"Ultra Q" drama from.... 1966(!), episode 27 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 27th episode was 35.2% 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. 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.

 

**** This is a new feature that was added for the eleventh episode and will update it every other recap. This mini section will have the monsters/creatures that we have seen to date and you can see more of them as a bit further down are the links to all of the episodes. Did have just two screenshots of the monsters but now that I'm caught up with them will have four of them for the remaining shows. The first four screenshots below were from the 23rd episode, no creature from outer space but an Octopus called Sudar which grew to the size of a giant! It was both a God and Enemy of the small Compass Island in the South Seas, after those are four from episode 24. This time the creature began off as an innocent looking statue but grew into this massive snail like looking monster which could shoot laser beams from its tentacles! Finished writing this up and just before I hit Publish recalled that this section hadn't been updated. No big deal though as creatures/monsters haven't been a key to the previous episodes though the stories have all been top notch.

 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 in it's same time slot 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.... 

The Disappearance of Flight 206

In an extreme oddity this section didn't need any updating after the fourth episode! We rarely learned anything new about the main characters plus there were no new ones after episode two.

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. In episode fourteen did learn Hoshikawa Airlines was along the Tama River, that's 15 or so miles west of Tokyo.

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!

 

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!

Episode seven: SOS Mount Fuji .... Episode eight: Terror of the Sweet Honey

Episode nine: Baron Spider .... Episode ten: The Underground Super Express

Episode eleven: Balloonga .... Episode twelve: I Saw A Bird

Episode thirteen: Garadama .... Episode fourteen: Tokyo Ice Age

Episode fifteen: Kanegon's Cocoon .... Episode sixteen: Garamon Strikes Back!

Episode seventeen: The 1/8th project .... Episode eighteen: The Rainbow's Egg

Episode 19: Challenge from the year 2020 ... Episode 20: Primordial Amphibian Ragon

Episode 21: Space Directive M774 .... Episode 22: Metamorphosis

Episode 23: Fury of the South Sea .... Episode 24: The Statue of Goga

Episode 25: The Devil Child .... Episode 26: Blazing Glory

 TFive recaps ago was talking about how I on occasion will watch an American drama though that really is very rare. When I do it will be an older show and was talking about how for a change did splurge on myself and bought the huge "Man From Uncle" boxset. It did cost $60 but to me it was worth it as there's 41 discs for 104 episodes and five of those discs are for special features. To date have viewed eighteen episodes and am really enjoying this series, it aired from 1964-68 and episodes back then lasted for fifty or more minutes. Below is a video of how the episodes for season one opened up, just the first season was in black and white.

  

 

 

 In episode 23 an actor named Akira Kubo was the main guest star, mentioned then that he had starred in the 1963 classic sci-fi/horror film "Matango". Also in that movie was the main star of this drama Kenji Sahara who plays the role of Jun and the pair had been together in a few other monster flicks from the 1960's. "Matango" had a small cast as there were just eight main characters though it meant all had a lot of screen time. With this episode it means four of the eight have appeared in this drama, in the first screenshot above is Miki Yashiro who had a small role in this episode and in the film played a professor's assistant. She had no appearances in dramas or films after 1966 so this may have been her final acting role. Above on the right is Hiroshi Koizumi who was a long time star, he appeared in so many of those older monster flicks such as Mothra. Below is a video that features short scenes from the "Matango" movie which is one of my all time favorites and highly recommend viewing it.

 

 That video has scenes featuring Kumi Mizuno and wonder if it's my first time ever mentioning her here? Could be and even if that is the case she is one of my favorite actresses from the 1960's.... perhaps definitely the most attractive woman too 😍 !!!! Kumi was in so many of those monster movies back then and often had a very large role. So if this is my first time saying her name here it won't be the last as I have many older movie reviews coming up and will try to make sure one is something she appeared in, she was even in two of the Godzilla movies that came out in the 2000's.

 Bit of a long into and why not as this is the last pair of recaps for this series and won't view the final episode until this post is finished. Once again there really wasn't a monster in this show though we did see one briefly towards the end but this was one fine show, the stories have remained original and this is the first time the theme of dimension traveling was used. Will talk about it in the next post too but this was the last episode to air for five months, one week had to be preempted and the first " Ultraman" series started the following week after this aired in the same time slot. So episode 28 kept getting pushed back, this show aired on July 3, 1966 and the final episode not until December 14th! Let's get to the action for this episode and there was quite a bit of it in this show.

 That top screenshot shows a new jet airliner that didn't have an official name in this episode but was Flight 206 and had just begun a new route from Hong Kong to Haneda airport in Tokyo. This new plane is a four engine supersonic jet airliner and had cut down the travel time between the two huge cities drastically. On the flight were the two main male characters Jun and Ippei, the pair had been in Hong Kong for a pilot's training course and nice to see them get more screen time as the guest stars had much more in recent episodes. Waiting back in Tokyo for the pair was the other main character, the reporter Yuriko who is right above. She had been joined by the esteemed professor Ichinotani who is the older man above and appeared in about half the shows. The jet airliner was scheduled to arrive in ten minutes but it would be at least two hours until the plane landed and what an intense period those two hours were for everyone. As Flight 206 was going to begin its descent into Haneda what took place is in the fourth screenshot above, it appeared some sort of whirlpool opened up in the sky and though it had very powerful engines the jet airliner was sucked right into it!!!!

