This is also another episode, like Year 2's The Exiles, where Koenig brings what everyone considers to be an explosive inside the base. Does this guy have a death wish or what?

The "windows-that-open" nit is possibly the most common one from the S:1999 canon, but let's not forget that at no other time in the series do we see single-thickness windows *with handles on them!*

Obviously, the maintenance department rigged them up quickly as soon as it was realised that an external atmosphere existed!

Hi,

There was discussion about this on the Space:1999 online mailing list. I think the consensus was that a scene where Koenig requests such a window is missing. Also, several people on the mailing list believe that Koenig, et al. are not in Main Mission (looking out the window) as many beleive, but in a research lab or some such place.

Anthony

This was a good premise for an episode of
the series, it certainly couldn't be adapted for
Star Trek or some other production. Making
the Moon a hospitable environment is the
Alphan's dream come true, if only they'd
settled into a comfortable solar orbit.
Koenig does not make the same mistake for a
change, in The Exiles the alien devices are
brought to a facility remote from the rest of
Alpha. It's kind of a shame that Paul and
Sandra are featured characters in this one but
in the latter half she only gets to be helpless
and he only turns into a glassy-eyed madman.
At least Dr. Russell gets to be senior officer on
the mission and her orders are obeyed. She's
also as resourceful as any adventure hero
when she figures to blow up the Eagle as a
signal. Once again pathos ends the day as
Alpha's lost another chance.

This was an early fave of mine.

When Koenig remarks that Moonbase Alpha will be at the bottom of a craterlake, I thought just recently, why don't they just build a back hoe and dig out drainage ditches to prevent a flood? Pipelines? Pumps?

BTW, did anyone ever figure out which part of the Moon they built Moonbase Alpha?

This is also the only episode where an Eagle pilot is cautioned about entering an atmosphere. That should be SOP for a pilot used to flying to Earth and back, which I presume most of the pilots had done at one time or another before September 13, 1999.

Also, Koenig was in an awful hurry to send out the scouting mission before they knew if they would go into orbit.

Nice closing scene with dew on the outside walls of Moonbase Alpha.

Hope they resealed the windows.

In the novels, it says that Alpha was built on the edge of Tycho crater, but I don't think this was ever verified in the series.

Where was Alpha built? The novelizations say Tycho, which is too rocky to be practical. The Moonbase Alpha Tech notebook says Plato, which has a relatively smooth lava floor but a high crater wall. The actual location is unimportant. In Breakaway, Earth appeared fairly low on the lunar horizon (so it would fit into the shot, like in 2001. That base was in Clavius crater.)
Figure Alpha is somewhere in the outer limbs than towards the center of the near side.
BTW, any real moonbase would never be built so much above ground, subject to half a month's constant unfiltered solar radiation at a time. Of course, any real moonbase would never look as cool. Alpha's surface structures vaguely resemble a crater by themselves, with a central peak and extending rays.

I'd agree, Peter. The predecessor series, "U.F.O.", also had a surface moon base, and although it was only made up of about four globes (that may have had two or three levels each), it was exposed to solar radiation (how nice of the aliens to only attack there during times it was in daylight). It was also exposed to alien attack. For two reasons, underground construction would have made sense. And in one episode, a Soviet exploration vehicle is rolling towards it on collision course while the cosmonauts are suffering from inoxia.

Hmmm... actually, I wonder if Moonbase Alpha is near the north pole of the moon. Solar radiation would be on a low angle, and the temperature wouldn't vary as widely.

Would a polar location make sense from the viewpoint of how the shot of breakaway was seen?

Re: Polar location:
You make an interesting point. Plato happens to be about 50 degrees north, so Earth would appear about 40 degrees above the horizon--too high to fit in the same shot. Closer to the poles, or closer to the outer limbs of the near side would make the Earth appear lower in the 'sky'. (In case it's not clear, the Earth never moves from its position in the sky from a lunar viewpoint, never rising or setting, it just hangs there.)
Without an atmosphere, direct sunlight should carry as much radiation at the poles as it does at the equator. (If someone else knows better of this, please correct me here.) However, if you're looking for a source of water on the moon, you'll find it at the poles; cometary debris (ice) hiding in permanent shadow at the bottom of polar craters, never vaporized by sunlight.

Does anybody else think Alpha's radial-patterned surface structures mimic a crater?

Is this the only episode where we see someone open/close a door by hand, using a door handle? It makes a change from doors opening/closing either automatically or by use of commlocks!

Another fairly fine episode, but for a few nits (which is why we're here, right?)...
A minor, but in this case fairly significant, difference between the episode & the novelization involves Paul and Sandra's conversation on the Lunar surface. Sandra asks Paul if he knows what sound she misses the most (outside in fresh atmosphere). His reply, "Birdsong?" receives a smile from Sandra in the episode. The novelization has Sandra answer "Children laughing," or something similar (I don't have the book handy) after which the episode's dialog about being cooped up and not allowed to show certain emotions continues. Would have been nice had the episode included that bit.
BTW, the moon becomes a "LUSH, HABITABLE" planet? Habitable (barely) I'll concede, even though it ended up being temporary. They had quite a ways to go before it became lush, though.
Does anyone else think the devices that supplied air (and later removed it so it wouldn't flash-freeze to the surface) were a type of matter (specifcally gaseous matter) transporter? How else could such vast amounts of air be expelled from them? Just an idea I've had for years.

