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.

The Project Doom Squeeze Experiment

September 1953 saw the return of The Adventures of Superman. But, before Season 2 began airing an odd Sci-Fi movie hit theaters at the beginning of the month that was based on a story by Robert Heinlein, Project Moonbase. He previously worked on a 1950 George Pal movie, Destination Moon, as a technical adviser and wrote some of the script. It was the first Hollywood movie to try to be scientifically accurate about going to space and the moon; a fun movie to watch. This is in complete contrast to Project Moonbase, where the technology is handled a little better than the characters, which aren't written for anybody.

Project Moonbase- It is the future of 1970 (September to be more precise) and the United States wants a moon base. A space station already exists in orbit as a launch bed for future lunar activities. But the "enemies of freedom" sneak a mole on board the mission. The three to make the historic first orbit of the moon is Major Moore, Dr. Wernher (the aforementioned mole) and Colonel "Bright Eyes" Briteis, a woman. Everything goes smoothly to the space station, but once the three board Magellan, their lunar orbiter, Wernher sabotages the mission. This forces Briteis to land on the moon to save everyone. Wernher admits he was under duress and wants to help now, so he and Moore moon walk to put an antenna on a ridge (because she landed them in a crater). Wernher dies on the mission, Moore makes it back and communications with Spacom (Space Command I assume) is restored. It is decided that the impromptu landing zone will make a perfect first moon base. General Greene, in charge of the mission, orders the two to marry so they can live on the moon without upsetting Americans, and most especially the US President who is also a woman.

Since it is 17 years in the future all communication devices will have a single antenna with a round double-ring on top. There appears to be no hippies or disco, but rockets are squat short designs that blast off to a disc-shaped space station about 350 feet in diameter. They do handle zero-G by telling us the characters are wearing magnetic shoes, and use a couple scenes with people walking on the walls and ceiling to sell it to the audience. I am assuming the film-makers couldn't figure out what to do with zero-G hair so they put shower caps of the future on all the actors.

The Magellan pod, which actually looks like the lunar lander we will use in 1969 (so this movie was only about a year off), has some interesting features. Inertia once again is handled poorly, but a wall of lights and a dial shows how many G's the astronauts are pulling during any acceleration. The bank of lights are numbered 1 thru 21 and I have no idea what they represent but they tell the pilot something. Everyone lays down in a hammock with controls and a lap belt to hold you in place. Not bad, but not realistic. For actual navigation a series of reel-to-reel tapes run through a computer, which is the auto-pilot. There is also a main view screen, a giant dial that measures the day and date, some lights indicating what the view screen is looking at and some kind of compass dial also related to the view screen. There is a lower level that houses supplies and a gondola that one sits in while it lowers you to the ground. To get to the space station we see two rockets, named Canada and Mexico. The three main characters fly in the Mexico, which has the same interior as Magellan, but to board it there is a lift built into the fin to take you to the flight deck. The space station (with the letters USSF on the side) has four docking ports equidistant around the edge that rockets shove their noses into. Those are the interesting parts of the movie.

This is the '50s and the characters are written as sexist as possible. Colonel Briteis got her rank for being the first human in space or something. Major Moore, her co-pilot for this historic mission, refuses to fly with her. We learn by the end that he's her ex-boyfriend and he hates that she out-ranks him. Almost everyone in the movie talks to Briteis like a child. At the tail end of the movie when Briteis and Moore are about to live on the moon for weeks, they are ordered to be married, because Spacom can't have them living together for weeks unmarried. There is no attempt to make sense of this, as Briteis, who is a fairly demanding pilot, suddenly wants to be married as if this is the only hope for her future. Then Moore is promoted straight to General so he can out-ran her. I know that in the '50s women's rights were almost non-existent, but no one looked at Lois Lane who is practically a poster child for "women's lib". It took World War II to put women in the working world in a vast enough scale to make a difference. Project Moonbase sets women back about a century. But that is a modern interpretation and I'm over-simplifying matters. This is supposed to be Science-Fiction where writers get to express progressive ideas, just not in this movie. At least we all have Star Trek.

Five Minutes to Doom- Lois (played by a new actress Noel Neill, who in fact played Lois in the serials) and Clark believe a man on death row to be innocent, and spend his final hours trying to prove it. Fairly straight forward but some shortcuts were made in the story telling. The man on death row is a construction site concrete inspector who is framed for murdering the foreman because he was about to expose a conspiracy to use poor steel construction on an overpass. There is no explanation how the owner of the construction company, Mr. Wayne, would benefit from murdering people, but neither does his secretary who eventually flips states evidence on him. Oddly we are never told what state Metropolis is in, but the governor's mansion is located up north in State City. These writers aren't even trying to make sense. The highlight of the episode is a hitman who tries to blow up the car Lois and Clark are in. He realizes this, grabs the bomb, and dives out of a moving car into a ditch as it explodes. Half is suit is ripped and you can see the Supersuit underneath. Luckily he covered up with a spare trench coat. Lois never asked how Clark survived jumping out of a speeding car hugging two sticks of dynamite in a lunch box.

The Big Squeeze- Someone on the writing staff must be a Batman fan. The last episode had a character named Wayne, and this one has a character named Grayson. Dan Grayson is an ex-con working at the Metropolis Furrier. Clark Kent has been tasked with coming up for the Citizen of the Year award and wants to give it to Grayson, without knowing his past. Not even his wife and kid know. But some shady dude, Luke Maynard, from the past blackmails him with a threat to expose him as an ex-con, and hurt his family. Clark knows something fishy is going on and figures out Grayson is being coerced. It all ends with Grayson being held at gunpoint in a cave and Superman must rescue him. Then Clark gets to share a life lesson on TV that being an ex-con means you've paid your debt to society and shouldn't be prejudiced against. Superman does a couple cool things in this episode. He rips a vault door off a wall and punches his way through a mountain to save Grayson in a cave. What's interesting is the blackmailer knows that Superman can't use X-Ray vision to see through lead, so he had a special lead-lined cave constructed. But as we learn, Superman can hear through lead just fine. How did Luke figure out this one limitation of Superman?

With season 2 a few things have changed. Perry White is on a tear about being called Chief, especially to Jimmy Olsen. Maybe it gives him bad memories of World War II. Jimmy got a haircut and does more slapstick idiotic things for the kids. The biggest thing of all is Lois Lane. Phyllis Coats couldn't continue to play Lois Lane so they cast Noel Neill. There is also some retooling of the opening credits.

The War of the Worlds Experiment

In August of 1953 the first and best film version of one of the most famous Sci-Fi books ever written showed in theaters. War of the Worlds is by far "the" definitive alien invasion story. It doesn't much matter that we know Martians aren't going to attack us. If anyone in Hollywood is going to tell any kind of invasion story it will be held up to this movie. Without it Independence Day would never have been made, and that movie is the closest to the impact and emotion of what people must have felt in 1953. The best of Science Fiction should challenge how we think, scare us just a little (or a lot), and probably teach the audience something we never thought possible. This story is so well known I'm not going to dwell too much on the plot.