 The minute that happened all of the passengers and crew dropped into some sort of coma, that's the bottom screenshot above but they will soon come out of it. Meanwhile at the airport Yuriko was more than frantic with worry about her two friends Jun and Ippei as the plane just seemed to disappear, Ichinotani told her his ex-student is the chief of the Control Tower and lets see what he has to say. That chief's name was Sakuda and was the man I talked about in the intro, that's him looking into the sky above but seeing nothing. According to Sakuda everything was going smoothly with Flight 206 until it entered that whirlpool which just happened to be another dimension. Of course those at the tower couldn't see that from the ground and when the jet airline entered that cloud/dimension it disappeared from the Haneda airport radar plus no other airports could track Flight 206 by their radars. However outside the control tower Sakuda could hear a plane flying above but didn't see anything, he wasn't going crazy as he really did hear Flight 206 but it was in another dimension.

 There wasn't anything that could be done at the airport but things would soon turn so crazy in the air or this other dimension and it was never discussed what kind it may have been or where it came from. Eventually all came out of their comas, no one including the pilots had a clue what was going on but having Jun and Ippei on Flight 206 will in the end save the day! The pair went to the cockpit to see what was happening and if they could be of any help, meanwhile a major event was taking place in the seats. There was a murderer named Taro who was being escorted back to Tokyo by a detective named Suzuki, Taro had arisen from his slumber but the detective hadn't. The two men were handcuffed together but with Suzuki still passed out Taro grabbed the key and unlocked himself, in the process he also stole Suzuki's revolver. Taro went to the cockpit and ordered all four out who were Jun, Ippei, the pilot Ito and his first officer Nakamura. Taro then told all to depart the plane and Jun was in an uproar over that, did Taro have a death wish? The passengers did try to revolt against this murderer but having a gun meant Taro had the upper hand and he even shot the detective to death, the group of five left the supersonic plane right after.

 To Jun's amazement the five didn't plummet 10,000 feet to Earth and this cloud like structure was somewhat solid, the pilot Ito noticed Flight 206 wasn't the first plane to enter this dimension. It may be hard to see in a screenshot above but there were many other planes trapped there and most seemed to be from WWII. Of course no one else was alive and why were there so many fighter jets there, they weren't just from Japan as there were also many from America and Britain. In such an odd occurrence Ippei noticed that the ground/cloud was littered with jewels but couldn't be seen because of the haze. The criminal Taro also noticed that and was trying to jam his pockets full with gems but shouldn't he have been more concerned with finding a way to escape this dimension? Taro eventually did escape but in a tragic way, he had been bending down picking up some jewels and Jun knew that was the perfect chance to jump the thug. Which Jun did and in this dimension everything moved at a much slower rate, even bullets went at half speed as the revolver Taro stole from Suzuki was fired twice. Both shots hit the pair of pilots though only in the arm so it wasn't life threatening but it soon was for Taro. While grappling with Jun he slid into some sort of eddy and seemed to get sucked up by this cloud, that was the last anyone saw of Taro and good riddance! However a more dangerous creature arrived in this dimension just a few seconds later, it's what is in the bottom screenshot above and below, the monster looked like a massive Walrus!

 Final segment, have been able to just have three for every episode and have gotten into such a groove with this drama as far as writing these recaps up goes. What took place is in the above screenshots and first three below. The pilots weren't too badly hurt so Jun and Ippei were able to bring them back to the supersonic jet before that Walrus made them its dinner! This creature was massive but we never saw if it had any other powers besides being huge, the big question Jun and I had was why should there be a huge Walrus in this different dimension? Luckily for the passengers Jun was an experienced pilot so he took control of the plane whose engines were much more powerful than a regular jet. Because of that Jun was able to put the engines into a Super Thrust mode, may not be easy to tell above but that mode sent out some black smoke which made the Walrus gag and the jet was able to escape, think that smoke also made the Walrus perish a bit later. Jun had gotten Flight 206 back in the air however it's still in this different dimension but perhaps not for long as somehow the plane was able to radio Haneda airport and make contact! That's all above and no one at the control tower knew what to do, they could hear the plane plus were able to talk with Jun but couldn't see this jet so how to land it?

 The professor Ichinotani was the only person to believe that the plane had gone into another dimension but he too was baffled at how it happened, he also wondered why was there a Walrus there? With his mate Ippei as the co-pilot Jun noticed a very small opening in this cloud/different dimension, it had to be where the plane entered and Jun tried leaving via that opening. Which was successful as the plane went from being in a cloud to passing by Mount Fuji and everyone was saved, just one death during this ordeal who was the killer Taro so that was no loss. The episode ended with the third screenshot below, it doesn't happen with each show but I enjoy it when the narrator ends an episode with some sort of message or warning. I may not have done this show justice but this was one of the better episodes and hope the final show ends in a high note, haven't viewed that yet and that's the next post.