"First Watch: Space: 1999" Topic

Quite by accident, not knowing the significance of the date (see the September 13 TMP banner), I decided to watch the first episode of Space: 1999. I was familiar with the premise of the show, and had seen at least one episode as a child (freaked me out), but I've never really watched the thing. So I summoned it up on Tubi and gave it a go.

Man, was it slooooooooowwww. But I love the sets and art direction— everything looks believable, very 2001 in style (and I've always liked the Eagle spacecraft, clearly inspired by NASA's Lunar Command Module and Gemini space capsules.

The whole "Moon leaves the Solar System and travels towards other star systems" concept is ridiculously absurd, as if the writers had no understanding whatsoever of stellar distances or the limits of Newtonian acceleration. But whatever.
I won't say the pilot impresses on a story or acting level— because it doesn't. But I will watch on, if only for the look of it all.

BTW— has anybody ever gamed anything based on this series?

Watched it when it first came out.
It was a popular show in the media room at a lot of small and mid-sized cosplay/ SciFi conventions.

Some of the cast had been in the Mission Impossible TV series.

Only fair, TP. Running a show from their initial premise was an impossible mission.

We never got the channel it was on when I was a kid. So I never really got to see it. My friend had a toy though.
I watched it recently on Tubi as well. I agree, it's both ridiculous and boring.

The Eagles are awesome looking though!

Same here Deucey. Wasn't on where I was from.
I remember as a kid wanting to see it.

I have the complete series dvd set.

"It's the 50th anniversary of Space: 1999!"

Gen Z-er: "That doesn't make any sense! It only took place 25 years ago!"

;-)

It's on Amazon Prime now.

The main thing for the show is the aesthetics of the look.
The uniforms, the equipment, and the buildings are great.

The stories are often silly, and most episodes are very slow.

I have started some figures for the series and will likely buy some Eagles and make buildings. I am planning on combining Space 1999, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century and Star Trek together to make a more interesting universe.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek
Bunker Talk blog

I really liked the first series when Victor Bergman was "bridge crew".

Second series with shape shifter Maya, not so much.

The Eagles were iconic – Dinky toys did a diecast model which must have sold by the tens of thousands

20th Maine I'm of the same view about the second series. Too many unexplained departures and replacements of characters and not for the better. There was also a change in tone to a more knockabout space adventure. The basic premise is silly but it wasn't bad when you got past that. Anything from that era is going to look slow company with the more frantic pace we are used to now. Same with Doctor Who. And of course the vehicles and models are going to look good.. it's Gerry Anderson!

As the Voice of Crankiness, I insist that plot, character and dialogue are central. Bad--REALLY bad--costume, sets, vehicles or special effects might detract, but when you start noticing how good they are, it means the story hasn't grabbed your attention.

Probably just me.

Landau and Bain apparently got worried when they attended a pre-show meeting where the main topic was that they had an Italian fashion house on board for the uniform design. They didn't feel that this was the number one thing to get righ in the show….

…also the slow pacing and long lingering staring into space was (allegedly) included as it was more of a Italian TV norm, and there was significant Italian TV funding for the series. That may be a load of dingo's kidneys, but it was frequently suggested in SF TV magazines soon after the show started.

It is a cracking theme though:

This Episode !! : YouTube link

There's a really good analysis about how UFO got morphed into Space 1999 here: YouTube link

An d a really good Season 1 / Season 2 analysis here : YouTube link

Still remembering a Harlan Ellison review in which he described trying to disable the TV showing an episode by the force of his profanity. (Lesser men would have changed the channel or even turned off the TV. But that was Harlan.)

Other than the space ships the series was extremely tedious.

Harlan, of course, was hardly unbiased – Space 1999 was touted as the new Star Trek (it wasn't) at a time when Trek was no longer being made. Harlan Ellison had good reasons for Trek to not be overshadowed – City on the Edge of Forever being the top one.