Forgot to mention a reply to Anonymous about door handles: Force of Life used a similar door to lock Zoref in the Isolation Ward. Also, Testament of Arkadia's Protein Store had a similar door, with a push-button combination pad mounted to its face.

Don't you just love the look on Kano's face in response to Koenig's outburst about Technical not fixing the Eagles fast enough? "Whatever you say, jerk. Computer would never erupt like that." I think Martin Landau's a fine dramatic actor, but he overplayed it a bit in this scene.

Commlock nit: After their Eagle crash lands, Carter & Morrow wave their arms (and Carter's torn shirt sleeve like a flag) at a passing search Eagle. THEY DON'T USE THEIR COMMLOCKS.
I know the crashed Eagle's electrical systems were shorted out in the crash, so relaying a signal through there was out of the question, but why were the commlocks affected? And if they were affected, why keep wearing them on one's belt?
I'm guessing the commlocks have a very limited range, say enough to cover being inside or near the moonbase. The search Eagle may have been just outside that range. Perhaps some residual atmospheric ionization from the storm also cut down the commlock's range.

Subject change...
The probes from Arial seem too small and inert to contain SO much air in them (even if super compressed somehow). Is it possible that each probe acted as a matter transporter, simply relaying the air from the planet to the moon? It doesn't explain the gravity adjustment, but maybe the larger probes had some capability built into them for that purpose.

"I know the crashed Eagle's electrical systems were shorted out in the crash, so relaying a signal through there was out of the question, but why were the commlocks affected? And if they were affected, why keep wearing them on one's belt?
I'm guessing the commlocks have a very limited range, say enough to cover being inside or near the moonbase. The search Eagle may have been just outside that range. Perhaps some residual atmospheric ionization from the storm also cut down the commlock's range.
"

Maybe relaying a signal to the Eagle from Commlock requires a relay through the Eagle Comms systems, and if those are fried.....

NITS: When the moon turns into a lush, habitable planet, Koenig goes to one of the Command Center windows and opens it. It makes one wonder why the builders of a base on the moon would construct their windows to open in this manner.

Question - I haven't seen this episode since its original airing back in the '70s, so...

Does the window open in or out? If it opens outward, that's a second nit. In general, if a door/hatch/window is designed for a high pressure differential, it opens towards the higher pressure. That way it is forced closed during normal usage, and can't acccidentally open.

Cf. airlocks, submarine hatches, etc....

Actually, it slides into the frame. (Downward, if memory serves correctly...I don't have the DVD handy to confirm direction.)

That's a nit, then.

Actually, the window thing was discussed for the first few posts on this board (see above)...the consensus (here and elsewhere) is that it was installed after the atmosphere came. I hope they re-sealed it in time.
Good trivia point, ScottN, about real hatches and their opening direction.

The window-thing has tried to be explained as best as it can, but there's no getting around how stoopid it looks to be opening a window on a moonbase! There must have been some more logical and expedient way to show Koenig, Russel and Bergman enjoying the new atmosphere, like stepping out of that airlock (in the studio parking lot) and taking in the sun and a breath of fresh air.

The atmosphere thins out rapidly at around 20,000 feet, so Dr. Russel says. That's a whole lot less than Earth's atmosphere, but Earth-normal air pressure as well as gravity is being maintained, presumably through the Ariel probes' influence.

The Window Thing.
It's never going to go away, is it? You know, I had more problems a couple years later when watching Star Wars at the cinema: how'd all the air stay in the Death Star's docking bay when no hatch closed over the opening? Ditto a couple years after that with Battlestar Galactica's landing bays. I finally chalked it up to force fields, a correct assumption on my part.
Why was I so concerned with the realism of space and decompression? Space:1999 had shown me repeatedly ("Breakaway," "Voyager's Return," "War Games") the effects of explosive decompression, that's why!
So why didn't The Window Thing bother me the first time I saw "The Last Sunset?" I chalked it up to post-atmosphere installation, because obviously the writers knew such a window would never be installed on an airless moon.
ON THE OTHER HAND, a single line of dialogue could have been inserted for those who needed an explanation...nothing too obvious, like Helena exclaiming "These newly installed windows are going to be wonderful!" when they first open the now-infamous window. A more subtle (and thus better, in my opinion) way of doing this would have been while John and Victor were discussing the corrosion-proof Eagle. (Victor: "The crew's working 'round the clock on the corrosion proofing. It'll still take some time... Oh, a small bit of good news: Technical just informed me that they've re-sealed all the windows we opened up around the base.")

I can imagine the scene calling for them to open a window was contested at the time it was being scripted as much as we're debating it now.

