Space:1999 on Comet TV

[11Alive]

I absolutely loved the Eagle, and still do. A great general-purpose vehicle with a plausible design.

I like the Eagle and wouldn't mind having one in the garage, but I'd hardly call it even vaguely plausible. Not just single stage to orbit, but single stage interplanetary using rocket propulsion, antigravity forcefields, artificial gravity, no airlock, no apparent steps or ramp yet people have easy ingress/egress from the elevated passenger pod.

 

[Push The Button]

I like the Eagle and wouldn't mind having one in the garage, but I'd hardly call it even vaguely plausible. Not just single stage to orbit, but single stage interplanetary using rocket propulsion, antigravity forcefields, artificial gravity, no airlock, no apparent steps or ramp yet people have easy ingress/egress from the elevated passenger pod.

Oh, ok, you’re right, not plausible at all.

Instead, lets say it is perhaps one of the most plausible things, in a series that was full of implausibilities, from the main premise to the character that can shape-shift into any form that she wishes.

Also, the design seems to have been at least partially inspired by the “moon bus” from 2001. Blame the writers, I suppose, for having them do all of these implausible things after the pilot episode.

 

[Marc]

I absolutely loved the Eagle, and still do. A great general-purpose vehicle with a plausible design. Alpha must have had about 687 of them sitting in a warehouse.

not quite that many and it was an underground hanger that was shown though the episode name escapes me atm.

I like the Eagle and wouldn't mind having one in the garage, but I'd hardly call it even vaguely plausible. Not just single stage to orbit, but single stage interplanetary using rocket propulsion, antigravity forcefields, artificial gravity, no airlock, no apparent steps or ramp yet people have easy ingress/egress from the elevated passenger pod.

Couldn't find anything that could be counted as a canon depiction but there was probably stairs or ramp that came out but was probably a victim of the FX budget and a lack of need (did we need to see people exiting the Eagle?).

Though I did find the image below which show the stairs from the pod but think it's more an artist's depiction rather than a series scene.

http://www.collectormodel.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Eagle-blog-3.jpg

http://www.collectormodel.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Eagle-blog-4.png

Lack of an airlock was a bit of sill design oversight but there are some Eagles from S2 that had sections on each side of the transport pod that could be airlocks but don't look like they would be a good fit with the boarding tubes.

http://scalemodelingdomain.blogspot.com/2015/01/mpc-172-space-1999-eagle-transporter.html

 

[Galileo7]

Couldn't find anything that could be counted as a canon depiction but there was probably stairs or ramp that came out but was probably a victim of the FX budget and a lack of need (did we need to see people exiting the Eagle?).

Though I did find the image below which show the stairs from the pod but think it's more an artist's depiction rather than a series scene.

http://www.collectormodel.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Eagle-blog-3.jpg

http://www.collectormodel.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Eagle-blog-4.png

Eagle's full scale set of the pod stairs:
http://catacombs.space1999.net/main/images/spacehd/tfc/sptfc0499.jpg
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/b3/a6/3d/b3a63dd36741ecbbc3559816e34f311e.jpg

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Eagle's full scale set of the pod stairs:
http://catacombs.space1999.net/main/images/spacehd/tfc/sptfc0499.jpg

That's from S1 "The Full Circle."

 

[Marc]

Eagle's full scale set of the pod stairs:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/b3/a6/3d/b3a63dd36741ecbbc3559816e34f311e.jpg

Never seen any BTS pics from Space:1999 and have to admit for some reason my first though was WTF about the boots Koenig is wearing.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Never seen any BTS pics from Space:1999 and have to admit for some reason my first though was WTF about the boots Koenig is wearing.

That looks like it might (?) have been from "Matter of Life and Death."

http://catacombs.space1999.net/main/images/spacehd/molad/spmolad2399.jpg
http://catacombs.space1999.net/main/images/spacehd/molad/spmolad2376.jpg
http://catacombs.space1999.net/main/epimghd/timolad9.html

 

[Mr Awe]

For that matter, remember how rabid ST TOS fans were toward TNG when it appeared.

