PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Zatoichi 11 - Zatoichi And The Doomed Man

Zatoichi And The Doomed Man came out September 18 1965 and stars Shintaro Katsu as Zatoichi the blind masseur. The movie is written by Shozaburo Asai and directed by Kazuo Mori. It's the 11th in the series of 26 films with the same actor.

The movie opens with Ichi getting 50 lashes for illegal gambling. He's tossed in a cell with another man who tells him he was jailed for something he didn't do. He wants Zatoichi to tell his boss and wife what happened so they can send help and save him. Zatoichi says he will. The next morning Ichi gets let out of jail and he's on his way.

On the road he changes his mind, thinking that when he gets involved with someone else's problems it only leads to trouble and death. Being that it's a Zatoichi film the trouble follows him. On the road Zatoichi meets a incompetent grifter who steals his identity to scam some money. It's all played pretty comically but Zatoichi feels he must follow the guy and set him right. The imposter is annoying and of course it turns out he went to the same town that Ichi wanted to avoid.

Zatoichi catches the imposter and probably saves his life. Zatoichi stirs things up a bit as he pokes around. The boss's plan unravels as he gets more and more nervous. He sends out men to take care of the masseur but they don't have much luck. There's plenty of fighting and slaughter for those that like that sort of thing. There's still some good amount of life and strife to keep those that like that sort of story involved.

Zatoichi sorts things out, leaving the corpses where they fall. I wondered who, in the reality of the movie, cleans up all the dead men? It's a lot of work and they had no place cold to put the bodies. The imposter gets arrested and Zatoichi laughs as they drag him out of the scene. There's a big fight, in the fog, on the beach amongst the village's fishing nets. At the end Zatoichi is the last man standing. He continues his journey. Even though the stories are similar I'm still enjoying them and that's after seeing some of them for the 4th or 5th time. You can see the movie on YouTube at the link in the title above. It's worth a look.

Gorilla At Large - Mystery On Monster Island

Gorilla At Large is a 1954 horror movie set in a circus with a regular size gorilla. Raymond Burr is the guy in charge. He has something going on with Anne Bancroft, the trapeze star. I was never a big fan of Anne bancroft as an actor but she sure looks good in those costumes and fishnet stockings. Cameron Mitchell works as the circus barker. Anne wants have him to dress up as the gorilla to be part of the trapeze act. Before that gets going a guy is murdered, he had been trouble around the show. He knew something about the death of Anne's old partner. Lee J Cobb is the Police Detective that comes to investigate the death.

Things heat on the set with Anne having eyes for Cameron. Never a good thing when Raymond is a jealous guy. Cameron's girlfriend works at the circus and she's ready to pack it in but Cameron sure would like the extra 50 bucks a week from the act. Lee Marvin is a beat cop assigned to watch the gorilla. He gets knocked out when someone lets the gorilla out. Much of the movie is shot at Nu Pike Amusement Park in Long Beach, California. It's a good looking film that was originally presented in 3-D. It was the second 3-D film at 2oth Century Fox though it was produced by Panoramic Productions. It's another one I hadn't seen before, at least, as far as I remember. I enjoyed it well enough, there's some nice plot points, and would watch it again sometime.

Jules Verne's Mystery On Monster Island is a 1981 US-Spanish production. It's got Terrence Stamp and Peter Cushing in the lead roles. Sadly they aren't in it very much. It's the 1880's and Peter buys an island with a huge pile of gold on it. He doesn't know that but Terrence does. Peter sends his nephew on the ship to the island along with the nephew's professor from college. Weird sea monsters attack in the night, only the nephew and professor get off the ship. They wash up on shore and try to survive. There's some nice footage of big rocks but sadly the monsters were pretty piss poor. It's not anywhere near as entertaining as the previous three movies I watched today. I got to fast forwarding it to get things moving along. The nice thing about all these old movies, besides the entertaining stories and fun monsters, is the 80 odd minute running time. Just the right length for the type of movie they are. Sadly JVMOMI is 105 minutes. I hadn't seen it before and I wouldn't much need to see it again. I'd watch all the other three three movies I saw today again before I'd watch this. The same can be said for the 2004 Monster Island with Carmen Electra.

