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Space: 1999 revival

Mr. Laser Beam said:
Wasn't there one episode where the Moon briefly finds itself back in Earth orbit to find that the entire planet has been laid waste (except for a small patch of land which still supported life)
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Yes, that would be "Another Time, Another Place"

implicitly because of what happened when the Moon originally left orbit?
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No, it's some sort of parallel dimension: "This is the Earth, but not the world we knew. It's an Earth where perhaps we never existed. Or perhaps we have yet to be born. But apart from us it's empty now. A civilisation once flourished here. Another Atlantis, perhaps. There are relics of them everywhere."
 
nightwind1 said:
I think they should have the Moon blown out of orbit as before, and specifically note that Earth is wiped out by the absence of the Moon. So the Alphans (and maybe some inhabitants of other colonies in our solar system) are the last surviving humans.
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Or maybe the Alphans just don't know what happened to Earth. That would be interestingly eerie. I don't think the Earth would be "destroyed," but the absence of the Moon would cause havoc on the seasons and possibly also change the orbit of the Earth around the Sun, real bad juju there, even if the change were relatively small. And the absence of tides would disrupt species that depend on tides - if plankton are disrupted, more bad juju, since they produce half of the oxygen on the planet. Even if they don't care about tides as a species, they're part of a web of life and would be impacted. Also, there would be increased risk of asteroid strikes since the Moon blocks some of that now.

Overall, humanity might be able to survive, but civilization would be frakked.
 
Yikes, alphabet soup!

I dunno about Newt...but there's something about Rick Santorum that reminds me strongly of Martin Landau.
 
^^ hopefully, that corrected OK, I meant to preview but posted instead

If we're sticking with a Republican revival I think Dana Perino would make a good Helena Russell. :)
 
Even if it's a chunk of the moon... how does it get into "deep space..."? A wormhole... Ok... fine...a wormhole. So EACH WEEK a new wormhole flings it out into space again? Where does this new Wormhole come from? The Alphans are going to figure out how to generate their own? Then why not go back home? Or are they lost in space...

Besides the designs... there's not much there to the basic premise.
 
They could take the approach where the explosion causes the moonbase itself to be blown off the surface of the moon. Whatever propulsion systems they have were only designed to get the various parts of the base up to the moon and now they have to find a way to get them to work in ways they were never meant to. Plus, since it was designed to be a stable base on the surface, there are little to no guidance systems.

That would be one approach that might work.
 
Even the old series had hints that the Alphans journey was part of some kind of grand design. I would have whatever happens be connected to some weird happening and just play up the whole cosmic weirdness angle.
 
Temis the Vorta said:
I'm afraid it would simply be too ridiculous today, assuming the series is meant to be taken seriously.
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It was just as ridiculous then lol, and yet some folks had no trouble talking it seriously... I laughed at it then and will do so again if given the chance. :D

I mean, people went to see 2012...
 
jbny67 said:
They could take the approach where the explosion causes the moonbase itself to be blown off the surface of the moon. Whatever propulsion systems they have were only designed to get the various parts of the base up to the moon and now they have to find a way to get them to work in ways they were never meant to. Plus, since it was designed to be a stable base on the surface, there are little to no guidance systems.

That would be one approach that might work.
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Except how do you get out of the SOLAR SYSTEM? Unless the station or the chunk is blow off at several times the speed of light (which right now, we believe is impossible)... it's not going to get anywhere very fast. Space is big. Really big.

Now, the engines that you propose... 1. Wouldn't be able to slow the ship down--so no visiting any planets or 2. if they WERE able to slow the ship down, wouldn't be able to accelerate it again--so we would only visit ONE planet, for the entire series.
 
Professor Zoom said:
jbny67 said:
They could take the approach where the explosion causes the moonbase itself to be blown off the surface of the moon. Whatever propulsion systems they have were only designed to get the various parts of the base up to the moon and now they have to find a way to get them to work in ways they were never meant to. Plus, since it was designed to be a stable base on the surface, there are little to no guidance systems.

That would be one approach that might work.
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Except how do you get out of the SOLAR SYSTEM? Unless the station or the chunk is blow off at several times the speed of light (which right now, we believe is impossible)... it's not going to get anywhere very fast. Space is big. Really big.

Now, the engines that you propose... 1. Wouldn't be able to slow the ship down--so no visiting any planets or 2. if they WERE able to slow the ship down, wouldn't be able to accelerate it again--so we would only visit ONE planet, for the entire series.
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I didn't say it was a well thought out approach. :p
 
chardman said:
^They realized it, and simply ignored it, along with all the other nonsensities of science necessitated by the premise.
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They did NOT simply ignore it.

In a later episode (believe it was season two) they communicated with Earth, and something was said along the lines of 'We don't need to tell you on Alpha how devastating the loss of the moon was to life on Earth.'
 
