Well, I've made another of my very occasional DVD set discoveries of this series. For the first time ever I've finally had the chance to view the very first episode:


Breakaway
Commander John Koenig returns to Moonbase Alpha from a stint Earthside to learn that all is not well. Personnel are dying from a strange malady that causes them suddenly to go berserk at the most inopportune moments. The victims had all had extensive contact with the massive radioactive waste dump on the Dark Side of the Moon. Radiation sickness? But monitors haven't been detecting undue radiation leakage from the facility. What's going on?

Turns out the unprecedented concentration of nuclear waste has been creating some kind of equally unprecedented electromagnetic pulse anomalies. And they're getting worse fast. Koenig orders Eagle transporter craft to start dispersing the canisters of waste in a desperate attempt to keep the mess from reaching a critical mass. Too late! The whole thing blows up. Though the possibility isn't mentioned, it could be that Koenig's last-ditch stirring of the nuclear pot ironically was the final straw that set off the blast. I understand that something vaguely analogous happened at Chernobyl as they were trying to shut the reactor down....

Anyway, the chain reaction is so huge and sustained that it functions as a kind of colossal rocket motor. It's enough to blow the Moon out of orbit, and right out of the solar system. At the end we see the Alphans watching a news broadcast from back home. Earth has been experiencing all sorts of quakes and other fallout due to the Moon's sudden violent departure. They assume that the crew on Alpha have all perished. Apparently the Alphans are unable to send any sort of signal back to let everybody know that they're mostly still alive. Guess the blast put their transmitters off-line.

Eagle pilot Alan Carter gives a first demonstration of his distinctive combination of amazing luck and spectacular skill. Luck, in that his is the only Eagle aloft at the time that isn't right over ground zero. Skill, in that he is able to pilot his stricken craft back to base despite the Moon's sudden dislocation throwing off the calculations of his navigational computer.

The realization that it would be too dangerous to re-calculate courses for a whole fleet of Eagles on the fly (Every Eagle pilot can't be as good and lucky as Carter) is cited as the reason why Koenig doesn't promptly order everybody to light out for home before the Moon gets out of Eagle range of Earth. Nobody questions Koenig's decision in hindsight. Because he's Koenig.

"Breakaway" is a perfect example of both the strengths and weaknesses of "Space: 1999." Under strengths we have the series' fantastic production values. Although some aspects of the special effects, dialog, and production design now look dated (Those outfits and hairstyles--oh my goodness!), there is none of the cheesiness one sometimes sees in other shows of the era, such as "Star Trek TOS" and "The Six Million Dollar Man." So much of "Space: 1999" looks like it could have been made today. Pretty impressive for a nearly half-century-old series made before "Star Wars" revolutionized the approach to screen science fiction.

As for weaknesses.... Any story that wants to get people from Earth out among the stars to seek out new life and new civilizations is likely going to play fast and loose with science as we now know it. But blowing the Moon out of orbit and turning it into a vast interstellar spacecraft? Come on, guys! You'd have to be an awfully young and naive viewer--as I was when the series first aired--to swallow a premise like that. Even I was starting to question it within a couple of years. The technobabble and overall writing aren't by and large very convincing either.

As subsequent episodes would show, the writing by and large didn't get much better. Which makes "Space: 1999" one of the great frustrations for science fiction fans. Such great visual work by so many talented effects technicians, set designers, and more, all being undermined week after week by such awful writing. You have to wonder what this series could have been if it had had better writing.

I have the UFO series on DVD, but I haven't watched many Space: 1999 shows, not since they were broadcasting them new.

The effects team on Space 1999 had a lot of influence in Star Wars.

Matter of Life and Death
The Moon has its first encounter with a planet that seems suitable for colonization. Inevitably the paradisaical world turns out to have something very wrong with it. A sort of guardian spirit tries to warn them of the peril. This spirit takes the form of Lee Russell, husband of Dr. Helena Russell, who vanished years earlier on an ill-fated mission to Jupiter. He claims that he is the actual Lee Russell, now ascended to a Higher Plane of Existence. His explanation of how that worked is not exactly clear for the viewer. In fairness, these sorts of things probably would be rather hard to explain to those of us who are still mere mortals.

