You can date this tape quite accurately to the time when Star Trek Generations was released in cinemas.
First, a segment from The Danny Baker Show, celebrating Star Trek, where Danny quizzes William Shatner about British TV, and talks to Nichelle Nichols mostly about kissing Captain Kirk.
Then, something I’ve presumably copied off a rental video.
Rick Berman: “I’ve always been fascinated with stories that start in one century and then stop and pick up in another.” Yes, that burgeoning subgenre of science fiction we’re always seeing.
Visual Effects supervisor is John Knoll of ILM, co-creator of Photoshop.
Patrick Stewart in shades.
Villain Malcolm McDowell
Jonathan Frakes talks about the opening scene. He liked the uniforms.
Marina Sirtis didn’t like filming on board an old ship at sea. “Some of us did not have our sea legs.”
Brent Spiner talks about Data having a bit more of a character now. I always found the ’emotional’ data annoying. I’m sorry.
Michael Westmore, makeup supervisor, who comes from a whole family of makeup artists.
After this, recording switches again, and there’s the end of The Trouble with Mr Bean.
Then, an episode of Chiller, the horror anthology series. This one is Prophecy, with a screenplay by Stephen Gallagher. A group of young people have a seance which elicits the words Non Omnis Moriar. I shall not entirely die.
Soon after this, while working at a cafe, she sees a woman hit by a car and thrown through a bookshop window.
Five years later she’s working as an archaeologist at the British Museum, and being hassled by one of her co-workers, in what was probably, at the time, meant to be charming dialogue.
She bumps into Nigel Havers while rushing for her train. He helps her with her cello and seems taken with her.
So does his previously recalcitrant young son, who’s suddenly helpful and polite, when before he was surly and angry.
One of her friends from the seance is Kate Isitt, off of Coupling.
She goes back to the cafe where she worked, and where the seance took place. The owner has lost the lease and is packing up, and she’s played by Zenia Merton, Sandra Benes off of Space 1999.
She hooks up with Havers, who invites her to come and stay with him in the country. It turns out he’s Lord of the manor, and his family motto is a bit ominous.
The young son seems unduly interested in one of his ancestors, the second Lord Halkin, who was a satanist, a sadist and a paedophile. “And those were his good points” says Havers. Could the evil spirit of this ancestor be trying to return? And why is his motto also inscribed above Havers’ conjugal bed?
Even more ominous is her discovery that her friends, with whom she had the seance, have started dying. And Havers’ son has clippings in his scrapbook.
Kate Isitt is late to pick up her daughter, and gets into an accident, then her car catches fire. And explodes.
Then she discovers how Havers’ wife died. She was hit by a car in London while they were waiting for her at a cafe. So the son recognised Ward when they met years later at the railway.
Another of Ward’s friends gets her arm chopped off by a falling sign when cycling.
She goes to see another of her friends, but just too late, as he falls down the lift shaft onto her lift.
There’s a big climax, with Tony Haygarth as a priest trying to exorcise the cafe where it all started. Nice to see Haygarth in a straight role for a change.
This is quite fun, and even has a nice twist at the end. Ghost stories aren’t my favourite genre, as it’s often hard to know what the stakes are, but this has a nice Final Destination thing going which gives us the jeopardy. It’s a bit genteel, like a spooky Inspector Morse, but I guess that’s the audience they have.
I had a few other episodes of this series, and I looked at them three years ago.
Edited to add: I watched this last week, it’s being published in a few days, and I just learned, on Twitter, that Zenia Merton, Space 1999‘s Sandra Benes, has died. She appeared in Chiller as the cafe owner. I’m so very, very sorry.
After this, it’s over to Sky One for yet another celebration of Star Trek. It’s another small coincidence that all these shows are appearing in my queue on the weekend of the 52nd anniversary of the start of Star Trek.
This one is Star Trek: A Captain’s Log, a fairly in depth reminiscence of the show. It’s hosted by William Shatner.
Most of the familiar faces appear, including Leonard Nimoy
DeForest Kelley
James Doohan
George Takei
Walter Koenig
And once again, Nichelle Nichols, who tells the now famous story of when she met Martin Luther King, who urged her not to leave the series because she represented the kind of diverse future he was talking about.
So much of this is so very familiar, and yet, when they show Spock’s final scene in The Wrath of Khan I’m still in tears. But that’s just me, I suppose.
After this, the recording continues, with an episode of The Late Show With David Letterman.
Guest on this episode is John Turturro.
With Music from Oasis. Once again I’m reassured that I missed nothing by ignoring most of the popular music of the 90s in favour of classical music, film soundtracks and musical theatre.
After this, there’s a small bit of Littlejohn. Then the tape ends.
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