07-02-04: Here is the third installment of the Sink, open for business. I have also created archive boards for several of the first season episodes whose original boards had gotten too large. I would have done this a long time ago, but I had let a couple of the boards get too big to the point where I could not edit them on my home system! This weekend, though, I have access to and some time to use a more powerful connection, and have been able to get the work done. I will continue to prune boards throughout the next few days. So now some of those first season boards are more manageable.

Thanks!

Has anyone here noticed the rather excellent Carlton authorised Eagle display models that are on sale. They are fair sized. The first one was a standard grey Eagle, now there is a second Eagle with red striped 'Rescue Pod'.

If these both do well, there's no reason we might not see a Freighter, Refuelling Eagle or Hawk in the future.

Unhappy Breakaway Day everyone! :-)

And what have been the long term effects of the missing moon for the past five years?

Well, like, the surfers are like totally depressed.

Bummer, Dude.

There's also a world shortage of green cheese.

Fer sure.

Couples are finding their nighttime walks much less romantic.

Hey! No more people turning into werewolves! And that's a good thing!

President Bush can't plan on a return to the moon! Gonna have to make a gargantuan, titanic, enormous leap to Mars.

No L5 colony is possible, either.

Don't know if people are too concerned about the moon being lost. After all, we're hip deep in nuclear waste.

Hey, I just discovered a pleasant surprise! Technically, this falls under the "Shameless Plugs" category, but it ties in very much with S99, so I'll post it here.
Last year, I'd built a model kit of an Eagle (the 1999 re-issue of the old 1970's Airfix kit) and entered it in a model contest. Didn't modify the kit in any way; just gave it a nice paint job and put it on an interesting display base (modified from one of those car model display cases, minus the clear acrylic box/cover).
Anyway, I came across a pic of it here. I don't know who took the photo, other than one of the guys running the contest.
The detail in the pic doesn't show off all the subtlety of the paint job, but it's the only web photo I know of, so enjoy! (By the way, the other two spaceships in the pic are also mine; they're from the Japanese animated series Space Cruiser Yamato, also known as Starblazers.)

PS: I know my Eagle model's missing the "Alpha Moonbase" crests on the command module and the passenger pod, but I couldn't afford decals & didn't have time to paint the crests on by hand. FYI, the model is painted mostly with a series of masks & spray paint... you know, those little "rattle cans" of paint you shake up to stir; I don't have an airbrush. Even the black triangles on the landing pods (by the steering engines) are painted in this way. Other details (little stripes here and there, the engine bells & window recesses) are hand painted. The astronaut is heavily modified from a re-issue of an old spaceship kit from the Wernher von Braun-style space models that were made in the 1960's & 70's.

CR, like your Eagle model. Well done.

Thanks, Duane!

Hello, Alphans!

Here's a topic I haven't seen discussed anywhere: Which episodes do fans consider Mysterious Unknown Force episodes? Has anyone compiled a list (and the reasons/justifications for their choices.)

I'd start it with Breakaway and end it with Message from Moonbase Alpha. Let's see how many episodes there are in between. And I'd be very interested to see if anyone counts any Year 2 episodes as MUF ones.

KirkFirst@hotmail.com

Interesting topic. Here's my quick list...
Definite MUF eps:
Breakaway (but you don't realize it til later on)
Black Sun (not right on the surface, but shows that there are greater cosmic forces--and intelligence--about)
Collision Course (not only are Arra & her people aware of & in tune with the MUF, she openly presents humanity's place within it)
The Testament of Arkadia (where part of the MUF's "plan" for humanity is to return life to a dead world)
Probable MUF eps:
Another Time, Another Place (but is a space warp & alternate reality part of the MUF, or just a cosmic phenomenon?)
Maybe kinda sorta MUF eps:
Matter of Life and Death (Helena's ability--via Lee--to change the course of events... may just be localized to Terra Nova, though, and not part of a grander scheme)
The Full Circle (allows humans to ponder their "growth" over the millenia, though the effects were a part of Retha's environment & may not be part of a grander scheme)
The Troubled Spirit (in that there is direct evidence of things beyond our daily corporeal plane of existence, but is that really MUF related?)

How about Force of Life?

CR - You are welcome (Eagle model).

