Revisiting Space: 1999...

[Warped9]

"The Last Sunset" ***

Alien devices transform the Moon into an Earth like world.

This was watchable despite some ridiculous behaviour by the Alphans and what I thought were logic flaws in the Moon's transformation. The aliens pull a Genesis like transformation of the Moon and manage to turn sterile lunar dust into soil that will allow things to grow in it. Of course the artificial atmosphere would constantly have to be replenished because the Moon's gravity would be insufficient to hold onto it. And the aliens also manage to give the Moon an Earth like gravity despite the Moon's greatly less mass.

I van understand the Alphans excitement over being able to leave the confines of the sterile like and monotonous confines of the Moonbase, but I thought they were just a bit to careless to be believed and that they didn't question their supposed good fortune more.

The thing I found most laughable was seeing Keonig opening a sliding panel window to breathe in the fresh air. Now who would actually include an opening window on a base where the external environment is expected to always be vacuum?



"Voyager's Return" *

A Voyager spacecraft is encountered by the Alphans.

Shlock. It might have been okay, but then it gets really cheesy. Granted the real Voyager hadn't actually been launched yet when his episode was made, but they really took liberties with the idea. The Voyager has a practical star drive that can span interstellar distances? Then how come Alpha has no prior knowledge of other worlds before they eave the solar system? The vehicle has a drive thats harmful to living organisms? Yeah, I can see an Earth government or the U.S. putting that into production. The guy who designed the thing just happens to be living incognito on Moonbase Alpha? How convenient.

On top of this add more cheesy f/x and alien spacecraft that could have been forerunners of Lexx.

 

[Zaku]

"The Last Sunset" ***

Alien devices transform the Moon into an Earth like world.

The thing I found most laughable was seeing Keonig opening a sliding panel window to breathe in the fresh air. Now who would actually include an opening window on a base where the external environment is expected to always be vacuum?

From http://www.space1999.net/catacombs/main/epguide/t11tls.html

The script describes technicians refitting the windows after the Moon has an atmosphere. In the episode they appear to be able to just open a window. When the first corrosion is discovered, the script has Koenig ordering the windows replaced and Alpha repressurised with its own atmosphere.

 

[RJDiogenes]

None of these last few seem the least bit familiar. I may have given up on the show earlier than I remember.

I can't disagree. The basic premise isn't bad if they had gone about it differently. Charles Sheffield wrote some great stories as part of his Great Ship chronicles about a massive jovian sized starship that enters our galaxy and seems to be coursing through it. Enroute many races including humans hitch a ride aboard while trying to unlock its secrets.

There was also Chindi by Jack McDevitt which incorporates a similar premise. And then there was James Blish's Cities In Flight. Any of these approaches would have made more sense.

On top of this add more cheesy f/x and alien spacecraft that could have been forerunners of Lexx.

Aw, c'mon, Lexx was great. You should do that series next.

 

[Sindatur]

My burned DVDs are in a different order than Warped9 is watching in. I watched the first 3, Pilot was the best of the 3, and the other two were pretty uninteresting to me. Putting this up on the shelf, until I feel in the mood again, and switching over to Enterprise.

Enjoyed the first 3 Enterprise episodes more than I remember (Scott Bakula gets on my nerves for some reason, but so far enjoying Enterprise, aside from Archer)

 

[Andrew_Kearley]

"Ring Around The Moon" ***

An alien intelligence captures the Moon and takes over Dr. Russell.

Really not one of the better episodes. I'd agree that some of the effects around the Triton sphere are pretty ropey, but there are some creepy ideas - the eye in the brain, as it were - both the visual representation and the rewiring of the victims' visual cortex to act as a camera/transmitter. There's a bit of Von Daniken in there too, which was a big buzz idea in 70s sci-fi, however silly it seems now. I think ultimately the philosophical core of this episode is the question of knowledge vs intelligence. A mechanical probe from a dead world, carrying on gathering information even though there's no one to feed it back to, and yet unable to use that knowledge in any way to determine its own destiny.

"Earthbound" ***

An alien spacecraft enroute to Earth lands on the Moon.

