The Trial of Akim the Claim of Death Experiment

November, 1954, is the end of Rocky Jones, Space Ranger, but Flash Gordon continues on, with four new episodes. As before if I don't have an episode I will just include the WikiPedia description. I have read much debate on the internet about the proper viewing order of the Rocky Jones story arcs. I watched them all in "air date" order, not "production" order, and I found nothing contradictory, so I endorse my viewing order. A Sci-Fi motion picture came out this month that I unfortunately don't have, Target Earth. I think the title says it all. Robots attack Chicago and a small group of humans, left after an evacuation, try to survive. Sounds like Transformers: Dark of the Moon.

The Trial of Rocky Jones, part I- Rocky, Biff, Vena and Bobby are on their way to Ankapore (last seen in Rocky's Odyssey), a subterranean world for those wanting to live off the grid. Some of Rocky's enemies have been carving out a life for themselves, because there is no extradition treaty there. After the Silver Moon lands, they visit the leader, La Volga, who tells them to eat at the Ankapore Cafe. While eating they see Griff, Dr. Reno, and Rudy DiMarco, all on their wanted list. Pinto Vortando has become a beggar on the streets, who Rocky gives a medal for helping out at the end of The Cold Sun. It is learned that the territorial limits of Ankapore end at the 1000 mile limit, anyone outside of it can be arrested by the Space Rangers. Later, DiMarco gets Vortando drunk, and beats him up outside of City Cave. Rocky happens by to save him. While Rocky and DiMarco fight, Griff takes Vortando away at gun point. Guards are called and DiMarco has Rocky arrested for assault and attempted murder. Since Vortando is out of the picture, La Volga has Rocky thrown in prison awaiting a trial. The Silver Moon crew are confined to their ship without any explanation. Someone pretending to be with Vortando helps break Rocky out, but it was just a trap for Griff to have his men beat the piss out of Rocky. Unconscious, they put him in Griff's rocket, YC47, and set him up for Grand Theft Rocket Ship. La Volga and Griff chase after him, and as Rocky wakes up, he is re-arrested. Back on Ankapore a trial starts with all the cards stacked against Rocky, and his crew (Biff, Vena, Bobby) are present as witnesses. TO BE CONTINUED. The legal system of Ankapore is terrible, but it is the equivalent of Tortuga, just a lot less drinking and violence. It's no wonder they hate Space Rangers.

Akim the Terrible- A narrator explains Charom (and especially its capital city Trantum) is a lawless planet run by Akim (who looks like a glitter Gumby). It is so lawless there are cops that arrest you for doing good. In other words, not a well thought out plot. The Galactic Bureau of Investigation sends an agent, Flash's best friend from his training days. The agent is captured and mind controlled into killing Flash. Flash is at GBI headquarters in his office when the assassination attempt occurs. Flash's office has a giant map of star systems across two walls, a schematic for the Sky Flash and a screen mounted high in a corner. Dale happens by to warn Flash and they capture the agent. Dr. Zarkov determines the agent to be suffering from mind control and possible lobotomy. He is able to do this with a portable scanner sending images to Flash's screen. Flash and Dale are ordered to have their hair cut off, a Selenite Band implanted in their heads and for them to wear wigs. They head to Charom after their hair styling and storm Akim's throne room. They are immediately captured and placed in the mind control machine. It is eventually explained that it only works two weeks. This is why police look for people, so they can be re-mind controlled. Flash and Dale pretend to be under the influence, learn all they can, then stun everyone in sight. They successfully arrest Akim. I like the stun guns. They actually freeze the target in place. I don't think it has a kill setting. Of note are actually pistols used by some of the people in the story. Not everyone has Stunners or Ray-Guns. The effects of rocket travel are improved from the pilot.

The Trial of Rocky Jones, part II- The biggest crime I can think of in a TV series is to have a "clip show". It frees up the writers to not actually have to write. You can tell this is the beginning of the end. Biff is appointed Defense Attorney and Dr. Reno is Prosecution. Defense calls Pinto Vortando to make a point he's missing. Then some technical legal stuff about off-worlders being able to call any witness that can add substance to a trial. As you can guess the witnesses called all retell a story from the past, including flashbacks. Nothing is resolved and the trial ends for the day. There is a strange, uncomfortable sub-plot about La Volga's daughter, Jonica (actress Melinda Plowman is 13), being attracted to DiMarco and possible marriage. He's been going along with it for now. After everyone leaves the court Bobby talks to Jonica about how cool he really is and tells more stories of Rocky (with clips and flashbacks). DiMarco interrupts and sees that Bobby is trying to influence La Volga through his daughter. Rocket YC47, commanded by Zandorf (Griff's right-hand man) , is on its way to Negato to hide Pinto Vortando, locked up in the cargo bay. They have to fuel at a space station run by Ranger Clark. Vortando escapes with the help of Clark, explaining to him that Rocky needs help. Biff visits Rocky in prison to say tomorrow is a new day. TO BE CONTINUED.

The Claim Jumpers- The narrator explains that in the future, gold miners spread to Mars, Venus and even the rings of Jupiter. I think they meant Saturn, but Voyager 2 eventually discovers rings around Jupiter in 1979 (25 years later). Gamma Oil is discovered on Venus, and some kind of gas is found in Jupiter's rings. After the space history lesson an APB is put out by GBI for a space pirate ship, run by Fred and Hans. The Sky Flash, with Flash and Dale, land on a radioactive planet and find the pirates by accident. While Flash is out putting an Automatic Bloodhound (a tracking device) on the ship, Fred and Hans board the Sky Flash, tie up Dale and ambush Flash. After the pirates leave, GBI sends out rockets Space Ghost, Starduster and Meteor, to begin searching for them. Dale gets loose, and helps Flash regain consciousness. They blast off for space and follow the trail. Planetary Pete, and his daughter Marie, radio in a claim about something found on the planetoid Maios [sic]. The pirates hear this and land on Maios to steal the claim. The Sky Flash follows them, but Zarkov at headquarters tells Flash not to move in because they need to follow the pirates to their hidden base. Flash realizes their going to kill Pete and Marie, jumps the gun and arrests them on the spot. It turns out one of the other three ships found his hidden base and the pirate operation is shut down.

The Trial of Rocky Jones, part III- Series finale. The "clip show" continues. Vortando is called up as a witness for the defense, while Clark is called as a witness for the prosecution, to ruin Vortando's character. This back and forth goes on for a while. Finally La Volga is ready to make a verdict, but an earthquake (ankaporequake?) hits, devastating the subterranean culture. Dr. Reno, DiMarco and Griff use the distraction as an excuse to escape while Rocky helps La Volga who is trapped under a column. Once the leader is safe Rocky tries to stop the other three and some things happen (i.e. people getting locked up and lots of fist fighting), but nobody gets off the planet. Once the quake stops all the space port ceilings have collapsed, no one can leave. Rocky sits in the Silver Moon trying to call for help and finally raises Drake and Mayberry, who happen to be on their way to Ankapore. They have one Trotanic Missile on board. They fire it and Rocky uses a magnetic tractor beam to direct it. An opening is made and Drake offers assistance to the people of Ankapore. La Volga declares his planet will no longer be a haven for pirates, joins the United Worlds of the Solar System, and signs an extradition treaty for the capture of Griff, DiMarco and Reno. THE END. I really like the characters and the attention to internal details even it it flies in the face of science as it is known today. I would totally buy this series if it was completely restored.

The Dancing Death- My Temproal DVR did not record this one: "The GBI team is held captive in a vibrational device that leads people to commit suicide."

The Breath of Death- Flash Gordon feels like a universe I just stepped into without knowing the politics or geography or anything. I like the stories, because the characters are generally likeable, but they throw a lot at you sometimes without giving you time to digest information, then you miss something. Once again this is an issue with the writers and their desire to narrate everything. One other problem I have is that often times I can't understand the dialog. That goes to the quality of the recording, but this was mostly produced in Germany. Other than the main characters, all the supporting actors are German that are just acting in English. When the start to emote or yell, I know it's in English, but it sounds German and I can't make sense of the technobabble. I love technobabble. Gemini is a prison planet for hardened criminals on the edge of civilized space. Flash has to make a delivery with Dale because she can fix a water purifier for them. One of the most dangerous murderers in the galaxy, wearing the number 34, hates Flash for catching him. 34 sees a moment to escape and takes it, sneaking aboard the Sky Flash. Flash's ship is the most advanced rocket in the "Universe" (read "Galaxy" due to writer misunderstanding of astronomy). After they blast off for 34 makes his move, capturing Flash and Dale. By this point Gemeni knows they have an escaped prisoner and inform GBI who sends Zarko and their boss out to hunt them down and destroy the Sky Flash. This is to keep it out of enemy hands. 34 wants to go to his hideout of Leo, but they need fuel from Ariel first. Ariel was the deadliest atmosphere in the Galaxy (I think Venus' atmosphere is way more deadly and toxic). I don't know how they quantify that since you can go outside without a space helmet, you just have to hold our breath. The Sky Flash lands and 34 has Flash help him run outside to grab fuel. Apparently the Sky Flash doesn't have space helmets. On a space ship? Really? No space suits or anything? These writers suck. A couple criminals get word 34 is on the loose and head to Ariel knowing about the fuel situation. They are afraid of 34 and want him dead. Zarkov is headed to Ariel, as well. Suddenly Flash beats up 34 right when the two criminals shoot him from their rocket. Zarkov sees this and shoots that rocket down. Lots of shooting happens, all the appropriate people die. Flash gets the fuel and they blast off back to GBI headquarters. In the future all prison guards are stupid, there is no space flight protocols about safety equipment, and no one thinks to inspect ships for prisoners on a prison planet.

The Flash Gordon Rocky Jones Experiment

There's a new show in town, that began in October of 1954. Flash Gordon, a joint American, German and French series (no subtitles, all in English). 39 episodes were broadcast between 1954 and 1955, but I could only get a hold of 14 of them. For the rest I will just say that my Temporal DVR failed to record. I will fill in the blanks on Flash Gordon by providing the Wikipedia description of the episode. I want companies to know that I am willing to trade actual money for their TV shows. I'm not going to bit-torrent their stuff, even though it is probably Public Domain by this point. There is also more Rocky Jones, Space Ranger as the series is gearing up to end.