The Force of Life in "Force of Life" was mysterious & unknown, but I don't know if it was part of the MUF (the one that was guiding things); the thing in "FoL" struck me as an unrelated entity. (Just my opinion, of course, as are all my other musings on this topic.)

OK, here's where I'm going to discuss the Meta Probe and Swift blueprint sets I recently bought off eBay (and had mentioned briefly on their respective episode boards).
First of all, some general stuff. They are fan-produced, and aren't the greatest print quality I've ever seen, but they're better than a lot of other fan-produced (and even some "professionally" produced) stuff I've seen over the years. Pricing seems in line with other specialty items such as this, and each set contains sixteen 11" x 17" pages chock full of plans, perspective drawings and information. In short, not a bad deal for the price, especially if you have disposable income (which I definitely do not!). The company that makes them (kennedyshipyards) also makes a set of Eagle prints and a set of Hawk prints which I have not yet purchased (and may not for some time 'cause I'm out of money). They also have some Battlestar Galactica & Planet of the Apes stuff, but I digress...
Anyway, I have some nits about the sets I have.
First, the Meta Probe blueprints... They are the only ones I know of that are produced, and are obviously based upon the limited footage seen in "Breakaway" and probably on this photo of Brian Johnson holding the sfx miniature. (The photo resides in The Catacombs, but I also saw it in a magazine called Sci Fi & Fantasy Models International a couple of years ago. A similar photo, but with Johnson holding the probe differently [and covering more of it up with his hand], appeared a couple of decades ago in an old Starlog magazine. Years ago when I made my first scale model of the Probe, I only had the Starlog photo for reference!) So, the nits... First, the support struts connecting the Probe's command module to the cylindrical crew module are wrong. The blueprints show only four supports, but there were actually eight, one starting at each point of the octagonal frame attached to the command module (looks like the forward frame of an Eagle, by the way). Second, the main axis of the ship looks a little too thin, being a crawlway instead of a walkway. Granted, it looks pretty thin on the Johnson photo, too, but in the actual episode, the different angles and shadows hide this narrowness; a fatter tube could have been made to make the thing look "walkable," and to eliminate the next nit... the blueprints have the main long tanks at the Probe's midship region not extending past the clusters of smaller cylinders (sensor arrays grouped in fours) just forward and aft of the tanks; the model photo and episode footage show the tanks to be at least as wide as the clusters, if not a little moreso. (A wider main body tube needn't push the clusters out further along with the tanks, because the rings the clusters are attached to could be adjusted to compensate for the wider main body.) Finally, not really a nit, but just something that bugs me a little: the Probe (or at least the front half of it forward of the long tanks) has landing capabilities. I'm not sure I care for that, although the prints do an adequate job of explaining how it would work; just my personal preference. (I have no problem with the command module being able to land, as a Martin Bower miniature shows... sorry I can't find the pic right now, but I have to go hunting for it in The Catacombs.)
Still, I like these prints. They are full of interesting details and conjectural history & technical points that make it easier to overlook the nits.
Now for the Swift... Overall, these seem pretty accurate, but one glaring thing stands out to me: the position of the landing gear changes slightly from the top view to the bottom view. Actually, more than slightly, especially noticeable on one drawing that has a split view combining half of the top view with half of the bottom view. I think this came about because of the photos available of those views; the illustrator forgot (or chose to ignore) the effects of distance/perspective of the landing gear relative to the rest of the ship when translating the photos into drawings.
On the other hand, the perspective and cutaway drawings of the Swift are great, and reconcile fitting the interior set into the exterior model very nicely. Like the Meta Probe set, there is also lots of interesting technical data & background info.
I'm glad I bought these, and hopefully I can save up some extra cash soon to get the others. Sorry I can't post links to samples of the bluepint sets themselves. Whether or not anyone else has them, I hope this post has been interesting to you. (And, hey, it's extremely nitpicky, but that's why we're here, right? )

Ah, I found the photos of a command module with landing gear here and here.

It sounds interesting that a way was found to reconcile the interior set dimensions with the model. I wonder if some older blueprints exist, since Ron Burton originally designed the Swift as the shuttle for the ALTARES from Into Infinity. The command modules are so alike! Still, a classic design along with the Eagle and Hawk.