We'll probably never know for sure, but I'm personally not so sure about that... The novelization (#2 'Moon Oddysey' in the US paperback version by Pocket Books) mentions tech crews installing the new window; since the novelizations are loosely based on the original scripts, it seems to me that there was a scene or line of explanatory dialogue covering this topic. For whatever reason, it was cut or never filmed, perhaps because the writers felt that the audience would be "smart enough" to figure it out on its own, and didn't want to waste time with nit-picky details (which we here at NC live for).
At least The Window Thing can't be chalked up to the Mysterious Unknown Force in action!

Of course, that's just my opinion. Not trying to start a fight or anything. :-)

I'm still impressed by your "They don't use their commlocks" nit. It's one of those things I never noticed, but now that you've mentioned it, it seems so terribly obvious!

Thanks for telling the window thing was spoken of in the novelization. Either it was included in the not-final version of the script the writer worked from (Rankine or Tubb?), or the writer was bothered by the window as much as the nitpickers are and felt compelled to add some exposition.
A third possibility is the line was delivered, but sacrificed for time during editing. In any case the result onscreen is the ludicrous appearance of a moonbase built with windows that *open*!

The novelisations do contain some extra pieces of information, usually very subtle that enhance the storyline.

Again, I haven't seen Space:1999 since the original airings... Did they remove the openable windows at the end?

John Rankine wrote the 'Moon Oddysey' novelization I was referring to.

The re-sealing of the window is not shown in the actual episode, Scott, just like its installation was not...I guess if they didn't show the installation, they figured why bother showing the uninstallation? That's why the line I proposed at the end of my above post (March 23rd, 2002) would have nicely covered the whole thing.
Hang on a minute, I'm going to dig out my copy of the novelization and see how Rankine handled the re-sealing (if he did)...

Tum-de-dum, dee-doo-dee-dum...

Aha! Just after Koenig's Eagle crashes after takeoff and Bergman (in the lab) reveals that graphite coated pieces weren't corroding, Koenig orders "...windows replaced in every section of Alpha. Every airlock resealed." Koenig then orders the corrosion-proofing of an Eagle and the Arial Probe to be removed from the base.

Maybe I was subconsciously remembering that quote when I came up with my suggestion. (I had unwittingly created an extra scene, because the next scene involving Bergamn and Koenig in the ep is where they discuss that the moon isn't going into orbit and that the corrosion-proof Eagle is ready.)

If I'd been a little quicker with my sarcasm mode before I just posted, I could have responded to ScottN's question ("Did they remove the openable windows at the end?") with a witty retort like "No, they left them in, and most of the crew died as the air leaked out of the base...Didn't you know this was really the last episode?"
:-)

When Carter and Morrow saw the rescue Eagle, why didn't they fire their lasers on Stun? Sweep the sky back and forth with their beams? Even if the rescuers didn't see them right away, they'd know the crash site was somewhere in that area.

And why did the window open down? They didn't want it to fall on Landau's, Morse's or Bain's hand? Or fall, period? How embarathing - a window based on 1990s tech on a moon base that can manipulate gravity, and it falls shut?!

Actually, it isn't until Bergman reports the graphite-coated Eagle is READY, that he has just admitted the Moon won't go into orbit around Ariel's sun.

How nice that Koenig and Mathias happened to fly in the right area with the one Eagle that is safe to fly.

And why is the ONLY other doctor they have flying into a hazardous situation? For all they know, Doctor Russell could be dead. They can't afford to loose Mathias.

Oh, jeez! Not The Window Thing AGAIN!!! (pause) Hey wait a minute... an upward opening window falling shut... THAT'S HILARIOUS! I'd never considered WHY the window slid downward. I think gcapp probably hit it right on the head. Good one!
Also, good point about using their guns, though maybe the beams wouldn't have shown up enough against the terrain. On the other hand, why not make a signal fire with some of the containers and other loose PLASTIC bits laying around inside the crashed Eagle?
Unless of course they were flame-proof...

Signal fire... hmmm... darkness? Now, let's consider that most of the time, the Moon is far from a star, and should be 99 percent dark, with only a faint glimmer of light from the many distant stars.

Now, when the Moon left Earth, was it still taking 29 days to rotate? Did it change with all the various gravitational influences during two seasons (two, three years?)

If it hasn't changed appreciably, then it could be days before it rotates to put Ariel's sun below the horizon.

Hmmm, what would happen if they fired a stun beam at the Eagle, actually hit it... would the Eagle register a "hit"?

When the first Ariel probe expells its "gas," the atmospheric pressure inside the lab/other parts of the base was up to 80 times normal before it vented out to the lunar surface (as Paul pointed out). If that's the case, wouldn't the technician in the corridor just outside the lab have been reduced to paste as the lab's door burst outward? Surely the pressure wave would have blasted him (and the door for that matter) into the far wall!

