The most notable part of this episode is Catherine Schell's appearance as the Guardian.

I recall as a kid thinking that the most notable feature of this episode was Catherine Schell's outfit ;)

What outfit. OH that outfit, I wasn't sure that qualified as an outfit

According to the Moonbase Alpha Technical Notebook this episode took place 90-95 days after September 13th. That would make it December 12-17, 1999.
Just a couple of weeks later and all the computer problems could have been blamed on Y2K!

Too bad Maya couldn't look like Catherine Schell's character here.

Now, Now, that's not politically correct.

(Sarcasm mode on)

I must admit this is an episode that grows on me. Unlike Catherine Schells outfit which sseems to get smaller throughout the episode.

LOL Doug...I remember watching this episode with my older brother and he wasn't paying much attention to the plot, that's for sure. Finally he turned to me and asked "What the hell is keeping her costume up?" Hmmm...I dunno, maybe Piri's gravity was half that of Earth...

Or maybe it was glue.

No, I think glue would hurt...it was probably the hairspray that Helena used to keep her 'do in place. Come hell, high water or Bug Eyed Monsters, not a hair on that woman's head moved.

Piri was supposedly a world that had achieved "perfection." I guess in a perfect world dresses always stay where they're supposed to, no matter how skimpy they are. :-)

Doesn't sound like a perfect world to me :-)

First things first,I have the tape of this one
and no where do I recall Catherine Schell's
character ever calling herself or being referred
to as The Guardian,she was simply the spokesperson
created by the Guardian.The Guardian was the thing
that Koening destoyed in the end.

Second how DID Commander Koening resist the
Guardians lure?

Third the irony of the whole episode was that
Piri became habitable AFTER the Guardian was destroyed but by that time Moon Base Alpha was
out of range.

How did Koenig resist the Guardian's lure? Because he's Koenig of course. :-) He's just too much of a badass to be effected. Besides, the "don't harm Koenig" factor was also at play. Take a look at the whole series and you'll see that anytime someone tries to kill or permanently injure him their entire plan fails. In "Bringers of Wonder" for example the aliens try and kill him by making him crash. This results in him being hooked up to the Elendorf Brain Complex, which gives him immunity to their mind control. Had they left him alone in the first place he would have stayed vulnerable to their control and they would have succeeded in gaining the radiation they needed.

I believe Catherine Schell's character refers to herself as the servant of the guardian.

While Koenig is exploring Piri, he announces to the Main Mission crew (watching him on the big screen...must be that camera from "Matter of Life and Death" in action again!) that he'll contact them if he sees anything unusual. Sandra says laughingly "Anything UNUSUAL?"
So, is Sandra's comment refering to the fact that Piri is the most unusual planet the Alphans have ever come across (so how would you see anything more unusual?), OR were the Alphans already succumbing to the Guardian's influence, and to their changed viewpoints nothing could be unusual on Piri?

Wow, was THAT a convoluted sentence! Hope I didn't lose anyone.

BTW, Catherine Schell's character does indeed call herself the Servant of the Guardian.

I read a novelisation which combined 'Missing Link', 'Force of Life, and 'Guardian of Piri' (in that order).

Maybe not canon, but in the book, Koenig learned some of the mental powers of the aliens in 'Missing Link', and that is how he resisted the Guardian.

I read that, too. The production order of the episodes puts "GOP" after "ML," so the same hypothesis could apply to the actual episode.

Breaking news, Catherine Schells 'outfit' has went off and pursued a seperate acting career in Ally McBeal.

If anyone's interested, I've posted an idea I came up with about the Pirians' physical appearance over on the Sink:1999 board.

...Breaking news, Catherine Schells 'outfit' has went off and pursued a separate acting career in Ally McBeal...

Yeah Doug, and it STILL weighs more than Calista Flockheart!

Koenig must harbor a secret dislike of David Kano. I understand Koenig's testiness toward him when Computer foul-ups kept occurring and killed one person and was partially responsible for having two others get lost. But while on Piri, Koenig really beats the poor technician in a vain attempt to breeak the Guardian's influence. He didn't smack Davis, Irving or (later) Helena around like that!
A few episodes later, in "The Last Sunset," Koenig goes way over the top chastising Kano for the report that the Eagle fleet is grounded. Talk about shooting the messenger!
Maybe Koenig was touchy about the loss of Ben Ouma, with whom he seemed to be friends in "Breakaway," and was unfairly taking out his anxiety on Kano.
At least as the series wore on, Koenig and Kano seemed to get to like each other a little more. (See "Dragon's Domain.")