On another note, this week Martin Wiley added an interesting new section on the Moon in the Catacombs. It seems as if the early views of the moon in S99 weren't accurate. Later, a photo of the moon, taken by a Apollo astronaut, was often used in efx shots. Perhaps, used too often!

I see that Carlton have issued a Space:1999 Season 1 soundtrack in the general market. For a long time Fanderson was the only place you could get this. It's a single CD with a well documented booklet. Tracks are From the Space:199 main titles, some alternate themes and various Barry Gray scored episodes. HMV, one of the last places that I thought would stock it had it for £9.99.

Does it contain the theme from Ring Around the Moon. That slowed down version of the Year One theme should be included on the soundtrack. Is this soundtrack newly rerecorded?

Tracks are....

1 Space:1999 Main Titles (1:11)
2-5 Breakaway (12:34)
6 War Games (4:05)
7-10 Matter of Life and Death (9:48)
11 Space 1999 End Titles (Alternate Version) (0:32)
12 The Infernal Machine (5:15)
13 Force of Life (1:35)
14 Ring Around the Moon
15-18 Black Sun (12:14)
19 Mission of the Darians (2:13)
20 The Troubled Spirit (2:55)
21 Space:1999 Main Theme (Extended Alternate Version) (1:42)
22 The Testament of Arkadia (5:44)
23-27 Another Time, Another Place (17:37)
28 Space:199 End Titles (0:34)

Certain pieces like Dragons Domain's Adagio for Strings can't be included, probably for copyright reasons, but pieces like the Sitar from Troubled Spirit and the opening more 'classical' piece from Testament of Arkadia are included.

In answer to your first question, the Ring Around the Moon slowed down theme is included. As far as I know this is a new rerecording.

Here's a link to the publishers web site, showing the rather nice cover and some brief details.

http://www.silvascreen.co.uk/master.cfm?SilvaCode=FILMCD608&id=4176

Martin Willey added a wonderful new pictorial guide to INTO INFINITY in his Catacombs. He highlights the film's similarities and reuse of sets, models, and props from SPACE:1999. The shows share so many similarities, INTO INFINITY almost has the appeal of being a lost episode of S99. It seems to take place in the same scifi universe as S99. The spacecraft have the same look as the Earth craft in S99. Nick Tate, Brian Blessed, and Joanna Dunham are all familar faces to Space fans.

As I don't have the film on DVD, the images Martin has provided are quite appreciated. I was particularly struck by the similarity of a matte shot from INTO INFINITY. It is set up exactly like the matte shot from S99's "Mission of the Darians"; even looks like it was by the same artist! I knew some of the Command Center computer panels were from INTO INFINITY, now I now from where on the ship (they come from control panel in the command module, which itself, is a redress of a set from Voyager's Return/Dragon's Domain).

S99's Swift was originally designed as the shuttle for Infinity's Altares, so the similarities are quite striking. Martin's site also has a side-by-side photo of the Altares and the Ultra Probe (from Dragon's Domain). They're both the same scale and the Altares is shown to be considerably larger.

On another note, relating to CR's post on the Swift... if one looks at the design of the Swift, it looks as if the command module would make a very credible shuttle if it were detached. It even has it's own retro rockets!

A closer look at the matte paintings for Into Infinity and Mission of the Darians reveals that the painting for Infinity is actually the reworked painting from Space:1999. It would explain why the painting from Mission of the Darians no longer exists!

i just the series on dvd for christmas. it was great watching some of my favorite episodes. my nephew asked me while watching,ring around the moon,if any one of them could survive in a setting like the "Survivor" series. the fact that one is fiction series and the other a"reality" series didn't seem to faze him. so would say, Helena actually go around lying and stabbing people in the back. or Tony being the second coming of Boston Rob with Maya as his Amber? and who would John be Jeff Probst snuffing peoples torches and telling them "The tribe has spoken"? and could John even bring himself to snuff out Helena's torch and tell it's time for you to go? just some very random thoughts provided by a comment from my nephew.

Survivor is about as realistic as Space:1999 in the sense that it has about the same number of production people behind the camera on set. Neither cast was alone!

I've been checking out e-bay regarding 1999 episodes on DVD, and some of the disks being offered are referred to as 'Region 2', or 'Region 4'.
Can somebody tell me what that means, and if it's compatible with North American DVD players?