Martians attack the Earth, using meteors for cover. Slowly the world governments begin to respond and no one, not even the US Marine Corps can put up a fight. In the middle of this are two scientists, Dr. Clayton Forrester and Sylvia Van Buren, that spend much of the movie either advising the military, or trapped "behind enemy lines". After the final strategy of dropping an atom bomb, ten times as powerful as the two used in World War II, fails, all cities that have not already been destroyed are ordered evacuated. This includes Los Angeles, where a group of scientists from Pacific Tech have been busy trying to find a weakness in the Martians or their technology. Once the evacuation order is called, they are to head for the Rocky Mountains. When this plan fails due to rioters, everyone heads to church to prey for the end or a miracle. At the last moment all the Martian ships crash to the ground and are defeated by the microbes in the air that all life on Earth has become immune to over thousands of millennia.

Most Sci-Fi movies of the '50s all seem to think we need a narrator to tell us what's going on. I don't always agree with this because it can be used as a crutch for bad writing. Not for the opening of War of the Worlds. The narration actually explains the thought processes of the Martians as they decide to leave their dying world and head to Earth. Along with this is gorgeous space art showing (not always) accurate pictures of all the planets but Venus. The movie feels more modern for it and the fact this was all done by Bonestell, the most influential space artist of all time, goes a long way in showing how careful George Pal was in making this movie. There's even a bar named after him in Star Trek: The Next Generation.

War of the Worlds has fantastic alien tech. The Martian Tripod is about the only piece of tech we get to see, but boy does it have a lot. The eye-stalk is a nightmarish periscope that doubles as a heat ray, and the fins on the side each fire some green stuff that is just as deadly. They don't fly so much as hover, and you can see what appears to be three static-distorted beams underneath. For protection they have an electric shield of some sort that can withstand an atom bomb. Dr. Forrester even mentioned he thought their power source was an unshielded nuclear engine, accounting for all the radiation detected early on. Lastly they have another eye-stalk which comes out from the underside to scope out smaller things like the interiors of buildings. Unlike the main eye, this one sports the optic lens of the Martians themselves (a circle trisected into a Red-Green-Blue lens). I don't care if you can see strings in some of the scenes, just pretend it's part of their hover system.

There is a sound associated with most of these early Sci-Fi movies created by a Theremin. You know it when you hear it. It is so synonymous with Sci-Fi it becomes a brilliant decision not to use one for the primary sound/music of the Martians. Instead they use a sound that is still kind of terrifying today. And the use of this new sound and music elevate it way above everything that has come before (except maybe The Day the Earth Stood Still). Each element of the Tripods and even the aliens themselves have unique sound effects. You learn them quickly and it almost feels like a drum beat to the movie, rushing humanity to oblivion.

The Science part of the Science Fiction is handled very well. There is technobabble, but most if it makes sense. When the first meteor crashes in California, people start talking about why it didn't leave a bigger crater, and why is it so hot, and what about radiation. These are things that people should worry about if this really happened. The more exotic explanations have to do with the alien weapons, which Dr. Forrester says destroys the nuclear bonds within atoms that causes the target to vaporize. Visually this is done showing an inky black spot on the ground our a human outline in ash when the heat ray is fired. Once again this brings to mind Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The scientists even look at some Martian blood and start to figure out that biologically they are very primitive, but they didn't know how to use that against them, yet.

The use of the military is handled incredibly well, and any stock footage inserted looks like it was shot for the movie. Most '50s stock footage looks very grainy and doesn't visually sync well with the filmed components. Even though War of the Worlds is in color, the few times they show black & white footage of World War II it blends seamlessly. There is the famous scene of YB-49 Flying Wing headed to nuke of the Martian Tripods, that must have been stock, but it fits beautifully. All this makes the movie more believable. I want to contrast this with Invaders from Mars, where the stock footage never matched any of the filmed scenes and appeared to be used for filler.

I would say 90% of the time Sci-Fi, especially old Sci-Fi, tends to serve up humanoid alien design. I know it's cheaper to put a stuntman in a suit, but every once in a while it's nice to have something different. Because different can be scary. As weird as the monocular design of the aliens in It Came from Outer Space, it wasn't scary. In one of my favorite moments of all Science Fiction (which should also be one of the most famous), Dr. Forester and Sylvia are trapped in a farm house while Tripods are pacifying the country side and new ones are landing. Trying to get to the attic, a Martian walks up behind Sylvia and puts more terror into her than any human being deserves. It just looked at her (and put a hand on her shoulder). This alien design is so unsettling and terrifying it works beautifully. It has a strange gait, spindly arms, three fingers with suckers, no head, and a three-colored lens which glows in the chest. Presumably the chest is really the head. Dr. Forrester then picks up a 2-by-4 and whacks it in the body, which lets out a horrible scream. Growing up I wouldn't again be that scared of an alien design until I was 10 and watched John Carpenter's The Thing.

All the failed alien invasion movies should look to what War of the Worlds is and what it means. Humans are fighting for their lives, but don't win because of preserverence. An odd message at the time. I'm not sure how Spielberg's War of the Worlds failed (Okay, I know all the characters were completely unlikable), but I think it had a lot to do with not letting the audience know what happened. By the end, the tone of the movie changed to make it look like humans won, but they didn't. Skyline would have been better served if told from an entirely different perspective, or else you risk turning aliens in magical creatures that can do what they want. V and V: The Final Battle showed a convincing occupation which eventually led to a resistance that kicked the Visitors off Earth. Falling Skies fails for me because no one is trying to figure out the invaders, or even realize the human race is losing the Earth.

Of course the source material was written in 1898, but some of the best themes, ideas and stories carry on. Independence Day is the best balance of all, and the humans even manage to take back the Earth on their own terms. And, for those paying attention to Mystery Science Theater 3000, the chief mad scientist is also named Dr. Clayton Forrester.

On a side note the final four episodes of The Quatermass Experiment aired during this time on BBC, but they were never recorded and lost to the ether. Maybe, one day we can make a Faster-Than-Light ship with a big signal amplifier and recover these missing TV transmissions that are just floating in space.

The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms Experiment

Ray Bradbury's name comes up a second time in 1953, this time a movie from a Saturday Evening Post story. One month after It Came from Outer Space debuts, this movie hits theaters on June 13th. For special effects work the famous stop-motion animator Ray Harryhausen was given his first solo effort in a motion picture. Obviously his effects are rough by today's stands, but this is still cinematic gold and fun to watch.

A government test of a nuclear device in the arctic (strangely called Operation Experiment) wakes up some kind of Dinosaur from its 100,000,000 year hibernation. An Atomic Energy Commission scientist, Tom Nesbitt, sees the monster but is injured. He is taken to New York City to recuperate, where everyone thinks he's nuts and assigns him a couple shrinks. Over a period of weeks several sightings of a sea beast attacking fishing boats and lighthouses emerges. When Nesbitt hears of this he knows it's his creature and sets about getting the head Paleontologist in New York, Professor George Ritchie, on his side. It takes some work but he finally gets the military working with him as well. The Professor shows a pattern of movement for the creature, he dubs a Rhedosaurus, and it is heading for New York City. The beast finally shows up in the harbor and smashes its way through Wall Street, destroying and killing as he goes. When the military gets involved they only wound the creature, and it runs off to hide. The population starts getting sick from some prehistoric virus which kills quickly. This precludes blowing it up so the military decides to use a radioactive shell fired from a rifle into a wound on its neck to kill it from within. The beast chooses to nest inside of a rollercoaster and the military finally hunts it down, killing it in spectacular fashion.