Yongary - Konga

I picked up some of the Midnight Movies series at Family Dollar for 4 bucks each. I had been sitting on them without cracking the cases for a while and decided to start watching them tonight. It's been ages since I've seen Yongary, Monster From The Deep. It's a 1967 Korean film about a monster that comes crashing around the Korean countryside. I have a copy from Alpha Video that looks like crap compared to this MGM release. I'm throwing that version in the river. This version is a bit longer and widescreen. The AV version has washed out color and a lot of half people on the screen. The soundtrack is the same, the English dubbed one, but it does sound better.

Like I said, Yongary is the name of a giant monster that gets released from the earth's depths when there's a bomb test. The Koreans were trying to get them some Godzilla money by making a monster movie. Like the Japanese monster films of the 60s they put a kid in the pole position and make him drive the movie around the monster. There's a lot of the kid getting right into the thick of things, he gets in trouble, puts others in trouble, but sort of redeems himself when he gathers a bit of info that helps figure out how to kill the beast. Of course the kid wants them to save the monster but saner heads prevail. It's not a great movie but fun enough to want to watch once in a while. Well worth the 2 bucks considering the other movie is Konga.

Konga is a British/AIP co-production that was released in 1961. Michael Gough is a scientist who had been lost in Africa for a year. He returns to London at the beginning of the film. While in Africa he had stayed with a tribe who helped him return to civilization after teaching him some of their formulas for animal growth. Back in London he gets right back to his lab. He wants to make Konga the chimp into a gorilla size chimp. I'm not sure we need larger animals but there you go. He's ruthless and kills the cat when it accidentally drinks some formula. He only has eyes for Konga. Well, Konga and a blond student in his classroom. She's got a boyfriend and Michael's going to marry his secretary. That tangle won't help things at all.

Michael gets some push back from the Dean of the school about his work. He turns Konga into a killing machine and that's the end of the Dean. More killings follow until the secretary, jealous of Michael's interest in the school girl, injects Konga with way too much formula and super-sizes the chimp. Soon the almost giant critter is tromping about London. He doesn't smash much stuff. Konga isn't Godzilla or Yongary size but the Army still have to come kill him with machine guns. Michael, clutched in Konga's hand, gets his. It's a pretty entertaining film, but like Yongary, it's not a great one. Micahel Gough plays a good mad scientist though he sure is stupid for such a clever guy. Some of the effects are ok but others are kind of sad. I didn't have it on my watched movie list which means I didn't see it since I started the list. I might have seen it in the past but I can't remember it.

The Twilight Zone S3D4

 

I had been busy for one reason or another most of the last few sundays and hadn't made the time to return to The Twilight Zone. I'm still on the third season with two discs to go. Most of the discs have 8 episodes on them. Most of these have isolated scores for the extra.

The Fugitive  March 9 1962

Written by Charles Beaumont and directed by Richard L. Bare. J Pat O'Malley is an alien who lives on earth. He hangs out with the children of the neighborhood. Jenny is his best friend and she's got a leg brace on. Her aunt is a shrill woman played by Nancy Culp. Someone is looking for J Pat. He turns out to be the king from another planet. His subjects are looking for him, they want him back, he's a good king. I did remember the episode and that J Pat was the ruler of a planet before he told his secret to Jenny. It's all rather slight but mostly enjoyable.

Little Girl Lost  March 16 1962

Written by Richard Matheson from a short story published in his 1953 collection The Shores of Space and directed by Paul Stewart. I read that collection and it was pretty good. Some parents wake up to a cries of their daughter. They can't find her but they can hear her. They get their physicist friend to come over and when the dog disappears they  figure out that she fell into another dimension. Now they need to figure out how to get their daughter out. One of the episodes that I remember more clearly than most. 