No, it's not. Region info:

1: U.S., Canada, U.S. Territories
2: Japan, Europe, South Africa, and Middle East (including Egypt)
3: Southeast Asia and East Asia (including Hong Kong)
4: Australia, New Zealand, Pacific Islands, Central America, Mexico, South America, and the Caribbean
5: Eastern Europe (Former Soviet Union), Indian subcontinent, Africa, North Korea, and Mongolia
6: China
7: Reserved
8: Special international venues (airplanes, cruise ships, etc.)

Generally, a DVD player is locked to a specific reason. However, esp. in Europe, you can get "Region-Free" players, which ignore region codes. Also, many DVD players in the US can be hacked to be region free.

IMHO, the whole region coding idea was a bloody farce. I've got a region free player, but that's not really the point.

All I can say is thank god for stores like Richer Sounds.

The whole region thing was so that the MPAA could make more money. They didn't want DVDs from the US to be used in Europe before the film came out there. Not to mention the fact that they could make more money by having the different regions priced differently.

The original rationale for region coding is dumb, since they tend to release films globally now anyways, and movies come to DVD less than a year after release.

The ••••• I have with region coding though isn't that movies tend to come out at different times, though as you say that's not really true nowadays, its that a foreign version sometimes has better features.

Example, I've got all of Season 1 of Space:1999 and I find out the only ones that have the Message from Moonbase Alpha feature is the French and US box sets, which irks me a bit.

The other thing that ticks me off is stuff that's released in certain regions just not making it over here. Examples include Tour of Duty and Married with Children not getting released on Region 2.

In the US, if you got all the original DVD sets like I did, you got shafted out of the MFMA bonus feature and a few others. I'm sure I paid more money overall for those eight seperate compilations than what the complete box set is going for. There are no bonus features on the first season set, although there are several interviews and a special effects featurette on the second season ones.

A few of the first season episodes are tracked strangely, notably "The Last Sunset". Instead of dividing up chapter breaks according to the original commercial breaks, "Sunset" seems to try and divide the episode as evenly as possible into nine and a half minute segments. At one point, the DVD is tracked poorly, causing a small skip in the episode. "Voyager's Return" is also tracked in this manner.

Some on the early second season episodes seem to have audio quality problems on the DVD release. In particular, I notice that the DVD version of "One Moment of Humanity" has a noticably poorer sound quality than on my VHS Columbia House copy.

Is there any truth to the rumours that there's a planned re-release of Space:1999 on some sort of anniversary edition?

I did notice the the R2 and R4 versions did have fairly good special features, especially considering both the age of the program and the fact that there wasn't really the wealth of background stuff there is now.

Thanks, Scott, Douglas, and Todd. I think you just saved me some money. I guess I'll keep looking for DVD's in my own backyard instead of eBay.

Re:Anniversary Edition..?
The rumour was that the current holders of Space:1999 rights in the U.K, Network, were going to release a remastered (HD-ready ?) Region 2/4 25th anniversary edition DVD Season 1 & 2 boxsets(with possibly MFMA added) sometime in 2004.
Unfortunately, for various reasons, this date could not be met, & given Network's release scheduling, it's unknown, when it will be released... (2006 ?)
(Network's last "Anderson-themed" DVD release was The Secret Service which came out last month...).
BTW, Scott, most importers of U.S DVD's, such as myself, in the U.K, generally go for "Multi-Region" players, which have either been "chipped" or have software modifications which update their "firmware" to generally bypass RCE, & Macrovision, rather then "Region Free" models...

Re:My last comment
It seems that I was partially wrong about the release date for Network's Space:1999 boxset(s), as according to Network's release schedule, the Series 1 boxset is set to come out on the 17th October, & has a RSP (Recommended Sale Price) of £79.99...
(It did not mention when the series 2 boxset is due though...).
However, what the set contains, extras wise, was not mentioned....
Note: If you wish to find out the status of British "Cult T.V" DVD releases, the forums at The Mausoleum Club's website
(www.the-mausoleum-club.org.uk), is a good place to look for such information....

Re:Network's Season 1 boxset
They've put the release date back to the 7th of November....