Although it's still not what I'd call good it is a fair step up from what I've seen so far. Christopher Lee brings a measure of dignity to the alien Kaldorian Captain. The episode's ending is satisfying poetic justice seeing as Simmons was such a jackass.

The thing I'd criticize most in this is the design and model of the alien spaceship. I thought it just looked silly.

It's quirky, certainly but it's one of the strengths of this show that aliens are alien. They're strange, remote and often completely unknowable - since most aliens in tv sci-fi are basically exaggerated ethnic stereotyping and some facial disfigurations, Space: 1999 tries to do something different all the time. There's no reason why alien technology should look like anything we would design. The spaceship is an egg, basically - this extends to the interior design where the occupants are cocooned in their cases, surrounded by swags of diaphonous materials suggesting amniotic fluids and so on. The Kaldorians are perhaps more traditional sci-fi aliens, but their great dignity is their strength - they are a dying sterile people, facing death but wanting to take what's left of their culture to other worlds so that at least a part of them lives on.

The real story here though is the antagonism between koenig and Simmonds, and ultimately about notions of leadership, government, community and so on. Simmonds, the self-serving politician places his individual safety above the rest of the community. and that's what causes his downfall. Whereas Koenig, though an absolute ruler, has given himself to the community. He serves them by leading them. He won't even countenance going on the Kaldorian ship, even if the computer selects him - he's made his choice already. And it's obvious that the community supports him - look how quickly they reject Simmonds, happy to let him go even though they'll all stay marooned on Alpha.

 

[Warped9]

Make no mistake, I'm seeing some worthy ideas in the series. Sadly, though, I'm not seeing consistently good depiction or execution of those worthy ideas. Indeed so far the episodes have never been better than just fair or watchable.

In Lost In Space I found a lot that was goofy, but some of the characters were agreeable and often enough the episodes could be entertaining to some degree or other. Space: 1999, despite having some good ideas, often comes across in degrees of bland to cheesy. Good model work is often offset by cheap looking f/x in a show that was supposed to be pushing the limits. In many respects Star Trek and then UFO did many f/x better than 1999.

As the series progresses the cast seem to be getting into more of a groove with their characters. In the beginning it reminded me a lot of the TNG cast early on: they were inconsistent and their performances varied as if they had difficulty getting a handle on their characters. Beyond that, though, I find 1999's cast to be largely bland with little distinctive about them. All of them have a tendency to over act when expressing heightened emotions or stress. Barbara Bain has improved the most I'd say. In the beginning she was terribly flat and expressionless, but she's lightened up a lot and become (somewhat) more nuanced. I find Carter laughable---he makes Trek's Scotty seem like a paragon of calm and serenity. Carter also often borders on insubordination.

I find a lot of the writing stiff and unnatural, worse yet reminiscent of a lot of the writing I find in later episodes of TNG as well as DS9 and VOY. A lot of the writing sounds like a B grade '50's/'60's era sci-fi flick. Again Star Trek and UFO were much better written.

 

[Warped9]

"Collision Course" ****

An alien woman must convince Koenig that their two worlds, presently on a collision course, must touch for her people to evolve.

I'm grudgingly rating this a 4 because it's the first episode that actually evoked some real interest from me in how the story was unfolding. This is very much a '70's New Age kind of story and so it works best if you try not to look for any real logic in it. There's a cosmic sensibility to this story.

Does it make any sense that two worlds have to physically touch for one race to evolve? How the hell should I know. I'm not versed in the mysteries of the cosmic and the metaphysical. Suffice that it works sufficiently enough to have piqued my interest. I think this one works better than all the previous episodes.


"Death's Other Dominion" ***

Alpha finds survivors of a lost expedition on a frozen planet.

This starts out rather decently and isn't bad mostly although it does occasionally get shlocky. I rather liked how the supposedly sane professor is the real nutcase while the supposed local loon actually sees whats really going on. What bugged me most about this was how easily Russell and Bergman simply accept the Professor's claims without question. Hell, Bergman willingly submits himself to an experiment without any real question. It made them seem out of character as well as incredibly stupid.

