Captain Star TV Series Episode Guide
The Captain Star TV series took off in Britain on Childrens' ITV on Tuesday 8th July at 4.20pm. Coolest actor in the universe, Richard E Grant (Withnail in Withnail and I) was the voice of Jim Star and 'Limbs' Jones was brilliantly voiced by Adrian Edmondson. Steven says his favourite episodes were towards the end of the series.
Episode 1: the Atomic Alarm Clock by Frank Cottrell Boyce and Doug Langdale. Star has trouble getting up in the morning, so Scarlette makes him an atomic alarm clock. If he doesn't get to the bridge within 21 minutes of it going off, it will fire a missile at Mission Control killing thousands of innocent people... Excellent engine-stoking sea-shanty from Jones.
Episode 2: The Day of the Zooties by Frank Cottrell Boyce. Inspired, no doubt, by the Star Trek 'Trouble with Tribbles' episode (though this is funnier!). A spaceship arrives, and Star thinks that the long-awaited orders from Mission Control have arrived. Infact it's a vacuum cleaner salesman who wreaks havoc with the Boiling Hell. Contains the sublime moment when Jones asks if they should get a new bathmat for the ship. Star puts him down, replying "No thank you, Jones, bath mats are unhygienic."
Episode 3: The Worm Turns by David Finlay... where Jones thought he had Star's orders - at last! - but lost his memory. Scarlette shrank Star who
entered Jones' brain (well one of them) to search for the forgotten orders. An episode to tug at the heart-strings...
Episode 4: I had to go to court, lost the case, and to top off an abysmal day I forgot to set the VCR to tape episode 4.
Episode 5: Nine Heads are Better than One by Frank Cottrel Boyce. Jones realises he is lonely - none of the rest of the crew will admit to being his friend. He sends off for a mail-order friend from a firm Black once used. 'Friendly' Jones (many arms but only one head) arrives and insinuates his way into the affections of Star and Scarlette. 'Friendly' Jones explains to 'Limbs' that it's easy to make people like you so that they won't notice that you don't do any work. Of course this attitude has disastrous consequences for the maintenance of the Boiling Hell...
Episode 6: Waiting for Sputnik by Phil Bedard and Larry Lalonde. Sputnik the Cat, whose loss was chronicled in the previous week's episode of 'Star of Space', returns. He grows and grows and grows while strange things are going on in the Great Dark. Black unveils his FishPhone which enables him to communicate with his fish - although all he seems to get is a fuzzy dot-matrix print out of a rhino. Strange live action ending to this episode.
all images © Steven Appleby
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