One of the Eagle pilots seen briefly at the end of this episode is played by Gareth Hunt, who would soon become somewhat more familiar to '70s tv viewers as Gambit in The New Avengers, the late 70s sequel series to the classic Patrick McNee series of the '60s. He was to have had a bigger role in the episode as the character Irving but had a disagreement with director Charles Crichton and left after only filming a few scenes, being replaced by Michael Culver as Irving.

"Main motors!"

Culver, by the way, eventually went on to play Imperial Captain Needa of the star destroyer Avenger in The Empire Strikes Back. ("Apology accepted, Captain.")

Does Koenig zap Helena in revenge for her doing it to him in the previous episode?

Craig: Sandra's line, "Anything unusual?" sounds more like a comment on how more unusual could things look than they appear already.

Alpha's sets appear flimsy in a few shots in this episode. After fighting with Carter Koenig throws a few switches on his left-hand bulkhead panel and the panel gives way a bit under his hand. When Koenig pulls circuit boards from the MM computer wall, Tanya cringes from him and the wall moves when she presses against it. Immediately after this Koenig clutches a balcony support pillar and it wobbles more than an inch in either direction in his hand.

Piri's sets, on the other hand, seem much more solid. During the confusion following the Guardian's destruction, some poor woman strikes her knee on a piece of the Piri set and clutches it painfully while fleeing.

I noticed that, too. Just an observation, she was a reactor tech in "Alpha Child" and appeared in a couple backgrounds (corridors and I think Main Mission) in other eps.

How'd the towel- and sheet-clad Alphan women not fall out of their attire while running around?

Does anyone have a link to a pic of Catherine Schell in this ep?

Here you go.

Aha! So *THAT'S* the outfit. Looks like it came from the Bill Thiess school of fashion!

Who??

Did anyone ever notice Catherine Schell appeared in the Bond Movie On Her Majesty's Secret Service, under the name of Catherina Von Schell?

Yep. Joanna Lumley of The New Avengers/Absolutely Fabulous fame is also in it, as is Anouska Hempel(Annette Frasier in "The Metamorph.")

Bill Thiess=Star Trek costume designer.

As noted above there's the inevitable "where's that camera" problem in several places, including when Irving's Eagle is flying erratically and is seen doing so on the Main Mission big screen, and when Koenig is exploring the surface. Frankly I doubt there's ever been a science fiction tv series that didn't have that problem at some point.

When Eagle 24 lands back on Alpha its got the pod extension/lab pod, but not in any of the other scenes.

The elusive female security guard may be visible in a couple of the Piri scenes. There's a blonde woman with a stun gun, and her sleeve looks purple.

When Helena and co. are having their command confernce about going to Piri one of those in attendance is a security officer. Head of Security perhaps?

Someone seems to have been thinking of the female viewers, as we get to see several Alphan males with no shirts on in counterpoint to the female Alphans just wearing towels.

As has been noted elsewhere Kano's cybernetic implant is pretty cool to see in a 1974 script. Wonder if any of the early cyberpunk writers like Bruce Sterling and William Gibson ever saw this episode.

A neat touch is the "Piri" scrawled on the Medical Centre wall(in red lipstick perhaps?) when Koenig wakes up after the party.

Having just purchased this tape in the 3-tape set (along with Missing Link and Force Of Life) I was pleasantly surprised that my vague memories of Catherine Schell in her teeny-weeny outfit was even better than what I remembered. I may have been watching with my mouth open for the first few minutes of her screen time...I don't remember. I officially nominate her as one of the hottest women of 1999, along with Joan Collins in Misson Of The Darians.
Somebody above asked how Koenig was able to resist the Guardian. I was going to say it was because the pain of his injuries kept his mind straight, but he wasn't hurt when he saw the Guardian on Piri. So out goes that theory.
When the Eagles are evacuating Alpha, one of them rises from below on its launch pad at an odd angle. Usually, their side hatch matches up with the docking port outside. This time, an Eagle is elevated to the surface but with it's engines pointing at the docking port. I don't think they ever launched like that again.
Kinda odd that some people stood and some people sat down or laid down while in the Guardian's trance. Were the standers more comfortable standing up in 'paradise'?
When Sandra makes it back to the Eagle of her choice she seems to hit the hatch control immediately, rather than looking for more Alphans that might have wanted to fly in the same Eagle as her. She might have left a friend behind who came pretty close like a guy running for a bus, only to have the door close and the transport take off.
And what was with all those Alphans running past poor Alan?! Not a single one stopped to help him or pick him off the ground!
Whether or not that woman who bumps her knee on the furniture during the escape was an actress doing as the director asked or if it was a blooper that the producers kept in, it was a nice touch of realism. A nice change from the oops-I've-fallen-and-I've-twisted-my-ankle scene in so many tv shows and movies.

