User Reviews

It's obvious that "Space: 1999" was in trouble, as this first episode of season 2 showed massive changes. The introduction was changed--lightening its heavy-handed and stark opening credits. A new character, Maya, was added. Dr. Russell got a bit of a makeover that made her look prettier and less rigid. And a few of the old actors disappeared--making way for some new faces--ones that were generally younger and prettier--especially the new 'pretty boy', Tony Anholt. However, as this ended up being the final year of the series, the changes obviously did little to generate interest in the series.

The show starts with a weird glowy green ball pursuing and capturing an Eagle. However, the being who sent it says that Alpha should not worry--his intentions are 100% harmless. Interesting, this guy turns out to be Brian Blessed--the actor who starred as an entirely different character in season one (from "Death's Other Dominion"). Like the last time, though, Blessed plays a guy who claims to be nice but is eventually shown to be a be dumb jerk--as well as a guy with a terrible fashion sense as well as makeup. Blessed plans on sucking out the brains of all the Alphans in order to absorb their psychic energy and, naturally, Commander Koenig is less than thrilled--so unhappy that he orders the alien to be destroyed. As Blessed has a daughter (Maya) and you probably well know that she becomes a regular on the show, you know that she will somehow be spared and isn't part of her father's evil schemes and will soon join the crew of Moonbase Alpha.

So were the changes successful in this first newer episode? Yes and no. While the tone is softer and more like traditional sci-fi shows like "Star Trek", it still was too little and too late and the show limped to a conclusion at the end of the season. Plus, I never really got into the Maya character. Her gimmick of turning into various creatures (oddly, they were almost all Earth animals--which, as an alien, she should have known nothing about) seemed a bit too silly--and was perhaps too much of a change over the previous ultra-cerebral season one.

The worst moment of this particular show? When Maya briefly turns into a guy in a cheesy gorilla suit! Uggh. Otherwise, a decent but thoroughly unremarkable show.

By the way, some of the show's "Star Trek"-like plots is not surprising, as veteran Trek writer/producer Fred Freiberger was hired to inject life into the series and was responsible for much of the episode and the new look of the show.

It's a testimony to the Immortal Bard that his works are so adaptable so many centuries after he penned them. The 1956 sci-fi classic FORBIDDEN PLANET drew upon THE TEMPEST as did this second season opener of SPACE: 1999. Brian Blessed as the imperious Mentor, a man with two faces harboring dark secrets, is a space-age Prospero, and Maya his innocent and naive daughter is Miranda. The mindless husks slaving in the mines are a collective Caliban, exploited by the malevolent and mercenary Mentor.

The sweeping changes made between seasons threaten to overwhelm the story unfolding before us. We try to keep up while also taking in the new characters while feeling heavily the absence of the old. Victor Bergman was the unkindest cut of all, but I missed Kano and Paul almost as much. Each man added a lot to the show. When Tony asks Sandra whether Annette will crack up if she loses her newlywed husband Bill, I thought about Sandra losing Paul. There was a romantic tension established between them in Year One that new producer Fred Freiberger blithely flushed down the Memory Hole in Year Two. It was frustrating that new guy Tony wasn't introduced, and worse that no mention was made of the departed characters, even when scenes like this gave an opening for explanation.

(There's an apocryphal/noncanonical quotation here on IMDb that does not appear in the episode that purports to explain Victor's disappearance. This exchange of dialogue was unsatisfying, but something needed to be said addressing the new and the missing characters. Did Freiberger think the audience would just shrug and voluntarily adopt collective amnesia?)

Martin Landau grew his hair out and backed off on the Brylcreem for this season, and in the new uniform he looked quite dashing and capable as a boots-on-the-ground commander. I always think of Commander Koenig as more cerebral that Captain Kirk, but that isn't really the case, as when Koenig breaks off a stone club and sets to smashing an alien technology he doesn't fully understand or appreciate. Although with all of Moonbase Alpha in dire jeopardy, he admittedly had ample reason to succumb to blind destructive rage.

