More Words, Deeper Hole

A Question of Conscience

Starbase is handed the tricky problem of determining which (if any) accounts are true. On the one hand is a lizard-like alien claiming to be the survivor of his race after a mutual kill radiation war between his homeworld and the planet nearest it. On the other is a surprisingly large battleship (which once again has had no trouble reaching Earth undetected) whose human-like occupants claim to be the last survivors of a planet murdered by the bioweapons of the lizard-alien and who demand the old fellow be handed over for justice.

In fact, there is not a consensus on Starlab about which story is true by the time the situation resolves itself in the two race's final battlefield.

This is as far as I can tell the only episode of this show written by J. Michael Straczynski (and according to the URL it never aired). While it was predictable as hell and one side had to hold onto the idiot ball pretty hard for the resolution to work, at least I didn't feel like ramming sharpened pencils into my ears to make the sound stop, which puts it well ahead of the other episodes.


The Leukocyte Maneuver

Following up on a report of a weird energy pattern, Jon and Buddy end up trapped inside a godlike alien who has doomed itself and them by turning into a giant Leukocyte as a gesture of greeting. With the clock ticking down, they have to work out how to re-energize the entity to save it and themselves.

And that is the final episode.

The Himalayan Parallel

Maura, Jon, Buddy and some idiot with a ray gun are sent to exotic Tibet to investigate an alien space craft spotted landing there. Their route takes them through India (which we don't see much of, although Buddy gives the impression of being one of those tourists who thinks he is hilarious) and into Tibet.

Accompanied by an enlightened local (borrowed from the "High Lama", I think), they survive the dangers of the Himalayas by the unusual method of actually listening to their guide. The space craft turns out to be very small, not something that would have transported anything living.

A Yeti shows up to investigate the craft, which the Yeti has no trouble opening. The humans chase the Yeti off and snoop around in the craft; it is filled with tools and spare parts.

The next day they track down the Yeti and due to a minor error of judgment, the idiot with the gun celebrates his civil liberties by gunning the harmless alien down. Happily, the wound is not immediately lethal so the alien is able to explain how and his mate were marooned on Earth centuries ago and how they extended their lives with cold sleep so that one day their children, still on ice, could one day return to their own world.

The idiot with a gun feels just bad about killing a harmless alien but eh, these things happen and in his defense, the alien greeting howl was easy to misinterpret.

Although the ISA has super-ultra-zippy fast FTL and although Jon and Buddy seem to know where the alien homeworld is, Buddy and Jon make sure the ancient alien craft is probably capable of making the journey and then sent it and its infant cargo off back to the alien homeworld.

Maura turns to admire Buddhism in a vague late 1970s pop-sci way, which is at least better than Buddy's snickering at how different from him the Indians were.

I believe this is the final episode that aired.

I listened to this out of order because I knew I would not have time for a two-parter.

Seeds of Time

I keep meaning to mention that the episodes now include ads from the olden times, for products from Cadbury and Peter Paul (the two having merged in 1978; Hershey acquired them in 1988, I believe).

In this episode we learn that Jerry, the hapless loser who nobody listens to (I think the official job title is Starlab Controller) reads pornography of some degree of hardness while on duty. On a similar note, Buddy and Jon seriously consider leaving their ship on autopilot to go play handball down in the cargo bay during standby for docking space in a region of space where there are several other space craft they know about also lurking around and one they don't know about.

That last one turns out to be a craft of unknown origin, one that follows them back to Starlab. The ship allows the humans to take it on board and study it, trusting them not to simply dissect it. It does not make any attempt to communicate that we see.

Meanwhile Maura is disappointed to discover that David, the love of her life, has inconsiderately gotten married (and fallen in love why not) in the interval between Maura and David's bitter break-up and being assigned to duty on Starlab. She feels they need to discuss this for some reason.

David is then somehow convinced to enter the alien starship, where he is duplicated by the placenta compartment inside the vehicle. By the time anyone realizes something is up, David has been duplicated.

It seems years ago, a First Contact went horribly wrong; starfarers contaminated a world with a disease that was benign to them and death on wheels to the natives. To make up for this, the essential seeds of the natives were stored in space craft. To obtain their new forms, they would have to borrow a form from some other living being. Anything would do, even a flower, but in this case the survivor opted for David.

