Is it me, or is the music really cheesy when Ferro and his companion discover the skeletons and realise their significance?

Nope Doug, it's Cheddar all the way.

What??? What exactly do you mean??

Cheddar...cheesy...get it?

Oh Right!!!!
Should have seen that a mile off.
How come Alpha no longer seems concerned about their stolen equipment, even though the power is restored. It will still take time to grow new seeds.

One man's aged cheddar is another man's processed cheese food. I liked the music (both the narration and the cave music).

I really hated this episode when I first saw it. It was packaged on the British VHS release after Dragons Domain so it had a lot to live up to, but on subsequent viewing I really start to enoy this episode. The atmosphere of desolation is well captured here conveying the message that this is a truly dead planet.

The basic plot idea is incredibly 1970s and was no doubt inspired by Eric Van Daniken's pseudoscience classic Chariots of the Gods? and its sequels.

This episode wore out the "Alpha's oddysey is
no accident-it has a cosmic purpose" theme
introduced in The Black Sun and reinforced in
Collision Course. Here it makes for an
embarassingly-scored religious experience
turning two Alphans into zealots determined to
star in a new Book of Genesis.

A dissapointing close to a promising first
year, but at least the Alphans succeeded in
colonizing their first extraterrestrial world.

Every alien civilization the Alphans have encountered so far has spoken English . . . yet they're shocked to find that this planet's civilization used Sanskrit??

Having literally just watched this one a few things come to mind.

The survey team lands on a planet from which something is stopping the Moon from moving and draining Alpha's power. Yet the only ones armed are the two security men, who are being extra cautious and carrying laser rifles besides their sidearms.

This is another episode that makes you wonder about the security of Alpha's arms locker, as Luke and Anna get their hands on stun guns with ease. You'd think that access would require some form of authorisation. Then again we've seen in previous episodes that they are sometimes present on board Eagles that are at ready to launch status, so maybe they got onto one of them somehow.

Some sort of bacterial life must have lived after the last Arkadians died, as all thats left of their corpses are skeletons and their clothing is gone, indicating decomposition was still at work. If not then they should simply have mummified from the dry air and their clothing should have remained as well, as they would be protected from the elements in the cave. And what happened to the buildings? You'd think some of them would have survived and still be detectable from space, especially given a technological civilisation like the Arkadians would have been. Presumably any satellites orbiting the planet would have had their orbits decay millenia ago and have burned up in the atmosphere.

The music when Luke and Koenig are practicing kendo sounds like it might be gagaku, a form of traditional Japanese music associated with the royal court.

The voice of the technical department operative talking with Koenig near the end sounds like its probably Shane Rimmer again.

The "religious revelation" music is somewhat corny once the choir starts, and seems very much like what one would expect in a cliched scene of that type in the '70s.

We're never told exactly what departments Luke and Anna work for. She's trained as a linguist, yet also seems to be knowledgeable in botany. Maybe Luke is a technical photographer, a reasonable guess given his camera gear. The fact that Anna was chosen by Computer implies that Computer was being influenced by the forces of Arkadia as well. Its not hard to imagine a force able to stop a moon would be able to influence a mere computer.

It would be interesting to know how much of the final episode was based on the possibility that a second season might not appear. The scene at the very end with a zoom in to a close up of Koenig closing his journal and placing the pen on top comes across as a possible series ending scene, and the episode in general works as a series finale, not just a season finale. Its also interesting that the 2 final episodes of year one both include narrations, and narrations by the stars to boot.

I wonder if any of the derelicts in the dragon's spaceship graveyard (from Dragon's Domain) had markings written in Sanskrit.

There was a parallel between this episode--the last in the series--and Breakaway: as the moon is moving out of orbit, Alan Carter is threatened with being left behind. Coupled with the story about returning to humanity's origins, perhaps THIS episode should have been called "Full Circle."

It's still a fairly good episode despite the cheesy 'religious revelation' music.

I'm surprised some of the more religious types of the day didn't raise a protest.

The episode was based on the "Chariots of the Gods" hubbub that was popular in the early 1970's (which has since been generally debunked), but I like it anyway... it fits well within the overall feel of Series 1, and ties together the hints dropped throughout the Series 1 about humanity's history and destiny.
Science fiction fans tend to be a little more open to new, controversial ideas, or old ones presented in new and/or interesting ways. I highly doubt that many mainstream religious people would even watch Space: 1999, let alone protest some of the themes it explored. Actually, some of them probably would protest, but the key is whether they even knew about it in the first place.

