Pathfinders to Mars
Jan. 26th, 2013 03:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dormouse1953Now watching the second part of the Pathfinders trilogy, which starts when Professor Wedgwood is injured in a re-fuelling explosion. He breaks his arm which means he can't lead the next expedition to the moon. So Henderson, the science reporter, is roped in to go. Geoffrey Wedgwood is going again, but his brother and sister are back at school. There is another kid brought along. Henderson is looking after his niece, Margaret, so she is allowed to go, too. They nearly all died last time, and yet everyone thinks this is a good idea. Added to this, Gerald Flood plays Henderson as the sort of uncle you wouldn't want to leave alone with your children.
Mary, the Canadian scientist from before, is also along. The other scientist is going to be Professor Hawkins from Australia, except that when one of the team phones Prestwick to see if he's arrived yet, he definitely says "Canada", TV drama was treated as live back then, even when it was recorded. One of the episodes of Adam Adamant Lives is set in Japan and has the head of a geisha house (an English actress made up to look Asian) say at one point "Chinese" and then corrects herself to "Japanese".
It turns out that Hawkins has been waylaid at the airport and an imposter has taken his place. (I remember this as being the first time I ever heard the word "impostor".) He is really Harcourt Brown, author of the controversial book People from Other Planets, and he hijacks the rocket to take it to Mars. Well, the title of the series sort of gave that away.
Brown is played by the veteran British actor George Colouris who was in Citizen Kane playing Kane's guardian, Thatcher. Curiously, the real Professor Hawkins is played by Bernard Horsfall, another veteran British actor who, among many other roles, played Chancellor Goth in the Doctor Who series The Deadly Assassin.
Mary, the Canadian scientist from before, is also along. The other scientist is going to be Professor Hawkins from Australia, except that when one of the team phones Prestwick to see if he's arrived yet, he definitely says "Canada", TV drama was treated as live back then, even when it was recorded. One of the episodes of Adam Adamant Lives is set in Japan and has the head of a geisha house (an English actress made up to look Asian) say at one point "Chinese" and then corrects herself to "Japanese".
It turns out that Hawkins has been waylaid at the airport and an imposter has taken his place. (I remember this as being the first time I ever heard the word "impostor".) He is really Harcourt Brown, author of the controversial book People from Other Planets, and he hijacks the rocket to take it to Mars. Well, the title of the series sort of gave that away.
Brown is played by the veteran British actor George Colouris who was in Citizen Kane playing Kane's guardian, Thatcher. Curiously, the real Professor Hawkins is played by Bernard Horsfall, another veteran British actor who, among many other roles, played Chancellor Goth in the Doctor Who series The Deadly Assassin.