I enjoyed Barbara Bain as Cinnamon on MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE, but not as Helena on SPACE:1999. Helena is a wholly unnecessary character with no role to play except the horrified, over-emoting woman or at best offering exposition as she did in this episode's opening. I can't imagine Bain was especially enthusiastic about her part. Even the all-new and dynamic opening titles didn't know what to do with her. "Um, uh, how about walking down the hall with furrowed-brow determination?" suggested somebody, probably Freiberger. Koenig gets to fire a cool weapon; Helena takes a brisk stroll. That said, the tweaked theme and new titles are an improvement over Year One, where Koenig and Helena just stood there like department store mannequins.

It was mentioned the music was more upbeat, like something heard on THE PROTECTORS. That was a nice nod to Tony Anholt's previous series, which starred American import Robert Vaughn. That brought to mind its sister series THE ADVENTURER starring Gene Barry, another Yank whose star was dimming. Catherine Schell and Barry Morse were recurring costars in that fun 1972-74 spy series. One memorable episode, "Has Anyone Here Seen Kelly?" guest starred the strikingly beautiful Anouska Hempel, who here played fainting bride Annette.

Speaking of earlier British series, did anyone else think of Rover from THE PRISONER when Mentor's glowing ball of light chased, covered, and captured the runaway Eagles and Alphans?

Dumbest line in the show award goes to Dr. Mathias when he makes a cameo simply to say the fully recovered Annete needs rest. All Annette did was swoon and pass out for a moment. Mathias got brought back but Victor, Kano and Paul got pink slipped?

Brian Blessed's bearded visage and booming voice are always welcome, and he thoroughly embodied the role of Mentor/Prospero. I suspected, however, that his dying pleas to Koenig to take Maya with him were an afterthought and dubbed in post-production. It softened the emotional blow of Maya's world suddenly ending and her joining Alpha, making it a fulfillment of her father's dying wish. Schell did a fine job in the closing conveying Maya/Miranda's innocence and fear of being thrust into a brave new world she never made.

A promising start to Year Two!

PS: I recently saw Brian Blessed in the "Mindwarp" segment of the 1986 DOCTOR WHO epic Trial of a Time Lord. There he played a bombastic barbarian hellbent on overthrowing tyrannical rulers called... Mentors. What goes around comes around.

One of the aggravating things about '1999' Year 2 was how it began promisingly then went rapidly downhill. The opener - 'The Metamorph' - was by Johnny Byrne, one of the show's key writers, and directed by the reliable Charles Crichton.

Set some years after the events of 'The Testament of Arkadia', it begins with an Eagle scouting a volcano-infested planet in search of titanium. Having found it, the Alphans are elated, but then a crisis develops. A ball of light pursues and envelops the Eagle, spiriting it off to goodness knows where. Annette Torens ( Anouska Hempel ), wife of one of the pilots, faints ( makes a nice change from Sandra ).

Down on the planet, in his underground lair, is Mentor ( Brian Blessed giving his usual understated performance ), creator of the biological computer 'Psyche'. To bring the dead world back to life, Mentor is kidnapping alien pilots and draining them of intelligence. He has such a fate in mind for the Alphans. But his vivacious daughter Maya ( Catherine Schell ) is not about to let him to do this.

I like this episode as it does what it says on the tin. It is action-packed, colourful and entertaining. The absence of Barry Morse's 'Professor Bergman' is noticeable ( it would have been like Leonard Nimoy quitting 'Star Trek' after Season 1 ) though, along with Paul Morrow ( Prentis Hancock ), and David Kano ( Clifton James ). Instead of Morrow, we get the late Tony Anholt as 'Tony Verdeschi'. Where was he during Year 1?

The script originally mentioned Bergman as having died because of a faulty space-suit, but this was deleted. However, Michael Butterworth's novelisation retains the reference. Brian Ball's Powys Media novel 'Survival' gives a different explanation for Bergman's disappearance - benign aliens took him ( though the Alphans think he is dead! ).

As 'Maya', Catherine Schell is sexy and charming, even though the arrival of the character effectively moved the show away from science fiction and into the realm of comic-strip fantasy. How nice it would have been if they could have had her and yet retained Bergman.

Barry Gray's lush orchestral sounds were replaced by Derek Wadsworth's more contemporary music, resulting in the show often sounding like 'The Protectors'.

So a thumbs-up from me for 'The Metamorph', but what a pity the show did not live up to this standard ( especially when Fred Freiberger - the Ronald D.Moore of his day - got his hands on a typewriter! ).

Incidentally, this was later combined with 'Space Warp' to make a 'movie' entitled 'Cosmic Princess'.