Flash Gordon and the Planet of Death- If I were a kid of the '50s I'm sure I would have been versed in all things Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, Captain Video, Commando Cody and Rocky Jones. However I am not. This is not an origin story. Maybe I was supposed to have at least seen the theatrical serials. I was a little lost, but here's what I got out of it. The three principle characters are Flash, Dale and Dr. Zarkov, and their ship is the Sky Flash. They answer to Commander Richards of the Galactic Bureau of Investigation. Zarkov wants to test a new anti-gravity device on the uninhabited planet of Tarset, but a scientific group who investigated it was all killed off except for one person. Flash, Dale and Zarkov interrogate the survivor who tells a tale of a cursed statue that shines a light, killing anyone it sees. They all head to Tarset on the Sky Flash, and find the dead bodies and the statue in some ruins. The light comes on and Flash ends up hiding with the scientist, who he immediately accuses of lying. They escape a wall crushing trap while Dale and Zarkov are captured by the leader of planet Ebon. Flash learns that Ebon wants to use Tarset as a forward base for attacking Earth. Ebon's leader explains the eye is really a paralysis ray, and tries to torture Dale with it. Flash intervenes and the lone-survivor scientist sacrifices his life so they could escape and stop the people of Ebon. Something like that. My DVD copy is really hard to understand some of the dialog. I couldn't figure out anyone's names. The Sky Flash seems to drift sideways in special effects shots because the FX guys don't know how to shoot space scenes yet. Rocky Jones does a much better job. Not much science to butcher, but the leader of Ebon does describe how his Paralysis Ray excruciatingly effects the human body.

Vena and the Darnamo- Wow, this is not a good episode. Rocky, Biff, Vena and Bobby head for the planet Mandora, an insignificant speck of a place that brings fear to those that land on it. Why does Rocky want to go there? Because he met a smuggler on Apollo Minor who found it by accident, and as proof, gave Rocky an umbrella with a dog headed handle, but made in Cincinnati. They go to this lush tropical planet and are immediately set upon by a German Shepherd. It's injured and Vena helps it. Rocky realizes this whole thing was dumb idea, puts the umbrella back in the ship, but changes his mind and decides to explore just to make a full report to Secretary Drake. They find a dog headed totem and get attacked by sling-shot wielding natives, that howl to communicate. They run back to the ship, but the umbrella is missing and there is noise on the bridge. Rocky rushes in and encounters an old lady, Ms. Pilkington, who wants her umbrella back. They go to her house for tea and learn she comes from a long line of explorers who left Earth in a Sky Wagon and landed on Mandora. Something to do with being inspired by Jules Verne. She gave the natives sling shots and they revere her as a god, but fear her dog, which they refer to as Darnamo. Everything suddenly becomes a Pioneer vs. Indian story as the natives attack, kidnap Vena in her sleep and prepare to sacrifice her. Darnamo saves her by attacking the locals and they all escape Mandora, leaving the old lady behind who just wishes to be a god. THE END. The final stand alone episode. They never explain much of how her family built this house on the planet, and she seems to live as if she can go down to the country store and get more laundry detergent or something. Maybe there is more to this planet than meets the eye, but I think the writers were superficially trying to make a western out of a space western.

Escape into Time- I don't have this one so here is what is known: "Flash and Zarkov must rescue Dale from a mad criminal who seeks to kidnap her with his time machine."

Out of This World, part I- The uninhabited planet Hermes has been pulled out if its orbit and flung into deep space by an unknown force (there's even a sparkle trail). It turns out Hermes is from Earth's solar system (don't ask me where). Professor Mayberry uses some star charts and traces the magnetic effect to Rigalio, in the Alpha Centauri system. It has two moons that, when lined up just right, creates an amplified magnetic beam. In 30 days that event will line up with the Earth. To make matters worse, a parachute of unknown material is found on the East Coast. There are enemy troops on Earth. Rocky gets back to Earth and is brought up to speed. The plan: to set up a base of operations on Herculon (just like Inferno in Space), then launch to Rigalio to visit their ruler, Nizam. To make matters even more worserer, Juliandra is tricked by her twin evil sister Noviandra, who she locked in a secret room of the palace. Her father, Barbaro, used to be Herculon's leader and ran the war with the United Worlds. He had two daughters, Juliandra and Noviandra. When Barbaro lost power, Juliandra locked up her sister and took over Herculon with an agenda for good. But now Juliandra is locked up with her sister pretending to be her. On Earth, Rocky catches a Rigalian infiltrator (who wears a turban), and captures him, while two of his compatriots steal YN2, Secretary Drake's personal rocket. They head for station AW3, take it over and wait for further instructions. Rocky, Biff, Vena and Mayberry head to Herculon. They get jumped by a flying saucer, leaving no doubt that a more advanced culture is causing trouble (the same one from Blast Off). Rocky barely gets a chance to respond, before it zips away at high speed. On arrival at Herculon they are arrested by the fake Juliandra and Biff ordered back into Herculon service. After changing uniforms he comes across the hidden room and saves Juliandra. They recapture Noviandra and the real Juliandra releases the crew of the Silver Moon. Rocky is furious that he was invited to help save Earth, then thrown in prison. Juliandra wants to keep everything secret and just tells him she's a woman and that means she does random things. With Mayberry in tow, they head back to Silver Moon, all the treaties with Herculon signed, and blast back into space, leaving behind Biff, Vena and Bobby. In orbit they get a call from Ranger Clark on AW3 that Drake wants to see them there. Rocky sets course. TO BE CONTINUED. All communications between ship and shore have all been by Astrophone, which is essentially a corded handset. Every race does this, just a different style of microphone. Regalians actually use wireless, handheld radios which almost look like late '80s cell phones. These can directly talk to space and even the home world in real time, orbiting a different star. I really like that the writers got back to the race of people that made the saucer. On the bad side, the Regalian infiltrators stand out stupidly with their turbans. When they steal Drake's ship he never alerts the Space Rangers, so Clark on AW3 blindly lets them land (you'd think there was a special IFF for the Secretary of Space Affairs). He then loses the station. Space Ranger security is terrible.

The Electro Man- I don't have this one either: "Flash and company square off against the Electro Man, a mysterious deity who reigns over a planet where all life is made of metal."

Out of This World, part II- More interstellar running around. The message to see Drake at AW3 is a ruse to call the Silver Moon into the perfect ambush spot for the saucer. Rocky comes up with a good strategy and Mayberry makes the kill. Saucer destroyed! They realize AW3 is a trap, but Rocky docks anyway. He lets himself get captured so he'll be taken to Regalio, his plan all along. The Regalians destroy station AW3 after leaving, but Clark gets away in the Silver Moon. On Regalio, Rocky and Mayberry start to negotiate with Nizam. Regalio never cracked the secret of the atom but they have learned a lot about magnetism. Mayberry offers a truce where there share the secrets of each worlds, mastery over magnetism for the mystery of nuclear fission. Nizam likes what they have to offer but warns them about crossing him. Then then get a tour of the Magnetorium, where two rods have been put through the planet to the core, each one positive and negative. This releases an energy which can be fine tuned to send to any location and power a ship or a factory. But, there is an energy leak at the source so a Robot manages the Magnetorium. When they channel energy into their two moons it sends a heavy attractive magnetic beam that can pull a planet out of its orbit. This is what they threaten Earth with, but no explanation why. Juliandra doesn't realize Rocky had a plan to get captured so makes her own rescue mission. Nizam wants to marry her so she uses this to her advantage. She takes, Biff, Vena and Bobby in her ship to Regalio and courts Nizam. While he's distracted Biff sneaks off to locate Rocky and Mayberry. Juliandra is able to drug Nizam so he doesn't realize Rocky and Biff are beating up every guard he has. They finally get to Juliandra's rocket and take off, but Rocky is still thinking about the Magnetorium, the source of all power. TO BE CONTINUED. Magnetic science isn't great here, but I like what the writers have come up with. I wonder if they know Rocky has one of their saucers. I like the politics, again, but I wanted to see if Rocky could actually negotiate a cease fire. Plus, the saucers have a tactical weakness the Space Rangers can exploit. Think of it as a Top Gun maneuver in space.

The Vengeance of Rabeed- Don't got this one neither: "The mad Rabeed returns after 100 years in exile with plans to destroy the galaxy. It is up to Flash, Dale and Zarkov to stop his evil scheme."

Out of This World, part III- Rocky and friends get back to Herculon. For some plot driven reason Juliandra gives Bobby her special "magic" ring and tells him to pace around the palace with it. Noviandra succeeds in another escape attempt, locking Juliandra and Theba (her caretaker) in another chamber. Once again she posses as Suzerain Juliandra and calls Nizem (I never figured out if that is his name or a title). Nizem wants nothing to do with her after the spiking of his drink. She offers a new truce between them and a gift of Rocky and Mayberry. He accepts. She orders the two locked up in her ship and tells Biff to pilot for her. He's a little suspicious. After they leave Drake arrives but no one has seen Rocky or Mayberry. Nobody can find either one, but Bobby happens down the forbidden corridor where the ring opens a secret entrance. In there he saves Juliandra and Theba, allowing the Suzerain to tell the truth about her rule. On arrival at Regalio, Noviandra sweet talks Nizem, but he soon realizes she isn't the real Juliandra. He had tried to make a deal with Barbaro once, so Noviandra is hoping to take him up on it. He orders them locked up, but she and Biff escape. Noviandra even knifes a guard, Tor, in the heart to escape. Wow. She runs to the Magnetorium and lets the Robot out. All power is lost and the Robot goes on a killing spree. He breaks some necks and spines of Nizem, two of his guards and finally Noviandra, herself. When power was lost Rocky and Mayberry escaped (their door needed power) and they found some explosives. At the Magnetorium Rocky puts explosives all around when the Robot returns. He manage to destroy the Robot and blow up the place. Escaping into space, mourning over the loss of such powerful technology, they head for Herculon again. THE END. The actress who played both Juliandra and Noviandra, Ann Robinson, did a good job of separating their personalities. One had a bunch more make-up on and had crazy eyes. They FX guys even did a split screen so the two could meet each other. She is better known as Sylvia Van Buren from both War of the Worlds movies, and the '80s TV show. The knife stabbing was surprisingly violent for this show. The Robot, itself magnetic, could pull people towards it, making the kill easier. It wasn't knocking people out, it either broke their neck or hugged them until their spine cracked. Take your pick. When it came at Rocky he stripped all the metal off his body. I'm not sure why Regalian scientists would have built a killer Robot then make it an engineer. I guess if it wasn't maintaining a power plant it wanted to kill.

