ALL SCI-FI

[Maurice]

As of this post SHOUT! is streaming all episodes of Space:1999 on YouTube in a continuous loop. Here:
Space: 1999 - Live Action Streaming now❗️
_________________
* * *
"The absence of limitations is the enemy of art."
― Orson Welles

[mach7]

I just went to the link posted and it says its unavailable.
Sad.

[Maurice]

[mach7]

Oh dear, I tuned in just as season 2's Tabor the trader starts!

Thanks for the link!

[Maurice]

I rewatched S1's "War Games", which is one of my fave episodes, but even it illustrates some of the problems I've always had with the show and what I previously called out as the incurious nature of the Alphans. For instance, the show opens with them spotting three Mark IX Hawks heading towards them, and immediately identifying them as warships. Well, fine, but they're clearly EARTH warships and cousins to the Eagles, yet no one asks "What are Earth ships doing out here?" The aliens use the Alphans' own fears against them, and since the "bomber" is the battleship model seen in "Alpha Child" the image of it must have been lifted from memories of that incident, and yet no one asks "why are Hawks escorting an alien ship?"
_________________
* * *
"The absence of limitations is the enemy of art."
― Orson Welles

[Bud Brewster]

______________________________________________

Maurice, I agree completely with your dislike for that kind of bad writing. One of the worst things a science fiction story can do is to make allegedly intelligent characters act illogically.

The moment a viewer (or reader) of a sci-fi tale suddenly thinks, "Wait a minute . . . why the hell did he do that?" it means the writer has lost their credibility.
_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Pow]

Read years ago a very intriguing proposal online regarding a reboot of Space: 1999. It was lengthy and detailed. I don't know if it's still online somewhere? Did a quick search but did not come up with anything.

What I recall was that they did away with the scientifically atrocious story point of having a nuclear dumping facility explode and erroneously send the moon outward into space, and not into the earth as it would have realistically done.

In this new reimagining, the Alphans discover an ancient alien device on the moon. It turns out to be Psychon (Maya's race) in origin. The Alphans bring the device into one of their security areas to carefully examine. An undercover agent for a foreign government tampers with it and activates it. The moon is then hurled into the orbit of an unknown alien world. Turns out the Psychon device opens up gateways throughout outer space and, in this case, teleports the moon to different alien planets.

The Alphans are able to determine that a series of spatial coordinates are pre-programmed into the instrument, and that it will eventually return them back to earth. They don't know when that will happen precisely. They fear that if they meddle around with the gizmo it may somehow cause a problem with its programming, and that it would result in the moon never returning home.

There was much more detail to it all, but that's what I can recall. I cannot remember how the Psychons or Maya were going to figure into all this. I just know they are not seen in what would have been the pilot, had this been picked up as a television series. I liked the concept better than what the original series had done. Here, we have an alien artifact that possesses technology far beyond humans who haven't gone further than our own solar system. The Alphans have to wonder who built this astonishing machine, and for what purpose, if any, beyond space travel? In the meantime, all the Alphans can do is go along for the ride. They realize that they now have the exciting ability to explore the galaxy and encounter new civilizations that currently was not available to earth. They look forward to being able to discover new races and cultures not known to earth. They also realize the inherent tremendous dangers on such a journey, and still hope that the artifact will one day return them back to earth.

[Bud Brewster]

______________________________________________

I don't wish of be a Debbie Downer, but I can't get too enthusiastic about a premise which has a group of humans trapped on the Moon as it bounces around the galaxy, with no way to control it.

Even though that explanation for the Moon's wanderings is better than the one in the series, it still robs the characters (and the audience) of the excitement which TOS offered.

Instead of a brave crew of space explorers, boldly doing you-know-what and adding to Earth's understanding of the cosmos, we get a frustrated group of people who are stuck on the Moon, with no idea how to control their "mode of transportation". And they have no way to share what they've discovered with the rest of the human race.

Sorry, but I'd pass on that version, too. If I'm going to explore the cosmos, I want to do it in one of these.







_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Maurice]

I don't see the point in expecting Space: 1999 to be more like Star Trek. That's apples to kumquats.

