This episode has a great line, one that ended up in a book called PRIMETIME PROVERBS. I think that it went, "It is better to die as a man, than to live as a fool, in someone else's dream."

Those grotesque blobs were hypocrites. They claimed that the Alphans would be better off dying in a delightful dream. If that's how they felt, then why did THEY fight so hard to survive?

There's a line that goes something like.. 'Ben DID say that he knew Sandstrom was trying to kill you..." Apparently there's an off-camera conversation between Russell and Vincent that explains how she knew about Louisa's control over Ben. However, if Helena realizes that Louisa had some kind of mind control over Ben, then why is she so reluctant to believe Koenig?

I believe the quote is "It's better to live as your own man than as a fool in someone else's dream". Pretty deep, huh?

Yeah, I have Primetime Proverbs, also. It has a lot of quotes from Trek and also a few from 1999, in addition to the one already mentioned.

Mind telling me where the nuclear waste domes come from???
In Breakaway it is established that Disposal Area 1 was the first dumping ground, then they moved on to Area 2. Both areas got blown to pieces in 'Breakaway', so where did these dome appear from.

I don't think this episode is as bad as many people think. Granted, the monsters were extremely tacky but the storyline itself wasn't a bad one. Here's a good point, Bartlett, Erhlich and Carter are picked to go on the pilot ship back to Earth. If you check in the 'dream' sequence all three are sitting up front in the Eagle cockpit. I bet someone had a sore backside when they recovered. That meant they were sitting on the Eagle's throttle controls and maybe some other bits. Which also beggars the question, how did Alan land the Pilot ship (Eagle) if someone parked his ass on the engine controls?

The ending is hilarious. The aliens, knowing they're beaten, give a little shrug with their shoulders. I didn't even know these spaghetti globs had shoulders.

At the end there's not much else they can do but make a smartass comment to Koenig. They've literally used up all their remaining energy. Now if they had been smart aliens and simply tried to control Koenig instead of killing him they might actually have won. Past experience has shown that any plan that involves trying to harm Koenig is doomed to failure.

In response to the last message by Tim G., It was all of the alphans knocked out and all the electrical equipment being turned off that turned the tide against the Aliens!!

I remember seeing Carter, in his dream
experience back on Earth, performing a task
as mundane as using a power
hedgetrimmer...I guess no one's maintained
his property after so many months away on
the rouge moon!

Last night I realised an interesting little bit about this episode is that the aliens don't try and create an image of someone Maya knew from Psychon. It would be a bit too much for an Earth rescue mission to conveniently encounter a Psychon refugee along the way. On the other hand one wonders exactly how the aliens extracted images from the Alphans' minds. They're able to create very complete illusions, implying a high level of telepathic knowledge, yet its only when they drive the Alpha records officer insane that Maya's metamorphic abilities become obvious to them.

They must certainly be of considerable mental ability to be able to create illusions of human forms with tangible mass and shape. Perhaps a good analogy is the doctor from Star Trek Voyager. This is a holographic projection that the all powerful Voyager computer gives substance to, as well as intelligence and personality. The creatures in BOW are essentially doing the same, though without the ever awe-inspiring computer technology in Voyager. They would have to be able to create an illusion of personality as well as substance, so as to fool the Alphan's when they made physical contact. Therefore, the blueprint for this personality - as well as physical form of course - must have been firmly implanted in each of the Alphans it was extracted from. This would all have to be processed and projected into a physical "human illusion".

This image would then have to be projected in front of their true form as the "illusions" moved much faster than the creatures themselves. Or was this just in the eyes of the Alphans?? If so, they would have to blanket their true identities, whilst at the same time maintaning the physical projection of the Alphan relatives and friends. On the whole the physics are ludicrous, but in keeping with other episodes of S2 - very highly watchable (IMHO of course).

I have also read some highly thought provoking critiques of 'Destination Moonbase Alpha' of late. Personally, I think there are hefty parallels to be drawn with with John Carpenter's - 'They Live'. Is a dream better than objective reality???

Another thought just popped to mind. Given the aliens' offer to let the Alphans live an entire lifetime in the instant before the waste domes went up can we really be sure that Koenig managed to beat them? Perhaps they simply gave him a rather less pleasant illusion than they claimed. :-)

Yes, I wondered something similar. The aliens were starving at this point (allegedly) and they barely had enough power to keep Alan & Bartlett under their control. So, to give other Alphan's their dream of being back on Earth would have to involve huge amounts of nuclear energy - energy that they apparently didn't have!!

Its also true as you say that they could have 'fooled' Koenig into believing they were beaten, by instilling an illusion that they were totally drained of power and thus defeated. But was Koenig not impervious to their telepathic images due to him being on the Elendorf machine?? Was it not Koenig who prevented Alan from inserting the nuclear trigger?? I find it difficult to imagine that they would create an illusion that would prevent them from getting what they ultimately wanted, just so they could beat a hasty retreat. One thing about this story though, is that it certainly stirs up a few confusing paradoxes...