Almost 20 years after King Kong, this has to be the first giant reptile-like creature to stomp through New York City. There was a '40s Fleischer Superman cartoon with a resurrected T-Rex running through the city, but that was an animated Metropolis. This is a almost one-and-a-half years before the first Godzilla. Too bad this didn't spawn any sequels and become the big name its Japanese counterpart did. It would have had to have a proper name and Rhedosaurus doesn't roll off the tongue. I suppose I should nitpick the point that the Beast only woke up because the nuclear blast thawed all his ice, whereas Godzilla is a product of nuclear testing.

The Cassandra Syndrome is in full effect for most of the movie. Nesbitt spends a lot of time trying to convince people he saw something. Even the survivors of attacked fishing boats don't really believe what they see. This tends to be a source of aggravation with me as it allows the writers to drag on the story a little. In Nesbitt's case he is a sympathetic character, who is deservedly relieved when his warnings are finally acted on. There isn't any wasted time with him.

For its time the effects are remarkable effective, mixing the stop-motion scenes with live action. The best is the destruction of the lighthouse. It's not explained well in the story but a lone lighthouse in Maine is operating a fog horn. This attracts the creature because he thinks it's another of his kind. He then climbs the lighthouse to get to the sound and the light, destroying it and the people inside. The effect is great and the exploding wall as the two workers run down the spiral staircase is surprisingly real. There are also iconic scenes of people running down city streets screaming while the creature destroys buildings and stomps cars. A wall even collapses on a group of people that are believably killed.

The addition of the prehistoric germs and viruses is quite ingenious. Not something I think comes up much in Science Fiction until Jurassic Park. In this case anyone who is too close or exposed to its blood, collapse within minutes, dieing sometime after. Unfortunately we don't see a cure in the movie, but presumably after it is killed one is found. The threat of spreading disease everywhere stops the Army from just blowing it up, claiming it would send disease particles everywhere. Strangely they also say you can't burn it because the germs would travel through the smoke into the atmosphere. I don't think that's how it works, but it allows them to use a sniper to use a special one-of-a-kind radioactive bullet.

Dramatically from atop a roller coaster the sniper, Corporal Stone, fires it through a previous wound and the beast dies minutes later. If the bullet was that radioactive it would have killed Stone well before he pulled the trigger. In all the movies I've watched in 1953 the writers really don't have a clear understanding of radiation (probably not their fault), and this movie is no exception. But then everyone smokes in almost every scene of these movies so who am I to judge how the characters react to radiation. And it should be pointed out that Corporal Stone was played by Lee Van Cleef, very young and less than a year after his debut movie High Noon.

The Phantom from Outer Space Experiment

May of 1953 offered up two Sci-Fi movies of interest; Phantom from Space and It Came from Outer Space. The latter is known for being Universals first film shot in 3-D. This makes three "infiltration" movies to come out in a two month period. As opposed to an alien invasion film, all these movies are about alien(s) coming to Earth; their goal to wreak havoc and/or hide. Prior to this we would have seen both The Thing from another World and The Day the Earth Stood Still, which are also single entities coming to Earth for one reason or another. This Sci-Fi plot isn't used as much anymore. Hollywood has gone for the more elaborate and visually awe-inspiring alien invasion stories of Independence Day and Battle: Los Angeles, but I do like the smaller-scale unsettling elements of the "infiltration" plot. There's enough exposition out there about Cold War fears influencing the movie going experience that I'm not going to get into it.

Phantom from Space- During an overly narrated sequence of military stock footage it is explained a glowing, potato chip-looking UFO entered Earth atmosphere and disappeared over Los Angeles. The Federal Communication Commission (FCC) is then dispatched to locate the source of radio wave disturbances in the area. A couple murders occur during this time (and a fire at an oil refinery) that puts a police detective into the middle of this. The FCC and the police go to Griffith Institute (filmed at Griffith Observatory) to talk to a scientist. The military is present and they finally compare notes and realize there's a connection between the UFO and the murderer/saboteur. Using science they trap it in a construction site but lose the trail when it takes off its space suit revealing it is invisible (hence the name Phantom in the title). The movie really slows down from here, but the main characters take the space suit back to the Griffith Institute and study it to determine what kind of alien could wear it. The Phantom follows them by riding in one of their cars. It repeated tries to communicate, abduct, run away, and take its suit back. Eventually they learn how to expose it using an unnamed light source and trap it on the observatory telescope, where it runs out of air (it has been holding its breath for hours) and falls to his death. Earth is safe again.

There are problems with this story, mainly dealing with the pacing and the science. I give great bonus points to sitting around about 20% of the movie to figure out what's going on. By looking at footprints, an exposed hand, the air in the helmet tanks, radiation from the suit, attempts at communication, and motives for the murders, the main characters were able to figure a lot out about the creature. It breathes an unknown gas mixed with methane, has a slow metabolism, can hold its breath for long periods of time, technologically more advanced (that's a gimme), can withstand large amounts of radiation, and uses silicate instead of carbon in its cell structure. That latter point leads it to be invisible, but the science is pretty bad. Since silicates are found in glass, when its skin mixes with Earth air and light it is rendered invisible. When it is finally exposed it looks a lot like Abin Sur from the new Green Lantern.

One of my pet peeves in story-telling is letting the audience know the mystery well before the characters. It makes them look incompetent. Of course everything is related, but it took halfway through the movie for anyone to figure this out. But to counter that, there's a lady chemist who was instrumental in communicating with it and few other key observations. She told her husband to go do the grocery shopping while she worked to save the world. That's good use of a female character in the '50s. She also had a dog, named Venus, who could track the invisible Phantom but every character failed to notice this. On a side note I like the old Woodies from the FCC with a giant antenna on the top. It's a little less than a mediocre movie.

It Came from Outer Space- I have always liked how early Sci-Fi movie titles have to explain things you're going to find out anyway. (i.e. The Thing from another World, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, Conquest of Space). This is a highly recommended movie and one that takes the alien infiltration idea in another direction. Ray Bradbury wrote the treatment and he wanted to do something special with it. Russell Johnson (The Professor in Gilligan's Island) shows up in Sci-Fi again as a telephone lineman.

Aliens on their way to another planet crash on Earth instead, outside of Sand Rock, Arizona near the Excelsior Mine. John and Ellen, watching the stars, witness this and head out to the newly formed crater. John checks it out alone and sees an alien craft just as the loose ground collapses, burying it. Nobody believes John, but on the way back home he nearly runs over an alien who darts out in front of him like a deer. He then finds two lineman, George and Frank, tracing a weird sound through the telephone lines. Slowly it is shown people are being attacked out in the desert; three old coots at the Excelsior Mine, a scientist at the crater, the two linemen, and finally Ellen. John realizes this and, seeing Frank and George in town, corners them. They reveal themselves to be aliens in disguise and they need time to repair their ship so they can leave in peace. The rest of the movie has John working with Sheriff Warren to show him that strange happenings are going on and to just leave be. Let the aliens do their thing. Eventually Warren can't take anymore and forms a posse to hunt aliens at the old mine. John gets to the aliens first, who have decided to commit suicide rather than fight. But the aliens are open to negotiation and free all the captive humans if John can delay the angry mob just a while longer. Sheriff Warren and his posse are stopped and the aliens leave Earth, with a final message that they'll be back when we're ready to meet them.