Series one had some good moments and episodes, the spaceships ( they encountered many) were great models. Helena Russell was the role model for Dr Crusher (they had the same catchphrase "I'll have to do more tests"). Given time the Bridge A and B crews could have developed a better rapport. Then they made season 2….

20th, I followed your links and just sat through nearly an hour of some Brit calmly explaining that a show based on a British concept, produced by a British company, scripted by Brits, and cast with exactly two Americans was ruined by the stupid, ignorant and tasteless Americans.

Fair is fair: we have to accept responsibility for Third Season Trek, Galactica 1980 and that in a high crime era, no one shot Fred Freiberger prior to 1968. But this one's theirs.

I think that's unfair to Freiberger. In both cases he was handed a series already losing audience and then told to up the ratings. With Star Trek that included "but we're cutting the budget by $10,000 USD an episode" (over $90,000 USD today), and "we're moving it to 10 PM on Friday night", when young people all go on dates to the movies or dancing.

NBC was out to kill the Star Trek, but they'd signed contracts with the stars and with Roddenberry. But they didn't sign with the writers, who walked. And then Roddenberry got petty and essentially walked away, too.

The third season of Trek actually isn't as bad as claimed. It has some real turkeys, but it also has some exceptionally good episodes, strong female guest roles, and added some interesting aliens to the canon— most notably the Tholians and their web. Many of the scripts were based on stories by the departing writers (even some of the turkeys— Roddenberry himself was responsible for the dreadful Omega Glory. In any case, the blame can't be placed on Freiberger. He was given a lousy hand to take over against a stacked deck.

From what I've read, he faced similar problems with S:1999– the first season had bad ratings— how likely was the second season to change that, no matter who was in charge? Once people stop watching, they don't tend to come back.

Freiberger did have chops in science fiction style shows— The Wild, Wild West was one of his successes. So he knew how to run a hit show that was "out there," as Star Trek was. But he was fighting an uphill battle to save Trek, especially when the network didn't want it saved.
What he did manage to do was get enough episodes in the can to send the show into syndication. Without Freiberger, the Trekkies might well have died then and there. With him, they were joined by younger viewers (like me) who got to watch the show in re-runs. And that produced the movies, the Next Generation, and all the rest. He kept Star Trek alive when everyone thought it was dying. The life support may have been ugly, but the recovery would prove amazing.

Who knows— maybe Space: 1999 might wind up getting a new look. They revived BSG, after all.

I've heard the argument before, Parzival. But Star Trek had already been renewed for a third season before Freiberger came on board, so he gets no particular credit for the show making it to syndication. Yeah, he was dealt a poor hand. Many people have been.

And I don't particularly blame him for the absence of a fourth season: I blame him for the poor quality of the third. I was there, week after week, while he was cranking out "The Day of the Dove" "Plato's Stepchildren" and "Turnabout Intruder." It was every bit as bad as claimed. Even "The Omega Glory" looks respectable if you compare it to "Let that be your Last Battlefield." I make it four decent--not great--episodes out of 24.

You know what you don't see in Season Three? Names like Matheson, Bloch, Sturgeon, Ellison, Spinrad…the names of real science fiction writers--who, please note, were never on contract and so did not walk. They were freelancers and they'd sell to anyone whose checks would (mostly) clear. Almost none of that sort of thing once Freiberger took over. Bixby's "Day of the Dove" is the only exception, and it's a "credit" which begs for a pseudonym. It only ever made sense to me two ways: either Roddenberry solicited ideas and Freiberger didn't, or the story ideas kept coming, but Freiberger wanted stories from "real TV scripters" instead.

The man had no feel for SF. I don't think 10 first season episodes of Wild Wild West refutes that, and I liked Wild Wild West.

As the Voice of Crankiness ….

Probably just me.

It's not just you.

Space: 1999 stills are inspiring for near-future science fiction modelling and, to some degree, painting.

As a high-school aged science fiction reader, however, I could not get past the basic premise.

For the record, I rather like "Day of the Dove."