The Cold Inferno Experiment

Four new weekly adventures of Rocky Jones, Space Ranger air during September, 1954. Due to cast changes, the show doesn't get renewed past this year. I am so happy to see them get rid of Winky, but the actor went out hardcore on a shooting spree with Mexican police, so he went to jail. I won't be making fun of him anymore. Also in theaters at the time was another kid-oriented Sci-Fi movie, Tobor the Great. Sadly I didn't get my hands on it in time for review here, but maybe one day. All classic Sci-Fi should just be available for streaming on NetFlix. Many are in the public domain to make it easier.

The Cold Sun, part III- This is one of the lowest points of science in the series yet. Dr. Reno helps Pinto Vertando escape Space Ranger jail and the steal the XV9, with Bobby aboard, headed for Herculon. To prevent an immediate pursuit he puts a bomb in on the Silver Moon, which starts a fire in the Trotanic Missile room (i.e. Engineering). Rocky puts the fire out but the ship is delayed a while for more repairs. During the trip, Bobby calls Vertando a coward which for some reason hurts him deeply. Pinto Vertando, who was once a minor warlord in the series, is reduced to this Mongolian arch-typical over-acting bad guy that is meant for kids. He is wasted and really annoying. On Herculon, the wedding is about to proceed but Vertando decides to tell Suzerain Juliandra that her future husband and Olympian Rudy DiMarco is in league with Reno to take over Herculon and continue the fight against the United Worlds. Reno was DiMarco's trainer and wanted him to win the Olympics just to offer him up to Herculon if the need ever arose. And it did. Way to contrive for the story but it gets worse. It turns out before launch the Trotanic Missles weren't armed and only he knows how to set it. There was only time to put one on each rocket, he has one and Rocky has one. Everyone assumes that the Silver Moon is destroyed, and Reno holds the only key to saving the sun. He trades this knowledge for freedom now that his plot is exposed, and they take Bobby back in XV9 for Torita, Mercury's totally made-up moon. On the way, Rocky comes across Reno in space, also heading for Torita (there must be only one flight path). Rocky disables the ship, rescues Bobby, captures Reno and DiMarco, and accidentally sets off a fully armed Trotanic Missile. I want to point out this is meant to have an explosive affect on the sun, but it explodes in space and does little harm to the Silver Moon. They finally land on Torita and see a "crust" covering the sun. Reno has a wrist gun, but Rocky throws a space helmet over his arm (which I think was blown-off), and proceeds to beat up DiMarco. Rocky is in a space suit and still manages to clobber the Olympian, proving he was cheating in their last fight. The Trotanic Missile is fired and it completely breaks up the sun crust. The planets of the United Worlds are saved. THE END. Why is there a crust on the sun? You can see sunlight on Earth. Unless they upped the yield of a Trotanic Missile, which is not in evidence when one blows up while the Silver Moon is in docking range of it, there is frellingly bad science on display. I do like the part where Reno grabs Bobby by the head, knocks him out and throws him in a corner.

Inferno in Space, part I- The Silver Moon comes across a region of space with some kind of atmosphere. It turns all forms of wood on the ship to ash, even going so far as wrecking most of the control console on the bridge. Rocky orders the ship out of the area and heads for Earth. Professor Mayberry explains that there is a moon, Cyrko, out there surrounded by a Planetary Nebula (wrong use of the phrase) of radiation and energy. Some of those cosmic rays had penetrated the ship and effected all the wood-based products on board. The Silver Moon is immediately ordered to have radiation shielding installed (really? this wasn't already in the ship's design?) and all wood-based products removed. A new sensor suite is also installed. Rocky, Biff, Vena and Mayberry head back out to the phenomenon while some nefarious goings on begin to happen involving Agar, last seen in The Forbidden Moon story arc, and played by a new actor. He plans an escape from captivity with an undercover agent, Dorton, posing as a Space Ranger at Space Affairs. Bobby, by the way, is thankfully left behind to watch Mayberry's observatory and lab, which look suspiciously like Griffith Observatory. In space the Silver Moon encounters the energy cloud and dives right in. They find Cyrko which is naturally erupting with nuclear mushroom clouds, spreading all sorts of radioactive material into space. Mayberry claims that not only will this cloud spread farther and farther out but it's on a collision course with Earth. TO BE CONTINUED. This is a similar set up to Crash of Moons, but this moon is super-radioactive, like in The Forbidden Moon. I am displeased with the science again, but that's nothing new. There is a case in the real world for naturally occurring nuclear reactions, involving deposits of Uranium under high pressure for millions of years, but not for over 1.5 billion years. Something to do with the radioactive decay of Uranium 235.

Inferno in Space, part II- Agar is on the loose with Dorton and they steal rocket ship NX7. During this time Mayberry is briefing everyone about a plan to protect Earth. It's not that Cyrko will hit Earth now, it's just that the radioactive halo around the moon will destroy all wood and paper on the Earth. He and Rocky recommend alerting everyone in the world and start using the world's industry to produce giant mirrors as part of Stage 1. These will be mounted around the world to reflect the energy or radiation or whatever it is. Stage 2 will be to send the Silver Moon to Cyrko again and drop off a magnetic liquid which will spread across the planet and attract all the energy in the cloud back to the surface, to prevent it from exploding near Earth. Supposedly Earth should already be feeling these effects but the moon is blocking it for now. Hurculon has become the forward base for Stage 2 because their moon, Alpha 3, permanently shields them. But Herculon is in another Solar System so Cyrko must be moving fast and/or have a big energy cloud. But first, Rocky grabs Biff to chase Agar and Dorton. Agar finds out that his stolen ship has Cold Light installed (from Pirates of Prah). He beats the bejeezus out of Dorton, puts him in a space suit, dumps him out the airlock, and cloaks the ship. Rocky spends valuable time saving Dorton and gets called back to Earth for a new emergency before he can grab Agar. On Earth Dorton spills everything he knows about Agar and his plans. Meanwhile, Agar has been listening to radio chatter and learns about the importance of Herculon during ths crisis. He arrives there and claims to be a Venusian scientist. On Earth, some regions are already experiencing devastation before Rocky's plan can be set in motion. TO BE CONTINUED. The logic of it all doesn't make any sense, but at this point I'm just going with the story. They claim to have a liquid that needs to be mixed to form a metallic skin over Cyrko. It sounds like one liquid is positive and one is negative, which I'm pretty sure can't be done. When you pour them together they form a giant magnet. I give the story a lot of credit for referring to the back catalog of characters and planets, including New Ophiuchus.

Inferno in Space, part III- Hurray, Rocky finally used a brilliant plan to save everyone aboard the Silver Moon. But first, Agar secretly meets with Juliandra's right-hand woman, Shima, to set her up as Suzerain, if she only helps him. Rocky and Biff blast off Earth to Herculon. On arrival Herculonians load up missiles and magnetic liquid and stuff. Shima introduces Agar to Naboro (played by the massive Tor Johnson, who makes many appearances in bad Sci-Fi movies, and by default Mystery Science Theater 3000), his new muscle. The three organize a coup and kidnap Juliandra to the stolen NX7. They learn that Rocky's journey is likely to be a one way trip. Rocky and Biff blast off Herculon of Cyrko. They get a distress call from Juliandra. Thinking they have time to save her and Earth, the Silver Moon diverts to NX7's location. When they dock Agar, Shima, Tor and Juliandra emerge and a big fist fight ensues. Rocky, Biff and Juliandra are knocked out and Agar once again gets away, with Shima and Naboro. When everyone recovers on the Silver Moon they realize Agar set their course for Cyrko and shattered all the controls. Now it is a one-way trip. They proceed as normal, dropping all the liquid while Earth moves all its mirrors into location. Rocky runs to the engine room and straps a rocket to the airlock, thus providing thrust to turn the ship around. Biff fixed the engine on/off button and turns on the engine when the new heading is correct, back to Earth. On NX7 Agar sets course for Medina, but Shima sicks Naboro on him for insolence. Naboro turns into the (incredible) Hulk and smashes all their controls. The ship drifts into the reflected energy from Earth and explodes. THE END. I know Rocky's thrust solution isn't perfect, he would need to correct the flat spin movement he initiated. But it was so cool to see him actually come up with a nearly plausible idea, I gotta give him credit.

The Blast Off Cold Sun Experiment

August, 1954, (only 57 years ago) brought us five new episodes of Rocky Jones, Space Ranger. This month is the transition from Season 1 to Season 2. Many characters change with little in-story explanation.

Blast Off, part I- This is going to be a rough one. Rocky and Bobby are flying the Orbit Jet on their own when they get caught in an asteroid storm. I'm sure with a little thought it could have been avoided, like looking at the RADAR, but the ship takes damage. They start losing Oxygen and Rocky finds a nearby unexplored planet to land on. Unbeknownst to them it is inhabited by two primitive cultures, and their arrival does not go unnoticed. Apparently Rocky's appearance coincides with a mythological second-coming of the All High. Valley People worship these beliefs and the Hill People don't (or is it the other way around, I can't tell). There has been much strife between the two, but an impending marriage after centuries of conflict is supposed to easy tensions. Then Rocky shows up by accident on their world and screws everything; Hill People resent them, and the Valley People blindly worship them. Rocky opts for First Contact with the primitive cultures (as there is apparently no Prime Directive with the United Worlds). He tries to convince them he is from Earth but they don't listen and show him a plaque saying the All High were destined to return in the future. And, that time is now. The carved face on the plaque is human. Rocky idiotically chooses to become more involved because if he manages to get off the planet it would destroy the religious nature of the people. For the time being he decides to stay and they are taken to a sacred place where they are to live their lives. It is a saucer landing site of an alien race from another star that must have been the inspiration for the current religious movement. Rocky and Bobby head back to the Orbit Jet to send a distress call, because they have no spare parts to repair the oxygen system. TO BE CONTINUED. They're mere presence is provocative enough to start a war on this planet. How are there planets in the solar system that haven't been explored yet? They show a sun rise from the planet and the sun was big enough to be from the distance of Earth's orbit. Instead of using an SOS signal, Rocky sets the distress beacon to repeat "Orbit Jet" in Celestial Code to any passing ship.