This movie chooses a different path. The aliens just want to leave, and they have to minimize first contact. If I were in 1953 I could see being spooked. However, after having seen Alien, nothing prior to it is that scary. I think it's a good choice to have John, an astronomer that no one believes, takes a pacifistic role, trying to talk to both sides. His main motivation being to get his girlfriend back, but he starts to see a bigger picture. I like the leader of the aliens (who happens to take John's form) as he explains after a 1,000 years they build an engine for traveling to the stars and it helped them conquer space. If that were true, they wouldn't have crashed on Earth. Our planet must have been in the way and they just smacked into it. The other movie also had a ship crash, too. They said it had something to do with our magnetic fields.

There was nothing like these aliens, design-wise, prior to this, so I'm betting they were much more shocking 58 years ago. One eye around a generally fleshy and vein filled body, covered in a mop of hair (I think). Most of the time we see out of their perspective, which is used to great effect (and it must have looked great in red/blue 3D). I'm not sure why they needed people, unless they wanted hostages in case of an angry human mob. Near the end of the movie the one who took Ellen's form outright attacks John, who has done nothing but help them. He ends up having to kill her/it. Maybe that alien was just an a-hole. When he finally confronts the aliens repairing their ship, they have all taken the different forms of the hostages. Why do the aliens use technology they have to be humanoid to repair? Maybe humans make a better form? I also like the glitter path all of them leave as they wander the desert.

The special effects leave a little to be desired, but if you buy into the movie's premise than the giant round spaceship on a wire at the beginning (shown twice) can be safely ignored. It's a little late now but about 10 minutes of this movie could have been trimmed. This is a far sight better than Phantom from Space, the highlights being the dialog between John and Sheriff Warren as they both come to terms with current events, the creepy alien attack moments, and Frank the lineman talking about the signal in the wires. Two aliens do manage to die, but luckily they don't hold it against us. I'd like to see a the reverse of this movie, when humans crash on an alien world and we're the monsters. Was that Planet 51?

The Invaders From Mars Experiment

Since there aren't good records or recordings of much Science-Fiction TV of this era I have nothing to fall back on once The Adventures of Superman ended its first season run. So, I turn to the theaters. And in April of 1953 a fantastic gem shows up named Invaders from Mars. The story told from a kids perspective of an alien invasion, human mind-control, and eventual military retaliation.

Is this technically a Sci-Fi movie? It turns out by the end much of the movie was likely the dream of a child who stared at space and read comic books too much. But The Twilight Zone zinger at the end shows an green-glowing alien space craft landing in his yard, just like his dream. Who knows, maybe the kid is a clairvoyant mutant.

Ever so briefly: this movie is about a kid, David, who sees a bright green flying saucer land on top of a hill in his yard and bury itself underground. David is the son of a scientist, whom he tells. Taking him seriously he checks out the hill and disappears, only to show up again much later to verbally and physically abuse his family. This sets off David, who sees a mark on the back of his father's neck, realizing he's been assimilated. This kid runs around trying to get people to believe him as he sees the town slowly change around him. He eventually gets thrown in jail by the chief of police (also taken over) but a psychologist, Dr. Blake, talks to him and supports him. She even refusing at one point to release him back to his mind-controlled parents. Once a visit is made to the local observatory, the astronomer on duty, Dr. Kelston, spins a wild tale that puts all the pieces together for the audience (see my opinion of this below). This gets the military involved which means about 20 minutes of stock footage detailing the load up, mobilization and attack of a tank unit against the alien threat. Amazingly David is allowed to be around during all this, but is captured along with Blake by aliens (technically Mutants). The military busts in to the hidden underground ship, rescues everyone they can, plant explosive charges, and run like hell. Suddenly David wakes up in bed, and sees the same flying saucer land in his yard.

My first nitpick is during the opening narration. The actual dialog is fine (and almost poetic). The specific issue is the view of space. It has 8 planets just hanging in space. Where in our solar system can you do that? Of course they are no doubt really moons, to fit with 21st century astronomical knowledge, but back then they wouldn't have known that. I do love these anachronistic science mistakes in 50's Sci-Fi movies. We are so far from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

The ending seems like a cheap cop-out to a fairly decent invasion story. I like to think his dream prepared him for a much worse event that we're not privy to. There is an alternate British version that changes the ending to show the alien craft exploding and David isn't dreaming. Maybe that version is what happens after the American one?

This isn't a kids movie. It's about a kid, but his issues are adult. He even gets slapped by his dad. Authority figures around him are perceived as a threat and the director does an excellent job of making you want to see the backs of everyone's neck. This is a great idea. Even though it's easy to tell who's been affected it's still creepy when David meets one person after another with the mark. Here's the dark part of it. Each person controlled has a mission and once completed the victim dies of a cerebral hemorrhage. Off camera, the first victim is a little girl who set fire to her parents house to cover something up. David is terrified his parents will die, but anyone that is captured dies instantly. It adds a bit of suspense. Sadly we never find out if David's parents are saved in time, but they were taken to a hospital to have their platinum control chips removed. Dr. Blake is captured (knocked out by a light ray), and we nearly see the implant process, where it is drilled into the back of the neck. Never fear, she's rescued in time.

Dr. Kelston comes up with an outlandish idea for why the invasion is happening. Because Mars atmosphere is too thin, any Martians must live underground and on space ships floating between the Mars/Earth orbital area. Earth is developing an atomic rocket to put atomic first-strike platforms in orbit and deep space which would affect Martian living areas. These platforms would allow a nuclear strike anywhere in the world in minutes (hello Strategic Defense Initiative). The Martians being so advanced would have created a race of humanoid slaves to do their bidding, known as Mutants (pronounced mu-TANTS). With a mothership in orbit, they release a drop ship with one leader and lots of slaves to land on earth and proceed with the plot. The creativity (and science abuse) of Hollywood is interesting seeing as this movie came out four years before Sputnik was put in orbit. Most adults blame this kid reading too many comics, but Kelston is out there. But, he is the smartest person in the movie, which makes him right. This movie needs a science book. There's even mention the aliens use an infrared beam to dig underground. Since infrared is just heat, that's the closest this move gets to being plausible.

The actual Martian design isn't bad. A weird looking head attached to shoulders is kept in a glass bubble, where it psychically controls its Mutants and mind-controlled humans. There are even antenna sticking out of the back that wiggle around. The Mutants look terrible, all green with slit-like eyes and three fingers. How the hell do you control a space ship with meaty paws? Oh, wait, the Martians must use psychic powers on the ship? Then why have Mutants? This is actually the weaker part of the story, but better than the stock Army footage.

To support the dream-like state the interiors of the police station, chem lab, and space ship are out of proportion to what you would expect. Doors are too tall, walls are blank and seem to stretch to infinity, etc. Even the jail cell David is locked in has a forced perspective look. Maybe the aliens fed him these images as a test to see how humans would react or to make him second-guess himself during the real crisis. Maybe everyone had these dreams.