Now that you mention it, yeah. That guy would have been jam if he was standing that near to an explosive force of several atmospheres. But was that a pressure bulkhead or just a hinged door? As they first flee the lab it looked like they shut that same door behind them, and dry ice vapors continued to seep past it and beneath it. Maybe that door fails under just a few atmospheres of overpressure. In either case, if that fellow wasn't helped out of the lab until after the building burst open to space he'd have been subjected to both rapid compession and decompression in a short space of time and be suffering from some horrible case of the bends. Fortunately, Alpha is probably well-equipped to
rapidly and effectively treat this affliction.

Or he could just be jam. Or dead of decompression.

I also wonder if the Main Mission personnel, while watching the last sunset at the episode's end, suffered any retina damage from staring at nearly unfiltered solar rays. Of course, judging by the glow of what was left of the atmosphere, and the fact that the sun was below the lunar horizon before that glow faded, perhaps there was enough "filter" left to protect their eyes.
Still, I can't help but give that scene the MST3K treatment... "Backup crew to Main Mission immediately. We're all temporarily blind up here!"

Oops, I forgot to answer Peter's question. The door was a hinged door, with a keypad lock which Koenig seals with his commlock. I presume that such a door would have a seal that activates to contain and/or keep out any gasses (similar to the same style of door in Medical Center isolation wards presumably being able to, well, isolate the room). Obviously, it wasn't a very effective seal, since the vapors were leaking from the door non-stop.

i love this episode and is one of my favorites but i did notice that the moon rotates very strangely. the sun rises and sets outside the same main mission windows.

Maybe the Main Mission windows are north/south facing?

Can't believe I didn't catch that one before! The north-facing windows is a good attempt at an anti-nit, but that still means the sun is describing a very tight arc across the sky.

that would make for a very short night

I can't believe I'M about to bring up The Window Thing again...
The window they open does appear to be in the technical lab, not Koenig's office, since part of a computer wall is visible behind the characters. This indicates to me that in addition to knocking down the isolation door, the probe's gas release shattered a window. (Come to think of it, didn't a shot show a window shattering? I don't have access to my DVD right now.) The repair crew probably just put the openable window in as a replacement, since the moon now had an atmosphere.

Can anyone address my question about the moon's 29-day rotation being affected by gravitation stresses of breakaway and since?

Can anyone address my question about the moon's 29-day rotation being affected by gravitation stresses of breakaway and since? GCapp

That would be a problem in general. What is the moon rotating relative to? Would the blast in Breakaway have affected the Moon's rotational angular momentum (almost certainly, if it was powerful enough to blast it out of orbit, and give it Solar escape velocity).

I'd say that we can't even guess what the moon's rotational period would be at this point.

It frequently appears to rotate relatively fast in several close-up shots throughout the series, but seems non-rotational in all long shots. Granted, some of the rotating close-ups are done to enhance the effect of a spacecraft flying over the lunar surface, implying the spacecraft's high speed. Other times, I think the BILC rule applies!
Which is a long way of saying I think Scott's right about not being able to guess the rotational period.

Early on, when the first alien probe attaches itself to the Eagle, Morrow lands the Eagle by remote control 'for safety'.

Now I can see that landing on automatic (computer control) might be desirable, but why on Earth is manual remote control, using Morrow's little joysticks, safer than the pilots using the fullsize controls in the Eagle?

On the Moon's rotation, most shows have the planet or phenomenon-of-the-week stationary near Alpha's horizon, which suggests the Moon is not rotating.

On the other hand, some shots show the Moon rotating so fast that it would complete a rotation in around 1 minute. At that speed the Moon would break up, with everything being flung off the surface at up to 180km/s.

To put it another way, the centrifugal (sic) force at the equator would be about 10000 times the lunar gravity.

The size of the probe model stuck on the Eagle doesn't seem to match up with that used in the scenes on Alpha. The one on the Eagle appears to be somewhat larger that it should be. There are also problems in size between the probes, the Alpha model, and the actors, unless of course one assumes there are different sizes of probes.

Sandra says they've served the longest tour of duty ever on Alpha. That may be true when discussing a stint without returning to Earth, but we know from other episodes some of the Alphans are long term members of the staff, Dr. Mathias for example being on Alpha during the Ultra Probe mission.

When Koenig and Morrow fight you can see which shots involve stuntmen if you watch carefully. They did a better job of hiding it at least than some of the fights on the original Trek.

The "the gravity is increasing to near Earth normal" bit was no doubt added to simplify filming, ie the actors wouldn't have to try and pretend to be moving in low gravity.

I think this is the only episode that features a female character firing a laser rifle.

If you look closely at the many probes, there are slight variations in size and style. That doesn't explain, however, how the first probe seemed to change!

I'd always assumed Mathias and Gorski had served on Alpha, left for a time, and came back. In Gorski's case, he luckily was reassigned to Earth before the Breakaway. (Or, given the damage to Earth, maybe Mathias was the lucky one.)

worst part of this episode is, no female guest stars that register on the babe-o-meter.

Thanks for your time.

Hey, Tanya and Kate were in it! And Sandra's cute, too, even if she was taken.

maybe so, but I was referring to guest stars.

Extra points awarded for Russell and the laser rifle. I dig chicks with guns.

Heres an oddity from moi.