I found out at The Catacombs website that Michael Sheard, who played Dr. Darwin King in "Dragon's Domain," has died. (He also played Imperial Admiral Ozzel in The Empire Strikes Back, which I'm sure will make the action figure of that character more "valuable" to collectors.)

I just found out that a short film exists, titled Message From Moonbase Alpha. It was made for a convention in 1999, and now is supposed to be on one of the DVD sets. But...which one?

That link says it was on the megaset:

---

Quote:

This is a pleasant little surprise that accompanied the Space: 1999 megaset. As part of that set's bonus disc supplement, this short was unknown to me.

---

Thanks. Guess I gotta read stuff more carefully. I wonder if the short on any of the individual sets. Or, maybe the Sci-Fi channel could run it someday. (Don't hold your breath.) And, I wonder what Zienia Merton looks like now.

Adam, here's something you could look at for an overview (with stills)... It's at Moonbase Alpha's Space: 1999 pages, under Archive, Season 3.
http://www.space1999.net/~moonbase99/message.htm

Thanks, CR. By dumb luck, I found MFMA here.
I wish that Sci-Fi, or anyone, would repeat the series. I haven't seen it since the 1970's.

You can buy it on DVD. (And it looks even better than it did when it was first broadcast on WPIX.)

Don't get me started on that, Chris. Actually, you did, so here I go...
The episodes were obviously edited for commercials, even though they were first run. I assume the DVD's are complete and unedited. I also heard on a radio show around that time that the episodes were received from ITC with "recommended cuts" to be made, probably so as not to disturb the continuity. I don't know if WPIX made those cuts, or edited it at their own discretion. They were also hacking up Star Trek at that time.

Maybe when I get my tax refund next year, I'll treat myself to the DVD megaset. It's kind of expensive ($179, not much less than two seasons of Star Trek.)

The DVD's are expensive, but for me they were worth it. The picture quality is great, and the episodes are uncut. There were so many scenes I never saw before that it was almost like watching new episodes. One example-WPIX hacked out the entire scene with Koenig and Commander Gorski.


There aren't too many extras in the American version of the DVD's. I understand the British and French versions have more.

Re:Last Comment
The Carlton Region 2 Space:1999 Season boxsets did have a lot of extras on their discs, but these have now been deleted....
The replacement boxset made by Network does not, due to the amount of space on the discs needed to produce the high bitrates needed to show the "High Definition" pictures on the disc... (Most of the extras are on Disc 7...).
(Think of these discs as "Superbit" versions rather then true HD-DVD's...).

I've seen the Network DVD's of Series 1 in HMV. Now I have all of Season 1 on the Carlton discs and two of Series 2. I'm wondering whether to get Series 2 on Network when it comes out or whether I should really try and get the Carlton ones.....

Anyone know if Network are releasing S2 as a limited edition??

I don't know, apparently the cost of remastering was quite high, so it could all depend on sales of the Season 1 discs.

The Network discs are expensive - especially when they offer little more (if anything) over the Carlton releases. Being a fan of both seasons and having both Carlton box sets, I considered the Network release, but simply couldn't justify the £70+ asking price (cheaper on Ebay, yes, until you factor in P+P of course...)

I've been enjoying the S99 DVD's I purchased this last winter(Season 1 complete and so far, the 1st 6 episodes of season 2: I'm debating whether to complete the set, but knowing me I'll eventually succumb!)
I was struck by how much older Martin Landau and Barbara Bain appear in season 2. It does help in my mind to explain some of the seasons' alterations. Time passes, things change, and all that. I have friends and loved ones who've died in recent years, and in most cases, their names rarely come up on a day-to-day basis. Though I do agree that some sort of acknowledgement somewhere in season 2 would've been appropriate.
I found myself realizing in the season 2 episodes that Martin Landau seems to be in desperate need of a haircut. Anyone else feel that way?
One thing that really bugged me, minor though it is, is the scene in 'The Metamorph' where Koenig in his Psychon cell first encounters Maya (well, as a lion, anyway!) He backs into the corner, which seems very natural and dramatic. What is sloppy is that behind Landau's head, in the close-up shot, is the very blatant piece of crown moulding running along the top of the wall. I wouldn't have even questioned it on Alpha, but seen on an alien, advanced world is a bit much.
It reminds me of a first season episode of Star Trek:TNG (I forget which one), in which a character on an alien planet is blatantly working with sheets of what appear to be 8 1/2' x 11'sheets of paper. Couldn't they at least have trimmed the pages to an odd proportion? I don't expect fully developed alien societies and hardware on episodic tv, but a little imagination (and sometimes even less work) can go along way towards convincing the viewer that they are witnessing another world.
What really would've been great, in my opinion, is for at least the 1st second season 2 episode to feature what appear to be extensive work being done on the base (i.e., technicians working on open panels, equipment being moved from rooms, ladders, all that junk. I think that would've explained a lot to my then 12-year-old mind as to what happened to my beloved show! Instead of the stuff in Helena's report about "surviving another space warp", that time could've been spent mentioning that "repairs and upgrades to the base are proceeding on schedule", or some such. And it also could've tied in with the need for "titanium"!
Criticisms aside, what a great show! Why does it have such a strong appeal to us 40-somethings? Was it the right show at the right time for us, maybe? I don't seem to have anywhere near this kind of affection for any other sci-fi oriented shows of the 70's.

