The Race Against Time Experiment

Sci-Fi on TV for the week of February 20 - 26, 1955, (that I can get my hands on) is a single episode of Flash Gordon. They changed the opening character intros a little. I must have missed something because they are now using a new rocket that looks like the original, called the Sky Flash II. Something I haven't mentioned before, even though it's really bizarre, is the parrot Flash Gordon keeps on his ship. He isn't on this new one now. I've gotta find that missing episode from yesterday.

Flash Gordon and the Race Against Time- I'm getting used to the opening narration on each episode, as it tends to fill in the blanks the writers won't bother to cover in the main story. This episode starts to get into the geopolitical (galacti-politcial?) of the Milky Way in 3063 AD. The Galaxy Bureau of Investigation keeps the peace with member worlds by hiding secret weapons. I think the implication is if a planet steps out of bounds the GBI can wipe them out. However, if a majority of the member worlds want to pull out of the treaty, the GBI has to share its state secrets with all planets. There apparently has been a large scale war between much of the galaxy in the past, and the creation of the GBI helped broker a peace. This would explain more of the backstory to The Lure of Light as well (just not the science). Mars wants to go back to war and has been convincing others to join. Most member planets do what Earth does, so the leadership of Mars uses some underworld contacts to intercept Earth's representative on his way to the conference. When the Sky Flash II, with Flash, Dale, and the Earth Rep, are near Epsilon 30, they are hit with a planetary ray that shuts down its fusion engines. With horrible special effects, Flash manages to land near the people responsible, capture them and steal their ship. They make it to the conference in time as Earth wants to stay with the GBI, thus saving the galaxy from another war.

Not a bad episode only marred by the Sky Flash II's crash on Epsilon 30. During the landing Flash tells the Earth Rep to strap in. As the bridge is shaking he staggers to an equipment locker, finds some belt buckles and ties himself to the floor of the bridge. Really undignified. The director did a really good job of filming a shaky bridge that I actually think might have been on gimbals.