"Ultra Q" drama from.... 1966(!), episode five 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 fifth episode was 34.8% 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.

 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....

Pegulia is here!

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

 There aren't many but a few videos of this show are 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!

 

 

 

 The woman right above is Nami Tamura who had a huge guest role in this episode playing a doctor named Yoko. I really liked the way women looked back then and what a long career Nami had up until 2000, she was 24 in age for this show and is still alive as her age has hit 82. A huge positive about this series is how every show has been so different, no monsters nor stories have been the same. Plus the locations have all been different, naturally most episodes will take place in Japan but this one was set in the Antarctic! There was a huge monster but now that I think about we never did learn what kind it was nor it's origin. Of the main characters Jun was the only one to make an appearance and he did turn out to be the hero at the end, let's get to the action to find out how!

 The location for this episode was such a plus as it did make the action a bit more intense and of the regular characters Jun was the only one to appear on this show. As you can tell by the screenshots Jun was on huge vessel, one that was heading to the South Pole/Antarctica!!!! In the top screenshot that's Jun on the left dressed in black, he was talking to the ship's captain Matsumoto who was saying Winter has arrived early for the weather was so frigid, would presume the month would be August or September. Will explain shortly why Jun was on this ship but the temperature dropped so rapidly the captain ordered Jun and everyone else to seek shelter. When Jun did the ship hit an iceberg sending him flying against a wall and then he tumbled into a room. In it was the ship's only female Yoko Kuhara and you'll be seeing plenty of her. This was her first trip on a ship and also to Antarctica, she's the ship's new doctor. Yoko diagnosed Jun who said his wrist was badly sprained in the fall and you can see him with with a sling though after a day or two the stubborn man tossed it! While in Yoko's office Jun noticed she had a bag of soil which she labelled from Tokyo, that aroused Jun's curiosity and at the end why Yoko had the soil will be revealed.

 However now will reveal why Jun was on this vessel which by now has arrived in the South Pole region and the weather has become so treacherous. That's Jun explaining to the captain Matsumoto about his mission and the man did know a bit about the person Jun was searching for. Three years ago there had been another mission to this area, there was a scientist aboard that other ship named Nomura. While doing some research off the ship Nomura disappeared without a trace, there was no evidence on what could have happened to him or his team of dogs. The noted professor Ichinotani knew Nomura and had asked Jun to find out what happened to this man who was around Jun's age.... why the hunt for him now after three years? The location of the vessel is now the South Pole and has it gotten ultra frigid, the temperature had rapidly dropped to -100 C or minus 148 F!!!! Above you can see an odd vehicle floating in the air, that's an old time snowmobile truck which could carry eight people. Its weight was four tons yet it flew up in the air when the temperature plummeted and what's going on at this pole????

 Much of the action will soon be taking place outdoors. Can't say the sets looked like a duplicate of the South Pole but the special effects were interesting and a bit ingenious, you have to remember this was filmed almost sixty years ago. The captain had given Jun Nomua's diary and in it he too had made an entry of things flying in the air when the temperature became deathly cold. Nomura also made a vague mention of a monster or creature he named Pegulia, we didn't see that monster too often but that's it right above. In the diary Nomura also gave the location of where things floated up n the air which was near where the snowmobile had also drifted up. That evening Jun was ready to venture out by himself to this location and not tell anyone about his search for Nomura, possible evidence of his disappearance or even the monster Pegulia!!!! While Jun was in his vehicle getting ready seemingly having the same idea was Yoko and was prepared to leave the ship. But was held back by Jun and it's a good thing as the temperature had dropped down to deathly levels once again, if either went outside it may have meant their certain death!

 But one person has been outside as the door to the ship's garage opened, falling in was the man lying in bed above and his name was Ito. Who had been in that snowmobile vehicle when it floated up into the air and all presumed he was dead. That wasn't the case as Ito was alive but was he delirious for he kept mumbling about a huge monster? You can see another screenshot above of Pegulia right below the one for Ito, at the time it was the first we had seen the monster. Ito also said the name of Nomura and that made the doctor Yoko so curious, this time her plan to leave the vessel unnoticed searching for Nomura was successful as she left but without telling anyone. But Yoko had been spotted zooming away in an arctic vehicle, the captain was notified so him, an assistant and Jun gave chase to Yoko's vehicle which was easy to follow as it had just snowed and her tracks were visible. That third to last screenshot above is a good example of this episode's special effects, it was far from a perfect Antarctic but I thought it looked darn good. Yoko was found but her vehicle had crashed and she was knocked out but her injury wasn't too severe. While the captain and his mate were tending to Yoko Jun noticed something odd a few feet away, when he went to check it was the body of Nomura buried in the ice!!! The man had been that way for three years and in a way looked alive, Nomura wasn't but something else was which is in the bottom screenshot. It was the mammoth creature Pegulia and it was the first time Jun and the captain had seen it.

 We discovered during this scene what Pegulia's special power was besides being so strong because of his 100 foot height. The monster can shoot out a beam from his mouth which measures -200 F, that is so cold it makes the gravity disappear and is why such heavy things can float up into the air. Yoko dubbed this powerful force an Anti Gravity Beam. There was another discovery and a very important one too which is that one of Nomura's dogs had been found plus... it was alive after three years?!?! The dog's name was Sabu and Yoko had surmised that it had survived because of eating Moss but I wondered how could that grow in the Antarctic? The other dogs had died and probably because they never had a chance to eat this special kid of Moss and Yoko felt the Pegulia monster was scared of the Moss which is why it never attacked Sabu. Yoko grabbed some of the Moss(by now she was recovered from the crash), with Jun the pair hurried back to the ship to tell all of their findings and also for Yoko to analyze this Moss. Which she quickly did and deduced that this rare Moss had some components that were poisonous to Pegulia which was why he was so scared of it. Yoko was such a genius and in no time developed a drug she named Pegimin H, with it the monster Pegulia could finally be destroyed!

 Because Yoko didn't have much moss she couldn't make more than one dose, they would have one chance to shoot the drug into Pegulia and that would be it, if it wasn't successful everyone on the ship could perish! The new drug was attached to a mini rocket and how did they have one on the ship? Yoko said to wait until Pegulia was within 100 meters before firing, everyone was so antsy so the wait was unbearable. But Jun took control and once Pegulia was within 100 meters he fired, of course it was a perfect shot and now Jun is a Hero on two continents!!!! Hard to tell but in the bottom screenshot above that's Pegulia writhing in pain and he fled back to the South Pole's interior though did read that the creature was not killed and will be making another appearance in a later episode. The show ended with the first two screenshots below, there was a proper burial for Nomura and as it turns out Yoko had been engaged to him. She brought that soil from Tokyo to use for his grave so it was a bitter sweet happy ending. In the second screenshot below the narrator had once again asked us viewers to think about what we just viewed and what takes place when we mess with animals and/or nature. However what Pegulia once may have been and how it became this evil monster was never explained in this episode, hopefully it will when it makes it's second appearance later on. Few more screenshots below of the action and the next post has the recap for episode six.