Several nits in this episode not brought up yet:
1. Why are the only alternatives in the Eagle crash a rocket malfunction or pilot error? Aren't there a myriad of other possible causes? What about alien attack? Navigation failure? Koenig stated flatly that it was a rocket malfunction even though he couldn't remember anything.
2. One of the "people from Earth," Professor Hunter, stated that they could go anywhere in the universe; however, later on, Dr. Shaw told Tony they were getting out of range of Earth. Maybe they were telling different stories to different people, but wouldn't they get suspicious if they compared notes?
3. If the aliens have to be present to project an illusion, why did Dr. Russell and Maya see the pilot ship on the screen in Medical Centre when the aliens were not there? If they could do that, then they could control what they saw when they looked at the camera pictures as well and there would be no need to destroy them.
4. In Part 1, Koenig says it's strange that all the people on the Super Swift are people they know. Tony says, not really, they were volunteers. In Part 2, Maya agrees with Koenig and forgets that logical explanation.
5. When Maya was being chased by the aliens and changed back into humanoid form, the aliens just walked right by her. But who else do they think could have impersonated one of them but a metamorph?
6. When Koenig was captured trying to get an Eagle, why didn't Shaw read Dr. Russell's mind and see that she let Koenig go?
7. Why would the "white noise" make the aliens disappear?
8. One of the Command Centre people passed out from the gas standing up?

There's lots of things to nit on this episode, from the monsters that look like they were created by 3rd graders to the lamer ending. Still it was nice to see some new faces on Alpha, even if they were only illusions, and the lip-lock between Koenig n' Russell was pretty sexy.

At the start, when Koenig's Eagle crashes, he puts on his helmet and passes out, strapped into his seat. When the rescue crew reach him he's wearing his backpack and chest unit which he wasn't wearing when he passed out!

I also saw that Koenig was wearing the "monkey-cam" helmet, the one with the camera on the top that was used in the AB Chrysalis. Why would he have that on a regular mission? And why couldn't some set person take a screwdriver and remove the silly thing from the helmet before that shot? Didn't anybody notice there was a big dorky looking camera on top of it?

Its unlikely, but perhaps a scene involving the camera helmet was filmed, but cut from the final version of the episode for time reasons.

The point about wearing the spacesuit without chest pack or tanks seems to bring up the question.

Why do we so often see pilots wearing the spacesuits without this stuff? It's pretty useless without it.

Presumably there's an onboard oxygen supply the pilots plug into, just as on current military combat aircraft.

Possibly there's an onboard oxygen supply, but that wouldn't do you much good in an Eagle crash if the oxygen unit was damaged.

I love the Koenig/Helena kiss scene in this episode. That for me was the highlight of the episode. Very sweet and touching.

Regarding the camera helmet: why is the camera so big? Commlocks obviously have a built-in miniature camera, so wouldn't the spacesuit helmets have the same thing? I noticed in Series 1's Ring Around the Moon, the top of Koenig's helmet has five small circles in the black horizontal stripe. I realize these were probably just vents in the helmet prop, but it's neat to imagine them as being a camera, spotlights, and a sensor or two.

Fans aren't the only ones laughing at the design of the aliens. I've seen a photo of the Command Center crew reacting in horror to the aliens' true form...all except for the woman in the background, near the big screen/moonbase monitors, who appears to be laughing.

I've been trying to transcribe the end credits 'song' on Destination Moonbase Alpha, and this is what I think it is. Its hard to make out and I go off at the end, but its hard to make out!

Even you,
You have never found a miracle
With your magic you can be a dream
Come with me
Reality

Shall we try
In the silence of our tiny world
To make love with all eternity
Come with me
Or else be
More than free

Infinities have law
Portions and more light our bum is unstarting through light shining more and more.

Given that "Oliver Onions" was apparently some Italian pop singer thats not much of a surprise!

Whats the name of that song though?

I'm not sure of the title, but I think the subtitle is "something I made up while I was stoned out of my little Italian mind."

When Carter, Ehrlich and Bartlett (thinking they're on a different ship) fly an Eagle to the waste dumps, WE know it's an illusion created by the aliens. The shots of the pilot ship are apparently for the benefit of the Alpha personnel. So why do we see an establishing shot of the pilot ship parked outside the domes when it should be an Eagle? Also, before this, a shot of the pilot ship landing outside the domes? It ought to be an Eagle! (Perhaps because they'd spent money on making the models and they were sure going to use them?)