Part of what bothers me about these stories is how frequently the characters lack real consistency. Good fictional characters behave in generally consistent fashion unless affected by some unusual influence, much like real people do. Poor characterization has characters behaving erratically in the sense that they simply react to any given situation in whatever way the writers see fit rather than in a believably consistent manner based on what has previously been established. A lot of times these supposed professionals exhibit little good or common sense in the situations they face.

 

[Andrew_Kearley]

"Collision Course" ****

An alien woman must convince Koenig that their two worlds, presently on a collision course, must touch for her people to evolve.

I think this one works better than all the previous episodes.

Well, that's a relief! This is my favourite episode of the entire series.

 

[Warped9]

"Collision Course" ****

An alien woman must convince Koenig that their two worlds, presently on a collision course, must touch for her people to evolve.

I think this one works better than all the previous episodes.

Well, that's a relief! This is my favourite episode of the entire series.

When Ara makes reference to their never-ending odyssey it could be taken as her referring to humanity as a species rather than specifically meaning the Alphans.


"The Full Circle" **

A mist on an alien world reverts anyone who goes into it into a primitive.

And if you go into it again you revert back to your former self...and still wearing the clothes you went in with. At the end of the episode Bergman makes a casual reference to some kind of time warp---interesting how localized these things can be.

Once again it kills me how nonsensical these characters are often written. Carter impulsively goes off alone to search caves and Bergman and company juts let him go and even leave him behind without a thought. On a potentially dangerous world where most everyone seems to disappear they choose to spend the night outside rather than within the safety of the Eagle. When Sandra opens the door to see one of the cavemen all she had to do was immediately close the hatch. But then I guess we wouldn't have had any story or drama.

In a more familiar space opera we'd have a FTL starship to take our heroes from world to world while actively seeking out other life. In 1999 we don't need even that flimsy rationale. We'll just have our heroes wait for the universe and aliens to come to them without even the remotest bit of credibility. We've been told the Moon has crossed millions of light years and yet can still manage to spend a few days at one alien world after another within a short period of time. Life seems to be at every stop. They even get to meet explorers and scientist from previous lost expeditions who just happen to be right along Alpha's random route.

Yeah, I know, it's just sci-fi. But things are a bit easier to accept when there's at least some small measure of credibility at least within the context of the fictional setting.


"End Of Eternity" *

A maniacal immortal is inadvertently released from his asteroid prison.

Yeeesh! Just boring and bad, bad, bad. It was so predictable and Balor was so transparent from the get-go.

 

[Shanndee]

I'm beginning to think that my friends are right...I should not tarnish my happy memories of a childhood favourite by watching it with an adult perspective. But I have to admit that Andrew_Kearley's comments are keeping me curious.

I guess I'll just have to do a re-watch and make up my own mind.

 

[Maurice]

I don't have happy memories of Space:1999. When it first aired, I watched it because it was really the only new SciFi on, but it was boring.

 

[Andrew_Kearley]

I'm beginning to think that my friends are right...I should not tarnish my happy memories of a childhood favourite by watching it with an adult perspective. But I have to admit that Andrew_Kearley's comments are keeping me curious.

I guess I'll just have to do a re-watch and make up my own mind.

The thing with me is, it was never a childhood favourite of mine. I know I watched some of the episodes at the time (I'd have been about 6) so although I remember the basic set-up, it was just another show for me at the time. I basically rediscovered the show in 1992 - so effectively, I've only really known it as an adult viewer - and it took my breath away. It's very unlike modern television, quite slow-moving and played with a great intensity and seriousness, so I can understand why a lot of people can't get on with it - nothing wrong with that, of course. It's obvious (especially to a former scientist like me) that the show's grasp of science is somewhat loose, but it really doesn't bother me. I think the show sells it by creating a universe that's strange and unknowable, and not trying to invent trite technobabble explanations for these great mysteries. It's a very different approach from the usual "we've just invented some technology that can break the laws of physics" that we get in most other shows, Star Trek included. Neither approach is "wrong", they're just different. Space: 1999 seems to me almost to be founded on that famous quotation from Arthur Eddington (or JBS Haldane, sources differ): "the universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine". It also reminds me sometimes of the writings of Olaf Stapledon, which can't be a bad thing.

 

[Warped9]

"War Games" ****

Alpha fights for survival after being attacked.