Anyway, it turns out that the new planet, despite having lush Earth-like vegetation and some very nice-looking parrots, is so inimical to Earth life that the exploratory party's mere presence creates a severe reaction. "Lee Russell" fortunately helps everybody get back safely and disappears--but not before our heroes have suffered through a series of spectacular explosions caused by their presence. The producers of the show do love their explosions!

The story makes about as much sense as a typical "Space: 1999" episode. Barbara Bain tries her best with the material she is given, but can't make Dr. Russell's reaction to seemingly seeing her long-lost husband again, only to have him go away again, very emotionally believable. She speaks of being "numb" when it's all over, and I suppose a series of shocks like that could make a person shut down. Maybe this is supposed to explain why she seems to unemotional most of the time.

At episode's end David Kano tells Koenig that the computer has calculated that the Moon's trajectory will encounter a couple thousand planets over the next two thousand years or so, of which an estimated three hundred-odd will be inhabitable. That works out to be about one inhabitable planet encounter every six years. Not bad for a runaway space rock moving at (presumably) non-relativistic sub-light speed. As we'll see, they end up doing a lot better in terms of planet encounters than that. One can only suppose that distances between solar systems and the laws of physics differ notably in the "Space: 1999" universe from what we know in ours.

Black Sun
The Moon finds itself on a collision course with a "black sun," a phenomenon that absorbs light instead of emitting it. Dr. Bergman tinkers together a force field system to try to shield Moonbase Alpha as it passes through. Unfortunately, he considers it a long shot that the field will enable everybody to survive. Koenig selects six crew members to blast off from Alpha in an Eagle stocked with supplies, in hopes that perhaps they can perpetuate the human race if the rest of Alpha is lost.

Aboard the Eagle, Dr. Russell kindly tries to reassure a terrified Sandra Benes by telling her an anecdote about how everything turned out okay when she had a frightening situation as a girl. Back on Alpha, lights and heat are cut to a minimum to power up the force field. Most of the crew huddle together playing cards to pass what could be their final hours. Koenig and Bergman hunker down in the darkened control center, where Bergman speculates about the existence of a kind of cosmic intelligence.

Then things start to happen. Everybody turns transparent, like ghosts. Their images start to become distorted. Then the screen goes all shimmery. I find myself forced to admit that the effects do look cheesy for a change. Then we see Koenig and Bergman all wrinkled and shaggy, as if they've aged immensely in an instant. Then everybody seems to be able to hear each others' thoughts. Then Koenig and Bergman find themselves walking alongside an unidentified Presence with a woman's voice. The Presence speaks to them of existing in eternity. Bergman asks if the Presence is God, only to be told that it's time to go. Then everything goes back to normal. Alpha has passed unharmed through the black sun, and has somehow been transited millions of light years away. And the refugee Eagle, which was supposed to be heading AWAY from the black sun, has somehow moved with them and is able to return home. There is a joyous and relieved reunion.

What was this all about? Your guess is as good as mine. Bergman comes away believing that a superior intelligence has been watching over Alpha, insuring the base's survival against repeated overwhelming odds. Which is an interesting idea. It seems to be a theme taken up now and then across the series--that Someone is watching over Alpha. A very interesting theme that many religious believers can identify with. But they never do anything very interesting or sensible with it.

Koenig's attempt to split the crew in two to guarantee the survival of some makes little sense. How is a limited-range Eagle with a few weeks' supplies supposed to get to a survivable planet? How are three men and three women supposed to propagate a viable colony? Alpha's entire crew is scarcely large enough to do that! Koenig's selection of these six, which in effect means choosing future mates for them, also comes across as awfully high-handed. There are protests, but everybody involved ultimately goes along with the plan. Because he's Koenig.

While trying to test the force field, Bergman receives a nasty electric shock that leaves him little the worse for wear. Russell tells him that he'd probably have been a goner if not for his artificial heart. Bergman has an artificial heart? Must be a story behind that somewhere. If he and Jean Luc Picard ever met, they'd have a lot to talk about.

