect of this brief segment, perhaps, is James Doohan’s role as Commander Canarvin.  Here, the character begins talking about the Academy’s engines and how they were never designed for such “extreme speed.”   This is all very deja-vu, and brings to mind many such moments on Star Trek involving Scotty.

The threat of the week is a “galactic typhoon,” a kind of space storm, and exactly the kind of space phenomenon that was featured prominently in many sci-fi TV series of the 1970s.  In Space: 1999’s “The Séance Spectre,” for example, Moonbase Alpha encountered a space “weather belt,” and in the original Star Trek, Spock’s shuttle was briefly lost in the storm-like quasar in “The Galileo 7.”

Next week “The Trojan Horse.”

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Saturday Morning Cult-TV Blogging: Space Academy "Star Legend" (December 10, 1977)

This week on Filmation's 1977 Saturday morning space adventure, a Space Academy mission "marking the boundaries" of the Alderaan Triangle with "beacons," grows increasingly dangerous. Chris (Ric Carrott) and Paul's (Ty Henderson) Seeker experiences a mysterious power drain after going off course to avoid space junk.

The Seeker is miraculously rescued by a "strange old-fashioned laser beam," which pushes the craft out of the futuristic Bermuda Triangle.

On the view-screen, a strange disembodied head appears and warns the Seeker to stay away.

Meanwhile, back at the Academy, Commander Gampu (Jonathan Harris) comes to believe that the legendary Captain Rampo (Howard Morris), "the flying dutchman of outer space" may be responsible for the incident with the Seeker. 

Gampu describes the legend of how Rampo, captaining an early planetoid spacecraft not unlike the Academy, became lost in space, over a millennium ago. Believing the legend, Commander Gampu flies the Academy in to the Alderaan Triangle's lateral perimeter, and the Academy too is promptly drained of energy...

With the Academy frozen in the Triangle, Gampu takes Blue Team aboard a Seeker to Rampo's space craft, which resembles the Academy, but is lit green. Once on board, a strange specter warns them to "leave...or stay forever" and states that "all visitors here are doomed...doomed!"

Gampu and his cadets laser down a locked door and discover 1,603 year-old Captain Rampo, a funny old man dressed like a train conductor, circa 1910. 

Turns out he's been pulling a Balok strategy (from the classic Star Trek episode, "The Corbomite maneuver.") A thousand years ago, he was establishing a colony on a nearby planet when the sun went nova. A magnetic storm forced him to cross into the Alderaan Triangle, and he and his ship have remained trapped there, orbiting the space trap in an attempt to stop a "scourge of energy vapor" which drains ships of power. He's been pretending to be a fierce specter to keep other ships away...when in reality he's just a kindly old man. 

Gampu and the others decide to give the hungry energy vapor "indigestion." They lure it into the captain's quarters, then return to the Seeker and destroy Rampo's ship...thus ending the star legend, and freeing Rampo from his mission.

I love how "Star Legend" combines aspects of the Flying Dutchman legend with tales of the Bermuda Triangle (a regular 1970s obsession), and then reveals -- in glorious miniature -- a much earlier version of the Academy.  Rampo's "ship" glows green, inside and out, making it appear quite creepy. 

Still, you have to wonder how the builders of the ship could afford to lose it. Also, for being a thousand years old, Rampo's planetoid appears as advanced in terms of technology and production design as the Academy.

Next week: "Johnny Sunseed."

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Saturday Morning Cult-TV Blogging: Jason of Star Command: "Return of the Creature" (December 2, 1978)

In “Return of the Creature,” Jason of Star Command (Craig Littler) encounters the Gill-Man from Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954).

No, I’m just kidding.  

In this episode, Jason, Nicole (Susan O’Hanlon) and Parsafoot (Charlie O’Dell) have been delivered to Dragos (Sid Haig) on his Dragonship.  There, Jason escapes, and encounters the monster with an electrically-charged tongue from a few episodes back.  He defeats it and rescues his friends.

Meanwhile, Dragos re-programs Peepo, the kindly little robotn from the Academy, and re-wires his circuits so he will turn against Star Command.  At the same time, Dragos spawns a galactic typhoon, and Star Command falls into its gravitational pull.