Alan seemed to be dressed somewhat casually during his trip to Piri with Koenig. He touches some controls with a foot that's wearing, I think, hush-puppy shoes, instead of the regulation boots.

I'm not certain, but I think shoes were used elsewhere (in other eps). I always thought that the boots were more of a planetary bit of apparel, whereas while on base, either boots or shoes could be worn. Just my own theory.

...not as bad as Koenig's dorky sneakers in "Brian the Brain" (and please,step on Brian's antenna some more...just to irritate him!).

Based on an idea by Curious on the Sink 1999 2 board, here's my list of improved effects for "GoP":
Make sure shots of Eagles landing on or taking off from unexplored surfaces of Piri don't have other landed Eagles visible in the shots!
Make the connecting tube from Carter's Eagle look like the one seen in "Earthbound" (with the minor fixes I mentioned on that board, and perhaps leaving the color white, instead of the red seen in "Earthbound").
The panorama of Alpha during Operation Exodus is cool, especially with the foreground launchpad lift raising an Eagle into place. However, that pad has a minor alignment problem that should be fixed; the embarkation building front (with the boarding tube) doesn't quite line up with the main building. Bonus fix for the whole series: fix the embarkation building on all panoramic Alpha shots to match the shots of the larger scale launch pad models.
Make sure the central pod of the Eagles are consistent from shot to shot. (If an Eagle starts out as a Transporter, make sure it doesn't morph into a Lab pod in the next shot.)
The Transporter Eagle Koenig takes to Piri to rescue the Alphans has medical equipment aboard (and a slightly different internal arrangement of the pod, to accomodate the exam chair he straps Helena into). Adding red stripes to the pod to make it a Rescue Eagle would be a nice touch.
Some of the teleportation shots jump just a bit, but look rather good, considering when they were made. Just a little minor clean-up would make them perfect. (And no shimmering "transporter" effects are really needed, in my opinion.)
Make the "dead" Servant of the Guardian (after Koenig shoots her/it) look less mannequin-like, if possible. Also, fix the fact that the hands Koenig pries away from its face are backwards! (The pinkies, not the thumbs, should be where the nose was.)

NANJAO: Did anyone notice the details of the destroyed Servant's body during the epilogue, when Piri has started to come back to life? One of the internal do-dads spilled out of the left shoulder socket is model kit sprue (AKA "trees"), the rod-like thingy plastic model kit parts are attached to.

One small nit that could easily be digitally fixed: during the climax, the shadows of the Pirian "trees" appear on the sky backdrop. It ruins those shots.

One thing about the destroyed servant. Almost every sci-fi series features an ep with a view of the exposed inner working of an 'android' :all the Treks, Lost in Space, Dr.Who, Red Dwarf,Beyond WestWorld (think that one only lasted one or two eps), Battlestar,etc. Space:1999's depiction wasn't particularly impressive, as the ruined servant appears very much to be a store mannequin. "The Taybor" also shows a 'ruined' Maya robot at the end. It, too, looks like a mannequin.
Since both "Gaurdian of Piri" and "The Taybor" feature robot likenesses of Catherine Schell, perhaps the same mannequin was used (both show the same damage to the face).

Pete Irving and Ed Davis' Eagle 6 has a passenger rather than a recon configuration inside when Carter boards it. Also, Another missing FX shot: the Eagle should "unfreeze", resume course and crash through those mod Pirian trees when the Guardian is destroyed and time on Piri resumes.

Oh, sure, we finally have an episode where an Eagle doesn't blow up, and you want to crash it!
( Just kidding! You're right, actually, and the novelization has that very thing occur.)

Actually, Peter raises a good point. What ever happened to the Eagle seen 'hanging' in the sky earlier? Did it just come crashing to the ground. Was it brought down before Koenig made his reappearance on Piri?