When the Aliens are controlling Bartlett's mind, they give him the illusion that he's at home, adjusting the volume on his music centre while listening to a classical piece (Beethoven's Fifth?). In actuality he's adjusting the radioactive shielding, but when we see what he's really doing, with an Alien in the background, he's in the foreground of the picture, but while he's smiling, it's a very sad smile, as if he's about to burst into tears. This bothers me, because the Aliens are supposed to be making the Alphans happy in their last moments of life, but the look on Bartlett's face doesn't, to me, match that. Could it be that perhaps the Aliens' mind control - over Bartlett anyway - isn't total, and he realises that something's wrong with his own personal paradise? Koenig seems to make him see the truth pretty quickly later on when he grabs him and makes Bartlett see that he's carrying atomic fuel.

Hmm, never struck me as being a particularly sad smile.

Nor me, contemplative maybe, or just plain relaxation.
If his illusion is being fully realised he maybe is just taking time to 'chill out'.

Perhaps it's purely perceptual, but whenever I watch this, either as "Destination Moonbase Alpha" or "Bringers of Wonder", as I said, it just seems to me that there's a sadness in his eyes. It's as if he's putting on a brave face. I suppose that the best analogy I can think of is when you have a loved one whose condition is terminal, and they're about to pass on. Before they do, you try to stay in fairly good cheer, but it's tearing you up inside, and when they do indeed pass on, although you've expected it, it still hurts. Sorry if it's a bad comparison, but as I say, that's how the look on Bartlett's face - in his eyes - looks to me.

Some dodgy SFX of Koenig's Eagle at the start - the ones seen on the Command Centre Big Screen. Why, they almost look as if someone was puppeteering the Eagle on strings, the way it wobbles about in long shot.

At the start, when the rescue crew board Koenig's crashed Eagle (when his chest pack and backpack have miraculously materialised on his unconscious body), why do they then use fire extinguishers to put out the flames? Surely the vaccuum of space would have sucked the flames - and anything else that wasn't secured - out.

I must admit that I thought that strange. In a large structure, like a huge ship or a base, oxygen might continue to burn while there is a breach because of sheer volume, but the Eagle isn't that big a craft, and Koenig didn't have the cockpit pressure doors shut (careless that)

So one of the aliens is supposedly Sandra's fiancee? Because of the accident that sent the Alphans on their unscheduked journey, she never saw him again. But it wsn't very long before she was having affairs with at least three other people on Alpha - Morrow in a few episodes, Carter in "Full Circle", and the Eagle pilot who is the first to get pulled into the black hole in "Black Sun"! Some loyalty to her fiancee!

Mike Ryan was the eagle pilot. This just goes to show (once again) how each season was essentially a seperate series. (And I don't mean that in a mean way.)
By the way, I think it was Carter who was hitting on Sandra in "Full Circle," not the other way around, and Paul seems to bristle a bit at the behavior. Carter's obsessiveness with rescuing Sandra in that ep probably has as much to do with his feeling responsible for her predicament as with his feelings of affection/friendship toward her.

I stand corrected regarding Carter and Sahn. I was trusting to my memory, which was a bit vague(that's why I didn't name the Eagle pilot in "Black Sun").

He, like many others, could just be called "expendable extra."

The recaps on part 2 use several different takes for certain scenes than those that were actually seen in part 1.

The alien's telepathic powers would also, apparently, prevent the Alphans from considering this; the Superswift was launched with people they know, but not from the original Main Mission staff, but the present-day Command Center personnel. Not a word is spoken about how there were no relatives or friends of Victor, Paul, or Kano aboard the Superswift, despite the fact that they were the senior staff at the time of Breakaway, and that the Superswift crew would have had no way of knowing who controlled Alpha at this time.

Again tho', thats a case of where no attention was payed to year one continuity, and one suspects deliberately. But the idea of the aliens preventing such questions being asked definitely fits in with the story.

The plot of Bringers of Wonder was shamelessly ripped off by the second season ep of Buck Rogers "Mark of the Saurian"...except Bringers of Wonder was better.

Well one thing can be said for Dr. Ben Vincent: He’s no Bob Matthias. After watching Dr. Bob get beat up by just about every guest villain or temporary delusional during the first season on Moon Base Alpha, in comes big bad Ben and he ain’t taking that ••••. He stops the mind controlled alphan from killing Koening and proceeds to beat him down to boot even despite the guy’s vigorous fighting back. Had this been Matthias he would have been out cold on his back after having been back slapped once. Ed Spencer may have seemed more doctorly (an easy thing, especially when being compared to Helena), Anton Phillips may have gotten more screen time in the assistant to Russell position, but Ben Vincent manages to salvage Medical Centre from the reputation of being a bunch of lightweight punching dummies.

Yes, they seem to have forgotten about all of the time warps that the moon has gone through. All of those people woould be dead.

