Pathfinders to Venus

While returning to Earth, the 'Pathfinders to Mars' team (commander Conway Henderson, Professor Meadows, hijacker Harcourt Brown, Geoff the radio man, young Margaret, and Hamlet the guinea pig), are diverted to Venus by an SOS from Wilson, a stranded American astronaut. Tricked into landing by Brown, whose obsessive search for extra-terrestrial intelligence takes precedence over the safety of the crew, they discover a world that seems to blend millions of years of Earth's prehistory. At 8 episodes, the series is a bit long but otherwise, for a fairly low-budget educational kid's show from the early 1960s, it is quite entertaining. Brown (George Coulouris) is an especially interesting character: he is so certain that he is right about intelligent life on Venus that he rationalises any contrary evidence and is so confident that he is right in all things that he repeatedly lies even if it puts his own life, and the lives of the others, at risk. Like Dr. Smith on 'Lost in Space', he is so unlikable that the others' willingness to tolerate him starts to stretch credibility. Other than some interesting dinosaur footage (courtesy of the 1955 Czech film 'Journey to the Beginning of Time') the special effects are rudimentary (but serviceable) as is the acting (other than Coulouris, who has all the best material). This was the third and IMO the best of the 'Pathfinders' series. Curiously, the seventh episode closes with a disclaimer that deliberate mistakes were included in the program as part of a Cambridge study into children's TV viewing. Some details of the study can be found on-line and it is entertaining to watch the episode and try to pick out the mistakes. Viewed on-line May 2022.