"Ultra Q" drama from.... 1966(!), episode eight of 28 recap

 

 Air Dates: January 2nd until July 3rd, 1966 though episode #28 didn't air until December 14th

Sundays at 7:00 pm on TBS, 28 total episodes that were 25+ minutes in length. Created by Eiji Tsuburaya, directed by his oldest son Hajime.

Subs by Tgwoe, screenshot dimensions 1436 x 1076(4:3). This classic series also has a color version but I prefer older shows/films in Black and White as that seems to give off a more creepy vibe which the subber also thought.

Ratings: **** Didn't find the ratings until the ninth episode but did update the first eight shows. This series had such high ratings but back in 1966 there were only a few regular stations and no cable. This drama ran opposite another sci-fi show called "W3" which was very popular and before this series began had an average rating of 23%. However "Ultra Q" was much more popular and the other show slipped below 10%!!!! The average rating  for these 28 episodes was 32.4%, the rating for this eighth episode was 38.5% which was the highest of all episodes and will update this section for each show. 

 In the middle are the main three characters, who they are will be revealed below. The man on the left end is Eiji Tsuburaya and he is the #1 special effects man/director of all time in Japan. He did all of the special effects for the classic TOHO films such as creating the costumes, sets, etc. and of course most reading this have seen the "Godzilla, Mothra, Rodan" and other movies. This TV series was the first of it's kind in Japan and Tsuburaya had created this series where he didn't want the focus to be on monsters but the story which was the format for the old American series "Outer Limits". But TOHO wanted his unique monsters and there will be a different one in each show, will update this top section now and again with more trivial tidbits.

 Below are the two monsters for episode one, on the top is Gomes(s) who does look similar to Godzilla, Tsuburaya had access to all of his old costumes so would often mix them up such as the head from a 1965 film, the body from a 1961 movie and so on. Litolaria is the name of the second monster though no destructive one as it saved the day and destroyed Gomes! Of course there's been many other monsters since then but will leave this pair up for a while. Not every episode will have an original monster as in the second show it was just a very massive monkey and think on occasion the 'enemy' will be aliens from space.

**** Have thought of a new feature and will replace this one soon. Think I may wait until the eleventh episode(did do it!) and then start listing all of the monsters that have appeared in an episode. Will have a screenshot or two plus a mini bio of the creature. Think that would turn out well but the problem could be would that section become too large?

 Main Cast: Though it appears this had nothing to do with the "Ultraman" franchise in a way it does as this series is considered to be it's forerunner. The first "Ultraman" series began a little bit after this show ended and there's not enough time to talk about that show and it's movies which I do recommend. Hiroko Sakurai who plays the reporter Yuriko in this show is quite known for her "Ultraman" work as she was in the first series plus a few more after that along with being in many of the movies. Will do some editing and adding as we go along though not as much as other dramas, the top three are by far the main characters. There will be many monsters in this series, perhaps one per episode! Won't give any details about them at the top but will talk about them during the recap.

**** Not sure how to explain this and perhaps it doesn't need it. But when the show opens a narrator tells us what we are about to watch will be something extraordinary, is what we view real or just a part of our imagination? A screenshot of that is above and that's how the American series "Outer Limits" also opened and at the end the viewers were asked to think again with about what we viewed, to date this show hasn't done that. Every episode has it's own title, this episode's is....

Terror of the Sweet Honey

Kenji Sahara as Jun Manjome.... Don't think any actor was in more of the classic TOHO monster films than Sahara was between 1954 to 1975 and also in four "Ultraman" series! Jun is a pilot for Hoshikawa Airlines, he can fly both planes and copters. Though a pilot Jun does dream of becoming a best selling sci-fi writer, he's also adept with guns and how that came to be is a mystery. Plus Jun is a master with cars and could have been a racer, one last thing is that Jun loves science which is how he and his mates are friends with Professor Ichinotani.

Yasuhiko Saijou as Ippei Togawa.... Jun's assistant at Hoshikawa Airlines but Ippei doesn't have any licenses yet but is close to getting one for flying helicopters. Bit of a goofball but seems to be much more intelligent than others think, Jun must see that too as he does trust Ippei fully.