Interesting episode - one that I actually remember from my youth. A cross between The Paradise Syndrome and Return of the Archons.

Two questions - what's the deal with Eagle pilots and their space suits? Sometimes they wear space suits and sometime they don't. Also, you would think that a moon entering the orbit of a planet would affect the gravity of the planet. Do they ever comment on this?

Sometimes they also only wear partial suits, often I've seen pilots with the orange suit and helmet but no life support pack and air tank on.

The guidelines for proper eagle pilot's attire were to wear spacesuits for mission objectives in space and normal moonbase uniforms for boardings and planetfalls.

As for the moon entering the orbit of a planet, there's an intersesting link on Roche's Limit posted on the "Collision Course" board.

Ken Scott's updated his "GoP" page at Moonbase Alpha's Space:1999 page!

"servant of the Guardian"....man, I have never wanted to a Guardian more in my life....

Kano seems just a little TOO protective of the computer. Guy needs to get a date!

Speaking of which, Kano seems amazed that computer can screw up. Obviously, he's never been exposed to Windows Vista

How did they get those pictures of the Eagle flying when the two pilots went nuts? Guardian Cam?

What happened to the Eagle that was suspended in the air when the Guardian was destroyed. Chalk up another lost Eagle?

This episode is so far fetched in the Guardian being able to manipulate Alpha's computer.

How did it manage to do so?
Is Guardian's systems compatible with Windows 7 ? LOL

And Kano can get into a computer thanks to some chip implants in his mind. This time however, he disappears and reappears on Piri..

Are Koenig's uniform strips purple or black? I always thought they were black, but in this episode he looks very purple.

Koenig put up a good fight against Alan, despite a broken wrist.

I saw only 11 Eagles flying back to the Moon at the end-- I hope all 300 Alphans could fit inside all of them! Of course, I'm sure there's another wave or two of ships, out of camera range.

Comments were made about the Servant seeming too much like a mannequin after she's destroyed, but I'm okay with that. The machine has no power inside it, so the arms and legs don't need to flair loosely when Koenig throws it down the stairs.

Time - "Kano seems just a little TOO protective of the computer."
Wasn't he???!!! This guy would be a TERRIBLE technician to trust to fix your computer, if he thinks any machine is infallible! To assume that NOTHING could influence/erase/reprogramme his best friend, ie. Computer, is very disturbing.

Are Koenig's uniform strips purple or black? I always thought they were black, but in this episode he looks very purple.

They are black. Of course, they probably can't easily replace worn out uniforms on Alpha, so the black of some of Koenig's uniforms might have started to fade a little

Two more things...
If it was that easy to 'beam' Kano to Piri, why didn't the Guardian just transport everyone off the Moon like that?
Secondly, I'm not sure why all of the Alphans became giddy and carefree while still on the Moon? They didn't stare into the Guardian like the Eagle teams, so why did everyone change? And as someone else mentioned, how did Koenig fight it all the way through the episode?

This guy would be a TERRIBLE technician to trust to fix your computer, if he thinks any machine is infallible! To assume that NOTHING could influence/erase/reprogramme his best friend, ie. Computer, is very disturbing.

Imagine Kano trying to defend Windows Vista...

I'm not sure why all of the Alphans became giddy and carefree while still on the Moon? They didn't stare into the Guardian like the Eagle teams, so why did everyone change?

The Guardian had a long reach. It started messing with Alpha's computer, after all.


And as someone else mentioned, how did Koenig fight it all the way through the episode?

Must be in his contract

They probably can't easily replace worn out uniforms on Alpha...

The uniforms were redesigned in season (or series, if you're British) two. A tall order for a facility with limited (and dwindling) resources.
The uniforms were always neat and clean. Maybe the Alphans brought a lifetime supply of Tide or Ajax detergent with them.

Maybe they found a way to convert lunar dust into detergent.

Koenig borrows from the James Kirk Book On How To Destroy A Mad Computer in this one

Harvey, in 2004, said this episode was a cross between The Paradise Syndrome and Return of the Archons.
I disagree. It's got the trance-like inhabitants under control of a computer, like Archons, but there's no Native Indians or asteroid-about-to-hit-a-planet.
It's much more like This Side of Paradise (maybe Harvey's real episode title?), what with people abandoning the Enterprise / Alpha, leaving the Captain / Commander alone.

Of course, this episode had Catherine Schell as guest star. She would join the cast in S2 as Maya.

Odd that no one noticed the resemblance.