Person Or Persons Unknown  March 23, 1962

Written by Charles Beaumont and directed by John Brahm. Richard Long wakes up after an evening of drinking only to find out his wife doesn't know him. Everything he had is missing from their place and no one knows him at his job. I didn't remember this one but it was pretty good. It would be pretty scary wake up and no one knows who you are. 

The Little People  March 30 1962

Written by Rod Serling and directed by William Claxton. Two astronauts are on a planet repairing their space ship. One of them finds a race of tiny people and lords it over them. He terrifies them into building a life size statue of him. He forces the other astronaut to leave so he can be the god of the little people. He'll soon get his as size really doesn't matter in TTZ. This is another episode that I remember, especially the statue.

Four O'Clock  April 6 1962

Written by Rod Serling, adapted it from a story by Price Day from the 1959 collection Alfred Hitchcock Presents: 14 of My Favorites in Suspense, and directed by Lamont Johnson. Theodore Bickel is a crazy crank who believes the world is filled with evil people. He fights against them by harrassing their employers. It's not getting results so he develops a plan to make everyone evil 2 foot tall at 4 PM by sheer will alone. He's pretty sad when he shrinks. I didn't remember this one. It's ok but it's not going to be one of my favorites.

Hocus-Pocus and Frisby  April 13 1962

Written by Rod Serling, adapted from an unpublished story by Frederic Louis Fox, directed by Lamont Johnson. Andy Devine is a small town store owner who tells tall tales. When some aliens hear his tales they think he's the real thing and kidnap him for their zoo. Luckily for Andy he manages to escape. Of course no one believes him when he tells them what happened. It's another that I remember. Pretty silly to say the least.

The Trade-Ins  April 13 1962

Written by Rod Serling and directed by Elliot Silverstein. An old couple wants to trade in their old bodies for new ones. The husband tries to make money by gambling and nearly loses all his money but for a sentimental opponent. He takes the cure and when he sees how it affects his old wife he changes back. Not one of my favorites.

The Gift  April 27 1962

Written by Rod Serling, adapted from his original script I Shot an Arrow Into the Air, and directed by Allen H Miner. An alien crash lands near a small village in Mexico. A cop is killed accidentally when he encounters the alien. The alien is wounded and he gets some help from the villagers. The bartender turns him in and he's killed. His gift, a cure for cancer, is ruined by their ignorance. Typical kind of Rod irony type of story which I remembered from when it was new. That sort of irony would have been pretty new to me at the time. Same with how shitty people are, a lesson learned over and over again.

Not a bad bunch of stories for the most part. I really must take more time to finish this series off. I might have some time during the holidays.

Science Fiction Sunday 317

The Two Doctors brings Partrick Troughton back to the series. It's the 141st serial and it first aired February 16 to March 2 1985. Colin Baker is the 6th Doctor and Patrick is the 2nd Doctor. Nicola Bryant plays Peri Brown and Frazer Hines plays  Jamie McCrimmon. It would be the last time that Patrick and Frazer would play their characters. The 3 episode story was written by Robert Holmes and directed by Peter Moffatt. Jacqueline Pearce plays totally villainous Chessene, I had been seeing her in Blake's 7 as the evil head of the Federation, she plays a similar evil character there.

Doctor 2 and Jamie are in the Tardis, they land on Space Station Chimera where they meet Dastari, the Head of Projects, and explain they are on a mission from the Time Lords. The station has some scientists experimenting on Time Travel and the Time Lords want them to stop. The Time Lords lack any interest in sharing their control over time. Dastari introduces Chessene to Doc 2 and Jamie. She's been experimented on, changing her from a primitive bestial Androgum to a more human with great intelligence. Still, underneath she's an evil and murderous creature with thoughts of univeral domination.

Chessene has made a deal with the Sontarians to steal the time experiments and kill everyone on board the station except the Doctor, Dastari and the Androgum cook. They all leave and a short while later Peri and the 6th Doctor show up. They follow the trail to Seville Spain on modern Earth where Chessene gets her plans rolling. The Docs put that plan to rest but it takes a while so there's the usual chasing, getting caught and escaping. There are some nice scenes in the Spanish countryside and Seville.