Hiroko Sakurai as Yuriko Edogawa.... On the left below, will have a different pic in the future. 21 year old reporter for the Mainichi Shimbun(daily news) paper. Yuriko is the youngest at the newspaper but her editor Seki believes fully in her and sends Yuriko out on the harder stories such as the mysterious and unexplainable....

Ureo Egawa as Professor Ichinotani.... We finally met this older professor in the third episode. Know very little to date about him such as how did Jun and his mates come to be friends with this man who is ultra intelligent. Though him and the next character Seki are important to the drama each will only be in about half the episodes.

Yoshifumi Tajima as Seki.... Yuriko's editor at Mainichi Shimbun(daily news), older man who acts tough though is a softie and often gives Yuriko the stranger/mysterious cases. Not a huge role but an important one and in the second episode Seki was the Hero!

 There will be many guest characters in this series but may not include any of their names unless that part goes for two episodes or it's someone very famous. 

Previous recaps: There is no ongoing storyline but all of the shows have been entertaining so here are the links to all of the recaps done.

Episode one: Gomes .... Episode two: Goro and Goro .... Episode three: A Gift From Space

Episode four: Massive Flower .... Episode five: Pegulia .... Episode six: Grow Turtle!

 There aren't many but a few videos of this show on YT, mostly short scenes. Here's one that's about ninety seconds that features a half minute promo clip, the music is quite cool and so isn't the extremely odd creature! Added this video in for the fifth show, will try to find another and if successful will add it in for episode nine.

 

 

 

 Know it's hard to top the alluring and scantly dressed ways of Idols these days but in a way I kind of prefer women who look like the above gal. She was a real cutie and her name is Keiko Sawai who was 21 at the time and played the guest role of Aiko in this episode. She got married in 1968 and didn't appear in any movies after 1970 though Keiko was very busy with dramas up until the mid 1990's but since then has rarely appeared in anything save for stage plays. Plan on doing four more recaps before the end of July and then may take a ten day break. I have been zooming through this series as it's one I'm really enjoying but a mini break may be needed so I don't get tired of it. Through eight shows we've had six monsters, one huge turtle and a massive flower. Above is the 'creature' for this episode which wasn't too scary and if it's hard to tell the monster is an overgrown Mole. Thanks to Humans it got that way and you'll learn how in this recap.

 Don't know the town or city but the setting was a remote place, most of the action takes place at the Isayama Agricultural Experiment Station and it's surrounding area. When the show began we saw that man in the top screenshot who was unrecognizable but his name we learned was Itami. He had to break into the building as it was locked, the experiments taking place in it were very secretive and though Itami did work at the station he didn't have security clearance to enter it. What took place was a mystery but it looked like Itami was dancing around and celebrating something, what it was will be known soon enough. In the second screenshot Jun on the right was giving his assistant Ippei flying lessons in his Cessna, both work for Hoshikawa Airlines but only Jun has a regular license. Ippei was doing well enough so Jun ended up viewing a train that was just below them, soon tragedy was about to strike! For about a half mile further down the track had been torn to pieces(!), Jun noticed that but was powerless to do anything. As the third screenshot shows the train derailed, it was a wreck but it's unknown if anyone perished. We viewers saw the train track being destroyed, the ground below the tracks had somehow swelled which resulted in them being mangled and how could that have happened?

The answer to that is in the bottom screenshot above, don't know if it looks it but that creature is a giant Mole(!) and was about a hundred times larger than a regular one. After the train accident reports began coning into the Isayama Agricultural Experiment Station about people seeing this Mole in the area, with it going in and out of the ground of course the area was becoming ravished. What has been discovered was that whoever broke into the lab had stolen a vast amount of a new and secret chemical/drug called Honey Zellion. The creator is in the fourth and fifth screenshots, he's a scientist at the station named Shiego Kimura. If used properly this new chemical could help out smallish animals such as Moles for it was a nutrient supplement. A sick animal could recover quicker plus there were other benefits to the new drug but being a 25 minute show we didn't learn all about it. However according to Kimura and his older leader Hasegawa(above) too much of the drug could be very dangerous. It doesn't take much of this Honey Zellion to be effective however too much has side affects, one is that that an animal could grow to be giant sized and that Mole is proof of that!!!! But in small doses it works perfectly fine and one other experiment was altering it slightly so it would work effectively on humans but after what took place that won't be happening for a very ling time... if ever. That attractive woman you see above and also in a few other screenshots is named Akio, she's engaged to Kimura and mentioned her in the intro.