I imagined a concept similar to Robotech/Macross saga where the space fold engines carried Macross Island out to Pluto with the SDF1.

In my concept mankind's attempt at creating FTL via spacefold technology gets sabotaged. The fold system sends the moon "elsewhere." The Alphans are initially lost in space and have no idea how to get home. They have to, over the course of the series, invent/figure out how to program the fold system to take the Moon where they want to go. Then they have to find their way back. At first there are no astronomical "landmarks" that are familiar to the Alphans. Are they even in the Milky Way?

During the course of the series they'll make friends and enemies. It's got to be just as catastrophic for a Moon to suddenly appear over a planet as it is for or Moon to disappear from over ours.
 
Mr. Adventure said:
Even the old series had hints that the Alphans journey was part of some kind of grand design. I would have whatever happens be connected to some weird happening and just play up the whole cosmic weirdness angle.
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Agree. There was a strong metaphysical aspect to the story arc (if you could call it that).

That in and of itself would set the story apart from anything in recent memory.

Vf
 
Professor Zoom said:
Even if it's a chunk of the moon... how does it get into "deep space..."? A wormhole... Ok... fine...a wormhole. So EACH WEEK a new wormhole flings it out into space again? Where does this new Wormhole come from? The Alphans are going to figure out how to generate their own? Then why not go back home? Or are they lost in space...

Besides the designs... there's not much there to the basic premise.
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I solved that one in a thread here a few years ago in which we were asked to come up with revival ideas. It went something like this:

The year is 2099, and the Moon is home to Moonbase Alpha. All the characters from Year 1 are in place. Bergman is the key character in the pilot. He's a darker character, think Dr. Smith from the Lost in Space movie but not evil, but he's also brilliant. Koenig is sent to get Bergman's project moving, while at the same time investigate problems with the nuclear waste on the other side of the Moon. Bergman has been working on an FTL propulsion system (ala wormhole technology), and, it turns out, it is connected to the problems with the nuclear waste that has accumulated on the moon over the past few decades. There's an accident, Bergman's project is caught up with it. A wormhole is generated and, long story short, they can't switch it off. The best the can do is learn to control it somewhat so it doesn't send them into a star; they realize this when the wormhole opens up a couple episodes later too near a singularity (leading to the first major remake of a classic episode: The Black Sun). I'd limit contact with multiple aliens of the week (ala Year 2), and stick with the ideas in Year 1 of the original. Sprinkle in the aliens, etc. here and there, leading up to a remake of The War Games. Introduce the more traditional "Star Treky" stuff like shapeshifting, etc. more slowly, but do get there, but without turning it into Torchwood or Dr. Who or Trek. Depending on the length of the show, I'd probably end it with them realizing that the best course they can manage will eventually take them into the gulf between galaxies; so I'd basically make the last season into them doing their best to find a way to ditch the moon for a habitable planet before it was too late.
 
Space: 1999 is a guilty pleasure of mine. Born in the mid-60's, and a junkie of Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, and UFO, not to mention another famous space show, I was in the target audience.

Most of the best episodes have already been mentioned, but in case it wasn't mentioned, Earthbound is pretty good too. The weirdness and grand design aspects were part of the series's charm; but season two is of course completely forgettable, even relative to season one.

I'll be watching the new pilot if it sells.

One thing that I wish had been developed in the original was the idea that the signal from Meta mentioned in Breakaway had some thing to do with triggering the explosion, perhaps from some weird radiation interacting with the waste.
 
Mr. Adventure said:
Even the old series had hints that the Alphans journey was part of some kind of grand design. I would have whatever happens be connected to some weird happening and just play up the whole cosmic weirdness angle.
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Yep. So all the wondering of "how did they survive?" or "How does the moon go from here to here?"

Answer: Cosmic Consciousness.

Or whatever they called it. Everything that happened to the Alphans in Season 1 was part of a cosmic plan. The subject is broached at least twice.

Soooooo, you include this aspect from the original show as well.

As for having them on a chunk of moon? No, any explosion that could rip the moon apart would kill everyone on it. Some one here once posited that a reboot take place on an asteroid base or something conducting wormhole experiments.

I think it was suggested that they could generate wormholes, but not control where it would take them. Don't remember all the details.
 
The metaphysical aspect of the original is what makes the show great. Lose that, and you might as well call it something else. So I'd certainly hope that the remake followed the themes and style of the original series - the finest space opera ever made - rather than the hoky monster-of-the-week second series revamp. Those worried about the scientific plausibility of the concept - get over it! The journey has to start, or there's no show. The intervention of unknowable powers doesn't need to excuse itself. You might as well try to nitpick the Greek myths or the Bible.
 
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