Well, “Return of the Creature” is a pretty dire entry in the first season of Jason of Star Command (1979-1980).  When this series is at its worst, it is simply a series of escapes, rescues and more escapes. 

That’s what “Return of the Creature” is. It consists of a lot of Jason running down cave-like corridors, escaping from monsters and guards, and rescuing his friends.  That’s pretty much it.  The whole story is filler until we get to a significant plot turn or point.

Commendably, the returning monster (or creature, per the title), still looks pretty good.  The stop-motion animation is strong, particularly in its coordination with the live-action elements of the action.  We learn that the monster is one of Drago’s energy clones this time, and the special effects are good as Jason destroys it.  The production values of this series never fail to impress.  Just some entries are narratively empty, from time to time.  And "Return of the Creature" is one of those times.

"Return of the Creature" fast-moving filler, a place holder until the next big story pivot point.  We should be getting that soon, with poor Peepo getting brainwashed by the evil Dragos.

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Saturday Morning Cult-TV Blogging: Space Academy: "Space Hookey" (December 3, 1977)

This week on the 1977 Saturday morning, live-action, Filmation production Space Academy, space orphan Loki and his diminutive robot friend, Peepo (actually a "self-determining type-A manu-droid," according to this episode) decide to skip out on Commander Gampu's (Jonathan Harris) boring Astrography Class (in classroom 5), steal a Seeker, and go on a joy ride through space.

Alas, the Seeker is shadowed by a comet, and Peepo and Loki go to visit it. There, they discover two glowing amorphous life-forms who happen to be playing hookey too. 

One is a red glowing ball, the other a white one. These chipmunk-voiced aliens possess Loki, causing the boy to become schizophrenic. "It's crowded in here," they complain of his mind.

When Loki and Peepo get hauled back to the Academy for disciplinary action, one of the non-corporeal aliens takes over Commander Gampu (Jonathan Harris) and makes him mince around the control room counting numbers like a kindergarten student. "Onesie, Twosie, threesie, foursie" he says as he skips about merrily...

Then, Gampu begins acting as a space pirate, incarcerating those who resist his orders, and ordering them to walk the plank.  But then things become truly dangerous as Gampu orders a course for "Terazoid."  To reach that destination, the Academy planetoid will have to take short cut through hostile Denebian Territory. And that's against a space treaty! 

While Chris (Ric Carrott), Laura (Pamelyn Ferdin), Tee Gar (Brian Tochi) and Adrian (Maggie Cooper) attempt to figure out what to do, a menacing-looking Denebian "space drone" starts taking pot shots at the approaching Academy.

Finally, in a story resolution familiar from Star Trek's "Squire of Gothos," the glowing aliens get caught by their Daddy, a blue glowing light. He takes them home for punishment, but promises not to be too harsh. They are, after all, just kids...

"Your mother and I will deal with you when you get home!" he says. The aliens quickly vacate from Gampu, and also from Paul, who became possessed after Loki was freed.

"Space Hookey" is a really fun show, and it remind me of the heyday of Star Trek, Lost in Space, Space: 1999 and Buck Rogers.  

Those were days when not every single episode of a space adventure had to be life and death.  This story starts out innocently enough, but there is a threat when the characters possessed by the alien life-forms don't realize they have put the Academy and all its personnel into very grave jeopardy. The miniatures of the Denebian ships are fantastic too.

Also, I should note, "Space Hookey" looks ahead.  A first season episode of The Next Generation (1987 - 1994), called "Lonely Among Us," tells basically the same story.  In that case, another non-corporeal life-form takes over a commanding officer (Picard, rather than Gampu) and begins making him act strangely, and -- eventually -- dangerously too.  

Next week: "Star Legend."

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Saturday Morning Cult-TV Blogging: Jason of Star Command (1978-1980): "Escape from Kesh" (November 25, 1978)

In Jason of Star Command (1978-1980) Chapter 12, “Escape from Kesh,” Jason (Craig Littler), Nicole (Susan O’Hanlon), and Professor Parsafoot (Charlie Dell) continue to languish in the planetoid cave-bound prison of Queen Vanessa (Julie Newmar).

