Space 1999

[Andrew_Kearley]

"Black Sun" is one of the greatest pieces of television it's ever been my privilege to watch. It's a stunning meditation on the themes of faith and destiny and fatalism.

Perhaps they choose not to recognize the Black Sun for what it is - those on the base with the right astrophysical credentials might have held their tongues to avoid panicking the others, and indeed to hold onto what hope they had left until they could be absolutely certain. Bergman suspects it's a black sun right from the off, but he's shown desperately doing measurements and calculations in the hope that his suspicions might be proved incorrect.

Bergman also knows that his shield is completely ineffectual, but Koenig lets him go ahead with it simply to offer a thread of hope to the crew in their final hours. It's just a morale boosting gesture. And ultimately, it's very superficial. They all know they're going to die. As the power drains from the Base, what you see is a group of people facing their inevitable destruction calmly, with stoicism and dignity. It's beautifully understated.

 

[diankra]

It was 1975. Apart from Doctor Who and Star Trek repeats, it was the only 'spaceship' in the galaxy.
Ironically, it went down better in the UK (despite losing the ratings battle with Doctor Who) than in the US, where it got critised for 'not being Star Trek'. So they hired Fred Freiberger to run season two...
And season two is rubbish (though rubbish that worked for a 10 year old)... season two is Fred Freiberger doing to 1999 what he did to Star Trek in its last year (when drunk, I sometimes claim that Star Trek only ran for two years, and 1999 for one, and that there's a separate two-season show called Freiberger's Follies).
But season one? It's an even mix of about eight episodes which are dreadful, eight which are watchable pulp SF, and eight which are a bizarre unique mix of the Prisoner and Star Trek, and make the entire run worthwhile (As character-led 'bottle stories', Voyager's Return, The Infernal Machine and The Troubled Spirit could all compete for a place in the top 10 of the orignal Trek).
And in hindsight, season one Koenig is the missing link between Kirk and Picard... (an edit: make that Pike and Picard... Koenig has that sense of that responibility for his crew is a burden that Pike had, but Kirk lost after the first few episodes).

 

[Mr. Adventure]

[
A little while back, I read an analysis which I found myself agreeing with: Space:1999 isn't really science fiction but is actually more Gothic/Lovecraftian horror:

Despite its high-tech surroundings, Moonbase Alpha is a haunted place, a cosmic Flying Dutchman carrying its doomed crew into the Unknown. In each episode the Alphans encounter a supernatural menace, often completely inexplicable, and must struggle to survive it. Not overcome it, mind; only in a few episodes do they actually manage to "win" in the traditional dramatic sense. Usually they just manage to survive.
​

That made sense to me since I enjoy Lovecraft as well as hard and soft SF.

That's interesting, I was thinking, "wow, something worthwhile posted on IMDB" and of course then all the following three pages of posts are back-and-forth bickering about whether the show's visuals were drug-induced.

There is something kind of strange and unsettling about the first season, there is definitely a weird vibe to everything, something that seemed to hover about 70's sci-fi.

 

[DWF]

I love Space:1999 too and I remember the Mysterious Unknown Force articles in Starlog at the time.

http://www.space1999.net/~catacombs/press/vxmuf.html

 

[Andrew_Kearley]

The problem is that the show has all of the trappings of a hard sci-fi show.

Without trying to be rude, I'd suggest that that's your problem as a viewer, rather than a problem with the show itself. It may dress itself in the typical trappings of sci-fi, and those cultural signifiers are directing you to expect it to conform to certain "rules" of the genre. The fact that Space frequently confounds those expectations is, for me, another of its strengths. It's a series that requires the viewer to do a lot of work, to let go of preconceptions and immerse himself in the drama, to find the meaning rather than just passively absorb a typical genre plot.

It often strikes me that Space's (lack of) scientific accuracy is used as a stick to beat it with, in the way that rarely happens to other series that have their own poor lapses. And I do wonder if that's because the show frequently flouts the accepted conventions of the genre, that critics can't get a handle on it, and so pick an easy target. Maybe... It's a unique and unusual series. I really do think it's something you either "get" or you don't. (And perhaps it's a bit too "European" for some people's tastes.)

Some of this could be forgiven if the stories were well written, the acting good and the show looked good. Unfortunately none of that was true.

And unfortunately, that's a sweeping statement that isn't borne out by the facts. I'd like some specific examples.

The model work was top notch (it was Gerry Anderson after all) and the standing sets were pretty good but just about everything else was poorly done.

