Fusion Patrol

For our tenth year podcasting, we’re featuring a series of special episodes looking at some of our favorite sci-fi movies.  First up: Planet of the Apes. Movie Synopsis:  A spacecraft from Earth plows through space at near light speed. Alone in the cockpit, George Taylor muses about the world he’s left behind forever and the future of mankind.   At their current speed, centuries have passed...

What starts as an innocent day measuring nitrites ends with a full scale invasion. Ben and Eugene discuss Invasion. Episode Synopsis:  Hardcastle and Ridge are in Yorkshire for a bit of nitrate measurement in the caves.   They’ve employed two local lads, Dave and Reggie, to do the cave diving to collect water samples and have supplied them with some top-quality underwater gear for their work.   Wh...

Mal and Kaylee are heading to the big society ball.  What could possibly go wrong? Simon and Eugene discuss the Shindig. Episode Synopsis:  Another bar, another bar fight, it’s just another day for the Captain of the Serenity. [expand title=”Click to see the rest of post”] Heading in from the wildest frontier, the Serenity is making a stop on Persephone and pretty much everyone except...

The first season (or is it the series?) of Battlestar Galactica comes to a close with an attack on a Cylon Basestar.  Will the Galactica survive? Ben and Eugene discuss. Episode Synopsis:  Apollo, Sheba, Starbuck and Cassiopeia are on a…. let’s call it a double-date.   Apollo takes them all for a surprise.   A celestial chamber, high above the Galactica’s engines.   A room not used in over 100 yah...

Toby Wren is dead.  (Oops, spoilers.) Ben and Eugene discuss the second series opener, “You Killed Toby Wren.” “You Killed Toby Wren” is a follow-up episode to the Series One finale, “Survival Code,” one of the missing episodes.  For more information on Survival Code, see this link at the Variant 14 blog:  https://variant14.wordpress.com/category/s1e13-survival-...

There’s Reavers in them thar spacelanes!  Beware the boogeyman! Simon and Eugene discuss “Bushwacked.” Plot Synopsis:  Traversing remote space, the Serenity crew take the time to enjoy some form of team sport, but the levity is interrupted by a proximity alert.   Nearby, a drifting cargo ship converted to settler ship and a dead body.   After some debate, and for differing reason...

There’s trouble brewing onboard the industrial ship Celestra.  How is it tied to Starbuck’s long-lost flame? Ben and Eugene take (apart) the Celestra. Episode Synopsis:  Adama presides over a ceremony to honor Cmdr. Kronus, former Commander of the Battlestar Raikon and Adama’s former commanding officer.   Kronus is being promoted to “fleet” commander of the industry ships for his sterl...

People with batteries in them?  Does it make them monsters?  Will they run down?  Will this bear any resemblance to today’s episode of Doomwatch, the Battery People? Ben and Eugene find out. Episode Synopsis:  Men, poorly outfitted in protective gear are working a fish farm, injecting the fish with hypodermic needles, as you do, when a fight breaks out between the foreman and one of the work...

Firefly can be said to have two introductory episodes:  the first and the second.  This, then, is the second – the one where the gang undertake some good old-fashioned train robbing. Simon and Eugene discuss the Train Job Episode synopsis: It’s Unification Day – the happy celebration of the victory of the Alliance over the Brown-coated rebels, and Mal and Zoe, two former Brown Coats sp...

In this episode, the Galactica finds Earth…  or Terra… which probably isn’t Earth.  Plus Apollo and Starbuck get a little help from on high. Ben and Eugene discuss this Experiment in Terra . Episode Synopsis:  Picking up from last week’s episode, the evil Eastern Alliance enforcers, along with the Borelean Nomen have escaped the Galactica.   Rather than recapturing them, Galactic...

There’s a pesticide company and there’s a train, and the pesticides keep getting on and off the train, which may be an atomic coast-to-coast #Supertrain. This also may have  nothing at all to do with the episode.  Find out as Ben and Eugene discuss Train and De-Train. Episode synopsis:  In a forest in Sussex the animals are dead and John Ridge is investigating them. Meanwhile, Toby Wre...

Time to start a new series here on Fusion Patrol.  Simon and Eugene begin a run through of Joss Whedon’s cult series, Firefly. Note, viewing order will be more DVD order than Fox airing order.  We begin with the intended pilot, Serenity. Episode Synopsis:  A group of soldier are pinned down in Serenity Valley, all looks lost, but one soldier, Mal and his sidekick Zoe stage what looks like a...

