The Champions (ITC 1968-1969)

One thing that 60s TV shows did fairly well was produce a number of series that centerd around Spies, Detectives and people with special powers, sometimes combining the three with varying degrees of success.
With the 60s being the height of the cold war and people wondering on an almost daily basis if they were going to finally hear those air raid sirens before having to scramble into bomb shelters when the DIRTY COMMUNISTS!1!1!1!! decided to start some aggro, it was understandable that the most popular programs would centre on people actively trying to prevent armageddon in some fashion.

"The Champions" is a sci-fi/spy/detective/action/mystery tv series consisting of a single series of 30 episodes.
Similar in format to the much more successful "Mission: Impossible" and to some extent "The Avengers", the series concentrates on the adventures of a team of three special agents, who work for the (fictional) U.N backed intelligence/police agency code named NEMESIS (it is never explained whether the name is a name or an acronym for something, probably chosen just cos it sounds cool)

Unlike other secret agents, "The Champions" (this title is never given to them officially, and is only spoken by the series narrator when referring to them) are not your run of the mill types, as in the very first episode of the series it is explained that while the team were on a mission to steal samples of an experimental biological weapon from the Red Chinese, their plane crashed in the Himalayas, where they were rescued and operated on by a group of reclusive, but advanced people who lived in the mountains of Tibet. This operation, as well as saving their lives, gave the three secret agents superhuman powers, including enhanced strength and stamina, perfect memory recall, enhanced cognitive abilities and enhanced senses, as well as the ability to perform a limited form of telepathy to communicate with each other over distance.
The three members of the team are:-

Richard Barrett (William Gaunt) - British code breaking and electronics expert.
Craig Stirling (Stuart Damon) - American pilot and all round action man.
Sharron MacReady (Alexandra Bastedo) - British Doctor and research scientist.

The three, who were based at the NEMESIS headquarters in Geneva, would receive their orders from "Tremayne" (the only other character to appear in every episode in some fashion), who was not aware of their super powers, but who would occasionally ask them to explain how they managed to escape from seemingly certain death type situations unharmed (sometimes it appeared that Tremayne was a bit thick not being able to figure out what was going on, although this added to the suspension of disbelief required to watch this type of show).
Each episode would typically begin with a short featurette with one of the team using (or abusing) their powers to somehow outsmart someone else, for example in one episode, Craig is shown watching a weightlifter showing off his strength by lifting a series of heavy barbells, before Craig then walks up and effortlessly picks up the same weights and throws them around like they weighed nothing at all.

Most of the stories from the series revolved around the team fighting communist plots, South American dictatorships, neo nazis, drug dealers and criminal gangs, but on the odd occasion an episode would throw in some deliberately comedic touches, although not to the level of "eccentricity" reached in "The Avengers".

The main characters were quite well rounded out and believable, given the subject matter, although the secondary characters (ie, the bad guys) tended to be over the top comic book villains, most of whom had dodgy east european or faux-latino accents, although to its credit, the series did actually use chinese actors for chinese parts (mainly in the form of Burt Kwouk  ) and didnt resort to having white actors don dodgy looking eye make up and start mispronouncing their Ls and Rs.

All in all though "The Champions" is one of those oft forgotten gems from 1960s British TV which could make for a fairly entertaining remake/reboot now.

Apocalypse How? - Meteor (1979)

Oooooh, its been a while since I thought about extinction level events, but while furtling around youtube tonight I found this forgotten gem.

Meteor is a 1979 disaster film released by American International Pictures.

Sean Connery stars as Dr. Paul Bradley, a former scientific advisor to the U.S government who had a "falling out" with them after they co-opted his design for a space based anti meteor defence weapon to serve as a strategic nuclear missile platform to threaten the Russians with.

The film itself takes place over the course of a week.
On the first day (Sunday, December 1st) "Challenger 2", the U.S mission to put man on Mars, arrives at the asteroid belt after ground control receives telemetry suggesting a comet will pass through this belt, and they would like the ship to gather as much data as possible.
Unfortunately though, the comet strikes an asteroid, which explodes and sends a 5 mile wide chunk of rock hurtling towards Earth, as well as destroying the space ship.

The next day (Monday) Dr. Bradley finds himself being pulled back to the department of defence, who inform him of the incoming meteor, and require his expertise in using the orbital weapons platform, named "Hercules", so they can destroy the meteor ("Orpheus") .
At first Bradley is somewhat bitter at the request that has been made of him, being as the military thought that his notion that the Earth could ever be threatened by a meteor was ridiculous and stole his idea to use as a weapon, but when he is confronted with the cold facts by his friend Harry Sherwood, he decides to help as best he can.