I think Keith Wilson's production design is extraordinary all through the series. Once again, it does things that are fantastically different from anything that's been seen before. Whereas Star Trek's alien worlds tended to be "three rocks and a cave", or a bog-standard "alien council chamber" set, Space gave us worlds that were truly alien.

The less said about the bland, unflatering costumes the better.

Why? What's wrong with the costumes? These are people on a scientific base on the Moon, I'm sure that looking good was not their first concern. It's a simple, stark, utilitarian coverall design suitable for wearing in their antisceptic environment. The fact that they're not all models in form-fitting costumes is another plus for the series.

 

[Solariabsg25]

"Black Sun" is one of the greatest pieces of television it's ever been my privilege to watch. It's a stunning meditation on the themes of faith and destiny and fatalism.

Perhaps they choose not to recognize the Black Sun for what it is - those on the base with the right astrophysical credentials might have held their tongues to avoid panicking the others, and indeed to hold onto what hope they had left until they could be absolutely certain. Bergman suspects it's a black sun right from the off, but he's shown desperately doing measurements and calculations in the hope that his suspicions might be proved incorrect.

Bergman also knows that his shield is completely ineffectual, but Koenig lets him go ahead with it simply to offer a thread of hope to the crew in their final hours. It's just a morale boosting gesture. And ultimately, it's very superficial. They all know they're going to die. As the power drains from the Base, what you see is a group of people facing their inevitable destruction calmly, with stoicism and dignity. It's beautifully understated.

I can't remember the exact quote from Koenig, but it's when Russell's berating him for being on the surface and letting Alan fire a Laser at them, and she says "What if the shield didn't work?"

"Then we'd have died a couple of days before everyone else. It didn't prove anything."

It's also ironic that one of the main criticisms of the show (that the moon could not possibly traverse interstellar space), was supposed to be addressed by this episode, as the plan was to have this as one of the first, showing the moon being sent to an area of space where normal rules of physics don't apply.

At the end of the day though, the show was incredibly dark, which appealled to youngsters and has stayed with most of us as we've grown.

Can you imagine something made for early evening tea time viewing that included episodes such as "The Troubled Spirit" and "Dragon's Domain"?

 

[WillsBabe]

"Black Sun" is one of the greatest pieces of television it's ever been my privilege to watch. It's a stunning meditation on the themes of faith and destiny and fatalism.

I wanted to echo this. A little while ago someone here asked us what our all time favouite tv episodes were, and this was one of mine. I adore this episode for the reasons mentioned. I find it a difficult episode to watch, actually. A favourite moment of mine from the whole of Space 1999 is the moment between Tanya and Paul, when she comes to listen to him play his guitar. It's a moment of humanity between people that makes me care even less about the science.

Nice avatar, by the way. We don't see much of the commander smiling.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

"Black Sun" is one of the greatest pieces of television it's ever been my privilege to watch. It's a stunning meditation on the themes of faith and destiny and fatalism.

I wanted to echo this. A little while ago someone here asked us what our all time favouite tv episodes were, and this was one of mine. I adore this episode for the reasons mentioned. I find it a difficult episode to watch, actually. A favourite moment of mine from the whole of Space 1999 is the moment between Tanya and Paul, when she comes to listen to him play his guitar. It's a moment of humanity between people that makes me care even less about the science.

Nice avatar, by the way. We don't see much of the commander smiling.

Because of this thread I actually threw Black Sun in and watched it again and that guitar moment is great, something about it. I even liked the way they wrote it, "Mind if I share the music with you?".

 

[arch101]

Yes, this show has LOTS of technical problems. I DON'T CARE! It's still great entertainment (I'm only talking about year 1) Bary Gray's score is worth watching the show for all by itself. Also, lots of terrific actors in supporting roles gave the show more depth that TOS Trek. Everyone likes Nick Tate's Carter. Prentiss Hancock and Zenia Merton were great too (but they had Sondra fainting and screaming a BIT too much - she must have been this show's Chekov) Barry Morse ate up every scene he was in. I cheer every time he pulls out a cigar and thought the writers were spot on by having his character check the base's supercomputer with long-hand algebra. The show also did a good job at developing "temp" characters, like Ernst Queller and Tony Cellini. Regrettably, Landau's performances were uneven. I think film was ultimately better than TV for him. He just wasn't "on" from week to week. Roy Dottrice's smarmy Simmons was a great tension-generating character who was dispatched too soon. Even though I myself am an Atheist, I appreciated the attempt to have SF characters meet "God" in Black Sun. Pretty bold for SF tv or films of that time. What a great philisophical ep.

