Originally published September 6, 1996, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1190
Last time, we presented Part 1 of Peter David and Bill Mumy’s unfilmed script for an episode of Space Cases. As we left the crew of the Christa, they were attempting to discover the source of a scene showing the ship’s (and presumably the crew’s) demise.
EXT. SPACE (OPTICAL): The Christa flies by (stock shot).
DAVENPORT (VOICE-OVER): I’d like you all to be brutally honest with me.
INT. COMMAND POST: Davenport, Radu, Rosie and Bova are on monitor duty.
DAVENPORT: It is important to me that, as your teacher, I command a certain degree of respect. To that end, no matter how difficult it may be for you—I need your candid opinion on how I’m perceived as a contributing member of this crew. Do you believe I panic easily?
BOVA: Yes.
RADU: Absolutely.
ROSIE: No question.
DAVENPORT: But in a stressful situation, I can be of some help?
BOVA: No.
RADU: Not a lot.
ROSIE: But we like you.
DAVENPORT: Well, that is going to change.
ROSIE: We’re not going to like you anymore?
DAVENPORT: I mean, if that’s how you see me, then I’m going to change that. No more anxiety attacks from T.J. Davenport. It’s simply a matter of willpower. Mind over panic.
Suddenly, an alert goes off. The kids immediately scramble to their stations.
DAVENPORT: (incredibly chipper) Ah! Already a test of my new resolve! I welcome the challenge!
RADU: Screen on!
ROSIE: Shields up and holding!
BOVA: Scanning for—Got it! We’ve got a quantum singularity, coming in fast!
DAVENPORT: (holding her chipperness) A quantum singularity! That would be a field of anti-stellar residue which, if it wraps itself around us, can slice us up like three-day-old cheese, even through our shielding. Ohhh, this will get the old excitement juices flowing, eh?
RADU: Thelma!
Thelma steps into frame, overlapping.
THELMA: Yes?
RADU: Take navigation. I’m going to maneuver us through the singularity.
He moves quickly to helm, takes control.
EXT. SPACE—CHRISTA WITH THE SINGULARITY (OPTICAL): The singularity is basically an intertwining strand of colored bands, similar to a strand of DNA. It’s PULSING and closing around the Christa, tightening. The Christa is maneuvering very carefully so as not to come in contact.
INT. COMMAND POST: Radu, Rosie, Bova, Thelma, Davenport. Davenport still appears in control of herself.
THELMA: Another 20 degrees to port.
DAVENPORT: So what can I do to help?
RADU: (concentrating on steering) Nothing.
DAVENPORT: Ah, I see. Nothing. So I need only stand here and—and—(losing it)—and wait to be cut to molecular ribbons! We’ll never make it! We haven’t a prayer!
INSERT: The singularity on the screen, tightening around them.
RADU: Hold on! This is going to be tight!
DAVENPORT: We’re going to die! We’re all going to die!
EXT. SPACE—CHRISTA AND THE SINGULARITY (OPTICAL): The singularity collapses in on itself, but, a split second before it does so, the Christa shoots out the top of it to safety.
INT. COMMAND POST: Everyone and everything as it was before the exterior shot. Davenport has collapsed, her back against the command console, her head between her legs. And then Harlan slides in through the Jump Tube. He looks around.
HARLAN: Don’t tell me: We ran into something that could have destroyed the ship?
BOVA: Right.
HARLAN: We got away from it? Just barely?
RADU: Right.
HARLAN: Miss Davenport panicked?
ROSIE: Right.
HARLAN: (nods, he knew it) Same old, same old. Nothing different ever happens around here.
Davenport softly starts thudding the back of her head against the command console.
INT. HAUNTED CORRIDOR ENTRANCE: An establishing shot on Goddard and Catalina. They are standing at a doorway at the end of a corridor. Goddard opens the door, and it slides open, giving us a forced perspective angle of The Haunted Corridor—lit darker and more menacingly than the normal corridor and seemingly going on forever. Catalina is holding her detection device outward in the direction of the corridor—and moaning softly.