The program got some negative feedback for the violence. That all ramped up and the show got put into a year hiatus when the season ended. I liked the episode well enough  but I was more interested in seeing the return of Patrick Troughton than seeing the plot play out. At one point Dastari starts the process to change the 2nd Doctor into a Androgum. That's him and the cook below. The cook does murder several people in a rather horrible manner. He's a pretty awful creature, not human, but willing to eat them.

It's a 2 disc set and the episode disc has a fairly good commentary with Peter Moffatt, Jacqueline Pearce, Frazer Hines, Peter Davison and Nicola Bryant. There's an Easter Egg with some footage of the credits, an info track and an isolated score. The only other extra is a clip from Jimmy Savile's show Jim'll Fix It called A Fix With Sontarians. Jimmy sets up a scene for a little Doctor Who fan. He gets to do a scene with Peter Davison, Janet Fielding and some Sontarians. Recently it was revealed that Jimmy Savile was a sexual predator who carried on his dirty business for decades.

Disc two has a whole bunch of extras. There's a nice featurette on writer Robert Holmes. He died in 1986 and there isn't much of him on video. There's over an hour of raw video shooting, some in the studio and some on location. There's a promo celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the Doctor. There's a featurette on location shooting in Spain with  production manager Gary Downie. It was his job to recce the Spanish locations where he returns to talk about the experience. There's a nice Photo Gallery and an episode of the radio program Wavelength which talks about Doctor Who.

Friday Night Movies 508

I last watched our first movie back in 2010 and posted about it in one of my Science Fiction Sunday series. We watched the BluRay of the movie tonight and it looked quite good. Here's the post I wrote before. I pretty much feel the same way about it.

The first movie is The Quatermass Xperiment (1955) which American's might have seen under the title The Creeping Unknown. It's directed by Val Guest, a director that never I grew to be a great fan of, who does an ok job here. A small English town has a loud noisey event one night. A rocket crashes into a field. Brian Donlevy plays Quatermass. He's a hard talking tough science guy who really wants it all his way. Some people, like original tv series writer Nigel Kneale, didn't like Donlevy's performance but it's what I saw first and I've grown to like him, brusque and annoying as he is. He'd be a pain-in-the-ass kind of guy to work for. When Quatermass and the military open the rocket there is only one man of the three that left the earth. Where the heck did those other two guys go?

Victor, the rocket man, is all screwed up, hardly able to croakout a "Help me!" before going catatonic. Quatermass studies the ship trying to figure out where the other two men went. They find some film that doesn't answer their questions. Victor doesn't say anything but he can be lead around. Victor's wife sneaks him out of the hospital after he sucks the life out of some guy. Shortly after Victor runs away and leaves his wife screaming in her car. Victor stops in at a chemist's and that's where we get to see his crazy lookin' arm. Quatermass and the police find the poor dead chemist and he's just like the dead guy at the hospital, his body all dehydrated and gray. Victor doesn't kill a little girl and that leads the cops to him in the Detford area. There's a night scene at a zoo. That was kind of cool looking. Most of the film is pretty average in it's technical aspects. The physical effects are pretty good, so is the make up. Back in the movie Victor is mutating and leaving parts of himself about. There are lots of scenes of people looking for something. Eventually the monster is confronted in Westminster Abbey and the Earth saved. It's not the greatest SF movie you'll see but it delivers a good bit of fun with a creepy monster and some action. I'd recommend it, along with the whole series. There was a TV program followed by several movies.

I was sure I had seen but forgotten our second film, Planet Of The Vampires, but I don't see it on my Watched Movies List and I don't have a copy. I guess I had just forgotten that I hadn't seen it. I'm not a fan of the director, Mario Bava, but he has a fair size following. Bava wrote the script with 4 other writers and it's based on a short story. The version we saw is the US AIP release with a script by Ib Melchior and Louis M. Heyward. All those writers don't seem to have much knowledge of science but that's ok it's a 1965 Italian science fiction film so it doesn't matter. The movie was co-produced by AIP. You can read a bit about that on the Wikipedia page for the movie.