Blast Off, part II- On Earth, Space Affairs figures out Rocky and Bobby are missing. Winky is off on his own looking for Rocky so he's out of the picture. Vena, Professor Newton and Ranger Sandy blast off to the last known location reported. Meanwhile, Rocky is contending with fear and suspicion all around him as he tries to make a kiln to heat metal for the Oxygen Compressor repair. While he's distracted the Hill People drop rocks on the Orbit Jet, knocking it over. But not before the rescue ship picks up Rocky's distress signal and lands (stupidly) next to the damaged Orbit Jet. All three are captured climbing out of the rocket. The daughter of the Valley People tries to warn Rocky all this stuff is going down and she is scratched by the Flower of Death. Rocky attends to her instead and misses out on the whole rescue-party-being-captured thing. A shaman is used to prey for anti-poison as Rocky is now being blamed for the "great evil". Then he gets really pissed to find out his friends are held captive. He runs off and negotiates a plan to save the girl, by getting medicine off-planet, and leaving Bobby behind to be sacrificed in case Rocky never returns. These people really don't respect the All High myths at all. After Rocky leaves, Bobby learns that the other three will be sacrificed, anyway, and engineers a jail break. They all run off to the walled garden, cave area the locals had set aside for the All Highs to live in; a place that is taboo to enter. TO BE CONTINUED. Newton explains that the planet has never been discovered before because it's in the outer reaches of the solar system and should be bitter cold. It obviously isn't but no explanation is giving to why this planet is thriving. Netwon also explains there are, like, a hundred unexplored planets out there, kind of like Kuiper Belt Objects, I guess.

Blast Off, part III- Rocky gets all the medicine on Earth he needs, but not any spare parts. He gets back to the primitive planet (he lands next to the wrecked Orbit Jet again) and learns his friends have all escaped. He needs Newton to administer an anti-poison. This time he brought a personal communication device and tells Sandy to get everyone back to the village (Hill or Valley, I can't tell anymore). Newton saves the sick girl but learns the other people wrecked the second rocket. Everyone heads to the flying saucer as the only viable alternative to escape. It needs a bunch of repair, and Rocky makes up something about using gravity as energy. Over the next day or so they are able to sneak to the rockets using a complex cave system to get all the parts they need. They finally get off the ground but have to land again later to recharge something. During this time the locals tried to cause an avalanche on the saucer (Rocky and the crew, didn't even notice), but one of their own was gravely injured. Newton injects him with something that cures him of infection and all the broken bones and crushed organs (with one frakking injection!), and finally all the indigenous people like the Space Rangers. Rocky promises this new planet will be an outpost to explore the outer planets and beyond, then they finally leave in the saucer. THE END. I really want to know what happens when they land on Earth with a saucer that can travel between stars. This could completely shift the balance of power to the United Worlds. This story would have been over in about one episode if Rocky started using his ray-gun against all the hostiles. If Rocky and friends would have stopped parking their rockets in valleys none of their ships would have been destroyed. When Rocky is on Earth he couldn't have brought some Space Marines or some other back-up? I do like the saucer, it has running lights that spin around the edge and a cool sound. That's the best that can come out of this thoughtless story. This isn't a new Sci-Fi story but I do see some ideas here handled much better the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode Who Watches the Watchers. This is the end of the original batch of 26 episodes...

The Cold Sun, part I- ... and this is the start of the final 13 episodes; in other words, Season 2. The sun is providing light, but no heat, and might have something to do with sunspot activity. This is also causing interference on all Astrophone calls to and from Earth. Rocky is on his way back on the Silver Moon XV3 with Vena, Bobby, Professor Mayberry and some co-pilot without a name. I think Winky is lost in space from last story as there is no mention of him. Neither is there mention of Professor Newton, who was probably put in a rest home. The new top Olympian on Earth, Rudy DiMarco, is visiting Secretary Drake at the Office of Space Affairs in the hopes of meeting Rocky. Dr. Reno, a civilian adviser, seems to be hatching a scheme with DiMarco. But the real thing going on is an end to the hostilities between the United Worlds and Herculon. It appears an old leader has lost his position and Juliandra, known as the Suzerain of Herculon (sound familiar?) wants to be more friendly. She proposes an exchange of personnel to better learn each others' cultures. Her most trusted officer, Biffen Cardoza, for Rocky Jones. Rocky of course declines, but they offer up DiMarco instead. DiMarco has something to prove and beats Rocky in a boxing match before the exchange. Once they get to Herculon, introductions go all around, but DiMarco sneaks off and meets with a contact to cause a rift in the proceedings. That night Vena is forced under hypnosis to write a fake kidnapping letter for Rocky. He goes out looking for her and gets in over his head, until Biffen shows up and saves him. They complain to Juliandra who has no idea what's going on, then Bobby finds Vena has been asleep in her room the whole time. (Nobody thought to look?) At this point Vena nicknames Biffen as "Biff", better than the name Winky. With everything back to "normal" Rocky calls Ranger Clark on OW9 to relay a message to Space Affairs, but all communications with Earth have been lost. TO BE CONTINUED. It's a nice touch that they no longer have the Orbit Jet since it was wrecked and stripped of parts last episode. The new rocket ship has a better looking dashboard, too. The first look at the Herculon capital is the same as the Ophiuchian capital. There must be a contractor out there building all the same buildings on the Outlaw Worlds. For that matter they also use the same mind control device that Cleolanthe was known for. In the real world of science, sunspots are a sign of a healthy star and become more plentiful during the Solar Maximum. However, during Solar Minimum we no longer see sunspot activity (or very little) and have begun to consider it indicates a cooling trend on Earth. At least heavy sunspot activity can have a huge effect on unshielded communication satellites, so that's not too far off in the story.

The Cold Sun, part II- Space Affairs is in lock-down on Earth because they are the only ones who know anything about the sun being the cause of the cold spell. This includes Drake, Mayberry and Reno. Mayberry has a theory, which isn't too far from something Newton would come up with. The sun's heat is being absorbed by a blanket effect over the surface of it. What ever that effect is the sun is still shining, but all the heat is trapped on the surface. Huh?!? The new plan, is to first get two ships, XV9 and the Silver Moon, loaded with Trotanic Missiles. Since there is no solar heat, Mercury is approachable, something the Space Rangers can't normally do. Mercury has a moon named Torita [sic]. Again, Huh?!? Both rockets are to land on the little moon and shoot four rockets into the sun to overheat it and blow away the blanket effect. Did anyone notice that the eight Trotanic Missiles fired at the moon, Posita, in Crash of Moons had no effect? Rocky leaves Herculon, with a special message for Drake's eyes only from Juliandra, and heads for station OW9. Little does anyone expect but at that moment OW9 is being ransacked by Pinto Vertando, who has turned interstellar pirate. To make his escape, Vertando, shoots a gyro control and the station becomes unstable and shakes a bunch. They leave Ranger Clark stuck on the station when Rocky tries to land. To make matters worse, all visiograph activity and Astrophone use is dead and Rocky has to dock on a moving target blind. He succeeds on manual, rescues Clark, then chases down Vertando. Even blind he disables his ship and captures all three pirates before heading to Earth. When Rocky arrives he hands over his three prisoners to authorities and gives Drake the message. For whatever reason, Juliandra is smitten with DiMarco and plans to marry him, making the Olympian the new ruler of Herculon. All part of some plan I think. Repairs (that aren't explained) are being made to the Silver Moon and all are nearly ready to go to Torita and fix the Sun. TO BE CONTINUED. The Space Rangers must have reversed engineer that saucer Rocky took, because the Silver Moon is able to go to Herculon, which orbits a different star, they call Oona. Even though it looks the same as all the other rockets, Bobby points out a new super-fast XV27, no doubt with more saucer parts, while on Herculon. According to the story, Earth is still getting light, but without heat, from the sun. So in this universe the photon packet of energy that is released from the sun, as light, cannot impact any molecules and vibrate them, thus causing heat. That's just not how light works, there is no light without heat. It's good they understood that the sun effects the Earth's weather but they get the rest wrong. I'm trying to suspend my disbelief for the shows sake, but these scientists have got to go. For payment to help the displaced people of Ophiuchus, Cleolanthe must have shared Trotanic Missile technology with the Space Rangers.

The Crash of War Experiment

The year was 1954, in the summer month of July. Four new episodes of Rocky Jones, Space Ranger was on the air waves. If you were a Sci-Fi fan with a black and white TV and an antenna, this is what you saw.