This is a good classic movie. It's unsettling when it needs to be, it has a mystery, there's suspense, and a kid actor who isn't too bad. I should also mention this is in COLOR. (see also the 1986 remake of the same name).

The Mole Men and the Unknown People Experiment

Superman and the Mole Men, from November 23, 1951, was the first theatrical release of Superman. Prior to it there were two serials of Superman, but I don't count serials as movies. At the end of the first season of The Adventures of Superman, someone must have decided to break the movie into two parts and end the season, probably to save money. This is also the only two-parter of the series. There are differences between the two versions of the story, but the big one that occurs to me is changing the name of Mole Men to just Unknown People. If you saw the movie, they aren't really unknown. Maybe the studio execs were trying to trick people into thinking they were getting a new story? I also want to point out how well these episodes plug into the established series as if it belonged there. This is technically the pilot of the series, yet watching it at the end of the first season you'd never know. Strangely there seems to be no common consensus as to when these two parts aired. I have arbitrarily decided to tack them on at the end of the season, but I have seen at least one plausible source suggesting August 10, 1953. Most other places claim no one actually knows. So for today I'm pretending these are from March, 1953. My blog, my rules, and I'm sticking to it.

The Unknown People, part I- The town of Silsby, 2500 miles from Metropolis (possibly in Texas), is host to the world's deepest oil drilling platform. Since it passed the 6 mile mark the drill was ordered to stop and be dismantled. Witness to these events are Lois Lane and Clark Kent, who were invited down to write a story. Clark hopes instead to make the story about the sudden work stoppage when they are told by the foreman, Corrigan, to spend the night at the Hotel Silsby and leave in the morning. Oddly, Lois thinks there's nothing here, but Clark convinces her to go back to the site to talk to the night watchman, whom they both find dead. Clark is able to get more information out of Corrigan now that lives are at stake. It seems that the drill had punched through to a hollow spot after passing 6 miles. Examining the drill-bit he found microscopic life and began to worry that the Earth is actually hollow and more advanced life forms live in it. There is also glowing soil samples he thinks are radioactive. This story is pushing for a hollow Earth, but it is more likely a hollow chamber. Clark appears to go along, but I don't think he believes him. They both come to the conclusion that something came out of the hole left behind by the drill. They had even put a hatch over it, but the "Unknown People" were able to open it from beneath. As sightings of strange little people crop up, the town folk of Silsby are in an uproar. In one of those creepy sci-fi moments I hate, strange headed creatures stare in a window at a little girl. Luke Benson gathers a large group at the Hotel Silsby to go hunting for them, even after Clark tries to calm everyone. They storm out and Clark becomes Superman in hopes he can stop everyone. There's a great aerial shot from Superman's perspective flying over the crowd to the girl's house. My favorite moment of the mob itself is when an unarmed man walks past a barber shop and tears down the barber poll as a weapon. Superman fails to get through to them so the townsfolk run off and corner the two creatures on the town's dam...

The Unknown People, part II- ... where one of them is shot. Superman flies in to grab him before he falls in the town's water supply, contaminating it. While he's busy flying the wounded creature to Geneva County Hospital the rest of Luke's mob is hunting the remaining one, chasing into an abandoned tool shack. Luke burns the shack down but leaves before realizing the creature escaped. Luke is proud of himself and goes back to town to tell the sheriff he got rid of the two. When the sheriff tells him one is the hospital and to leave it there, Luke pulls a gun on the sheriff and puts his mob pack together. Superman intervenes, taking everyone's weapons and orders them to stay away. While he's busy fighting the whole town, the lone Mole Man goes back down the drill hole and comes up with two more guys plus a nifty giant silver weapon. Marching through a mostly deserted town the three creatures head for the hospital. Superman confronts them and realizes they want their man back. Luke tries one more time to kill something and he gets shot by the Mole Man weapon. Superman intervenes, gives them their injured comrade, they leave and the town finally relaxes. The Mole Men do blow up the oil platform and the shaft so they will be left alone. THE END.

As creepy and corny as the mole creatures were, they were constantly filmed as sympathetic and not evil. This could so easily have gone the other way if they were just made to be bad guys, as Superman might have had to fight an invading force. The new Doctor Who series had a similar episode dealing with a drill that goes too far and wakens an ancient race deep within the Earth. That, however, did turn into a threat for the entire planet.

This edit is a bit better than the original movie, because some of the slower parts were cut and the music was changed to the now standard Superman themes. This story is all about panic and hysteria over the unknown, very similar (but on a different scale) to The Day the Earth Stood Still, which was released only a month before Superman and the Mole Men. It probably occurs to Superman at some point that if the townsfolk treated him as an alien, and not an American superhero, he might have similar issues. Not that he's easy to hurt, but it would suck to have the entire US government gunning for you. Season 1 ends. Season 2 doesn't start until mid-September 1953, so for the next few days I will watch the summer Sci-Fi movies of the era.

The Wax Robot Drum of Evil Jade Experiment

January, 1953, starts strong with five new episodes. For those still wondering why I'm only concerning myself with The Adventures of Superman, that is because it is the only full show from this time I can get my hands on. Captain Video and Captain Z-RO are mostly lost to time, with a smattering of episodes to prove they once existed. But records of their broadcast dates are so spotty I couldn't put an episode guide together, so I'm pretending my Temporal DVR just isn't recording them. At least Rocky Jones, Space Ranger and Science Fiction Theater were saved and if I can find them I will add them in where appropriate. More on that to come. In the mean time to simulate the coming summer months of 1953 when there were no episodes to watch I will review a Sci-Fi movie from the time period.

Mystery in Wax- The first over-acting villain in the series. She's insane and her plot makes no sense. I should accept that, but to have to watch her maniacal moments is just painful. Selena and her husband run a wax museum where she predicts people's death, then 6 months later they commit suicide. In reality she is kidnapping them, making her husband wear a wax mask of said person, who then jumps off a pier, making headlines. Selena thinks she can get all the power and money she wants if she can convince the citizens of Metropolis that she has the power over everyone's death. Clark figured most of this out early, but no one will listen to him. The whole plot just doesn't work because she kidnaps the victims and leaves them locked-up in her basement. Does she intend to leave them alive forever? They never approach the question at all, and Selena is played so over the top it's hard to get into this episode.

The Runaway Robot- Finally, a more science-fiction based threat for Superman, and it looks like Tinman made by 5th Graders. The episode starts out promising, but by the end a number of stupid character decisions make it nearly impossible for Clark to figure anything out. A jewelry store robbery is stopped by a remote control robot. The thieves get away but the robot malfunctions. When the police arrive they assume the robot's maker, Horatio, is the one behind the robbery, mainly because the real thieves got away with thousands of dollars in diamonds. Now, this is some terrible police work. They never ask the proprietor who did it. When they eventually bring him in to the police station to look at mug shots, they still hold Horatio responsible. The cops didn't even finger-print the place. When Lois, Clark, and Jimmy head to the police station to get Horatio released into their custody, someone steals the robot out of lock-up. These are the worst cops ever. The only big surprise in the episode is Russel Johnson (The Professor from Gilligan's Island) as the ring-leader of the thieves. He manages to kidnap Horatio so he can use the robot to do more bank robberies. Clark is never around to see what's happening because he's busy doing actual police work. Horatio, more clever than he deserves to be, radios for help. Lois Lane gets the message but leaves a vague note for Clark that she's going somewhere. A note that Clark never sees. By the end Superman breaks the robot into pieces and stops the thieves. It's a wonder he could even find their hide-out with the badly designed plot in the way. To save money in this series there is extensive use of stock footage, and in this case they use footage of fire trucks from the '30s (which seem a little out of place). Sadly, the episode is kind of fun, but infuriating.

