I watched Pathfinders To Mars this morning, it's the sequel to Pathfinders To Space and it came out in 1960. There are 6 episodes, they were written by Malcolm Hulke and Eric Paice, Guy Verney is the director.
The cast has changed a bit, Professor Wedgewood is hurt the 1st episode and he's not in the show for the other 6 episodes. His being hurt is the way the writers keep him out off the ship so the imposter can sneak aboard. Wedgewood knows the scientist personally. George Coulouris plays The Imposter, that's his credit on the 1st episode, we soon find out he's really Harcourt Brown, a crazy man who believes that the static noise from space is chatter from intelligent beings. He strongly believes there is life on Mars and that the space agency should send him to Mars to meet the aliens. He decides to take matters into his own hands, sneaking on board by tricking the real scientist out of the way.
Wedgewood's three children have been reduced to 1, only Geoff makes the cut, he is going to be the radio operator in the ship going to the moon. With Wedgewood hurt, there's a need for a pilot, they naturally turn to the journalist Henderson who had piloted the second rocket to the moon in the last series. Henderson's niece Margret gets to go along and Professor Meadows returns from the last series.
Harcourt repeatedly puts the ship and the crew in danger. He takes over the ship and says he'll kill them unless he gets to go to Mars. He lies and plans to leave the rest of them on the planet once he finds out there's no aliens there. They let him get away with this sort of thing over and over without anything worse than an "Oh, you!".
It's one of the things that annoyed be about the story. It's bad enough Harcourt was able to get on board so easily and then they keep on giving him a pass for his activities, like he's just a bad boy who's been a bit naughty. I just wanted to smack him.
The series ends with the ship taking off for Earth but they can't go fast enough to catch up to the Earth before their air runs out. Harcourt has a plan to slingshot around the sun to increase their speed. The series ends with them still in space, heading for home.
I watched Pathfinders To Venus after lunch, it came out in 1961 and there are 8 episodes. Malcolm Hulke and Eric Paice wrote the screenplays, Guy Verney directed 6 episodes and Reginald Collin two.
The show picks up where the other series ended, it's really like one story over two series. The ship gets a radio message from Captain Wilson, an American spaceman who's ship is stuck in an orbit around Venus. Harcourt tricks the crew and convinces them that Wilson landed, so they land too. It's a jungle with breathable air. There are neanderthals, early humans, and dinosaurs. They took the dinosaurs out of Journey To The Beginning OF Time.
They all rush about, eventually find Captain Wilson, befriend a local orphan early human named Kiki, and nearly get left on the planet by Harcourt. He thinks the place will be ruined by human greed, they've found diamonds and uranium. Yet, in the end, Harcourt decides to stay on Venus with Kiki. Good way to escape punishment for his actions and cheat me out of seeing him get his.
It's a frustrating series, I would have like it better if I was younger, I wouldn't care so much about the annoying parts of the story. I'm not sorry to have seen it, let along spending the few dollars that the DVDs cost, and I might watch it again someday. Realistically, unlikely but who knows. Death may save me.
Comments