Crash of Moons, part I- The Gypsy Moons, from Rocky's Odyssey, are the center of attention, again. Posita and Negato are moving into the inner solar system where most of the habitable planets are. Newton, Vena and Robby take Transport TR14 from Earth to space station OW9 to get close enough for radio contact. Rocky, Winky and Secretary Drake are on Ophiuchus trying to convince Cleolanthe to join the United Worlds. She wants nothing to do with them and kicks them off the planet. In space Rocky talks to Newton on the Astrophone and learns of the Gypsy Moons' movement. Rocky, being way smarter than Professor Newton (a scientist!), calculates that not only will the moons pass near OW9, but the station will be caught in between with the atmosphere chain. (There is a great visual of the two moons floating in space with lightning striking between the two.) Space Stations aren't designed for atmosphere and everyone needs to get off of it. The closest ship is TR14, but it isn't responding. Rocky races the Orbit Jet as fast as it will go, but OW9 is thrown all about. Quickly abusing science again he has Ranger Andrews use the Magnetic Tractor Beam to stabilize them, relative to the station, for a landing. He then pushes the station out of the atmosphere using full rockets and saves everyone. On Posita Bovaro is obsessed with his new child and their culture really has no idea about astronomy or where their moon is relative to anything. He just wants Rocky Jones to see his baby boy and makes everyone learn English. On the Orbit Jet Newton finally steps up his game and learns he better figure out if the Gypsy Moons are going to hit anything else. Even though every character on the ship, including Drake, questions him, Newton declares without a doubt Posita will impact Ophiuchus in one month. The Orbit Jet lands on Posita to deliver the bad news which insanely infuriates Bovaro who just wants people to love his baby. TO BE CONTINUED. Not a bad idea going on. The writers actually almost figured out gravity. Of course Newton was describing things, so it makes little sense. He claims the Gypsy Moons orbit each other (which is surprisingly spot-on science) and randomly move through the solar system. If that were the case then there would be no way to predict that Posita would hit Ophiuchus. He does mention all the planets orbit the sun, so that's something. However, since it used to be a planet in the solar system why isn't it still in the ecliptic plane of the sun, unless its orbit was more like a Kuiper Belt Object. I want the show to work, but I'm asking too much of these writers. Now to Rocky's science abuse: He saves the station by docking with it, then turning on his rockets to move it. That's fine except the docking port is asymmetrically positioned on the station. It would just spin in circles, unless for some reason the center of gravity is the docking port, then I'm not sure it would spin correctly as seen on screen. For that matter, why does the station spin? I thought it was for gravity but when you see the interior, the floor is flat and the walls are curved, not at all what you see in 2001: A Space Odyssey. It also appears that there are no thrusters on the station at all, but it ought to at least have a Reaction Control System to stabilize its position from all the gravitational effects of so many planets in the solar system. So close, yet so far for 1954. NASA won't be able to start advising Sci-Fi writers for another 4 years at the earliest.

Crash of Moons, part II- Bovaro comes to his senses and heads to Negato for to negotiate a total evacuation of Posita to the other moon. They do get in an argument whether or not they should warn Ophiuchus, since they were banished from the planet, but Rocky and Winky take the Orbit Jet to give it a try. On Ophiuchus, Atlasande is preparing for an important audience with Cleolanthe while his wife, Trinka, talks of leaving the planet. Even before landing on Ophiuchus Rocky sits in orbit broadcasting to anyone with an unscrambled Astrophone (something that is illegal on the planet punishable by death) about the impending disaster. Cleolanthe's standing order is to scramble any United Worlds' transmissions that arrive on her planet as she doesn't want her people to learn anything about the outside systems. Trinka has such an Astrophone, and gets his message. Atlasande comes home and catchers her with it, dragging her and the device back to Cleolanthe, to curry more favor. Cleolanthe won't listen to a traitor like Trinka and orders the Orbit Jet destroyed while it's trying to land. Trinka interferes (because she is stupidly left in the "war room") and Rocky safely lands. He runs into the city and captures Atlasande to make Cleolanthe listen to him. She finally believes him, but uses knockout gas on him and Winky while she, Atlasande and her new Lieutnant, Lassbaun, (I guess Darganto is still in prison) plan to destoy Posita with Trotanic [sic] missiles before it becomes a threat. Atlasande had laid out a similar plan that involved destroying the moon after it was evacuated, but Cleolanthe finally shows she is in fact insane and just wants to kill people. They leave at once to destroy Posita. Trinka escapes her super-minimum security holding cell, grabs Rocky and Winky, then run back to the Orbit Jet to chase down Cleolanthe. TO BE CONTINUED. We finally learn that Ophiuchus has been forcibly cut off from the outside and the citizens have no idea what happens off planet. That might explain why the is a communication blackout around the Ophiuchus Formation in Beyond the Curtain of Space. There is reference to a growing resistance movement.

Crash of Moons, part III- I'm impressed with the goings on in this one. Cleolanthe begins firing on Posita, but Rocky is able to disable her ship. Atlasande, who has become disillusioned with her, takes her into custody when she declares him a traitor. Cleolanthe becomes even more insane throught the episode. On Posita there is only 14 days left and evacuation to Negato proceeds using their aircraft. Several days later, the evacuation is complete. Rocky and Atlasande have a new plan, using the Ophiuchian rocket, fire all the Trotanic missiles in the hope of changing its orbital trajectory. Newton declares the bombardment a failure (furthur solidifying Cleolanthe has no idea what she's doing), Rocky leaves Winky and Drake in charge of the Orbit Jet and he heads off to Ophiuchus to warn everyone that the United Worlds will help evacuate the entire planet. When they land they are overrun with military personal trying to take their ship, since they no longer listen to Cleolanthe. Trinka somehow manages to calm everyone and a planetwide broadcast is made. Cleolanthe further complains no one cares about her planet and it's all conspiracy to remove her from power. In good faith the Orbit Jet will be the last one to leave the doomed planet with Rocky, Winky, Vena, Bobby, Professor Newton, Atlasande, and Trinka. Cleolanthe wishes to die on Ophiuchus, but at the last second Atlasande forcibly drags her to the Orbit Jet. Far from planetary orbit they watch Posita slam in to Ophiuchus. On the Astrophone Torvak, leader of the Negato people, explains it's the people that make a culture not to land. THE END. I'm surprised they destroyed an important planet in the story, and the visuals weren't bad either (for the time, that is). There is a good evacuation scene with at least a dozen rockets scattered in a landing field launching one after another. Medina rockets were mixed in with Space Ranger rockets, so they must have offered assistance, too. This three-parter was turned into a movie that appears on Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Kip's Private War- Someone has been sabotaging some important pieces of equipment around the Office of Space Affairs. Rocky and Winky come back to Earth on the Orbit Jet to help figure it out. There is an issue with the planet Apollo Minor to contend with as well. A new boy, Kip, has been employed and runs around the place unsupervised. I hate when writers give the audience more of a clue than the characters. It makes them look like idiots. The episode title has Kip's name in it and we see him sneering in the background, so we know way too early that Kip is involved. Has Space Affairs learned nothing from all the Human agents Cleolanthe has working for her? Kip manages to break communication equipment, the gantry system and cars. No excuse. Bobby finds him letting out the air of Drake's car. How does Bobby stop him? He attacks him, totally beating Kip. Rocky and Vena come outside and see the boys fighting, which they break up. Keep in mind Bobby totally idolizes Rocky Jones and goes on lots of missions with him. Rocky usually deals with a problem by beating it up, so it's no wonder Bobby reacted violently. Why does Space Affairs keep employing children? It turns out Kip's dad, Mickey, was a thief who was caught by Rocky and held in jail at headquarters. Kip gets visiting rights and his dad is proud of his chaotic behavior. Instead of restraining Kip for terrorist actions against Earth, he makes Kip live with him and Winky. Kip plays a joke on them using a sound board device he made that keeps the two awake. To further the positive influence Rocky is sure Kip needs, there's the Apollo Minor mission. Apollo Minor has a weak, but legitimate government, that is trying to keep a warlord, Pinto Vortando, from winning a local election. The United Planets want the same thing so they send Rocky there to support the legitimate government. (This sounds like a political Afghanistan story.) So Kip comes along on this important mission and wants attention by using his sound board device to scare Winky. Rocky reads him the riot act, but Kip doesn't care. After landing on Apollo Minor Vortando's henchmen capture Rocky, Winky, Vena, Bobby and Kip. Kip backstabs Rocky and Winky by telling them a lie about the United Worlds. Vena, Bobby and Kip are free to hang out on the planet, but they all go back to the Orbit Jet. Kip is in their face about what he did, but Bobby actually refuses to beat the crap out of him because it ain't worth it. You see, Kip just wants attention. Rocky and Winky escape their cell, and get captured again, this time with the threat of death. Kip uses his sound board to simulate an all out Space Ranger attack on Vortando's compound and they rescue Rocky and Winky. Pinto Vortando is humiliated in front of his own people by two children and he loses power. The government is once again in charge, and the Orbit Jet leaves for Earth. THE END. One of only three stand-alone episodes. This is almost an exact repeat of the episode The Boy Who Hated Superman in The Adventures of Superman. No new tech showed off except Kip's stupid sound board which must have been more than it appeared, because it simulated deep bass and surround sound like a Boze speaker system.

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.

The Pirates in the Sky Experiment

Rocky Jones, Space Ranger is the show for May, 1954, with four new episodes. I like the fact the studio accepts having almost no budget to make the show as just an inconvenience. They are still trying to tell big stories on other planets with space battles and such. To save money all the different rockets in the show have the same interior bridge (something Star Trek is known to do). But to differentiate between them the prop people change the seat covers.

Pirates of Prah, part I- Vena (in a totally new outfit) is with Reggie, on cargo rocket CM7, on her way to see her brother, Paul. They are disabled by pirates, lose their cargo and are left to float in orbit of Cassa VII [sic] for eternity. It turns out a pirate group has been preying on cargo ships for the past week, including one from Mars known as Double M. Rocky and Winky are on vacation when they get the call Vena has dissappered. They launch with Bobby (for some reason) and a new piece of tech from Professor Newton, Cold Light. It should only be used in emergencies and emits Gamma Radiation. The Orbit Jet gets to the last known area of space CM7 broadcasted from when they come across the Double M. It shoots at them, but Winky easily destroys it. The pirates had burned off all the call letters from the tail fins of CM7, so when Rocky finds their ship he doesn't recognize it (even though it looks exactly like the Orbit Jet). All power (except gravity and life support) is out on CM7 so Vena pushes a missile through a missile tube to dump it into space. Rocky recognizes it as a sign of communication and they dock with the rocket. Now suddenly rockets have airlocks. CM7's airlock is on the bridge and we never see where the Orbit Jet's is, but at least Rocky stopped cutting through his own hull. Maybe the airlock was part of the upgrade last episode. They bring Vena back to Orbit Jet (leaving Reggie on his ship), hear her sad tale and tow it back to Cassa VII. TO BE CONTINUED. Rocky makes reference to going to the far edge of the solar system, which sounds like no one was done before. I am suddenly struck with the realization this whole show takes place in our solar system yet there are extra planets and people everywhere. Lazy Sci-Fi writers.