This just nudges up into Good territory. It's not badly done. The downside really isn't a fault of the story, but in familiarity if you've seen enough science fiction in that it shouldn't take you long to figure out whats going long before the characters do. In a way this is a variation of the story told in Star Trek's "Spectre Of The Gun" in which the heroes' fears and own imagination are what is manifested and turned against them.

Not great, but better the most of what has preceded it.

 

[Warped9]

"The Last Enemy" **

Alpha finds itself caught between two warring planets.

This was rather lame and a pretty bare bones story. There was no nuance and no real substance to this. It felt as if everyone was just going through the motions and reciting the script in monotone. It was simply dull. I also found the model work a letdown in this one in addition to what looked like cheap space shots.

It's quite a disappointment after "War Games." In the remotest way it also reminded me of Star Trek's "A Taste Of Armageddon" only in the sense that it, too, was about the heroes caught between warring factions. The big difference, though, is that Trek's effort was far better than anything I've seen from 1999 to date.


"The Troubled Spirit" ***

An Alpha crewman preforms a mind experiment with extreme results.

This was weird and had a definite creep sensibility to it. It started off rather shaky and I was prepared to write it off as just silly, but it actually started to get somewhat interesting. I found myself wanting to see what happened next. On the flip side it didn't take long to figure out what was really happening. In the end it had something of an X-Files feel to it.

Not great, but not bad.

 

[Maurice]

re War Games: I always thought that since they'd gone to the trouble of building the Hawk models they should have cooked up a reason for Alpha to get/make some that they could use for defense operations instead of using the Eagles for everything.

 

[Forbin]

Dear MPC: Please reissue the damn Hawk model kit!!

 

[Dave Scarpa]

Space 1999 is one of my Favorite series as a kid I loved it, the first season with it's metaphysical nature appealed to the growing thinker in me, and the 2nd season with it's action /adventure and rubber suited monster appealed to the little kid in me. To this day I enjoy this series. If you look beyond the premise, it was a way to look at the human condition thru a group of marooned people searching for God and a purpose. I also Enjoyed UFO, I wish we had shows with a 10th of the creativity today.

 

[Forbin]

Oh we do! ALMOST a tenth of it, anyway.

 

[Warped9]

"Space Brain" ****

A space borne alien intelligence tries to communicate with Alpha.

I'm waffling on this because of mixed feelings. On the one hand I was initially pessimistic before I watched the episode because of its rather cheesy title. No doubt I have memories of "Spock's Brain" fuelling my pessimism. Of course I have to say that despite the cringe inducing title Trek's episode actually has a viable SF story within it---if only it could have been told better. In 1999's case it isn't quite the same. here an alien intelligence is trying to communicate in order to avoid a collision between the wayward Moon and itself, only there's no way to do it. In the end it's a matter of survival between the alien mind and the Alphans. The alien mind isn't inherently evil, but it does have an instinct for survival.

There was something rather TNG like about this episode and in the end the only real serious mark I have against the episode was seeing Alpha flooded by...soap suds. I know what they were trying to depict, and seen in only small quantities you could suspend your disbelief, but seeing people wading through soap bubbles, or some form of foam, was just too weird.

But I do like the story and mostly how it was told. A pity they couldn't have found another way to do the effect they wanted.


"The Infernal Machine" **

A sentient machine wants Koenig, Russell and Bergman to be his companions.

It didn't take me long at all to figure out who and what Gwent really was. He's also the oddest A.I. I've ever seen in sci-fi.

There were things in this that just didn't work for me. The idea that Gwent was blind didn't wash with me. He'd have to have had some form of visual system or instrumentation. The way he so quickly weakened wasn't credible either. In the end he was just a bully and it wasn't convincing how contrite he was in the end. I also thought the wheeling spokes were a just too bizarre form of propulsion...if thats what it was.

What this story needed was a Kirk to drive him crazy with illogic.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

In the recent thread Space: 1999 revival, we had some discussion of the original show, and I posted a brief review of the series.

My first season review is at http://www.trekbbs.com/showpost.php?p=5832682&postcount=134.

My second season review is at http://www.trekbbs.com/showpost.php?p=5912353&postcount=162.