I discovered that show a year or two ago, and got into it for a short while. I found it a strange mix of surreal and boring. An eye-doctor's office from the 80s floating through space. But there's also something oddly soothing about the show. I'm gonna go vsck to youtube and see if I can find some more episodes.
See the show in terms of when it was. Post TOS, post 2001, pre Star Wars. The sets and effects and most of the scripts were basically TOS. Some of the designs and I can't quite explain it but the flavour were 2001. Some was 1950's schlock, but I'd watch those movies every Sunday cause that's all we got. The show filled a gap for people like me who were hungry for some kind of sci-fi on TV that wasn't reruns. Far from perfect, but there were plenty of horrible TOS episodes too, ie Spock's Brain, but we were hungry for SOMETHIHNG. IMHO Space 1999 was basically Voyager with TOS sets and effects and storylines, with a dash of Thunderbirds. Don't expect too much and just let go and enjoy the ride. A lot of Space 1999 would have made great TOS episodes. And Barry Morse would have fit amazingly well in any incarnation of Trek.
I got to thinking about the other Earth we see after rewatching 'Another Time, Another Place'. In it Bergman says that Earth has been knocked off its axis by 5-6 degrees, Europe is in an ice age, North America is desert, and large swaths of radioactive ash. I can understand the changes in climate due to the Earth's axis shifting, but what about the radioactive ash? Then it occurred to me, what if the radioactive ash was fallout from the Moon's nuclear waste dump explosion. The waste dump had to be facing Earth in order for the moon to be thrown out of orbit; if it had been any other direction, the moon would have been pushed into Earth. Any radioactive debris would have fallen to Earth and contaminated both the atmosphere and surface, hence the radioactive ash Victor finds in his scans.
The idea of the association of radioactivity with the Moon explosion is intriguing, even though that Earth apparently belongs to an alternate history in which the civilization that created Alpha in the first place never existed. However, the Area One and Two waste dumps were on the far side of the Moon. It was called the "dark side" in "Breakaway," and it should be noted that in that common alternate name "dark" means "unseen." The Moon is tidally locked so that side, the side with the dumps, is always facing away from the Earth.
Which means the Moon should have been propelled towards Earth, not away. Would have made for a very short series, though.
Perhaps the nuclear waste detonations created a "vacuum" sort of field, which pulled the Moon away from Earth? At first I thought it could also have been a wormhole, into which the Moon disappeared, but I checked the transcript of "Breakaway" and they make it a point to show the Earth gradually receding into the distance, so that can't be it.
The Moon could still break free even if were propelled toward Earth and not away from it, provided it was given sufficient kinetic energy and missed. One has to increase the Moon's velocity by a factor of at least √2 (1.4142...). A near miss at a distance outside the Roche limit (16,000 km or 10,000 miles from the centre of the Earth), within which the Moon would be torn apart, would likely cause massive tidal disruption on both the Earth and the Moon. Gravitational tidal force is an inverse distance cubed law so the Moon being even 16 times closer at 25,000 km or 40,000 miles would increase the tidal force on the Earth and on the Moon by a factor of 4,000.
If you have Amazon Prime you can watch it there for free through the IMDB TV channel, which is included for all Prime members. UFO is on there too, and I'm thinking about checking it out since I've never seen any of it before.
My local library system has both U.F.O. and Space: 1999 on Blu-Ray. I've checked out both seasons of Space: 1999 and I'm on the waiting list for U.F.O., because I've never watched the complete series before and it should be interesting.
Gravity loop? Moon pushed towards Earth, but on an eccentric orbit, unstable and comet-like, with a low lower point and out of orbit. But trying to think sensibly about the breakaway is a good way to Scanner head.
They hit a wormhole in Black Sun. If you go for an order of Breakaway, Earthbound and Black Sun (neither production or any tx) it vaguely makes sense.
The explosion in the waste dumps pushes the Moon out of orbit. As pointed out this makes little sense, hence the start of the idea of the MUF.
There’s other ways too, besides browser, iOS Android and so on my LG TV has it as an app so I’m sure it’s around elsewhere in case you’re not a Prime user.
I’d like to see a sci-fi show styled after how futurists imagined 2021 in 1950. Flying vintage cars, tropical Venus vacations, newspapers mass produced and delivered to your doorstep at the speed of sound through a network of tubes.