Don't forget that the series first aired in '75, not a time when religious conservatives, at least in the US, were very publicly active, and therefore less likely to protest than they would have been say 5 years later. Then again i've never heard anyone protesting about the borderline antireligious tone of a couple of Star Trek: TNG episodes.

It doesn't seem to bother Luke and Anna, or the Arkadian intelligence guiding them, that any civilization built upon the descendants of just one male and one female is going to be seriously inbred and probably doomed to a quick extinction as such.

But, some may argue, Adam and Eve were only two people. I don't want this to become Religious Musings, but I feel that despite the ep's underlying 'Chariots of the Gods' plotline, there was a Christian allegory taking place by the end.
I find it interesting that a serious science fiction show even explored religious ideas (successfully or not), especially back in the 1970's.

in the 70's i thought this was a very cool episode and i still like it. after viewing it about 20 years later i did not get the skeletons just setting there with nothing holding them together. The sleletons should have been laying on the table and on the ground.
in testament of arkadia and dragons domain i noticed some of changes that would take place fully in year two. look at the jackets in dragons domain and the up beat music in testament.

Up beat?????

I could think of many names for that music, up beat wouldn't be one of them.

ok shitty music then.. like the music of year two

Despite the crappy music, it's still a good episode. I wasn't overly thrilled with it on first viewing, but that was because on my original VHS release from years back, it was after Dragon's Domain, and it was a hard act to follow.

In the martial arts scene at the beginning, I wondered if it was wise to be fighting with sticks (please excuse my complete ignorance of the correct term) so close to external windows on a moon base.

The Moon's lighting is peculiar in this episode. The sun is on the opposite side of the planet to the Moon, yet while some shots show a full Moon from the planet's surface, others show the Moon lit from the side or back. Especially noticable when the first Eagle leaves the Moon.

There's a really weird effect when the Eagle first lands. The Eagle swoops down out of the sun. At least, that's what they were trying to do. In act, the sun behaves like a small disk close to the planet, and the Eagle appears from behind the disk!

I believe kendo is the name of the Japanese stick fighting.

The "out of the sun" effect wasn't very special, was it?

The classical music that starts in the prologue (in Koenig's office), is used a little during the episode, and finally ends during the epilogue (in Koenig's office again) was nice. I never cared much for the "revelation" music, though.

The gymnasium is a not very well disguised redress of the commander's office, noted here because other redresses of the set during the series were not nearly as obvious.

...such a bad redress that I thought it was supposed to be the Commander's office.

(I'll take your word for it that it wasnt.)

What, removing all the furniture and turning the comm post 45 degrees wasn't enough for you?

A line you'll never see in "Testament of Arkadia"

During the phased power cuts performed on Alpha to conserve the ever-dwindling power supply, Dr. Mathias storms into Main Mission to confront Paul about the toll the cuts are taking on his patients... he excalims that if the temperatures keep dropping, "...you might as well shoot my patients!"
Morrow (into intercom): "Security to Medical section, bring your sidearms."

The survey team lands on a planet from which something is stopping the Moon from moving and draining Alpha's power. Yet the only ones armed are the two security men, who are being extra cautious and carrying laser rifles besides their sidearms.

A shallow attempt on their part to avoid the mandated "purpleshirt" fate that awaits on all unexplored planets.

This is another episode that makes you wonder about the security of Alpha's arms locker, as Luke and Anna get their hands on stun guns with ease. You'd think that access would require some form of authorisation. Then again we've seen in previous episodes that they are sometimes present on board Eagles that are at ready to launch status, so maybe they got onto one of them somehow.

must be the same locker that Commissioner Simmonds visited, but they forgot the Koenig memo that ordered a padlock ;)

Some sort of bacterial life must have lived after the last Arkadians died, as all thats left of their corpses are skeletons and their clothing is gone, indicating decomposition was still at work. If not then they should simply have mummified from the dry air and their clothing should have remained as well, as they would be protected from the elements in the cave. And what happened to the buildings? You'd think some of them would have survived and still be detectable from space, especially given a technological civilisation like the Arkadians would have been. Presumably any satellites orbiting the planet would have had their orbits decay millenia ago and have burned up in the atmosphere.