She creates a metal cage around the heroes in a cave, and then reports to Dragos (Sid Haig) that she has secured the captives.  While Vanessa is away, the heroes shrink Jason down to tiny size so that he can get out of the cage, and de-materialize it.

After Jason is returned to normal height, he and the others flee to the planet’s surface, and are surprised to see that their Star Fire -- thought destroyed -- awaits.  They take off in it, but find that Vanessa has tricked them again.

The Star Fire is her ship, and they are all on course for a rendezvous with Dragos aboard his dragon ship.

“Escape from Kesh” is an even sillier-than-usual entry in the on-going “serial” that is Jason of Star Command. Here, the pulpy (or perhaps, hoary…) idea of shrinking people (see: Dr. Shrinker [1976]) is resurrected to provide the escape of the week.  

Exactly how and why Jason gets shrunken and escapes Vanessa’s prison are not questions that should be closely scrutinized.  It’s just more phantasmagoria to throw at kids.  That fact established, the special effects aren’t bad. In this case, gigantic, Land of the Giants (1968-1970) sized props help sell the illusion that Jason has been reduced to six inches in height.

The episode’s notable high point is Julie Newmar’s over-the-top performance as Vanessa.  She plays the character as stark, raving mad. She swirls about, dances, enunciates and chews every syllable of every word with delight.  In short, Newmar looks like she is having a hell of a lot of fun, and that’s as it should be.  Her character, Vanessa, however, remains undeveloped.  She delivers Jason to Dragos in this episode, and then disappears next episode, her piece of the serial puzzle apparently finished.

The writing in “Escape from Kesh” is a little goofy too.  Jason, Parsafoot. and Nicole barely escaped the destruction -- and ensuing explosion -- of their Star Fire in the last episode.  Here, the ship is intact and ready to launch, and they don’t question this fact at all. They nearly got clocked with debris in Chapter 11!   Now, they just board the craft, and head for space.

Ironically, Vanessa takes them where they wanted to go anyway, the Dragon Ship!  But the big question goes unanswered: Where did Vanessa get a Star Fire?  Did she repair the destroyed one, and if so, how did she accomplish that herculean feat with only one dwarf minion by her side?

Next week: "Return of the Creature."

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Saturday Morning Cult-TV Blogging: Space Academy: "My Favorite Marcia" (November 26, 1977)

This week's episode of the 1977-1978 Filmation, live-action Space Academy (1977) series is called "My Favorite Marcia," and it guest-stars Dena Dietrich as Marcia Giddings, a "rogue" space trader; one bound to make troubles for our regular characters. 

So in this case, think Harry Mudd, The Taybor, or The Outrageous Okana, to name a few such similar characters in cult-TV history.

In "My Favorite Marcia" stalwart Commander Gampu (Jonathan Harris) leads a cadet team to study a star going supernova, when he determines that a "galactic distress beacon" has been activated on the fourth planet in a nearby star system. 

He investigates the beacon and finds that his old "friend," space trader Marcia Giddings -- a woman "with the happy faculty of always being in the wrong place at the wrong time" -- is hunting diamonds on the planet surface, but that her spaceship's power has been neutralized by an evil robot.

And that evil robot is -- delightfully -- a re-dressed Robby the Robot from Forbidden Planet (1956). In this episode, however, Robby has been given a new brain pan, a "dome," and glowing blue eyeball for Space Academy.  He's playing a "war machine" gone mad; one whom Peepo says "wants to harm everybody."

To prove his evil intentions, the robot traps Laura (Pamelyn Ferdin), Gampu, and Tee Gar (Brian Tochi) in a yellow "force shield" (which is accompanied by the bionic sound effects from The Six Million Dollar Man and Bionic Woman).

Soon, Peepo manages to short-circuit Robby. The evil robot just vanishes into thin air without explanation, however. 

It is great to see Robby back in action in "My Favorite Marcia,", even in his altered form, though one disappointment of the episode is that Gampu seems more intent on sparring with Marcia than in dealing with the dangerous robot.  Also, it isn't entirely clear why the robot disappears.  Was he actually teleported away?

Still, in a weird way, this episode feels like a celebration of cult-TV history.  We get a funny title, based on My Favorite Martian, a familiar character-type (a distaff Harry Mudd), and an old friend from the genre: Robby.  