Oops...make that 8 1/2" x 11", not 8 1/2' x 11'. That paper size would be harder to work with than trying to cash one of those big Publisher's Clearing House checks you see on the commercials!

...in the second season, Martin Landau didn't need a better haircut, he needed a better hair-piece!

Play.com are usually cheaper for DVD's but the postage is free.

I've got all the Carlton Season 1 DVD's and apparently the picture and sound are even better. I'm seriously considering whether to get them or not.

Now it is working...

I read in the last month or maybe six weeks ago that the USA with others desires to set up a moon base. I would like to give it the name of Moonbase Alpha. Did not say its location on the moon. Heck, if the first shuttle can be named Enterprise, the first moonbase can be called Alpha, which future bases called Beta, Delta, etc.

Re: Moonbase ?
Rumour has it that said base is to be set up in Shackleton Crater, near the Lunar South Pole...
The reason for this being that due to the Moon's axial tilt, you will not get full darkness in said area, more a 14`day "twilight", that means solar arrays can be set up to generate electrical power for said base...

Well round about November, Network DVD were selling off their remastered Season 1 for £39.99, and I took the opportunity to snap it up. I haven't checked the extras disk yet, or indeed any of the extras, but I look forward to listening to the commentary on Breakaway by Gerry Anderson. Picture quality is excellent, even improved on the Carlton ones. The one thing missing is subtitles, but that's a minor moan.

BTW, not trying any commercial advertising here, but http://www.whona.com/ has a substansial Space:1999 merchandise link, and I've ordered Kenneth Muirs book on Space:1999. All told it will be about £18 for the book and shipping, this is for the hardback version, in comparison to about £18 for the softcover from Amazon UK.

It seems that Space:1999 got high viewer ratings during ITV's HDTV test transmuissions, accoreding to a news item in the U.K Satellite T.V magazine What Satellite TV.
The reason given was that due to it being originally produced on 35mm film, it could be transmitted fairly easily on HD, without many problems...
Unfortunately, the U.K television regulator OFCOM, want to sell off all the vacant frequencies made available when the analogue SD T.V services are "switched off" in 2012, to the "Free Market".,
As a result, there could be NO free HTDV service in the U.K...
As a result, various intrest groups have petitioned OFCOM, to ensure that a non pay HDTV service is availble on digital television...

Is anyone here a member of the Space:1999.net forums. I've tried to register there, but apparently due to spambot problems they had to take measures. Finally I got my profile validated but now I get 'You do not have permission to view these boards" messages. I've emailed the admins numerous times with no joy.

why doesnt any one post to this board any more? no one wants to talk S:1999 any more? ((

Apparently, Network is about to release their
Season 2 DVD boxset next Monday, for us Region 2 (and possibly Region 4, depending if they enable multiple region codes) DVD viewers.....

It is Break Away day plus eight years.

You know, I think Gerry Anderson was reaching when he thought we could have thrown a base like that together in just ten years or so (Alpha would have to have been built in the 1980's as Cabot Rowland, of the Uranus Probe, that left Earth in 1986, knew about it).