Here's the source I read for what happened: link

I misread on the "writers"— it was the showrunners who left— Coons (mid 2nd season), Lucas & Fontana being the big ones. (Though they do have story credits throughout the 3rd season.)

But as the article points out, Freiberger never had a chance. The bomb was already in the tribble, and nobody from that time could defuse it.

The moon travelling at speeds that allowed it to visit different solar systems every week should have required a rethink from 30 seconds after it was suggested. I don't think anyone would argue with that. Probably they could have just invented some technobabble like the nuclear waste had caused an unstable dimensional vortex which at the collapse point would shift them 20 light years and then take 10days to build up to the next quantum leap so they could fit in an episode….

To get back to the earlier question – crooked dice make space 1999 inspired figures, and I am pretty sure that John Treadway has run a participation game where UFO and Space 1999 finally merge into one coherent universe.

For the record, I rather like "Day of the Dove."

Really? My feeling was that fictionalizing destroyer vs submarine combat in "Balance of Terror" worked a lot better than turning the Nye Committee Report into SF. Of course, "The Enemy Below" gave Roddenberry better material to steal.

Parzival, I read the article. Quoting James Doohan "Fred Freiberger had no idea what he was doing." And then he hired a story editor with no SF experience and precious little experience in series TV who had never seen an episode. I agree that there was never much chance of a fourth season, but even with budget cuts, Season Three didn't have to be the train wreck it was, and I look to the people who bought and rewrote the stories. Mr. Kaye seems more concerned that the stories were written by women or that they came down--very heavy-handedly--in favor of this or that political cause than that they were no good.

Repeat after me: "Poor sermons serve the Devil."

??? I said nothing about "Balance of Terror." Yes, it's a superior episode, no question. I just said that *I* liked "The Day of the Dove." Because I do. Personal taste, not a comparison of quality to previous seasons. It's what I would call a good episode, though not a great one.
Other third season episodes I liked:
A Requiem for Methuselah (remains one of my favorites, despite some hokey bits)
Spectre of the Gun (I particularly like its bizarre, almost avant-garde set design.)
For the World is Hollow, and I Have Touched the Sky (loved the idea of the hollow world space ark with nobody aboard realizing what it is)
The Enterprise Incident
The Tholian Web
Whom Gods Destroy
All Our Yesterdays
That Which Survives
Elaan of Troyius (which TNG would eventually remake)

… and that's not exhaustive.

Were there turkeys— "The Savage Curtain," "The Cloud Minders," "The Way to Eden" as examples? Yes.

But then the first season gave us "The Return of the Archons," "What Are Little Girls Made Of?," "The Conscience of the King," "The Squire of Gothos," "The Alternative Factor" (which I nominate as the most incomprehensible, unscientific mess ever made for Star Trek).

And the second season provided:
"Who Mourns for Adonis"
"The Apple" (dreadful on all counts)
"Catspaw" (really? A Halloween episode that reads like a rejected Twilight Zone script.)
"A Private Little War" (Roddenberry excusing the growing Vietnam War)
"Obsession"
"The Immunity Syndrome"
"Patterns of Force"
And what may be one of the DUMBEST episodes of all time: "The Gamesters of Triskelion." I'd watch ANY third season episode over that embarrassment.

Interestingly enough, Modiphius just opened UK pre-orders for Space 1999: The Tabletop Role Playing Game

Parzival, our tastes may be too far apart for rational argument about what's art of a sort. "Bizarre, almost avant-garde set design" is the sort of thing I take points off for. I'd agree on Enterprise Incident, That Which Survives, All Our Yesterdays and maybe Requiem for Methuselah as decent episodes--but I'd have put The Conscience of the King in the same "decent programer" category--OK episodes, but not the sort of thing you build the Cult of Trek around.

Which is the problem, if you will. When DVDs were more expensive and sold individually, I made up a list of the episodes I had to track down--12 from Classic Trek, two each from Next Generation and DS9. But none of those 12 was from Season Three. There's plenty of decent TV around. The supply of great is limited, and for whatever reason, Star Trek had none in Season Three.