American International Pictures had achieved a great deal of commercial success in the early 1960s with Bava's Black Sunday (1960) and Black Sabbath (1963), as well as dozens of lesser Italian films, including several sword and sandal pictures. Eventually, AIP heads Samuel Z. Arkoff and James H. Nicholson decided to coproduce some of these films, rather than just pay for the rights to distribute them, in order to have more control over their content. Planet of the Vampires was one such coproduction, financed by AIP and Italy's Fulvio Lucisano for Italian International Film, along with some Spanish production money provided by Castilla Cooperativa Cinematográfica. AIP provided the services of writer Ib Melchior, whose previous movies had included such modest hits as The Angry Red Planet and Reptilicus, as well as the relatively big budget Robinson Crusoe on Mars. Melchior wrote the screenplay for the English-language version of the film, with some assistance from AIP producer Louis M. Heyward.

Barry Sullivan is the Captain of a spaceship that's out exploring space with another ship. They receive a distress signal from an unexplored planet. When the two ships land the crews go mental and start fighting. Three are killed on Barry's ship before they get back to normal. They have no contact with the other ship and decide to travel overland to it. The planet is foggy and filled with lava. The crew on the second ship is dead. The corpses disappear while they are checking out the rest of the ship. They soon find out that some aliens on the planet can take over the minds of a the human's and turn them to their will. They can even animate the dead men. The human's find another space ship, the crew are huge and dead, only their skeletons remain. It's one of the plot points in the film that critics say influenced Ridley Scott in Alien. There's a distress signal in that film too. You can watch it on YouTube at the link above and figure it out for yourself. I think Bava himself is heavily influenced by Forbidden Planet. Again you can be the judge. It's not a great film but it's kind of fun to watch. I have certainly watched worse and I would watch it again. Maybe not today but in a few years.

Babylon 5 Season 3 Disc 3

Things are heating up on the station as the Earth Government goes nuts and starts killing citizens. G'Kar comes to realize that Sheridan and the Humans are the key to the future. J Michael Straczynski wrote the lot for the season and they are a nice bunch of stories.

Point of No Return  February 26 1996 

Written by JMS and  directed by Jim Johnston

The Ministry of Peace sent an order for the Nightwatch to take over control of the Station and Sheridan has to try to figure out what to do about that. He can't very well continue building the alliance with the pro Clark Nightwatch breathing down his neck.

Lady Morella, the late Emperor Turhan's 3rd wife, comes to the Station at Londo's request. He wants to use her psychic ability to for see Londo's future. She tells him that he will be the Emperor and he could save himself from damnation by following her vague advice. She says Vir will be Emperor too. Vir laughs but Lady Morella isn't joking. Majal Barrett plays Lady Morella.

G'Kar gets let out of jail early and finds Ta'lon waiting for him. G'Kar reveals a bit of what he was working out while locked up. Sheridan figures out how to take out the Nightwatch with the help of G'Kar. Sheridan brings G'Kar and Zack into his circle. 

Severed Dreams  April 1 1996

Written by JMS and  directed by David J Eagle

This episode won the 1997 Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation. You can see the Hugo in a later episode.

The EAS Alexander, under command of Major Ryan, arrives at the Station for repair. Ryan and his crew aren't supporting Clark and his cronies. He brings news that the Earth Colonies are refusing to go along with the martial law order which prompts Clark to start bombing Mars.

Delenn leaves B5 to confront the Grey Council for doing little to prepare for the upcoming Shadow War. She breaks the Council and leaves with the Religious and Worker castes. Another friendly Earthforce ship arrives with news that Earthforce is coming to take B5. Sheridan decides to break away and make a stand. The can barely hold off the first wave and are saved from the second wave by Delenn's posse arriving in the nick of time. It's one of my favorite scenes in the series. Her speech scares away the Earthforce ships when they tell her they don't want to fight with her.

Why not? Only one human captain has ever survived battle with the Minbari fleet. He is behind me. You are in front of me. If you value your lives, be somewhere else.