 

[Marc]

. Regrettably, Landau's performances were uneven. I think film was ultimately better than TV for him. He just wasn't "on" from week to week.

Given that Landau and Bain went through, what I gather was pretty unpleasant divorce while the show was in production yet still worked well on set was a tribute to their professionalism.

Also I wonder if there was any correlation between the particular stories where he wasn't at his best e.g they were crappy stories or whether it was the director.

 

[DWF]

. Regrettably, Landau's performances were uneven. I think film was ultimately better than TV for him. He just wasn't "on" from week to week.

Given that Landau and Bain went through, what I gather was pretty unpleasant divorce while the show was in production yet still worked well on set was a tribute to their professionalism.

Also I wonder if there was any correlation between the particular stories where he wasn't at his best e.g they were crappy stories or whether it was the director.

They didn't get divorced until 1993, you might be thinking of Gerry Anderson and his wife Sylvia who broke up after the show was over.

 

[Marc]

. Regrettably, Landau's performances were uneven. I think film was ultimately better than TV for him. He just wasn't "on" from week to week.

Given that Landau and Bain went through, what I gather was pretty unpleasant divorce while the show was in production yet still worked well on set was a tribute to their professionalism.

Also I wonder if there was any correlation between the particular stories where he wasn't at his best e.g they were crappy stories or whether it was the director.

They didn't get divorced until 1993, you might be thinking of Gerry Anderson and his wife Sylvia who broke up after the show was over.

maybe it was just the separation but I'm pretty sure I read that their family life wasn't crash hot at the time (Bain/Landau) though I gather Anderson & Anderson wasn't that pleasant either (as you say that'w when they got divorced and Sylvia was gone from Space:1999).

Oh and some-one up thread mentioned a remake attempt but as Space:2199 or something. When they editted The Bringers Of Wonders Pts 1 & 2 into a movie episode and sold as Destination: Moonbase Alpha there was a new narration starting with the events of Breakway and ending with "the year is 2199".

And as for childhood memories, I was 7 or so when it first ran in Australian and didn't really click to the premise that the moment had been blown out of earth orbit.

 

[RAMA]

Why exactly does this show have a fan base?

Really, has there ever been a more ridiculous concept for a (serious) scifi TV show than this?

At its core its the typical Lost in Space premise, with a hint of Star Trek thrown in for good measure. The problem of course is that those ideas are tethered to the concept of the fraking MOON uncontrolably hurtling though intersellar space. I know that most sci-fi TV requires the audience to suspend some element of disbelief. Space 1999 demands that you abandon even basic logic/ scientific knowledge. The pilot alone is so absurd that I have a really hard time taking the rest of the series at face value. We're supposed to accept that some kind of a way a massive explosion was powerful enough to hurl the moon not just out of Earth orbit, but clear out of the solar system at speeds so fast that the crew of Moonbase Alpha could not have just got in their eagles and gone back to Earth. Yet each week, after traveling through interstellar space at impossible speeds they slow down enough to explore (get in trouble) a near by planet only to head off into deep space at the end of the episode.

In season 2 they did an episode dealing with the moon getting caught in a space warp. The crew of Alpha are simply shocked that this mysterous warp throws them an astonishing 5 light years away. This of course ignores the fact that they travel hundreds of light years each episode.

Some of this could be forgiven if the stories were well written, the acting good and the show looked good. Unfortunately none of that was true. The model work was top notch (it was Gerry Anderson after all) and the standing sets were pretty good but just about everything else was poorly done. The less said about the bland, unflatering costumes the better.


What did people find entertaining about this show?

Simple, have you seen the tv sf from the 70s? Hardly any was worth a look. Space:1999 was simply one of the best of a bad crop.

 

[Andrew_Kearley]

Simple, have you seen the tv sf from the 70s? Hardly any was worth a look. Space:1999 was simply one of the best of a bad crop.

Well, leaving aside Doctor Who, Blakes 7, Timeslip, Survivors, Sapphire and Steel, etc....

I don't think it can be explained quite so easily as that. Not for me anyway. Though I watched Space in 1975 (but only season 1 - I don't think Southern shows season 2), and must have enjoyed it enough at the time - I still have an Annual and a Dinky Eagle Transporter from that period, it pretty soon slipped into being a distant memory. I became an actual fan in the early nineties, when I made an impulse purchase of the first VHS releases. So I wasn't watching it in the context of the time, but from an adult perspective and a much wider grasp of tv sf across several decades - and it blew me away.