Next week: "Space Hookey."

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Saturday Morning Cult-TV Blogging: Jason of Star Command: "Chapter 11: The Haunted Planet" (November 18, 1978)

In Jason of Star Command’s (1978-1980) Chapter 11, “The Haunted Planet,” Jason (Craig Littler), Nicole (Susan O’Hanlon), and Parsafoot (Charlie Dell) must crash on an icy planetoid when their Star Fire’s radiation detector fails and the ship’s atomic core overheats.

They escape from the ship just as it explodes, and are soon confronted by a man named Bork (Angelo Rossitto), who claims to be an emissary from Queen Vanessa (Julie Newmar).  

Bork attempts to capture the folks from Star Command using a local monster enslaved by an obedience collar, but Jason frees the beast, who is actually an “energy” being.

Jason and the others see Vanessa on their own terms in a mountain base, and she addresses them.  She implores Jason to switch sides and work for Dragos, but he refuses. 

Accordingly, Vanessa informs them they will never leave her world alive.  She then incapacitates them using a toxic gas…

Julie Newmar -- the greatest Catwoman ever, bar none -- guest stars in this segment of Jason of Star Command. She is, as always, beautiful and poised, though the character she plays is hardly worth her time. 

Vanessa is called a queen, but where are her people? Why is she alone on this icy planetoid with just one servant (Angelo Rossitto of Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome[1985]).

Similarly, Vanessa is in league with Dragos, but we don’t learn why she has chosen this course, at least not yet.  Hopefully future episodes will reveal more about her.

Also, it seems like going to a lot of trouble bringing Jason to the planet just to ask him to change sides, when his answer is pretty much pre-ordained.  Wouldn’t Dragos (her ally, remember?), have preferred her simply to let the ship’s atomic core blow up with all hands aboard the Star Fire?

I always find it laughable, and an example of poor storytelling, when a villain decides to lay a trap for his arch-enemy, thus doing the very thing that will assure his mission fails.  The Master did this all the time on Doctor Who, inviting, basically, the Doctor into his plans, and then cursing his name when the Doctor made them fail. Here, we are to believe that Jason is such a strong adversary to Dragos that the villain would rather “turn” him than kill him, given the opportunity.

Not likely.

Jason’s odyssey on Kesh continues in the next episode.

Next week: “Escape from Kesh.”

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Saturday Morning Cult-TV Blogging: Space Academy: "The Cheat" (November 19, 1977)

Well, there's another crisis on the 1977 Saturday morning live-action, Filmation TV series Space Academy this week. An "energy distributor" on asteroid BX3 is leaking and could poison outer space for three parsecs, including an inhabited space colony.

But on the Academy, the cadets are embroiled in a crisis. Captain Chris Gentry (Ric Carrott) has ordered Cadet Matt Prentiss (John Berwick) called up on charges because he showed "flagrant disregard for procedure" on their last mission. Commander Gampu settles the crisis by suspending the hearing on the matter, and putting Matt Prentiss, a laser technician, in charge of the mission to seal the malfunctioning energy distributor.

The mission proves dangerous, and Matt orders the Seeker through an ion storm and - again - Chris reacts negatively to Matt's irresponsibility. 

But when Matt is injured during his attempt to seal the energy distributor, Chris takes over and saves the day, using the Seeker's bulldozer-like arms to push a small asteroid into the energy distributor, thereby creating a new "artificial" sun to provide energy to this part of the galaxy.

"The Cheat" is essentially the same story as the previous installment of Space Academy, "Life Begins at 300."

A pushy non-regular learns a valuable lesson about working with "the team" after initially being a hothead. This episode distinguishes itself primarily because Matt asks Laura (Pamelyn Ferdin) out on a date(!), and also because the episode features a funny slow-motion interlude wherein Tee Gar Soom uses his karate skills to break down a jammed engine room door on a Seeker.

Meanwhile, fans may remember that John Berwick's character, Matt Prentiss shows up in a first season episode of Jason of Star Command (1978-1980). In Chapter 10, "The Disappearing Man," it is reported that he has been missing for months. In truth, he has been a guinea pig for the invisibility experiments of Dragos (Sid Haig).  So Berwick's character represents a little cross-series continuity.

