This week’s journey into the dark reaches of the psyche as I continue my travels with Paramount Pictures through the Twilight Zone starts with one of the series iconic episodes – The Monsters are Due on Maple Street. Rod Serling penned this episode that had an original airdate of 4 March, 1960. Disaster is about…
Tag: invasion
Star Trek: The Original Series (1967) – Operation – Annihilate! and Amok Time
Captain’s log: stardate 3287.2 Operation – Annihilate! closes out the first season of Trek. It was written by Steven W. Carabatsos and aired on 13 April, 1967. Playing as almost straight-up horror, this episode is a lot of fun, and introduces Kirk’s (William Shatner) family, his brother, Sam (also Shatner, with mustache) his wife, Aurelan…
Star Trek: The Original Series (1967) – The Alternative Factor and The City on the Edge of Forever
Captain’s log: stardate 3087.6 Well, it had to happen. In a season with twenty-nine episodes, at least one of them had to be iffy, and The Alternative Factor is definitely that one. Written by Don Ingalls, this lacklustre episode had it’s premiere on 30 March, 1967. But it did introduce me to one thing, even…
Doctor Who (Peter Davison) – The Awakening
The Doctor (Peter Davison) encounters the entity known as the Malus on this two-parter that was written by Eric Pringle and that aired from 19 to 20 January, 1984. The Doctor, Teagan (Janet Fielding) and Turlough (Mark Strickson) arrive in Little Hodcombe, where a reenactment of an English Civil War battle is rousing the…
Body Snatchers (1993) – Abel Ferrara
My time with the Sci-Fi Chronicles book continues as I examine the next iteration of the classic sci-fi tale of the Body Snatchers with this 1993 update. This version features Gabrielle Anwar in the lead supported by Meg Tilly, Forest Whitaker and R. Lee Ermey. Anwar is young teenager Marti Malone, who is on…
Armada (2015) – Ernest Cline
Cline has done it again. Crafting another fantastic novel that embraces and celebrates pop culture interwoven with a thrilling narrative. Embracing its inner Iron Eagle, Ender’s Game and The Last Starfighter, while in turn paying nods to Contact and 2010: The Year We Make Contact, Cline has crafted a novel that revels and embraces…
Doctor Who (Jon Pertwee) – The Claws of Axos
The Master (Roger Delgado) stirs up more trouble this week for the Doctor (Pertwee), Jo (Katy Manning) and UNIT, when he arrives with a biological UFO whose inhabitants have designs on the planet Earth and whose power the Master wants to use to repair and steal the Doctor’s TARDIS. This four part story was…
Mirage Men (2013) – John Lundberg, Roland Denning & Kypros Kyprianou
This was an interesting documentary, based on the book by Mark Pilkington, no matter where you come down on the subject of UFOs. I like to stride the middle of the road, I really want to believe that they are out there, and they may very well have been here before. But there is…
Doctor Who (Willilam Hartnell) – The Web Planet
It had to happen sooner or later. An early Doctor Who story that I really didn’t care for… Airing from 13 February to 20 March, 1965, the story is undoubtedly ambitious, but for the first time, the men in alien costumes thing just didn’t work for me (no doubt now, the story could work…
The Mind Reels 