So...where's the spectre? Where's the seance, for that matter? All you've got is some nutty crewman shouting about green planets. And how is it you have a "weather belt" in space, where there's no atmosphere? And if the Alphans can pack enough ammo in one Eagle to blow up Psychon (as seen in the Metamorph), why can't they blow up this planet instead of trying to move the Moon? And what the heck is a surface exploration team, anyway? The lunar surface was mapped ages ago, what's the point of an exploration team? It's craters n' mountains, so what's to explore?

...and I'm not done yet...Why is it Koenig waits until the last minute to set the detonator -- they have time to evacuate the entire base and move all the equipment, then he waits until the last five minutes to set the explosives? And how come Sanderson wasn't under guard? Why did the security chief have to find out from a boarding roster that the main nut-case skipped the ship?
(and despite all these nits, I still kinda like this episode).

Heeeeeeeeee'ssssss Lyiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing!!!

I remember this epiosde when it first came out.
I'll say this much about it. The Seance Spectre
was a well-written and well acted episode. Kudos
to actor Ken Hutchinson for playing Sanderson as
a tragic character. Like some fans, I don't think
that Greg Sanderson was a villain. Or a heavy. he
was a tragic character. A good man who was sadly
driven to insanity because of the life he and the
Alphans led. Think about it. Wouldn't you go nuts
if you were out exploring barren rocks and staying
out on the lunar surface for long periods of time?
I would. From a psychological point of view, the
pressures of life on Moonbase Alpha, after the moon was blasted out of orbit began to mount in
Sanderson. All he wanted was to do what was right for all Alphans. Unfortunately, the stress just
got to him, and he suffered a nervous breakdown.
When you lose your sense of reality, you do crazy
things. Regretfully, that's what happened to Greg
Sanderson. And, unfortunately, it led to his tragic death. Sometimes that sort of thing happens
to the best people. Psychological problems often
bring out the worst in people. It's too bad that
Sanderson was killed off. He would have made an
interesting character in future episodes. Food for
thought, is it not?

When this episode first aired in 1977 I thought
it was going to be the concluding episode of
the series. Eagle One is badly wrecked, The
moonbase is evacuated, Koenig gets kocked
halfway across Command center by a
stungun shot and it appears there's a fourth
nuclear waste disposal area to be detonated
here. I remember it as being very
suspenseful. (Of course, show it to me again
today and I'll probably cringe.)

At the end of the episode, the Moon is blasted off course by an explosion similar to what started the series off. But everyone seemed not to be too bothered after the event when it happened in this episode. They seemed to take it too lightly, as if detonating the atomic waste was a regular event. Besides, in "Collision Course" episode in the first series, didn't they say that it couldn't be done?

Yep. Just another case of how there seems to have been a deliberate attempt in year 2 to ignore the events of year 1.

When Koenig arrives at Command Centre at the start of the episode, and the doors have ben closed by Sanderson and his gang, why does he thump the door - "Let me in" - pace about a bit then blast the door with a gun? Surely, as Commander, he could have ordered computer to let him in. It's not just this episode where something like this happens. As has been said previously, continuity seemed to go out the window in a lot of respects in series two.

Its interesting that this episode begins 3 days after the start of "Dorzak." Too bad the aliens didn't provide them with some help in avoiding the looming threat.

too bad the aliens didn't take them all on that great big ship and drop them off at a habitable planet. Too often in Season 2, the opportunity to go home was ignored. These aliens have the ability to travel through deep space - don't you think some of them might have offered the Alphans a ride? (Mark of Archanon, for example)

I also got the feeling there was this big, interstellar "nation," with regular trade routes, recognition codes, etc. in Series 2 (not quite a Star Trek Federation, but something big and far-reaching), and that the Alphans pretty much stayed on Alpha by choice by the end of the series.
As for this episode, or more specifically Sanderson, I agree that killing him off wasn't the best writing solution...perhaps the writers knew the end of Space: 1999 was looming near and didn't care about keeping a few loose ends open for future potential?