I do think that Space Academy missed a bet on teaching a good lesson to kids with stories like "The Cheat." In both this and the previous installment, our heroes were proven to be correct in their convictions all along, and it was the dangerous interloper who had to learn a lesson. 

All the good guys really had to do was express "forgiveness" for the trespassers. 

Wouldn't it have been nice had Chris or Gampu or one of "our" team been proven wrong in "The Cheat" instead? 

And Matt -- the guest star -- been proven correct? 

Sometimes, a good lesson for kids to learn is that it's okay to be wrong; and to be the one asking for forgiveness. Right? It seems that Chris reacts negatively to Matt's position of authority...maybe he was just threatened all the way along by someone as capable as he was...and again, that's something that kids should learn about: feelings of competition and jealousy and how to deal with them.
Otherwise, this episode introduces a new feature for the versatile Seeker.  Here, we see that the front section can extend arms, which prove useful in pushing an asteroid from its collision course.

Finally, the energy distributor is a nice new miniature for the series.  It is asteroid-based in terms of construction too, which marks it as being produced by the same culture that created the "planetoid" for Space Academy.

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Saturday Morning Cult-TV Blogging: Jason of Star Command: "Chapter 10: "The Disappearing Man"

In Jason of Star Command (1978-1980), Chapter Ten, “The Disappearing Man,” a Seeker suddenly appears near Star Command, and then vanishes. It re-appears in the hanger bay.

While investigating, Jason (Craig Littler), Nicole (Susan O’Hanlon), Parsafoot (Charie Dell) and Commander Canarvin (James Doohan), find a high-speed recording on the ship.  Lt. Matt Prentiss (John Berwick), who disappeared from Space Academy a year earlier), claims to be a victim of Dragos’ (Sid Haig) evil.

Dragos has experimented on him and accelerated his metabolism to one thousand times the equivalent of human normal speed.  This is part of Dragos’ plot to develop an “ultimate weapon,” invisibility.

Professor Parsafoot (Charlie Dell) creates a device that can speed up Jason’s metabolism, and allow him to locate Matt.  But he only has 90 seconds to use it, before he too becomes trapped – permanently – at that accelerated rate of existence.

Jason is successful bringing back Matt, and the grateful man informs him of another secret.  Peepo – who is still missing – is under Dragos’ control.

“The Disappearing Man” is a knock-off of a classic third season Star Trek episode: “Wink of An Eye.”  

In that narrative, as you may recall, the Enterprise visited a planet called Scalos wherein a civilization was dying.  Its few survivors, including Queen Deela, had been affected by strange factors in their water.  

The result was that their metabolism accelerated to an unbelievable rate, making them impossible to see at our speed or our level of vision.

The story saw Captain Kirk accelerated in similar fashion (thanks to a drop of water in his coffee cup), and the neat visuals depicted him moving at normal speed through a world -- the corridors of the Enterprise -- frozen, as if in amber.

“The Disappearing Man” features the same sort of personal acceleration, vis-à-vis the missing cadet, Matt Prentiss, and also shows the “real world” in the same fashion; as so slow that movement is undetectable.  

In “Wink of an Eye,” the Scalosians could communicate, but their words were so fast, they sounded like insects buzzing about.  “The Disappearing Man” retains that concept as well. I wonder how James Doohan felt acting in an episode with such an obvious Trekkie antecedent?

Even casting aside these similarities, “The Disappearing Man” has some logical problems.  For example, Jason only has ninety seconds or he will be lost, accelerated.  The machine that can bring him back, however, is broken at the last second, leaving Dr. Parsafoot to attempt something else.  The question is: why is this a crisis?  Why not just repair the machine and send somebody else (Nicole, perhaps…) after Jason, just the way he went after the accelerated Prentiss?

“The Disappearing Man” plays a lot like a budget/time-saver. Although there is a guest star, John Berwick, all the action occurs on standing sets, not new planet sets with alien creatures, and there are no new significant outer space visuals, either, just some footage of a Seeker from Space Academy (1977).

Even the plot is thrifty, having been imported directly from Star Trek.

Next week: “Chapter 11: The Haunted Planet”

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