The Silver Moon Experiment

Rocky Jones, Space Ranger continues to air new episodes during the summer of 1954. Five in total during June. The middle of the month saw the release of a fantastic classic Sci-Fi movie called Them!. I don't think you can get a more generic name (maybe The Thing). A wonderful movie about about giant mutant ants.

Silver Needle in Space, part II- There must be only a dozen Space Rangers (and half of them seem to work for Cleolanthe) because once again an Ophiuchian rocket, the Nautilus led by Atlasande, with less than a dozen armed troops take over a space station with one Space Ranger, and some Space Ambassadors. This must be where Moon got the idea to put one man on the moon for three years at a time. On Peritane, Rocky calls XO7 to check in, and Dr. Tyson gives a verbally coded message before everyone is hustled on board the Nautilus. They then blast off for Ophiuchus. Rocky finally gets the message, cancels R&R, and heads back to XO7. It's empty. They call Drake on Earth. Cleolanthe calls everyone. Her ultimatum is to trade all the ambassadors for Griff and Darganto, both held prisoner for crimes against the United Worlds at the end of Bobby's Comet, part III. Nobody trusts her. Atlasande figures that with the return of Darganto, he'll be sidelined. Rocky demands, on behalf of Earth, the trade will be done on XO7 and no weapons present, or this is an act of war. Cleolanthe agrees, mainly because she appears too afraid of an all out war. I'm guessing that since Ophiuchus is one of the Outlaw Worlds, none of the others would back her up. Everyone arrives at the XO7 the trade the goes well, except Atlasande pulls a weapon on everyone and takes Dr. Tyson back as a trophy to remain in Cleolanthe's favor. TO BE CONTINUED. Rocky is kind of a gullible person. It turns out XO7 has weapons, but they are never once used against a threatening rocket ship. Once again I like the fallout of previous episodes and the political maneuvering of Atlasande. I believe this is the first mention of a Tractor Beam in the series, used to dock at space stations. There is a crazy magnetic periscope thingy in the control that helps ships dock.

Silver Needle in Space, part III- This is the best episode of this series so far. It's all survival in space and political maneuvering. While Atlasande explains why he's changing the prisoner exchange plan, Dr. Tyson in the background takes some sort of capsule, then gets dragged out of the Conference Room. They put a 3-hour timer on the door so Rocky and friends and ambassadors don't go anywhere. Darganto conspires with Griff to discredit Atlasande by shutting off station air, but when he returns to main group Dr. Tyson collapses dead. Darganto uses the moment to seize control of the operation and all the men follow him. He plans to tell Cleolanthe that Atlasande screwed up and killed Dr. Tyson and everyone else. After they leave Rocky and friends begin to feel the effects brought about by lack of oxygen. One them is an Army Engineer and recommends sending Bobby through a vent to the air and water recirculation room. Bobby makes it but has to smash his head into the grill on the other end to open it. With air restored he unlocks the Conference Room and everyone heads to the control area to save Ranger Anderson. On the way they find the discarded body of Tyson, who comes back to life. It turns out he used a Suspended Animation Capsule to fool the Ophiuchians. The group radios Earth on a scrambled line (sort of like dictating a fax on ticker-tape) to inform them of current events, then head home. Darganto and Atlasande arrive back on Ophiuchus and are called before Cleoplanthe. She's angry at both of them for not working together and getting all their hostages killed, Darganto insisting it was all Atlasande. She refuses to believe anything she hears when one of her other operatives lets her know they finally cracked the encrypted Space Affairs Astrophones. She's even more mad because they even failed to really kill anyone and locks both of them in the same jail cell for two months. THE END. The personal one-ups-manship between Atlasante and Darganto is quite entertaining and doesn't give much time for the writers to ruin science any more. Bobby is even helpful.

The Forbidden Moon, part I- The Office of Space Affairs loses contact with RV5, so the Orbit Jet is sent to investigate with all the main characters (including Bobby who stows away). When they arrive, there is one ship already docked and no one is answering. After docking Rocky and Winky check the other ship and experience pounding radiation coming from it. There is some dren about Anti-Radiation Serum everyone will have to take, but Rocky just goes aboard anyway. After a little while they all meet in the control room (except for Bobby who is grounded on the Orbit Jet) and find Ranger Clark in a coma. It's a radiation coma and Professor Newton needs to determine the original of radiation to recommend a treatment. The more I see the character of Newton the more terrible he becomes. All the science he spews is garbage. According to the logs and some audio recordings the radioactive ship is from Medina. The voices of the ruler, Yarra, and her brother, Agar, are heard on the recording. Rocky goes back to the Medina ship and gets his butt kicked by Agar, who was hiding all this time. Agar then steals the Orbit Jet, with Bobby on it, and heads to Medina. Back in the control room Rocky fills them in on what happened and learns that the Medina ship had crashed on the Forbidden Moon. While Agar had been trying to fix the ship he suffered severe radiation sickness, but found a local plant that not only cures you of radiation but makes you immune. It appears, though, that you become radioactive (only because the entire darn moon is radioactive). Rocky and friends take the Medina ship and follow the stolen Orbit Jet. TO BE CONTINUED. Science is bad again, this time with magnetism and radiation. After the Orbit Jet takes off from Earth all the gauges show a reverse magnetic polarization effect as soon as they go beyond Earth's magnetic field. Right after that Rocky finds Bobby hiding in the engine room with his favorite quartz rock. When he drags Bobby back to the Nav room where Vena and Newton are, he suddenly remembers that bismuth is in quartz and it is highly magnetic. Newton then spews how bismuth becomes even more powerful when it leaves the magnetic field of the Earth. I expect senile comments of dubious scientific nature from Newton, but Rocky is just making stuff up. In the real world Tetradymite has bismuth in it and can be found near hydrothermal quartz veins, but that's about their only relationship. Bismuth does have magnetic properties but it wouldn't reverse polarize a whole spaceship. I would like to point out the bismuth is sometimes used in cosmetics, and with Rocky always harassing Vena about her makeup, there's a better chance she's at fault than Bobby. The Anti-Radiation Serum must also fix DNA damage, too. Poor Ranger Clark.