Ceremonies of Light and Dark  April 8 1996

Written by JMS and  directed by John C. Flinn III

Scum bags in the defunct Nightwatch kidnap Delenn and the pilot of the Whtestar. They want things back the way they were but they just mostly die. Stupid of them to try something on B5 but that's dumb scum bags for you.

Londo poisons Lord Refa in order to get him to pull back from all the wars the Centauri are waging on 12 fronts. He wants Refa to drop his contact with Mr Mordon. That's going to be harder than it seems. Londo won't come out of this as well as he hopes. Lord Refa will have it worse in the future.

Sic Transit Vir  April 15 1996

Written by JMS and  directed by Jesus Trevino

Vir's wife comes to the Station and Vir is as surprised as the viewer. It's an arranged marriage and it's the first he's heard of it. He's not too keen on it, especially when he finds out she's a monster. She had helped her father "cull the herds' on Narn. They killed anyone who put up any sign of resistance and one of the survivors is on B5 gunning for her. Vir had been busy on Minbari, helping Narns to escape with false papers. It all comes out and Londo is pissed. It does help get out of his arranged marriage.

Ivanova has a dream where she arrives in C&C naked. Sheridan cooks dinner for Delenn. He cooks flarn, a Minbari dish, and it isn't good but Delenn doesn't say anything. She's so nice. Ivanova takes over Vir's underground railway to sneak more Narns out of harms way.

Christmas 2076

 

Back in 1976 I asked Tim Boxell to draw some illustrations for my Christmas card. He came through with 4 small drawings that I had printed offset. I put them in a folder and mailed it out as a Christmas card.

The idea was post-apocalypse Christmas in the wastelands. A free copy of the original card to the first person who can guess the inspiration for the illustrations. Thanks to Tim I had an nice unusual Christmas card that year. These illusrations are scanned from the original drawings.

Hope your Christmas is fine and the New Year isn't like this one.

Zatoichi 10 - Zatoichi's Revenge

Zatoichi's Revenge is the 10th film in the Zatoichi series and it came out April 3 1965. As usual it stars Shintaro Katsu as the blind masseur Zatoichi. It's written by Minoru Inuzuka and directed by Akira Inoue. The music is by Akira Ifukubi whom Toho fans would recognize from all the films he scored there.

Zatoichi nears the village that his old masseur Master lives in. He arrives to find out Master Hikonoichi had been killed on the road just two weeks ago. The man's daughter has already been sold to a whore house in payment of a debt to local scumbag businessman Tatsugoro. He's screwed over many people in the village, many of their daughters were forced into prostitution. Zatoichi thinks he should be putting a stop to that.

Zatoichi sees Master Hikonoichi's daughter Osayo and she gives him a clue to the killer's identity. Zatoichi attempts to smoke him out. He meets Tsuru the cute young daughter of Denroku, a dice dealer, and spends a little time with them. Next day the man tries to cheat Zatoichi at dice but he fails. He tells Zatoichi that it was Tatsugoro who forced him into cheating. Some of Tatsugoro's thugs try to get the winnings back but that fails and 5 of them meet death from the edge of Ichi's sword.

Tatsugoro isn't happy and like all the boss's who confront Zatoichi he thinks he can just have him killed and his troubles will be over. That's a bad idea as it is a lot harder to kill the blind masseur than it seems. The local Tax Inspector's visit complicates everything for Tatsugoro. Koheita Kadokura, Tatsugoro's chief enforcer, plans to kill the Tax Inspector, blame it on Zatoichi, then kill him in the arrest. He gets the first part done but making the blame stick to Zatoichi is something else that's pretty hard to accomplish.

Tatsugoro orders Denroku to pay him the 100 Taels that Zatoichi took as winnings. He will keep Denroku's daughter prisoner as insurance. Zatoichi battles Kadokura to the death. Tsuru tries to help her dad by stealing Zatoichi's cane sword. That only keeps Zatoichi under cover for a little bit. He pops out of hiding and enlists Denroku for some payback.