Sandra and Paul head out from Alpha to do their smoochy poo thing, whilst everyone is out and being happy, playing badminton and whatever. Then theres the bit about the rain, then the rain starts. Paul and Sandra are still out, and it doesn't seem like much time has elapsed. So how come all the people who were out playing (Alan, Tanya) have now packed up their stuff, gone back inside and changed back into their uniforms? Surely Sandra and Paul weren't at it for that long?

Maybe she had a gun. I dig chicks with guns. Especially space-chicks with guns.

Re: The Crashed Eagle, you'd have thought there would have been a flare gun (or equivalent).

It was stored with the food and water.

So, about those open windows on Alpha...AHH! No, just kidding.
gcapp beat me to it with the suggestion that somebody should have just used hand lasers to hit multiple targets on land to alert the Eagle as to their position.
I guess Helena was weak and not thinking right when she blew up an entire, valuable Eagle when a smaller target would have done as well. Very cool scene, though.
She's obviously not herself, as she barely puts up any kind of fight when Paul starts to strangle her.
As to the moon's rotation, I'm not sure I remember ever seeing the moon rotate in any episode. The moon does not rotate on an axis; the same side faces the Earth at all times, since it's the Earth's shadow that creates half moons, crescents, etc. Once the moon was blasted out of orbit it shouldn't rotate, because it never did.
This would explain why Ariel's sun rises and falls in the same direction, but not why there's a night time.
Actually, I have a comment about The Window Thing. Buses have an emergency escape window, which might be the case here. Should all of the doors in the room the crew were in become impassable an Alpha could escape through the window. Of course, he or she had better have access to a space suit before this is attempted!

The Window Thing! AGHH! ()
Actually, the moon does rotate on its axis, one full rotation equalling the amount of time it takes the moon to make one revolution around Earth (28 days). That's why the same side always faces Earth. (Actually, there's a very slight "wobble," but for all intents, it's the same side facing Earth.) If Luna didn't rotate as it revolved, the same side would always face the sun, and from Earth, we'd see every part of the moon over the course of a month.
I thought I saw the post-Breakaway moon rotate in a few eps, and during the Breakaway itself, it definitely did start to rotate--it's especially apparent as the moon shifts out of Earth orbit and causes the Meta Probe Spacedock to careen out of lunar orbit before exploding.
As for Helena exploding the Eagle, I don't think the stranded crew could have stayed in the Eagle as the atmosphere dwindled... it's structural integrity was too far compromised to be of any use, and the crew's spacesuits only have so much air. I think she just wanted to create a really unmissable signal in the short amount of time remaining; good thing her gamble paid off!

Shortly after I last posted, I had to leave, and afterward figured I'd made a slight error about the moon's rotation... I'm finally back to correct it.
If the moon did not rotate, the same side would not always face the sun, as I'd said above, but the same relative point in space. The rest of what I'd mentioned should be correct. Sorry 'bout that!

No one ever questioned the science of the wandering planet in "Star Maidens".

That's because no one remembers Star Maidens!

IF you can get past the nits in the scientific accuracy of the show, I think most can admit that this is a rather beautiful episode. The fights and explosions and crashes kick-ass, too.

Koenig's white-belt aikido throw, the cut between the exploding Eagle and Helena's, and Sandra kissing Paul's porn-mustache (and most of his lines before and after) made me cringe, but we all know that perfection is too much to expect from sci-fi on TV, right?

As for the window....

AAAUUGH! I'm going to throw through that window the next person that mentions it! Better yet, I'll jump through it myself!
(This entire post is , by the way!)

A small nit.
A rain storm is shown in the ep. By the end of the episode, there's no evidence any rain ever fell on the moon. No stream-beds, erosion, no frozen ice (after the atmosphere dissipates), etc. As with most stories, the moon is left in the same condition as when the episode began.

Another nit, all the lunar soil around Alpha appears to untouched (crators still visible). Shouldn't the lunar ground all around Alpha be thoroughly messed up with tracks, piles, etc from the construction phase?

...there's no evidence any rain ever fell on the moon. No stream-beds, erosion, no frozen ice (after the atmosphere dissipates), etc.--Curious
Very good point! Granted, the rain didn't occur all over the entire moon, but certainly the areas around Alpha should have shown the effects of weathering. Maybe that's something that could be added to the "cleaned up fx" lists I've been posting...
Shouldn't the lunar ground all around Alpha be thoroughly messed up with tracks, piles, etc from the construction phase?--Curious, again
I'd thought of that, too, but found an interesting way around it, which I discussed on the Alpha Technical Section board. Go to my 17 August 2003 post on that board!

"The Last Sunset" is one of the series best episodes. Although the science (as usual) is a bit shaky, the premise of giving the moon an atmosphere is one of the most fascinating ideas presented in the series. Some small nits: After the Arielian probes release the air, Sandra retrieves a reading from the computer with the information "Gravity increasing...by the time we go into orbit it will almost be the same as Earth's."....Since the moon is smaller than Earth (around 1/6 gravity), that couldn't occur. If such a quantity of air was released, how long would it take before most of it escaped into space?