Day of the Dove I always link with Cloud Minders--the sort of science fiction which "proves" a political point by inventing a world in which it's scientific fact. I froth at the mouth a little at all such. If one of them makes you happy, be happy.

Wasn't Spock's Brain a season 3 episode.

A true classic,- but for all the wrong reasons!

Back to S:1999. Watched the second episode, which featured Ian McShane as the leading guest star. It began with a mysterious blue light suddenly putting everyone in the command center into extreme slooooooooow motion— which for this series is not much of a change from normal. Okay episode, though pacing and dumb looks are still a problem. And this base seems to have very loose procedures and policies regarding reporting unusual situations or health issues with the crew (though helpfully some personnel monitoring system at least alerts the medical center when somebody dies, so they can collect the corpse).
Holes: After the slo-mo freeze sequence, nobody apparently remembers the blue light— but it's unclear whether that's a function of the thing's effect on everybody, or if the scriptwriters just decided to ignore it. At the end when the blue light leaves the base, nobody is at all surprised by its sudden appearance.
They then speculate that it absorbed energy from their reactor and that maybe they are witnessing "the birth of a star." !!!
Seriously, did NOBODY on this show not know what a star actually is, or how it comes into being? That's been common scientific knowledge for the 20th Century, if not before. You'd have thought someone would say, "That's a really stupid line. Dump it, unless you want all our science-loving potential viewers— i.e. pretty much our entire audience— to yell at the screen about how ignorant we are."
Ian McShane does a fine job— sympathetic, but also menacing as the "Life Force" takes over his actions.
Some of it is a little laughable— the doctor insisting "He's not getting out of there"— "there" being a medical isolation chamber. Which of course he will. And she sets up a light as an "early warning signal" (the "Life Force" drains energy, and light is a favorite snack)— then she utterly fails to watch through the window for when the light goes off. Instead, she sits at a table with her back to her critical yet highly dangerous patient and looks at slides while he wakes up, drains the light, rips off his restraints, and begins pounding on the door (she doesn't even hear that at first… and she's like 6 feet away.)

Alas, no Eagles in this one. The nifty little "staple gun" hand "lasers" appear, and people run about a lot for an "action" component. Overall, kinda meh.

Used to make the Laser guns with lego bricks.

If you persevere you have some great special guests still to come:

Brian Blessed (of course! – in fact twice as different people), Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Patrick Troughton (but not as the Dr) Anthony Valentine, Leo McKern, Julien Glover, Joan Collins (not reprising her Star Trek role!), David prowse (but not as Vader!), Bernard Cribbens (but not as a womble or a friend of the Dr), Patrick Mower (but not trying to trip Callan up), and so many others you'll wonder how Moonbase Alpha could accomodate such a vast crew….

This show is such a disconnect. The sets are logical and believable as a functioning moon base, not far advanced over ‘70s tech. Even the nuclear reactor design seems functional, if a bit loose on safety. The exterior lunar surface is entirely realistic, and the layout of the base makes sense. Just looking at the show, you'd think it was all scientifically and technologically plausible.
And then the actors open their mouths and start giving the lines from the script and you're wondering what ignoramuses thought this stuff was remotely like good science fiction? They don't even have the saving grace of talking about things which don't exist (but maybe could) or throwing out technobabble that sounds reasonable even if it's meaningless: "Reverse the polarity of the plasma fluid diverter to the secondary warp stabilization system!" No, they have to make statements about what is happening with technical concepts that already exist and don't work in the way they are stating. Technobabble may be bad, but at least it's hard to argue that it's obviously wrong!

I'll keep going, but so far this thing is almost utter nonsense.

but so far this thing is almost utter nonsense.

What do you mean "almost"….

"It only ever made sense to me two ways: either Roddenberry solicited ideas and Freiberger didn't, or the story ideas kept coming, but Freiberger wanted stories from "real TV scripters" instead."

It seems that a much lower budget would also mean less money for writer – and thus not attract as many great ones.