Well, shoot, rabid TOS season 1 and 2 fans can be like that towards TOS season 3!

 

[Marc]

That looks like it might (?) have been from "Matter of Life and Death."

http://catacombs.space1999.net/main/images/spacehd/molad/spmolad2399.jpg
http://catacombs.space1999.net/main/images/spacehd/molad/spmolad2376.jpg
http://catacombs.space1999.net/main/epimghd/timolad9.html

okay they look a bit better in colour

 

[11Alive]

Though I did find the image below which show the stairs from the pod but think it's more an artist's depiction rather than a series scene.
http://www.collectormodel.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Eagle-blog-4.png

That's from "Space Warp." There are better views in the episode, but they really show the problems with the stairs being an afterthought. Where are they stored in flight? Under the floor? The floor is too thin for that. Folded up against the hatch? You'd never be able to open the hatch when the boarding tube is connected.

Lack of an airlock was a bit of sill design oversight but there are some Eagles from S2 that had sections on each side of the transport pod that could be airlocks but don't look like they would be a good fit with the boarding tubes.

http://scalemodelingdomain.blogspot.com/2015/01/mpc-172-space-1999-eagle-transporter.html

I've seen most sources refer to that as the laboratory pod.

 

[cylkoth]

That's from "Space Warp." There are better views in the episode, but they really show the problems with the stairs being an afterthought. Where are they stored in flight? Under the floor? The floor is too thin for that. Folded up against the hatch? You'd never be able to open the hatch when the boarding tube is connected.
.

I've seen videos of luxury bus/RVs that have steps that slide out from the bottom. Of course the problem here is that in all the underbelly shots of the Eagle pods we've seen, there never seemed to be any indication of a compartment on either side where stairs that high could come out of. So we're forced to assume that's where come out of.
I've also seen vids of super yatchs where balconies fold down from the exterior wall, with foldable telescoping railings popping up. So something like that can explain those rails.

 

[11Alive]

For that matter, remember how rabid ST TOS fans were toward TNG when it appeared.

One thing you're forgetting is just how awful TNG was when it premiered. "Encounter at Farpoint" was embarrassing and laughable in terms of writing, special effects, acting, even the design of the collarless onesie uniforms, and subsequent episodes weren't much better. It wasn't until the beginning of season 3 before the show finally became decent. If it had been anything other than Star Trek, a franchise with an established and loyal fan base, it would have been cancelled before that. Nothing else gets two seasons to come up to speed. Likewise, DS9 was only sporadically watchable in its first two (pre-Defiant) seasons and Voyager's first season with the Kazon is best forgotten. By contrast, TOS had an excellent episode as early as "The Naked Time," only the fourth one broadcast (and the second one filmed, judging by the production code), with quite a few other fan favorite episodes in the first season, including "Balance of Terror," "Shore Leave," "Space Seed" and "City on the Edge of Forever."

 

[Marsden]

I absolutely loved the Eagle, and still do. A great general-purpose vehicle with a plausible design. Alpha must have had about 687 of them sitting in a warehouse.

They were probably in kit form.

 

[11Alive]

Another example of terrible continuity tonight. Doctor Russell tells the Exiles that Alpha's limited life support can't handle any more people, not even any births. Only last season, they were celebrating the birth of the Alpha Child. Besides, at least 30 Alphans died in the first season (more than 10% of the base complement; the moonbase would be completely empty in a decade at that rate) and a few more killed by Maya's father, so they should have had enough of a safety margin for 50 additions. Not to mention the engineers on Earth should be fired if they designed the life support with that little reserve capacity. Unless you want to rationalize that their life support systems have been gradually damaged or otherwise degraded over the previous 400 or so days, in which case they'll be in serious trouble in another couple of years after more degradation.