This episode is full of wonderful character moments, particularly, Sandra and Paul's chat on the lunar surface ( one small observation: Paul says to her "...cooped up in there [Alpha], there are thoughts we just can't allow ourselves to think." He then proceeds to kiss her. One person does allow himself to think such thoughts: Koenig. In Y2, he's kissing Helena all the time!)

All the smiles and play on the surface sure allow for some "feel good" moments. Ah, an episode where they're having some fun and not facing some grim predicament! About the Alphans' "Beach Party" outside Alpha: I thought I spotted a white barbeque grill. What unusual equipment to have on Alpha! There was also some lowbrow humour I found amusing (don't ask me why); When Tanya and Alan are playing badmitten, Tanya slips and falls on her bum. This leaves Alan laughing! Koenig, Bergman, and Helena are watching and Koenig opens up a window. Helena, in quite a breathy voice, really seems to enjoy the breeze.

Two Alphans turn into raging loons in this ep. Koenig really snaps at Kano over the grounded Eagles. I thought that was very unprofessional behavoir. On a rather more serious note, eating "magic mushrooms" turns Paul into a violent religious nut. He fights with Alan over "the sacred bread" of magic mushrooms. Most disturbingly, Paul attempts to strangle Helena. I don't care whether he was delusional or not, he should have been disiplined later for this.

This ep turned out to be a fairly expensive one because of the need for new sky and 'daylight' lunar hills backgrounds. Main Mission looks even better with those "atmospheric" hills on view through the windows. Some of the sets of the lunar surface had some really cheesy elements in them. After their Eagle crashes, Alan and Paul step out onto a surface with a couple of tacky looking craters. Those "craters" look more like the Morlocks' air vents from the 1961 "Time Machine". The monitors in the crashed Eagle are all "blown out" by lightning, but they all look like they've been smashed with hammers (I guess it emphasizes the point, they can't communicate with Alpha).

Not to sound like a broken record, but the black wires supporting the Arielian probes and Eagles are visible throughout the ep. One particulartly cheesy effect is the Eagle flying into the cloud bank. The scene with an Eagle wobbling about (on visible black wires) in front of a painted sky looks as if it could have come out of a 1930's Flash Gordon serial. The wobbling probe in the beginning is pretty awful too.

The stunt work in the ep represents some the best and worst in S99. First, the worst: The fight scenes between Alan, Paul, and Helena feature the most obvious use of doubles. For the best: The scene where "Helena" is thrown back by the explosion of the Eagle is probably one of the most spectacular stunts in S99 (along with the Alphans being 'sucked' out by explosive decompression in "War Games").

I've pointed out some of the faults, but on the whole, this is a terrific episode!

Another nit:
When the first probe from Ariel releases all its air, a huge plume of shredded paper is blown out of the launch bay. Is that where Alpha keeps all its old newspapers for recycling? Or maybe, it was old paper from all those paper readouts from Main Computer?

Based on an idea by Curious on the Sink 1999 2 board, here's my list of improved effects for "TLS"...
Fix the wobbliness of the Ariel probes in flight, and (as usual) remove any wires that are visible.
Remove the crewman who's in front of the tech lab door when it bursts open. If the atmosphere were up to 80x normal pressure (or even part of that), that guy would have been paste against the opposite wall when the pressure wave smacked into him!
Eliminate the engine bell falling off of Koenig's Eagle that crashes. I mean, I know that there was supposed to be corrosion going on, but that's a little too much, and really wrecks the effect for me.
If there's a way to enhance those "Morlock craters" (LOL, Mark! ), do so! I think changing the color of the regolith from sandy to a more greyish shade would help, too, if it could be done without bleeding into setpieces and characters. (I realize real regolith does have some variation in color, but the light brown sandy look in this ep was inconsistent with other eps.)
Here's one that may be a bit much, but as Curious pointed out earlier, there should be some evidence of the rainfall and wind effects around Alpha, for the rest of the series! So maybe some subtle enhancement of the panoramic shots of Alpha in every subsequent episode needs to be done; just enough so that the shots don't all look like the same ones seen up until now.
Enhance the fight scene between Koenig & Morrow so that it isn't so obvious that stunt doubles are being used. (It can be done; in 1993's Jurassic Park, there's a scene where the character Lex (played by Ariana Richards) falls through a ceiling tile, glances up at the viewer, and is pulled to safety. The thing is, the scene was filmed with a stunt double, and Richards' face was added in post production to replace the stunt double's.)
Somehow, wherever it could be inserted after there's atmosphere on the moon, loop in a throwaway line about that darned Window Thing being installed, and loop in another line after the corrsion effects are discovered about re-sealing it. Please!
One effect I wouldn't change is the explosion of Russell's Eagle. That was spectacular!

As to the digital 'pasting' of an actor's face onto a stunt double, a more relevant example would be Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. In the fight scene with Darth Maul, Liam Neesom's face was digitally 'pasted' onto that of his stunt double. This technique has become quite common in recent years. Probably, the most entertainting use of it is in all those Verizan commercials with James Earl Jones. His face has been seamlessly pasted onto waterskiers, breakdancers, etc.