I mean the cost alone, I can't even imagine. Even Bill Gates couldn't cut a check for this! A base like Alpha would have taken decades to build. Maybe they should have called the show Space: 2099.

Yeah, Anderson admitted at some point that he was perhaps overly optimistic about the progress of the space program. But given that initial concepts for the series date from 1972, when the last of the Moon landings occured it probably seemed at the time that a manned mission to Mars would soon be in the planning stages. Setting a series in the near future is always a danger with sci fi, as people may still be watching it after stuff you expected would happen doesn't. Obviously in the 1999 universe there were some major techological breakthroughs that didn't occur in ours.

I remember Clarke speculating that the cost of the Vietnam war would have paid for everything shown in 2001: A Space Oddysey in real life. If 2001 seemed plausible by the year 2001, then 1999 doesn't seem too early for something similar.

Apparently there was an idea in the early story drafts that the reason the technology was so advanced is because it was salvaged from a UFO that crashed on Earth in the early 1980's. Since it was never mentioned onscreen, I don't know if it can be considered canon or not. However, it would account for the HUGE leap in technology in just 20 years or so.

Hello, It's been a while.

Gerry Anderson stated in interviews that Abe Mandell of ITC in New York had asked for monsters in the second series, claiming that monsters were currently "all the rage" in America. I remember being there in 1976 and I can't recall any surge in the popularity of monsters at the time. Can anybody else say they noticed monsters becoming all the rage?

I suspect Gerry Anderson may have poorly paraphrased Abe Mandell's words. Perhaps Abe Mandell meant that Space: 1999's one monster episode, "Dragon's Domain", was well received and remembered by the American audience - it did leave an indelible impression on most of us, at any rate - and he asked for more shows like that one, the one with the monster.

What I've heard is that Mandell apparently said that monsters were all the rage, but by the time season 2 was finished production, the craze had died down.

I'm not disputing either Gerry's viewpoint, or yours Peter, but I'm just going off what I've heard.

Question, apparently, according to the Scottish tabloid, Journey to the Far Side of the Sun is due to be released on DVD, is it worthwhile.

I can't recall there ever being a monster craze at all however brief it may have been, unless Mr. Mandell was thinking of the mid 1960s and hadn't noticed it was long past. That sounds unlikely but not impossible. I was curious if any other readers of this board who were fans in the 70s had any recollection of a monster craze at the time.

Re: Monster craze
Could Mr.Mandell have been thinking of shows such as The Six Million Dollar Man, which had a "Robotic Bigfoot", which was created by aliens, The Fantastic Journey, which had travellers entering diffrent realms, trying to get home, some fantastical, or the T.V version of Logan's Run (which was post-apolocyptic)...
Given the above programs showing on U.S TV networks or in syndication, at the time, that Series 1 of Space:1999 was being produced, it would be easy to conclude from the above, that T.V Sci-fi had to have monsters, somewhere for it to work...
As for Doppelganger (the original title for Journey...) on Region 2 DVD, from what I've heard, it's somewhat better than the U.S Region 1 DVD on release...

I wonder what would have happened if someone on Alpha had gone anti-social and comitted murder? What would they have done with him? The nearest courts are God knows how many light-years away?

That would have made a good episode. Someone commits a murder and Koenig and Co. wonder what they will do with the murderer.

Didn't Star Trek Voyager handle an episode like that? Brad Dourf guest starred as the murderous crewman who was to remain confined to the brig or to his quarters for the remainder of the voyage. Later he was brought back to help retake the ship from pirates, neatly sacrificing himself.

1999 would have handled things similarly, I imagine. The show already featured an episode or two (Force of Life, The Troubled Spirit) where an Alphan involuntarily becomes lethal to those he encounters.

Yes, Peter, Trek did that. Dourif plays the psycho very well.

Yeah, I remember those Voyager episodes. Of course, one big difference is that if they had to, Janeway and Co. could have just dumped Suder (Brad Dourif's character)on the next habital planet and left.

Koenig and Co. wouldn't have that option, as that they had no control over where the Moon took them.

FYI Season 2 soundtrack writer Derek Wadsworth passed away at the beginning of December. An obituary can be read at the following link.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/3777198/Derek-Wadsworth.html

"The show already featured an episode or two (Force of Life, The Troubled Spirit) where an Alphan involuntarily becomes lethal to those he encounters."