By this time, the Soviets have also detected the approaching meteor, but, in the USSR just the same as the USA, politics begins to gum up the works of actually being able to effectively defend the Earth from total annihilation.
By day 4 (Wednesday) Bradley has calculated that even with the 12 missiles available to him from Hercules, there wont be enough power to deflect or destroy the meteor, however, as both he and the military have long suspected, the Soviets also have a similar space based weapon equipped with missiles, the main problem lies in getting them to admit it.
The Soviets send Bradleys opposite number, Dr. Dubov to speak with him, and Dubov eventually provides the information that, theoretically, if the USSR had such a weapon, which may or may not be called "Peter the Great", it would, in theory have roughly the same number of missiles with the equivalent explosive payload.
The military presence in the control centre (which is hidden in a disused subway station beneath the AT&T building in New York), represented by General Adlon (Martin Landau ) takes an intense dislike to handing over the matter to scientists as it is, but has an especially distasteful attitude towards allowing communists to participate, even though as Bradley tries to explain, if they are going to stand any chance of pulling the mission off successfully, they need the Soviet Unions help, after a loud argument in the control room, Dr. Dubov telephones the Soviet Embassy and orders them to allow him to use "Peter the Great" to back "Hercules" up and ensure success.


On days 5 and 6, smaller splinters from Orpheus begin impacting on Earth, most of them burning up harmlessly, but others manage to hit and cause massive disasters, including tidal waves, avalanches and earthquakes.
The two weapons are repositioned, and a final plan is formed, "Peter the Great" will fire first, then 2 hours later, "Hercules" will launch, both sets of missiles will rendezvous in space and travel to a set point in the meteors path, where they will explode in 3 waves. The shockwaves from these blasts will either deflect or destroy the meteor before it impacts, however, as Harry points out to the President, no one has ever attempted anything like this before, and, given the massive variables inherent to an operation like this, the odds of success are anyones guess, but, if it fails, 2 hours after detonation, the meteor will destroy the Earth.

On the final day (Saturday, December 7th) the Soviet satellite fires its missiles without any problems, however, with less than 2 minutes to go before Hercules is due to fire, Bradley receives a message from the Joderell Bank observatory that a fragment of the meteor will impact New York just before they are due to order the launch of the American missiles.
Bradley orders everyone to wait, and just after Hercules launches, the fragment hits, destroying most of the business district and burying the command centre under tons of rubble.

In space, the missiles link up and begin their attack run, although along the way some missiles malfunction and careen off into space.

Back on Earth, the command centre personnel are recovering from the meteor strike, some of them, General Adlon included, were killed. Bradley finds an escape route which will lead them out through the subway tunnels, however just as they appear to be making good their escape, the walls of the tunnel begin to collapse and water from the Hudson river begins pouring in.



In space, the missiles impact the meteor, successfully destroying it.

On Earth, just after the meteor is destroyed, the command centre survivors manage to get themselves to another subway station, and with the assistance of other survivors from the station, they mange to dig themselves an escape tunnel back to the surface, where they learn that the missiles were successful.

In a ceremony of grand pomp and circumstance, Dr Dubov and his translator wave goodbye and depart for the Soviet Union, while a narrator states that the film was inspired by the real life findings of Project Icarus.




When first released, this film as panned by critics, mostly citing bad acting, poor scripting, cold war cliches and ridiculous special effects.

I can agree with the poor special effects, as some of them are proper cheapo-nasty, and the script isn't particularly anything worth shouting about, but, despite the distinct "TV movie" feel to this film, it isn't all THAT bad, and is quite entertaining to watch so long as you don't place too much by way of expectation on its shoulders.
Its certainly much better than "Deep Impact" or "Armageddon" because it doesn't rely on cheesy sentimentalism to carry it, instead, it shows that against something as awesomely powerful as a meteor, all mankind can really do is cross their collective fingers and hope that everything goes ok.

EPis0dIC! - Buck Rogers in the 25th Century "Space Rockers" (1980)

Buck, Wilma, Dr. Huer, Twiki and Dr. Theopolis gather in Huers office to watch a performance by the pop group "Andromeda".
Huer explains to Buck that the group has reached an unparalleled level of popularity amongst young people all over the galaxy, which Buck points out isn't unknown, as back in the 20th century The Beatles had a similar effect on young people too.
Huer goes on to state that for some reason, whenever Andromeda makes a broadcast from their base, a former military satellite which has been repurposed and renamed "Music World", there is an almost immediate increase in youth crime on all planets that receive the broadcast, and Huer asks Buck if he can think of any reason as to why this would happen, as there appears to be nothing out of the ordinary, and they don't suspect any involvement or use of drugs.
Buck says that in his time, music generally gave young people something to look forward to, and not something to riot over, so something must be amiss, especially as for some reason, some of the young people have started wearing black uniforms and behaving aggressively.
Huer explains that they have an operative undercover on Music World, who has  managed to get a job as a sound technician working with Andromeda, and he usually sends reports hidden in the stations broadcasts, however his most recent transmission was cut off in mid flow.
Meanwhile on Music World, Andromedas manager, Mr. Mangros, kills the undercover operative and flushes his body into space with the refuse, then he and his henchman activate a device which emits a high pitched tone.
Back on Earth, the young people listening to Andromedas broadcast begin rioting and fighting, and a young couple steal Bucks starfighter from the spaceport and take it for a joyride, Buck pursues them in another ship but fails to convince them to stop.
Just as the broadcast finishes, all of the fighting and rioting ceases, and the couple joyriding in Bucks fighter come to their senses and allow him to guide the ship back to port on remote control.
The couple, neither of whom had previously been in any trouble with the authorities, say that they have no idea what came over them. Buck is initially dismissive of their claims, but allows them to go free.
Dr. Huer and Buck come up with a plan, Buck will go to music world and introduce Andromedas next broadcast, which will be their first show to be simultaniously transmitted to all planets in the galaxy, and while he is there, he is to find out what is causing the young people to behave strangely.