Haven't seen those ads with James Earl Jones yet (sounds funny!), and I completely forgot about the Star Wars stuff! Re: JP, I was thinking of the first film in which I saw "pasting," where I was completely unaware that I was viewing a "paste" effect. I figured that if it could be done in 1993, it should be even easier to do now, relatively speaking. (I realize it does take a lot of effort to seamlessly match up the images!)

This episode should be remembered as an early depiction (on sci-fi tv) of terra-forming, even if it only lasted for a brief time. One nit: how would the Ariel probes be able to draw back the all the air? I can't think of any concievable technology which would allow them to swallow up an entire atmosphere.

That's Mysterious Alien Technology at work. Remember the initial analysis of the first probe
had the Alphans declaring it totally inert, which was its cue to become ert?

The nit I pick is the Alphans referring to the probes as satellites, which they're not. They didn't orbit anything as far as we can see. Or did they? Maybe after dispensing atmosphere they ascended into lunar orbit, parking themselves handily nearby until the time came to land and take the atmosphere back. That seems more effficient than returning to Ariel and then flying back a few hundred hours later.

That's a good idea, Peter!

The probe 'orbited' an Eagle before it attached itself to it...just kidding.
The show often made mistakes with using the precise terms for things. In Ring Around the Moon, the writer seems to confuse the term universe with galaxy. In The Bringers of Wonder, one of the blob creatures tells Bartlett he would be able to live a life time of memories all in a microsecond. A microsecond? All that in less than a second?

Good episode - I enjoyed it.

One thing - have you noticed how they never give scientific units to anything? Velocity at 3.7 (or whatever number it was). 3.7 WHAT? miles/hr, km/sec? I've noticed in the 11 episodes I have watched that they do this all the time.

What was the deal with all the paper flying out of the moonbase model when the gas comes out of the probe for the first time?

Man, they go through Eagles faster than Voyager goes through shuttles.

I thought I mentioned this before, maybe on the Alpha Technical Section board when I postulated about the launch pads... I think the "paper" was supposed to be debris from a retractable cover in the bottom of the lift shaft: as the pressure wave hit it, it fragmented and was propelled up the shaft with the escaping air.
Of course, in real life, I doubt that the shaft cover would have been shredded quite as much as that. But then again, in real life, the moon wouldn't have been blasted out of orbit, either.

By the way, yeah, I noticed the lack of measurement units as well. At least it's not like Battlestar Galactica (the 1970's version) referring to the Cylon fleet being "30 microns" away and closing. Man, that's close!

Felgergarb!!!

Fhqwhgads!

Hey, I think you spelled "Fhqwhgads" right. I can't remember which e-mail it was in, nor where I put the little slip of paper upon which I wrote the word.

So, if one was to pick the best depiction of a pilot-astronaut in a scifi series, who would it be? Alan Carter? Starbuck? Sulu? Taybor?

Han Solo!

Of course I spelled Fhqhwhgads right. You wouldn't believe how many emails I get with that name butchered, man.

Come on Fhqhwgads!

This is a "chick episode". I say that cuz my girlfriend liked it. haha. It wasn't too bad and it's hard not to be amused by the idea of watching the moon with an atmosphere, and seeing the normally stoic alphans galavant about on the surface.

This is another one of those episodes where Koenig ticks me off. I mean he goes off on Kano (a just-sitting-in-for-Paul Kano at that) about the inefficiencies of the maintenance crews just because the Eagles keep breaking down in the atmosphere. I mean lighten up, John-Boy. Just cuz little Doc Russy is lost out on the surface he goes and abuses everybody.

I don't see why he's upset anyhow. She's got air, and she's in good company...right? I mean she's got Alan, Alpha's best pilot...haha, the ever stable Paul Morrow, and of course Sandra who is always great in a crisis. Basically Alpha's A-team....er without Professor Bergman along to add philosophical perspective to any situation.

Anyhow it is nice to see the people open up a little bit and act a bit differently. It's a good change up in Main Mission to see Kano running Paul's Control set up, and its cool to see Tanya spinning around on Kano's Computer turn-table desk. Speaking of Tanya, she gets the most lines she ever has in the series, two and a half lines in one episode. The best of which is her great melodramatic line delivered as the air probes land: "Commandar! Vee are being InVaded!"
Gotta love that german accent.

All in all, even though this isn't my favorite, there is plenty of different things in this one to enjoy: Sky, wind and rain on the moon, Controller Morrow hittin' those happy 'shrooms, and Helly-na firing a laser rifle. Oh yeah and jack-a$$ aliens throwing the alphans a trojan-horse curve ball...successfully. I knew they shoulda gone down to that planet...hahaha.

German accent?

To me Tanya Alexandra is a Russian name.

Tanya was played by a German actress. She did have a husky voice like one of those sexy female spies in a James Bond film. In Force of Life, she's shown in a bikini...she's beautiful! It would have been nice to see her given more to do in the first season.