Drums of Death- It should have been called Drums of Current Events. Nobody died from them. They were just like that guy in the parking lot playing his bass really loud. This may be set in Haiti, but I don't think there was any research put into making it culturally accurate. Perry White's sister Kate and Jimmy Olsen, go to Haiti to take pictures of ruins or something. They are captured by a Voodoo Priest wearing buffalo horns and not at all authentic. This episode is just ignorant, and was meant to appeal to children who wouldn't know the difference. Maybe today's viewers are much more shrewd, and, I'm guessing, '50s adults couldn't be bothered. This gets in the way of a story that's mediocre at best, but the end with Superman saving everyone from being crushed into paste is pretty good. I really don't believe there are voodoo drummers set up in Port Haiti (I think that's what he called it) banging out the news so jungle dwellers can hatch schemes. This all had something to do with finding a hidden crystal treasure that was never located. Not that it helps the episode but Clark breaks the fourth wall when he is told he should learn to fly and he winks at the audience. Perry White and Jimmy have been completely duped by Clark throughout the series into believing he isn't Superman, so they have no hope of realizing that the Voodoo Priest is actually a white guy they met before, but in black-face. Terrible.

The Evil Three- This is the strongest story of January. I like these episodes that have the supporting cast out on their own doing something other than reporting. Perry White and Jimmy Olsen are on vacation fishing when they get a room at the Hotel Bayou. Macy, who owns the hotel and Perry remembers from years ago, tells them the place is haunted and they shouldn't stay. Perry knows something is wrong so they get a couple rooms and the weirdness begins. This is a Scooby-doo mystery episode. The title, which doesn't make much sense by the end because they're insane (not evil), refers to the three people that have lived there for years since Macy killed the original proprietor for his money, that's hidden somewhere. The other two people are a Civil War Colonel-looking dude and a crazy old lady in a wheel chair. The latter two have been protecting the money. Look, this episode is mental and doesn't make much sense, but the moments are great and Jimmy hasn't been as believable in his role since The Haunted Lighthouse. The commentary on the episode is pretty good, too. At one point Superman flies to the Hotel Bayou and lands in front of the Colonel who neither knows who he is or comments in his ability to fly. Of note is Perry White's car with a car-phone. For those wanting details his number is MX39162. I would like to learn more about the technology of early phone system's and how you can have one in a car. It's an odd episode but I like it a lot.

Riddle of the Chinese Jade- Not much of a riddle, really. The bad guy wanted to sell it in London, but first he had to steal it from a Chinese antiques dealer. Too bad for him Lois and Clark were on scene interviewing the owner. The plan is simple: throw a grenade through the ground floor of the shop, use an underground tunnel to enter and go straight to the second floor, steal jade statue, make money. It all went wrong when a hostage had to be taken and Clark quickly realizes the manager of the store, who lives across the street, helped in the crime. He was apparently coerced. When all is brought to light, the bad guy kidnaps Lois, which is immediately ended when Superman beats the crap out of him. Police Inspector Henderson, a regular background character (who moves between worthless cop to the strong-arm-of-the-law when the script dictates), decides to let the manager go, because it was the right thing to do. I don't know who has worse cops, Metropolis or Gotham. And once again Clark winks at the audience after making a Superman joke. Please, stop. I know who you are even if your best friends are blind. The cave set gets used again. There is an interesting reference in here to the Tong wars. Metropolis has a China Town and the buildings are all connected underground because of this war. They probably predate Clark's move to the city, or he would have known about it.

Prior to the beginning of The Adventures of Superman the movies you could have seen would've been: 1950's Rocketship X-M and Destination Moon; 1951's The Thing from Another World, When Worlds Collide, The Day the Earth Stood Still, and Superman and the Mole Men. The 1950's movies were about leaving the Earth and all four 1951 movies were about bad things happening to us. I can't recommend these movies enough for those that like classic science fiction. The science is a bit wrong, but look how far we've come as the average person can recognize bad science vs. movie goers 60 years ago. Heck, 60 years ago we still thought Mars had intelligent life, and it was a threat to us.

Source Code

This is not a review of Source Code. I will be doing that as part of Reel Junkies Episode 92 next week. This, instead, is my thoughts on the science-fiction of the movie, with as little spoilers as possible. I will no doubt leak some info as this movie is basically a mystery on a couple fronts. There is some serious super-science here, but at least Dr. Rutledge mentions quantum mechanics at one point, to help out. I'm betting he's even using a Quantum Computer, but it is never discussed.

The previews really sell this movie as a shoddy piece of science, that you can go back into the last eight minutes of someone's life and poke around trying new things. This is part of that mystery, "who bombed a train?" How can you possibly go into a dead person's mind to live their last moments, then make different decisions on each iteration until you solve a mystery? This is the other part of the movie, and not told entirely to my satisfaction. Mainly because Dr. Rutledge and Goodwin didn't realize the ramifications of their project.

The term "Source Code" is a misnomer, as well as thinking of this as The Matrix. The Source Code project implies that a single mind can be transferred, not into a computer construct, but an alternate realty, or a parallel universe. But only if your brain map and physical attributes are similar to the victim in question. This is more in keeping with Timeline (except you stay "you" in the Michael Crichton movie) where time travel is only possible by jumping to another universe where Earth happens to be in a previous era. This means that no amount of tampering will affect your future, as you aren't even in your own universe (except all the parts where Timeline needed it for plot convenience).

Now we're in Fringe territory which only deals with two universes. And Colter Stevens repeats those last eight minutes in another reality several times. There's a lot to think about here. At no time have scientists claimed that the Many-Worlds Interpretation in Quantum Physics could produce identical universes. There has to be a difference, but what ever it is in Source Code, it appears that by merely being sent to tamper in a repeat of the time-line you are in fact creating or existing in a parallel world.

I don't know how to get from the last brain activity of a dead man to using it as a conduit for exploring a parallel Earth, but that's what this movie proposes. (Maybe Jet Li's The One can shed some light on this). It may be that our consciousness exists across multiple universes and that connection is utilized. There was appropriate technobabble and I did like it. Computers seemed to be involved and there might have been some kind of virtual dataspace for Colter Stevens to exist in between missions, but every indication implies he is in another universe, but so close to ours as to be indistinguishable.

These other Universes also have the same sets of people right down the Source Code project experimenters. Maybe one will always leap into the closest matching world. Any divergences may be his own actions. Colter creates Worlds that already exist. Since each version of Earth has the same bad ending for the train (not a spoiler, you see it in the previews) then the events that lead to using Colter to replace Sean Fentriss also happen, which in turn may mean a paradox is created where he is only traveling to parallel worlds that the Source Code project will be in. The snake may be consuming his own tail.

