We Lost Our Moon 18 Years Ago!

In the 1970s, if you were a young science fiction fan, you watched pretty much any science fiction show that came on TV. In the days before science fiction became the common staple of pop culture it has since become, you simply didn't want to miss the rare attempts to bring that genre to the small screen. (The same thing held true of superhero shows.) Grown ups who were SF fans might show a little bit more critical discernment, but I'll bet many adult fans made a point of also watching any SF show that came around, regardless of quality.

So in 1976 and 1977, I watched Space 1999, though I don't think I saw more than half the episodes at the time. It was a show whose premise is both awesomely cool and absurdly silly at the same time. An explosion of nuclear waste being stored on the moon throws it into deep space. So the 311 inhabitants of Moonbase Alpha are essentially castaways in deep space, hoping to some day find a new planet on which they can settle.

I'm okay with the silly premise--the idea of the moon wandering about the galaxy like a space gypsy is cool enough to make us overlook the absurdity. But that absurdity is there. No explanation, no matter how silly from the viewpoint of real-life science, is ever given to explain how the moon can apparently travel at faster-than-light speeds between solar systems, but still slow down to more reasonable speeds within a new system to give the Alphans a chance to interact with the Alien-of-the-Week each episode.

I found a great quote from Johnny Byrne, a writer for the show: "I found it difficult to accept that the Moon could travel through space at... whatever velocity they gave it... There was a basic element that was unbelievable, and SF has to have a basis in truth, or experience or psychology, or something you can latch on to."

I'm sure fan theories abound to explain this. My own idea is that the initial explosion that through the moon out of orbit created a warp field around the moon that takes it through Einsteinian space at hyper-speeds, with the gravity fields of stars & planets it passes temporarily slowing up the Moon as they pass through solar systems. 

This explanation is, of course, as silly as the premise. But at least it IS an explanation. The show needed that. Other weaknesses voiced by the cast included stilted dialogue (a concern voiced by Barry Morse) and a lack of occasional humor to balance out the drama (a concern repeatedly voiced by Martin Landau)

The cast, headed by Martin Landau, Barbara Bain and (in the first season) Barry Morse, was one of the show's strengths. Even when a script might be particularly weak, we never doubt that the crew of Moonbase Alpha are well-trained professionals who carry out their duties in an intelligent manner.

And the design work on the show was fantastic, particularly in the look of the base and the Eagle space craft with which the base is equipped.

All things considered, the show could have been better. But all the same, as as an adult  I still remember some episodes with fondness and when the show become available to watch online, I have enjoyed the two or three episodes I've watched. 

So, when I had a chance to acquire a novelization of the show (part of a series of paperbacks published while the show was airing), I did so without hesitation.

Like James Blish's Star Trek novelizations, the book contains short story adaptations of several episodes. The first one in this book is an adaptation of "War Games," considered by many of the original cast and many fans to be one of the best.

The last of the four stories in the book is based on another strong episode titled "The Last Enemy," which aired on February 19, 1976, In this one, the Moon has entered a solar system in which two planets orbit in direct opposition to each other--they are always on opposite sides of their sun.

They are also locked in eternal warfare. The Moon is in a position where either planet can use it as a gun platform to fire on their enemy. The planet Betha gets there first. A really, really big war ship, generating interference that cuts off Alpha's communications and prevents the Eagles from launching, lands nearby and begins shooting huge space cannon at the other planet.

That planet returns fire with a barrage of missiles. So the Moon base is trapped in the middle of a war, unable to do anything about it. When the Bethan ship is damaged, its commander seeks sanctuary in the Moon Base. The commander, as was her crew (who she claims are now dead), is a very beautiful woman.







Heck, when the Alphans later talk to the leader of Betha via radio, she pops up on a view screen and turns out to be an older woman, but still a knockout. Presumably, Betha is a planet of Amazons. This is never clarified, but since the Alphans spend their entire time in this system just trying to survive, providing us hints of Bethan culture without further clarification is actually the right way to go.

Anyway, the warship commander, named Dione, is eventually revealed to be pulling a con job on the Moon Base. She helps the Alphans contact both planets and arrange a cease fire until the Moon leaves the system. But Dione then sneaks back to her ship to launch surprise attack on the other planet. She had faked the damage to her ship.

This will violate the cease fire, which means Alpha will be specifically targeted for retaliatory strikes, since the Alphans had promised to oversee the cease fire.

After reading the book I pulled up this episode online and watched it. I want to comment on the ending in the book as opposed to the ending of the actual episode, so beware--THERE BE SPOIILERS AHEAD.

The novelization is based on the original script and, judging from the copyright information on the title page, was likely written before the episode was filmed and certainly before it was aired.  In prose, to save Alpha, Commander Koenig (Landau's character) gives the other planet the coordinates of Dione's ship and lets them blow it up.

The script for the actual episode, though, apparently ran short, so new scenes were added during production. This allowed for a much more tense finale. Dione is monitoring the Moon Base's communications and threatens to blow them up if they try to transmit her coordinates. So Koenig has to improvise a Mission Impossible style plan in which he pretends to panic and abandon his crew, then come to her ship in a moon buggy. In reality, the space suit in the buggy's drivers seat is empty and the buggy has a nuke hidden in it. (The show doesn't actually say its a nuke, but it causes a really big explosion to destroy a really big space ship, so its more fun to assume it's nuclear.)

So the book has the weaker ending, but that is no fault of the writer, who was working with the information he had and otherwise does a fine job in converting the story to prose.

So I still have problems with Space 1999 and share many of the concerns voiced by cast and writers back in 1976. But all the same, it did give us at least occasional good stories, fun space ships and pleasant memories. Revisiting the show as an adult has, in fact, raised my opinion of it to a degree.

But to those who think the show was simply great--and a large number of you are out there--I get why you do and completely respect your point of view.