OOPS! Forgot something...
Wouldn't "The Seance Spectre" work as an alternate title to the Series 1 episode "The Troubled Spirit?" When I saw this ep as a kid, I initially thought it was going to be a sequel of sorts to "T.T.S."
Of course, as a kid, I always held out hope I'd see the missing episode that explained what happened to Bergman, Morrow, etc. (You know, the one that was never made.)
I've said elsewhere on one of these boards (the "Is S:99 a Sequel to UFO?" board, I believe)that Series 2 felt like it was set in a separate universe (as tim gueguen points out, too). I now view the two seasons as separate series altogether...doing so increases my enjoyment of both.

See my post on 11/30/01 on the "Season one versus season two" board for my take on the "seperate universe" theory.

When the episode was written they had supposedly had no idea the series wouldn't be back for year 3. Apparently the decision not to proceed with year 3 came pretty late in the day.

Towards the end of the episode, when all of the Eagles are out in space, Tony, in one of them, contacts Alan Carter, who presumably is in another Eagle. Thing is, when we hear Carter's reply, his voice isn't altered to sound as if it's coming from a radio speaker - he sounds as if he's standing out of sight behind the camera. Also, his face isn't on the monitor in front of Verdeschi, just the command center logo.

...I've just remembered something else about this episode. When the severely damaged Eagle is brought back to Alpha, it is established that the travel time will exceed the oxygen supply, so in an attempt to conserve air Maya turns into a plant. When the Eagle actually gets to Alpha, it lands at a ninety degree angle to the boarding tubes, then they lower the whole landing pad into the underground Eagle bays! Surely if time was of the essence, the medical crew should have boarded "up top" as they usually did, instead of wasting time as they did!

Good point, MD, but then they couldn't have shown off some fairly neat sfx/model shots!

Given that the landing gear had been sheared off the Eagle presumably it was sitting too low to be accessed via the boarding tube in the normal fashion.

Just watched this one, having picked up the last year 2 set today, and its interesting that Helena mentions to Sanderson that he was one of the first people assigned to Alpha. Talk about a long stretch! After all the characters in "Death's Other Dominion" knew about Moonbase Alpha, and their space mission was in 1986, so at the very least it must have been in the construction stages that long ago. Even if we assume Alpha became operational in '91 or '92 thats still an awfully long time to be in the same job, altho' perhaps Sanderson had another role before becoming involved in the surface exploration teams.

This episode features another example of that reoccuring nit, the open spacesuit helmet, with Sanderson's visor flopping open during his fight with Koenig.

Its interesting that the waste pits are said to be 10,000 feet deep. That seems rather unlikely to me, as that would take a lot of effort to drill for little obvious benefit.

I've always assumed the "Seance" in the title refered to that circle Sanderson and his followers formed when making one of those "astro-predictions". A sort of scifi seance?

The Seance Spectre is a mixed bag; some great parts and some awful parts. It has a bigger feel than some of the preceding eps, such as Catacombs of the Moon and The Lambda Factor, which is a pleasant change. The central character in this story is totally unpleasant. As Kenneth Muir noted, Sanderson seems to be a Charles Manson type. His followers are totally taken by him, but people outside his circle find him repugnant. There seems to be a dash of Bruce Dern's character in Silent Running thrown in too (Sanderson yearns to get away from Alpha to the green planet). In this respect, This ep reminds me of Trek's "Way to Eden". The hippie element in Trek is replaced by 70's environmentalism here. Sanderson also seems to want to get away from the technology of Alpha. They turn off the computers when they have their seance.

Sanderson is so irrational, that I find Koenig's angry attitude towards him to be totally justified. If anything, Koenig should have been harsher, and locked him up in detention. Helena seems to sympathise with Sanderson. She states the thoughts of many Alphans when she mentions that a normal life of marriage, children, etc has been put off on Alpha. Indeed, she understands that Sanderson feels like life is "slipping away". With that, at least some sympathy is understandable for Sanderson's actions. Helena's assessment of their behavoir as being auto-hypnosis seems a credible description for of them in that "seance".