 

[Andrew_Kearley]

Regrettably, Landau's performances were uneven. I think film was ultimately better than TV for him. He just wasn't "on" from week to week.

Are you talking about season 2 here? Landau's on record that he was unhappy with the way the character was being written in some episodes, which he felt was inconsistent, but that Freiberger wouldn't listen to his entreaties. But I can't see a single instance in season 1 of a poor performance.

 

[Alpha_Geek]

I'd have rather Anderson had gone ahead with UFO season 2. The premise of UFO was at least more plausible if you discount purple wigs on moon maidens.

That being said, I watched 1999 regularly in its syndication run here in the US. Even at that age I knew that the "spaceship moon" concept was as full of holes that Luna *could* have been made of green cheese, but 1999 was pretty much the only new sci-fi ride in town at that point. Trek had been my appetizer, and I was starving for anything that came on the screen that was new.

Besides, compaired to NBC's 1977 offering of Quark 1999 is far superior. Yes, yes, I know this is faint praise...
...and just to prove it.. see for yourself!

 

[JAG]

I remember Quark. that was bad.

I enjoyed Space 1999 as a kid. There really was no other science fiction on tv at the time.

 

[diankra]

Simple, have you seen the tv sf from the 70s? Hardly any was worth a look. Space:1999 was simply one of the best of a bad crop.

Well, leaving aside Doctor Who, Blakes 7, Timeslip, Survivors, Sapphire and Steel, etc....

Doctor Who's a given, but Blake's 7 and Sapphire and Steel were both later, Timeslip had already been run and repeated and was only a memory even if you'd been old enough to have seen it (I wasn't), while Survivors... well, not many spaceships and lasers in that!
Aside from Who, in the UK there was 1999, The Tomorrow People and Trek repeats, and possibly some Supermarionation repeats too, but nowt else in 75-77.

 

[cylkoth]

Simple, have you seen the tv sf from the 70s? Hardly any was worth a look. Space:1999 was simply one of the best of a bad crop.

Well, leaving aside Doctor Who, Blakes 7, Timeslip, Survivors, Sapphire and Steel, etc....

Doctor Who's a given, but Blake's 7 and Sapphire and Steel were both later, Timeslip had already been run and repeated and was only a memory even if you'd been old enough to have seen it (I wasn't), while Survivors... well, not many spaceships and lasers in that!
Aside from Who, in the UK there was 1999, The Tomorrow People and Trek repeats, and possibly some Supermarionation repeats too, but nowt else in 75-77.

And in the US, none of those were available to us, pre Star Wars 70s, that is...Pertwee's Who was shown on PBS stations in selected markets earlier in the decade, but the show didn't get wide distribution until SW set the science fiction market on fire.
All we had back then (as far as first run programs) were the Bionic duo, Wonder Wonder, a handful of 13 episode one seasoners, and Saturday morning live action and animated fare. S1999 was far from perfect, but it was the best of what was out there...
And those Eagles totally ruled!

 

[diankra]

Well, leaving aside Doctor Who, Blakes 7, Timeslip, Survivors, Sapphire and Steel, etc....

Doctor Who's a given, but Blake's 7 and Sapphire and Steel were both later, Timeslip had already been run and repeated and was only a memory even if you'd been old enough to have seen it (I wasn't), while Survivors... well, not many spaceships and lasers in that!
Aside from Who, in the UK there was 1999, The Tomorrow People and Trek repeats, and possibly some Supermarionation repeats too, but nowt else in 75-77.

And in the US, none of those were available to us, pre Star Wars 70s, that is...Pertwee's Who was shown on PBS stations in selected markets earlier in the decade, but the show didn't get wide distribution until SW set the science fiction market on fire.
All we had back then (as far as first run programs) were the Bionic duo, Wonder Wonder, a handful of 13 episode one seasoners, and Saturday morning live action and animated fare. S1999 was far from perfect, but it was the best of what was out there...
And those Eagles totally ruled!

Exactly. If you were a 10 year old in the mid-ish 1970s, 1999 was it so far as spaceship-based SF went (and on the last day of term we tested our Eagle models to destruction by dropping them out of the window to see how the spring-loaded legs coped).
And when you watched it again as an adult out of nostalgia, it's a mix of utter rubbish and utter brilliance.

13 episode one seasoners? Oh yes, Logan's Run and Fantastic Journey got run in the same Sunday afternoon slot as season 2 of 1999 when I was a kid! Now those, I haven't seen in 30 years!