There is an interesting resolution that I won't spoil here, but leads to more parallel world questions. With all the super technology on display I would think the government could just watch movies of all the train victims until they saw something suspicious. Not bad, though, for a movie about finding a terrorist. It's never stated, but by trying to save one time-line, many time-lines will likely be saved. Every crew of every starship named Enterprise has had to deal with this at least once. (Well, except NCC-1701-B, unless someone were to go back in time to try to save Kirk).

Of Sharks and Octupi

I watched Sharktopus the other day. SyFy announced on Twitter it was "our most watch[sic] Sept movie ever". I have trouble putting up with their Saturday night B-movies like this. The best parts of this movie were the Bumpers (when the show came back from commercial) that had a quick message from the Destination Truth guy, who made fun of it. SyFy knew this movie was bad. They even made a special Sharktopus theme song. They mocked their own movie, ruining the only joy I normally get out of it.

A secret branch of the government makes a Sharktopus, already an unstable emotion creature, and puts an electro-shock control collar around its head to test it in open waters. It runs rampant killing as many bikini-clad girls as it can. People hunt it and many more people die. The best character was the VW Beetle the reporter drove around. I gave the first hour 100% of my attention. After that every minute I dropped 1%. I watched it die but I hovered around 55% interest. I’m so glad to get it off my DVR. Wasted ones-and-zeroes I tell you.

So, why did I watch it? Last week I got into a debate, by e-mail, with Tuning In To SciFi TV about the popularity of SyFy branded B-movies. I hate them. I think they hurt Sci-Fi fandom in general. How could new people to the genre watch Sharktopus and walk away saying they like Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror at all. The counter argument, that had never occurred to me, was that it is a gateway for non Sci-Fi fans to watch the channel, and these movies pay the bills. Really cheap junk B-movies help to fund their TV shows (currently Stargate Universe, Warehouse 13, Eureka, Haven, Sanctuary, and Caprica), all of which I really enjoy. There is a huge disconnect for me between their movies and TV shows. SyFy single-handedly made Battlestar Galactica relevant. I can accept this now and have moved on with my life. I will watch a SyFy movie that casts an actor I like, though, which is to say I’m a sucker for stunt-casting. Can’t wait for Red.

Stargate Universe is currently one of my favorite TV shows of the season, along with Fringe, Chuck, and (surprisingly) No Ordinary Family. Dr. Rush has been my favorite character since day one. He gets how bad “bad” is, and makes what others perceive to be questionable decisions, to save lives. This comes off a bit wrong only because he doesn’t waste time explaining himself, so he’s seen as a bit anti-social. (Not unlike the print version of Sherlock Holmes.) That doesn’t mean he doesn’t deserve to get beat up every once in a while by Colonel Young, but it’s food for thought.

In the season premier everything from the cliffhanger wrapped up quickly in that hour, almost before we could figure out if it made sense. Instead of heading to the airlock and certain death, Scott and Greer hid on the “dark side” of the ship to survive the pulsar radiation. This makes sense to me, but Cloe’s magic healing leg needs to be explained at some point, not to mention she got all her blood back. We never really saw all the Lucian Alliance troops so they introduced new actors that weren’t in last season, since they let LDP kill Rhona Mitra’s character, Kiva. She’s now free to do The Gates. TJ’s baby-dream-sequence-thing actually worked for me since they had to account for Alaina Huffman’s lack of pregnancy. Now the show is like Star Trek: Voyager again but with a third faction on board; Military, Civilian and Lucian Alliance. Things were already shaky between Young and Camile, how will the new group cope.

At the end of the month a new vision of the Zombie Apocalypse hits AMC for six episodes of Walking Dead. The series looks great, even though it reminds me a little of the opening of 28 Days Later. I’m too impatient to wait so I bought the first Graphic Novel. Anything I say would be spoilers but this series is worth it. I’m not a huge Day/Dawn/Return of the Dead movie fan, but I love playing Zombie videogames and the book World War Z grabbed my attention fully. I’m even in the middle of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. The production values look high in this series and I hope it goes the distance. With six episodes it feels a bit like a mini-series, and I don’t want to wait until this time next year for season 2 and I haven’t even seen the first episode.

My only gaming has been Halo: Reach. Daily Challenges are very addictive, and I don’t even care that I’ve ignored the campaign. Maybe this weekend I’ll finish the game on Heroic, but I’m really enjoying all the multi-player offerings. Why is it that every 8-year-old on Xbox Live sounds exactly the same. Are there Microsoft clone children being grown somewhere whose only power is to whine about being shot virtually? The real world might know my pain if the try calling this public megaphone. All parents should secretly play their kids online just to see what its like. Plus every 8-year-old is better at it than me, so I’m bitter. Playing some more Halo now…

Who's on First

Most of the time when I watch TV or Movies I'm on the look out for actors I've seen in other things. This may seem odd, or maybe everyone does it and I'm just odd for writing about it. This came to mind when I went to see The International. The previews I saw looked somewhat generic but it had Clive Owen. On him alone, from Children of Men and King Arthur, I wanted to see it. Sometimes my plan backfires, like in this movie, but other times I just enjoy seeing an actor doing something else. Case in point is Summer Glau in Terminator: TSSC.

Why do I do this? I think of it as building up "Geek-Cred". The more roles I see an actor in the more I want to see him/her do other things, for example, Harrison Ford. He's got more "Geek-Cred" as Han Solo and Indiana Jones than anybody else, but I'll add in Jack Ryan and Richard Kimball FTW. So who are the pantheon of actors and actresses I follow? Here's a list, with some descriptions of who I like:

Any of the main actors from the five Star Trek TV series. William Shatner is on par with Harrison Ford just for being Kirk, but I'll add in Twilight Zone, TJ Hooker, Airplane 2, Dodgeball and Boston Leagal. George Takei as Hiro's father in Heroes. Walter Koenig in Babylon 5. Patrick Stewart did Excalibur and Dune before TNG, but then we can add X-Men, Eleventh Hour and Robin Hood: Men in Tights; as well as voice work for Anime movies Steamboy and Nausicaa (ironic since Picard is stabbed by a Nausicaan in TNG episode "Tapestry"). Brent Spiner shows up in Independence Day, Phenomenon and an episode of Leverage; as well as voice work in the South Park movie and Gargoyles. And the list goes on. Connor Trinner even showed up last week on Terminator. As you can see Star Trek is a no-brainer when it comes to following actors.

Star Wars is another good one, Carrie Fisher stands out in The Blues Brothers, Austin Powers, and Fanboys. Warwick Davis shows up in everything from Time Bandits and Willow to newer fare like Harry Potter, The Chronicles of Narnia, and Hitchiker's Guide. These are cult actors I like to see pop up elsewhere. Billy D. Williams could have been Two-Face from the 1989 Batman but I also liked him in The Ladies' Man. Liam Neeson is worth seeing in just about everything, but he does an awesome version of Jason Bourne in Taken.

From other shows I love seeing anyone from Firefly, like the afore-mentioned Summer Glau. Adam Baldwin is now in Chuck, but he gets points for being a presidential bodyguard in Independence Day. Jewel Staite does some Stargate: Atlantis (as well as The X-Files), and Gina Torres can do no wrong in Xena, Hercules, Cleopatra 2525, 24, and The Matrix sequels, among others (she's even married to Mr. Fishburne).