Why, on automatic pilot, do the Eagle contols have to move as if they're being manually manipulated? The dramatic tension of that scene is also broken when shots are shown of a very visible black wire yanking the Eagle model up. Appparently, the remote control isn't that remote.

Some nits about the damaged Eagle landing on the pad. When it's lowered initially, it's on a cross shaped pad. Then it's shown on a small square pad below. This all appears to happen within a space of 75 feet or so (from the way it's edited). Fortunately, the rescue team is shown exiting from an elevator (left over from Space Warp), since a docking tube wouldn't be able to dock with it. I've always loved the gag where Koenig plays a joke on Helena and pretends he doesn't recognise her (no, not brain damage!)

Other nits:
When Sanderson, Eva and the other enter the computer room, the shadow of the camera and a moppy-haired crewman are seen following them. Their method of altering the Eagle's computer data just doesn't seem plausible (wrecking some circuit boards, which look more circa 1960 than 1999). Now, perhaps if one of them hacked into the Eagle computer.

Why, on Earth (or the Moon) do the Alphans need to take Sandra's desk from Command Center with them when they evacuate. Let's see, we only have so much room on the Eagles, what will we take?...Sandra's desk, of course!

Fighting with Sanderson, Maya changes into one of the most pathetic creatures in the show; that ridiculous lizard head stuck on top of a gorilla suit. It's in the same league as the costume of the title creature in the 50's schlock "Robot Monster" (with a diving helmet stuck on top of a gorilla suit).

The model work for the nuclear dumps is superb, especially the perpective shot with a dump in the foreground and an Eagle landing behind a hill. Then we get to Sanderson's visor flipping open. It could have easily been edited out, but was left in. Sloppy editing, there! On the other hand, I like how Koenig was shown leaping about (presumably with the help of a spring board) in which at least an effort was made to show the effects of lower gravity. Sanderson's death was tragic, but at least Eva and the others won't be bullied by him anymore.

The end of the ep is fun. Koenig really seems to get a kick out of torturing the Alphans with boring nature scenes. Back in Command Center, Tony and Alan are looking at what looks like a prophetic vision of internet porn (though, PG rated). The monitor has magically upgraded from black and white to color. Genre favorite, Caroline Munro is shown in a "nature" outfit. Maya is not amused!

Main Mission (in AT,AP) was much more believable in it's post-evacuation state than was Command Centre in this episode. Main Mission really did look as if it was hastily stripped of essentials. Here, just a couple of desks are removed.

One thing I like about this episode is that the Alphans are shown taking plant samples and video recordings of the planet. Although here, it was done for plot reasons, the Alphans should have done the same on every planet they visited.

Oops, I meant to post the previous message on "A Matter of Balance" .

The reason Command Centre didn't look as evacuated is because the evacuation here is rushed, while in AT AP it is done over a few days or weeks of planned exodus.

Also, the Alphans were evacuating for safety reasons while the moon underwent its jarring course change. If successful, they would land, conduct repairs and reoccupy the base. If unsuccessful, they'd engage in a desperate deep space voyage in the fleet of Eagles, abandoning Alpha as the moon carried it into the planet's hostile environment and possible breakup of the moon.

There was no point in stripping Command Center down if they hoped to reuse it, and if they simply didn't have time other than load people and survival gear into the Eagles.

Main Mission in War Games was evacuated in a manner similar to Command Center in this episode. Desks were removed but the computer panels were left in place on the walls.

With the extremely cramped nature of the second series' sets, I would expect more Alphans to suffer from some sort of claustrophobia. I guess, Sanderson was the first to show signs.

Sanderson's helmet flips open during his fight with Koenig on the Moon surface.

I thought it strange that there was no comment about Sanderson's death at the very end.

Man, these security people on Alpha are worse than the original red shirts....

Forgot to mention:

The "planet" looked like it was in the center of a galaxy. Bad special effects.

Funny, but Koenig's decision not to tell everyone about the possible new planet probably caused this whole problem to begin with. If he had been open, maybe Sanderson wouldn't have gone off the deep end.

Sanderson and Co. are surface exploration team. What are the purpose of these teams? Hasn't the Moon been pretty much explored by now. Why leave these poor people out there for weeks at a time?