Of course, the Alphan in question conveniently died at the end of those episodes, thus solving the problem of what to do with him. Same with Sanderson in S2

In fact, the only Alphan I can think of that went rogue and survived was Carolyn Powell (The Lamda Factor). Of course, she survived, but her mind was destroyed, so she cannot be held accountable for her actions either!

The Alphans have been lucky, it seems. Of all of them that went rogue, one is emotionally crippled and the others are all dead.

It's just that being shut in with the same faces day in and day out, it wouldn't be surprising if someone went postal. After all, Alpha was supposed to be a temporary job. Those that went to the Moon, before it was blasted away from Earth, had no idea that they would be there for probably the rest of their lives!

Gerry Anderson, who co-created 1999, has passed away at the age of 83.

RIP Mr. Anderson.

RIP indeed. Also UFO and a ton of marionation.

Space:1999 surely has to be the ultimate "conceptual flaw" series, as, in order to arrive at a new solar system every few days, as they seem to, the moon would have to be travelling many times the speed of light. And if it were, we'd be in the situation where:

Morrow: Commander! We're approaching a habitable planet!
Koenig: Excellent! Launch Operation Exodus!
Morrow: Oops, too late, it's miles back now. You'll have to be quicker next time.

Isn't there an episode where the moon's atmosphere becomes oxygenated and Koenig ends up opening a window on the base?

The Last Sunset

I always wondered why one would design a moonbase with windows that one can OPEN?

there's nothing to say that a technician hasn't installed it, as it happens long after the atmosphere has appeared - it's not a 'wow there's air outside, let's crack open the windows' scene

:-)

it's a great moment when they discover that the atmosphere will turn out to be a curse rather than a blessing (even though we all know they have to get back to the status quo ante by the end of the episode).

The entire series is available on the Tubi streaming app for Amazon Fire TV and Roku devices; I stumbled on that by dumb luck. And, at least for now, it's free.

I found a youtube video of Star Wars with the Space: 1999 theme on it. Pretty cool!

https://youtu.be/0ElsCDZlONY

*Applaudes*

Ditto.

Something that occurred to me b/w S1 and S2 is the S2 obsession with patches, decals, and badges on everything. Funny that no one on Alpha needed an ID badge in S1, but everyone has to have one in S2.


You would think, after all that time in a closed environment, that everyone would know everyone else by sight by now. It's not like there are new personnel arriving constantly.

The ID photos on the commlocks in S1 aren't really the same concept - that seems more like a lost-and-found-dept device ('hey, I found a commlock, lets get it back to its owner')

Something I noticed during season 2 was the limited use of the commlock. It seemed like the Alphans just walked into rooms, with the doors automatically sliding open like a Starfleet ship.
I hadn't even noticed until the episode where an indestructible creature is stomping through Alpha, chasing Tony and Maya, and Verdeschi actually uses his commlock to have the computer lock the doors. That day, I was like, "Heeeey, you guys hardly use those things to move about the base! Wha' hoppin?"

Freddie seemed to think he was still doing Star Trek.

RE: commlocks

It seems that S1 emphasized them. In "Breakaway", Koenig dramatically gives Simmons his 'guest' commlock when he arrives on Alpha, and when he 'buzzes' Russells door, she deliberately looks at his face on her commlock screen before she 'buzzes' him in.

IOW, they went to a lot of script-trouble to emphasize commlocks...new technology.

In S2, perhaps that was not such new tech, so no emphasis.

Something that occurred to me b/w S1 and S2 is the S2 obsession with patches, decals, and badges on everything. Funny that no one on Alpha needed an ID badge in S1, but everyone has to have one in S2.

You would think, after all that time in a closed environment, that everyone would know everyone else by sight by now. It's not like there are new personnel arriving constantly.


Someone needed to tell Freddie that this isn't Star Trek. Alpha will not be having crew rotations on a regular bases. Who they had, when the Moon was blasted out of Earth orbit, is what they had.

The only new addition they ever got was Maya. And she was only one person. No ID badge needed.

A positive review of the series. Even claiming it was influential.

I'd argue it was influential, but not for those reasons. I'd say that it was highly influential for the look&feel of ST:TMP.

Season One was the far superior season, IMO.