The show John Doe is an odd one, but I became a fan of both Dominic Purcell (who went on to be in Blade: Trinity and Prison Break) and Sprague Grayden (who pops up in Jericho and this year's season of 24). The X-Files of course has Gillian Anderson (who did voice work for Princess Mononoke and as Data Nully in ReBoot) and the awesome David Duchovny, who was already known for Twin Peaks but gets to add Evolution and Zoolander to his geek-cred. Both MacGyver and Quantum Leap gave us leading actors to follow; Richard Dean Anderson (Stagate SG-1) and Scott Bakula (Enterprise).

In movies everyone from TRON gets points, but especially Bruce Boxleitner for showing up in Babylon 5. The whole cast of any sci-fi movie made by James Cameron or John Carpenter. Kurt Russel gets high marks for Escape from New York/LA and The Thing, then you can add Death Proof, Soldier, and Stargate. Ed Harris just dominates his roles from movies like The Abyss, Apollo 13, The Rock, The Truman Show, and A History of Violence. Michael Biehn gets lots of geek-cred from his roles in The Terminator, Aliens, The Abyss, The Rock, and Planet Terror. I can't forget the cast of any of the Matrix movies. Ifyou like Keanu Reeves or not he ranks way up there with movies like Bill & Ted, Point Break, Speed, Constantine, A Scanner Darkly, and The Day the Earth Stood Still. Oh, and Bill Paxton should never be forgotten in The Terminator, Weird Science, Aliens, Predator 2, True Lies, Twister, Apollo 13, and U-571. In fact he's the only actor to play a character killed by a Terminator, an Alien, and a Predator.

Some are just individual actors whose careers add up to lots of geek movies. Vin Diesel stands out with Pitch Black (which also gave us Claudia Black in Farscape) and The Chronicles of Riddick, but adds to it with The Fast & The Furious and xXx. Hugh Jackman gets it from X-Men, Swordfish and Van Hellsing. The Rock (aka Dwayne Johnson) gets it for just being himself in The Rundown, Doom, The Scorpion King, and a quick episode of Star Trek: Voyager. Any of the 80's action stars get it for nostalgia's sake, but I like to give Arnold lots of credit for the two Conan movies, The Terminator franchise, Red Sonja, Predator, The Running Man, Total Recall, and True Lies. Brad Pitt for Se7en, Twelve Monkeys, Fight Club and Troy. Wesley Snipes primarily gets my vote from the Blade movies but I'll add Major League and Demolition Man. Sean Connery gets all the points he needs from James Bond, being Indy's dad, and The Rock, but I'm subtracting a couple for being in Zardoz. Shia LaBeouf gets some well deserved credit for I, Robot, Constantine, Indy 4, and Transformers, as well as an appearence in The X-Files. I'll let you figure out on your own why I like Keith David.

I'm giving Will Smith his own paragraph here. He gets Bad Boys I & II, Independence Day, Men in Black I & II, Enemy of the State, Wild Wild West, I, Robot, I Am Legend, and Hancock; not to mention a little TV show he did. I would like to see him do something in space next.

It's sort of like a game I play. Where have I seen this actor before? But, it is also a kind of barometer I can measure an unknown quantity of TV or Movie time. This may seem an exhuastive list but there are many more I'm leaving out. I could spend a week adding up Star Trek alone. I want to show you how I approach new shows and movies. Last example will be Dollhouse. Created by Joss Whedon who gets huge points for creating Buffy/Angel, and Firefly/Serenity. The star is Eliza Dushku who was in True Lies, Bring It On, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, and Buffy/Angel. Guest starring Harry Lennix from The Matrix sequels and 24; Tahmoh Penikett comes from the new Battlestar Galactica and Smallville; Olivia Williams has done The Postman, The Sixth Sense, and X-Men 3; Amy Acker did some Alias, Justice League, Supernatural, Angel, and Special Unit 2. This all adds up to a pretty good sounding show. Logging out.

Joss Whedon fills my Friday night TV needs, again

Everyone tells me that putting a show on Friday night equals the death of a show. Maybe this is true, it certainly killed Firefly, but I seem to remember a little show called The X-Files. As I was in college when it first started, and an active social life (yes, I used to have those), I was riveted and started rearranging my schedule to be at home at 9pm to watch it. Then it moved to Sunday, and it never felt right to me. Maybe, somewhere in me, I associate a day and a show on a strange, instinctual level. At the time of VCRs I still wanted to see it as it was broadcast. This feeling is still strong in me with today's technology of TiVo and DVRs, streaming Netflicks and iTunes and Xbox Live. I still enjoy watching a show in its time slot. My days/tv shows of the week have been colored by past watching habits. These include Sunday for Quantum Leap and MacGyver, Saturday for Star Trek and Farscape. Enterprise even felt right on Wednesday, and Thursday gets CSI. This helped me associate Friday with weird, creepy TV.

This year's TV season has been one of the best, with something to watch every day. My viewing habits are as follows:

Monday- Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, 24, Chuck, Heroes

Tuesday- Fringe, Leverage

Wednesday- Knight Rider

Thursday- CSI

Friday- Star Wars: The Clone Wars

Tonight, things changed for the better. Fringe doesn't "feel" like a Tuesday show but more of a Friday show. I'm not really complaining though as Friday's new line up is awesome. Terminator is back from its December hiatus and Joss Whedon's Doll House follows at 9pm. Terminator was a decent episode and has renewed my faith in the series as I felt it beginning to slide at the end of last year. This episode in particular had a guest star spot by "Trip" Tucker from Enterprise, which is great. As a geek I enjoy seeing actors cross pollinate between shows, especial Star Trek and Firefly, like Data showing up in Leverage, or more importantly, River as a Terminator. I just wish John Connor would man-up and change the subtitle of the show to The John Connor Chronicles. It's a subtle difference that could move the show forward towards Salvation. BTW I love the musical cues that remind you that you're watching a Terminator story.

But tonight's Doll House is the big deal. This put Whedon back on Friday nights. I don't know how he can take so many ideas from so many different sources and cram them into a series, giving the appearance of something fresh. This is equal parts La Femme Nikita, Total Recall, Men in Black, The Island, Zoolander, and True Lies. Maybe even a little Dark Angel and My Own Worst Enemy. Coincidentally or not, the main character, Echo, is played by Eliza Dushku who was in True Lies. For a show with, what I thought, was a terrible advertising campaign, it's actually quite good. Whedon has me hooked; I am definitely a fanboy of his and I love Friday nights, again.

However, during commercials, Summer Glau and Dushku talked to the audience, which seemed really staged and stilted. On a positive note I think the opening credits are great. A few years ago Discover magazine did an article on a photographer who took real world images and did some Photoshop magic to make them look like toy models of reality. When you looked close you could see it was real. Doll House does this with even greater effect, especial considering the irony of the title.

As I write this blog, Enter the Dragon is on and I just love the "Charlie Brown" sound when dudes hit the ground. Since I haven't mentioned Star Trek for the last few minutes I came across this tidbit. One less thing to worry about. Thanks JJ. See you next broadcast.