Sanderson and Co., after escaping from Medical, wander the base for some time, even gain entry into the computer room, which is vacant! Shouldn't an area that sensative be guarded ALL the time? The security chief of Alpha should be fired!

How come they don't lock Sanderson up? The guy is trouble, period. I know Helena said he was sick, but still he should have at least been locked in his quarters, with the guards instructed to let NO ONE near him!

Cast note: The actress who played Eva, Carolyn Seymour, later went to America and appeared on Star Trek: TNG, Voyager, and Quantum Leap.

I wonder if Maya was court-martialed for not firing on Sanderson. Sanderson died anyway - the laser locked on "kill" would have saved Koenig the bother of hand-to-hand combat over the yawning maw of the waste silo.

Barb F – “And what the heck is a surface exploration team, anyway? The lunar surface was mapped ages ago, what's the point of an exploration team? It's craters n' mountains, so what's to explore?”
Tim - "Sanderson and Co. are surface exploration team. What are the purpose of these teams? Hasn't the Moon been pretty much explored by now. Why leave these poor people out there for weeks at a time?"

That's like saying why would we explore the Earth anymore-- hasn't it been completely explored by now? The Moon might be one-sixth the size of Earth, but even in the 1999 universe there's no reason to believe that scientists knew every single square inch of it. Sure, you can know the surface features photographically, but what's the surface composed of? What useful resources are there for Alpha? Alpha will always need raw materials, because they can't exactly ship new metal or glass to the base from Earth, anymore-- everything they need is in or on the Moon. Even now, we're still examining the Moon because we don't know everything about it.

Curious - “Why, on Earth (or the Moon) do the Alphans need to take Sandra's desk from Command Center with them when they evacuate. Let's see, we only have so much room on the Eagles, what will we take?...Sandra's desk, of course!”

Even worse, there was barely any indication on the floor that indicated the desks were plugged into anything. How do the controls send and receive data if there's no electronic plug or notch to hook into?

Koenig created the problem in the first place-- there was absolutely no reason to lock-up Command Center. It seemed alot like martial law to me.

And it wouldn't make Alphans 'bored' or trees and green places-- it would torture them to the depths of despair and depression looking at something they've lost and might never gain again. Talk about sadistic!

That mass of galaxy-like gas sure didn't look like a planet to me! Sanderson seems to have failed basic astronomy if he thinks that's habitable!

Koenig created the problem in the first place-- there was absolutely no reason to lock-up Command Center. It seemed alot like martial law to me.

I pretty much said the same thing in a post above.

Yea, sorry, I should have said I agree with you about that point. My only added comment about that was it felt like 'martial law' to me and felt completely out of character for Koenig. After all, in the old days, Main Mission looked like he and thirty other Alphans learned facts at the same time.

Yeah, Alpha wasn't a military base. Another Frieburger blunder.

Short Show Syndrome - Sanderson should have been on the Eagle with Koenig and Maya so he knew EXACTLY what was true and what the computer was reading.
Maya supposedly turned into a plant to keep Koenig alive for the 3-hour trip back to Alpha, but it's been established she can change her form for only 1 hour.
I thought this was one of the best climaxes of the series. Good music and action that went on and on.
Sanderson should have been locked up, and WAS about to, Tim, but Helena overruled Koenig.

Maya supposedly turned into a plant to keep Koenig alive for the 3-hour trip back to Alpha, but it's been established she can change her form for only 1 hour.

Well, maybe she briefly changed back to herself at regular intervals so she could sustain him for the full 3 hours.

That is the most logical answer.

Maya changes back, rests for a few moments, and then turns into the plant again.

so we think.

Well, what answer can you come up with?

When you think about it, Maya's shape shifting abilities go far beyond mere shape shifting. Her entire metabolism and biochemistry changes as well. She doesn't only have the appearance of a plant, she can also photosynthesize, and in the episode where she takes the shape of a chlorine breathing creature, she can breathe a gas that would normally kill her, and is even poisonned by the oxygen in normal air.

Works for me.