By "black sun" the writers presumably meant "black hole." In the 1970s black holes were still an exciting New Thing in science. The term had been coined only about a decade earlier, and was still filtering out into the public consciousness. I first learned about it in a Reader's Digest article that came out about a year or two after this episode. Science is always coming up with interesting and exciting concepts that science fiction writers can use for story ideas. Frequently in ways that must make actual scientists go

Great thread !

Space 1999 was my jam back in the day!

Jeffco toys had a large toy eagle spaceship hanging from the ceiling that I wanted bad.

The Centuri Model Rocket company sold a Space 1999: Eagle rocket kit in the mid 1970s. It was essentially just an
Eagle-shaped "nose cone" for a regular rocket to boost, but it came in horizontally on it's own separate parachute, so
if you squinted just right, you could pretend it the real Eagle coming in for a landing.

That must have been fun. The only way anybody I knew ever launched anything was tied to a bottle rocket. Seems like I recall some Army Men taking a trip that way.

I somehow got a secondhand one of these back when I was around 10. Like the Adventure People from another thread, it was sized like Kenner Star Wars figures, so I got a lot of use out of it.

Damn Jeff, that is boss level cool !

I wonder if that’s the same toy I saw

Star Wars characters in an Eagle transporter. The mind boggles....

I loooooved UFO when I was a kid. Bought DVDs as soon as they were available. I can enjoy most of Gerry Andersons super marionation universe. I liked SPACE 1999 but it never resonated the way it might have if I had seen in in real time as opposed to post Star Wars.

Thanks Daphne for thread. I think I’ll load it on the server and watch while I am traveling.
T

Ring Around the Moon
A huge glowing sphere approaches the Moon. It begins to possess crew members and make them do its bidding by accessing Moonbase Alpha's computers. The first such possessee perishes when others interfere with the process. The next to be possessed is Dr. Russell. The others leave her alone for the time being.

Meanwhile, Koenig and Bergman determine that the sphere is an ancient alien probe from a planet that no longer exists. Koenig and Alan Carter pilot an Eagle equipped with a jury-rigged force field generator into the the probe. Koenig tries to persuade whoever or whatever is in charge of the probe that their planet no longer exists, and their mission is no longer relevant. It takes the news so badly that it blows up. Russell is released from its influence.

About par for the course for a "Space: 1999" episode. It has the signature explosions and story that leaves one scratching one's head wondering what it was supposed to be about. I notice that the writers seem to want to do the sort of serious, even pretentious, science fiction that asks deep questions and poses food for thought. Yet they keep including all those explosions and corny alien names and so forth of the sort found in old-fashioned juvenile pulp sci-fi. It doesn't all mesh together. Either the writers and producers thought that viewers weren't that smart, or they themselves really didn't "get" science fiction that well. They also give the impression of having been scientifically illiterate.

I'm afraid that my negative opinion of the writing and stories may give people the impression that I don't much enjoy "Space: 1999." That's honestly not the case! I like the great visuals, and some of the interesting concepts, and the historical significance of how this is a rare example of well-produced TV science fiction from that period. But over and over again the writing just makes me shake my head. At best it can have a so-bad-it's-good appeal.

"Space: 1999" has evidently evoked mixed feelings among science fiction fans for a long time now. On the one hand, they must have been so glad to see a really well-produced space series back in the mid-1970s, when TV science fiction was still fairly uncommon. On the other, the consistently bad writing must have been most frustrating. I once saw a poll that gave participants' selection of the 20 best and 10 worst science fiction TV series of all time. "Space: 1999" made BOTH lists.

Your synopsis makes it sound like any number of TOS Trek episodes. I'm sure in detail it's much less interestingly done.

Less interestingly done? That's pretty fair. The episodes on "Space: 1999" keep coming across as adding up to less than the sum of their parts. And the writing is the most obvious reason for that. The characters aren't generally as engaging as TOS' crew, either.

I discovered last night that the free streaming service Pluto TV has Space 1999 on it, along with a whole slew of classic and not-so-classic old shows! So much content, and all for free. If anyone was looking for a way to watch this show easily, there you go.

Earthbound
A ship containing several aliens in suspended animation lands on the Moon. Koenig and crew force entry, monkey around with one of the hibernation capsules, and accidentally create a reaction that reduces the poor occupant to ashes. Then the other aliens wake up and see what the interlopers have just fooled around and done to their companion. Talk about awkward! Fortunately the alien captain proves most understanding and forgiving about the mishap.

