Vasco da Gama, episode #3 (or, “Tempest-tost”)

EVERY SERIES HAS THAT EPISODE…

     Yes, every series has that episode—the episode that no-one can quite remember…not even the people who made it. And yes, dear reader, even the singular media phenomenon that was Vasco da Gama had that episode.

      This much we all can agree on: we had a guest star for this one. Okay, we agreed on that after I listened to the episode and asked everybody what they could remember about working with a guest star. The sum total of these reminiscences turns out to be a big old round old zero. Sic transit gloria mundi. I suppose I could make up something about our guest star being a joy to work with, or a pain to work with, just to give the proper air of showbiz nostalgia to the whole thing. I could start some rumour involving guest star perks, or parking spaces, or those little fish called ‘tetras’ that they sell in pet stores, for all that it would matter. After twenty years, there are some episodes of Vasco that I don’t remember being there for.

     Another thing that I didn’t remember was that this episode features an origin story for Science Boy. Since I’m the one who wrote it, I can categorically state that it is completely and absolutely 100% apocryphal and untrue. Science Boy deserves a better backstory than the one I made up for him back in 1992. Now I just have to write it…and then spend the next twenty years forgetting that I did.

     Speaking of forgotten science fiction things, I didn’t even remember that the music we used over the closing credits of this episode was the theme from Lost in Space. What comes back to me after hearing this is that our producer Dave Edwards and I went on a hunt for the cheesiest TV-sci-fi music we could find in CKCU’s record library. Lost in Space seemed about as cheesy as you could get—after all, this was the show with the robot that waved its arms and bellowed “Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!” every chance it got.

     The problem is that, taken out of context and without visuals to support it, the theme from Lost in Space doesn’t sound like something out of sci-fi. Frankly, it sounds like it should be on a game show…possibly as a contestant.

     Enough already. If I remember any more about this episode, I might not want to give you the link to it, so here it is:

Vasco da Gama, episode #3

     I’ll let whatever you hear speak for itself. After twenty years, it looks like it’ll have to.