Captain's bLog: What I'm Watching

Thanks to a couple of recent - and generous - reader donations and a well-timed tax refund, I've been able to pick up a few more additions to my Space: 1970 DVD library this month. (I also - as I mentioned here previously - ordered and received a VHS copy of the 1980 telefilm, The Aliens Are Coming, which I transferred to DVD-R. Overall, I rather enjoyed it and think it would have made an okay series, but I really disliked the lead character, played by Tom Mason. Or maybe it was the actor I didn't like. The miniature spaceship effects were pretty cool, though.)

At the beginning of the month, I finally acquired the Universal Vault Series edition of Gene Roddenberry's 1974 pilot film, The Questor Tapes, which I had never seen all the way through before. I enjoyed it a lot - it may be my favorite of Roddenberry's non-Trek genre efforts - and will be writing up a full review here on the site in the coming weeks.

(Now if someone would release Roddenberry's occult pilot, Spectre, on disc, I'd be quite content.)

Then, I traded in my Buck Rogers In The 25th Century - The Complete Epic Series set for the re-issued Season 1 and Season 2 volumes. I was hesitant to do so, since they cost more combined than the original package, but what finally convinced me to double-dip - aside from the fact that the re-issues were on single-sided discs instead of the trouble-prone flippers in the Epic Series set - was Universal's late inclusion of the TV version (as opposed to Theatrical Cut) of the first episode, "Awakening," as an extra feature on the Season 2 discs. It clearly was a last-minute decision, too: its presence is not mentioned on the packaging (I think there may have been a sticker), and the episode itself is presented without chapter breaks or subtitles.

Last night I picked up Universal's The Six Million Dollar Man - The Complete Third Season. This is probably my favorite season of the show, as it brought back (and spun off) Lyndsay Wagner's Bionic Woman, and featured the first of Steve's encounters with the "bionic" Bigfoot (in the very impressive shape of hulking Andre The Giant).

The season also features the return of several other popular guest characters from previous years, including Monte Markham's "Seven Million Dollar Man," John Fujioka's "Last Kamikaze," Oscar Goldman's favorite secretary Jennifer Darling, and adorable ESPer Robbie Lee.

Finally, I've ordered the 1974 Wonder Woman pilot movie from Warner Archive. I haven't seen this one in years - decades, probably - and I'm looking forward to giving it a spin. This is the one with blonde Cathy Lee Crosby as the Amazon princess, battling the evil machinations of Ricardo Montalban while wearing a star-spangled track suit. Whatever else it may be, this incarnation of WW is definitely a product of the Seventies! Obviously, I'll be reviewing this one here at the site sometime soon, as well.

THE ALIENS ARE COMING (1980)

I have very little memory of this Quinn Martin-produced (one of his last, I believe) TV movie/pilot film from March of 1980, but I did watch it, and clipped this TV Guide ad for my scrapbook. The eclectic cast which includes Melinda Fee from The Invisible Man and Escape from The Planet Of the Apes' Eric Braeden, certainly looks intriguing. Any other Star Kids remember this one? Hopefully better than I do?

Oddly, The Aliens Are Coming did get a VHS release from budget label Goodtimes in the 80s, and I'm thinking I might try and get my hands on a copy one of these days so I can review it for Space: 1970.