The real problem with the show is it never quite knew what it wanted to be or what to do within its premise. When cut off from Earth and hoping to find a new world to settle, what does the culture of Moonbase Alpha turn into? Why is Koenig left in charge when the space authority who assigned him is out of the picture? There's several implications that Alpha can't support them in perpetuity, but we never see that impact the people there except for the occasional and immediately forgotten crisis of the week. They sure never seem to run our of Eagles to blow up of crash.
_________________
* * *
"The absence of limitations is the enemy of art."
― Orson Welles

[Bud Brewster]

______________________________________________

Excellent observations about Space: 1999. You're definitely "thinking like a science fiction writer" when you made your statements above.

Bravo!

Concerning the statement below, a small correction . . .

[Pow]

I much prefer the reboot concept of the discovery of discovering the ancient Psychon device that would have transported the moon to various locales.

I also liked the randomness of it. It creates an exciting suspense with each leap into the unknown. Similar to what they did on Sliders and Quantum Leap. It's a refreshing change of pace form the usual spaceship shows that usually know their destinations. [/quote]

[Bud Brewster]

______________________________________________

Ah, well . . . as the British would say, "Different strokes for different blokes. mate!"

The randomness you admired in Sliders and Quantum leap is the very thing I did not like about those shows. It was frustrating to watch the characters bounce around and never find a way to control their destiny.

As I said before, I'm just a cockeyed optimist.
_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Pow]

For me, seeing the lead characters in Sliders, Quantum Leap, Otherworld, Farscape, & so forth, plunge into a new and unknown situation without advance knowledge was exciting. The possibilities ranged from intensely dramatic to wildly comical. And it brought me right along with them into whatever unknown dilemma they faced. Watching their reactions and how they coped was compelling and made me wonder how might I have reacted in their place.

[mach7]

You can understand Space 1999 better when you understand it's birthing process.

Originally Space 1999 was supposed to be the second season of UFO, albeit 2 years late.

The concept was for the unknown aliens, unable to defeat SHADO's layered defense, were to use a secret weapon to
destroy Moonbase. Something went wrong and the moon was sent through a wormhole/spacial warp.

I'm not sure the show would have followed the moon or Earth.

One thing about all previous Gerry Anderson shows had to deal with was syndication in the USA.

The producers decided the best way to make money on the show was to sell it to a US network, the 1st season complete.

To do that they needed a few big name US stars, Enter ML/BB.

Then the show got bigger and more involved. The UFO link was dropped as being too restrictive. The evils of nuclear power were in the news, so they decided to use that to blow the moon out of orbit.

It's fatal mistake was the decision to shoot the entire 1st season, then bring it to a network and sell it complete.

The problem with this idea was US Networks want to control the production. Not surprising, Every network passed.

So.....Back to syndication.

But the enormous cost of filming season one (they spent considerable moneys) was hard to recover in syndication.

Also, As I have posted years ago on this thread, They did not care about the quality of the stories. They figured the SPX and flash would be enough. Many of the stories were actually written over the weekend for filming on Monday.

None of the rigorous writing/rewriting/quality checking that Star Trek went through.

Lastly, since the series was sold complete and delivered complete, many US stations aired them out of order.
This confused what story line there was in the series.

The series had good enough ratings to support a 2nd season,
but in order to make money they had to cut the scale WAY back. This they did in season 2 with predictable results.

[Maurice]

If I recall correctly, the reason they blew the Moon out of Earth orbit is Lew Grade at ITC didn't like the Earth-centric stories in UFO and wanted to ensure no stories took place on Earth in any prospective follow-up, so they decided to blow up the Earth, then opted to blow the Moon out into deep space instead.

For Series 2 the show got scaled way back, and all the Moonbase sets were crammed onto Pinewood Stage L, which had previously contained the vast Main Mission set and Koenig's huge office. They even removed the service module between the Eagle cockpit and the Pod interior to make it fit. This is one reason Alpha feels so puny in Series 2. Here's how the sets were arranged for it.


Click image to embiggen