GODDARD: Let me guess: We lost the lock on it.
CATALINA: Yup. It seems as if every time we have some sort of power glitch, we wind up tracing it down here to this bottom-level deck and then we lose the track.
GODDARD: I’ve come to expect that from—The Haunted Corridor.
MUSICAL STING.
CATALINA: You keep calling it that, but you don’t really believe it’s haunted, do you, Commander?
GODDARD: Legends of gremlins botching the workings of vessels go back centuries, Catalina. To say nothing of poltergeists and… (pauses for a beat) All I know is, Thelma’s got no clue what’s down here, and I’d just as soon steer clear of it, energy glitches or no. From now on, this section of the ship is forbidden to all personnel.
CATALINA: Aye, aye, sir.
He walks away. Catalina peers in and then we CLOSE IN steadily on her, as she hears a long, moaning HOWL (sound effects). Clearly disconcerted, Catalina quickly ducks back, and the door slides closed.
EXT. SPACE (OPTICAL): The Christa flies by (stock shot).
ROSIE (VOICE-OVER): I would love to check out The Haunted Corridor.
INT. GALLEY: Rosie, Bova, Harlan, Radu, and Catalina are having breakfast. Harlan and Radu are in the process of preparing their breakfasts by dropping fluid onto the foodpogs.
CATALINA: No, you wouldn’t—if for no other reason than that Commander Goddard put it off-limits. Going down there would mean disobeying a direct order. You’re too nice for that, Rosie.
ROSIE: Thanks, I guess…
There’s a flash from Radu and Harlan’s plates as they drop the liquid on them. Both plates now contain food. Both Harlan and Radu make faces of extreme disgust. Then they swap the breakfasts.
HARLAN: It mixed up our breakfasts again. What is that?
RADU: Raw narf intestines.
HARLAN: Why can’t you eat something normal, like scrambled eggs?
RADU: Ah, you mean cooked unborn baby chickens?
Harlan is about to respond, then looks at his breakfast again and slides the plate aside, having completely lost his appetite. Bova pulls the plate over unhesitatingly and starts chowing down.
DAVENPORT (VOICE-OVER): Since you all seem so bored lately…
INT. CLASSROOM: A wide establishing shot takes in Davenport and the kids, whom Davenport is teaching.
DAVENPORT: …I thought we would discuss one of the frequent outgrowths of boredom: the practical joke and how it applies to science.
HARLAN: I thought science was pretty—you know—serious.
DAVENPORT: Oh, there are some very famous hoaxes. Screen on.
The screen comes on, and we see the famous fuzzy photo of the Loch Ness monster.
DAVENPORT: For example, one day in the 1930’s, a bored reporter in Scotland claimed, as a joke, that there was a monster in a local body of water called Loch Ness. Scientists spent decades trying to find it.
CATALINA: (sarcastically) On my world we also heard rumors about strange monsters. They were called “Earth men”.
DAVENPORT: And then there was the time in 1912 when Charles Dawson, an amateur naturalist, claimed he’d found the fossil bones in Piltdown, England, belonging to the so-called Missing Link.
The image shifts to a picture of Piltdown Man’s skull.
DAVENPORT: The Piltdown Man, as it was named, was supposed to be the evolutionary step between ape and man. Scientists accepted it for 40 years, until fluorine testing found it to be just a man’s skull and the jaw of an orangutan: a forgery.
RADU: Early 20th-century Earth had a lot of hoaxes.
HARLAN: People were bored. They had nothing else to do. Even then, it was…
HARLAN and DAVENPORT: Same old, same old.
DAVENPORT: (continuing) Yes, Mr. Band, you’ve more than made your point. It’s rather intolerable when someone keeps repeating something.
HARLAN: Like if they keep saying they’re not going to panic any more?
DAVENPORT: (chagrined sigh) Yes. Rather like that.
[To be continued]
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