Mangros is planning the galaxy wide broadcast with Andromeda, where he seems to be quite charming and supportive, however behind their backs he explains to his henchman that his plan is simply to use them as a means of using his mind control device to cause the youth populations of the inhabited worlds to cause civil unrest, and thus if the governments want order to return, they will have to come to him.

Buck, Twiki and Dr. Theopolis arrive on Music World, only to find a gang of black uniformed youths waiting to ambush them. Buck easily fights off the youths but cant understand why they were attacked.
He discusses the attack with Andromeda when he finally meets them, but they say that sadly, some of their fans are like that, they don't know why but their music attracts allsorts, even the undesireable ones.

After concluding that the band are genuine and have no intention of causing harm to anyone, Buck and Dr. Theopolis review the information they have about Mr. Mangros, as it turns out, prior to becoming Andromedas manager, Mangros was a scientist who specialised in particle movement devices and theory, but that doesnt appear to have any connection with the youth problem.
Buck has a poke around in the space stations control room, finding a microchip hidden under one of the consoles, but is seen by Mangros' henchman, Mangros, still furious that the gang of youths he sent to attack Buck earlier failed in their task, decides to try again, only this time much more subtly.

Mangros has Joanna, one of his groupies go to Bucks quarters to "entertain" him, as a means of proving how much she loves Mangros. 
Buck is rather surprised when the young woman suddenly turns up and begins making lustful overtures towards him. Just as she moves in to embrace him, one of Andromedas songs begins playing through the stations speakers, and Mangros activates his hidden device again.
Joanna pulls a poison filled hypo from up her sleeve and makes to stab Buck with it, but he notices her strange behaviour and quickly disarms her. confident that his assassination plot has worked, Mangros turns off his machine, Joanna suddenly stops trying to kill Buck and give the same confused reaction as what the other youths Buck saw on Earth did.

Dr. Theopolis returns and says he has found that Mangros had previously experimented with a mind control device which used a charged particle wave to transmit a signal which can be modulated to induce any emotional state in the people it is directed at. Buck figures the mystery out, Mangros is using Andromedas music to transmit signals to the youth population to induce them to riot.

He informs Andromeda about what their music is being used for, at first they dont believe him, but are soon convinced when he gets the lead guitar player to remove the necklace Mangros gave her while some of their music is playing, and she proceeds to violently attack him. Buck explains that the band members are not affected by the signals as their necklaces block the hidden signals being piggy backed on their music.
Understandably, the band are horrified and they confront Mangros, who simply laughs at them and has them locked up, saying he no longer requires them to finish his plans as he will just use prerecorded footage for their next broadcast, and then make sure they all have an "accident" once he has what he wants.

Dr. Theopolis tracks the source of the mind control signals to Mangros' office, but says that Buck wont be able to get up there unnoticed through the waste disposal system as he is too large, but Twiki should have no trouble.
After Twiki has set off, Buck is taken away by Mangros' goons and locked up with Andromeda, and, just as Twiki tries to destroy the transmitter, the garbage disposal activates and he nearly ends up being flushed into space.


All over the galaxy, young people pour into bars and youth centres ready for the pan-galactic broadcast of Andromedas latest concert, Mangros checks to make sure that everyone is listening, and then begins the broadcast.

Meanwhile, Buck and Andromeda have figured out that they can use one of Andromedas instruments as a makeshift sonic weapon which will smash down the door of the room they are locked in and allow them to escape. The device works and Buck makes his way up to Mangros' office to stop the transmission.

All across the galaxy, the youth who are listening to the music start to become violent, Mangros instructs his henchman to wait until he appears on stage and then turn the machine up to full.

Buck manages to take the henchman by surprise and knocks him out, then smashes the machine, which causes all the youths to stop rioting. At the same time, Mangros begins a transmission instructing the assembled youths of the galaxy to begin large scale riots, as he and Andromeda will show them the way to "take control of their own lives" etc etc, however, as the mind control machine has been destroyed, all he is greeted with is raucous laughter as the youths perceive him as being a "whacko"...he walks off stage just as the real Andromeda arrive and begin playing, much to the assembled youth populations delight.
Dr Huer, much relived that Mangros' evil plan has been foiled, and thus the police didnt have to hurt anyone in quelling the riots, orders Mangros to be arrested, while Buck and Twiki listen to the concert from the sidelines.


This is one of the many "gimmick" episodes of this series, this time concentrating on issues affecting youth culture.
Its not a bad episode overall, although Buck Rogers does look a little uncomfortable "getting down with the kids" considering at the time, actor Gil Gerard was 37 years old and had to deliver lines explaining and relating to youth issues.