This was done by the same small spiders that produced the cobwebs on the Ultra Probe victims when Cellini returned to face the monster. A 'black sun' transported them over.

We're never told exactly what departments Luke and Anna work for. She's trained as a linguist, yet also seems to be knowledgeable in botany. Maybe Luke is a technical photographer, a reasonable guess given his camera gear. The fact that Anna was chosen by Computer implies that Computer was being influenced by the forces of Arkadia as well. Its not hard to imagine a force able to stop a moon would be able to influence a mere computer.

They both graduated from the Alpha Higher Voc-Tech College, an august institution that also matriculated Shermeen Williams, who despite being only 22 years old (with an emotional age of 13), was a skilled research scientist who had been accompanying Alpha landing parties 'from the beginning' although never mentioned before (or since).

Offered are degrees in Advanced Histrionics, Eagle Crashing for Fun and Profit, MUF Management, and my personal favorite, "How to Speak Yasko in Ten Days or Less"

Why didn't Koenig just hide a security guard or two up the back of the Eagle? Then have them come out on the journey to Arkadia and stun Anna and Luke?

Would've been great if they had, but the stun had no effect...

The premise of this episode is pure 70's rubbish inspired by the fraudulent claims of the then popular "Chariots of the God's"- that ancient Earth was visited and influenced by alien visitors. Apparently the writer is unaware of the theory of evolution. Man is undeniably bound to and a part of this planet's biology. I guess some want to replace a religious creation myth with a science fiction creation myth. How lovely!

I almost forgot. In 2003 the Raellian cult gained world-wide fame (because of false claims of having cloned several children). This cult preaches that mankind is the descendant of aliens (the same message of "The Testament of Arkadia"), and look at how everyone ridiculed them for that. However, in this episode we are supposed to accept this absurdity?

Although I agree with how absurd the "Chariots..." premise is in real life, see my March 14 2002 post for why I think this ep's use of it fits for this series.
S99 isn't the first nor last sf to use the idea, and it isn't the best nor the worst, either, in my opinion.
For the record, I don't advocate the "distant origin" hypothesis of life on Earth. But for this ep, I suspended my disbelieve enough to enjoy the show on its own merits. (Heck, if I can accept that nuclear explosions can hurl the moon across the cosmos, it doesn't take much to just go along with this ep's premise. )

...but this episode contradicts "The Full Circle" in which the Alphans regress to Earthly Cro-Magnum people...not Arkadians.

Yes, it does. (Oh, and since this is a nitpicker's site, the word's "Cro-Magnon." )

Since we're nitpicking, the proper word is disbelief not disbelieve!

Picky, pick--uh, nevermind!

A typo is a typo, how about another topic? Janet Jackson's breast - offended or not?

Slightly aroused.

Mostly, I'm tired of the topic. The media has fallen for the same ol' trap. A celebrity (or project) causes controversy, offending public morality. The object of the offense is given invaluable free publicity. The public pays more attention to the offending celeb/project than they normally would have, most likely adding more money to the coffers of the offender. Let's just shut up about it, already. Please?

"Our children should not be exposed to such things"

I think I was exposed to breasts at a very early age. Of course, I feeding back then....

I'm confused.

I think Space:1999 is not true, becuz i saw the moon in the sky last night!

No, Jessica. That wasn't the moon you saw last night. That was Chicken of the Sea.

my Nick told me it wuz the moon. he wood not lie to me

That was no moon. That was Janet Jackson's breast.

Hey man, that moon was Homer's butt!

Space:1999 fans are confusing, i think i'll go back to lost in space site. i like talking carrots...wait a moment, my Nick also told me carrots can't talk. trees can, cuz i saw it on space:1999!!!

Janet Jackson's boob or Homer's butt? I think we got off easy. It could have been worse.
P.S. Jessica, of course carrots can't talk. Now brocolli, on the other hand, just won't shut up.
Maybe Nick was talking about Carrot Top?

Nick enjoys tricking me, so when he sayz carrots can not talk...i do not know weather to beleve him. my frend Anna Nicole sayz trees can talk, so i believe her, she is very very smart