Pirates of Prah, part II- Cold Light is finally explained as essential a cloaking device. It emits a field of light around the Orbit Jet that makes it so cold that it becomes invisible (I'm guessing at Zero Kelvin, molecules stop moving so you can't see them). It's bad science, but it goes something like that. It doesn't make the inside cold, though. Nor does it require radiation shielding like we were warned about last episode. Everyone lands on Cassa VII, which has a way better space port than Earth, and everyone meets Paul Ray, Vena's brother. They go over some astronomy notes for the next day or so and Rocky thinks they're operating out of the planetoid Prah. No one has ever been able to land because the defenses are too great. On Prah, the pirates, Rinkman, Dr. Vanko, Markoff and some other guy, drop off all the stolen goods and call their boss, Cleolanthe. She learns that they failed to kill Rocky and she orders her second-in-command Atlasande to have them assassinated. Rocky, meanwhile, tricks Bobby and Vena into staying on Cassa VII while he and Winky blast off for Prah. They engage the Cold Light device and land on one of the pirate's landing pads. The pirates hear a ship but they don't see one. Rocky pops out and confronts the pirates but gets captured. Cleolanthe gets word they are holding Rocky prisoner, stays their execution and heads to Prah (with Atlasande). Rocky learns what he needs and escapes Prah just before Cleolanthe arrives and they both head to Cassa VII. TO BE CONTINUED. I just can't get over how repeatedly dumb all the bad guys seem to be.

Pirates of Prah, part III- This story is beginning to fall apart. Cleolanthe orders all the pirates (like about 5 people) to land on Cassa VII and take over. They have a contact, Ken, who works in space traffic control. Everyone wants Rocky's Cold Light device (something that shouldn't have been shared with everyone in the story, but Rocky has a big mouth). Ken knocks out Rocky and stashes him in his own engine room, then turns Orbit Jet invisible so everyone thinks Rocky left. Rocky gets loose and begins working against Ken and the pirates on his own. Once the pirates are on Cassa VII then kidnap Winky, Robby and Vena, planning to take them back to Ophiuchus. This way Rocky has to come to them and they'll get the Cold Light thing. Some muddled things happen which ends with Rocky and Winky beating up all the pirates, who they refer to as traitors so they must be humans, and they head back to Earth with everyone on board; Winky still trying to get a date. THE END. An okay story with some promise until the writers get in the way by the end. No new abuses of science in this episode, unless you count the continued use of Cold Light. For the first time in the series we are introduced to Martians, which I think are supposed to indigenous (not just a human colony). They seem a little barbaric but are technologically capable as we see with Haggar Nu, Ken's assistant set up as a scape goat. I forgot to mention the painful moment Winky chooses to sing, playing an instrument that looks way cooler than the space station models already in use.

Silver Needle in the Sky, part I- There is to be an Interplanet Peace Conference held in space and the crew of the Orbit Jet are tasked with taking the Space Ambassadors there. One of the few outstanding things I like about this show is the use of alien languages. Vena wants to go along as navigator and interpreter but Drake explains the conference is being held in neutral territory so the Universal Language will be spoken. I'm pretty sure that means English. They are headed to Space Station XO7 in the orbit of Peritane [sic], a planet in the Jupiter equalateral. I can only assume they mean it shares Jupiter's orbit but at a distance, and no where near Fornax, or they could have saved Rocky a lot of trouble in Bobby's Comet. There are asteroids way ahead and way behind Jupiter's orbit that are in a gravitationally stable position, so maybe that's what they intended? Winky worries about the Outlaw Planets respecting the neutrality of the conference which leads me to believe that any planet not part of the United Worlds is considered an outlaw. Not everyone is invited, either. Cleolanthe of Ophiuchus is mad (I don't blame her this time), so orders her human agent on Earth, Duveen, to blow up the Orbit Jet on the ground. A new alarm system warns the crew, they stop Duveen and then successfully blast off for XO7. Cleolanthe has a new idea and sends Atlasande to crash the conference and kidnap the ambassadors. Rocky gets everyone where they have to go and plans for a layover on Peritane for a re-fuel and some R&R. As soon as he leaves the station, Atlasande forces his way aboard and takes everyone captive. TO BE CONTINUED. Every space station in the show has only one Space Ranger crew member, but all rockets have at least two. It's good to see Rocky let Vena be the navigator (a job Winky used to do) and give the job of updating the log to Bobby. Another point I have in favor of the show is the use of uniforms, with rank stripes on the arms, but Winky and Bobby are the same rank and that's bull$#!7. They even have a unit affiliation symbol on the upper left of their uniforms, not unlike Star Trek. Each different culture on every planet also has a different planetary symbol. These are details I like. Now my big complaint I've seen throughout the series: rockets can only carry about a dozen people, yet we haven't seen a planet (except Ankapore) with more than a few people. It is so easy for the bad guys (pirates or Ophiuchians) to take over a space station or a planet with one rocket and some ray guns. This is so unrealistic, yet the writers kept moving forward as if nothing is wrong with the plot. Don't get me wrong, I still like the show.

The Comet into Space Experiment

April, 1954, gave us four more Rocky Jones, Space Ranger episodes. The writers of this show are about as far from scientific accuracy as you can get. I suppose I can't blame them, because everything they're writing about is almost unknown or just speculative. This is an era where we still thought there could have been intelligent life on Mars, because those canals had to be built by someone. Right? Today we, non-scientist and non-astronomers, have access to the accumulated knowledge of half-a-century since the show aired. Then again, if this is the kind of stuff networks were showing kids then it's no wonder Sci-Fi has been looked down upon for so long. It took 2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Wars and Alien to show the true potential for the genre. As much as I complain I still like watching Rocky Jones, because every once in a while they have a good idea.

Bobby's Comet, part I- There is so much wrong with the premise of this episode I'll try to be brief. Missiles from an unknown source in space land on Earth, one near Newton's Observatory (which looks suspiciously like Griffith Observatory). Rocky and Winky are out on their own looking for Griff, even though we all saw his car explode in Behind the Curtain of Space, part III, he may have lived. Rocky is recalled to face this new menace. It is explained by Vena that by back tracking the ellipses (their word for "orbit") of the missiles they originate on Fornax, a moon of Jupiter. This is surprising because their current science says there's no life on that moon. They begin to describe a world that actually sounds like Io, but with a people adept at using crystal technology (sadly not in the way of Kryptonian tech). The Space Ranger fleet is alerted to the new threat, but on one of the stations Griff is in fact alive and holding the one crew member at gun point. He learns Rocky is planning a trip to Fornax and leaves to intercept him. The Orbit Jet crew assembles and boards, taking all the main characters. After clearing Earth orbit Griff attacks them (because nobody but Vena ever looks at a RADAR); Rocky manages to cripple his engines. But they wasted a lot of fuel in the fight, so they have three options; go back to Earth and refuel, go to station RV5 for fuel, or just go there and hope they find a civilization advanced enough to give them fuel. They unanimously choose the latter. It makes for a better cliffhanger I guess. They arrive and find a place to land on the planet near some artificial structures, burning their remaining fuel on a moon with twice Earth gravity. TO BE CONTINUED. Just a thought; wouldn't it have been faster to send someone already in space, then going through the time and expense of launching from Earth? Things wrong with science: Newton gets meteors and comets confused, as well as not really caring that one is about to hit the Earth; Rocky does a 180 degree turn with the Orbit Jet and flies through its own sound wave to wake up a napping Winky (What?). To be fair, he was flying in what looked like atmosphere, but he was supposed to be in space; There is no such moon as Fornax anywhere, it's a constellation; There is never an attempt by the crew to wear a space suit while on board, Professor Newton even wears a top hat; The launch of the Orbit Jet has to be pull more g's to get to Jupiter in one go, but the crew blacks-out at just over 4g's. The average human blacks-out at over 5g's, but if only the crew would at least put a G-Suit on they could go up to 9g's. If you are lying on your back during a rocket launch you can handle up to 17g's without losing consciousness. Winky almost kills everyone because the Orbit Jet has an auto-pilot lift-off routine, which he accidentally turns off when he blacks-out, wakes up, then blacks-out again; The Office of Space Affairs has a map of the solar system that is just a non-moving picture on the wall, yet they plan all their navigation routes from it, like the solar system isn't in motion; Since they run their rockets during the entire mission wasting fuel anyway, there is no reason for a such a dramatic blast-off.

Bobby's Comet, part II- On the surface of Fornax we see a new piece of tech, the Mechanical Canary. I assume the name is meant to reference the use of a canary in a coal mine as an early warning of bad air. The Mechanical Canary is an atmospheric sensor suite that deploys from the side of the ship. The data is relayed to a panel on the Bridge near the door. From the visiograph they see strange pyramidal shaped buildings. The atmosphere is breathable so they all take a walk to the first pyramid with a door in it. The door opens and out comes Zoravac, leader of the Fornaxians, and an old rival of Newton, Professor Cardos. Zoravac has been hosting Cardos on the moon for eight years since he crashed landed, and gets all of his knowledge of the United Worlds from him. Zoravac even claims the only way to get the attention of Earth was to shoot a missile at it, I'm guessing because the Space Ranger radio system doesn't extend to Jupiter orbit. Everyone seems friendly but Rocky takes Winky back to the ship. Using the visiograph he spies on everyone, with an X-Ray vision setting that also includes audio, they watch Vena try out some local fashions and catches Cardos hatching a plan with Zoravac. Rocky and Winky head back the pyramid and get in a fight while overhearing Cardos' plans. Zoravac has been lead to believe humans from Earth are evil and want war, but Rocky's offer of friendship intrigues him, so he shares the fuel system they use on their missiles to help get the Orbit Jet back into space. The test flight works and Rocky takes Winky and Zoravac to Earth, leaving Vena, Newton and Bobby on Fornax. TO BE CONTINUED. More bad science, but at least a visually interesting moon. Fornax has twice Earth gravity (in other words 2g's) but the only effect on the main characters is getting out of breath while running around. Rocky makes an insulting joke to Vena that she's putting on weight and to go check on the cargo scales. She's shocked to find out she weighs 236 pounds. Then they laugh at her. All of them should feel heavy, but they don't. The three rooms are laid out along the length of the rocket, but even when it's vertical the room's gravity always points toward the deck plating. So artificial gravity must be on at all times or everyone would fall to the back of the rocket. But then, while vertical on Fornax, Vena weighs herself, which doesn't work either. The only way I can justify this is to say the interior is actually gyroscopically balanced for gravitational environments and rotates around the middle room where the "airlock" is. Artificial gravity must only be used for space.