How can Baltar remain a credible villain if he remains in jail?  Answer:  He can’t, so, it must be time to escape! Ben and Eugene discuss Baltar’s Escape. Episode Synopsis:  Since the arrival of the Eastern Alliance Enforcers and Apollo and Starbuck’s prisoners, the Council have been getting increasingly upity.   It seems the civilian government is chaffing under the yolk of Adama’s op...

The Doomwatch team tackle sound pollution… or is it? Ben and Eugene pick up where they left off in 2013 and discuss Doomwatch, the 1970s BBC show with a pessimistic view of scientific accountability. Episode Synopsis: Environmentalist Bernard Colley and his daughter Dana pull up the lighthouse of Tommy Gort just in time to see him mindlessly walk over to the cliff and fall off. Meanwhile, at...

David Norliss, disbeliever, investigates the supernatural to debunk it.  What he finds challenges his understanding of reality. Simon and Eugene discuss the 1973 planned pilot movie, The Norliss Tapes, with some strong ties to Dan Curtis’ Night Stalker and Night Strangler movies. Episode Synopsis: David Norliss is a recognized-name author.   He’s been working on an advance from his publisher...

The Galacticans come across humans from a non-Colonial source.  Could it be the long-awaited contact with Earth? Ben and Eugene discuss. Episode Synopsis:  On long range forward patrol, Apollo and Starbuck encounter a strange, unresponsive spacecraft of unfamiliar design.   Their scanners indicate life inside and they bring it back to the Galactica.   Inside, six humans in suspended animation.   T...

It’s been a long, long journey since the moon left Earth’s orbit back on September 13, 1999.  A journey covering countless light-years, spanning galaxies, universes and other astronomical terms used with complete and absolute imprecision.  The Alphans have travelled far indeed. So too have Ben and Eugene as they have gone along with them ever step by misstep of the way.  Here now we lo...

It’s time for a Ressurection Revelation Remembrance Resolution! …of the Daleks… …on New Year’s Day, no less. Simon and Eugene discuss the Doctor Who 2019 New Year’s Special, Resolution. Episode Synopsis:  In the Ninth Century, based on the context of the story, in what might be presumed to be England, epic armies came together to battle the most deadly foe the p...

The adventures of the Night Stalker come to an end with a bizarre kidnapping.  The victim:  Carl Kolchak. Simon and Eugene discuss. Episode synopsis: A man is chained to a wheelchair in a filthy room, filled with stacks of newspapers.   Another man pushes the wheelchair over a yellow line and down a long hallway and into a room.   Later, the second man pulls the blood-soaked wheelchair back across...

Doctor Who Series 11 comes to a (book)end. Simon and Eugene discuss. Episode Synopsis:  Two religious zealots stand prepared to build a temple when their god appears before them.   That can’t be good. 3,407 years later, the Doc and the Gang pick up multiple distress signals coming from the planet Ranskoor Av Kolos.   A planet whose name literals means “disintegrator of the soul.”   Armed with Neur...

Ever deeper in space, supplies of plots are running low aboard the Colonial fleet.  Existing on survival rations, Ben and Eugene discuss two episodes for the price of one. First, Starbuck may have found his long-lost father, but the reunion may be a short one if the con man pretending to be Starbuck’s father is killed by the fearsome Borellian Nomen who are hot on his trail. Second, Starbuck...

Beware the horrible monster, Erik, that lives in Norway. Simon and Eugene discuss, “It Takes You Away.” Episode Synopsis:  In a wild part of Norway, the Doc and the Gang find a creepy, barricaded house.   They notice someone peering out a crack from within and go to investigate.   Inside, they find a lone, blind girl named Hanne.   The house is besieged by a monster.   Her father barri...

Ben and Eugene enjoy one last journey with the unwitting spacefarers of Moonbase Alpha as they look at the final episode of Space: 1999, the Dorcons. Episode Synopsis: 2409 days after the moon left Earth’s orbit, Alpha encounters a strange probe in space which paralyzes all the Alphans except Maya, who is singled out and subjected to excruciating pain. After the probe releases her and the others,...

“There’s some lovely filth over here, Dennis,” is a line not spoken in this episode, but perhaps it should be. Simon and Eugene discuss the Witchfinders. Episode Synopsis:  Doc and the Gang arrive in Lancashire just in time for the dunking of an old woman, an accused witch, and despite the Doctor warning her gang not to interfere with history, once again her companions…. Oh, wait...

What’s old is new again as a cyclical plot rears its head for a new generation. Simon and Eugene discuss the Night Stalker episode, Timeless. Episode Synopsis:  In a park, a man finds a decomposing body, the coroner, Aaron Shields, rules it accidental death.   Alex Nyby calls in Kolchak because he thinks the coroner is wrong.   The face of the dead woman was bitten by an unidentifiable anima...