(why not the forms of the visitors who exterminated the natives? Never explained. Maybe they were all uggos).

An Adam needs his Eve and David2 has his eye on Maura, whom David still loves. It does not take much convincing for Maura to allow the alien to duplicate her as well and so David2 is joined by Maura2 (Maura is curious whether she will sense David2 and Maura2's sexy times but this is left unresolved).

I can see no way in which duplicates of two people who broke up the first time they were together could fail to find anything but complete happiness stuck on an alien world together, with none the issues that drove them apart dealt with. There's no way Maura2 being a workaholic like her original could possible cause a problem with a duplicate of the guy who dumped Maura over her preference for work over love and I am equally certain adding babies to the mix will only make things that much better.

Deathsong

I can tell you this involves small blue space elves fleeing to Starlabs to beg protection from someone who wants to kill them. I cannot tell you more because the method used to make the space elves sound alien also made them totally incomprehensible to me and I got tired of listening to nonsensical trilling about ten minutes in.

Oh, one detail I noticed: The Soviet Union is still around in 2026. We don't get told more than that.

The Mystery of the Egyptian Necklace pt1

The Mystery of the Egyptian Necklace pt 2

While transporting the Tutankhamun exhibit back from the planet Thanatos, a British space ship is tricked into assisting what turns out to be an undamaged ship full of armed space Egyptians. In short order the crew of the ship transporting Tutankhamun are overpowered and two items are stolen from the exhibit; a small skin sample from the mummy and a necklace. ( Read more... )

The ISA Conspiracy pt 1

The ISA Conspiracy pt 2

The ISA Conspiracy pt 3

Humans find an alien artifact found on the Moon surrounded by fifty dead aliens (who don't look like the statue); the statue looks like a classic gargoyle and has been on the Moon where it is for about a thousand years. It is sent back to Earth for study. ( Read more... )

Resurrectionist of Lethe Pt 1

Resurrectionist of Lethe Pt 2


A tragic accident leaves a scientist dead and his wife vulnerable to some psychological manipulation by disgraced* scientist Todmaster, who is now running the space graveyard where Earth's great are sent. Todmaster - oh, crap, I just got the significance of his name - has been experimenting in the Forbidden Arts of Look-Alike Androids and he uses them to convince the bereaved that he can bring their loved ones back to life. This in turn allows him to steal secrets (military secrets for the most part), presumably to sell them.

Spoilers for this and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow ( Read more... )

The Starsmith Project pt1

The Starsmith Project pt2

Suddenly aliens attack, stealing vital parts for a new FTL amplifier intended to secure Earth's supremacy over lesser races! And apparently the ISA doesn't really have a lot of people to call on because once again the SET crew who gets tapped is SET Captain Jon Graydon and his buddy SET Captain Buddy Griff. One thing we learn early on is that Buddy really needs to get laid, because he's hitting on everyone he meets and speculating on people who he could hit on if it turns out they exist.

Buddy almost gets wish for a Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter except what he actually gets is a Mad Emperor's Beautiful Daughter, not human (or especially human looking) and not interested in the little horndog. He doesn't seem much interested in her.

In any case, it turns out the aliens are not stealing the device because they have imperial designs but because their sun is going out and their atmosphere is losing its precious the writer made some crap up. Attempts at diplomacy fail but happily a solution falls into the characters' laps and all is well.


I got a rather Edmond Hamilton vibe off this two-parter. In particular I was reminded of his Interstellar Patrol, which also involved a general lack of any grasp of scale or basic science and which also feature alien societies faced by entropic doom. The Legion always took care to exterminate any endangered species, though, whereas the ISA cheerfully hands over the technology on which the security of Earth, attacked by rampaging aliens one episode ago, depends once they decide the new aliens are worthy of it.

I couldn't help but notice some stuff seemed to happen purely to push the plot in certain directions, like how it turns out alien shape-shifters are peculiarly vulnerable to the effects of hyperdrive but only when wearing someone else's shape.

Facts

Despite the name, this file about the old radio show Alien Worlds is pretty short on facts, but it makes up for this with bold (and repeated) assertions. Happily the show was high enough profile to warrant a Wikipedia entry.

B5 fans take note:

Writer(s) Lee Hansen
Ron Thompson
J. Michael Straczynski