Bobby's Comet, part III- The Orbit Jet makes it to Earth and Zoravac meets with Secretary Drake. On Ophiuchus, Cleolanthe meets with Darganto, her right-hand man, and Griff about Fornax and the power their crystals hold. They want to get their own ship there and plant a flag before the United Worlds can. With the Fornaxian leader on Earth, Darganto's crew, including Griff, land on Fornax and take it over. Cardos sees an opportunity and joins the invading force (totally about half a dozen). Bobby has been hanging out with Zoravac's daughter, Volaca, and since the Ophiuchians didn't lock up the Space Rangers, he realizes they'll ignore a couple kids running around. A deal has been made on Earth, so Rocky and Winky launch in the Orbit Jet to deal with a new missile threat before taking Zoravac home. Meanwhile, Bobby manages to grab their portable astrophone (which is a real-time, wireless space communication system) and hide out with Volaca. He calls Rocky to warn him what's transpiring on Fornax. The Ophiuchians finish loading power crystals on their ship, the WOV, when the Orbit Jet enters the atmosphere and shoots at it. The crystals are unstable and blowup the ship, killing all bad guys, except Darganto, Griff and Cardos. Once Rocky lands he takes them all captive and leaves Fornax with all the main characters on board (and I assume the prisoners). THE END. I wish the show had more budget so we could see more of the alien civilizations and maybe aliens that aren't human.

Escape into Space- This one has a promising start but descends into stupidity really quick. Truck Harmon, an Earth criminal, and his accomplice, Lawson, escape into space by stealing rocket R74 in front of the Office of Space Affairs. When Secretary Drake calls Rocky and Winky at home, the latter is going through his black book looking for a date. Eventually Drake gets through and tells Rocky what's up. This is his chance to catch Harmon, because running away into space puts him in Space Ranger jurisdiction. But the Orbit Jet is being repaired and upgraded, so it won't be ready until noon the next day. The next day they chase Truck to Fornax, but first, both ships get caught in a meteor storm. Harmon calls for help and locks Lawson in a damaged part of the ship where he suffocates to death. Rocky breaks more laws of science and gets Truck aboard the Orbit Jet. For some reason the closest place to land turns out to be Fornax. When they get there Rocky has a meeting with Zoravac and makes up a whole bunch of shazbot about losing custody of Harmon due to local laws. Bobby forced himself into the crew rotation just in case he could meet his new girlfriend from the last couple episodes, Volaca. Some time has passed since the last episode because the Fornax people actually had a Christmas to correspond to the Earth calendar, and now Bobby tells Volaca it's October. Fornax is really drinking the Earth Kool-Aid. Since it's near Halloween, Bobby teachers her about ghosts and scaring people, when Rocky remembers Harmon is superstitious. In the dumbest thing I've scene yet in the show Rocky takes a remote control ghost toy from Volaca and proceeds to fly it around Harmon, all the while hiding in the background, pretending to be the voice of Lawson. And it works, Harmon confesses. Rocky arrests them and they leave for Earth. THE END. One of a very few stand-alone episodes. I like the Fornax continuity and that's about it. There is no big deal now about launching from Earth to Fornax, which I assume is part of the crystal tech upgrade all Space Ranger rockets would get in the new treaty from last episode. Here is my big science complaint for the episode. Even though all rockets in the show have an external hatch there is no way for one ship to dock with another. For Rocky to get to Harmon in the R74, he magnetically clamps to the ship so his engine room hull touches the navigation room hull of the other. He then dons an actual spacesuit and proceeds to blowtorch a hole, first in the Orbit Jet's hull, then into R74's hull. Once he crosses through he has Winky vent all the atmosphere from Orbit Jet's nav room into its engine room to force air into R74's nav room. Once he grabs Harmon and all the money he's stolen in his career (leaving the dead body of Lawson), they cross back over to the Orbit Jet and Rocky has to re-weld the hull. That's how dumb this episode is.

I have mentioned before that some characters on different planets seem to drive the same car. I think there is only one car model left in the future that everyone (even aliens) drive, and it is a 1953 Grantham Stardust. There must be weather modification technology on all these planets because that car is a convertible.

The Beyond the Lagoon Whistling Around Rocky's Experiment

Today's blog post is all about March, 1954. The Adventures of Superman ends season two (with two episodes), and Rocky Jones, Space Ranger becomes the new series to watch (with five episodes). Superman won't be back for season three until over a year later in 1955. By then it will be in color. One of the rules of this blog I have mentioned in the past isn't just about watching a TV series but doing it in chronological order, by air date. This doesn't necessarily synchronize with episode production, but most TV at the time was stand-alone, anyway, with a status quo being met by the end. In other words, it doesn't matter what order you see it in. Rocky Jones did have a sense of production continuity as characters came and went and plots ebbed and flowed. However, by the air dates established on Wikipedia they were first broadcast out of order. This may not matter in the long run but I wanted to come clean in case any reader sees a chronology and wonders why I'm not watching it in that order. Did I forget to mention Creature from the Black Lagoon was released in theaters during the first week of March? It's a monster movie, so it counts as Sci-Fi.

Beyond the Curtain of Space, part II- Rocky Jones and friends leave fuel station RV5 fully repaired and enter the Ophiuchus system to fake an SOS, so they can land and find Professor Newton (and Bobby). After Winky trashes the starboard engine they land and are greeted by Cleolanthe, the Suzerain of Ophiuchus (oh-FEE-shus). She has secretly brain washed Newton to get something out of him, as well as threatened bodily harm to Bobby and a good brainwashing. Cleolanthe allows Rocky and Winky to see their friends so they'll be convinced they want to stay. None of the Space Rangers buys it, so Rocky takes Bobby back the Orbit Jet to shake him out of it. Bobby wants nothing to do with them and leaves with Vena. On the way back to Newton, Bobby snaps out of it and needs to talk to Rocky. Cleolanthe has another meeting with Rocky because the brain washing memory messer-upper machine is in her office. He tries to use it but Vena interrupts and Rocky runs out. He beats up all the guards, and learns from one of them the name of the person in the Space Rangers who ratted them out. Rocky then gets Newton, Bobby and Vena to the Orbit Jet and blasts off back to Earth, but doesn't think they're in the clear. TO BE CONTINUED. We see ray guns that aren't fired and the brain washing machine is a globe on the wall that glows. There is a nice touch that some characters speak Ophiuchian and they need Vena to translate, but for the most part, they also speak English. The Office of Space Affairs classifies the region as the Ophiuchus Formation, where ship communications are lost. This effect is referred to as going "through the curtain". The operation to rescue Professor Newton is called Haystack, and encrypted communications between space stations and Earth Headquarters are done by ticker-tape. Commander Drake is the head of Space Affairs.. I wish this show would better explain the locations of all these systems, but I like the space opera. Also, you don't need to keep burning rocket fuel once you're in space. The writers didn't think about momentum and inertia. I like the design for station RV5, it is a spinning ring (for artificial gravity) with an axial docking port for two rockets.

Creature from the Black Lagoon- An expedition in the Amazon, led by Dr. Maia, uncovers a fossil of a clawed hand from the Devonian period. Something that points to a link between sea and land creatures. Maia heads back to civilization, leaving behind someone to watch the dig site. At a marine biology institute he is able to drum up interest for a second expedition to look for the rest of the skeleton. With lots of talk about what humanity could learn from studying evolution like this the new expedition is green lit. They new group boards the Rita, headed for the Amazon. When they arrive on site, the man left behind has been killed by something with big with claws. They spend time digging in the rock face but find nothing more. The group is about to head back when the ship's captain, Lucas, says there's a body of water in the area, known as the Black Lagoon, where they might find more evidence of fossils on the bottom. Over the next couple days of diving, collecting and analyzing, the group encounters a new humanoid aquatic creature that can breath underwater and on land. It is highly aggressive, but curious about the one woman they brought, Kay. To defend themselves against what they call the gill-man, Lucas offers up some poison, Rotenone, he uses to fish. It has little effect on the gill-man but paralyzes all the fish. After loosing a few people, they capture the gill-man, but it escapes, so the group tries to leave the lagoon. They find a large tree has been dropped across the only exit. They have a winch system to move the log, but the gill-man sabotages every attempt. Armed with spear guns the group chases it into an underwater lair (with a cave leading to the surface). Finally the gill-man captures Kay and the remaining members of the group chase it back to the lair and shoot it. Wounded, the gill-man crawls back to the lagoon and sinks to the inky bottom.

A much better movie than I remember (and streaming in HD on Netflix). Not much Sci-Fi other than a half-billion year-old humanoid species still living in an uncharted part of the world. The implication being that evolution stopped with the fully amphibious gill-man species (a Devonian?) and the one in this movie is the last of its kind. Maybe it was looking for a mate? It has a huge healing factor, as it is able to heal from two spear gun wounds, at least three exposures to Rotenone, and being lit on fire. It takes a number of bullet wounds, including one in the head, to make it run off, where it sinks into the lagoon, presumable dead. It only clawed the crap out of one person, everyone else it basically choked out. Filmed very well above water, sometimes the underwater scenes get murky and boring. The gill-man suit underwater, though, is amazing. I was absorbed just watching it move. The best moment of this movie is when Kay takes a swim in the lagoon and the gill-man follows her. It swims underneath her just watching, then careful tries to touch her. Following that she gets back aboard the Rita, and the gill-man (in pursuit) gets caught in a fishing net. The whole boat rocks and creaks as they try to reel it in, but it escapes leaving a piece of it behind. An impressive moments that were made ten times more terrifying in Jaws.

