Space Academy - Countdown

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Countdown is my personal favorite episode of the Filmation sci-fi program from the 70s (made for Saturday mornings when kids woke up), Space Academy.. It involves an explosive mine attached to the hull of a Seeker when telepathic brother and sister, Chris and Laura (Ric Carrot and Pamelyn Ferdin), along with Tee Gar (Brian Tochi), gifted with extraordinary strength, little Loki (Eric Greene), able to vanish and reappear at will along with his own levitating skills, and miniature robot, Peepo go on a mission to take care of space debris from a centuries-past “Vegans War” that has drifted into territories where it poses danger. A damaged, seemingly derelict ship is among the debris and once the Seeker is docked, the SA crew encounters a Vegan “fleet communications officer” in a cryogenic sleep chamber named Roarg (television veteran, George DiCenzo). Roarg has been in sleep for 200 years and is unaware that the wars he once partook are over, awakening and rendering a startled Tee Gar paralyzed in his exact position by a simple touch of the Vegan’s hand. During the awakening of Roarg, a Vegan mine attached to the top of the Seeker and is counting down to explosion! Chris needs to somehow, with help from Laura, convince Roarg that the war is over and they are at peace, in order for them to stop the countdown on the mine or else perish.

I just enjoyed the tense story…a bomb counting down is old school suspense repeated quite a bit, and SA utilizes it surprisingly well. Although I think few of us would ever expect it to detonate, and that somehow Chris and Laura would get through to Roarg that they are friends not enemies, nevertheless as the clock ticks to zero, the music and anxious faces penetrate the layer of assurance that everything will turn out okay. I liked seeing the old “cryo-sleep awakening” trope put to use again, as it is also quite a staple of sci-fi at this point. Roarg still a product of the turbulent era of war needing to be brought up to speed and right quick-like adds some extra tension to the proceedings. DiCenzo is a bit stiff and not exactly all that expressive but his character has just came out of a long sleep, encountering an immediate danger and disorienting situation perhaps unprepared for. Once again Jonathan Harris’ Commander Gampu appears often irritated and ever so serious, not amused when Tee Gar complains about having to go on a mission to clean up space junk. It wouldn’t hurt for Gampu to lighten up every once in a while. But the message of not taking any mission lightly and that through this particular one encountering quite a discovery, Tee Gar understands his “error” as Gampu seems unconvinced he learned his lesson. Tee Gar breaking through the cryo-chamber was kind of cool and Chris and Laura seemingly causing the mine, now floating in space, to detonate through sheer mental command speaks to how extraordinary their own telepathy can be. And this episode hints at a teen romance between Chris and science officer, Adrian (Maggie Cooper).