In fact, he makes the Alphans a generous offer. Their sleeper ship was programmed to land on the Moon before proceeding on to Earth. When the Moon suddenly went astray, the literal-minded computer managed to track it down and land there anyway. Now the crew has re-calculated their course for Earth. They should arrive there in about 75 years. Since the Alphans' meddling has resulted in their having an unoccupied hibernation capsule, would one of them like to come along to Earth?

Would they! So many apply for the slot that Koenig, to avoid any appearance of favoritism, tells the computer to make a totally objective decision regarding who to send. It's apparently more involved than a simple random lottery, but the criteria the computer is supposed to use aren't specified. Koenig publicly removes himself from consideration. Presumably he doesn't want to desert his duty to his crew. He also evidently realizes that the Earth of 75 years later simply won't be the Earth he knows. "Do you know what the Earth will be like in 2074?" he asks rhetorically (A couple of decades on, we now have a better idea of what the Earth of 2074 is likely to be like--and I can't say as I blame Koenig one little bit for not wanting to go there...).

One man on Alpha wants to go to Earth in the worst possible way. He's Commissioner Simmons, the political liaison between Alpha and the authorities responsible for its oversight whom we saw back in the very first episode. Simmons feels like an odd man out. He's not truly a crew member at Alpha. His liaison duties have been rendered moot. He really has nothing better to do than make a nuisance of himself at staff meetings. Shouldn't he be the one to go home? Though Koenig would dearly love to be rid of him, he refuses in the interest of fairness to let Simmons jump the queue. He can take his chances like everybody else.

Simmons takes matters into his own hands. He arms himself, stuns some guys, and holds all of Alpha hostage by threatening to destroy a critical part of its life support system. Koenig and the alien commander give in to his blackmail. The sleeper ship has scarcely left Alpha when Simmons realizes that his personal hibernation capsule isn't working. He's wide awake, hopelessly trapped, and obviously doomed. The aliens had failed to calibrate the capsule properly for its new occupant. It's hard not to suspect that the alien captain had this done on purpose, figuring that Simmons was too dangerous to be at large on either Alpha or Earth. Plus he no doubt figured that the big jerk deserved it. Back on Alpha, Koenig finally gets the computer's choice for the trip to Earth...and it turns out that the computer agreed that Simmons was the one best suited for it. That's called irony, you know.

Lots of unanswered questions in "Earthbound." Why are so many on Alpha so keen to travel to a future Earth where everybody they know will presumably have died of old age? Why didn't the aliens program their ship to simply land on Earth first? How in the world did the automated ship track down the Moon anyway, after it had been so radically relocated--and so fast, too?

This is still a notably more straightforward and comprehensible story than usual. And it doesn't have a single explosion!

A big part of what makes the episode is Christopher Lee's guest star turn as the alien sleeper ship captain. His height, robes, and bearing give him an impressive presence. His character is calm, thoughtful, dignified, understanding--and prepared to mete out a ruthless justice on an evildoer who has threatened hundreds of lives. He's one of the best of several interesting guest stars on the series.

Lee's extensive work in the horror films of Hammer Studios had by the 1970s put him well on the radar of fantasy and science fiction fans. Casting directors knew that he could do such material well, and would be a recognizable draw. He ended up getting rather strongly typecast in horror/fantasy films for most of his career. He had a better time of it than some typecast actors, such as Lon Cheney Jr., and seems to have been generally okay with being best known for genre roles. One does wonder whether perhaps now and then he would have appreciated being offered more roles in movies set in the mundane world. Anyway, he was very talented and had an impressively long career. And he was always good in the relatively few roles in which I've seen him.

Another Place, Another Time
The Moon is suddenly suffused with an eerie glow. Moonbase Alpha is buffeted violently to and fro. Crew members momentarily appear to find themselves dividing in two. When everybody comes to, they look at their view screen and see that the stars are different. The Moon has (again) been abruptly transited light years away.

