My exploration of the dark corners of the universe captured in The Twilight Zone: The Complete Series, available from Paramount, continues this week with three spooky episodes. Up first is The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine which aired on 23 October, 1959, and was penned by Rod Serling. The tale follows Barbara Jean Trenton (Ida Lupino) an ageing…
Tag: agent
Quantum Leap (1990) – One Strobe Over the Line and The Boogieman
Sam (Scott Bakula) is fashion photographer Karl Granson in One Strobe Over the Line. This episode was penned by Chris Ruppenthal and aired on 19 October, 1990. It’s 15 June, 1965, and Sam is there to make sure that an up and coming model, Edie Landsdale (Marjorie Monaghan) doesn’t die of an overdose. In the…
Batman: The Animated Series (1998) – Mean Seasons, The Demon Within and Over the Edge
The youth of Gotham are in the target sights in the first episode this week, as we continue the New Batman Adventures. Mean Season aired 25 April, 1998, and sees Batman (Kevin Conroy) and Batgirl (Tara Strong) taking on the mysterious Calendar Girl (Sela Ward), who is attacking youth media events all over the…
The Iron Giant (1999) – Brad Bird
The Sci-Fi Chronicles now brings me Brad Bird’s now classic animated tale of a young boy, Hogarth Hughes (Eli Marienthal) who meets a robot (Vin Diesel) from outer space, and the government agent, Kent Mansley (Christopher McDonald) who is trying to capture them. Set in the late 50s, the film gives adult viewers an…
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003) – Stephen Norrington
The Sci-Fi Chronicles plunges us into the world of Alan Moore’s graphic novels with this film adaptation of his work directed by Stephen Norrington, which suffers from a bit of a haphazard script that hinted at great potential, and just failed horribly to have it pay off. It’s a great idea (mostly), using characters…
Godzilla (1998) – Rolamd Emmerich
It had to happen sooner or later, there was bound to be some crossover from the Sci-Fi Chronicles book and the Great Movies – 100 Years of Film book… and it just had to be this one. Roland Emmerich’s 1998 Godzilla film, which for the Sci-Fi book continues my exploration of the Godzilla character,…
The A-Team (1983) – Children of Jamestown and Pros and Cons
Here’s where the series gets really underway, this week’s episodes see the A-Team falling right into the groove, or the jazz, that we know they’ll be following for the next couple of seasons (to the point where it will become predictable, perhaps even cliché). First up is Children of Jamestown, written by Cannell with…
Consider Phelbas (1987) – Iain M. Banks
I’d heard lots of things about the Culture series, a collection of Sci-Fi novels by Scot author Iain M. Banks, and as June and the next Expanse novel still seems a ways away, I decided to dive into the first book and see what the hoopla was about. At the center of the tale…
Airwolf (1984) – Proof Through the Night & One Way Express
Stringfellow Hawke (Jan-Michael Vincent) and Dominic Santini (Ernest Borgnine) fly into more trouble this week. The first episode up, Proof Through The Night, aired 11 February, 1984 and was written by Clyde Ware. Deborah Pratt’s recurring character, Marella is back, and we learn Archangel’s (Alex Cord) actual name, Michael Coldsmith-Briggs III. When a deep-cover…
Tales of the Gold Monkey (1983) – A Distant Shout of Thunder & Mourning Becomes Matuka
And just like that, we’ve come to the end of the run for Jake Cutter (Stephen Collins), Jack, Corky (Jeff MacKay), Sarah (Caitlin O’Heaney), Gushie (Les Jankey), Reverned Tenboom (John Calvin), Princess Koji (Marta DuBois) and Louie (Roddy McDowall). The series too-short run aired its penultimate episode on 8 April, 1983, with an adventure written…