Even though they pop several of these films out each year they manage to keep the level of writing, acting and production fairly high. They have a nice style and the sets and locations are all nice to look at. Even after seeing the films 2-3 times I still find I like watching them. Zatoichi is a compelling character and one I plan to visit with in the future. The Criterion set is a nice addition to anyone's film library.

Babylon 5 Season 3 Disc 2

J Michael Straczynski pens the whole season and each show has many nice enjoyable moments. The side of light starts gathering allies for the up coming Shadow War. The Shadows have their claws deep into the Earth Government of President Clark.

Voices of Authority  January 1 1996

Written by JMS and directed by Menachem Binitsky

 

Sheridan has to deal with the arrival of a political officer. She's quite a pushy one, popping out her clothes to try to seduce Sheridan into going along with the program of lies and misinformation. The Nightwatch is creating tension with their constant poking and snooping. They will need dealing with in the future.

Sheridan sends Ivanova to visit Draal and the Great Machine. She pops into the driver's seat and takes her brain out for a spin around the galaxy. She encounters the Shadows lurking and nearly gets caught. On her escape she picks up a bit of proof that Clark arranged the late President Santiago's assassination. He's a sack of shit that Clark. Plenty like him in the history of this planet.

Ivanova and Marcus make contact with a race from the remaining First Ones. Ivanova has to stand up to them and they bend to her will. Well, really, who wouldn't. She has a problem with Marcus, not understanding what their relationship is. He will explain, in his fashion. The clip of Clark Ivanova found is leaked to the news. It creates quite a stir.

Dust To Dust  February 5 1996

Written by JMS and directed by David J Eagle

Psi Cop Bester is back and Sheridan makes him take a drug that inhibits his telepathy. Bester is there after a dealer in Dust. It's a psychotropic drug that makes the users crazy. It was secretly developed by the Psicorps to bring out telepathic powers in mundanes but it didn't work. Not that the Psicorps cared that lives were ruined and people died. It will take a while but the Psicorps will fall and Bester gets his.

G'Kar tries some Dust and winds up beating Vir Koto and Londo Molari pretty badly. He sees into Londo's mind and finds out how heavily the Centauri was involved in the war with the Narns. Kosh comes to G'Kar in his psychic state and helps move him forward on his path to enlightenment. G'Kar accepts his 60 day jail sentence with good cheer. It's there he begins to write the material that would turn into The Book Of G'Kar. The Narn continues to be one of my favorite characters.

Exogenesis February 12 1996

Written by JMS and directed by Kevin G Cremin

Marcus is working in down below gathering info and informants. One of them moves on and Marcus wonders why. It leads him to a group of humans with Vindrizi in them. The Vindrizi are a race parasitic aliens that have been gathering info for half a million years. They aren't interested in sharing their knowledge or the up coming war. They plan to leave and not get involved.

Sheridan has Ivanova feel out Lt Corwin to see if they might be able to trust him. Poor Corwin thinks it might be a date and he wastes money on fake roses. Ivanova thinks he won't fit in and she sends him home, only slightly confused. Later she tosses the flowers at Marcus. He thinks she's giving them to him, not knowing their origin.

Messages From Earth  February 19 1996

Written by JMS and directed by Micheal Vejar

Dr Kirkish comes to the station with news of a Shadow ship buried in the sands of Mars. She had been there when a Shadow ship had been uncovered. Shortly after a second ship came and took it away. A tracking device in the ship lead IPX to Za'h'dum. Kirkish was told to keep the Shadow ship a secret and she had. At least until another Shadow ship was discovered on Ganymede. This time Earthforce plans to activate it themselves. She came to warn Sheridan and he takes the Whitestar to Mars to destroy the Shadow ship.

Zack has some trouble with the Nightwatch who want him to cosy up to Mr Garibaldi and learn where the Captain went for 4 days. Zack isn't at all happy with his position. He'll prove to be an asset to the Conspiracy of Light in the future. News of the attack on the Shadow ship from Earth makes it look like the Whitestar attacked the base on Ganymede. Clark declares martial law to put an end to the inquiry of Santiago's assassination.