I noticed the styrofoam moon rocks. Plus when Koenig falls out of the buggy the first time, a piece of his chest pack falls off - that can't be good. And when he is wrestling with Alan, part of his right sleeve is rolled up.

I almost forgot - when the guy in the records lab is destroying everything, he picks up what looks to be a microscope. Looking at it, you can clearly see it is inflatable.

One more thing - how did Maya learn so much about the aliens and their plan by just walking in front of them disguised as one of them?

Harvey, she's Just That Good^OMT.

Scott, that is part of the problem with Season 2 - they use her too much like a deus ex machina.

But your comment was funny.

They're telepathic. She picked it up just by being near them because they were communicating telepathically. The "voices" that *we* heard were just for out benefit, as necessary, to establish the plot.

This two-parter reminded me of a story I read many years ago, Mars Is Heaven, by Ray Bradbury (which was later incorporated into his Martian Chronicles, written in the late 1940's and early 50's). In this story, a rocket from Earth lands on Mars, and they find a small American town there. Amazingly enough, it is the hometown of the captain of the rocket, and the population is made up of deceased family and friends of the captain and his crew. The captain is overjoyed to see his parents and older brother (who were killed in a train crash when the captain was nineteen). There is a sense of joy in the air. The captain and crew wonder if Mars is in fact, some kind of Heaven.

That night, the captain starts to think and wonders if there are Martians, who have the powers of hypnosis and telepathy. He speculates that they looked into his mind, and the minds of his crew, picked out the memories of their loved ones, and set this whole thing up to lure them into a trap to kill them. The captain realizes that a man does not ask too many questions when his mother is brought back to life, he is far too happy.

Turns out the captain is right. However, unlike the crew of Moon Base Alpha, by the time he realizes the truth, it is too late!

I wonder if that story inspired this episode?

Koenig and Co. have obviously forgotten "Journey To Where" in which they found out that more than a century had passed on Earth since they left. All their friends and relatives would be long dead.

There was an attempt in the second part to address this discrepency, but it was pretty weak.

All the good nits are taken (two log entries spanning over 600 days, why is fire burning inside an Eagle when the doors are open, allowing oxygen to escape, etc.
However, I noted that the actress with the immense boobs that's looking for Koenig and taunting Helena seems to have had her lines dubbed in later. There's just a flatness in the sound quality when she speaks, and slightly clearer when Bain speaks her lines.
I really, really hate silly I'm-unconscious-but-speaking-full-and-proper-sentences acting. When Koenig is strapped down, he's supposed to be unconscious, but he's rambling about worrying about Alpha.
And can anyone else play a more raging, panicking, psychotic lunatic than Martin Landau? He beats Jonathan Harris (Doctor Smith of Lost In space) for absolute terror by miles! God knows why these people would allow such an unstable freak-out king to remain in command for so long!

Once again, Helena's medical technique (and general skill as a doctor) for waking up people consists of calling them by name, over and over ("John? John? John, can you hear me? John? John?"). She did this during another episode where Koenig was out of it. Doesn't she have some kind of stimulant to wake him up? It's irrelevant if such a thing is Star Trek-related because (A) they were copying things from Trek, anyway, and (B) her sedative needle isn't a needle, but a futuristic flashlight that doesn't touch the flesh of the patient.
I actually liked two things about part 2 the most; Maya tries over and over (five times) to change back from the blobby alien form to her own Psychon shape and can't do it. I thought that was pretty cool, trapping her in that shape.
The other is that Koenig is finally a hero in an episode, rather than Tony or Maya or an Eagle blowing something up. A nice change back to the first season when Koenig was useful.
And less nut-so.

Another couple of boo-boos;
Sandra tells everyone that the ship is 90,210,000 miles away, and Maya states that even at light speed it would take nearly an hour for the ship to arrive at the Moon.
Uhhh...no.
The speed of light is 186,282 miles per second. In one minute that's 11,160,000 miles (if you round it off to 186,000), so it would take, in fact, just 8.083 minutes for the ship to arrive on Alpha...not 'nearly an hour'.
Second nit;
Sandra states a range of 90,210,000 miles away, then she says "Range is 14,000,000 miles!", then she says 32,000,000 miles! Huh? Is that ship flying in circles and bouncing off space warps?
Third nit;
Koening says that they've been in space 'for months.'
Again, uhhh...no.
Helena's two logs state 1,912 days and 2,515 days. They add up to 5.2 years and 6.8 years, respectively.
That's alot more than just 'months'!

Koening says that they've been in space 'for months.'
Again, uhhh...no.

At the start of Dragon's Domain, Helena says that 877 days have passed since the Moon was blown out of Earth's orbit. That means S1 took place over a span of almost three years.

However, when Freiberger took over, he tossed this out, along with the rest of S1.