A crew member named Regina does not return to normal. She has delusions of having been living on a planet's surface. She even has sunburn, as if she has recently been under an actual, natural sun. When she sees Alan Carter, she protests that he is dead. Then she freaks out in sick bay, knocks out two grown men, seizes a weapon, and briefly terrorizes headquarters. Then she drops dead for no apparent reason.

Koenig and company have bigger concerns. The Moon has settled into orbit around a planet that looks an awful lot like Earth. It even has another Moon already in orbit. And the other Moon also has its own Moonbase Alpha! Koenig and Carter rocket over to check it out. They find the other Alpha stripped and deserted. Evidently Operation Exodus has been put into effect here. They also find a crashed Eagle containing the dead bodies of...themselves. They take the bodies back for Dr. Russell to autopsy (What a creepy job THAT must have been!). She determines that the space-preserved bodies must have died about five years earlier.

The Earth below is a mess. Parts of it are glaciated. Others are radioactive wastelands. Only one region seems habitable. Koenig, Carter, and Russell fly down there and find the alternate-universe Alphans. They are now living a comfortably agrarian lifestyle under the leadership of Victor Bergman. The alternate Alphans have just lost their own Regina. When Russell meets Alternate! Russell, the latter seems calm and accepting, says that her time has now passed, kisses Koenig, and drops dead.

Alternate! Bergman tells them that they must not bring anybody else down, lest more people die from meeting their other selves. It's too dangerous for Koenig and company even to try settling in another area. Koenig protests that the two Moons are about to collide. Bergman assures them that when that happens everything will go back to normal. Sure enough it does, after another bout of violent buffeting. In the end, it's as if the whole thing never happened--except that Regina still appears to be dead, and Russell still has some roses she got from Alternate! Bergman.

Even a viewer accustomed to the well-established science fiction device of alternate universes and timelines will find this episode seemingly deliberately written to induce head-scratching. How did this phenomenon happen in the first place? How did it all go back to normal? How did Alternate! Bergman know it would go back to normal? Why does meeting one's living (as opposed to deceased) duplicate seem to be fatal? Why did both Reginas die, but only Alternate! Helena Russell perish? Most alternative universe/timeline stories at least try to give SOME token explanation for why these sorts of things happen. Here, you don't even get so much as a bit of technobabble about reversed polarities or some such.

It's also unclear how long it has been since the alternates carried out their relocation to the planet's surface. Alternate! Carter and Koenig have been dead about five years. However, the Alphans' children down below are at least that old, and it would presumably have taken them a year or two to get things sorted out well enough to start having children. Since the Alternate! Moon ended up in a stable orbit around the planet, they were presumably able to relocate in a more orderly and leisurely manner than would otherwise have been the case. Perhaps they kept making occasional trips back to the old base to get stuff for a couple of years, until Koenig and Carter came to grief.

This is one impressive-looking episode. The buffeting of Moonbase Alpha isn't just a matter of camera shaking and actors pretending to rock the boat. There's a lot of quick cutting to different camera angles, and even stuntmen taking serious-looking tumbles to increase the sense that some rough stuff is actually happening. We also see a very good crashed Eagle model, a Moonbase set that has been stripped and deserted, and some very detailed and moody planet surface sets. And lots of close-ups, camera movement, and moody lighting. It's all much more visually sophisticated storytelling than you'd see on Trek TOS. Closer to TNG, really. If anything, it even looks better than I recall much of TNG looking. This really is the only TV series of the 1970s that I can think of that looks almost as if it has just been made. Its visuals were way ahead of their time for TV science fiction.

I saw this episode when a local station broadcast reruns in the late 1980s. I watched it with my brother, who pointed out to me an interesting detail with Bergman. At one point Bergman is heard whistling. Later, down on the planet, we hear Alternate! Bergman whistling the same tune just before the others make contact with him. He takes the appearance of the unexpected visitors very much in stride. Fortunately for him, "our" Bergman didn't come on the away team....

Actually a pretty good episode, once you get past the usual abundance of unanswered questions and loose ends.

A couple years back I reviewed some other "Space: 1999" episodes. Those reviews, and some musings on the series, are on this thread:


viewtopic.php?f=1&t=106427&hilit=space+1999&start=22


Fresh musings below....