Pathfinders Series
Entry updated 3 February 2025. Tagged: TV.
These are four UK tv series that aired in 1960 and 1961, featuring recurring characters who engage in pioneering flights to the Moon, Mars and Venus.
1. Target: Luna (1960). ABC Weekend Television. (Production credits assumed to be the same as those of the other three series.) Produced by Sydney Newman. Directed by Guy Verney. Written by Malcolm Hulke and Eric Paice. Cast includes Michael Craze, Sylvia Davies, Frank Finlay, Michael Hammond and David Markham. Six 30-minute episodes. Black and white.
In this lost series, Professor Wedgwood (Markham), about to launch an experimental rocket to the Moon from a base on Buchan Island, is visited by his three children Geoffrey (Craze), Valerie (Davies) and Jimmy (Hammond) (see Children in SF), as well as his friend Henderson (Finlay), a reporter. When the scheduled pilot becomes sick, Wedgwood assigns Jimmy to replace him, who brings along his pet hamster Hamlet. On the flight, he encounters several perils, that can only be guessed by the episode titles "The Strange Illness", "Storm in Space", "Solar Flare" and "The Falling Star", before safely returning to Earth, while apparently never landing on the Moon.
2. Pathfinders in Space (1960). ABC Weekend Television. Produced by Sydney Newman. Directed by Guy Verney. Written by Malcolm Hulke and Eric Paice. Cast includes Pamela Barney, Richard Dean, Gillian Ferguson, Gerald Flood, Stewart Giodotti, Harold Goldblatt and Peter Williams. Seven 30-minute episodes. Black and white.
This second series features all of the same characters, though they are now played by different actors (who also appear in both subsequent series), either because the original actors were not available or because the producers were dissatisfied with the first cast. Wedgwood (Williams) is now preparing to launch a Rocket to land on the Moon, with himself and two Scientists – elderly Dr O'Connell (Goldblatt) and young Professor Mary Meadows (Barney) – as the crew; a second, unmanned Spaceship will accompany them to provide needed supplies. However, a problem requires that the second craft must have a crew – a hastily recruited Henderson (Flood) and Wedgwood's three children Geoffrey (Guidotti), Valerie (Ferguson) and Jimmy (Dean); Hamlet, now transformed into a guinea pig, joins the flight as well. When the two ships land far away from each other, the crews embark upon quests to meet. Jimmy accidentally discovers an apparently Alien spaceship deep underground, though it transpires that it was actually built by an ancient human race that perished due to a ruinous war 400 million years ago. They did however send some of their children into space hoping that they could carry on elsewhere (as evidenced by the Toys that are found). In the interim, a meteor shower destroys one spacecraft, and the other one cannot accommodate all of the astronauts; but Wedgwood figures out a way to launch the ancient spaceship so that everyone can return to Earth, though when it breaks up mid-flight the other ship must rescue its occupants. All of the last three series qualify as Spacesuit Films even though it appears that their spacesuits' helmets are not covered by faceplates, only filaments seemingly designed to simulate faceplates, probably because the actors found this more comfortable.
3. Pathfinders to Mars (1960-1961). ABC Weekend Television. Produced by Sydney Newman. Directed by Guy Verney. Written by Malcolm Hulke and Eric Paice. Cast includes Pamela Barney, Hester Cameron, George Coulouris, Gillian Ferguson, Gerald Flood, Stewart Giodotti and Peter Williams. Six 30-minute episodes. Black and white.
Preparing another expedition to the Moon, Wedgwood has a broken arm that requires him to ask Henderson to replace him; the other crew will be the returning Meadows, Geoffrey, and Henderson's niece Margaret (Cameron), who must accompany Henderson because he has been asked to watch over her. But a crazed writer obsessed with his theories about intelligent Life on Other Worlds, Harcourt Brown (Coulouris), duplicitously arranges to replace the other scientist assigned to the crew, and he soon contrives to divert the ship to Mars, intent upon contacting the Martians that he is sure he will find to assist him. Brown barricades himself inside the control room to achieve his goal, and after a failed attempt to dislodge him with a spacewalk, a truce is arranged when everyone agrees to proceed to Mars. There, they encounter no life, except for virulent lichen, though they manage to obtain needed water from the Martian polar ice caps and thwart Brown's plan to depart without them.
4. Pathfinders to Venus (1961). ABC Weekend Television. Produced by Sydney Newman. Directed by Guy Verney. Written by Malcolm Hulke and Eric Paice, with "script associate" Ivan Roe. Cast includes Pamela Barney, Hester Cameron, George Coulouris, Gillian Ferguson, Gerald Flood, Stewart Giodotti, Graydon Gould, Robert James, Brigid Skemp and Peter Williams. Eight 30-minute episodes. Black and white.
While returning to Earth, Henderson and his crew are asked to divert to Venus in order to rescue American astronaut Wilson (Gould), and Brown edits a message from Wilson to get them to land on Venus, where he expects to locate the intelligent life that he failed to find on Mars. Wilson is awaiting the arrival of a supply ship from Russia, which will also be essential to ensuring Henderson's safe return to Earth. Landing on Venus, they implausibly discover a breathable atmosphere and a terrain resembling that of primitive Earth, complete with two human species – bestial Neanderthals and more advanced Cro-Magnons. They manage to meet up with Wilson and encounter a Cro-Magnon girl named Kiki (Skemp), who assists them as they deal with various crises, including carnivorous plants, attacking Neanderthals, an underground volcano, an illness afflicting Meadows that is cured with homemade antibiotics, a fire that threatens to engulf their spaceship, and, predictably, Dinosaurs in footage borrowed from the Czech film A Journey to the Beginning of Time (1955). After the Russian cosmonaut (James) arrives, they are finally able to return to Earth, though the previously villainous Brown remains behind with Kiki, as he promises to care for her and help her reunite with her people.
Overall, these series can be praised for their initial commitment to realistic drama, and condemned for their gradual descent into melodramatic idiocy. It is sadly not surprising that some commentators with misguided priorities have praised the fourth, and most ludicrous, series as the best one, presumably because they found it most entertaining. [GW]
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