 

[Marc]

Another example of terrible continuity tonight. Doctor Russell tells the Exiles that Alpha's limited life support can't handle any more people, not even any births. Only last season, they were celebrating the birth of the Alpha Child. Besides, at least 30 Alphans died in the first season (more than 10% of the base complement; the moonbase would be completely empty in a decade at that rate) and a few more killed by Maya's father, so they should have had enough of a safety margin for 50 additions. Not to mention the engineers on Earth should be fired if they designed the life support with that little reserve capacity. Unless you want to rationalize that their life support systems have been gradually damaged or otherwise degraded over the previous 400 or so days, in which case they'll be in serious trouble in another couple of years after more degradation.

Life support was damaged after going through a space warp just prior to The Metamorp and they were looking for titanium to fix it so maybe they never managed to get any.

That same ep said the population was stable at 297, despite all the season 1 and in between deaths from the initial population of 311 given in Breakaway.

 

[11Alive]

They only needed a few ounces of the stuff. Helena picked up a small piece in the cave and said "a few more hunks like this is all we need," before putting it in her pack. I have about four pounds of titanium in my home thanks to my bicycle. If their engineers were competent, they would be using hundreds if not thousands of pounds of titanium on each Eagle because it's light and strong. For that matter, titanium is plentiful in moon rocks. Also, they didn't tell the Exiles that life support was temporarily low. They made it sound like it was a long-term if not permanent condition for Alpha.

 

[Galileo7]

Couldn't find anything that could be counted as a canon depiction but there was probably stairs or ramp that came out but was probably a victim of the FX budget and a lack of need (did we need to see people exiting the Eagle?).

Though I did find the image below which show the stairs from the pod but think it's more an artist's depiction rather than a series scene.

http://www.collectormodel.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Eagle-blog-3.jpg

http://www.collectormodel.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Eagle-blog-4.png

Good fan created image showing the retracted Eagle stairs.
https://www.scifiairshow.com/commercial?lightbox=c11g5

 

[Marc]

Good fan created image showing the retracted Eagle stairs.
https://www.scifiairshow.com/commercial?lightbox=c11g5

better example in the last photo on the page.

https://www.scifiairshow.com/eagle-4

I've seen that website before and it's very creative and very well done.

 

[11Alive]

Another bad episode with "The Rules of Luton," an obvious ripoff of the TOS episode "Arena." The writers couldn't even be bothered to pick up a dictionary. After they ate some kind of fruit, Luton yelled at them, "Cannibals!" A cannibal is something that eats its own species. Any schoolkid knows that. Would have been much better to call them "Animals!" That would have had a dual meaning in the context of the episode, that of savage creatures and also members of the animal kingdom, their sworn enemies.

The one bright spot of the second season was that they shot a lot of stuff outdoors rather than in the fake planet surface set they always used in the first season. Still, plenty of stupid things in this season, like the fact that they issued ID badges in the moonbase. 300-odd people together for over two years and they still need identification to recognize each other? You'd have to be one of the most antisocial people around not to know everybody else on the base by then. The badges serve no other purpose, since the commlocks were used to control access to restricted areas. (And those were pretty bad security devices, too, since we often saw somebody steal somebody else's commlock and immediately get access. Not even as secure as simple combination door locks.)

 

[J.T.B.]

I have started to re-watch a few of these, and when I say re-watch, I mean for a lot of them the first time in 40-some years, when I was in elementary school. So I am catching up on this thread and it has been very enjoyable to read. Some great points raised.

One thing I have really noticed is the high-contrast, single key light photography sometimes used for the space models. I am so used to seeing well-lit spaceships, this approach is visually striking.

I remember my parents changing the channel on me in "Dragon's Domain," they thought it was too scary. And I guess maybe it was, though I didn't remember it that way. The monster's sound was probably the scariest part. It was like some kind of sick processing machine: Person goes in, skeleton slides out!

It has been interesting to see stuff I didn't understand, mis-interpreted or mis-remembered. I never noticed as a kid how things don't line up with the Eagle interiors (and I had the big toy, of course). On the last one I watched they used the exterior shot where you can see the pilots behind the cockpit windows right up near the top of the nose module, then they cut to the interior and they have about five feet of headroom!

I was sorry to read of Zienia Merton's recent death. As a kid I though Sandra was great, a cool space professional who held her own. And Alan Carter, well, he was the coolest guy on TV in my young mind.