Although she pronounces her name "Alexandria" in Breakaway, her name is usually listed as "Alexander" in most written sources. Don't know if that clears up anything or not. (And her real name, Suzanne Roquette, sounds more French than German to me... more confusion!)

Personally, I can see why the character's name sounds Russian, but I always thought she was German.

She was born in Berlin in 1942 if the IMDB is correct, and appeared in various German productions before and after 1999. Interestingly if I'm not mistaken several other year one cast members were born in '42.

jeeZUS, how many Eagles can they blow up and never seem to run out of?

As many Eagles as Voyager had Shuttlecraft I guess.

Post-Breakaway Eagle Damage Tally, Season One
Exploded: 1 in "Black Sun," 1 in "The Last Sunset," 1 in "Voyager's Return," 3 in "The Infernal Machine"
Crushed: 1 in "Space Brain"
Crashed (presumably repairable and/or used for parts): 1 in "Ring Around the Moon," 3 (or was it 4?) in "Alpha Child," 1 in The Last Sunset"
Crashed to smithereens: 1 in "Space Brain"
Damaged-in-flight (again, presumably repairable and/or used for parts): 1 in "Collision Course"
Total destroyed: 8
Total crashed but usable: 6 or 7
So, by the end of Season One, assuming no new Eagles were constructed in the Vehicle Assembly Section, but all damaged ones were repaired, there should be 20 servicable Eagles left on Alpha. (I'm assuming that the number mentioned in this ep--28 servicable Eagles--is correct... I'm going strictly from memory for all of these stats!)

Wow, that large type attribute really makes the type huge, doesn't it?

CR< add to that, one Eagle possibly unusuable. The Eagle that Cellini undocks the Nose Cone from in Dragons Domain. We never know if that eagle is recovered.

Was the Eagle destroyed in "A Matter of Life and Death" supposed to be an actual Eagle brought back somehow (along with the crew) or was it merely an illusion such as the destruction in War Games?

I did like how S99 showed Eagles being serviced in the hangar bays (with scaffolding around the Eagles). Those scenes gave the show a level of realism not seen in earlier shows (as well as other 70s shows). One never did see Trek's Galileo or Battlestar's shuttle in similar scenes.

yeah, but still, no one ever needs to go to the bathroom....

In UFO (I think it was Survival), we actually see someone exiting a bathroom!

As soon as I logged off, I realized I'd forgotten about Cellini's Eagle which had been discarded... I assume (based on Helena's narration about leaving the graveyard so quickly) that the Eagle was left behind.
I also forgot to mention the Eagle that Luke Ferro and Anna Davis commandeered to Arkadia. Duh!
So, that knocks my tally down to 18 serviceable Eagles by the end of S1. (Of course, I assume that they would build a few replacements, but I wonder what the rate of replacements would have been.)

By the way, Re: bathrooms, Eva Zoref exits one in her quarters in "Force of Life." And just what was Alan doing in that room just off the embarkation area in "Dragon's Domain" before Tony clobbers him? Might that have been a bathroom?

There are TIC-TACs in Dr. Russel's medical kit!!! You can see them when Paul is scuffling with her in the tent shortly after the fight between him and Alan (or their stunt double, rather.)

It would have made a lot of sense to abandon the Eagle in the beginning and transfer to the other one, but then we'd have no story, right?

So why did the Arians provide those mushroom things that got Paul high? What was the purpose in that.

When Paul and Alan have their fight, Sandra is knocked off the cot. We don't see her again until Koenig goes to get her? Was she lying there whimpering the whole time?

This is one episode I hadn't seen either on italian or maltese tv! It's fun to watch..

Yeah, it's a good one.

Why is Koenigs desk so far forward in this episode? If he closed his office doors, they would close *behind* the desk. Makes no sense.

What flies off the Eagle at 31:31 (just before impact)?

Alan's copilot was really cringey (I think that's the current phrase) when he throws up his hands at 2:00.

I think what Victor was getting at was rapid Erosion, not CORRosion, of the Eagle components. Corrosion is a chemical reaction that happens over time.



Plot-wise, I really don't see the value added in the "Paul eats magic mushrooms" subplot. The main idea of 'lost Eagle and crew' was going along just fine without Morrow's crazed-messiah routine. I'm glad Morrow got to chew the scenery, but the entire idea detracted from the episode, I thought.

Besides, if the aliens' point was to provide everything the Alphans needed to stay on the moon (and thus away from Ariel), why would they supply them with dangerous hallucinogens that cause irrational violence?

Good episode, though. Tons of SFX, lots of Eagle action, innovative plot idea, secondary characters got to expand their roles, plenty of action.

Paul and Sandra had some excellent scenes in this one.

I would hope that the aliens didn't intend for the Moon to develop hallucinogenic mushrooms-- they were an unfortunate, unseen development in the Moon becoming livable.

Could be.

Possibly. But since the aliens (Arielians?) correctly foresaw and provided every other physiological requirement for the moon to become a habitable planet for humans, this 'oversight' seems less than plausible.

One little mistake.