The Forbidden Moon, part II- Things are almost explained better. Yarra and Agar want to take over the universe. Who doesn't in this show, but i don't think they realize how big it is, since none of the humanoid species in the series (including Humans) have left the solar system yet. They sounds stupidly grandiose. Bobby is brought to Yarra at the Rotasium Headquarters, then escorted around the grounds of the walled capital. Rocky in Agar's ship attempts to land, but an anti-spaceship weapon is trained on them. Thinking quick Bobby, who happens to be nearby, asks why he's about to shoot one of his own ships down. This is a point of contention I have in the series. The prop people built different rockets to represent different cultures. As a viewer you can pick out an Ophiuchian ship from the Orbit Jet from a Medina ship from a Fornaxian missile. But characters never recognize any design. Anyway the guy doesn't shoot his own ship down, which is good because Rocky and friends are on board. They are here to warn Yarra to quarantine Agar as a massive Cosmic Radiation source (they finally figured that part out). She doesn't believe them, throws them in jail and starts to feel radiation sickness. Bobby convinces her Rocky's telling the truth, she visits them and Newton gives her the Anti-Radiation Serum. It is temporary, though, and they still need to lock up Agar as he's beginning to affect the whole planet. Some of the palace guards lose faith with their leadership and try to mount a coup. Yarra slows them down by declaring they're going to the Forbidden Moon to find a cure and some other things. All the main characters plus Agar (who has everyone at gunpoint) and Yarra board the Orbit Jet and leave Medina. TO BE CONTINUED. They edited around a scene where Vena flirts with Milo the jailer, takes him somewhere private, knocks him out and takes his uniform. What gets me about Newton, other than his horrible science, is he never looks like he's paying that much attention, but suddenly wakes up to deliver a line of dialog. I'm happy the ray-guns in the series have stopped being props and are actually being used to shoot people, not just threaten them. They make a loud bang with lots of smoke.

The Forbidden Moon, part III- This one starts falling apart about here. On the way to the Forbidden Moon, Rocky hatches a plan and takes control of the ship back from Agar. On the visiograph they see the Forbidden Moon for the first time, glowing from Cosmic Radiation. Newton remembers he brought special ray-shielded goggles because the radiation will seep into your eyeballs and paralyze your brain. Riiiiight. Agar uses the opportunity to take over the Orbit Jet. again. After they land someone pulls out a metal detector to look for plants and a Geiger Counter (which should be useless because the entire moon is "hot"). The landscape is snow and rock, so plants stand out on the surface, but the main characters still need a sci-fi device to find one. A nearby cave provides just the shelter Newton needs to refine the plant cure and save Medina. At this point characters take off their helmets because their couldn't possible be any radiation in the cave. Agar has other plans and steals most of the collected plants, runs off in the Orbit Jet again, inoculates his crew, then plans to take over the universe. He fails to realize you need to refine the serum and everyone passes out, the ship adrift in space. With all the humans, plus Yarra, trapped on the Forbidden Moon, Newton detects a super-strong radiation source coming from a mountain next to their cave. He removes the atomic piles from their spacesuits (you mean their spacesuits are nuclear powered?) and makes a sort of detonator that creates such an explosion it will be picked up on Earth. They pretty much hide face down right next to a nuclear blast that destroys a mountain, but it works, Secretary Drake sees it. He loads up on the XV7 and heads out to save Rocky. Once they're safe XV7 hunts down the Orbit Jet, where they revive the comatose Medinans and return Yarra to her planet, no longer an evil despot. THE END. My problems with the sciences could fill a whole other blog post. I do like the exterior matte paintings of both the Forbidden Moon and Medina

It is difficult not to be hard on this show, but there is something to it I like. Even though all the rules of space fact and even modern space fiction seem to be ignored, they are at least internally consistent to themselves. There are plenty of carry-over characters from previous episodes and their ship naming follows a pattern. The uniforms seems to follow a rank structure, and decisions have consequences in the future. I find myself looking forward to seeing how Cleolanthe does without her top two men. And Griff is still alive of Ophiuchus.