The Whistling Bird- Professor Quinn, from The Machine That Could Plot Crimes, is back with a new invention. He is still stupidly absent minded, but aware that some people might want his formula for a new kind of flavored stamp glue. This is something that Willie Wonka might want, but not international governments. Even though the formula is supposed to be a secret, Nancy, his niece, tells Clark and Jimmy to come over and witness the first test. At the lab Quinn tells Clark someone stole a copy of the formula but he left out a key ingredient that he taught to Skylar the parakeet. When he rings a bell Skylar quotes a needed part. Quinn has Clark test a stamp by licking it, which Clark claims tastes good, but when he slams (super-slams) it on an envelope it explodes violently destroying the lab, tossing everyone around but leaving them unhurt. I'm guess Clark absorbed most the blast. Quinn declares the formula a failure, but Clark says he's contacting the government to classify the new explosive. This is what the bad guys really want, but how did they know the formula would turn out to be explosive (bad writing I say)? By the way, I hate the Quinn character, mainly because he's written for kids but everyone in the story takes him seriously. Jimmy takes a group photo, and later back at The Daily Planet, develops it to find people looking in a window. Clark knows these are the bad guys, but where to ind them. Quinn takes Skylar for a walk and meets a lady who takes an interest in the bird. Clark comes along and distracts Quinn, while the lady swaps Skylar for another parakeet. The bad guys don't know how to make Skylar talk so they head back to Quinn's lab. There they learn about the bell, get the formula and lock Quinn, Nancy and Jimmy in a secret lead-lined room (a Gamma Radiation test chamber) to suffocate in an hour. Jimmy uses a match to set off the fire alarm, but the room being air-tight begins to flood. Superman flies in and saves them by going through the ceiling (it seems the lead in the room had no effect on the plot). Quinn realizes his formula is unstable and will explode on its own, so Superman drinks it. Skylar then says "El Dorado" which means the bad guys ran to a ghost town upstate. Superman flies up there, finds the bad guys, rescues them as their hideout explodes, and then has them arrested. In the end Skylar is brought into Clark's office and the bird calls him Superman. kind of a dumb episode, with a dumb character, but the bad guys were all right.

Beyond the Curtain of Space, part III- Rocky Jones is escaping the Ophiuchus Formation, but Cleolanthe hits them with a long range magnetic weapon to scramble their controls, aiming them at an unseen moon. They decide to save energy (I think) by turning off their viewer. Lena is ordered to take care of Professor Newton and Bobby as well as take a log entry about the traitor, Griff, in the Office of Space Affairs. I don't now how Rocky is the best Space Ranger because he treats Vena like a piece of meat and almost fails to notice they're going to hit a moon. Anyway, they don't crash, and Vena gets some praise for saving them. Cleolanthe fails to get them before the XV2, aka Orbit Jet, gets to station RV5. They send a fake message to Earth to lull the traitor into a false sense of security. But an Ophiuchian ship (WOA or WAO or something) warns Griff who takes Secretary Drake hostage and plans to blow up the landing platform. The Orbit Jet lands, some people get in a fist fight, and Rocky saves the day. In fact, he saves the day by hitting the self destruct of Drake's official government car and killing Griff. THE END. The SOP for flying in space is really shoddy. I don't know how Rocky Jones has lasted as long as he has. He reminds me of Zapp Brannigan from Futurama (or the other way around). Drake has his own official car which looks exactly like the official Ophiuchian capitol car. It must be an Earth import. The show continues to make a point that Vena is a girl who doesn't belong in space and she fights for her role every time. The exterior of the landing pad on Earth appears to be power plant, which works for the look of the show. You can definitely see the Sci-Fi movie serial roots in this series. I still like the show for some reason.

Around the World with Superman- This has to be my least favorite episode to date. It's a real kid-oriented story about a blind girl who wants her parents back together. The Daily Planet is holding a contest where the best letter written from a child, on why he/she should fly around the world with Superman, will win. This little girl is blind and wants her mom to go around the world. She doesn't believe in Superman, but she thinks it's okay for her mom to fly. Ridiculous. Plus, that's outside of the rules and the mom flips out over all the publicity. Other papers, like The Blade, get wind of the little girl, so Perry White is forced to write an article about the winning entry (including name and address), or lose the news race. Clark is obsessed with helping her out and goes so far as to have Lois distract the mom while he X-Ray scans her optic nerve. You see, she's blind because her dad had an accident and she was hurt. The dad took it bad and left the family, going so far as harassing the mom with a lawyer (which she runs from). This character drama is so forced and doesn't make sense under analysis. Anyway, Superman sees a shard of glass on her optic nerve and takes her to a hospital for an operation, staying in the operating room to guide the doctor. It works, and the only interesting part happens when we actually see Superman fly around the world in two hours. He hits the hot spots of London, Paris, Vienna, a random middle-eastern desert, the Himalayas, Japan, San Francisco, the Grand Canyon and back to Metropolis. Let's do the math. He never landed once, but stayed low enough for her to breath. The Earth is almost 8,000 miles in diameter. He had to be going roughly 4,000mph (or the Hypersonic speed of Mach 6). And he went all over the place making his trip longer. He must have some kind of friction barrier around him that protects the girl. The writers were trying to pull at heart-strings and it just comes of as schmaltzy, which was probably the intention.

Rocky's Odyssey, part I- Lot's of Sci-Fi stuff in this one and not a lot that makes sense. The Orbit Jet, with Rocky, Winky, Vena, Professor Newton and Bobby, encounter an atmosphere in space with a lightning storm. No planet detected just atmosphere. Rocky goes out on a limb using science and supposes that there are two Gypsy Moons (I think he means planets, not moons, without a star to orbit), and were once much closer, sharing an atmosphere. They have since drifted part but an Atmosphere Chain still connects them. Newton agrees when they are attacked by an airplane. Instead of shooting them down Rocky has the Orbit Jet leave the atmosphere for space. The airplane can't follow and heads back to a moon. Bobby, who is forced to read The Odyssey, says they have to explore and be just like Ulysses. Rocky agrees and upon attempting to land are forced down outside a walled city, by a magnetic beam that won't allow them to leave. Several indigenous people board the Orbit Jet, and through the use of a ticker-tape translator (and Vena, too) they are able to learn each others' language. The moon is called Posita and they are at war with another moon, Negato. The two people Rocky and Vena happen to be talking to are King Bovaro and his Queen Cotanda. Bovaro demands they carry a doomsday bomb that will destroy Negato because the Orbit Jet can use it successfully from space; something neither of these peoples can do. They take Vena prisoner and exile the rest to the hills until they agree. Winky fires several rockets at the city walls with no effect. Bobby explains to Rocky the point of the Trojan Horse, so everyone leaves, Bovaro thinks no one is aboard, and Rocky and Winky sneak back in their ship. Sure enough Bovaro has the Orbit Jet moved into the city and the Rocky/Winky duo save Vena. TO BE CONTINUED. Science is so bad here but you kind of get caught up in the action. The fist fights are epic. I also like the name of the main screen, the Visiograph. They appear to have moved the RADAR to the Bridge finally. Did I mention before that the Orbit Jet has wings for atmospheric travel?

Rocky's Odyssey, part II- Something went screwy with the plot between last episode and this one so I'll skip it. Apparently they've been gone so long search parties have given up, having been declared dead. Secretary Drak makes a system-wide speech to this effect; even Cleolanthe hears it. Meanwhile, Rocky has everyone aboard the Orbit Jet, but can't take off because of the magnetic beam on top of damage to the electric parts of the engine. Bovaro offers to fix it if only Rocky will destroy Negato. It seems there used to be a single planet, named Electro, but once the people (Electronians?) harnessed electricity something went wrong and the planet split in two, becomin the moons, Posita and Negato. Strangely an airplane very similar in design to the Posita airplane from last episode broadcasts some bizarre music. Bozaro takes over the Orbit Jet long enough to shoot it down, then explains the music drains a man's soul and will to fight or some crap. Rocky accepts Bozaro's offer to fix the Orbit Jet but only if he has the chance to negotiate peace between the two people and get them to join the United Worlds of the Solar System. Bozaro agrees and the Orbit Jet heads to Negato. It also has a walled city exactly like Posita. (Get it positive and negative?). During the trip Bobby explains the part of The Odyssey where Ulysses meets the Sirens. He stuffs cotton in the ears of his men to protect them. Rocky devises the space solution by using their space helmets with the audio cord pulled out, except Rocky who for some reason wants to hear. As soon as they step outside the Orbit Jet, Rocky loses his mind and runs aimlessly all over the city to a woman standing on a roof top. Winky, Vena, Newton and Bobby chase him down and pull his audio cord. Then they grab a guy standing outside the gates and kidnap him back to the ship. Once free of the Negato Music he agrees to a peace between the people. Bobby also points out in his book that while Ulysses is away from home people take advantage of his absence. To mirror this Cleolanthe makes a soundboard of Rocky Jones catch phrases to use against the United Worlds. TO BE CONTINUED. It bugs me Rocky has the smartest scientist in the United Words on board and he never asks him to help in any situation. Maybe the scientist can figure out how to break a magnetic tractor beam, or how the Negato Music works. Rocky just comes up with ideas and Newton agrees with him. The writers named him NEWTON; he's supposed to be smart!

Rocky's Odyssey, part III- To finish out The Odyssey metaphor, Rocky must contend with coming home and the plots revolving around his absence. Once the Orbit Jet makes it into United World space they pick up a false message of Rocky Jones (being broadcast by Cleolanthe) asking Secretary Drake to attend a fake summit at the free moon Ankapore. Rocky can't break through the transmission so he takes Bobby's suggestion from The Odyssey again, head to the planet disguised as beggars and get close enough to Drake to save him. They all arrive at Ankapore; Rocky and friends as beggars, Cleolanthe and Atlasande as Vena and Rocky respectively, Drake and Higgins as themselves. Cleolanthe has a plan to use her brain-washing machine on Drake. This will make him pliable enough to agree to release several United Worlds planets to the Ophiuchians. Rocky and friends spend some time getting close to Higgens in the market square and bring him up to speed. Very quickly Rocky is able to tip the tide in his favor and save Drake. After Rocky beats up all the Ophiuchians it isn't clear what happens to Cleolanthe. Winky is happy that they survived their adventure just like Ulysses. But Bobby reminds him that everyone except Ulysses died in the book, so Winky shuts up. This is my favorite episode of the day. It was far clearer and didn't rely on bad science. THE END.