 Making a trip to the Isayama Agricultural Experiment Station was the esteemed professor Ichinotani who is good friends with Jun, Ippei and the reporter Yuriko. When there's a mystery the trio often seek the professor out for answers but even he's a bit stumped on this Mole problem. But Ichinotani, the station leader Hasegawa and the Honey Zellion creator Kimura need to find a solution soon as the mole is destroying the local area and it's mainly farmland. The Mole really can't be considered a killer monster, it's acting as a normal Mole would except now it needs to eat a hundred times as much! Plus Moles of course burrow into the ground so when it does the holes are massive, the local farmers are so irate and want this Mole destroyed.... and NOW! But how is the question for the scientists and soon what they did was to call in the Japanese Defense Forces. But before that there was some investigating done to determine how did the Mole get so huge? Of course it was because of the Honey Zellion but a person had to feed the Mole that chemical/drug, who could have done that? In the beginning of the recap mentioned a man named Itami as it was him who had broken into that lab which was also a greenhouse. At the time the Honey Zellion was stored there, mainly because the Honey had come from Bees and there were hives in that building. 

 A security guard had seen Itami in the lab/greenhouse but it being dark couldn't quite make out who it was. Thanks to some detective work from the Mainichi Shimbun reporter Yuriko she determined that someone had broken a window to enter the building, this person then brought the Mole in and fed it a fresh batch of Honey Zellion. It was then released back to it's environment and you know what happened after that! So much of the evidence pointed to Itami, once the station's security guard got a closer look at Itami he fingered him as the culprit. He was cornered in his office and it appeared Itami was just so jealous of Kimura's accomplishments and wanted to see his rival fail! Itamu was a smart man but could never achieve anything noteworthy as a scientist, if he couldn't then he wanted to make sure Kimura failed too but what a catastrophe ensued because of Itami's pettiness. He denied all the charges and somehow was able to elude everyone at the station as Itami tore outside and his destination were the massive tunnels the Mole had dug, that's above.

 Really don't know what Itami's reasons were for entering the Mole tunnels. perhaps the shame of what he had done was too much for him to continue living? Itami was followed into the tunnel and by now the Army had arrived, they did capture Itami in a tunnel but he was able to escape again. That was because the Mole had entered the huge tunnel which made it a very dangerous place to be as the walls began to shake, dirt began falling from the ceiling and would it cave in? The soldiers fled but without Itami, the Mole appeared and everyone outside the tunnel presumed Itami had met his fate. But the Mole wasn't a killer and didn't attack Itami who was able to crawl outside but was badly injured from so many rocks falling on him. Itami didn't have long to live but did manage to apologize to Kimura for all he had done and also confessed he too had a crush on Akio so told Kimura to make sure he keeps her happy! All of this is in the screenshots above, the Mole ended up escaping from the tunnel before it caved in but awaiting him was the Japanese Defense Forces!

 There were about ten tanks who began to fire at the huge yet peaceful Mole, there were also four missile shooters firing at it. That amount of firepower did of course hurt the Mole but it never did die and eventually the firing ceased. The Mole slithered back underground and according to the professor Ichinotani the Mole is now so scared of what's above ground it will remain forever in it's tunnels. Which was only a slight positive as that means when the Mole travels in it's massive tunnels the ground above will shake. That ended this episode and the first screenshot below does show the ground being destroyed by the Mole as it won't leave it's tunnels, wonder if it'll keep digging until it reaches Tokyo?! That concludes this recap and thanks for reading it, aren't these so much easier to read than shows twice as long and will have the next pair of posts in about four days.